repoman

Vork,

I have been reading what you have been saying about Mark taking from the tanakh and using chiamus, very interesting stuff...

But I want to knowif it is also likely that he could have also used Homer as raw material as well. I ahve skimmed MacDonald's "The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark" link and was very suprised by the similarities between these books.

I mean what are the implications of Gmark if he used BOTH the Tanakh and Homer? Was he just riffing on both sources as like a hobby? or was he using Hebrew sources for the core message and Homer as filler?

Anyway, hope this is a new question....

Vorkosigan

I don't think he used Homer at all. What convinced me was that the OT parallels are almost always closer than the Homeric ones (specifically, compare McDonald's explanation of the death of John the Baptist with the parallels from the Esther tales -- Esther is just closer). I think Homer might have filtered in here and there, but not in the systematic way MacDonald thinks. Although a couple of them are very impressive...

Vorkosigan

Toto

NcDonald has a few good parallels. I think he makes a good case that Homer was the basis of Greek education and was in the air in the first century, so it would not be out of place to find some Homeric influence - any more than finding a Shakespearean reference (to Romeo and Juliet, e.g.,) on a sitcom today.