Mark's memory resources and the controversy stories (Mark 2.1--3.6): An application of the frame theory of cognitive science (cognitive linguistics and psychology) to the Markan oral-aural narrative

It is no longer new in current biblical scholarship to say that the Gospel of Mark and the other New Testament documents were written to be heard, that is, read out and listened to rather than read to oneself. What has received very little attention, however, is the fact that Mark's written text was stored in and recalled from memory, rather than from the written document, on the part of the original audience. Since both the oral and aural narrative of Mark must have relied on human memory for communication between Mark and his audience, it is in no way, then, an exaggeration, to state that the Gospel of Mark is constructed in such a way as to facilitate the memory processes of a listening audience.;Indeed, this study does not pretend that frame theory can alone explain all features of Mark's oral-aural narrative; rather frame theory is greatly dependent on other methodologies such as social-scientific study and form criticism, discourse analysis, and even traditional grammar. Nonetheless, in that it incorporates extra-linguistic knowledge (human cognitive processing, social and cultural information) and linguistic knowledge (lexemes, grammar and semantics) in its methodology, frame theory lays a crucial theoretical foundation for the application of this interdisciplinary work into the study of the Gospels in an attempt to illuminate the structures and comprehension of the oral-aural texts.;In order to illuminate the role of human memory in Mark's oral-aural discourse production and comprehension, this dissertation draws on frame theory which, regarding human memory or the cognitive processing of story, has been developed and used in a wide range of fields, including linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, classics, and pedagogy since first being introduced to psychology. In doing so, my argument is that frame theory is the model that can best account for the hearer's cognitive processing and understanding of how Mark's oral-aural narrative, particularly 2.1--3.6, is told (i.e. the form of a narrative) and what it is about (the content of a narrative).