Mark and the Triennial Lectionary

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Go to: The Torah Sedarim of the Nisan and Tishri Cycles or return to Mark Exegetical Notes or Resurrection in the New Testament
See also:  How I got started

See at the end of the following: A summary of views on the lectionary.

Below is a sequence of significant correlations of Mark to the sedarim of the triennial cycle. There are four types of major correlations:
    1.  Quotation:             Mark 10.17-34     Exod 20.12-26      Decalogue
    2.  Direct reference:   Mark 12.26           Exod 3.1-4.8        ‘The Bush’
    3.  Contents:               Mark 1.38-45       Lev 12.1-13.28     Cleansing leper
    4.  Typology               Mark 1.9-11         Gen 8.1-9.17         Baptism/Flood
A corroborative element is the use of unusual or rare vocabulary and phrases occurring in a corresponding seder. 
    N1, N2, N3, T1, T2, T3 mean, respectively, readings for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years of the Nisan cycle, and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years of the Tishri cycle.  N1-1 = previous week's reading; N1+1 = following week's reading.  H means the prophetic reading (haphtarah) used with the Torah seder.

Bookmarks to Codex B sections below:

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A Summary of views on the Lectionary

(The following is drawn from the study submitted to JBL in 1992.)

   Over the years various attempts have been made to show a sequential correlation of Mark or other gospels to one or more forms of Jewish synagogue lectionary or, more loosely, to the Jewish liturgical year.¹  None of these has been generally accepted,² and some scholars have concluded that the whole enterprise is doomed to failure.³
    One of the main queries raised has been over the actual existence of any set lectionary in the first century CE, since no one has been able to show unambiguous evidence for one.  The basis of this present attempt [as given above] is akin to the demonstration of the products of atomic disintegration in the Wilson cloud chamber wherein the particles themselves were not seen but left vapour trails thus proving their existence.  Similarly, if a sufficiently striking overall correlation between the Codex B sections of Mark and a sequence of known Pentateuchal sedarim can be demonstrated, then this should suffice to settle the issues of both the existence of a [1^st century CE] synagogue lectionary [usage] and of Mark as lectionary-based.
    [I believe the materials presented above accomplish this.  They are substantially fleshed out compared to the article sent to JBL in 1992.]

NOTES:
¹ P. P. Levertoff, "Special Introduction [to Matthew]", A New Commentary on Holy Scrtiptures (edd. C. Gore, H. L. Goudge, and A. Guillaume; New York and London: Macmillan, 1928) Part III, 128-129; R. G. Finch, The Synagogue Lectionary and the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1939); P. Carrington, The Primitive Christian Calendar (Cambridge: CUP, 1952), According to Mark: A Running Commentary on the Oldest Gospel (Cambridge: CUP, 1960); A. Guilding, The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship (Oxford; OUP, 1960; C. T. Ruddick, Jr, "Behold, I Send My Messenger", JBL 88 (1969), 381-417; M. D, Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974), The Evangelists' Calendar (London: SPCK, 1978). 
    Ruddick's presentation is based on the Codex Vaticanus divisions of Mark and the Palestinian triennial lectionary, using the first year (plus two months of the second year) of both Nisan and Tishri cycles.
    Goulder's work is based on the Codex Alexandrinus divisions and the one-year Babylonian lectionary.  On this basis in his second book Goulder says, "Mark started in October, and what is theuse of that? Six-and-half-month calendars have no sale...." (The Evangelists' Calendar 16).  It did not occur to Goulder that he might have the wrong model, and when, in 1980, I called his attention to Ruddick's article (which he had never noticed), he dismissed it out of hand.
² Among critiques of Carrington's work are C. f. Evans, JTS, n..s., 14 (1963) 142, and R. P. Martin, Mark: Evangelist and Theologian (Exeter; Paternoster Press, 1972) 85-87.  The chief detailed critique of Guilding is L. Morris, The New Testament and the Jewish Lectionaries (London: Tyndale Press, 1964).  See also L. Crockett, "Luke iv.16-30 and the Jewish Lectionary Cycle: A Word of caution", JJS 17 (1966) 13-46; J. Heinemann, "The Triennial Lectionary Cycle", JJS 19 (1968) 41-48.  The most thoroughgoing critique is that of L. Morris, "The Gospels and the Jewish Lectionaries", Gospel Perspectives: Studies in Midrash and Historiography (3 vols., ed. R. T. Francis and D. Wenham; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983) 3.129-156.
³ Heinemann (op. cit., 41) concludes that "it is not merely a case of being obliged to use caution in supposing that a fixed triennial lectionary cycle was in existence in the second - or first - century; but rather that such a hypothesis contradicts all available evidence, and belongs clearly to the realm of fiction". [Part of Heinemann's argument is that the Talmud (B. or J.) shows no consistent pattern thus 'proving' that there was no lectionary in the 1^st century.  But this is arguing from the 5^th century CE, with there having been plenty of opportunities for lectionary variations in the intervening centuries, and thus 'proves' nothing pro or con.]  "All lectionary theories have been completely demolished", is the judgement of J. Duncan M. Derrett (The Making of Mark: The Scriptural Bases of the Earliest Gospel [2 vols.; Shipston-on-Stour, England: P. Drinkwater, 1985] 22).

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