Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Mark and his compound verbs
I've been writing my paper over the ending of Mark and one of the most interesting things that I have noticed about Mark's vocabulary is his use of verbs. When looking in the greek its easy to see that Mark loves using compound verbs. He will take a normal verb and put a preposition on the front of that verb in order to be more specific. One verb in particular that sticks out is poreuomai (yes, some sweet transliteration). The simple verb actually never once occurs within the text of Mark except three times in 16:9-20 but of course those verses are under speculation. Mark always uses this verb in a compound form. I love his style of writing how he manages to squeeze so much detail into his small 16 chapters of text. Mark is not a simple Gospel but in fact a Gospel of great complexity in language and he is set on bringing more clarity upon the action of the verbs in his work.
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I often wonder how much Peter's account of Christ had to do with Mark's final version of his gospel. If we are going to go under the assumption that John Mark dictated directly from Peter the accounts of the person of Christ (and to some extent I believe we should), then perhaps some of the unique ways that Mark uses things like Greek (ie: compound verbs, the overwhelming use of euthus, etc.)is related somehow to Peter.
I agree that the Gospel of Mark, while small in size is loaded with theological and linguistical ideas that are not found in the other three gospels. I am greatful that we are studying it so in detail instead of the others.
-Steven
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