gstafleu

Here is a question I have been wondering about for a while. It regards the Gospel of Mark. The question is: should it be read as a historical narrative, IOW as if the author did have a real historical person in mind while composing the Gospel. Never mind if he was right in thinking there was such a person, did he have such a person in mind in the first place?

Narratives about "non-historical" persons were not unheard of around that time. For a short story just think of the Pyramus and Thisbe (P&T) story in Ovid's metamorphoses. For a more "novel-like" instance, think of Apuleius' Golden Ass (GA). I think that most would agree that these two authors did not have real people (Pyramus/Thisbe and Lucius respectively) in mind while writing.

On the other hand, clear historical narrative is also know from around that time, for example Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico (DBG). So both genres are known. In which should we place gMark? I would think that GA is a closer match than DBG. GA has lots of supernatural effects, as does gMark. Its hero, Lucius, is transformed by a mishap of witchcraft into a donkey. The donkey, after all kinds of trials and tribulations, is at the end saved by the grace of a goddess (Isis).

That seems more like gMark, which also has supernatural elements and a saving god, than DBG, which, if I remember correctly, is quite down to earth. When Caesar needs to cross a river he either has to ford it or build some kind of bridge, he and his troops don't just walk over the water. To feed his troops he needs real provisions, none of that "a few loaves will feed thousands with pieces left over at the end" business.

Nevertheless, gMark often seems to be classified more like DBG than GA. Why, am I missing something? Or is it reasonable to see gMark more akin to what we would these days call "fiction" than to historical narrative?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

This two-point classification misses a very broad swath of middle ground, namely ancient biographies about personages considered historical, not fictional, yet abounding in heightened miraculous claims about them. (This is not to say that Mark has to automatically be lumped in with them, but I think it is important not to exclude the middle right from square one.)

Ben.

gstafleu

Good point, by all means let us consider this as well. The main problem here of course is deciding what portion falls under "heightened miraculous claims" and what under "historical." That unfortunately opens the door to a strategy where one can at will cut out pieces and then claim that for some reason the remainder has to be historical. But still, aMark could have had such a tale in mind while composing his gospel.

So, is gMark:

1. "Fiction" like Pyramus and Thisbe, The Golden Ass?
2. "History" like De Bello Gallico?
3. A "Miraculous Biography" like...?

Gerard Stafleu

Geetarmoore

How does gMark being a historical narrative work, when it can be shown that the passion narrative is a midrash of Psalm 22 verses? Doesn't this take the wind out of the sails of the 'historical' argument, even just a bit?

Ben C Smith

Like the Life of Apollonius. Or the Life of Romulus. (Keep in mind that, although we do not necessarily think of Romulus as an historical person, he was so considered in antiquity.)

Ben.

andrewcriddle

One work that should be considered as a possible parallel is the
Alexander Romance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Romance

Andrew Criddle

gstafleu

I would guess that most people on this forum would tend to agree with Geetarmoore that "History like DBG" is unlikely. So how do we then distinguish between "Fiction" and "Miraculous Biography"? I would suspect that you tend to favor "Miraculous Biography." If so, is that just a preference, or is there something, either in the text or outside it, that leads you to that conclusion? Let's start with in the text. When reading it, I don't see anything that says to me "This cannot be fiction like GA or P&T, this has to be a miraculous biography." Am I missing something?

Gerard Stafleu

andrewcriddle

One issue with the Golden Ass is that it is a 1st person narrative (as is the Satyricon).

I suspect that the use of the 1st person viewpoint for a story of wonders at least hinted to ancient readers that this was not a legendary version of real history but a work of fiction.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

First point: Mark did not invent the leading character. Paul knows of a human named Jesus (never mind when that figure was supposed to have lived). (As an aside, I wonder how many of the lead characters in the Hellenistic fictions considered nonhistorical by their authors were not inventions by their authors.)

Second point: Mark seems to have been treated as history, at least in some sense, both by contemporaries and by those who later followed. Matthew and Luke both appear to treat the gospel as dealing with a real person (see especially Matthew 28.15 and Luke 1.1-4). So does John (this is assuming a particular relationship of John to Mark, of course). Papias takes it as history. Justin Martyr appears to do so, as well. And of course Irenaeus and all the fathers after him. The various gnostic and docetic groups interpreted various gospel incidents in ways that assumed their essential veracity (again, at least to some extent). But of course these are Christian sources. Amongst the non-Christians, Celsus apparently does not think to retort that the gospels were, by the standards of the day, works of Hellenistic fiction; rather, he attacks them as poor historical records. In fact, who in antiquity did treat the gospels, including Mark, as pure Hellenistic fiction?

Third point: In the Marcan passion narrative, briefly, the OT allusions suddenly give way and Simon of Cyrene steps forward. I have mentioned this before on this board, and the responses have tended to focus on Simon as potential fiction. And I agree that, on his own, Simon could be fiction. But Simon is not on his own in Mark; he has sons, Alexander and Rufus, who must be known to the readers of Mark or else their mention is useless. Prima facie, Mark appears to be claiming that two personages of whom his readers are aware happen to be the sons of the man who bore the cross of Jesus. This is more easily explained on the proposition that Mark intends some kind of history (that is, Simon is real and really bore the cross of Jesus) than on the proposition that he is writing sheer fiction (either inventing two names that have nothing to do with the narrative and would mean nothing to the readers, or giving two known figures a fictional father, or perhaps giving the real father of two known figures a fictional role in a fictional book; I tell you the truth, some of the responses I have seen to this datum are downright odd, and, even if they are possible, they are hardly the first option that would spring to mind unless one already knew somehow that the whole of Mark, top to bottom, was fiction). This same observation also works, BTW, for the Mary at the cross who is called the mother of two named sons.

Ben.

Toto

Ben's thread on Simon of Cyrene