Mark’s Memory Resources and the Controversy Stories (Mark 2:1-3:6): An Application of the Frame Theory of Cognitive Science to the Markan Oral-Aural Narrative

This book is a study of the New Testament using the insights of modern linguistics. Its principal concern, above all, is to examine how the Gospel of Mark, produced in an oral-aural culture, may be illuminated by frame theory from cognitive linguistics, a linguistic theory in which the meaning of a word, phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph and thematic unit can only be properly understood against the background of a particular body of knowledge and assumptions. The reason this theory is particulary useful for understanding Mark’s ancient text is because as an oral-aural narrative it heavily relies on human memory (cognitive) resources; and so the cognitive theory leads us into a better understanding of ways in which the text is communicated in terms of cognitive processing.