Parataxis in Mark’s Gospel

I realize that it’s been “quiet” here of late, and it likely will be another 2 weeks. I finished the first full draft of my paper on Markan idiolect for ETS last night, so today I return to work on my SBL paper on the use of the imperfect in Mark. Both papers will be posted here next week (by Thurs morning for ETS, Sun morning for SBL). In the meanwhile, here’s one snippet from the first paper (all f.n.s omitted and one block quote).

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Mark’s idiolect is his paratactic style, stringing sentences together with καί rather than more specific conjunctions. Of the NT writers, Mark is least helpful in directing his readers’ understanding of his discourse, thus placing greater demands on the reader in tracking contextual clues to meaning and the relation of events other than by the more explicit indication of sentence conjunctions. …

Mark’s usage can be quantified in various ways. Metzger, e.g., observes that 80 of 88 sections in Mark begin with καί. Another way of illustrating Mark’s parataxis is noting that about 64% of the sentences in Mark begin with καί (376 of 583). A more limited snapshot can be seen in taking Mark 1 as a sample and comparing it with the sections in Matthew and Luke which are roughly equivalent. Of the 38 sentences in Mark 1 (UBS4), 33 begin with καί. By contrast, Matt 3–4 contain 34 sentences, but only 9 begin with καί. Luke 4 has 31 sentences, of which 23 are καί initial.

This does not mean that Mark is characterized by pervasive asyndeton (on which see below), only that he does not write hypotactically—he does not make very extensive use of the various particles available to him. For Mark, all is καί—the unmarked connective (= vav)—with fewer uses of δέ, τότε, γάρ, οὐν, etc. The gospel appears to follow a Hebraic pattern with the ubiquitous vav. Although Mark was presumably a native speaker of Aramaic, this does not appear to be the most likely explanation of Mark’s paratactic style.

Since it seems to be somewhat precarious to assume that Hebrew was widely spoken in first century Israel, this leaves a direct Hebraic influence on Mark’s style at this point in question. Perhaps we should look instead to the LXX for possible influence. Mark, as a native speaker of Aramaic, would have often (and perhaps most commonly) read and heard his Bible read in Greek. It appears that Mark’s usage of καί as an unmarked sentence (and clause) connective is very similar to narrative books that I have examined in the LXX. Adjusted for length, the frequency of sentence-initial καί in Mark is very close to 1 Maccabees and 1 Chronicles (28.66/1,000 words, 28.71, 27.08 respectively), with Genesis and Joshua close behind (18.42 and 21.0), all significantly higher ratios than other narrative books in the NT. The next-nearest NT narrative book is Luke at 14.9—half the frequency of Mark. At the clause-initial level, the difference in the same books is even more obvious (see stats in the appendix). I would suggest, then, that the influence is indeed Hebraic, but as mediated through the LXX.