action. The Gospels of Mark and John have received careful scrutiny from this perspective. These studies try to determine how the rhetoric of the Gospel narrative establishes authority with and has its impact on the reader. It does so through a study of narrator, style and narrative patterns. In one prominent study Rhoads and Michie conclude that Mark is an omniscient narrator unbound by time or space, speaking from an ideological point of view, who can give the inside view of the characters’ minds.