Iskander

Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in search of man,
Souvenir Press, ISBN 9780285638365, page 262ff

The word Torah is used in two sense: the supernal Torah which existed before the creation of the world and the revealed Torah.

The supernal Torah was already known to Adam and Eve in its spiritual form.
Moses received only a part of the revealed Torah at Sinai and not all that was revealed to Moses was conveyed to Israel; the meaning of the commandments is given as an example.

The Lord will return once more in order to reveal the secret meaning of the Torah and its concealed content...

PhilosopherJay

Hi stephan,

It is difficult to know what was common knowledge about the First century in the Second century. Because Sadducees may have disappeared, the knowledge of them did not.

I like to use the analogy of the Movie "Western." Most Hollywood movie Westerns describe a situation that existed between 1865 and 1880 in the Midwest of the United States. These Westerns were made from 1903 ("the Great Train Robbery") to 1999 ("the Wild, Wild West"). Some of them get the facts entirely wrong, but others are quite accurate and the trains, guns, costumes, travel distances between places, etc. do match. If someone did not know that motion pictures were not invented until approximately 1889, one could easily think that the more realistic and accurate Westerns were made in the 19th Century.

Most Western movie writers make anachronistic mistakes in the dialogue. However, some good Western movie writers read books that were actually written during the period 1865 to 1880. They copy the dialogue almost exactly from them. While 20th century dialogue is a sign that the movie was written in the 20th Century, accurate 19th Century dialogue is not a sign that it was written in the 19th Century.

The writer of Mark may have read or may even be loosely revising material from the 1st Century (my hypothesis). Correct usage does not assure that the writing was being done in the 1st Century.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

sotto voce

Or, to put it in less figurative, more down-to-earth, more realistic terms, natural law applied to Homo sapiens and all other hominids at the very first moment that there was a moral decision to take. Maybe other animals, long before them. As those who actually read the Tanakh might discover.

So the Lord is going to come back to tell us what "Do not steal" means.

Marvellous.

stephan huller

But what is the most compelling argument for a second century attribution? As I see it chapter 13 has Jesus use Daniel 9:24 - 27 as a prophecy pertaining to the destruction of the Jewish temple. In all surviving interpretations of this prophetic utterance - among both Jews and Christians - it is connected with the first Jewish War. How on earth is this related to the second Jewish War. There was no temple, all reports about the conflict have the Jewish rebels as ignoring the traditional holiness of the Law. For instance Lamentations Rabba says that the rebels cut off their 'finger' instead of wearing tefillin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefillin). The story about the feeding of wafers and playing ball at Tur Simon cited in another recent thread is clearly similarly grounded - i.e. a rejection of traditional religious values.

One would expect a conservative religious backlash against the events of the bar Kochba revolt because it was certainly remembered as a rebellion fueled by religious novelties rather than traditional religious piety. How could antinomian Christianity have been inspired by a rejection of that revolt? This I have to hear.

Moreover I don't see how the bar Kochba revolt at all fits the traditional application of Daniel 9:24 - 27 which is also certainly a part of Mark's worldview. Indeed how could Jesus have emerged in 30 CE and prophesied about the 'end times' in the second century. Are you suggesting that the destruction of the temple in 70 CE had no theological significance in early Christianity? or that Mark wrote a narrative set twenty eight years before the actual destruction of the temple, planted many clues that Jesus originally said "I am able" or "I will destroy the temple" and applied this to a rebellion where there was no temple because it had already been destroyed at the culmination of the war of 66 - 70 CE.

I don't see how any of this is possible or even believable. The simple answer is that the tradition of the Church Fathers is right - the narrative was written in the first century, set twenty eight years before the destruction of the temple, and centrally concerned about Jesus's warning about the coming destruction of the temple 'caused' by the iniquity of the Jews.

tanya

strikes me as rather incongruous, given the emphasis you place on "Secret Mark", and on encrypted messages in the gospels....

Why shouldn't we understand "temple" here, as referring not to a simple building, already destroyed, at least once before, and reconstructed, at least once before, but rather, to the compulsory expulsion of every Jew from Jerusalem, by the Roman Army, at the conclusion of the third war, circa 135 CE. It is this turmoil, with thousands of people fleeing their homeland, carrying only the clothes on their backs, that provides the setting of hopelessness, despair, and chaos, that breeds a willingness to discard a thousand years of tradition (or two thousand!), in favor of a brand new religion, which offers, for just a few drachmas, eternal life in paradise.

andrewcriddle

I think Clement is referring to Matthew 5:27-28 which condemns not only the act of adultery but also the wish to commit it.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller

No he mentions that saying alongside this reading at the beginning of Book Three. This is a separate agraphon.

andrewcriddle

I think Clement is paraphrasing Matthew 5:27-28.

FWIW the footnotes to Ferguson's translation of Book 3 agree with me.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller

He's not paraphrasing, he's citing the fact that the Law and the gospel say the same thing:

His point is that something Jesus said c. 30 CE makes it clear that what was said in the times of Moses (c. 1000 BCE) applied to all humanity today (or at least 190 CE)

stephan huller

If anyone thinks that Clement understands something other than Jesus said the words "ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω, οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις" in the gospel, please correct me. The "I say unto you (ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω) certainly appears in Luke 5:28 but the rest of the passage reads differently:

ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ βλέπων γυναῖκα πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι [αὐτὴν] ἤδη ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ.