andrewcriddle

IMHO this is the sort of moderately strong parallel that doesn't establish anything without evidence that Mark would probably have known about this inscription. (If there was this strong a parallel with an OT passage then deliberate imitation would be likely, but we already know that Mark knew the OT.)
According to http://www.mystae.com/restricted/ref...ssiah/son.html the passage reads There is no mention of spittle, in fact mentions of spittle in magical/medical contexts are IIUC rare in the Ancient World. There is the well known passage about Vespasian healing using spittle but not much else.

I looked through my copy of 'The Greek Magical Papyri' and although there are occasional references to spitting as a symbolic act, the only references to actually using saliva are a/ in a charm for a scorpion sting one is instructed to lick the wound b/ there is a spell for a man to increase his appeal to a woman in which he anoints his private parts with stallion's saliva.

Although the use of saliva feels magical there is little hard evidence, some have suggested that the point of using saliva in the gospels is to show Jesus's disregard for issues of Jewish ritual purity. If so the stories would originate in a Jewish-influenced context.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

My point is that if Mark invented the story on the basis of 2 Kings and if the other Gospel writers got the story from Mark, then one would expect that their changes to the story would make it less like the original source in 2 Kings.

On the whole this is not what we find.

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

I disagree because it doesn't make sense to me to suggest that an author, relying heavily on Hebrew Scripture, would create a fictional scene that was difficult to connect to that source.

There has to be some other motivation and a known historical event is certainly a reasonable possibility.

That said, the assertion that Mark's author is "obviously straining" in making such a connection requires substantiation with specific examples before it can be taken seriously.

Amaleq13

I have created a new thread on Mark's "community" pre-Markan traditions here and split out the relevant post

John A. Broussard

I've never understood why there seems to be a need to connect the events in the NT with predictions in the OT. This may have been necessary in the initial stages of Christian recruitment when Jews were the expected converts, but once Paul and his likes moved into the picture, gentiles were the object of their proselytizing. So why all the need to prove that Jesus was the fulfillment of a Jewish prophecy?

Marxist

How do you figure? Matthew constantly changes Mark to align him more closely with the OT, just look at the opening of both Gospels and see how Matthew changes it. One would only expect their changes to be more unlike Mark's source (2 Kings) if one supposes Matthew and Luke didn't know Mark's sources, which is completely absurd. Matthew and Luke are not idiotic, brainless copiers.

Marxist

What doesn't make sense to you isn't an argument. We do not know exactly how Mark created his Gospel, but there is no reason to suppose he didn't have certain ideas in mind that he sought out scriptural justification for, as opposed to more direct creation out of the OT. There is no reason at all to suppose this event has any basis in history, given its already extremely unlikely nature, as discussed in other threads.

Amaleq13

It is a conclusion and a brief description of the reasoning leading to it was given in the rest of the sentence. Let me provide a more detailed description of the reasoning leading to the conclusion:

The author of Mark valued connecting his story to Hebrew Scripture.

The author was not stupid.

Either Mark's author was free to create any story he wanted or he was somehow constrained in his creative efforts.

If he was entirely free to create his story any way he chose, it would be just plain stupid for him to deliberately create significant scenes that were difficult to connect to Hebrew Scripture.

If he was somehow constrained in his creative efforts, it is entirely expected to find some portion difficult to connect to Hebrew Scripture.

Therefore, any example "obviously straining" to make a Scriptural connection suggests the existence of a constraint on his creativity.

The most obvious constraint would be historicity.

Another constraint might be a pre-existing, non-historical tradition but one would have to show some reason to think such a tradition might be established for reasons other than historicity.

This is just another way of describing a possible constraint on his creativity but you need to explain why he might have such a rigid idea that he couldn't be flexible enough to make a Scriptural connection easier.

Unsubstantiated speculation isn't an argument.

If by "this event" you are referring to the Temple Disruption scene, I've indicated here and in other threads that I agree it doesn't appear to be historical but, in this thread, I moved on from there to hypothetical examples of the alleged "obviously straining". In such a circumstance, it is entirely reasonable to suggest that there existed some sort of restraint on AMk's creativity and entirely possible that historicity was that restraint. That's all I'm saying.

Read that carefully before your respond and recognize that IMO the Gospel stories are totally bereft of anything that can be reliably identified as historically accurate. I am not arguing historicity. I am only acknowledging that, given an actual example of "obviously straining", historicity is a viable explanation.

Marxist

Ok. September 11th, 2001. Tell it using only Shakespeare or the Bible. Oh, and make it as good as the feeding miracle parallel with 2 Kings.

Marxist

Again, you give no reason why this is "stupid," you just assert it is the case. There is nothing stupid about having the idea first and then finding scriptual justification.