This volume generates a narrative grammar which unites linguistic, structuralistic, rhetorical, and reader-response methods and then uses it to investigate the textual indicators for interpreting the ending of the Gospel of Mark.
The first part of this book generates the narrative grammar in response to significant contemporary writings on methods of narrative analysis. The second part provides a detailed analysis of the Gospel's larger narrative units. The analysis isolates narrative units according to a consistent set of criteria, grounds the interpretation on a limited number of qualifications of the implied reader, indicates the centrality of the literary and rhetorical traditions of the Hebrew Bible for interpretation, clarifies the model of irony used in the narrative, and accounts for the negative presentation of the disciples on narrative grounds.