Ben C Smith

Yes, there is a very close connection, but I think genre comes first. The same words might inspire different reactions from me depending on whether I find those words in a poem, in a biography, or in a novel.

This is confusing subject matter with genre. Somebody wrote the first poem about love, and somebody wrote the first poem about clouds. It was still a poem, because that particular genre (poetry) is very little constrained by its subject matter. Other genres are much more constrained by their subject matter; for example, biographies pretty much have to treat the life and times of a particular individual, or perhaps a confined group of individuals.

Yes, that is possible, but there should be clues. If there are not, then the original readers would be lost. One could assume that this is exactly what happened; the author went off the deep end and lost his readers entirely. But I would say that such an assumption should be a last resort.

The ancients used certain recognized categories, and βιος is one of them. Burridge is quite sensitive to which ancient texts are actually called βιοι, and attempts to ground his case on those texts.

I gave you a clear-cut example of why cautionary tale fails as its own genre: It cannot even distinguish the upper orders of the taxonomy... any taxonomy.

One determines the genre (A) by examining contemporary or near contemporary works and comparing the work in question with them, (B) by investigating how contemporary or near contemporary readers read the work in question, and (C) by asking how the author has presented the work in question. (This list is not necessarily exhaustive.)

Once one has a list of works that compare favorably, much of the work has already been done; I would not necessarily drop the notion of genre altogether even at that point, but now comes the time to examine the text in terms more detailed than simple genre can do much to determine.

I think this is perilous. One might be hard pressed to distinguish between an historical novel and a genuine history if we simply rely on the author.

No! It is not equally rigorous. It is as scientific as a nonscience can be, but it is not as rigorous as anything in science.

If you approach history from a purely scientific point of view, you will learn nothing of it, since nothing in history is as rigorous as science.

Without some sense of the genre, I am not sure how you would know what Mark is trying to say, and you would certainly not know what to do with the details of the text. For example, you say that Mark is a cautionary tale; which kind? The kind in which (the author thought) the events really happened? Or the kind in which the author made it all up? How would you know?

I will attempt to answer this question later.

Thanks.

Ben.

spamandham

Maybe so. Once you give up the idea that the Gospels are history books, a whole new world is opened up in interpreting these works.

Why then did 'Mark' add this whole thing about Barabbas? Was Barabbas a well known pre-existing character, or does his name tell us the intent?

"We want an earthly messiah, not a spiritual messiah"

gstafleu

We need someone who knows Aramaic here to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that bar-abbas means "son of father" and not "son of man." Also notice the absence of Joseph in Mark: again an example of not identifying Jesus in the normal way. Also, Barabbas was used as the name of the guy, not as some description ("And there was one named Barabbas", "ην δε ο λεγομενος βαραββας"). Maybe someone who knows Greek better can comment on this. In such a name the bit after "Bar" is supposed to be the father's name, as in Simon bar Kokhba e.g. If instead of the father's name you just get "father," it looks pretty John Doe-like to me: he was the son of a father (rather blindingly obvious), but we don't bother to tell you who that father was.

Gerard Stafleu

bacht

Mark seems to follow the apocalyptic theme in ch 13, echoing the Hebrew "Day of the Lord" but using the Christ figure, a bit like Revelation. But was his purpose ironic here? Does he really believe in the eschatology of the prophets?

gstafleu

OK, I'll wait for that then. Should you use "genre" in that answer, at least we will have an example of how it impacts on one's interpretation of the story. That will give us something concrete to discuss (as opposed to more abstract discussions about the use and purpose of classifications of which you admit they are not all that rigorous).

Gerard

gstafleu

If we have a hero story here (if that is what Ben means by heroic biography), it is, I think and unusual one: it is about a failed hero. In that sense it is a bit like Gilgamesh, with one important difference. In the Gilgamesh story the hero in the end "comes to his senses" and turns into a useful and admired king. As the story begins, he is a useless and out-of-control king. But Jesus fails completely. The disciples don't get his teachings, the people reject him (Barabbas), and even the resurrection doesn't convince anyone.

Now I suppose you can say that Jesus predicted his own failure (a prophet in his own country, they will kill me), and that he does succeeded in failing (that sounds a bit like trying to snatch success from the jaws of failure at any cost, doesn't it?). But the main result is still failure. In a hero story something good is supposed to be accomplished. Usually (Joseph Campbell, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces") the hero bestows some sort of boon onto his community as a result of his travails. Even in the Gilgamesh story there is a boon: Gilgamesh is a good king. But a hero story where the hero fails completely seems unusual to me. Hence my idea that Mark was doing something unusual here: use the failed hero story to warn that in real life heroes don't work.

So he probably didn't believe in any Messianic prophesies, I'd say.

Gerard Stafleu

spamandham

If the story ends at the crucifixion, you might have a point. Is there an argument to be made that the resurrection is a later add-on?

gstafleu

Mark is usually seen to end at 16:8. So it includes the resurrection and the women's confused reaction to it. That is important to Mark's message: Jesus had actually resurrected, as a good Messiah (or at least Holy Man) should, and still people don't get it. Don't forget, Mark is portraying Jesus as a real Messiah in the real world. It is these two real's that don't go together according to Mark.

Gerard Stafleu

aa5874

Again, the author of Mark did not propagate a failed hero, by the very 1st chapter of his writing, Jesus becomes so popular and famous that people were amazed at his supernatural powers.

Mark 1.27 Mark 1.34 And Jesus after healing a man of leprosy said to him, "Say nothing to any man".[Mark 1.44-45]

Jesus was already a superhero by the 1st chapter of Mark, so much so, he could not even walk openly in the city, he had to leave and go in the desert, yet people were still coming to see him.

And in Mark 8.29-30, Jesus asked the disciples who he was and Peter declared that Jesus was Christ, and Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

How can Mark's Jesus be a failure when he is asking his own disciples not to reveal his identity, and poeple from all over are trying to see him to get healed or even getting a second chance to come back to life.

But Mark's new Messiah, unlike the other so-called Messiahs who are killed, buried, and probably forgotten, this new Messiah will just not die, they will kill him, but he would do the unthinkable, he would come back to life in three days.

The disciples already believe he is the Christ, but they just cannot understand a resurrection, they do not understand that a dead man can come back to life.

Jesus is crucified, as he predicted, and on the third day his body is not in the tomb.

"He is risen." Jesus is a superhero. And today, hundreds of million of people really thinks so.

The author of Mark propagated a superhero.

gstafleu

The people liked him because of his miracles, certainly. Free healing and free bread, who wouldn't go for that? But they didn't get that he was the messiah, and in Jerusalem, when it counted, they preferred an anonymous criminal over him. So he succeeded with the freebies, but he failed with the Messiah business.

The disciples do eventually figure out that he is the Messiah, at least Peter does. But they still don't get his message, a limited success at best.

So I don't agree that Mark propagates a successful Messiah. He propagates a successful wonder-worker, but a failed Messiah.

The secrecy motif is an interesting one, regardless of how you see the story. Why didn't Jesus want to spread the word that he was The Messiah? The question remains the same, whether you think Mark was propagating a successful Messiah or a failed one. My guess would be that a hero who blew his own horn too much would not look serious. Compare all these other Messiah-nuts of the time who did announce they were the Messiah.

Gerard Stafleu