Week Two Reading Diary: The Gospel of Mark

(Mosaic of loaves and fishes at Tabgha via Wikipedia)

There's lots of cool opportunities for stories in this unit! Here's some things that really jumped out at me for story potential--or even just as things to potentially include in a story:

John the Baptist/The Beheading of John the Baptist: there's a lot of potential in here for a story about either John the Baptist himself (the story from his point of view? Or from someone he's baptized? Or it says he has followers...) or about, for example, a story about the daughter of Herodias, who I feel could maybe have a lot of backstory, or even future-story, about coming to terms with the fact that she's just asked for a man's head.

The Healings: there's a lot, and they each involve different characters with different motivations. It's possible to do a close up on just one of the healings, and maybe tell the story from the point of view of a bystander? Or the person that's asking Jesus to do one of these healings?

The boat and parables: that part where the narrative states that Jesus never talks to his disciples except to tell them parables struck me as rife for humor, if I wanted to do that kind of a story.

The Loaves and the Fishes: I've always really liked this story--I feel like setting it in another time and place would put a fresh spin on the narrative.

"They laid the sick in the streets." This is a really powerful image. Of course, what immediately came to mind was the many opportunities for gruesome description. I feel like it would be interesting to tell a story from the point of view of an undertaker, or maybe a person of medicine who's working in the city--or even one of the scribes or the Pharisees. Their natural disgust at what Jesus is doing would work really well as a counterpoint to all of the sickness everywhere, I think.

"Verily I say unto you." Starts pretty much every section--this could be used as a narrative device...

Source: The Gospel of Mark, from the King James Bible (1611) via The UnTextbook.