Procedural Register in the Olivet Discourse 459 Specifically, modern concerns for obtaining a clear chronology of events, critical scholarship’s evolving assumptions as to what Jesus could or could not have said, and, especially attempts to highlight or deny the Markan Jesus’ “mistake” in allegedly predicting the Son of Man’s coming within a generation of the speech, have severely muddled the waters of exegesis and reduced visibility of Mark’s careful shaping of this episode to a minimum. Scholars have traditionally seen the Olivet Discourse as funda- mentally different from the rest of Mark’s gospel. Pesh was most emphatic in this regard: “Kapitel 13 passt nicht in den kunstvollen Aufbau des Markusevangeliums! Das Kapitel fungiert als ein selbständiger Teil …” (8). How exactly Mark 13 is different remains a debated issue until today. Analyses of language and style, the state of play of which has been recently summarized by Dyer (9) have helped to identify and quantify lexical and syntactical items that are considered frequent, rare, or unique in Mark 13. Yet, even in a recent study like Dyer ’s the aim seems to be determining traditions behind Mark’s composition, and these conclusions tend to get in the way of appreciating Mark’s carefully crafted structure. Matters of genre have also been the subject of intense debate, and this has a direct bearing on the determination of a context of situation that mark would have intended to address with his gospel. Is the discourse an example of paraenesis (10)? Paraclesis (11)? Paraenetic eschatology (12)? Apologetic- paraenetic-chatechetical material (13)? A Farewell discourse (14)? Prophetic oracle (15)? Or perhaps a speech conforming to epideictic rhetoric (16)? The number of different proposals suggests the genre does (8) PESCH, Naherwartungen, 65. (9) K.D. DYER, The Prophecy on the Mount (ITSCBS2; Bern 1998). (10) V. BALABANSKI, Eschatology in the Making. Matthew, Mark and the Didache (SNTS 97; Cambridge 1997) 100, argues that the speech is about paraenesis, rather than about objective signs. For VORSTER (“Literary Reflections”, The Interpretation, 281) the speech is written in paraenetic style. WITHERINGTON (The Gospel, 445) speaks of a “paraenetic thrust”. W. L. LANE, The Gospel Accordiang to Mark (NICNT; Grand Rapids, MI 1974) 336, suggests a “paraenetic framework”. (11) LANE, The Gospel, 446. (12) BEASLEY-MURRAY, Last Days, 355. (13) PESCH, Naherwartungen, 231. (14) YARBRO COLLINS, Mark, 594; YARBRO COLLINS, “Apocalyptic Rhetoric”, 9. Against this view see WITHERINGTON, The Gospel, 342. (15) YARBRO COLLINS, Mark, 594. (16) BLACK, “An Oration”, 66-92.