Vorkosigan

My turn to apologize, for my "Hell no" was meant to be accompanied by a large grin that covered complete ignorance.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

You have misunderstood me. I assumed your "negativity" was genuine. I was lamenting the absence of substance offered to support it.

Toto

Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus is searchable on Amazon. The book looks interesting but I don't find a reference to eben or puns

Vorkosigan

Hmmm.....must have got my sources confused. Mea culpa.

Toto

It seems to be a common idea. Consulting the great oracle of Google:

Luke and the Wicked Tenants

Google cache of a CF post Also here and here

Vorkosigan

Thanks, Toto. The same point about Joshua and the stones is also made in the opening essay of Authenticating the Activities of Jesus, Chilton & Evans.

Ted Hoffman

Vork,
Thanks for the response. I agree with most of what you write.
What I have highlighted above renders the identification of a chiasm as a purely subjective process. Like recognition of beauty. Where does that leave us?

I take this as a compliment. If I can criticize it substantively, then maybe I understand it.

IMO, A is fine. B is not fine. Crucifiction can result in death but crucifiction is not death.
C is also not fine. Someone taking his Yves Laurent underwear and the other taking his Van Heusen shirt does not appear to me like tearing his clothes. It is sharing the spoils.

So I have a problem with B and C. I wonder how we can get a middle ground in such a case? How about:

A: drink
B: pain
C: division

My reasons for B being: crucifiction is painful and the loud cry is also a cry of pain. Sharing his garments involves division and when the curtain of the temple was torn, it was divided into two.

What do you think?

Your arguments on this point have convinced me. No problem there.

In the OP you wrote: "the genius of the writer of Mark is displayed here". Perharps you were referring to the irony of making Barrabas a double of Pilate and of Jesus. My bad.

I hesitate to agree that the fact that Mark's work was copied severally means he was a literary genius. I am also reluctant to agree that the fact that we are still reading his work today has got anything to do with his being a literary genius. It would render Josephus, the author of Genesis and Isaiah for example, literary geniuses.

This argument cuts both ways especially given that chiastic structures are a modern "discovery".

Maybe they copied him because the people responded enthusiastically to his gospel. Luke and Matthew just wanted to cash in on this rasping thirst for the gospel. And they saw Mark as incomplete and poorly written, so they improved it here and there, added a colourful birth narrative and made the fulfilled prophecies come out clearly, something Mark failed to do.

Plus, even for his sense of irony and literary flourish, his Christology was primitive and his plagiarists polished and elevated it before selling it to the hungry people.

This is important. First of all, I agree with you and other scholars who have spotted chiasms, that chiasms exist, so I do not see how finding them in Matthew or Luke can prove you wrong.

Unless there is a separate point you are arguing?

But I think that, failing to find them in Matthew and Luke may point to the fact that not all writers were very big on chiasms. And if that is the case, we will need a compelling case that Mark is big on chiasms and that what we see as chiasms in Mark are striking enough, display a distinct signature (like you say they start and end with geog. movement), and appear often enough to show that the author intended to sandwitch his "meat" in chiastic layers.

Michael, you are doing a great job. I think most of us are just lazy or too busy with other things - but what you are doing needs to be done and you will definitely fill a niche in NT study. But I hope I can prepare you somewhat for the inevitable criticisms that will come your way.

JoeWallack

JW: (Pacing and waving arms around Allah "John" Maddin)
And listen to this! Let's continue looking for Literary Contrivance in the Markan Big Picture:

False Expectation Of Elijah (Scene 1)

START of Ministry

Mark 1: (KJV)

1 "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins."

Compare to:

Malachi 3: (KJV)

1 "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts."

Note that Malachi, which Christianity placed at the end of the Jewish Bible, was thought by "The Jews" to be referring to Elijah returning to announce/anoint the Messiah. After "Mark's" quote from Malachi though the narrative goes on to describe John the Baptist as fulfilling the related prophecy. The Markan implication here is that "The Jews" had a false expectation of Elijah.

This was likely an early objection to the Gospel stories. "Wasn't the Messiah supposed to be preceded by the historical Elijah?" "Mark" provides an eloquent apology to the question, "No". Note that "Matthew", trying to edit "Mark" into a more historical like and believable story, sees the objection as needing an explicit apology:

Matthew 11: (KJV)

13 "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come."

(Talk about talking to your audience!). "Mark" gives his similiar, implicit explanation of the apology in Chapter 9, that John was Elijah in some unexplained sense.

False Expectation Of Elijah (Scene 2)

Mark 6: (KJV)

14 "King Herod heard about this, for Jesus' name had become well known. Some were saying,[c] “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.�
15 Others said, “He is Elijah.�

False Expectation Of Elijah (Scene 3)

Mark 8: (KJV)

27 "Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?�
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.�
29 “But what about you?� he asked. “Who do you say I am?�
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.�

False Expectation Of Elijah (Scene 4)

END of ministry

Mark 15: (KJV)

33 "At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?�–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?�
35When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he's calling Elijah.�
36 One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down,� he said.
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last."

"Mark" seemed to be very concerned with Elijah having Jesus perform pretty much every Type of Miracle done by Elijah/Elisha in the Body of his Story. Note that "Mark" has Four separate False Expectation of the historical Elijah Stories similar to other themes repeated four or five times, which may indicate an Original Play. Also note the False Elijah expectation stories at the START and END of the Ministry. Consider what value the False Expectation story at the end (and the premium put on Jesus' supposed last words) would have to:

1) A simple witness trying to give a straight forward historical account promoting belief in Jesus.

2) A sophisticated author trying to give an Ironic Literarily Contrived, Artistic story promoting belief in Jesus.

Which is more likely?



Joseph

Rick Sumner

A:---PCs use different types of buses, including processor buses, memory buses, address buses and expansion buses.

B:---The first three relate to moving data in or out of various chips and are discussed further in Chapter 4, but you need to be able to distinguish the various types of expansion buses.

C:---You'll be asked to identify an expansion bus on the basis of its name, shape and general location on the motherboard.

D:---Bus configurations can be 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit and so on. The more bits of information that can be processed simultaneously, the faster the throughput at a given clock speed.

E:---The earliest computers used an 8-bit signal track.

E:---The fundamental change in the AT boards was to use a 16-bit bus (although the proper term is path, as in 8 separate signal paths).

D:---This allowed the AT motherboards to move far more complex information across the system.

C:---Today's motherboards have at least three different buses and several memory buses.

B:---ISA bus--This expansion bus is typically a 16-bit bus for compatibility with older machines using legacy cards.

A:---PCI bus--This bus provides a bridge between the processor, the slower ISA bus, and connected peripherals.

If I play word games like Vorkosigan is prone to do (equating crucifixion with death, for example), I could probably run five pages of this book. If not more.

Apologies in advance if I don't manage to keep up with this thread, though I'll do my best. As I noted on Ebla, I seem to have contracted Mono, and thus when I'm not in bed, I'm usually wishing I am. I'll endeavour to it, at any rate.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

Sorry but that isn't very helpful, Rick, since it isn't particularly analogous.

Finding an apparently unintentional but superficially similar pattern of word use is quite different from finding apparently unintentional but similar thematic narrative patterns.

Something else that would be helpful are examples in texts explicitly describing historical events. That would certainly help eliminate any notion that the discovery of chiasms is contrary to an author attempting to record history and I don't think there would be any need to determine if they were intentional.


Get well soon.