A Beautiful Failure: The Event of Death and Rhetorical Disorder in the Gospel according to Mark

1. Introduction:  Fidelity to Failure	11
The Papian Doxa: A Generative Disorder	16
Structure of the Study	19
Aim; Research Question; Material and Delimitations	22
Aim	22
Research Questions	22
Material and Delimitation	22
2. Previous Research:  A Doxology to Disorder	25
Disorder and Formgeschichte (1919–1950)	28
Disorder in Narrative- and Rhetorical Criticism  (1970–Present)	32
Before Narrative Criticism (1950–1970)	32
Rhetorical Criticism (1970–Present)	36
Failure in Being or Time?	41
Form, Narrative, Rhetoric, and Ordering Jesus’s Death	46
Disorder as Relay?	49
Ordering Disorder and Diêgêsis	52
3. Method and Theory:  From the Progymnasmata to  a Logic of Sense	57
Why Aelius Theon and the Progymnasmata?	58
The Preliminary Exercises	61
Progymnasmata, Rhetoric, Diêgêma, and Failure	64
Taxis and Diêgêma	68
Lexis and Diêgêma	71
Dianoia and Diêgêma	74
The Short Story (διήγημα)	77
Significance of the Short Story (διήγημα)	79
A Stylistic Diêgêma	80
A Historical Diêgêma	82
Facts and a Fabulative Diêgêma	84
Why Gilles Deleuze and Logic of Sense?	86
Disorder and Failure	90
4. Prelude:  Disorder and Diêgêma in the Passion Narrative	93
The Order of the Passion Narrative	94
The Passion Narrative and Diêgêsis	94
Shaping Episodes: Mk 14:1–16:8	100
Weaving in Mk 14:1–16:8	105
Weaving Persons-in-Action	105
Weaving Clusters, Ordered, and Disordered-Sequences	108
Anecdotal Cluster 14:1–11	109
Last-Meal Sequence 14:12–31	111
Betrayal, Trial, Death, and Entombment Sequence 14:32–16:8	113
Conclusion	116
5. The Failure of Order	119
Taxis and Mk 15:6–39	119
15:6–15 Diêgêma	120
15:16–20a Diêgêma	124
15:20b–27 Deficient Diêgêma	127
15:29–32 Diplê Chreia	131
15:33–39 Diêgêma	134
Humiliation and Humor	138
Anecdotal Short Stories?	142
Conclusion	144
6. The Failure of Style	145
Lexis and Mk 15:6–39	147
15:6–16 Hypotaxis and Indefinite Plurals	147
15:16–29 Stuttering Parataxis and Indefinite Plurals	155
15:6–39 Barbarisms and Repetitions	159
Barbarisms	160
Repetitions	165
Improper Propriety in 15:6–39	169
Conclusion	173
7. The Failure of Thought	175
Obscure Suspension-Execution or Clear Crucifixion?	176
Unthinkable Disgrace of Suspension	179
Social Death, Humorous Kingship	181
King for a Day	181
Social Death	186
Jesus’s Becoming Body-and-Blood	189
The Secrecy of a Phantasm	193
Failed Images-in-Thought?	193
Doulomorphic Secrecy	195
Conclusion	198
8. The Beauty of Failure	201
Benjamin’s Kafka and the Beauty of Failure	202
The Death of Josef K.	206
A Becoming of Secrecy	212
The Secrecy and Death of Ἰησοῦς Χ.	216
Thought as Paradox	218
Style as Parable	221
The Book of Daniel, Apocalyptic Dreams, and the Son of Man	225
Order as Parataxis	228
Summary	231
The Surface of Suspension: Sense and Event	233
Logic of Sense: Relating Letter and Spirit to the Event	233
Circularity on the Surface	237
The Proposition and Sense	238
The Proposition and the Passion Narrative	240
Social Death: Trauma on the Surface	244
Namelessness: When Subjectivity Fails	249
Godlessness: When Divinity Fails	251
Worldlessness: When Cosmos Fails	253
Deleuze’s Bacon and the Indiscernibielity of Golgotha	254
Closing Discussion	262
Conclusion	264
9. Conclusion	269
The Failure of Jesus’s Death	270
Primary Research Question	270
Summary of Primary Results	272
The Event of Jesus’s Death	274
Secondary Research Questions	274
Summary of Secondary Results	276
10. Appendix	277
Episodic Forms in Mk 14:1–16:8	277
Anecdotes (χρεῖαι)	278
Short Stories (διηγήματα)	280
11. Tackord	283
12. Abbreviations, Bibliography	287
Abbreviations	287
Bibliography	288
Ancient Sources, Editions, Translations	288
Literature	290