Ted Hoffman

I hope we agree that whether non-HJ or HJ, it is a controversial passage so by itself, this Beelzebub controversy does not by itself stand as an obstacle against Mark being non-historical.
Not structure, imagery. I meant Psalm 37:35-6. The curse is regarded as allegoric because its impractical to curse a tree.
Turton writes that "Thomas L. Thompson (2005, p78) points out that the writer is saying that it is not the tree but Jesus who is out of season. The righteous (Israel) should be ready for the messiah whenever he comes. He also observes that Jer 24:1-10 offers a scene of two baskets of figs outside the Temple, one representing the remnant of Good people who will be taken into exile when Jerusalem is destroyed, the other representing the very bad."
And he cites Scott Brown's Mark 11:1-12:12: A Triple Intercalation? The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. Jan 2002, 64, no1, 78-89. "the imagery of a search for figs is a figure for God's search for righteous Israelites, and the image of a barren or withered fig tree is occasionally used to represent national failure as a manifestation of divine judgment"
I am sorry I dont understand your objection. Withering to its roots should describe the depth of God's wrath if we maintain the allegorical apparatus of the fig tree as Israel. That would probably be some anti Jewish polemic.
I think once you appreciate the allegorical import of the passage, the dysfunction of the myth vanishes.
Yelling at Peter can be some anti-Petrine Polemic. Turton has dealt pretty well with the Gerasene demoniac and I would be interested in seeing specific pointers to its possible historical or pre-Markan source.

Ted Hoffman

I think snobs and others who feel they are better than others at BC&H should pack their bags and go. Plain and simple. BC&H will always be open to all and sundry so long as they obey forum rules and so long as they are interested in discussion. I ignore several people at BC&H as a matter of course and I dont complain about them but I recognize that every one should be free to air their views and that some very refreshing ideas can occassionally come from outside the box.
We have had some very good people in the past, very good in Greek/Hebrew and well read on NT/OT scholarship. When they are tired of playing, they go. And BC&H continues. And when they return, they are happily received.
I was a bit saddened when Ebla went down but it is this same snotty and parochial attitude by historicists that drives them to lump together in some exclusionary enclaves where the MJ hypothesis is anathema.
By all means, lump together and form your own site. Enough of the bitching already. We need the quiet, thoughtful people, we need the radicals, the cranks and we need the loud types. That is what makes a community.

Ted Hoffman

One other thing, BC&H does not favour one school of thought over the other. We have no prior commitments to a HJ or a MJ or in-between. BC&H Its a playing field of ideas and the best idea will win. Most people here are pretty rational even if not well instructed in Biblical scholarship so if you are full of BS, you get figured out pretty soon.
Dont let the few airheads overshadow the gems we have here.

Steven Avery

However his very first point is simply wrong, being based on the corrupt minority alexandrian texts (see our recent discussion of John 5 for another example where they mess up).

And this has been discussed here in depth on IIDB.
The true Bible text has the geographically sound -

Mark 5:1-20 (KJB)
And they came over unto the other side of the sea,
into the country of the Gadarenes.

To get around this Bible consistency Turton simply declares by
fiat that "this verse is corrected". When in fact it is far more
sensible that Gerasa was well known to an Egyptian copyist far
from Galilee and they simply put in the blunder of the city whose
name they knew (perhaps working with a faded copy).
Such a minority blunder in a small number of manuscripts
makes far more sense than the Turton fiat.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

spin

There are two construction techniques in Mark, small passages collected and put into sequences, which basically end with the little apocalypse, which in itself is a complex composite, ending in the admonition to watch (it's used three times in the apocalypse). It's glued via a long transition to the single piece passion narrative, which was obviously constructed as a whole and has a repetitive oral feature of grouping things into threes (which I have posted on in the past), starting with the three disciples in Gethsemane where Jesus prays three times to when the three women come to anoint Jesus.

If we return to the bittier part of the book we find, as I said, sequences of smaller pieces, for example the two sequences which involve the separate feedings of thousands. These are certainly received stories. I doubt that the writer would have made up the two. It's more likely that he received them and accepted them as separate. He then placed them with other short pieces in parallel.

It seem rather unlikely to me that the same writer wrote the small pieces and then put them into these larger units. It is equally unlikely to me that the same writer constructed both the life of Jesus and the passion of Jesus.


spin

Malachi151

I used to buy this argument, but not after closer inspection.

First, the passion narrative:

1) The scriptural references in the passion narrative follow the same pattern as the rest of Mark, though perhaps with more density. More importantly, the passion scene ties several earlier scriptural references together, it completes references made in other parts of Mark.

2) The nature of the passion scene fits exactly the nature of the rest of Mark. The "disciples" aren't there, his last words are words of despair. This all ties in too closely with the rest of Mark to simply be a tacked on narrative.

One could argue that the author of Mark started with an existing passion narrative and then wrote everything else around it, to fit to it, but if that were the case, then what basis would one have for claiming that it were pre-existing, since the argument is that it doesn't fit, which is why it is pre-existing.

Also, the idea that the author of Mark would have been able to tie back other story elements to scriptural references in the passion scene as well as he did is not believable IMO.

Why would a pre-existing passion narrative have been so negative and so anti-Jewish?

Why would a separate passion narrative have Jesus' last words be "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"? It doesn't make any sense.

It only makes sense in the context of GMark. Surely a pre-war concept of Jesus would have had him saying something triumphant or inspirational on the cross.

Jesus' words on the cross reflect the despair of Judea after it's destruction. The whole thing only makes sense in relation to the destruction of Judea, in relation to God's "forsaking of the Jews". This means that the passion narrative in Mark didn't exist before the war, or probably even during the war, but only after the destruction of Judea was absolute.

Given that this theme runs throughout GMark, the passion narrative looks exactly like what the author of Mark would himself construct.

Secondly, as for the loves and fishes:

The fact that this is in the story twice isn't because of some poor integration on behalf of the writer, or a mindless duplication due to using two sources, etc., it was intentional on the part of the author.

First of all, I suspect that these numbers have some significance, and secondly, this is another example of Jesus giving the disciples a lesson more than once and them failing to get it. This is all intentional on the part of the author to show that the disciples are NOT heirs of the teachings of Jesus. GMark is an anti-apostolic work. Again, I suspect that the author of Mark came from the Pauline school, and thus was painting all of the other apostles as inferior or without the true message of Jesus. Paul was the "apostle to the Gentiles", GMark is a pro-Gentile work. GMark takes the Pauline side. GMark is against "the law", GMark is pro-Gentile, GMark is anti-Peter and anti-James and John. GMark alludes to Pauline phrases, such as calling the Pharisees the "bad yeast", similar to 1 Cor 5.

GMark is a post-destruction allegorical story about the destruction of Judea written by a follower of Pauline teaching, and I don't see the evidence of reliance on pre-existing narrative elements that you claim. Indeed I think quite the opposite, that all of the narrative elements were originated by the author of GMark.

Ted Hoffman

Thanks Malachi for interjecting. I was still pondering spin's post.
What is interesting (have you noticed?) is that instead of moaning and groaning about how the next poster sucks out all the joy of bebating at BC & H and wishing for a way to make all the bad apples go away, we are already onto another discussion and its picking momentum.

Ted Hoffman

I have been thinking about this. A lot. I think the idea that Mark carries anti-Petrine polemic makes sense. And it has been established quite unequivocally in my view.
But who were the apostles if there were no HJ? Remember, even Paul was struggling to legitimize his apostleship in the face of the Jerusalem group. What was it about this group that made them feel priveledged if it was not contact with a HJ?
Who was Peter without a HJ? What was to make him feel priveledged if not a favored association with a putative HJ?

The answer to this question seems to be the straw that will break the back of mythicism and if it was a HJ, then I am done with MJ hypothesis because, IMO, if these anti-Petrine guys like Paul and Mark knew or believed or suspected that these Petrine group actually invented a HJ, they could have attacked them on that point and put them to task. But they dont. Instead, Paul invents an alternative channel for "apostolic authority" and claims he got his Kerygma straight from God through revelations and the scriptures and this is the platform from which he launches his campaign. And Mark portrays Peter and company as bumbling idiots who never understood Jesus so he attacks them through literature. Mark looks askance at Peter and gang (or their heirs) strutting around boasting about a HJ and tries to hijack Jesus from them by portraying them as daft and lacking faith and Paul invents a MJ who died in an upper realm.
Two competitive reactions consistent with the existence of a HJ.

Tell me Malachi. How do we deal with this?

Malachi151

Well, that's beyond the scope of my previous post. There could have been an HJ and everything I said in my previous post would still apply.

As for what you say though, I see no problem. The Jerusalem group was simply earlier than Paul, who was a later comer, thats' all.

I think that people have too much of an idea of intentional fabrication when it comes to this issue.

There was no Mithras we can assume, and no Dionysus, etc., yet some groups of people were founders of their cults. They emerged out of somewhere, and their stories grew over time.

If Paul and Peter and James, etc., did not conceive of Jesus as a flesh and blood person, but as a messianic idea, perhaps even symbolic of the "death of messianism", or the fulfillment of messianism via some other more spiritual means, then there was no HJ to invent. Paul, Peter, James, weren't preaching an HJ at all, they didn't invent one, they didn't even conceive of one.

They were worshiping Christ the same way that people worshiped Mithras or Adonis, etc., or for that matter the way that they worshiped their own God, for surely there was no HG, or HY (Historical Yahweh).

I think that the author of Mark inadvertently invented HJ, without the intention to do so.

The author of Mark wrote a fictional story, that he invented himself drawing on a few existing elements. That story then became mistaken for history. That's my view at least. There never was an intentional fabrication of an HJ, it all just happened organically from misunderstanding, as happens many times.

What was the guy's name, a Senator from California I think, who said happy birthday or something about a character on a TV show, whom he thought was a real person. I mean this happens and these things take on a life of their own.

Malachi151

As for the two stories of the loaves and and fishes, when you look at Mark 8:14-21, it seems to me that this has something to do with feeding the Jews first and then the Gentiles.

First there are 12 baskets, then 7. Jesus says "don't you get it". Obviously someone or some group of people are falling out of favor here.

This could be talking about 12 symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel, whom God first nurtured, and then 7 representing Rome, as in the 7 hills of Rome, which is a very symbolic number for Rome and one that would have been well understood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_hills_of_Rome

So, my interpretation of this would be to say that God favored Israel first, the 12 tribes, and then Rome, the 7 hills.

Again, this falls exactly into my interpretation of Mark, and ALSO ties into the passion narrative. This is why I say that this stuff is too tightly integrated.

This is why in the passion narrative a Roman guard says "Surely this man was the son of God."

The same exact message is pounded home in GMark over and over again. God's favor is going away from the Jews and TO the Gentiles. Again, this makes prefect sense as a post-destruction allegory written by a Pauline follower.

This stuff is too symbolic and too integrated to be a collection of random stuff from pre-existing material.

P.S. Chris, is this the type of "nonsense" that you are complaining about?