karlmarx

I don't know if this is a question that has been discussed before.

Mark 13:30 says "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away before these things take place", with "these things" referring to the end days and the return of the Son of Man.

Considering that most people date Mark to be post 70CE, this sounds like a very odd thing for a MJ to say. Since Mark placed the crucifixion around 30CE, then "this generation" would have mostly gone by 70CE. Mark would be attributing an unfulfilled prophecy to a MJ, when in fact Mark could have invented something completely different. He did not have to be specific in his timing.

If on the other hand, Mark had an HJ in mind, then he could be quoting what he believed to be an actual prophecy made by the HJ (even if it turned out to be wrong). It's not clear why he would include it, though.

Either way, it's not clear why Mark would write this if he was writing post 70CE, but it seems to make a little more sense if he had an HJ in mind.

Or could this be explained some other way with the MJ hypothesis?

Toto

An easy solution: Mark was writing post 70, but intended his words to be read as applying to his own readership, not as a record of something said in 30 CE.

Chris Weimer

Or, Mark knew of people who were still alive at the time, and took the words to mean that not the whole generation will have passed away. Or perhaps Mark thought that Jesus would return soon, since it had not even been a full 40 years since the crucifixion, and the Jewish was upon Judaea from Rome. Such words would have been encouragement to those about to fight in or live through the war that destroyed the Temple.

karlmarx

That would give weight to the theory that Mark is dated to 70CE, and not much later.

Chris Weimer

It could have been written earlier - perhaps between 65 and 70. Or perhaps with the destruction of the Temple still fresh, one could push it into the early 70s, though I think I'm rather conservative and would place it late 60s to 70.

karlmarx

So one could work backwards from there, and argue that if Mark had an MJ in mind, he probably made the crucifixion take place in 30CE precisely because he could attribute such a prophecy to his MJ. If that's the case, then Christianity could have predated the conventional birth of Christ by a wide margin...

Chris Weimer

There's absolutely zero evidence of any sort of Christianity predating the 30s. Moreover, Mark most assuredly didn't have an "MJ" in mind - there's nothing in Mark which indicates that's the case, and there's no one afterwards which took Mark in that direction.

Minimalist

It's fiction. "Mark" can have him say whatever the hell he wants.

karlmarx

Yes, but why would Mark deliberately have an MJ make prophecies that hadn't come true? (Unless he referred to his readership as "this generation", or, alternatively, he wrote early and meant ALL of "this generation" to pass - as discussed above).

Chris Weimer

Mere assertion doesn't make it true.