Inclusios differ from intercalations. While inclusios “bookend” episodes, intercalations interrupt and “sandwich” a single episode. (Mark L. Strauss. Mark: Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, 47). Inclusios differ from intercalations.
Bookends in Mark
The healing of the blind man (8:22-26) is in two stages or through repeated touches. In the first stage, the blind man has his sight partially restored. In the second stage, his sight is completely restored. Jesus repeatedly teaches His disciples who He is because of their spiritual blindness. The myopic disciples are like the blind man in stage one. They are only partially seeing who Jesus is.
Conclusion to the inclusio: The healing of blind Bartimaeus (10:46-52) at Jericho, which is only seventeen miles north of Jerusalem. They are almost at the end of their six months journey to Jerusalem and discipleship and still the disciples do not see orunderstand who Jesus is or who they are as disciples.
Sandwiches in Mark
The third section of Mark opens with an intercalation. Jesus enters Jerusalem but finds no spirituality (11:1-11). The cleansing of the temple is “sandwiched” with two episodes about the fig tree. He curses the fig tree that has no natural fruit (11:12-14). Next, Jesus cleanses the temple where is no spiritual fruit (11:15-18). The next day, Jesus and his disciples find the fig tree withered down to its roots (11:19-20). Rhoads and Michie call this “framing” which, like in movies, creates suspense. “Framing also provides commentary. The two related stories illuminate and enrich each other” (David Rhodes and Donald Michie. Mark As Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press) 1982, 51). The fig tree and the temple, both lacked fruit that Jesus expects from his disciples.
This is a A-B-A literary convention called the sandwich technique:
A. Mark begins story
B. Introduces story
A. Then returns to and completes story
These inserted middles have been variously identified as intercalations, interpolations, insertions, and framing (193).
The inclusios and intercalations disprove critics that charged Mark literarily being like “one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters.” Edwards notes that “Günther Dehn decreed that Mark was ‘neither a historian nor an author. He assembled his material in the simplest manner thinkable.’ Bultmann said that ‘Mark is not sufficiently master of his material to be able to venture on a systematic construction himself.’ Etienne Trocme scoffed at Mark’s literary achievement: ‘The point is settled: the author of Mark was a clumsy writer unworthy of mention in any history of literature’ (194).
Why did Mark interrupt one story with another story and circle back and finish his first story? Did Mark lose his train of thought? There could be literary reasons such as to add suspense to his story telling. The main reason is theological. Edwards approvingly quotes John Donahue who argues that “Mark uses the technique of intercalation to underscore two major themes of his gospel, the way of suffering of Jesus, and the necessity of the disciples to follow Jesus on this way” (Are You the Christ?, 60). Again, “[Mark] uses [the intercalated material] to cast over the whole gospel the shadow of the cross, and all intercalations contain some allusion to the suffering and death of Jesus” (Ibid).
Edwards believes that “The technique is, to be sure, a literary technique, but its purpose is theological; that is, the sandwiches emphasize the major motifs of the Gospel, especially the meaning of faith, discipleship, bearing witness, and the dangers of apostasy. Moreover, I shall endeavor to show that the middle story nearly always provides the key to the theological purpose of the sandwich. The insertion interprets the flanking halves. To use the language of medicine, the transplanted organ enlivens the host material” (196).
Edwards further breaks down the sandwich technique: The whole follows an A1-B-A2 schema, in which the B-episode forms an independent unit of material, whereas the flanking A-episodes require one another to complete their narrative. The B-episode consists of only one story; it is not a series of stories, nor itself so long that the reader fails to link A2 with A.1 Finally, A2 Normally contains an allusion at its beginning which refers back to A,1 e.g., repetition of a theme, proper nouns, etc. The intercalations in 3:20-35 (A Jesus’ companions try to seize him, vv 20-21 B The religious leaders accuse Jesus of being in league with Beelzeboul, vv 22-30 A Jesus’ family seeks him, vv 31-35) and 4:1-20 (A Parable of the Sower, vv 1-9 B Purpose of parables, vv 10-13 A Explanation of the Parable of the Sower, vv 14-20)
1. 5:21-43
A Jairus pleads with Jesus to save his daughter, vv 21-24
B Woman with a hemorrhage touches Jesus, vv 25-34
A Jesus raises Jairus’s daughter, vv 35-43
Discipleship lesson: Disciple must exercise faith
2. 6:7-30
A Mission of the Twelve, vv 7-13
B Martyrdom of John the Baptist, vv 14-29
A Return of the Twelve, v 30
Discipleship lesson: Disciples may die for Christ
3. 11:12-21
A Cursing of the fig tree, vv 12-14
B Clearing of the temple, vv 15-19
A Withering of the fig tree, vv 20-21
Discipleship lesson: Disciples must produce fruit
4. 14:1-11
A Plot to kill Jesus, vv 1-2
B Anointing of Jesus at Bethany, vv 3-9
A Judas’s agreement to betray Jesus, vv 10-11
Discipleship lesson: Disciples must be givers and not takers
5. 14:17-31
A. Jesus predicts his betrayal, vv 17-21
B Institution of the Lord’s Supper, vv 22-26
A Jesus predicts Peter’s betrayal, vv 27-31
Discipleship lesson: Disciples must remember that when we are unfaithful, God is
always faithful
6. 14:53-72
A Peter follows Jesus to the courtyard of the high priest, vv 53-54
B Jesus’ inquisition before the Sanhedrin, vv 55-65
A Peter’s denial of Jesus, vv 66-72
Discipleship lesson: Disciples, like Jesus, must unashamedly acknowledge who
God is.
7. 15:40-16:8
A Women at the cross, vv 15:40-41
B Joseph of Arimathea courageously requests Jesus’ body, vv 15:42-46
A Women at the empty tomb, vv 15:47-16:8
Discipleship lesson: Disciples must courageously identify with Jesus
In conclusion Edwards notes that “almost always the insertion is the standard by which the flanking material is measured, the key to the interpretation of the whole.” Also, Donahue supposes that these intercalations reveal “the way of Jesus’ suffering and the necessity of discipleship.” “This appears to corroborate Papias’s testimony that the Second Evangelist was uniquely responsible for the design of the Gospel.” Edwards added With regard to form, however, Papias says that Mark followed his own designs— and that “he did no wrong” (Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 15) in doing so artistry, as I should like to call it, of Mark’s sandwich tech- nique appears to corroborate Papias’s testimony of Mark’s literary design.
Also confirmed is the truth that “Mark was not only a skilled and purposeful theologian, but that he crafted a new genre of literature in his Gospel to narrate his theological understanding” (216).