One of the key points in Walsh’s chapter is the presence of wonder (thaumazein) and how that connects Mark’s book to earlier literary models.  For example, she writes:

Thus, in the Gospel of Mark we see an even more pronounced engagement with thauma-writing as Jesus elicits the same reactions from eyewitnesses in the text as Vergil’s Camilla: wonder, fear, confusion…  Following Jesus’s first appearance in Mark’s Gospel and the subsequent confusion and wonder this engenders (e.g., ethambēthēsan; 1:27), Jesus returns to his pied-à-terre in Capernaum and draws an inquisitive mob. They bring a paralyzed man to the scene and, when they are unable to enter at the door, they gain access through the roof (2:4). Jesus, “seeing their faith” (idōn … tēn pistin autōn; 2:5), while simultaneously perceiving perceiving “in his pneuma” (tō pneumati autou; 2:8) that some local grammatici (tōn grammateōn; 2:6) are questioning him, elects to reward the faithful and rebuke his doubters by healing the man (2:9–12). As he rises from his floor mat and heads for the door, everyone (pantas) is “astonished” (existasthai) and, praising God, exclaim “We’ve never seen anything like that before!” (hoti houtōs oudepote eidomen; 2:12). As with Camilla, the astonishment of the crowd is not resolved before the vignette closes; throughout the gospel one marvel is proceeded by another with the onlookers variously astounded or bewildered and left questioning—and sometimes fearing or resenting—what they have just seen and heard.

If we expand on Walsh’s thinking here, the Greek philosophers thought wonder/thaumazein was the beginning of philosophy.  So, we go along in life according to our guiding perspectives/dispositions (e.g., the traditional definition of marriage), when we encounter a block in the path (aporia) that our guiding perspective can’t appropriate (epekeina tes ousias – beyond Being) or does violence to (e.g., LGBTQ+ rights), which causes wonder and so we must deconstruct our guiding perspective and rebuild it (idea tou agathou – the idea of the good).  Clearly, Jesus’s most subtle miracle in the synoptics was causing wonder converting the soldier at the cross with how he died, a point I’ve discussed earlier in this series.

Walsh notes of the astounding with Mark’s wonder worker Jesus that:

The Next Quest for the historical Jesus must account for city and country. In so doing, scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity are forced to confront that the gospels correspond coherently within an arch of imperial-era writing that centers “Rome” both culturally and conceptually, constructing that which is beyond its “city limits” as increasingly prone to the “exotic” and miraculous, characterized by thauma or thaumata—marvels or wonders…Allied to genres like paradoxography, travelogue, bucolic literature (including the Greek and Roman novel), as well as the kind of ethnographic writing epitomized by later writers like Pausanias, the gospels present the reader with an account of a Judean or Galilean wonderworker and philosopher, innately knowledgeable and endowed with miraculous powers who, in his journeys from the pastoral countryside to the corrupting city, both encounters local wonders and, at times, enacts them. This is an exceedingly common Greek and Roman literary construction. The notion of the corrupting city, for instance, is nothing new to ancient Mediterranean storytelling; as is often the case for philosophers or unconventional heroes like Aesop, urban spaces are, at best, “a distraction from the pursuit of philosophy,” infested with “false prophets,” and, at worst, deadly. Plutarch likens cities—awash with diversions and conspicuous graffito—to the enticements of prostitutes in a brothel (Mor. 520c). By contrast, utopian fictions like the novel often present innately virtuous characters, who have eschewed traditional paideia, opting to be educated by the gods in natural settings in blissful ignorance of the corruptions of urban life until they are thrust into the city—or the “city” comes to them via piracy or other villainy.

Bibliography

Walsh, Robyn Faith. City and Country in Crossley, James; Keith, Chris. The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (pp 496-524). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition (2024).