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Joel Marcus' study of Mark's use of Scripture (The Way of the Lord, W/JK, 1992) begins with an illuminating discussion of the opening verses of the gospel. The quotation from Isaiah brings the whole of Isaiah's second-exodus eschatology into play, with Jesus playing the role of the triumphant Yahweh leading His people on a conquest/procession toward Zion. The crucial twist comes later, when the way of the Lord is identified as the way to Jerusalem and to the cross.
Marcus summarizes: "The members of Mark's community would easily read themselves into this portrait of the disciples on their way up to Jerusalem. Cued by the placement of the key HODOS ["way"] passage at the beginning of the Gospel and by the statement that the gospel was as Isaiah had prophesied it . . . , they would know that the subsequent HODOS passages were meant to be interpreted in the light of the first one, and hence that their own path of suffering and death was overlaid with the end-of-days picture of Yahweh's march through the wilderness with his chosen people in tow. They would recognize, therefore, that the eschatological power of God was powerfully present among them even in their time of weakness, failure, suffering, and death. All appearances to the contrary, they would preceive, that their journey up to Jerusalem was a victory march of the divine warrior, casting down every obstacle as he made his triumphant way to Zion, causing the blind to see and the desert to bloom about him."
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 12:39 PM
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