Newton's Cat

Mark 6

1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.

2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

3 Is not this man the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Judas, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?

Verse 3 continues with "And they were offended at him"

When I first read this I thought: "Why on earth should they be offended at him?"

My mind thought back to Chapter 3:

31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.

32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.

33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren?

34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!

35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

This appears to be the continuation of Chapter 6 - which has somehow got out of place.

Now one can insert:

"And they were offended at him"

... and follow this with verse 30 in Chapter 3:

Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

... which makes NO sense as a continuation from verse 29.

On giving this matter further study I came to the conclusion that the splitting up of the text was DELIBERATE !!!

The questions to be asked are:

Why were his sisters in the synagogue but his mother and brothers were not? And why didn't they come in? Why call to him from outside?

The answer is, I think, because his mother and brothers were NOT ALLOWED IN ... but his sisters were.

There is a clue here as to who Jesus' real father was.

Also:

Chapter 1 has been altered:

29 And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

30 But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever; and anon they tell him of her.

31 And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.

It originally read:

29 And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into his house.

30 But his wife's mother lay sick of a fever; and anon they tell him of her.

31 And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.

Mark's gospel was deliberately and calculatedly altered - at an early date - before the other gospels were written.

Also, going back to Chapter 6, verse 3

"Carpenter", in Greek 'tektwn' (w is pronounced as an "o" sound), was originally 'teknon', which means "young boy".

Is not this man the young boy (he was a young boy when he left his home town), the son of Mary ....

If he WAS the local carpenter why say:

"Is not this man the carpenter?"

Jesus became a carpenter because of a simple mistake by a scribe.

Newton's Cat

The KEY to the origins of Christianity unlocks the Gospel of Mark.

The Gospel of Mark created Christianity.

It is a work of fiction.

Someone wrote a "mystery play" centered around the fictional character, Jesus, King of the Jews. Someone else altered it by ... interpolating text into it, making a few alterations here and there ... and, by expanding the storyline, elevated Jesus to Christ, the Son of God - and thereby founded a cult which evolved into the Christian religion.

A central feature of Christianity is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (in the original it was Simon of Cyrene on the cross).

The theme of the original was the rejection of Jesus by the Jews and the acceptance of him by the Romans ... a flow of Jewish influence into the Roman world.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the "2nd version", devised by the founder of Christianity, introduced the influence of a Jewish way of thinking that was hostile to the "message" of the original text.

Political forces can be seen at play.

The original Gospel of Mark read like a modern fictional "thriller" - would the "hero", the man of peace, come to a sticky end, or would he survive unscathed?

The author was an atheist philosopher using religion to get his point across.

... and he had a VERY "cute" mind!

I wonder who the hell he was?

Alethias

Great Topic!

but I think it's more suited to [BC&H], so I'm sending it there.

SwordOfTruth,
GRD Moderator