Experiencing the Shock of Mark 13

The Gospel of Mark is a narrative text, a piece of literature, a story. In this narrative, the apocalyptic rule of God, Jesus, and other literary elements of the narrative then come together in a particular way within Mark 13 to shock the readers. Readers progress through the narrative and are shaped by various aspects of it along the way. The primary goal of this thesis is to look at Mark 13 and how narrative elements come together to evoke a particular experience in readers. Readers and stories meet at places where their horizons, their vantage points, converge. Narrative experiences occur at this intersection. They begin the drama of reading as their worlds, their networks, overlap with each other, and evoke experiences within readers. These points of convergence create the possibility of affective experiences. Rita Felski argues that affective experiences are integral to the “uses” of literature and her use of Actor-Network Theory indicates that various actors contribute to how these affective experiences occur. When we are able to consider the experiences that portions of Scripture evoke, then we can understand more fully the use of Scripture. This project uses the work of Felski as well as narrative critical approaches from biblical studies to demonstrate how readers are shocked when they read Mark 13 as part of the whole Markan narrative