In her outline of Mark's Gospel, Mary Ann Tolbert presents Mark 6:35--8:21 as a unit of material. The next unit she identifies is 8:22--10:52. She suggests that both units of material can be read as the unfolding of the hardness of the hearts of the disciples. In the section of 6:35--8:21 Jesus feeds the multitudes two times (6:30-44; 8:1-9). Following each feeding story Jesus gets in the boat with his disciples (6:45-52; 8:14-21). (We have looked at these boat stories in chapter 14.) What we see in the flow of these stories is the hardening of the hearts of the disciples (Mark 6:52). The description of the disciples' hearts as being hardened fits Tolbert's assignment of the disciples as the rocky ground in Mark's version of the Parable of the Sower. (See also 8:17-21.) Tolbert is convince…