Today I received the official word that the New Testament and Hellenistic Religions chairs have accepted my paper this year. The paper is entitled “The Events of John and Mark: Chronology in the Bi-Optic Gospels” and is to be presented at the coveted Friday, May 13, 2010 at 2:45 4:00 p.m. slot. We are graciously allowed a slot of 45 minutes!

The submitted abstract is as follows:

While it may be excluded from historical Jesus studies on a stylistic basis of the sayings of the Johannine Jesus, the Fourth Gospel cannot be ignored as a document capturing events that are historical. The Synoptics are acknowledged to be historical as well as theological, while John often branded as theological only.

Mark and John are the most detailed of the four gospels. The level of detail points to a Jesus tradition that goes back to a historical figure and that informed the author(s) of the Second and Fourth Gospels. Comparison between Mark and John indicates that John was written to augment Mark, evidenced by details and events found in the former that are not found in the latter.

John not only desired to supplement Mark, but also aimed to provide a corrective to Mark. Such a measure is found in the explicit difference of order between the similar events shared between the two gospels. The most explicit is the temple cleansing (Mark 11:15–17; John 2:13–17). This study reviews some of the more major literature on chronology in John and Mark (Raymond E. Brown, Richard Bauckham, and Paul N. Anderson), and will examine three events that differ order-wise in both gospels to demonstrate John’s corrective to Mark’s chronology.

I am looking forward to some fun as a first-time presenter.