The Naked Runaway and the Enrobed Reporter of Mark 14 And 16

Abstract

"There is no question that Mark 14:51–52 is a major crux of Mark’s Gospel—the account of a “young man” +eeing naked from the scene as Jesus was arrested. 1 These verses are “a total enigma,” concluded Morna Hooker. A “bizarre episode,” said Eugene Boring. Francis Moloney called it a “strange passage.” “Confusing” and “unclear,” labeled Robert Stein. “[M]akes no sense as an actual incident,” claimed Robin Scroggs and Kent Gro,. “Whimsical,” declared John Knox. 2 This degree of interpretive chaos has resulted in an inordinate amount of speculation, inversely proportional to the evangelist’s reticence, as many a scholar and preacher has exercised upon this crux his or her own expository creativity"