JoeWallack

JW:
A common adjective for the Gospel of Mark, by Believers and Skeptics, is that it is "ungrammatical". As that great 20th century philosopher, ALF, said, "Look it up." (do a google search for "Gospel Mark" and "ungrammatical"). But, as that dickish king said prophetically in Braveheart when all his yes men told him what a great idea he had in bringing back ye olde English tradition of permitting the English nobility to rape Scottish brides on their wedding night, "Is it?".

The purpose of this Thread is to identify, question, determine and inventory the ungrammatical in the Gospel of "Mark". I fear that much of what is passed off as "ungrammatical" in "Mark" is better described as literary style and that Skeptics to some extent are just parroting the Believer claim that "Mark" is ungrammatical. Note that for starters this Thread is just dedicated to identifying potential ungrammatical in "Mark" and not literary style.

At the risk of being labeled a "radical" or even worse "socialist" I will now break forum tradition and decorum and provide a DEFINITION of "ungrammatical" in a really useless and futile attempt to avoid divergence/digression/indigestion for this Thread:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ungrammatical

The advanced student may sense an anachronism already. Rules of grammar for Biblical Greek are a little hard to come by now let alone 2,000 years ago. Is Jeffery Gibson around? Dare I say that grammar rules were looser than than they are now? Anyway, based on known and projected usage (not limited to "common usage") of Biblical Greek, what grammatical errors has "Mark" made?

Speaking of Jeffery Gibson, he always reminds me of that Barber Shop scene in High Plains Drifter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8sNeozweTM
where the guns hired to protect the town from the outlaws go and get themselves killed before the outlaws even show up. Where the hell is he when you really need him?


Joseph

GRAMMAR, n.
A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.[W]

ErrancyWiki

show_no_mercy

More Markan irony? :notworthy:

avi

haha.

Toto

I think that the charge against Mark is more that his Greek is rough or awkward.

Mark is written in Koine Greek. The Enlightenment scholars who first started to actually read and analyze the gospels were only familiar with classical Greek, and the gospels puzzled them. They initially described the language of the gospels as "holy ghost Greek." It was only with the discovery of a cache of ordinary commercial Egyptian papyri from the era that 18th and 20th century scholars were able to reconstruct Koine Greek. (This has been compared to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.)

Was the bible written in street language?

CS Lewis, another classicist who picked up the NT, decided that the Greek of the gospels was so rough and uncultured that it stood as evidence that the gospels were written by simple fishermen, men who were too unsophisticated to do anything but tell the truth. I don't think that anyone would support this idea today.

Toto

The Gospel of Mark: a socio-rhetorical commentary (or via: amazon.co.uk) By Ben Witherington, p. 21 (can be previewed on google books)

stephan huller

But could that primitive style have been deliberately so established much like the attempts at speaking "street parlance" by contemporary evangelists? Was that the purposed distinction of the gospel of "faith" which was publicly preached and the secret gospel? Is this the point of the confesseion in 1 Cor 2:1 - 6? I didn't use sophisticated language; it was enough to preach Christ crucified etc?

Toto

Argument for Markan priority

Better read at the link - the symbol font does not copy.

David Deas

Usually the quality of the language is a good indication of the class of the individual who wrote it. While the person who wrote Mark was probably not a peasant, he was almost surely not in Tacitus' social class either.

aa5874

But are there not multiple versions of gMark?

Origen in "Against Celsus" claimed there were more than one version of gMark and that contrary to Mark 6.3 no Gospel during the time of Origen described Jesus as a Carpenter.

Mr 6:3 -
"Against Celsus" 6.36"Against Celsus" 1.62 It must be that there were MULTIPLE authors of the different versions of gMark and that it is not known who was the the original author.

Unless the original gMark has been found, an arbitrary selection of one of the many authors may not reflect the writing style of the original author and original contents of gMark.

Chili

Well, 'street parlance' means not inspired but just holy ghost fortified in places and I am not sure why you ppl believe that the Gospels should be evangelical. I call them testamonial with Matthew and Mark going back into purgation and Luke and John going onward to the city upon high.

Edit to add that that would sure freigthen the women who knew that that was not a good idea.