466 Gustavo Martin its referent(s)? Scholars who argue for the latter view usually take the second clause (tiv to; shmei'on o{tan mevllh/ tau'ta suntelei'sqai tavnta) to be eschatologically loaded, specifically by the verb and / or by the plural “all (these) things” (38). But, no such inference is justifiable from the immediate context, or from the meaning of the verb suntelei'sqai, of which this is the only instance in Mark. Much more likely is the explanation that the tau'ta … panta merely indicates that the disciples v perceive the destruction of the temple to be a complex event or a process leading up to a climax (39). This interpretation is certainly confirmed by the answer of Jesus in vv. 5b-23, which, as I will show, contains the peak of the speech and a direct answer to the question of the disciples. As we will see below, clear connections exist between the speech and the question asked by the disciples. Vv. 23 and 29-30 include respectively pavnta, tau'ta and tau'ta pavnta, all pointing back anaphorically to the question, and contributing to the cohesiveness of the entire episode. More significantly, cohesiveness is achieved by the temporal o{tan clauses of vv. 7, 11, 14, and 28-29, which also point back to the question (4b) and give the first and main section a sense of urgency and of moving forward progressively towards the climactic point of v. 14: {Otan de; i[dhte to; bdevlugma th'" ejrhmwvsew" eJsthkovta o{pou ouj dei' … tovte oiJ ejn th'/ ΔIoudaiva/ feugevtwsan eij" ta; o[rh the only combination of “when…then” in the speech, and the second of only two in the entire gospel (the other instance being 2,20). These o{tan (38) TAYLOR (The Gospel, 502) suggested the natural sense, but then strays from it: “tau'ta points back to the prophecy of the destruction of the temple, and, taken by itself, tau'ta tavnta has the same meaning. But as the chapter now stands, tau'ta tavnta appears to point forward, and it is in this sense that it is commonly interpreted”. See also HOOKER, The Gospel, 305; VILLOTA HERRERO, Palabras, 159; YARBRO COLLINS, Mark, 602. But see J.R. DONAHUE – D.J. HARRINGTON, The Gospel of Mark (Sacra Pagina 2; Collegeville, MN 2002) 368, who argue that “these things” and “all these things” most likely refer to the same event, namely, the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. (39) BEASLEY-MURRAY, Last Days, 386; MATEOS, Marcos, 126; YARBRO COLLINS, Mark, 602. The latter two scholars argue that Mark has carefully edited the question so as to make it connect the prediction of Jesus with the speech. Lambrecht sees in the tau'ta (4a) tau'ta navnta (4b) a formal parallelism, the “all the things” expanding the thought of the earlier “these things”, but having the same referent. However, LAMBRECHT (Die Redaktion, 85-87) argues with the majority of scholars that suntelei'sqai is a “terminus technicus” referring to the “Endzeit”. FRANCE (The Gospel, 505) makes the strongest statement in regard to the referent of tau'ta pavnta, calling the positing of a second subject “an exegetical tour de force”.