Proxima Centauri

There’s a better online Bible than that blue Bible, (Babble).
The Skeptics Annotated Bible.
Here’s what it has to say about the whole of Mark.

offa

The naked man was Simon Magus (Lazarus) because he had already been defrocked as a chief priest. After he was no longer a chief priest he became naked. He was crucified alongside of Christ, and, likewise, survived the crucifixion.

Offa

Chili

Hail Offa. Lazarus works for me and even the notion that he survived the crucifixion. Where I am convinced that it was not Christ to be crucified in the middle is because Jesus was in the middle and he died to set the son-of-man free alongside the hu-man identity to be crucified. Both must endure the pain but only one must die to solidify redemption.

The human identity was the "like-god" image that was conjectured to exist in the imagination of man-in-the-image-of-God. The creation of this second identity caused a division in the loyalty of our volition to serve both life itself as represented by the woman in the TOL and the image of our humanity in the TOK to which the name Adam was given in recognition of achievement. This high achieving earthly usurper is called Adam and he is the one who gets crucified in the gospels. The removal of the lion cloth by religion through the workings of religion with the departure of the last Jew suggests the liberation of the man-in-the-image-of-God identity here shown to escape the now bare naked Adam who alone is to be tried and crucified.

With woman being the initial image of life in the mind of the being she can be called upon to generate and produce an original copy of this image to the sojourner who must find himself lost in exile to the point of unconscious surrender wherein the entire consciousness can and must be be surrendered to achieve this (Romans 10-10). This regenerated copy is later called the Alpha (or son of man) that represents what it was like in the beginning wherefore Joseph returned to his place of birth to get a new lease on life in the Alpha to which he needed to add his own contribution while in Galilee so as to become fully man in the Alpha and Omega.

The idea that Christ was born suggests that Christ is the Alpha but not the Omega and is therefore called son of man instead of man. Man, after all, is not fully man until after Jesus is crucified who himself will never be fully man without the Alpha (Christ). The two must become one and therefore the man must escape crucifixion to be united at the foot of the cross under the name of John who was Omega first and Omega and Alpha in the aftermath of crucifixion. Of course in this way Christ Jesus spells Omega and Alpha while Jesus Christ spells Alpha and Omega to show that reason prevails (which you can't say about the Revelation of John).

ficino

If memory serves me right, Morton Smith, author of The Secret Gospel of Mark and Jesus the Magician, held that the young man was in the garden receiving initiation from Jesus into the higher level of Jesus' magical cult group. Smith thought the initiation involved sex with the Master. Then the initiation was interrupted by the entrance of the guards. The young man ran away to save himself. Smith theorized he may have been Mark.

Smith based his case on a fragment of what he argued was a secret gospel of Mark quoted by Clement of Alexandria. There was another thread on this topic recently on this website.

rlogan

Taken in isolation it might seem reasonable to question the linking of HB pseudoprophesy to Mark here.

The problem is that the evidence points to this as the general methodology. So you need some pretty convincing evidence that this is not a recycling job.

Absent another clear explanation - what are we left with? That "Mark" just made it up for fun?

Additionally, if we are going to weave the naked fleeing away, how are we going to do so given the constraints imposed upon us by the surrounding construction of the story? Should we have Pilate fleeing naked? A Roman Garrison? We don't have a lot of options that fit well.

Peter Kirby

"Smith thought the initiation..." - does someone have a quote from Smith on this? I mean the very words Smith wrote, whatever they may mean.

best,
Peter Kirby

Chili

In case you wonder, "the bare naked Adam who alone is the be tried and crucified" is that which remained as the identity of Jesus to be crucified after religion was brought to understanding. This was first done from the temple precinct where Jesus was the antagonist and here finally betrayed by Judas in recognition that realization was complete. So the betrayal of Judas was in agreement that religion was the cause of the agony that led to the isolation of the young man here escaping as the image of God. I mean the removal of the lion cloth from the escaping young man is all-telling.

Let me remind you that the call of the first apostles was the result of metanoia that converted the shepherds into apostles now set to find the reign of God (Mk.1:14-15). This was done in Galilee where the reign of God is to be found and here is identified and isolated.

From my post above:

"The removal of the lion cloth by religion through the workings of religion with the departure of the last Jew suggests the liberation of the man-in-the-image-of-God identity here shown to escape the now bare naked Adam who alone is to be tried and crucified.

andrewcriddle

Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark. p 237

"It was while performing such a baptism that Jesus was arrested. The rite was secret. He chose a lonely garden through which a stream still flows and went there late at night after the ceremony of the eucharist had assured the magical union of his circle of initiates. Since he did not wish to be interrupted (this is essential in magic) he set guards (Mark 14:32-34). He had no intention of being arrested if he could help it. The agony therefore has no likelihood and it was witnessed by no one. (On its homiletic motivation See my Comments 22f.) When the guards fell asleep and the police arrived unexpectedly they surprised both Jesus and the initiate neaniskos tis...peribeblemenos sindona epi gumnou (Mark 14:51) - the proper magical costume in the proper magical setting. If this was not an initiation, what was the young man doing with Jesus at such an hour in such a place and in such a costume ?"


Andrew Criddle

Boro Nut

Perhaps he was just a lot more circumspect than Michael Jackson.

Boro Nut

arcadia

Nobody seems to really know who this guy is, and it seems that speculation, or even mention of him is not a very popular topic among Christian preachers. Several of the few sermons I found which mention him suggest that the listeners might not have even heard of him.

I am by no means a qualified biblical interpreter, but when I read the KJV version of this incident, my impression is that after all the apostles fled in fear in anticipation of the arriving mob and Romans, this guy hung around for the night. One would think that Jesus' last friend on earth might normally be given a fairly prominent place in Christian mythology.

Nowadays, if an apostate male preacher with an all male circle of disciples made enough of a ruckus in a neighborhood to cause a mob of citizens and cops to stage a raid on his dwelling, and the first guy out of the target's bedroom was a naked young man, morals charges would likely ensue.

I also wonder, if this was in "fact" Mark, why he would either be naked or make such a point of writing that he was naked.

At the very least, I would imagine that entire Christian cults have been formed based on less suggestive or weighty verses than these.

Somewhere, while looking for sermons I came across a literary reference to "The Church of the Naked Fleeing Disciple". It might be an idea whose time has come.