Re: Gospel of Mark and EUQUS (David Rhoads)

Edgar M. Krentz (emkrentz@mcs.com)
Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:48:44 -0500

>Carl Conrad and now Matthew Johnson have mentioned two translations of
>Mark's gospel that preserve its Greek "feel." A dozen or more years ago,
>my wife and I, on our anniversary, attended David Rhoads' one-man
>presentation (complete with a few costume changes, but otherwise
>performed in a plain church fellowship hall - St. James Lutheran
>Church(?), Kansas City, MO) of the Gospel of Mark, based on his own
>translation as contained in his book (co-authored with someone named
>Michie, I believe) called "Mark As Story" (or "Mark As Storyteller"). We
>had seen Alec McGowan's famous presentation of St. Mark's Gospel on the
>A&E Network, but we much preferred Rhoads' - not just because it was "in
>person" but also because of the freshness and vividness of the language
>of his translation - it would be good to compare it with the Greek now
>that I can. Ending the gospel as his translation does at Mark 16:8 was
>startling and wonderful - it left us hanging with a sense of suspense
>that reading the gospel hadn't done.

David Rhoads is my colleague here at LSTC. He did his translation to convey
what he felt was the sense of the Greek.

He has gone on to do from memory 1 Peter, James, Galatians, Jude, and now
has almost completed Revelation.

As you know, hearing him perform (his term) one of these books out loud
gives one a new appreciation of them. When we team taught Methods of
Interpretation a few years ago, we used Jude as a text. At first reading
the students did not like the book; too legalistic, lttle gospel, etc.
After they heard David perform it, their opinion changed drastically--he
had recited it pastorally.

He urges students to memorize their sermon text each week so that they can
look at the congregation as they speak it. So does my colleague Richard
Jenson, who teaches preaching here.

Thanks for the note--and forgive the tardy response. Summer school teaching
got in the way.

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*Edgar Krentz, Prof. of New Testament *
* Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago *
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