Markan Typology

I completed my PhD at Otago University (awarded August 2020), with the title of: 

Markan Typology: Miracle, Scripture and Christology in Mark 4:35-6:45

My supervisors were Prof Paul Trebilco & Dr James Harding.

A revised (and considerably slimmed down/edited) version of the thesis is now published with T&T Clark and for sale through all good book stores. 

This has been featured in some podcasts and reviews, as well as full length academic reviews in RBL and RBECS.

However, the full thesis is available **for free** from the Otago University Library Archive.

As well as the thesis I've had a few spin-offs from the thesis research (see also my publications page)

“‘Listen to Him!’: Angelic and Divine Typology in Mark’s Transfiguration Account”, in Horizons in Biblical Theology (forthcoming). - this is a section on the Christology of the transfiguration where I thought there was more work to be done than I could do in the PhD, sure enough this article got pretty crazy, it has a full scale synoptic analysis of the transfiguration passage and argues Mark's transfiguration portrays Jesus as the Angel of the LORD from Exodus and Kings, so fun!

“Reconsidering Psalm 89:25, Jewish Water Miracles, and Markan Christology”, in Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting 9 (2022), pp.30-42. - Open access online, this is a footnote from my Jonah/Mark 4:35-41 chapter, where I took issues with Kirk and Young's 2014 JBL article about Psalm 89:25, but again doing the work proved fun and I do make a small positive argument about Jewish water miracles.

"Jonah's Gourd and Mark's Gethsemane" in Journal for the Study of the New Testament - this was a paragraph in my chapter on Jonah and Mark 4:35-41 that turned into a rather fun article, digging up a old interpretation of Jonah's gourd and making a new argument for it.

“Breaking Bread: The Power of Hospitality in Mark 6:1-8:23,” in Tim Meadowcroft and Lisa Spriggens (eds), Practicing Faith: Theology and Social Vocation in Conversation (Wipf & Stock: 2022), pp.118-34. - This is an exploration (in conversation with a couple of social workers) of the hospitality imagery in Mark (did you know in Mark 6-8 we get 16 of Mark's 19 references to Bread?).

Making Disciples by Performing Miracles: A Study in Mark - this was for a conference on discipleship, I wondered why in Mark's Gospel Jesus is mainly called "teacher" in relation to his miracles and not his teaching (did you notice that?).

Book Blurb (provided by the publisher)

Responding to the suggestion that scriptural typology was a later development of the early church, and not applicable to the earliest canonical Gospel, Jonathan Rivett Robinson stresses that typology has deep Jewish roots, and that typological modes of thought were a significant part of the Gospel’s historical and cultural background. He brings this insight to bear on four of the most dramatic miracles in Mark’s Gospel, discovering a surprisingly consistent typological approach.

Essential to Robinson’s argument is the discovery of distinctive words and phrases taken from the Septuagint, that serve as unique indicators of Mark’s intent to refer back to miracles from the Jewish scriptures, pointing to influence from the scriptural narratives of Jonah, David, Elisha and Moses. These references in turn provide insight into Mark’s Christology, revealing that Mark presents Jesus as the fulfilment of scriptural human types and yet also in the narrative form of Israel’s God. Robinson argues that rather than imposing categories constructed from early Jewish literature, like “divine identity” and “exalted human figures”, the Gospel of Mark should be allowed to speak with its own unique voice.

Thesis Abstract 

This thesis argues for the presence of typological use of scripture in the composition of four adjacent miracle accounts in Mark’s Gospel (4:35-41; 5:1-20; 5:21-43; 6:30-45). I will argue that these miracle accounts make deliberate and sustained use of literary narrative allusion to corresponding miracle accounts from the Jewish scriptures. While some of these allusions have been suggested before, this study argues for hitherto unnoticed allusions, as well as a consistent compositional approach within the Gospel over several miracles. These miracle accounts contain verbal, narrative and thematic correspondences that, I will argue, are best explained by the presence of a scriptural typology. This compositional approach, which is here called literary typology, also reveals underlying theological and Christological convictions. These convictions situate Mark’s Jesus firstly as the denouement of salvation history through, what I will call, fulfilment typology; and secondly identify him to an unprecedented extent with the God of Israel, which is expressed by, what I will call, theomorphic typology.

Following an introductory chapter, it will be argued that elements of this typological approach are evident in several early Jewish texts prior to or contemporaneous with Mark, in order to demonstrate the historical plausibility of Mark employing such an approach. Then, four exegetical chapters will argue for these literary, fulfilment and theomorphic typologies in the four miracle accounts considered. These will suggest extended typological allusions to the scriptural narratives of Jonah, David, Elisha and Moses. They will also discuss the hermeneutical significance of recognising each miracle’s implicit typology. Then, a chapter will argue that this typological approach to scripture use is congruent with scripture use in other significant episodes of Mark’s Gospel, even if it does not follow exactly the same pattern. Finally, the results of this study will be considered within the contemporary “early high Christology” debate, focusing especially on the work of Richard Bauckham and Daniel Kirk. The applicability of their respective early Jewish paradigms of “divine identity” and “exalted human figures” to the Gospel of Mark will be evaluated. The study will conclude that the presentation of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel is best understood according to its own categories and not according to those distilled from the diverse corpus of extant early Jewish writings. Thus, this thesis seeks to make an original contribution to the scholarly understanding of miracles, use of scripture, and Christology in the Gospel of Mark.