Burton Mack's A Myth of Innocence as Can(n)on Criticism

A Review of Mack, Burton L. A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988

Abstract

Burton Mack's Myth of Innocence may be seen as canon criticism. The book contests the function of the narrative gospel of Mark as a charter document for contemporary American self-identity. Mack deploys a noncanonical reading strategy of rhetorical analysis and narratological criticism in order to dislodge the text from its canonical status and function.bThe resistance of Mark's gospel to its function as the American myth of innocence is found in its distance from the earliest Jesus movements and texts. Once uncovered that distance makes clear the nature of Mark's ideological manipulation of his sources, which undermines the plausibility of the Jesus story told in the gospel. The real events of the gospel are not the story told but the social formation of objects that leave their trace on the text.