ph2ter

Mark under his disposition certainly had different and very elaborated Christian ideas and theology. I don't believe that his invention goes so far that he was not able to incorporate the existing theology into his narrative reshaping it to comply all the hallmarks of his style. The passage in 2 Peter is clearly more rudimentary than the Mark's transfiguration scene. It is not important which was written first, but which shows the older form. The version of 2 Peter definitely looks more original than the version of Mark, and what is important, 2 Peter version does not need a HJ.

I don't see any problem with Jude. Both of them, Jude and 2 Peter do not show the knowledge of a HJ which firstly appeared in Mark.

The 2 Peter passage about God's voice could be compared to some passages in the epistle of Barnabas:

9.2-3:
And again he says, "Hear, O Israel, thus saith the Lord thy God," and again the Spirit of the Lord prophesies, "Who is he that will live for ever? Let him hear the voice of my servant."
And again he says, "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken these things for a testimony." And again he says, "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of this people." And again he says, "Hear, O children, a voice of one crying in the wilderness." So then he circumcised our hearing in order that we should hear the word and believe.

'Let him hear' is actually the same as 'listen to him'. The motive of wilderness came into the epistle of Barnabas from the two goats sacrifice of the Day of Atonement. Mark used that motive to introduce John. God proclaimed his beloved Son in the presence of John.

Hearing the voice of Lord is possible only in the midst of the brethren of the Lord:
6.16:
"For the Lord saith again, Whereby shall I appear before the Lord my God and be glorified? He saith too, I will give thanks unto thee in the assembly, in the midst of my brethren; I will sing unto thee in the midst of the assembly of the saints. We are, therefore, those whom he brought into the good land."

But contrary to the saints, the Jews did not hear that voice:
8.7:
And for this reason the things which were thus done are plain to us, but obscure to them, because they did not hear the Lord's voice.


The first Christians did not hear some real voice coming from heaven, but they heard a voice of a kind explained in the epistle of Barnabas. I believe that this is the same voice which appears in 2 Peter and in all the synoptics. The epistle of Barnabas shows the real context of a voice which appeared in 2 Peter. Mark reshaped that context in order to comply it to his historical setting.

I don't understand why that theme must be unique to Mark. Mark is writing fiction because he is placing Jesus inside a certain time-frame which was not known to anybody before, but in front of him was not only an empty piece of paper. The ideas that Jesus was already on Earth in some human form and in an unspecified past existed before Mark. He only put everything in a specific historical context before the fall of the Temple and made Jesus to be historical. I believe that the fall of the Temple was a catalyst for such a move.

Rick Sumner

The rest of this can be snipped, because here is the crux of the matter.

The transfiguration plays into Mark's Elijah cycle. It plays into a point raised by Mark Goodacre--that a uniquely Markan theme is differentiating Jesus from Elijah. It follows a pattern that it doesn't elsewhere. It is scripturally based. We could go on all day.

Taking that, pretend for a moment that you did not have 2 Peter. You don't know that another account of the Transfiguration exists. Taking your tact (with Doherty) how would you intend to tell that Mark did not invent this?

In other words, what criteria are you going to add to the arguments used to identify Markan invention to show that Mark did not invent the Transfiguration, but still invented other aspects? Doherty doesn't need to be able to do this for his case. The argument that Mark is intentional fiction does. So the proponent of both needs to either explain how he intends to tell them apart, or acknowledge that one of his positions has taken him the wrong way.

If there is no criteria that can tell the two apart, then the argument for either is suspect.

Rick Sumner

I am saying length is irrelevant. I'm saying length is irrelevant to Doherty's case because Doherty has ignored length.

It may. But the only comprehensive argument from silence anyone has formulated belongs to Earl Doherty. And here it is wrong.

But, if some authors (like 2 Peter) don't drive the point home, it becomes at least reasonable to suggest that our expectation of the ancient author is misguided, and they aren't reasoning it through the way we are.

And here's where we run into the problem, because I am, and always have been, quite explicitly discussing Earl's argument from silence.

spamandham

If that's true, then why did you call my 3 word example absurd?

bacht

What about Doherty's idea that the Transfiguration in Mark was the only manifestation of the true spiritual Christ in his story (assuming the short ending with just an empty tomb)? Was Mark saying something about the early witness of the "pillars"?

Minimalist

Um, you do understand that this part of your sentence negates the second part? xtians made up lots of "traditions." So did every other religion known to man.

There's a phrase...perhaps you've heard of it?

"Bullshit makes the flowers grow."

ph2ter

I think that you honor Mark too much. The passage form 2 Peter has nothing in common with Elijah. Introduction of Elijah into the 'mountain event' is wholly Markan. In 2 Peter there is actually no transfiguration, only power, honor, glory and a voice from heaven - and sacred mountain with the brethren who hear the voice as eyewitnesses. This really looks like some revelation.
There is no any sacred mountain in Galilee, so 2 Peter could not possibly be talking about some mountain in Galilee as sacred. The passage in 2 Peter certainly is not intended to be taken literally, but if it is meant to be taken literally then such epithet would get only the mountains like Sinai, Horeb or Sion or Moriah. Certainly not any mountain in Galilee.
After stopping the worship at the Jewish holy mountain - Sion, there is no indication that first Christians started to worship any other mountain and we can hardly believe that any Christian would attribute any mountain not mentioned in OT as sacred.

Rick Sumner

You're missing where the caveat lay. I don't need to honor Mark at all.

You can't use 2 Peter for the development of the criteria. Pretend you don't have 2 Peter.

Now, using ideally only Mark, but acceptably any text other than 2 Peter, show me how you can tell that Mark made up Elijah, but not the Mount.

2 Peter gives us our solution. You need a formula that gives you that answer, and can be applied throughout Mark's gospel to give you the same answer.

aa5874

But, the author of 2 Peter called himself Simon Peter and it was Simon Peter, James and John that were in the mountain with Jesus when he was transfigured and the voice of God from the cloud said,"This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.

Matthew 17.1-52 Peter 1:16-18 - Of course it can be inferred or assumed that 2 Peter refers to the transfiguration scene as depicted in the Gospels or some similar source. And there is no indication that 2 Peter 1 was not not to be taken literally.

ph2ter

Maybe 'your' criteria for Mark is wrong.
It makes difficulties for 2 Peter to arise. I gave you the reasons for that. The mountain event of 2 Peter preceding Mark's Transfiguration is most simple and effective solution for the problem. As bacht already noticed, it could be that Mark is incorporating into his Gospel the experience of the "pillars" mentioned by Paul. Mark should be familiar with Paul.
And, why to pretend that 2 Peter does not exist? The fact is that 2 Peter exists and you should deal with it.

Also, I don't understand your argumentation that the Mount is inseparable from Elijah. What is the problem in making Elijah, but not the Mount?
What is preventing Mark to adapt the 2 Peter 'mountain event' to serve his purposes? Why is that impossible?

As a general remark, I think that the mainstream scholars tend to place Mark too early and the epistles like Barnabas, Jude or Peter too late. But even if those epistles are written after Mark, that does not mean that they do not transfer the tradition which is older than Mark. As Godacre also somewhere wrote something close to my line: "The difficulty is that scholars have routinely confused issues of literary priority with issues over the relative age of traditions."
I am going little further in believing that Peter or Barnabas have not been exposed to any of the Gospels.