Vinnie

This article:

http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_02_02_02_MK.html

Holding: Geographical errors in Mark. Kümmel [Kumm.Int, 97] accuses Mark of "numerous" geographical errors, but names only three: Mark 5:1 (the Gerasene swine), 7:31 (having to do with Tyre/Sidon and the Decapolis), and 10:1 (re the region of Judea). He indicates that a lack of knowledge of the geography of Palestine is against Markan authorship. In reply we may note:

The "errors" are a product of the imagination. Let's look at Kümmel's three ("numerous") citations, along with a couple of others.

Here holding goes on to quote Mark 5:1 and comment on it:

Mark 5:1 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.

Holding: How this qualifies as an "error" is beyond me. It is hardly a definitive statement, referring only to a "region" - as might be expected if the party landed in a countrified area, and if this is from a sermon of Peter to a Roman audience that really did not care where some out-in-the-boondocks locale was precisely located! The city of Gerasa was about 30 miles southeast of the traditional location of this event; that being so, to speak of being in the "region" is hardly any more erroneous than saying, after landing a boat thirty miles south of Milwaukee, that you have landed in the "region" of Milwaukee.

Was Gerasa so big or prominent or well known that people 30 miles away from it, 2000 years ago, would declare themselves to be in the region of Gerasa?

To people like me with a car, 30 miles may not be a huge distance. To people walking and riding asses, it might be a little different.

Also, if I said "near the Washington area" and I wasn't there that would be a valid statement. If I said "in the Washington region" and I wasn't actually there, would I be inaccurate or accurate?

Are there other examples of ancient sources mentioning being "in a specific region" when they are 30 miles away from it?

Was that region (where the incident occured) that "countrified"? Was there no other place, closer to mention? Did that specific place even have a name of its own?

Would Mark's audience be more likely to understand Gerasa rather than some other place?

For those on baord who know Greek, how clear is the Greek here? Is "in the region of" as broad and loose as Holding uses it?

Vinnie

Vinnie

I'm looking at a first century map of Palestine, and though all places are not listed, Gerasa is ridiculously far from the Sea of Galilee.

Here it is.

The X is where the event took place in Mark 5.
The 6 is next to Gadara. A proposed alternate reading. But even that is 6 mils from the sea.

Now Gerasa is way out there, with Gadara, Dion, Hippos, Abila and Pella all closer in the Decapolis.

If we move up North a pinch to the Tetrarchy of Philip even bethsaida is closer. In fact, about 10 places (Regions!?) on the opposite side of the Sea are closer to this event in Mark than Gerasa!

Now was Gerasa some extremely special place ca. 70 C.E.? Was it a geographical landmark for people outside Palestine? Are there any sources mentioning it in depth like Josephus and co. ???

I mean, it is way out there with a lot of "regions" much much closer. I mean, if anything, one would suspect Hippos in the Decapolis as its right near the lake (maybe a mile away).

Vinnie

Vinnie

The map is here:

http://www.after-hourz.net/junk/mapweb.jpg

It wouldn't let me upload it.

X pretty much should Mark the spot.

The 6 is the distance in miles to Gadara and the 30(+) is the miles to Gerasa

Vinnie

Vinnie

Holding then quotes another passage from Mark and comments on it.

Mark 7:31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.

Holding: This one is a little more complex, but no more problematic. It has been interpreted to mean that Jesus and His company went through Sidon to GET TO The Sea of Galilee, which would indeed be the wrong way - but what it means is that they had an itinerary of 1) Tyre, 2) Sidon, and THEN 3) the Sea and the Decapolis region. The journey to Sidon is NOT a case of "what they went through to get there," but, "where they went also."

Holding also cites Miller:

Holding:
Glenn Miller has passed on to me this quote from Douglas Edwards, who, in his essay, "The Socio-Economic and Cultural Ethos in the First Century," has noted:

Indeed, even the Jesus movement's travel from Tyre to Sidon to the Decapolis depicted in Mark, which has struck some New Testament interpreters as evidence for an ignorance of Galilean geography, is, in fact, quite plausible. Josephus notes that during the reign of Antipas, while Herod Agrippa I was in Syria, a dispute regarding boundaries arose between Sidon and Damascus, a city of the Decapolis. It is therefore conceivable that the movement headed east toward Damascus and then south through the region of the Decapolis, following major roads linking Damascus with either Caesarea Philippi or Hippos. [GLA:59-60])

There is one fact against Holding's thesis: Mark is not a strict straightforward chronology. He has no reason to add in the extra step.

Or does he? Here we have to AGREE with Holding here. I do not think a GEOGRAPHICAL error can be demonstrated here/

Mark is creating a tour through Gentile territory, not coincidentally just after the nullification of the food laws and the account with the Syrophnecian (sp?) woman. Mark tries depsarately to maximize Jesus' contact with Gentiles.

As I wrote in an article which shows limits on Marcan creativity (that needs to be updated and will when my Mark project is finished) shows plausible motive for this tour:

As Sander's and Davies noted, "The geographical summary in 7.31 seems to be confused, since Sidon is North of Tyre, and one would not go through it in order to travel from Tyre southeast to Galilee. The verse, in fact, depicts Jesus as touring a lot of Gentile territory. After reaching the region of Tyre, where the meeting with the woman took place, he traveled approximately twenty miles North to Sidon, back south to Tyre, east approximately forty miles to the area of the Decapolis, and then at least thirty miles southwest to the region to the sea of Galilee (if the last leg followed the shortest route). This trip of at least a hundred and ten miles is more than double the direct route from Tyre to Galilee. Fairly steady walking will cover approximately fifteen miles a day, and thus Mark depicts a tip of eight days or so, even without stops to heal or teach. Mark, we have just seen, places two healings in this trip. Most scholars, making the form-critical observation that within the text of the second there is no reference to time or place, take it to be an isolated story which Mark has placed in the Decapolis in order to flesh out the account." (SSG, p. 306)

As John Meier wrote, "Mark may be combining various geographical designations from his sources, or betraying his ignorance of Palestinian geography, or both. . . In any case, the itinerary is probably more theological then geographical." (MJ, VII p. 712)

It is scarcely accidental that Mark places this pericope dealing with Gentile faith directly after a nullification of the Jewish food laws. Both issues were the focal point of sharp and dividing controversy in the early church. As Meier puts it, "having declared all foods clean (and therefore having torn down a major barrier between Jews and Gentiles in 7:19), the Marcan Jesus now passes through various Gentile regions, bringing healing and food (symbolically, the salvation proclaimed by the gospel) to the pagans and thus foreshadowing the Christian mission." (MJ, VII, p. 712)

The Gospels and Paul make it cleart Jesus conducted his minsitry to Jews. Mark's paucity of Gentile related pericopes also reinforces this as he certainly would have included any he inherited.

He simply is maximizing Jesus' contact with Gentiles with this roundabout tour. Its a theological foreshadowing of the later Gentile movement. The evidence of this is the context of Mark (occurring right after the food laws and so on).

So we have one demonstrable geographical error in Mark if we accept the Gerasa one as erronious. We shall list the next commonly cited one:

Vinnie

Vinnie

The Third Error:

We have the passage then Holding's commentary:

Mark 10:1a Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan.


Holding: We know from chapter 9 that Jesus is in capernaum. Mark 9:33: 33They came to Capernaum.

Jesus then goes into Judea, which is an entire region south of Capernaum (which is in Galilee) and the Jordan is right there on the Eastern side of Judea. I don't see an error here myself. I am not even sure how anyone can think this is an error. I even wonder if Kummel actually said this!

I think what Kummel might have disputed is whether this is the first time Jesus has gone to Judea//Jerusalem as Mark narrates. There is no geographical error here, however. i would have to see a direct quote to believe Holding is accurately representing Kummel here.

We appear to be one for three, unless it can be shown that Gerasa was some mega city in the first century. I also would take any silence in the extant literature as ruling this thesis out in favor of the error scenario.

Vinnie

Vinnie

And a final error:

Mark 8:10 he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

Holding: So what's wrong here? Well, Anderson complains that Dalmanutha is not referred to anywhere else in any extant literature! Considering how little literature we DO have from the first century, this is rather silly, and very much an argument from silence! (Some have regarded this as being the same as the village of Magdala, however.)

We agree with Holding here.

So I see evidence of one and only Goegraphical error in Mark.

Are there any others?

The next time someone says "mark makes inexact statements about Palestinian Geography" correct them. Mark makes an (single) inexact statement.

How does this now effect questions of Markan authorship? Even natives of a land sometimes make inexact geographical statements? Can then, the Gerasa error rule out John Mark as the author?

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Hi Vinnie,

I remember reading a couple years ago in Nineham's commentary on Mark what was a more comprehensive list of alleged geographical goofs. This web page confirms that memory:

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/markauthor.html

It would be good to interact with Nineham (though I can't look it up anytime soon myself).

best,
Peter Kirby

Steven Carr

Let us not forget that 5 miles is regarded by Holding as a huge distance, enough to make something a totally different region.


http://www.tektonics.org/JPH_WRE2FF.html

TILL
The same verse says that the strike extended 'unto Gibeon,' which was a town located about 5 miles north of Jerusalem, so if Joshua had routed all the kings of this region and utterly destroyed all that breathed (v:40), he would have driven out and destroyed the Jebusites, who lived in and around Jerusalem...


HOLDING
This is false. Gibeon is actually approximately five miles northwest of Jerusalem, at 35 degrees, 14'30 east, while Jerusalem itself is at 35 degrees, 19'56 east. The map also shows it separated from Jerusalem by a river, a natural barrier. Our opponent desperately wishes to erase these five miles in a different direction, as well as disregard any issue of delineating georgraphical features, which would clearly exclude Jerusalem from the range between Kadesh-Barnea and Gibeon, but that geographical equivocation will not float in this ocean.

CARR
So Jerusalem is so small that five miles away is a different region, while Gerasa was such a metropolis that the region of Gerasa was up to 30 miles away.

Vinnie

I wask skimming through that. I will be discussing every incident in that paper. I have a bunch already written on Mark.

But he posed 2 geography erros, both of which were covered here already:

The Tyre one I might have fibbed on. I went back and reread Mark. This could be an error. It is still conceivble that Mark is trying to maximize Jesus' contact with Gentiles, but he narrates no details in the Tyre through Sidon. The healings Mark insets to flush out his little trip come in the decapolis area. But again, these are used to flush out the trip Mark is creating. It can't be to readily called coincidental that Jesus a) nullifies the food laws, b) meets the syropheoenicain woman, c) takes a long tour (with a zigzag) through Gentile territory, d) and then as Meier writes, Mark's two actions of Jesus include bringing healing (end of Mk 7) and food (symbolically, the salvation proclaimed by the gospel) which occurs with the feeding miracle in Mark 8.

Given Mark's other anti-Pharisee and pro-Gentile defenses (e.g. Sabbath controversy and so on) there is simply too much motive for Mark to create a "maximized" tour through Gentile territory.

Taken in itself I would call this an area. Given its place in Mark, this is not certain. That article does not address any of my objections here.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Its funny that while looking at Mark again I found this little beauty:

Mark 9:31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.

Jesus was in virtually the same spot as before and virtually just as far away from Gerasa yet Mark does not say region of Gerasa this time. He says the region of the Decapolis, which covers all that area.

Mark is definately mistaken on this first one. We have one definitve geographical error, and one potential error that simply cannot be demonstrated. I opt for an extenuated Gentile tour.


Back to my question: Its often stated that the Geography errors in Mark means John Mark, the arimaic speaking Jew of Palestine, and Peter's companion could not have written the Gospel.

Against this I note three things:

There is only one demonstrable geographical error in Mark.
I note that maps and stuff were not as common at that time as they are today.
Natives of a land sometimes make local geographical mistakes.

When taken in isolation this geographical error doesn't tell us much about Mark.

By itself it tells us that it probably wasn't written in Gerasa