The Gospels and Greek Culture, Part 4c: The Genre of the Gospels - Greek Tragedy

As a genre, Greek tragedy was highly valued in 1st-century society, with the plays of 5th and 4th century BC Athens being continuously performed in theatres and studied in Graeco-Roman education as an essential area of knowledge. Herod the Great made a particular effort to introduce Graeco-Roman theatre in Jerusalem... The Gospel of Mark, in particular, has a structure that closely resembles that of a Greek tragic play. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, the structure of the plot is vital when classifying a work as tragic drama, even more so than characterization. The structure of the plot in a Greek tragedy...