Post by hawkinthesnow on Jun 7, 2008 20:01:22 GMT
I would appreciate your expanding this concept when you have the opportunity.
I did some internet surfing and found sites indicating that Mark is considered to have had a good familiarity with Jewish customs and that his unfamiliarity with Palestinian geography amounts to a small percentage - 3 or 4 instances - out of all of his geographical refenences.
But, then, I'm a trial attorney and I have a high tolerance for how recollection and testimony can get garbled when it comes to precise chronologies, itineraries and that kind of thing
I did some internet surfing and found sites indicating that Mark is considered to have had a good familiarity with Jewish customs and that his unfamiliarity with Palestinian geography amounts to a small percentage - 3 or 4 instances - out of all of his geographical refenences.
But, then, I'm a trial attorney and I have a high tolerance for how recollection and testimony can get garbled when it comes to precise chronologies, itineraries and that kind of thing
Hello Peter. To answer your first point, I have four examples – two regarding geography and two regarding customs to indicate that Mark was not really familiar with either the geography or customs of Judea. Firstly, Mark chapter 5 verses 1 – 20 and the story of the Gerasene demoniac. It might help if you read the whole passage to see my point. It is not so much that Mark’s geography is wrong, but that it is rather vague, and seems to indicate that Mark was not very clear about where Gerasa, the town that the area was named after, really is. Gerasa is 30 miles south east of the Sea of Galilee. According to the passage, the demoniac met Jesus as Jesus was coming out of the boat. Verse 14, the herdsmen fled to the city, (presumably Gerasa) and told the townspeople, who came back with the herdsmen, to see what all the commotion was about. So a sixty mile round trip. How long would that have taken do you think, on foot? The events of the story must have taken place over several days to fit the geography, but Mark simply does not give us that kind of information, which seems strange in a story that teems with so much incidental detail.
The second example is geographical. Mark 7:31 “Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of Decapolis” Mark 6 tells us that he had been at Gennesaret on the northwestern shore prior to his journey to Tyre and Sidon, and this was the return journey. If this was the return journey, then Jesus took the long way home because Sidon is north of Tyre, so Jesus started his return journey by traveling north. As the Jerome Bible commentary puts it “This roundabout route taken by Jesus has intrigued commentators”. I’ll bet it has! I think Mark just got it wrong. It’s not an important error certainly but it does illustrate a point.
Thirdly, again from Mark 7 verses 1 to 9. This is a dispute with the Pharisees about handwashing. Jesus disciples had eaten food without ritually washing their hands, and the Pharisees had taken him to task for that. The whole pericope centres on that. However, according to Jewish law at the time, it was only necessary at the time for priests to wash ritually wash their hands in this manner.
Fourthly, Mark 10 vss 10 – 12. In this passage, Jesus talks about wives instituting divorce proceedings against their husbands. Under Jewish law they had no such rights. It seems that Mark here has confused Jewish with Roman law, which did allow that right.
It is because of passages like that that some scholars believe that Mark was not the John Mark who lived in Jerusalem, and call into question the close link between Mark and Peter described by Papias based on the memories of John the Elder as recorded by Eusebius.
Having said that of course, there have been answers given to the above alleged discrepancies. Whether one regards them as good solutions or not though is I suppose another matter.
That's an interesting theory.
But if Mark was attempting to dupe readers, why not come out and call his gospel, the "Gospel of Peter" or include a prologue like Luke's or an epilogue like John's to make the connection clear.
Of course, we can never really know the answer to that question, but if we are speculating on deliberate deception, the use of an inclusio seems pretty weak.
But if Mark was attempting to dupe readers, why not come out and call his gospel, the "Gospel of Peter" or include a prologue like Luke's or an epilogue like John's to make the connection clear.
Of course, we can never really know the answer to that question, but if we are speculating on deliberate deception, the use of an inclusio seems pretty weak.
I don’t think deliberate deception is involved either. I think I expressed myself very badly. If Mark has borrowed this literary device from other writers, it may not have been his intention to make people think that his gospel was based on Peter’s recollections at all. It may have just been that he was using it to highlight Peter as a character for other reasons. Peter is linked with Rome and many scholars think that Mark was written in Rome. One of the themes of the gospel is the contrast between the disciples failure and Jesus faithfulness to his mission. If Mark was written in Rome for a group of believers under duress who may have been anxious about being disloyal, or may have felt that they had failed in some way Mark was reminding them that their great leader Peter had failed similar tests and although he failed, he had been forgiven, but that they should focus on their Lord, who had withstood every trial.
I think that the best evidence on this point is that each of the four gospels were universally and consistently given the names we know them by. If there wasn't a historical or traditional link of the gospels to the particular writers, then we ought to expect a single gospel to have been given a variety of names and we don't see that.
I mean I would think that if the Gospel of Mark wasn't associated with Mark, we ought to see it identified in one place as the Gospel of Mark and another as the Gospel of Bob or the Gospel of the Syrians or whatever.
Given Papias and the early universality of the names of the Gospels, isn't the burden of proof on those who deny the traditional linkage of the gospels with their putative authors?
I mean I would think that if the Gospel of Mark wasn't associated with Mark, we ought to see it identified in one place as the Gospel of Mark and another as the Gospel of Bob or the Gospel of the Syrians or whatever.
Given Papias and the early universality of the names of the Gospels, isn't the burden of proof on those who deny the traditional linkage of the gospels with their putative authors?
I have no problem with the gospel of Mark having been written by someone of that name. That was not my point. My point was about the link between the gospels and the eyewitness testimony of the apostles. Mark was not an apostle. Eusebius tells us, based on the recollections of Papias, that
“the presbyter used to say “Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of his followers, but later as I said one of Peter’s. Peter used to adapt his teaching to the occasion, without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark was quite justified in writing some things down just as he remembered them. For he had one purpose only, to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no misstatement about it”
So we have a third hand account written in the 4th century, recording the report of a man writing in the second century, what he had heard from someone else. This is a very tenuous link, I believe, between the gospel and Peter. And it really doesn’t appear to match the gospel of Mark that we possess, which is a very self conscious, ironic, and carefully constructed literary work.
It was the case that the gospel was universally accepted as being written by Mark – and generally it was believed that it was John Mark but that it was based on Peter’s teachings was based on Papias testimony alone, as far as I am aware. .
With regard to Matthew, again we have Papias to thank for the link with an apostle. However, it is not clear that Papias is referring to our gospel of Matthew. He talks about a collection of saying in the Hebrew, “that everyone translated as best as he could”. However, Matthew’s gospel is written in Greek, and incorporates most of Mark’s gospel. Why would an eyewitness follower of Jesus have incorporated so much of someone else’s gospel into his own? Of course you could always argue that Mark extrapolated from Matthew, but then you have to explain why he would need to do that, if his gospel was based on Peter? And you would have most of the world of NT scholarship against you.
Luke was not an apostle, so there's no issue there, and very few scholars think that the Apostle John wrote the gospel named after him.
As for the traditions in the early church that Matthew and John wrote the gospels named after them - well, I think they were just wrong frankly. As for burden of proof, what you are saying it seems to me is that apostolic authorship is a default position and trhe onus is on the sceptic to dipsrove it. But why?
Why should I accept that something must be so because an early church father said so, and the rest of the church accepted it? Early church fathers and their contemporaries were just as fallible as anyone else. Just because Eusebius says that Papias siad that the elder said... doesn't mean that is what the elder said. And even if the Elder did say what he is reported to have said, I have no reason to believe unless there is other corroboration. I would argue that a careful reading of any of the gospels would dispel the notion that these are objective historical reports based on eyewitness testimony. They may be based on what the immediate followers of Jesus said, but as far as I can see, the stories got embellished in the telling. After all, the apostles were only human, and were probably not above stretching the truth. After all, some of them were fisherman, and we all know what tales fishermen can tell about the one that got away!
Why don't you try and prove that the tradition ascribing the authorship of Matthew and John to apostles is correct? I think in any debate, it is up to anyone maintaining a position to argue for it as best they can, present their evidence. I have tried to do that with regard to Mark in this post.
might have also if I hadn't recently noticed in the Gospel of John that there is a mention that the Jewish leaders were plotting to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus. John 12:10
When I read that I thought that was strange - giving such a prominent role to someone who I had considered to be a minor character.
On the other hand, it struck me as a particular moment of versimilitude; I can't imagine a writer simply sticking that in as a fictional device because it detracts from the main narrative, but if it was true, I imagine that it would be noted, and it does sound like the kind of thing that leaders would do to suppress a subversive movement.
The text suggests that Lazarus was a witness for Jesus and a danger to the Jewish leaders on that account. So, it seems that there is an explicit recognition that the importance of this particular person is that he is a witness to this particular event, which in itself indicates that the author of John (at least) knew that eyewitness testimony was valuable and how he ought to identify such testimonial support as part of the story.
When I read that I thought that was strange - giving such a prominent role to someone who I had considered to be a minor character.
On the other hand, it struck me as a particular moment of versimilitude; I can't imagine a writer simply sticking that in as a fictional device because it detracts from the main narrative, but if it was true, I imagine that it would be noted, and it does sound like the kind of thing that leaders would do to suppress a subversive movement.
The text suggests that Lazarus was a witness for Jesus and a danger to the Jewish leaders on that account. So, it seems that there is an explicit recognition that the importance of this particular person is that he is a witness to this particular event, which in itself indicates that the author of John (at least) knew that eyewitness testimony was valuable and how he ought to identify such testimonial support as part of the story.
Does it detract from the narrative? I don’t think so. After all, John wants to portray the “the Jews” as being so trapped in unbelief that not only do they continue in their unbelief after Jesus has raised a man from the dead, THEY EVEN WANTED TO KILL THE MAN TO REMOVE THE EVIDENCE. I mean, how unbelieving can you get?! In the context of the story, and the author’s theme of belief and unbelief, it makes perfect sense.
sn't the dating of the Gospels a convention, rather than a verifiable historical fact?
I thought the purpose of dating the Gospels was supposed to indicate the general order in which scholars think they were composed and approximately when they might have been composed based on the destruction of Jerusalem.
So, saying that Mark was written in 60 A.D. only means that it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem and after Paul wrote his epistles. It doesn't mean that 60 AD is a hard number.
Hence if Mark wrote his Gospel during the time that Paul was writing his epistles, the dating of Mark's Gospel could go back to 40 or 50 AD, for example. Likewise, if Luke and Matthew's predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem - which is why they get the later dates - actually were prophetic rather than historical backfilling, then they could have an earlier date, as well.
I guess I'm dubious about basing arguments about the existence or absence of eye witnesses based on the conventions about the dating of the Gospels.
I thought the purpose of dating the Gospels was supposed to indicate the general order in which scholars think they were composed and approximately when they might have been composed based on the destruction of Jerusalem.
So, saying that Mark was written in 60 A.D. only means that it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem and after Paul wrote his epistles. It doesn't mean that 60 AD is a hard number.
Hence if Mark wrote his Gospel during the time that Paul was writing his epistles, the dating of Mark's Gospel could go back to 40 or 50 AD, for example. Likewise, if Luke and Matthew's predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem - which is why they get the later dates - actually were prophetic rather than historical backfilling, then they could have an earlier date, as well.
I guess I'm dubious about basing arguments about the existence or absence of eye witnesses based on the conventions about the dating of the Gospels.
Of course none of the gospels come with date tags, and scholars have to try and determine the dates based on the gospels themselves. With regard to Mark, a key piece of evidence is Mark 13 – where Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem. Verse 14 “but when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (LET THE READER UNDERSTAND) then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Many scholars think this refers to Titus’s soldiers setting up the Roman standard in the Temple when Rome was sacked in 70 AD. This is perhaps he strongest evidence for the gospel having been written after 70AD, and the aside to the reader a cryptic reference to that event as if he were saying “you know what I am referring to!”
One of the interesting things I discovered in the Bauckham book was that some names are dropped from the same stories as the story progresses from Mark to Luke (or maybe they are added if the the progression is the other way ;D )
I don't understand why an author supposedly copying from another test would randomly drop names. There must have been some significance to the change, and the idea that they no longer served the role of testimonial support is thus far the only theory I've heard.
But I'm open to other explanations.
I also don't pretend to be a professional scholar
I don't understand why an author supposedly copying from another test would randomly drop names. There must have been some significance to the change, and the idea that they no longer served the role of testimonial support is thus far the only theory I've heard.
But I'm open to other explanations.
I also don't pretend to be a professional scholar
Neither am I a professional scholar in this field. I am still wading through Bauckham's tome. I have just read the chapter on Models of Oral Tradition, which I found fascinating. I will hold off on any further comments about the book until I have finished it. I think perhaps he should have had this chapter at the beginning though, because obviously it is the paradigm within which he is working, and now I have read it I can appreciate the earlier chapters. If he is right though, and there is a closer link bteween the gospels and the apostles and eyewitnesses than conventional form criticism makes room for, then the question becomes whether the apostles testimony can be trusted. After all, the gospels are full of accounts of miraculous healings, walking on water and the Transfiguration. Are we to take these as historical events? Disd Jesus REALLY do those things, or are they not just stories that became embellished with re telling?
Aparrt from anything else, doesn't the idea of a real incarnation sit uneasily with some of the powers ascribed to Jesus in the gospels? If he was really human, if as Paul said he had "emptied himself" of divine glory, should he not have experienced the same limitations that all humans face? Nobody I know can walk on water, still storms and raise people from the dead.
The Jesus described in the gospels sometimes behaves very humanly, and then he starts doing supernatural things. Do you really think that Jesus cast a bunch of demons out of a man then negotiated with them to let them go into a herd of pigs? What is supposed to have happened to them after that? Surely stories like that are pure invention.