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Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay
Hi Rumike,
Even in any single gospel there are immediate bizarre happenings and contradictions that would have needed explication.
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Since I raised the same issue as Rumike, I'll give you a response.
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There are several hundred other important questions in chapter 1 of Mark that would have needed to be explained, unraveled and clarified by the early readers of the text
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With all due respect Jay this doesn't address the question. If the gospel written records weren't around in Paul's day then these questions that you raise would not have been asked. In order to have an expectation for early epistles to have discussed disputes about Jesus' life, we need to know what disputes existed, if any, and if Jesus really had a life. We don't know that, so why should we expect the kinds of discussions you are referring to? Surely there were some, but should we really expect a masterpiece like Romans to bring them up?
For grins, I'll address some of the issues you bring up as worthy of discussion:
For example, take the first 13 lines of the Gospel of Mark:
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Line 4.1 says John was in the wilderness baptizing and line 1.9 has Jesus presumably going into the wilderness to be baptized by him. But line 1.12 says the spirit immediately drove him "out into the wilderness" If you're in the wilderness" already, how can you be "driven out into the wilderness?"
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Would it help if it said 'further into the wilderness, away from all the people'? The point is the 40 days of fasting by himself. I personally don't see this as worthy of much discussion.
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Why did God have John preach a baptism of water and wait until later to preach a baptism of Holy Spirit? Why not have John preach a baptism of Holy Spirit. Why the two stage baptism?
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This questions God's motives and not the sequence of events. It's worthy of discussion, but why should we expect the earliest epistles to have brought up this discussion?
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In line 1.5, it says that all of the people of Judea went out to John to be baptized. In line 1.9, it says that Jesus came from Nazareth. Does this mean he was originally from Nazareth and was staying in Judea when he went to be baptized? Did he just follow the crowd? Or did he come directly from Nazareth and make the trip by himself? In which case, why didn't Mark say that people from Judea and people, or at least one person from Nazareth, made the trip.
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I don't see this as a big deal even though it could have been clearer. The point was that John was very popular and as such people from all around went to him.
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Was the voice from heaven directed at the dove or the man. If he was well pleased with him, why did he send a dove down to drive him into the wilderness instead of simply asking him to go. Why wasn't God "well pleased" with John. It was John who was doing God's work, what did Jesus do? Did just Jesus see the dove or did everybody who was there see it? Did the spirit look like a dove and land on his shoulder or was it actually a dove? Did it peck at him to drive him into the wilderness? Why didn't the other people being baptized help him and drive the dove off? What was John's reaction to this. Did John know that this was the person who was to baptize with fire before he baptized him?
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I suppose curious minds like yours can come up with all kinds of questions. I interpret this passage as generally saying the Jesus had a profound experience at the moment of baptism, and suspect that no one else noticed. The dove is IMO a poetic way of describing this experience.
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There are several hundred other important questions in chapter 1 of Mark that would have needed to be explained, unraveled and clarified by the early readers of the text; at least if the text was received as a history. On the other hand, if the story was accepted as a fairy-tale/fable or good yawn, not worth the time to discuss or argue over, then we would expect no commentary until the Third century when people forgot it was only a fiction.
This is the case generally with mythology where people first are so under its spell that they simply transmit it and only later start questioning the meaning.
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Maybe the story was a poetic rendering of actual events--ie Jesus was baptised, had a religous experience, fasted immediately afterwards and during that time he felt God's presence in many ways, though also faced temptation with regard to the calling he felt he had received. As far as we know, many mythological or poetic elements weren't even around during Paul's time so we have little basis for expecting a discussion of them.
ted
06-16-2006, 08:00 AM
