Going beyond poetic fiction

Going beyond poetic fiction

All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. (13:13)

Some of you might notice the little confusing portion of verses 9-13. Disaster and trials mentioned here were things the early Christian community had gone through. The author of Mark’s Gospel delivered this word based on that historical fact. Our question is; whether this word is directly spoken by Jesus or not? We have dealt with such kind of questions earlier. We consider that some words were not spoken by Jesus but it was accepted as Jesus’ word.

There is a story in “Written by heart and hand” written by a poet An Do-hyun. He prepared a literary contest in spring in his 4th year of college. His poem, ‘Jun Bong-jun walking to Seoul’, reads,
Walking across snowing Mankyung field
flowing a topknot with worn straw sandals
No longing person on footpath
Will you return when mung-beans bloom in fascination?
Walking with weeping and without weeping
Our dear Bong-jun
Toward North, leaves of trees shed their sparse hair

His series-poem begins like this snows till the end of the poem. Though there was no record of snowing in history book it recomposed as a snowing scene through a sensitivity of a poet. A poet An Do-hyun says, “a poetic fiction shows more vivid truth than historical fact.”

It is regarded that some of the analects of Jesus, written in the Gospels are rooted in historical fact and some are poetic fiction. Do not accept fiction literally. It means a literal device to reach to the reality beyond an ostensible fact. Yes. Jesus’ analects recomposed by the disciples and early Christian community is no less important than a real analects. It was because the only concern of the Gospel writer was to demonstrate the fact that Jesus is the son of God, that is, the Messiah.