Vinnie

Stemming out of the other thread. I added some things and formalized them a bit...

About 10 lines of evidence that Papias reference applies to our Mark. Taken together they provide an iron clad case:

http://www.vincentsapone.com/writings/papiasmark.html

Vinnie

JoeWallack

JW:
I must confess Vinnie that your Methodology here is just as rock solid as it was in your classic "Was Jesus Gay (not that there's anything wrong with that)?" article.

Stephen Carlson is already promoting it:

http://www.hypotyposeis.org/weblog/

so it must be good. Looks like I don't need to argue with Ben any more about Mark's depiction of Peter or use "Mark" any more to refer to Mark. Thanks.



Joseph

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

spin

spin

Vinnie

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Vinnie

I wrote an article once about Mark's negative portrayal of the disciples and cited every instance I could find. A more holistic approach to Mark has led me to reject much of this. It would run against the entire grain of the gospel to have the twelve and especially Peter as failures. Mark might jab them here and there but the Jesus of Mark hardly appears capable of choosing twelve followers, one of which betrays him and all the rest are dunderheads and completely fail at the task which he appointed them. This would make all of Jesus' work here a failure... that is something the gospel of Mark does not appear capable of permitting.

Vinnie

JoeWallack

JW:
"Mark's" thematic style is Irony, Rejection by "Family" is a priMary theme and the author says it fulfills Prophecy. And I think I also read something about The Reader reading something. But why are you still trying to conVince me if I said I Am already convinced?



Joseph

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

JoeWallack

Vinnie, now that I Am recently Converted to believing that Peter is behind the Gospel Mark, there is still one thing bothering me. You would agree with me that the most important thing Mark wants to Witness is that Jesus was resurrected. However, within this Gospel Peter is portrayed as the arch-type for Negative disciple behaviour, is identified by Jesus as Satan, doesn't believe a resurrection Jesus showed him in front of his face, serves as the Exemplar denier via 3-Pete formula, abandons Jesus to fulfill prophecy, does not witness Jesus' Passion, is never mentioned again in the Gospel and we are never Explicitly told that Peter so much as knew anything that happened to Jesus after he flew the chicken coop.

So, with Peter behind this Gospel and presumably using it primarily to convince people that Jesus was resurrected, why is there nothing in Peter's Gospel here Explicitly saying that Peter was in some way Witness to Jesus' resurrection? Even worse, what about when this Gospel is read and Peter is not around to supplement it?

I just can not think of any reason why Peter would not make it known in his Gospel that he was a Witness to a resurrected Jesus.


Joseph

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

Gamera

Doesn't this accord with the "arc" of Peter's character, from pushy lunkheaded disciple to humble servant? If the Gospel drew attention to Peter's personal experience of the resurrected Jesus, it could be considered almost like bragging, given his prior denials and utter lack of understanding of Jesus' mission. At the very least it would be self-serving.

The author of 1 Peter seems interested in the state of humility, in contrast with other emotional states, which aren't conducive to Christian piety. Even if it isn't our Peter, it suggests that the author thought our Peter would emphasize humility. And isn't it appropriate for a humbled Peter to recede into the background with the other Apostles at the accomplishment of Jesus' goal?

Vorkosigan

Mark is a second century text. The writer is familiar with Josephus, both Wars and perhaps antiquities. The writer appears to know that a statue was installed in the temple, and that it is a statue of Jupiter Capitolinus. Mark most likely dates from after 130.


No one is multiplying texts. The question is not whether Papias' Mark is our Mark, but whether Papias knows what he is talking about when he refers to a gospel that is constructed by a writer named Mark based on what Peter told him. Since the current gospel is clearly neither Petrine (it's Pauline and reveres Paul) nor "out of order" nor based on some oral transmission, but is rather a fiction crafted out of the old testament and greek fiction conventions, it is clearly not something handed down to the writer.

No, it is simple. Someone said "here's a gospel" and someone else said "Oh, this must be the one Mark wrote."

As for Papias' dates, I am rather agnostic on that.

Whether Justin knew Mark has nothing to do with whether Papias knows what he is talking about. Which he clearly does not.

Yes, and as we know, people who are pushing a religion always tell the truth about how the received information, who they got it from, and what they received. The problem is that the text they describe is not a Petrine text.


That the second century Church fathers thought Mark had composed things based on Peter simply shows they had no clue as to the origin of these texts. That is why nothing they say on the topic of their own origins can be taken seriously.

...even Eusebius heaps scorn on Papias.


In other words, Papias is not referring to a text he actually knows something about.

That's just plain reaching. Who on earth would state: I've read the sources, and now I am going to write a disorderly account....it's the kind of stock opening parodied by Lucian in a True History, when he states that he is writing of things that no one has seen or heard of, and thus he must not be believed.

The fascinating thing here is the double standard employed. Had some mythicist made an argument based on a ghostly one-word hit, he'd be lambasted for being credulous....but let a one word correspondence support some argument for the antiquity of Mark....

Not "paradoxically."

....that he had no clue what he was talking about -- if indeed he ever said this -- is also undeniable. here's what he says about himself:

"I will not hesitate to add also for you to my interpretations what I formerly learned with care from the Presbyters and have carefully stored in memory, giving assurance of its truth. For I did not take pleasure as the many do in those who speak much, but in those who teach what is true, nor in those who relate foreign precepts, but in those who relate the precepts which were given by the Lord to the faith and came down from the Truth itself. And also if any follower of the Presbyters happened to come, I would inquire for the sayings of the Presbyters, what Andrew said, or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples, and for the things which other of the Lord's disciples, and for the things which Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, were saying. For I considered that I should not get so much advantage from matter in books as from the voice which yet lives and remains."

We know that the Mark we have is not a gospel dictated by Peter. We know that John and Matthew did not witness anything; they too wrote their gospels by copying and forging. Therefore Papias is lying. He doesn't know of any tradition; he is simply making it up. Most likely he lived in the mid second century and made up shit in the best Greco-Christian fiction tradition, that was so common at that time in and out of Xtianity. It's incredible that these obvious lies from an obvious liar are treated with so much credulity.

If anyone had really thought that Papias knew people who knew Jesus, why the frack were his writings ever lost? Five volumes? Yes, and if you ask Lucian, he saved the best stuff for the third book of A True History.

No doubt he was talking about our current canonical Mark. No doubt, too, he had no idea what he was saying, and was saying it at a much later date.

Michael

Vorkosigan

Let's go into this further.

"I'm credible." Doesn't your bullshit alarm go off? Papias is a character someone invented in the best Greek storytelling style. When someone insists they are speaking truth, that's a signal of tall-tale convention.

"Those who hear the truth with pleasure..." An echo of the disputed passage in Josephus? Heck it's a one-word hit!

"Hey, I'm a truth teller by nature. I can't lie."

Question: in order to accept this passage as truth, we would have to accept that all of these people actually lived. Is that what you believe?

Papias is a made-up character -- god knows when, but probably mid-second century, when this stuff was common.

Michael