JoeWallack

JW:
I would like to take another look at the Jewrassic Pork story of Mark 5:1-21 because while other Threads at II have touched on various aspects of this story they have done so somewhat indirectly leaving me unsatisfied regarding the potential of this story to Demonstraight:

1) The likely original location per "Mark" is Gerasa which would be a significant geographical error.

2) Subsequent Editors changed "Mark's" location to try and reduce/eliminate the geographical error.

3) A possible source for "Mark's" Jewrassic Pork story is Josephus.

A disturbing connection for the objective scholar here is that Christianity, the Institution which Transmitted "Mark" to us, seems to have placed all its effort in trying to make "Mark's" Jewrassic Pork story be taken as History and no effort in trying to understand it as Fiction even though we can be absolutely certain that the story is Fiction.

First, the story:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_5

"1 And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes.

2 And when he was come out of the boat, straightway there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,

3 who had his dwelling in the tombs: and no man could any more bind him, no, not with a chain;

4 because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame him.

5 And always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones.

6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him;

7 and crying out with a loud voice, he saith, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure thee by God, torment me not.

8 For he said unto him, Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man.

9 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he saith unto him, My name is Legion; for we are many.

10 And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

11 Now there was there on the mountain side a great herd of swine feeding.

12 And they besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.

13 And he gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered into the swine: and the herd rushed down the steep into the sea, [in number] about two thousand; and they were drowned in the sea.

14 And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they came to see what it was that had come to pass.

15 And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was possessed with demons sitting, clothed and in his right mind, [even] him that had the legion: and they were afraid.

16 And they that saw it declared unto them how it befell him that was possessed with demons, and concerning the swine.

17 And they began to beseech him to depart from their borders.

18 And as he was entering into the boat, he that had been possessed with demons besought him that he might be with him.

19 And he suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and [how] he had mercy on thee.

20 And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how at things Jesus had done for him: and all men marvelled.

21 And when Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto the other side, a great multitude was gathered unto him; and he was by the sea."


JW:
Note that this story is dominated by the Impossible. It would be difficult to claim any historical kernel here. What would it be? Jesus once had bacon for breakfast at a Bet and Breakfast?

And now the Textual Witness from the late, great Metzger Textual Commentary (help by JW in "[ ]"):

"5.1 Γερασηνῶν [Gerasa] {C} [Difficult]

Of the several variant readings, a majority of the Committee preferred Γερασηνῶν [Gerasa] on the basis of

(a) superior external evidence (early representatives of both the Alexandrian and Western types of text), and

(b) the probability that Γαδαρηνῶν [Gadara] is a scribal assimilation to the prevailing text of :Matthew (8.28), and that Γεργεσηνῶν [Gergesenes] is a correction, perhaps originally proposed by :Origen (see the comment on Mt 8.28). The reading of W (Γεργυστήνων) [Gergusienon] reflects a scribal :idiosyncrasy.

{C} {C} The letter {C} indicates that the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text."

Metzger, B. M., & United Bible Societies. 1994. A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition; a companion volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) . United Bible Societies: London; New York

[Manuscript Abbreviations http://www.bibletexts.com/abbrev.htm#s]

"Γερασηνῶν [Gerasa]

א* [Sinaiticus original]

B [Vaticanus]

D [Bezae]

it [Old Latin]

vg [Vulgate]

copsa [Coptic Sahidic]

Γαδαρηνῶν [Gadara]

A [Alexandrinus]

C [Ephraemi]

K

syrp, h

Γεργεσηνῶν [Gergesenes]

אc [Sinaiticus corrected]

L

Δ

Θ

f 1

syrs

"


JW:
Thus the Textual Witness is that "Gerasa" is likely original.



Josephus

STORY, n.
A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Steven Avery

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack The likely original location per "Mark" is Gerasa which would be a significant geographical error.

And this claim is simply an absurd usage of lectio difficilior to try to force an error - by changing the historic Bible. (This abuse of lectio difficilior I have discussed in some posts here.) Combined with the darlings of lectio difficilior, the alexandrian texts, Aleph and B.

The majority of textual evidence supports the historic Bible reading of Mark which has no geographical difficulties whatsover (notwithstanding last ditch skeptic fallback attempts on IIDB). And of course it makes a lot more sense that an Alexandrian/Egyptian copyist (perhaps working with a worn copy) would make the error, simply because Gerash was a well-known city.

More info at..

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messia...c/message/7254
Gerasenes (Jerash) - modern version blunder in Mark 5:1 and Matthew

JW is up to the old skeptic anti-NT trick that he uses again and again.
(see the errancy wiki for another example)

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Matthew_1:7
Matthew 1:7

So if you insist on the textual mishegas that elevates corrupt,
errant Aleph and B as the textual base of the NT then finding
errors in the New Testament is simply a duckshoot.

That is why JW tries so hard to have his readers not accept the
historic NT Bible (Textus Receptus and the English received text,
the King James Bible). Caveat emptor.

And that is why it is good to study and understand the mistaken
paradigms of 'modern textual criticism'. It was studying the multiple
fallacies of this field that led me away from using the modern versions
and to accept the received texts, the pure and perfect word of God.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Solo

absoluely, shmabsolutely....

Gerasa, Gadara, what's the dif ...Mark would have placed the story where he thought fit.

I presume this was the original tale.

A little bit of editorializing to make it seem that HJ & the GD-man never met before. It is made to seem the demoniac spent a long time in the cemetary being confined there by his demons.

'diapantos' is an insert, but the note of his reversed sleeping patterns (nuktos kai hemeras) was likely part of the original tale before Mark.

Original tale ! (perhaps without the address form)

Mark's inserts this as a smokescreen, to deny that Jesus knew the man and was responsible for his condition.

The plural is faked but the request seems original. Gundry notes that the pattern of the "man speaking" continues even though the plurality of spirits has been revealed. Note that logically v.10 follows 7. The man likely wanted to be rid of Jesus' instruction to remain in the cemetery (more specifically in a tomb out of which he broke in terror).

This is a secondary accretion to the story, which may have been handed to Mark as the rendering of the man's hallucinations.

The 13. looks like a hypnotic suggestion made by Jesus to the man - again concretizing the swine. Herdsmen created by Mark to spread the news of the drowned herd.

This is likely mostly the original narrative. Jesus was able to restore the man to his right mind. The townsfolk would beseech Jesus to depart from their neighbourhood despite his feat, because they were all too aware that Jesus not only restored the man but caused his hallucinations by the tomb magic in the first place.

Part of the original tale also: Jesus did not allow the demoniac to join his troop because the man broke his initiatory ordeal.

There is nothing Impossible in the story if you know how to read it and correlate it with other material in the gospels. That Mark would tell a tale that somehow had another one embedandbreakfasted in it (and nota bene one that has very interesting similarities with John's Lazarus) is very unlikely to be a coincidence.

BTW, are you aware of this ? A tablet currently at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, dating to 50 AD, was sent from Nazareth to Paris in 1878. It contains an inscription known as the "Ordinance of Caesar" that outlines the penalty of death for those who violate tombs or graves. However, it is suspected that this inscription came to Nazareth from somewhere else (possibly Sepphoris). Do we know of anyone else in that area, about that time, who it could possibly relate to ? Any particular people that we know who had a fixation with an empty tomb?

Jiri

Clivedurdle

That is a direct challenge to Augustus, and probably the point of the story. I am tired of this continuous repetition of the myth of "the imperial cult" as if it was something unimportant.

Why is that Roman games -

(Johnson)

- started by parading the statue of the emperor through the ring?

Ben C Smith

I have a transcription and translation of this inscription on my site.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

Was the term Caesar used without specifying which one?

spin

If you clicked Ben C's link you'd find out that it did, which in itself is rather strange, because you'd expect the official name of the emperor of the time.


spin

JoeWallack

if u ever want to c joewallack (post) again send 2000 "Mark"ed bills to toto c/o II



anonymous author

S.C.Carlson

The inscription is indeed strangely fascinating, and I'd like to know of others in which the Emperor's name is not provided.

What is known about the provenance of this inscription? Where was it discovered, and who discovered it?

Stephen

Clivedurdle

I had, and that is what I am questioning - might this be a fake?