‘Master of land and sea’

Text to reader

The second main section of Mark's narrative is broadly structured around three sea journeys (4.35ff. 6.45ff.; 8.10ff.). Each occasion in the boat is a significant moment towards the unfolding of Jesus' identity. Since the readers are privileged to share these moments of revelation, they develop a greater bond with Jesus and also a degree of sympathy with the disciples, even though the negative evaluation of the disciples also introduces some distance.

Since this section contains six of the thirteen suppliant passages, it plays a crucial role in making contact with Mark's readers.

Reader to text

The sea

Mark's use of θάλασσα in connection with lake Gennesaret has evoked surprise from early days. Porphyry's criticism of this feature (Mac. Mag. Apoc. 3.6, cf. 4) finds good precedent in Luke's more exact use of λίμνη in both his special material (Luke 5.1) and material drawn from Mark (8.22, 23, 33). Like Josephus (who always uses λίμνη for Palestine's inland waters, including Gennesaret; e.g., BJ 2.573; 3.463), 1 Maccabees (in which Gennesaret is τὸ ὕδωρ τοῦ Γ εννησάρ, 11.67), and the secular Greek writers (e.g., Homer, Herodotus), Luke appears to reserve θάλασσα for the Mediterranean.

There is little point in correcting Mark's usage, which may be explained in terms of its Semitic background, or of local practice. Whatever the background, it remains true that the use of θάλασσα would more naturally evoke in the Graeco-Roman readers something larger than an inland lake.