Simon’s Mother-In-Law As A Minor Character In The Gospel Of Mark: A Narrative Analysis -- By: David E. Malick

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 31:2 (Spring 2017)
Article: Simon’s Mother-In-Law As A Minor Character In The Gospel Of Mark: A Narrative Analysis
Author: David E. Malick


Simon’s Mother-In-Law As A Minor Character In The Gospel Of Mark: A Narrative Analysis

David E. Malick

David E. Malick has a ThM and completed PhD coursework at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS). He was an assistant professor at DTS and Southeastern Bible College (SEBC). He does doctoral work at the University of South Africa, practices law, and continues to teach the Scriptures at his church in Birmingham, Alabama. He is married to Lynn Gannett-Malick, the Education Chair at SEBC.

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway, known for his concise language, once won a wager that he could tell a story in just six words. He then wrote on a napkin: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Whenever I share this story, invariably the audience fills in the gaps by positing a backstory which includes the baby’s death. One thing is clear—the story did not start at the beginning; it was told out of chronological order.

Narratives do not simply record what happened; they are selective arrangements of material.1 For instance, the call of Simon is presented differently in the Gospel of Mark than it is in the Gospel of Luke. In Mark the call is concise and precedes the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:16-18, cf. 1:29-31), while in Luke the call is more developed and follows the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law (cf. Luke 5:1-11 with 4:38-39). As Abraham Kuruvilla is fond of saying, an interpreter must ask: “What is the author doing with what he is saying?”2

Narratives often have two aspects, or a two-storied architecture. Following French structuralists, Seymour Chatman categorizes the two tiers as “story” and “discourse.”3 “Story” consists of the what of the narrative, including events, plot, and existents (character and setting); “discourse” is the way of the narrative, or the “means through which the story is transmitted.”4 Russian formalists have a similar, dualist model distinguishing fabula (story/tale, the sequence of events referred to in a narrative in their causal, chronological order) from sjužet (discourse, the sequence of events in the order in which they appear in the narrative).5

Within these categories, the analysis of character is often discussed under the...

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