Moral Life According to Mark, The (The Library of New Testament Studies)

M. John-Patrick O’Connor proposes that — in contrast to recent contemporary scholarship that rarely focuses on the ethical implications of discipleship and Christology — Mark’s Gospel, as our earliest life of Jesus, presents a theological description of the moral life. Arguing for Mark’s ethical validity in comparison to Matthew and Luke, O’Connor begins with an analysis of the moral environment of ancient biographies, exploring what types of Jewish and Greco-Romanic conceptions of morality found their way into Hellenistic biographies. Turning to the Gospel’s own examples of morality, O’Connor examines moral accountability according to Mark, including moral reasoning, the nature of a world in conflict, and accountability in both God’s family and to God’s authority. He then turns to images of the accountable self, including an analysis of virtues and virtuous practices within the Gospel. O’Connor concludes with the personification of evil, human responsibility, punitive consequences, and evil’s role in Mark’s moral landscape.

M. John-Patrick O'Connor is Associate Professor of New Testament, Northwest University, USA.

Chris Keith is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway. He is the author of The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John and the Literacy of Jesus, a winner of the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and Jesus' Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee. He is also the co-editor of Jesus among Friends and Enemies: A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospels, and was recently named a 2012 Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar.