In this book, Edmund Yiu-ming Leung explores how the Gospel of Mark uses shepherd imagery (6:34; 14:27) to portray Jesus. He combines narrative analysis with insights from the Old Testament (Ezekiel 34; Zechariah 13:7-9) to understand Mark's Jesus as a suffering Davidic shepherd, devoted to the care of God's people.
Given the literary qualities of the shepherd images in Mark's Gospel (6:34; 14:27), which are intertextual references to the Hebrew Bible and figures of speech for narrative characterisation, Edmund Yiu-ming Leung adopts a narrative-critical approach using Genette's conception of narrative metalepsis. This innovative methodology addresses the inadequacies found in previous studies and fully acknowledges the dual literary nature of the images. More significantly, it illuminates how the original literary background of the shepherd images (Ezekiel 34; Zech 13:7-9) functions to characterise Jesus and other characters along the plotline. Subsequently, the characterisation of Mark's narrator creates rhetorical impacts on Mark's implied readers and persuades them to respond to the radical shepherding work of Jesus and ultimately to acknowledge the nature of being his disciples with an open ending.
Table of contents:
1.1 Literature Review of Mark's Shepherd Image
1.2 Research Outline
2.1 Adopting a Narratological Perspective
2.2 Assumptions
2.3 Scope of the Study
2.4 Key Entities of a Narrative for Communication
2.5 Defining the Implied Readers of Mark's Narrative
2.6 Method and Purpose
2.7 Conclusion
3.1 An Overview of the Shepherd Image in Jewish Literature
3.2 The Shepherd Image in Ezekiel 34
3.3 The Shepherd Image in Zech 13:7-9
3.4 Conclusion
4.1 Beginning the Story of Mark's Jesus (1:1-13)
4.2 Insiders and Outsiders (3:13-4:34)
4.3 Conclusion
5.1 The Shepherd Image in Jesus Feeding the Five Thousand (6:30-44)
5.2 Jesus' Purity Concern in His Ministry (7:1-23)
5.3 Conclusion
6.1 The Prediction of the Way to the Cross (8:22-10:52)
6.2 The Shepherd Image in the Prediction of Peter's Denial (14:26-31)
6.3 The Continuation of Jesus' Shepherd Ministry in His Resurrection
