P JOHN ,KEENA,N . ..,.:. '.-:-." - , .:,:~. . '" ;,..} QOSPEl6F'~ . THE ~ ::.> ":J~lf}, <: .,;} \,' w'f: ~: <'.~ J - - " . A MAHAY'AN~EADlrJJ".G . '~" J: . l'i "- '<-<-F FAITH MEETS FAITH SERIES The Gospel of Mark A Mahayana Reading John P. Keenan ORSISOSOOKS Maryknoll, New York 10545 The Gospel of Mark FAITH MEETS FAITH An Orbis Series in Interreligious Dialogue Paul F. Knitter, General Editor Editorial Advisors John Berthrong Julia Ching Diana Eck Karl-Josef Kuschel Lamin Sanneh George E. Tinker Felix Wilfred In the contemporary world, the many religions and spiritualities stand in need of greater communication and cooperation. More than ever before, they must speak to, learn from, and work with each other in order both to maintain their vital identities and to contribute to fashioning a better world. FAITH MEETS FAITH seeks to promote interreligious dialogue by providing an open forum for exchanges among followers of different religious paths. While the Series wants to encourage creative and bold responses to questions arising from contemporary appreciations of religious plurality, it also recognizes the multiplicity of basic perspectives concerning the methods and content of interreli gious dialogue. Although rooted in a Christian theological perspective, the Series does not endorse any single school of thought or approach. By making available to both the scholarly community and the general public works that represent a variety of religious and methodological viewpoints, FAITH MEETS FAITH seeks to foster an encounter among followers of the religions of the world on matters of com mon concern. The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (Maryknoll) recruits and trains people for overseas missionary service. Through Orbis Books, Maryknoll aims to foster the international dialogue that is essential to mission. The books published, however, reflect the opinions of their authors and are not meant to represent the official position of the society. Copyright © 1995 by John P. Keenan. Published by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 10545, U.S.A. All rights reserved. The Gospel of Mark in The New Jerusalem Bible: Reader's Edition (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985) served as an underlying text in this work; it has been thoroughly revised, and retranslations from the Greek have altered most texts in this volume. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means. electronic or mechanical. including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. For permissions write to Orbis Books. P.O. Box 308, Maryknoll, NY \0545-0308 U.S.A. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Keenan, John P. The Gospel of Mark: a Mahayana reading / John P. Keenan. p. cm.-{Faith meets faith) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57075-041-6 (alk. paper) 1. Bible. N.T. Mark-Commentaries. 2. Bible. N.T. Mark Buddhist interpretations. 3. Mahayana Buddhism-Doctrines. 4. Christianity and other religions-Mahayana Buddhism. 5. Mahayana Buddhism-Relations-Christianity. I. Title. II. Series. BSBS2580.3.K44 1995 226.3 '077 '0882943-dc20 95-20341 ClP For Forest and Gwen What happened in ... the history of Christianity's earlier relation with another religious tradition, the philosophico-religious Platonism of the early centuries of the Christian era ... was the emergence of Platonic forms of Christian theology, in which the insights of a religious Platonism played a coordinating role in ordering the insights of Christian history and Christian symbolism. We might look forward in a similar way to the emergence of Islamic or Buddhistic forms of Christian theology. These would take insights emerging from the dialogue with the other religions and use them in a similar way to provide a new ordering of Christian resources. They would stand as particular forms of Christian theology alongside others, but would also have implications for those other theologies, sometimes calling for the bringing to the fore of relatively submerged elements within them and at other times calling for the correction of old beliefs now seen to be no longer worthy of assent. Maurice Wiles Christian Theology and Inter-religious Dialogue Contents Part One Introduction A Mahayana Reading of Mark 3 Hermeneutical Moves Part Two Commentary on the Gospel of Mark 1. Wilderness and Engagement 47 2. Conflicts Over Traditions 80 3. The Practice of the Middle Path 98 4. Parabolic Patterns of Understanding 115 5. The Differentiation of the Two Truths 138 6. The Wisdom of Non-Discrimination 149 7. Traditions 172 8. Awakening 184 9. The Epiphany of Just Jesus 208 10. Insight into No-Self 234 11. Prayer and Traditions 261 12. Social Practice 280 13. The Eschatological Discourse about Awakening 299 14. The Passion Narrative 333 15. Jesus' Death as Final Emptying 372 16. Resurrection and Return 389 Bibliography of Works Cited 398 Index 416 Scripture Index 421 Acknowledgments I would like to thank a handful of critical readers who have taken the time carefully to examine this book and point out errors and overstatements: Dr. Bonnie Thurston of Wheeling Jesuit College, Dr. James Fredericks of Loyola Marymount, and the Rev. Karen Sheldon, Rector of S1. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Hardwick, Vermont. Also to be thanked for their comments and suggestions are members of the Diocesan Study Program of the Diocese of Vermont, Class of 1994: Jean Austin, Sally Curtis, Nanci Gordon, Karen Janus, Betty Lamb, Bob Lamb, Dotty McCarty. Dinny Monroe, Colleen Shover, and Cynthia Watters. My thanks go also to Paul Knitter, general editor of the Faith Meets Faith Series at Orbis Books. He is a careful and sometimes excruciatingly demanding editor. And to William Burrows of Orbis Books for his insightful reading and suggestions. I appreciate their criticisms and suggestions very much indeed. viii A Mahayana Reading of Mark Hermeneutical Moves Samuel Sandmel once told a friend of his intention to write a commentary on the gospel of Mark. The friend replied: "What the devil do you have to say that hasn't been said a hundred times already?" Sandmel, recounting this incident over twenty years ago, before the recent volcanic explosion of books on Mark, observed that "there is, of course, a large sense in which he is right, for much that appears in II commentary simply repeats, out of requirements of completeness, what is the common property of commentaries."l Still, he remained undeterred in his intention: " ... the context and the form of Mark intrigue as a puzzle might, and as an essay might not. I think that I have seen, or at least glimpsed, in Mark things which others seem to me not to have seen. Perhaps I have seen correctly, perhaps I have not. But if there is something which I have seen and others have not, this is due not to better eyesight on my part, but to the accident of the angle of vision."2 I too find the Gospel of Mark to be intriguing and think that a reading of Mark from the perspective of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy may perhaps shed some light on this gospel from a new angle and provide another avenue for reading the text. In an earlier work, The Meaning of Christ: A Mahayana Theology, I proposed a new theological model for christology, based on the philosophies of the Mahayana themes of emptiness and dependent co-arising, the two truths of ultimate meaning and worldly convention, and the three patterns of conscious understanding. Insights gained from such an approach may perhaps coax new meanings from the Markan text. The present Mahayana reading 1. Sandmel, Two living Traditions, 148. In Markan studies, the explosion of commentar ial literature has made it impossible for all but the most dedicated specialist to consult all the relevant material. Indeed, single volumes of commentary are of such size that they are, as one interpreter remarks, predestined to "be consulted on a piecemeal basis only" (Anderson and Moore, Mark and Method, 11). 2. Sandmel, Two Living Traditions, 149. To my knowledge Sandmel never did write his projected commentary, yet in the "Prolegomena to a Commentary on Mark," 153, from which the citations have been taken, he is, it would appear, the first unambiguously to "allege that Mark regards [the disciples] as villains," a theme much developed in more recent Markan scholarship. especially by Theodore Weeden. 3