About

Welcome to the homepage of Mark Goodacre, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins in the Religious Studies Department at Duke University, North Carolina, USA. This homepage provides CV, details of publications including some full text reproductions; links to internet sites authored by me and more. A brief bio is available. Please follow the links below for more. And for the latest updates and information, don't forget to visit my blog.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Literature
• Art
• History
• Philosophy
• Artificial Intelligence
• Linguistics
• Political Science
• Archaeology
• Theology
• Epistemology
• Law

Selected publications

• Review of: "Muddle and Method: The Post-Resurrection Appearances of Jesus in Focus"

  2024-01-05

  peer-reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A World without Mark: an Experiment in Erasure History

  Biblical Interpretation · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • History
  • Literature

  Abstract Erasure History is a subset of the discipline of counter-factual history, an exploration in imagining history without a work that scholars see as pivotal. Erasing Mark’s gospel provides a fruitful thought experiment about the key role it plays in current scholarly reflections on Christian origins. This article imagines the erasure of Mark under three different headings. First, Mark is erased from the surviving manuscript record, imagining that Mark was indeed written and that it was a source for Matthew and Luke, but that no witness to it survived antiquity. Second, Mark is erased from history only to resurface in a handful of manuscript fragments in the 1890s and 1900s, and a more complete textual witness in 1945. Finally, and most drastically, the article imagines that the boy who grew up to be the author of Mark’s gospel did not survive childhood and that his gospel never existed.

  PublisherDOI

• Why Not Matthew’s Use of Luke?

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Philosophy

  A recent resurgence in support for Matthean Posteriority (Alan Garrow; Rob Macewen) builds on the secure footing of Marcan Priority alongside growing skepticism about Q. Could it be that advocates of what Francis Watson calls the “L/M Theory” have the direction of dependence wrong, and that Matthew knew Luke? The case for Matthean Posteriority refreshes the discussion of the Synoptic Problem by providing a new and interesting challenge, but the case for seeing Luke as a reading of Matthew rather than Matthew as a reading of Luke remains strong: (a) Matthew’s redactional fingerprints repeatedly appear in material he shares with Luke; (b) Luke often shows “fatigue” in his versions of double-tradition material; (c) Luke betrays knowledge of Matthean literary structures; and (d) Matthew fails to include congenial Lucan details on politics, personnel, and geographical context.

  PublisherDOI

• How Empty Was the Tomb?

  Journal for the Study of the New Testament · 2021-06-16

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Although the term ‘empty tomb’ is endemic in contemporary literature, it is never used in the earliest Christian materials. The term makes little sense in the light of first-century Jerusalem tombs, which always housed multiple people. One absent body would not leave the tomb empty. The gospel narratives presuppose a large, elite tomb, with multiple loculi, and a heavy rolling stone to allow repeated access for multiple burials. The gospels therefore give precise directions about where Jesus’ body lay in this large tomb. Apologetic anxiety leads to the characterization of the tomb as ‘new’ (Matthew and John), ‘in which no one had been laid’ (Luke and John), but it is possible that the appearance of Mark’s young man ‘on the right’ is significant. The anachronistic question ‘Was the tomb empty?’ should be replaced by the accurate question, ‘How empty was the tomb?’

  PublisherDOI

• The Hypostasis of the Archons and reimagining Genesis

  2020-01-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Orthodox Redaction of Mark: How Matthew Rescued Mark’s Reputation

  2020-09-29

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  At multiple points in Mark, there are potentially troubling ideas, moments where the unwary reader might assume a theology that is out of line with other early Christian works. In each of these cases, Matthew's redaction of Mark wards off the potential for misunderstanding, affirming what early readers of Mark might have doubted, supplying material that Mark lacks, and changing troubling implications. This thesis is explored in six key areas: (1) Jesus comes to John's baptism for the "forgiveness of sins"; Matthew affirms Jesus' sinlessness; (2) Jesus questions whether the Messiah is the Son of David; Matthew affirms Jesus' Davidic heritage from the Genealogy onwards; (3) Jesus comes from an unknown village, Nazareth; Matthew underlines that he was born in Bethlehem; (4) Jesus has no earthly father in Mark, only a father in heaven; Matthew introduces Joseph; (5) Mark's Jesus is not always able to heal instantly; Matthew's redaction affirms Jesus' power; (6) Mark's resurrection story is terse and mysterious, and lacks appearances; Matthew's redaction fills in the missing material. Matthew's reception and recasting of Mark was so successful that Christians have subsequently read Mark through Matthew's eyes. Matthew effectively saved Mark's reputation by leading the reader away from potential problems. Matthew rescues Mark for orthodoxy.

  PublisherDOI

• [Rezension von: Burkett, Delbert, 1949-, The case for Proto-Mark]

  Biblische Notizen · 2020-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• The Magdalene Effect

  2020-01-01 · 2 citations

  other1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Parallel Traditions or Parallel Gospels? John’s Gospel as a Re-Imagining of Mark

  T&T Clark eBooks · 2020 · 13 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • History
  • Art
  • Philosophy
  PublisherDOI

• What Does Thomas Have to Do with Q? The Afterlife of a Sayings Gospel

  T&T Clark eBooks · 2019-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Shawn Kelley

  Daemen College

  1 shared

• Tom Hatina

  1 shared

• Kim Paffenroth

  1 shared

• Nicholas Perrin

  1 shared

• Robert H. Gundry

  1 shared

• David Parker

  1 shared

• Elijah

  1 shared

• Mark '

  University of Kansas

  1 shared