Vinnie

The Beelzebul controversy is far more interesting in that a synopsis shows that Matthew actually appears as the middle term. Both Matthean prioritists and two source proponents consider this passage crucial to their cases.

Both Matthew and Luke reprint the accusation with the three answers and the two sayings in precisely the same order. In oral tradition we would expect more variation here so some form of written dependence is necessary.

This would confirm the necissity of a "written Q" if Q is accepted here.

There is no reason to suppose the accusation could not predate Mark or have developed independently in Q that I am aware of. One would have to show how the term Beelzebul was rarely ever used in antiquity to show that all Christian usage started with Mark on stylistic grounds and one would probably have to show this term was never applied to Jesus to begin with (which cannot be done). My problem is that you have to assumne more than you can know to make your case, however appealing and tempting it may look, Michael.

In contrast to Mk 3:22-27 Q begins with an exorcism of a dumb demoniac (Luke 11:14//Matt 12:22; 9:32).

Mark attributes remark to "scribes and pharisees"
Matthew to (tyical of him) the pharisees
Luke simply to "the opponents".

Mark treats Jesus' response as parabolic speech.
Q takes a different tack in that the response was provoked by supernatural knowledge of the thoughts of the opponents (Luke 11.17a // Matt 12:25a).

Luke and Matthew actualy agree against Mark in the wording of the response,
As noted above, Matthew even appears as the middle term.

At any rate, its even possible the name Beelzebul is simply drawn from Mark and is inserted into the Q overlapp independently by Mt and Lk. Matthew also used Beelzebul at least in one other place in his gospel (chapter 10). If he necessarily drew this from Mark then he saw fit to use it and the same can be said of Luke who already had Beelzebul in the Markan version he copied and added it to the Q version for consistency.


Maybe Q originally had "Satan"? See Q 11:18:

Luke 11:18
And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.

Also here I note Q11:15

"""But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons," """"

Is Beelzebul really the prince of demons? If no the option I just mentioned is likely. If yes then the term Beelzebul must be granted "popularity".

In Mark 3:22:"He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "by the prince of demons he casts out the demons."

Is Beelzebul and prince of demons meant to be the same person here or do they just represent multiple and varied attacks on Jesus? In both Mt and Lk Beelzebul is identified as specifically the prince of demons in the translated version of the NIV. In Mark the association is unclear to me.

But if Beelzebul is the prince of demons this term must be popular, yes?

Vinnie

Vinnie

I think, after reading Dr. Goodacre's work Michael has jumped onto the Mark without Q ship.

Mark was used by Matthew and Luke and Luke in addition to using Mark used Matthew who in turn used other sources.

So Vork would argue that Beelzebul was from Mark, Matthew expanded Mark and Luke used both.

Two source proponents argue that the existence of Q is demonstrated by the fact that Matthew clearly conflated Q wth Mark. This conflation is proved by the fact that the double tradition material is scatteed in Luke.

This comments on the whole pericope thoug (Matth 12:22-30, 9:32-34 // Mark 3:22-27 // Luke 11.14-15, 17-23 and not only the Beelzebul controversy but also the foolowing pricope (Sin against the holy spirit) in Matt 12:31-37, mark 3:28-30 and scattered in Luke 12.10; 6:43-45.

Instead we have to believe Luke read Mark 3:22-27 and 3:28-29 and he read Matt 12:22-30 and Matthew 12:21-37 and retained their general tory on certain points but then scattered bunches of it all over the place. He has the Beelzebul controversy but the next pericope in Mat and Lk follows directly whereas Luke places this a chapter later. Then he has a part of Matthew here all the way back in chapter 6 (tree and fruit).

That Matthew conflated Mark and Q here and Luke maintained Q more accurately is deemed more likely by Q proponents. The real qustion is why would Luke scatter some of this stuff if he had found it in the Matthean form we now see? Why not just repint all of it as is when he did it for th other stuff? Plausible reasons must be given for the interjection and the move.

Vinnie

PoodleLovinPessimist

It seems, then, that a key assumption for Q is that Matthew and Luke really are independent. Is there evidence for this independence? Or is it, as Vork says, an unproven axiom?

Vorkosigan

I don't understand why this is a problem. Luke had one story to tell, Matt had another. Matt is also pretty slavish following Mark, compared to Luke.

That's a good observation.

It's used only once in the NT. And none of this really addresses the fact that in Mark the Beelzebub reference refers back to other passages in Mark, but in Matt it does not.That's the key to understanding why Q depends on Mark. How else can it incorporate stylistic features of Mark?

You could argue, as you did, that someone assimilated Matt and Luke to Mark, but that's not very common in the manuscript tradition; usually Matt dominates and everything assimilates to that. With so many demons to choose from, why would Q pick Beelzebub?

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

Lack of order does not help your case in arguing Luke knew Matthew. You have to do more than vaguely write "Luke had his own story to tell". We all know this by the fact that Luke wrote his own Gospel. You have to show what Luke's story is and find out a plausible reason for why he omitted certain Matthean material and why he scattered certain things and used others. Unless, of course, you have some blockbuster proof for Lukan dependence which I tend to doubt. I think you are in the boat with the rest of us, waffling over the synoptic problem.

No solution to the synoptic problem enjoys any certainty. Boismard may be right after all!

We can defend all positions "critically". As I noted, the Q position gains some credibility in that the following appear true:

Looks like a different form of the account to me.


I just wish I could read Greek to check it myself but I don't think its worth it at this point to take that up...

[quote]It's used only once in the NT. [quote]

Whats only used once? Beelzebul appears in a Lukan pericope, a Matthean one, a Marcan one (but the beginning is at least all triple tradition material). Also, it occurs in Matthew chapter 10 separately. Plus if Q has it thats mutliple attestation of source and form. This is the issue we are discussing and therefore, this cannot serve as a valid asumption either way. Its possibility, must remain open, however.

One doesn't know how popular the term was without detailed knowledge into all the writings of the time and granted they are not complete we still can't be certain. Could be some local dialect or popular terminology in a certain city. Who knows? I don't.

There is actually a better reason for viewing Mark as the source. See Gundry p. 172 )(first paragraph).

The problem is that Beelzebul is the ruler of the demons. If Jesus was accused of using a demon to cast out demons he could independently be accuzed of working for Beelzebul granted the descriptions of this uber demon.

Check out the Testament of Solomon. There Beelzebul is mentioned about 14 times. He is called the prince of demons, ruler of the demons, the king of the demons and so on. Unfortunately this dates ca 300 A.D. though so.....

Why couldn't Q have this pericope independently? Mark may have mined Kings for Beelzebul but there is no certainty that he did here as it is not necessary to explain the account. Also the OT says nothing of Beelzebul. He is just the God of Ekron, not the prince of demons. Its apparent that Mark had more knowledge of beelzebul than can be accounted for merely by interreferences.

The literal meaning of the term may fits well with the situation with his family denying him (Jesus being beside himself which leaves him open for demonic possession) (See Gundry). If the incident with Jesus' family or another regarding Jesus, a flouter of convention!, is historical then Beelzebul is not to hard to imagine being applied. Under many reconstructions Jesus' behavior was aberrant on several fronts. Its easy to see how this sort of accusations could have arisen. That Beelzebul is sometimes explained as "the lord of dwelling (see NJBC) then this is fitting, more so with Jesus being beside hismelf in Mark.

As T.Sol says, Beelzebul is the king of the demons. This train of thought must be where the idea comes from as the NT usage calls him the prince of demons. Or rather T.Sol comes from there. Wherever, the designation as prince of demons renders him a popular and fitting demon no matter what you argue.

Also, why couldn't Mt and Lk have assimilated Q to Mark? If Beelzebul comes from Mark then Luke and Matthey may have opted to include this in their reprinting of the Q pericope. Maybe Q had "Satan" originally or some other term? Luke has both Satan and Beelzebul in the same sentence. Why?

Or why couldn't this one instance of double tradition material be deemed an shared outside non Q source? I mention this to note the necessity of cumulative evidence. Singe pieces of evidence are not convincing. They can be explained by appeal to an extra source, scribal difficulties or whatever. What is needed is a good number of redactional evidences, not one.

You also have the extreme problem furnished by this assertion:

This was an illiterate culture where scribal exegesis was lacking. The gospel was meant to be read aloud to mostly illiterate audiences. That Mark wanted his audience to hear the term Beelzebul and think back to 2 Kings is not readily apparent. Furthermore, any plausible reason why in this instance is also not readily apparent. Are other interreferences in Mark completely pointless like this one as well? You may simply be overpressing the details here---missing the forest in your study of the trees.

Furthermore, your second parallel:

With 2 Kings 1:1-8? Where is the actual parallel???? Is it supposed to be self evident?

Are you arguing by delcaration here? I do not see what you are arguing. You've thrown in some vague parallels and nothing more.There is nothing substantial here at all. WHat evidence is there that Mark is doing what you suggest?

This is not to mention that MANY commentators view Mark 2:1-12 as the first story of several of a pre-Markan miracle source that ended with plots of Jesus' death. Gundry won't agree but he does't like to have Mark (written by Peter's buddy) having such secondary sources so he specially pleads for conservatism. See Sanders. As I quoted him in my paper on Mark:

"""""E.P. Sanders writes, "Mark may not have been the first to put pericopes together to make a story. Many scholars think that the series of conflict scenes in 2.1-3.6 came to him ready-made. It is noteworthy that the conclusion (the Pharisees and the Herodians plotted Jesus' death) comes too early for the structure of the gospel as a whole. The Pharisees and Herodians are reintroduced nine chapters later (Mark 12:13), where they are said to be trying to entrap Jesus. Historically it is not likely that the fairly minor conflicts in Mark 2.1 - 3.5 actually led to a plot to put Jesus to death (3:6), and editorially it is not likely that Mark himself created the plot where it now stands in 3:6, only to reintroduce a weaker version of opposition from these two parties in 12.13. The most likely explanation of 3.6 is that the conflict stories of 2.1-3.5 had already been put together and that they immediately preceded a story of Jesus' arrest, trial and execution. That is, a previous collection--a proto gospel-- may have consisted of conflict stories, a plot against Jesus, and the successful execution of the plot." [7]"""""

Section 3c.
http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/mark.html


Editorally the plot to kill Jesus comes WAY to early for the gospel with these conflicts. What we probably have here is a set of pre-Markan conflict stories that were part of a proto gospel in their own right.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Not really, because I have no unsupported axioms in my position, unlike yours. Lukan Independence of Matthew is a position that descends from apologetics, whose purpose is to provide additional witnesses to the Jesus story.

Sure it is different. So what? Vinnie, what here militates against Luke's dependence on Matthew? Lukan independence is an unproven axiom. If you give it up, the Synoptic problem clarifies at once.

Let's take a look at 3:20-30 (RSV)

My bad, I meant Beelzebub appears once in the OT. Sorry! Mark obviously wants us to go back and look.

Sorry. Gundry's judgments are usually so bad I don't pay them much attention. I'll check that.

Arrgh! I've not been clear. The reference Beelzebub points to two other places in Mark! Not to Markan knowledge about other documents! The idea of interreference means that Mark cites or points to passages that he parallels elsewhere in his Gospel. For example, where he "errs" with "David" followed by "Abiathar" he is pointed to the Gethsemane scene, which he parallels with 2 Sam 15-17, in which David sends Abiathar to Jerusalem with the Ark of the Covenant. That's a feature in about a dozen other places in Mark.

I have no doubt that Mark was familiar with Jewish traditions about demons and Beelzebub. But the point is that this god/demon is mentioned just once in the OT, in 2 Kings 1. What a coincidence that that passage shows up twice in Mark, eh? When Mark cites the OT he wants you to go back and look.

It's fiction. The demon charge is vintage Markan irony, in which his enemies identify the correct situation unknowingly. Just as in Mark 15 where the Roman soldiers mock him as king, or in Mark 12 where the Bad Guys identify him as the True Teacher and think they are insulting but are actually telling the truth. In this case the bad guys say:"he is possessed." Well, that's true -- Jesus IS possessed -- by God. Remember? Mark's Christology is Adoptionist....

On the structural level the pericope presents a simple chreia with the setting: You're possessed! and Jesus showing off his wit: How can Satan cast out Satan?.

This train of thought follows a misunderstanding...

You're just piling up auxiliary hypotheses to support the rickety platform of Q and Lukan independence. Imagine this without the axiom of Lukan independence. There's no Q. Luke knows both Mark and Matt, and adjusts accordingly. I have no idea why Luke added Satan but that addition does not mean anything as far as Markan priority here is concerned. If Mark is first, Satan is added. If Q is first, Satan is added. The addition of
Satan means nothing either way.

Evidence is not the problem here, Vinnie. It's the assessment of the evidence that has gone awry, because that assessment is based on the entirely unsupported axiom that Luke does not know Matt.

Actually, no. We have 10-13 other instances of Mark citing a passage he parallels elsewhere in his Gospel. We've now established a habit of Mark. He picked the name "beelzebub" because it is his style to point to places in the OT he uses elsewhere in his gospel.

I'm sorry, Vinnie. I don't know what to say. "That Mark wanted his audience to hear the term Beelzebul and think back to 2 Kings is not readily apparent.' Vinnie, when you watch movies, do you catch all the jokes and references? Did you spot the Illuminati references in Star Wars and Toy Story 2? Did you catch the allusion to Jesus' birth in the last paragraph of Slaughterhouse-5? Do you think every viewer who enjoys The Fifth Element catches all the references to Blade Runner? In the real world, clever writers operate on many levels, and duller interpreters struggle to catch up with them, using wooden interpretation schemes like "Mark was meant to be read aloud to illiterates so he can't have many levels of meaning."

Yes, the gospel was meant to be read aloud to illiterates. It was also meant to be read by Those Who Know. The genius of Mark is that he addressed both audiences. Edward Hobbs, who is a great interpreter of mark, wrote on B-Greek a few years back:

"Mark writes with remarkable attention to his wording! He is often accused of writing poor Greek, and/or of woodenly reproducing his sources. On the contrary, IMHO, he builds theme after theme upon careful choice of words, a characteristic which is usually missed. The commonest reason for missing it, I believe, is that most readers today know Mark in their own language (English or whatever), and then when they read Mark in Greek, are constantly "translating" in their minds, missing the distinctive features of his Greek text. One aspect of this arises from the fact that few of us grow up reading the LXX as our OT--we read it in English, and then some of us learn Hebrew and read it in that language, but ignore the OT in the language used by Mark. Hence, we seldom catch the frequent-in-Mark quotations, allusions, and hints of the OT text, all of which are essential to understand his full meaning."

I thought it was! The parallel consists of a "normal" parallel and an inverted parallel.

The paralytic is lowered through a roof on a pallet
The king falls through a lattice and is lying on his bed sick

inverted parallel
The paralytic has faith in Jesus and is healed
The king has no faith in God and dies.

None, Vinnie. it's probably just a coincidence that Beelzebub occurs 1 in the OT and points to a passage that Mark seems to be paralleling in 2:1-12 and 1:1-8.

I have. As usual, he offers no methodology to support his claims.

As I quoted him in my paper on Mark:

Sanders is wrong. Mark invented all of these.

<howls with laughter> It comes right on schedule. The Gospel is an enormous chiasm and the set of five conflict stories and 1 parable parallels the second set later in the gospel. Mark is not a "story" in the sense that there is any time or place in this story, it is merely a set of episodes, loosely connected, in the usual Hellenistic style. Sanders has not sufficiently explored Mark if he believes this is true. I've not yet mapped out chiasm in its entirety.

Another error as Mark actually reintroduces them in Mark 8.

No shit. That's why they call it "fiction."

What we have here is a fantasy of source criticism. The first conflict story, 2:1-12, is replete with Markan elements, including massive crowds, a miracle healing (based on the proclamation in Isa 35:3-6, which Mark will cite directly later in the Gospel,and directly taken from 2 King 1:1-8), and sly Markan irony: although the pharisees accuse Jesus of working on the Sabbath, they immediately go out and plot -- on the Sabbath. That's fiction, Vinnie. These stories were invented by Mark. On the structural level, 2:1-12 has a class A-B-A' chiastic structure, also common in Mark. Every level shows Markan elements. There's no source there.

Moving on to the next conflict story, 2:13-17, another classic Markan invention. 2:14 doubles 1:16 which Mark invented off of the Elijah-Elisha Cycle (the Greek is the same). No source, just Markan invention. More Markan irony -- a tax collector named Levi, the tribe of the priests? <slaps thigh> That's a classic Markan joke. Then the conflict story ends with a Cynic riposte -- it's typical chreia again, with the setting: "Why are you eating with those guys?" and the response "Physicians attend patients without catching fever" -- a Cynic line. Of course, "righteous" here is Markan irony as well, as Jesus hasn't come for the "righteous" -- scribes and pharisees who are normally seen as righteous -- because they want to kill him! Thus 2:17 sets up 3:6 and far from being out of order, is neatly composed in the best Markan fashion. Some interpreters can dance in step with Mark, others he leaves behind. Sanders is one of the two-left-footed ones.

Then we have the bridegroom and wisdom sayings, the former related to similar passages in the OT, the latter with parallels in the rabbinical writings. More Markan invention.

Then we have 2:23-8, which is pure Mark, containing interreferences to later passages (David and Abiathar), Pharisees who disappear after the first question, a conflict that is not a conflict (Jesus commits no Sabbath violation), and a hack on the disciples, attracting censure for their teacher.

All this ends in 3:1-6, obviously ripped off from the OT (not from a proto-gospel source, how utterly comical to posit that when 1 Kings 13 accounts for the whole story!), and then the Markan redaction that includes the pharisees and Herodians. You see, in the chiasm that is Mark's gospel, the Herodian/Pharisee combo shows up 3 times -- in Mark 3, 8, and 12. And Mark 12 is the chiastic parallel of Mark 3, while Mark 8 is the center of the Gospel. What a coincidence, eh? Hmmm....too early? No, it is that you are relying on interpreters who have never explored the underlying literary structures of Mark and thus clod-like imagine that they are looking at a simple story that Mark has cobbled together out of sources, but the reality is that Mark is a genius who has carefully structured his gospel. Apologists looking for reality won't find it because it isn't there. And that is what Sanders is doing.

Let me leave you with Hobbs' words again:

"Mark writes with remarkable attention to his wording! He is often accused of writing poor Greek, and/or of woodenly reproducing his sources."

The "woodenness" is not in Mark, but in his interpreters.

Vorkosigan

Killer Mike

This is known as the "Synoptic Problem". The entire Gospel of Mark if found within Mathew, Luke, and John. Mathew and Luke also drew upon not only Mark but Q in composing their Gospels. Im no scholar but I did take a couple of New Testament courses at the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate. I would recommend "History and Literature of Early Christianity" by Helmut Koester. Koester is professor Emeritis of New Testament Studies at Harvard.

Vorkosigan

Thanks, Mike. That's a great book, a favorite of many posters here. Peter Kirby, whose www.earlychristianwritings.com website you many know, recommends it highly.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

Before starting into your post, do you have a listing of all the interreferences? I'd like to check them out.

Vinnie

andrewcriddle

One particular problem with making the reference to Beelzebub an intentional reference to 2 Kings Chapter 1 is that it would not be picked up by the Greek readers and hearers of Mark.

In the Septuagint the Hebrew Baal-Zebub is represented in a translated form BAAL MUIAN ie Baal of Flies, I don't think a user of the Septuagint would recognise the underlying Hebrew.

(There is actually another problem here the Greek in the Gospels is BEELZEBOUL or BEEZEBOUL the relation to Baal-Zebub is not clear. The point is complicated by the suspicion that the original pagan god was probably called Baal-Zebul with Baal-Zebub a derogatory distortion.)

In the 'Testament of Solomon' we have a clear reference to Beezebul as the one and only ruler of demons. The problem is that the surviving form of the 'Testament of Solomon' has clearly been rewritten by Christians on the basis of a Jewish model. The role of Beezebul is so central that some of it the material about him probably goes back to the original Jewish work. However other parts (such as Beezebul being subject to Emmanuel) are almost certainly Christian making it hard to use this material as a reliable source for pre-Christian demonology.

Andrew Criddle