Adam

Whatever. I used your word, though I would use "interpolation" myself. My New Webster"s (1995) gives "interpolation" as one definition for "intercalation". So you're admitting that your OT calendar scheme as a pattern for gMark does not work after all?
I thought I explained myself quite accurately. Admittedly it's hard to follow all the intricacies as to what is oldest in gLuke as against what is earliest in gMark. That's no excuse for backtracking now and denying that there were interpolations in Mark 6 to 11 that you were earlier acknowledging that Luke did not see? Allow me to repeat from my last post: You've dropped off from denying my evidence for much of Mark (and Luke-Acts) being Petrine. (How many "Petrine" words were copied into gLuke from Layers 1 and 2 of the Prote-Mark that contained also Layers 3 and 4? Let's say 2000, if you like.

Sounds like you're cutting and running with your tail between your legs. Do I have to wait for Joe Wallack to make an attempt at refuting me, or can I just declare victory now? I do appreciate your willingness to comment on exegesis that so conflicts with yours, and by-and-large your comments have been well placed. However, it seems that your commitment to your own theory prohibits an open-minded evaluation of mine. Perhaps you can think of someone who is as knowledgeable as yourself who can analyze my work more dispassionately. I'll be here waiting, unless you want to re-engage, which is fine with me. Seems to me that atheism needs a whole different line of defense than MJ can provide.

spin

Vork used the term "intercalation" to describe the construction technique of the Marcan redactor of inserting or sandwiching one story inside another for dramatic effect.

An interpolation is the augmenting of another's text as a means of expanding or explaining that text.

Interpolations are not thought to be the work of redaction, but of minor additions after the bulk of the text has been compiled. Is that what you mean?

There was certainly a sizable chunk of Mark not available to the Lucan adapter of Mark. This may have been a deformed copy of Luke, eg a few pages might have been missing. The Matthean adapter seems to have had the material when he redacted Mark. (I'm not averse to the notion of gospel texts being the work of many hands.)

But that's just because you don't know the person you are talking to.

That's what I like to see, someone not interested so much in the discussion and the evidence, but in winning the argument.

But doesn't this cut both ways? Doesn't your commitment to your own theory prohibit an open-minded evaluation of his?

MJ is not the atheist line of defense. Atheists have gone with all options in the spectrum from historical Jesus to fictional Jesus and we have debated them all here. Some still favor MJ for some reason that is not based on evidence. No theory regarding the source of Jesus has provided a sufficiency of evidence to be considered functional.

Adam

Thank you. My dictionary showed "intercalation" as calendar related.
And major additions as well, such as Mark 6:53-8:21Did you mistype "deformed copy of Luke" when you meant "Mark"? Or did you mean "....Luke" as stated, meanng that the relevant "non-interpolated" pages fell out of the almost-final version of Luke? If you meant the latter, then it's strange that the Mark 6:53-8:21 purports to record a round-trip journey that just "happened" to be the pages that fell out?OK, so in a moment of pique he blurted, "I think I'm bowing out of this conversation. But thanks anyway." We all have lives and can't spend all our time proof-reading what we wrote within the 45-minute deadline. But Mr. Turton's recent responses to me have not gone well, so I can be excused for thinking he could not answer me.

For the rest, I thank you whole-heartedly and hope you'll continue in this dialogue. I suppose the worst posters with the worst arguments tend to abuse the opportunity to post their stuff here. (Mythicism seems to be shooting itself in the foot.) I have seen a lot of excellent Biblical knowledge here as well, and had come to expect Vorkosigan would continue to present himself well. Very few others here are willing to read my stuff.

spin

Why did you use it to mean interpolation?

You got it. Well spotted.

It's one possibility. There is a series of pericopes in Mark (4:35-6:13) that has ended up scattered in different locations in Matt, which generally follows the order of the Marcan material. The simplest way of looking at it is that these pericopes were separated from the text and apparently treated as a separate source.

It might instead have been a redactional choice of the relevant Lucan editor.

Sure, I can understand. You use the information you have.

Patience is not a virtue, when you discuss this sort of material. There are a lot of strange ideas in circulation and the first thing one looks for is the substantive evidence. Other things include signs of coherence or lack thereof. I have to restrain myself when you talk about the "Qumraner" as you do. Somewhere in your scenario is a person related to the devout Jewish theology of the scrolls involved in material concerning a non-messianic (in the Jewish sense) savior. It doesn't augur well in my mind for the idea's credibility. Qumran is my original expertise. We all make calls on what we see.

Adam

I had only ever seen the word before when used by Vork. I should not have used it. I thought Vork was referring to Midrash from liturgical calendar.I had read a lot about John the Baptist having a Qumran connection. I saw Qumran apocalypticism being read into Jesus's message.

spin

Whatever you read was crap. The baptism offered by John the Baptist was a once-only affair as a type of initiation into the end times on the right side. The ritual bathing in the scrolls is a daily exercise to maintain purity. The apocalypticism seen in many texts from Qumran relate to the battle of liberation of the holy land, eg the War Scroll or 1Q28a & 1Q28b, usually featuring signs of a dual messiahship, of priest and secular leadership. I think what you read was either very old or conservative religious speculation.

Adam

You don't consider Roberrt Eisenman current? Or that he's conservative? Wikipedia says
"Eisenman reads the attitude of these documents as militant, nationalistic and zealous and places them not in the Maccabean period but the later, Herodian era (c. 35 BCE to 70 CE and beyond), which means the establishment priesthood that they opposed was the collaborating, compromising, corrupt Herodian priesthood. He sees parallels between the political, religious and ethical stance of these sectarian documents and that of James the brother of Jesus, whom he identifies as the scrolls' Teacher of Righteousness, and sees 'the Wicked Priest' and 'the Man of Lying' as two different adversaries of the scroll community, the Wicked Priest being the High Priest Ananus ben Ananus, James' executioner, and the Man of Lying, St. Paul." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Eisenman
But I don't go that far.

spin

Mark is famous for its Latin forms, words transliterated from Latin, words explained through Roman terms and Latin idioms translated into Greek. I shall consider the Latin idioms, which are the most unexplainable forms. Why should idioms in Latin be used in Greek, if the audience is mother-tongue Greek? The most reasonable explanation is that they were written for Mother-tongue Latin speakers of Greek.

There is an idiom in Latin used to give a simple explanation for something, "hoc est" ("that is") rendered in Greek as ο εστιν, which is used across Mark as follows:

[T2]Mark 3:17 James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder);
Mark 5:41 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!"
Mark 7:11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God)—
Mark 7:34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."
Mark 12:42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.
Mark 15:16 Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort.
Mark 15:22 Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull).
Mark 15:34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"[/T2]
Along with this simple idiom, there are a number of others to be found, including:

[T2]hodon poiein = make one's way (Lat. loan translation: iter facere)
Mark 2:23 One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.

sumboulion epoioun = take counsel (Latin loan translation: consilium dederunt)
Mark 3:6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

esxatws exei = be at the point of death (Lat. loan translation: ultimum habere)
Mark 5:23 and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."

katakriousin Qanatw = condemn to death (Latin loan translation: capite damnare)
Mark 10:33 saying, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles;

ikanon poisai = satisfy (Latin loan translation: satis facere)
Mark 15:15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.[/T2]
These idioms cut across Adam's sources, suggesting that either many of those writing these sources used Latin idioms or else they weren't separate sources. I would tend to think that the Latinisms are the responsibility of one layer of the text, unless all of Mark was written in Rome, the only place where one would find a sizable Latin audience educated in Greek.

spin

Eisenman is basically off the wall. He's had a bee in his bonnet for decades trying to cram aspects of christianity into Qumran Judaism. Not a single scholar in the field of DSS research gives him the time of day. He just appeals to a niche market. He did a book with Michael Wise once ("The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered") where Wise did the translation of a number of texts and he supplied the introductions. Wise was not impressed with them and hasn't worked with Eisenman since. If you made it more than a few chapters through his massive tome on James, I'd call you a masochist. And try to find DSS related research papers by Eisenman in any of the established journals.

And anybody in their right minds should know that the C14 dating of texts relating to the teacher of righteousness and thus the man of lies is from the 1st c. BCE. (This probably explains why he dabbled in a paper with Joe Atwill which tried to challenge the evidence on the C14 data from Qumran.)

archibald

Maybe the text alternates between addressing a Greek audience and addressing a Roman audience.