Vorkosigan

It is, Ted. Psalm 118 is a Hallel Psalm celebrating Simon Maccabaeus' entry into Jerusalem. In the NT it represents Jesus in his triple role of King, Messiah, and High Priest (as Simon was). Here's a discussion of it.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

See my post above. I just want to add that there is a double link here, because the A-A' also contains a warning about the scribes in Mark.

No, because chiasms occur in consecutive order, so widely scattered verses can't be linked. Also, I only "found" one of these, the discussion of the bodies. Donahue and Harrington (sacra Pagina Mark) pointed out that a solid block of Romans (13:1-10) is reproduced in Mark in two pericopes that are separated by another. In my notes from somewhere else I saw that the middle pericope, with the discussion of the resurrection, was also connected to Paul, to 1 Cor. I smelled something, but didn't know what. Then I saw the scribes and Psalm 118 on one side, and the scribes and Psalm 110 on the other. Both 118 and 110 are about Simon Maccabaeus -- the thematic links between 12:10 and 12:35-7 are clear in Mark.

I now had the brackets, the A-A' section, and the B-B' section, but what was the C? I read 1 Cor 15:12-14 and realized that it linked perfectly to the angel bodies Jesus was yakking about. That was C-C'. 12:24 didn't fit until I realized what Mark had done (laughed my head off at him, the bastard.)

Now we had a citation of Psalm 110 at the end that also occurs in 1 Cor 15. I had outsiders, scholars, who had recognized all of this chiasm except the angel bodies discussion, but had never stitched it together.

It might be.

No, but the chiasm has to have come from the hand of Mark. Mark deliberately composed this.

No, the date of writing is not important. They may have been written at different times, but Mark used them all at the same time.

Same to you! T&M to start arriving soon. I was hijacked by this chiasm yesterday.

Michael

Vorkosigan

I've piled up a long list. Problem is, as Doherty pointed out on JM when I posted part of it, you can dismiss them with the usual claims of oral tradition, common cultural patterns, etc. For example, "Abba, Father" is found in Mk 14:36 and Gal 4:6. But ancient Jews used to pray to Abba, Father.....so it can be explained by common traditions. But the chiasm really sinks it, in my mind.

Michael

Toto

Who thought that Paul's letters were scripture? Marcion. Is "Mark" based on Marcion? Marcion's gospel also included proto-Luke - does this mean that Mark based his work on proto-Luke, validating Yuri's theory that "Luke" was the first gospel?

Vorkosigan

It took some time, but I finally got the middle part correct. My D structure there isn't quite detailed enough. The structure is quite complex. Here it is:

A Mark 12:10 (Romans 8:31)
...B Mark 12:13-17 (Romans 13:1-7)
.....C Mark 12:18 (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)
.......D-A Chreia A: Whose wife is she, anyway? (Setting)
.......D-B Mk 12:24: Jesus says you don't know the Scriptures and God's Power
.....C' Mark 12:25 (1 Corinthians 15:35-50)
.......D'-B' Jesus says the dead are raised, and cites Scriptures: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"?
.......D'-A' Chreia A': You yammerheads! He's the God of the living, not the Dead! (response)
...B' Mark 12:28-34 (Romans 13:8-10)
A' Mark 12:35-7 (1 Corinthians 15:25-26)

It resembles the A-B-B'-A' structure at the heart of the Crucifixion scene in Mark. The writer has even shoehorned in a Chreia structure here, quite intense.

Now that I've sussed this out, I don't think there can be any doubt. Mark directly knew the writings of Paul.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

My view is that Marcion didn't have Luke. He had Mark. Mar(c) = Marcion.

Ted Hoffman

Thanks.
But thats the broader picture. How is "if God is for us, who can be against us" about the same thing/meaning as "the stone that the builderd rejected has become the corner stone"?

So I am incorrect to think that you meant to represent verses from Corinthians and Romans as part of a Chiasm.

You are arguing that Mark used Paul. We know Mark used chiastic structures. Now, how and why is the chiasm part of your argument about Markan usage of Paul? - unless you arge arguing that Paul also used chiastic structures - which you are not.

I think it got me confused. Why not just use something like: "Mark used Paul. Heres how: he lifted the idea/passage in Mark 12:12 from Romans 8 as I show here" etc etc. I think if the Chiasmas are left out of the argument, I'd see it more clearly and not be distracted by the structure. But maybe thats just me.

Hmmm...?

Vorkosigan

It's not. They are two citations of the same Psalm, is all.

Hmmm......hang on.

Let's bounce back to the beginning. Here's the six parts of this chiasm:

Mk 12:10-11 Jesus is the Cornerstone
Mk 12:13-17 Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's
Mk 12:18-23 Sadduccees deny resurrection
Mk 12:25-27 Discussion of What Bodies will be like in Heaven
Mk 12:28-34 Commandment to Love
Mk 12:35-7 How can the Lord be the Son of David?

Inside this chiasm there are two other structures, one is the chreia setting/response of "Well? Whose wife is she?"/He's the God of the Living!" The other is the dual reference to scripture. We'll set those aside for consideration.

Let's start with some basic considerations. A chiasm is simply a cascade of nested structures. It is like a carpet rolling out, A-B-C, and then it rolls back up C'-B'-A'. Or maybe it rolls out A-B-C and then rolls up as B'-A'. There are many forms. The parts of the chiasm can be related in various ways: conceptually, linguistically, etc. Sometimes Mark uses keywords. A characteristic feature is that the interior is more complex than the outside.

Here in 12:10-12:37 the A and A' contain two items. The first is a citation of a Psalm.

A = Psalm 118.
A' = Psalm 110.

The link is dual here. First, it is Psalms that are cited. Second, both of these Psalms are about Simon Maccabaeus.

The second item in the A-A' bracket is a warning about the Bad Guys.

A = "they" want to kill Jesus
A = beware the scribes

So our complete A-A' looks like

A = Psalm 118 + bad guy mention
A' = Psalm 110 + bad guy mention

The confusion comes in the B and B' section.

Mk 12:13-17 Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's
Mk 12:18-23 Sadduccees deny resurrection
Mk 12:25-27 Discussion of What Bodies will be like in Heaven
Mk 12:28-34 Commandment to Love

If you just look at Mark, there is no relationship between the parts:

B=Mk 12:13-17 Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's
B'= Mk 12:28-34 Commandment to Love

There is neither opposition nor complementation here.

But what if we go to the source of B and B'? What do we find?

B = Romans 13:1-7
B' = Romans 13:8-10

Now is the relationship clear? The writer is making a chiasm out of his sources, not out of his surface events. The two passages in B are consecutive passages in Romans 13.

Similarly, if we look at C and C', what jumps out is that both are taken from 1 Cor 15.

C = 1 Cor 15:12-14
C' = 1 Cor 15:35-50

But the writer of Mark wasn't through with us. Psalm 118 is also cited in Romans 8. And even better, Psalm 110 is cited in 1 Cor 15 in v25, right between the two cited blocs of material: This yields a beautiful chiasmic structure:

A = Romans 8
B = Romans 13
C = 1 Cor 15
C' = 1 Cor 15
B = Romans 13
A = 1 Cor 15

The thing only gets complicated because Mark, with his usual flair, inserted an ABB'A' chiasm in the D-D' part in the center, just because he likes to, the bastard. The same structure is found in the chiasm in Mark 15 as well.

Hope this clarifies. The neat thing about this chiasm is that it only makes sense if you consider the sources. The writer was sending a message to us about what scripture means, for he has bracketed Jesus quote about scripture within the Pauline cites. If you go back to the scripture cites, you get:

X 12:10: (Jesus) Have you not read this scripture:

Y 12:19: "Teacher, Moses wrote:

X 12:24: Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?

X 12:26: And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses

Y 12:28: And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"

X 12:35-6: And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, "How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? 36: David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared,

Look how Jesus actions and Markan keywords structure this sequence. Jesus cites Scripture four times, each time sandwiching scripture being quoted back at him. Scribe, writing, and scripture are keywords throughout the sequence. See why I admire Mark so much? He's a genius with artful literary structures.

There's a similar structure in Mark 2:1-12, where Mark uses keywords to signal his structure. Here is the structure in the center of an ABCB'A' chiasm:

my son sins are forgiven due to faith
scribes question in their hearts
blasphemy who can forgive but god!
Why do you question thus in your heart?
which is easier, to forgive sins or say rise?
so you know the son of man has authority to forgive sins

read it carefully. here are the keywords:

forgiven
hearts
forgive
heart
forgive
know

From that you can work out that the middle pattern is CDCDCD. <sigh of pleasure>

Hope this helps

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

I just added this to my website:

Look how Jesus' actions and Markan keywords structure this sequence. Jesus cites Scripture and names it as "Scripture" four times. Each time when Jesus names and cites Scripture, he is sandwiching scripture being quoted back at him by someone else. The keywords that tie together the sequence are clear even in the English translation: scribe, writing, and scripture are keywords throughout the sequence. And yet, underneath this, the scripture being cite is Paul. And in case you still didn't get what the writer is trying to tell you, this is the first time in the Gospel that the word "scripture" appears. And there it is, on Jesus' lips, citing a "scripture" that occurs in both Paul and Mark, in a section which consists of discussions of what scripture says.

How much more does it take? Convinced yet?

andrewcriddle

I've got two separate queries here.

a/ The argument about Psalms 110 and 118 seems to require not only that they are in fact related by being connected to Simon Maccabeus (which may or may not be true) but that Mark was aware of this connection (which seems rather unlikely)

b/ How far could the argument be rewritten to say that Mark and Paul both draw on the same early list of 'Scriptures about Christ' ?

Andrew Criddle