DISCUSSION OF THE ANALYSIS OF MARK BY WENDLING AND VON SODEN
Two attempts have recently been made to resolve our Gospel of Mark into its constituent elements, which are sufficiently successful to be noticed here. The first is that of von Soden, in his _Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu_, and the second Wendling's _Ur-Marcus_.[52]
Von Soden[53] begins by distinguishing two strands of narrative, easily separable from each other by matter and style. The great differences between these two strands betray two different authors. As the clearest instance of the earlier strand, he takes Mk ii, 1-iii, 6, which he contrasts with iv, 35-v, 43. In the first, all the interest is centered in the words of Jesus; in the second, in the events themselves. "Let one compare the story of the Gadarene demoniac with its twenty verses and the debate about fasting with its five verses, and estimate the weight of the religious value of the thots expressed in the two sections."
Von Soden next separates Mk vii, 32-37, and viii, 22-26 (the healing of the deaf man and the blind man), as quite distinct in character from such stories as those in ii, 1-12, and iii, 1-6. "In the former, the miracle of healing is itself the subject of the representation; in the latter, the miracle is merely a part of the story, whose real subject is Jesus' forgiveness of sins and his violation of the Sabbath laws."
In this way von Soden picks out his _Kernstücke_. To these _Kernstücke_ certainly belong the group of narratives in i, 21-39; ii, 1-iii, 6; xii, 13-44; iii, 20-35; vi, 1-6; iv, 1-8; iv, 26-32; and x, 13-31; perhaps also vii, 24-30; vi, 14-16; i, 4-11. To these narratives which go back to Peter may also belong the brief notices concerning the stages of growth of the apostolic circle, in i, 16-20; iii, 13-19; vi, 7-13; viii, 27-ix, 1; and ix, 33-40.[54] To these passages von Soden adds xiii, 1-6, 28-37. He says that at the basis of the story of the days in Jerusalem, xi, 1-xii, 12, and the passion narrative in chaps. xiv and xv, lie narratives of a similar style; but these latter he does not include in his _Kernstücke_.
Von Soden then prints the passages which he thus refers to Peter (or the Petrine tradition), "undisturbed by all that our Gospel of Mark has interwoven with them."[55] The result presents the Petrine nucleus of the Gospel as follows: John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus; a Sabbath in Capernaum; the offense of the Jews at Jesus' forgiving of sins, his association with sinners, his breaking of the Sabbath, and the fact that his disciples do not fast; how the Jews attempt to take him; how Jesus meets the general misunderstanding; parables about the kingdom of God; the question as to who shall enter that kingdom; the development of the apostolic circle; glimpses into the future.