Of Kings and Mark: A Case of Mimesis in the Second Gospel

Scholars have long recognized the important role that the Elijah-Elisha cycle (1 Kgs 16:29- 2 Kgs 13:29) plays in reading the Gospel narratives, particularly, Mark’s Gospel. More recently, scholars have recognized the importance of the ancient Greco-Roman practice of literary mimesis/imitatio and its possible impact for interpreting the gospels. This work seeks to build on one such recent contribution, Adam Winn’s, Mark and the Elijah-Elisha Narrative, where he helpfully develops a four-fold criterion for detecting literary mimesis/imitatio. The goal of this study therefore, is to one, interact with the criterion for detecting mimesis developed by Winn, and two, to propose another possible use of mimesis in Mark’s Gospel, namely, Mark 5:21-43 with 2 Kings 4:18-37.