fatpie42

Can we claim that Mark cannot be Mark's own biography because even the external source identifying the author claims the contents to have been related to the author by Peter?

Ben C Smith

His own biography? I am not sure what you mean. Surely not autobiography.

It is my position (A) that Mark is a gospel, (B) that gospel is a subgenre or offshoot of ancient biography, (C) that Mark is a gospel or biography of Jesus, (D) that Papias claimed this gospel to have been written by Mark, (E) who was not an eyewitness and therefore had to have a source, and (F) that Papias claimed this source was Peter.

Ben.

fatpie42

Sorry, I'm coming into this a bit late. There are some who claim that the event where someone runs away and loses their clothes in the process was auto-biographical. As such, they'd be imagining that the biography was at least partially an eyewitness account. I probably should have guessed that we'd already ruled that out.

I suppose the next thing to consider then is how reliable Papias' claim would be. It seems to me fairly obvious that the gospel of Mark is not simply biographical. (Then again, I suppose there's the possibility that Peter was going senile by this point )

Ben C Smith

Yes, there are. But I am not one of those, and the thought never even crossed my mind as I was reading your question. Sorry.

Oh, I quite agree that Mark is not simply biographical.

Ben.

fatpie42

Ok, so now that's cleared up what are you actually claiming that Ted Hoffman disagrees with? I presume it's that he's saying that Mark is mythical while you are claiming that Mark is a biography of an actual person.

If what I've just said is correct, how do you justify that? Surely it's fairly clear that Mark is trying to amass several different stories into a singular narrative, so there's no reason to suppose that the original source of those stories was historical. In fact, the lack of history behind the sources might go some way towards explaining some of the issues with the finished product.

What do you reckon?

aa5874

Your position is flawed. Papias cannot help in identifying the author of Mark.

"Oracles of the Lord"

Ben C Smith

I am claiming that the list of claims Ted Hoffman produced about ancient biographies is in the main incorrect. This discussion started when he claimed that ancient histories lack doublets. He has since retracted that claim. But, when I asked him why he was comparing Mark to an ancient history when far more scholars would compare Mark to an ancient biography, he gave a list of reasons why Mark is probably not a biography. It is that list that is under discussion.

I do think Mark is a(n embellished) biography of an actual person, but I have not actually claimed that on this thread; in fact, I made the explicit point (against one of the items on that list that Ted gave) that ancient biographies could be, and were, written about personages now widely considered purely or at least mostly mythical (such as Romulus). This discussion is all about the claims that Ted made; it is not actually about whether I think Mark is the biography of an historical figure.

There is no a priori reason to suppose that the source of those stories was historical. There may be (and I think there are) reasons to conclude that some parts are historical.

I agree with your statement that the lack of history behind (at least some of) the sources for Mark (including especially the LXX) goes some way toward explaining what we see in Mark.

I have elsewhere listed the bits of Mark that I can positively argue historicity for, though I have nowhere mounted a complete argument for them (I may someday, but I am still working on it all):

1. Jesus existed.
2. Jesus was baptized by John.
3. Jesus uttered a saying forbidding divorce.
4. Jesus was crucified in Judea.

I feel certain that there are other parts of Mark that are historical, as well, but I cannot (yet?) very well mount a positive case for them.

I am not interested at this time in defending the historicity of these items. This is a work in progress.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

(Do you see how fatpie42 is doing this, Ted? Instead of beating me or, much worse, bonafide scholars like Crossley over the head with unexamined claims, fatpie offers a simple presumption, calling it as much right up front, and qualifies it with an if this is correct statement. Instead of saying flatly right from the get-go that something cannot be so, fatpie asks how I justify my own view. Instead of presenting a lengthy list of objections before the dialogue partner has even fired a shot, fatpie simply presents a couple of arguments and asks me what I think of them.)

Ben.

fatpie42

Can we focus on this one? What would be your main reasons for considering this historical?

I think it's wrong of you to point me out as an example of how someone ought to engage you in debate. If I was involved in a debate about philosophy of religion, I'm sure I'd be much less courteous to those I disagreed with. I am inclined to presume that I am likely to be wrong about a great deal in this discussion because I may well be out of my depth in this debate. I'm no expert on this subject, that's for sure.

If Ted feels he has strong backing for his view and the expertise to defend his position, it is not so surprising that he should insist uncomprimisingly on the accuracy of his statements.

I'm not saying that Ted is being as courteous as he ought to be. I'm simply saying that I'm probably not the best person to compare him with.

Ben C Smith

A topic for another thread, and probably another time, but I will PM you shortly with the gist of it.

See? Your tone here is very unassuming.

Ted is not being discourteous to me, actually (to the best of my memory). That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that he is making claims he has no business making. If anything, he was discourteous to James Crossley, not to me.

It has been shown that he lacks backing for his view.

This is an example of what I am saying (in what follows you have to be aware that Ted Hoffman is an alias for Jacob Aliet; sorry if you already know this; I just want to make sure you are not lost):

Please note that Crossley is not just a pseudonym for some snotty teenage poster from some random web forum; this is James Crossley, published scholar and on the staff at Sheffield University; one of his special interests happens to be historiography and historical methodology.

Do you see the hubris in what Jacob (Ted) is writing to Crossley? His first statement (from a review of a book by Sanders) is underinformed, but not hubristic; he simply claims that literary features in Mark such as doublets dispel the notion that Mark is historical. So far all we have is a claim. But Crossley responds that plenty of ancient historians use literary devices. Does this deter Jacob? No, it does not. He goes on, not to ask Crossley where one might find doublets or other literary devices in ancient histories, but rather to tell him that there are none (if you cannot cite examples, as I daresay you cannot...).

This is an amateur (not a negative term; I too am an amateur) telling an expert what is what.

To make matters worse, I asked Jacob which ancient histories he had searched for doublets, and he replied that he had searched Josephus. Coincidentally, Josephus was the principal reason I had asked Jacob this question in the first place, since there has been a lot of scholarly discussion on, you guessed it, the doublets in Josephus. To his credit, Jacob retracted his claim that ancient histories lack doublets. But why make such obviously underinvestigated claims right in the face of an acknowledged expert in the field? Is this the Dunning-Kruger effect?

This is why I was pleased that you asked me for justification for my views rather than simply telling me I was wrong. You paid me a courtesy that Ted did not pay Crossley, a courtesy that Crossley deserves far more than I do.

Ben.