Trocmé, "The Formation of the Gospel according to Mark"

a brief review

Valuable insights

1. The section on the aversions displayed by the evangelist is highly illuminating.
2. He observed (p.80) that several commentators divided Mark's gospel into six roughly equally-sized sections. This comment made me wonder whether the sections were related to the pages on which the archetype was written. It triggered 40 years of research in which the structure/page relationship helped me to establish the detailed structures which the NT writers used in planning their archetypes.

Weaknesses

1. Chapter 1 narrates the start of the ministry of Jesus. Chapter 13 does not provide a clear ending to his ministry.
2. I have discovered that the first two levels of the structure of Mk 1:1-16:8 were clearly symmetrical. To remove chapters 14-16 would destroy the symmetry.
3. Trocmé refers to Mk 14:62 as proving that the Christological reserve of chs. 1-13 has been abandoned in chs. 14-16. But my page analysis indicates clearly that 14:61b-64 was not in the original archetype of Mark.

Overall Assessment