rlogan

Thanks Toto. It was worth looking into. We have to keep open minds and not be automatically dismissive because that detracts from the power of what we do right. The Etymology might have helped for two reasons - one is locating a physical geographic feature in association with it, but no help there. The other is a literary play on words, but in looking at the story in association with it I don't see any link there either.

The way he tells this story, it's as if the Sea of Galilee is a major sea with dozens of cities ringing it. It wouldn't even make the top 75 lakes in the USA. Superior is about 500 times larger. So we might well refer to it as the Pond of Galilee instead.

rlogan

When Mark was written, it was the first gospel written. The propaganda a generation later is irrelevant.

Reaching for the sky.

Toto

Only the gospels call this the "Sea" of Galilee. Otherwise it is known as Lake Kinneret. Various scholars have seen this as an allusion to the sea in the Homeric Odyssey or an analog of the Mediterranean Sea.

rlogan

Talk about making me feel stupid. But in a good way.

Because it demonstrates the intentional magnification in size and scope to market this work to an audience far from the region. You can't make your initial marketing of this work to the people in Galilee or even Judea in general, nor I would think even the immediate adjacent areas. In Damascus for example - could you get away with pretending this is a Sea on the scale of the Mediterranean as the author has done? I would think not. Plenty of people from Damascus will have been there and know it as a lake you can see across. They will know that there is only one place that can field the crowds spoken of - the capital city - and yet it is not mentioned whereas nonexistent places play a prominent role.

aa5874

In the writings of Josephus the "sea of galilee" is called the LAKE of Gennesareth.

Josephus' Wars of the Jews 3.10.1Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews 18.2.3 It would appear that the author of gMark was not familiar with Jewish history, tradition and geography of the region of Galilee.

Essentially, it can be deduced that the author was most likely Not a Jew.

rlogan

We've already pointed out the geographic errors in Mark 11, when he stops before he reaches Jerusalem at two towns he will arrive at only upon passing Jerusalem first.

But there is a fig story that does deserve some scrutiny there as well:


This event occurs before Passover, which is in late March or early April. The intervening text has enough material in it to say this is on the order of a week before. So this is certainly March.

The text tells us it is not the season for figs, so one has to marvel why Jesus would think there to be figs upon the tree as if he were some dolt not knowing when there will be figs.

Gee, it's almost as if the writer is inserting the fig story for some other purpose, since he is expressly saying there will be no figs to eat. Indeed it is to recall Jeremiah 8:13, where the fig tree is the symbol for Israel:

Okay, so he gave them Jesus and now he's going to be taken away. The Jews did not recognize their own Messaih so none of them are going to heaven.

Here is a fig tree on the West slope of the Mount of Olives, April 12 of 2005:




No figs. Now before any apologist gets his panties in a bunch and runs out to find pictures of particular species that have figs which can start growing by this time, note again the text tells us it is not the season for figs. That is going to be a couple of months later, and the text is expressly telling us not to expect Jesus to find figs.

What happens is that Jesus curses the tree for not having figs out of season so that later they can come back and observe in Mark 11:21 -

So the point of this passage is to put Jeremiah 8:13 into the story, credentialing Jesus with a prophecy. But in order to do that the writer has to create a nonsensical situation in which Jesus is first of all looking for figs when none should be expected ready for eating - and second of all curses a tree that can't produce figs in the first place.

Maybe he was hung over?

rlogan

An interesting geographic contradiction in Mark 12:13

When Jesus is operating right under the nose of King Herod Antipas, within eyesight of the King himself, there is no problem with Herodians. But when he gets down to Jerusalem, over 80 miles away by road - then Herodians are a big problem for Jesus. This really highlights the absurdity of all this zipping back and forth appearing before enormous crowds all around the Pond of Galilee.

That's all I have on geography folks.

I did notice something contradictory about money. In Mark 14:5 we have Jesus receiving ointment upon his head by a woman, and the value of this ointment is alleged to be three hundred denarii. Some brief research indicates this is about the amount of one day's pay for a Roman soldier or a worker. So this is one year's pay for a working man in the first century.

The disciples are aghast at the waste of money, saying that it should go to the poor. (Because that's what Jesus has told them to do in Mark 10:21) But Jesus says the poor will always be with you and I'm about to be executed so hey - screw the poor. This woman is going to be famous across the land forever. So do we know who she is? Nope.

Sheesh. Those poor befuddled disciples. I'd be confused too.