gstafleu

Seems a bit minor, but OK. Still, I used it as an example to show that a genre of "fiction" was known at the time. So we still have to figure out what aMark had in mind.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

Ah, yes, that was the thread where we all learned that Jesus was crucified in Calgary.

Ben.

gstafleu

Agreed, although I would phrase it a bit more precisely: Paul knew of a Saviour called Jesus who took on human form (for this discussion I'll go with you on that ).

Contemporaries? It seems mostly "later contemporaries," gMatt, gLuke and gJohn used Mark and thus came, at least in these works, after him. Although that is a point I don't find it very convincing. People just love "literalizing." Mark can certainly be read in a literal fashion and seeing e.g. aMatt mistaking something that was not meant as literal history for just that is not much of a leap.

That is an interesting point, but just one small one in a rather large work. It could be an interpolation, that ever-handy stand-by. Later Christians obviously saw Mark as history, and the closer the story gets to the meat of the matter (at least according to these Christians), the passion, the greater would have been the temptation to add details that clarify the historicity. Another possibility is that Simon and co make a cameo appearance. They are people known to Mark and his community, and he puts them in to somehow appeal to his audience: Simon&co are real (like Pilate), the story itself is fiction.

It seems we have to position ourselves somewhere in a continuum. On the one extreme is pure DBG-like history, on the other pure GA-like fiction. Mark falls somewhere in that range. The hero is someone who was at least by some (Paul) seen as having some sort of reality, although what kind of reality (if Paul saw Jesus on earth--when, where? this remains rather vague) is not clear.

So how do we go about establishing which parts of the story Mark saw as history, and which were later embellishments? For example, in the first half of Mark Jesus has quite a habit of hopping onto a boat and making it to the other shore. At one point he sends his disciples out ahead in the boat, and then catches up with them by walking on the water. So, we would probably assign the water walking to the miraculous additions. But how about the hopping from shore to shore? Is that history, that was just what Jesus did to get to his audience? Or, if it can be shown to be an integral part of the story Mark is trying to tell, would that change things? Maybe it is something Mark put in to make a point?

Gerard Stafleu

hatsoff

Exactly. Hagiography is the appropriate term.

--also Ben

hatsoff

Only if one attempts to separate each specifically.

Ben C Smith

A savior who took on human form. That is very close to how some of the biographies framed their historical personages.

Yes, certainly. One could hardly react to the gospel of Mark earlier than it was written. Any contemporaries reacting to Mark have to come later.

Matthew doing it is not all that unlikely. Luke doing it too, hmmm. Then John. Then Papias. Then even opponents of Christianity like Celsus.

You have not answered my question yet: Who in antiquity, friend or foe, treated the gospels as pure Hellenistic fiction?

I listed two of them, remember? We also have Mary, James, and Joses.

All too handy, IMO. But we would then have two sets of interpolations, given the parallels between Simon and Mary. Not only Mark 15.21, but also 15.40 and 15.47 and 16.1.

Did these interpolators clarify the historicity by adding names known to their potential readers? Or by adding names otherwise unknown?

I agree this is possible. But is it the best reading?

I agree that Mark fits best somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, not firmly anchored at either end (pure nonfiction, pure fiction).

One step at a time. I think we start with looking for outside support for various details. For example:

1. Paul says that Jesus was crucified and buried (important point, since a lot of crucifixion victims would have been left on the cross as crow food).
2. Mark says that Jesus was crucified and buried under Pilate.
3. Both of the Marcan details that appear to tie contemporary people (Alexander, Rufus, James, Joses) to someone who met Jesus (Simon, Mary) are linked to the crucifixion, and the Mary detail is also linked to the burial.
4. Matthew says that Jews of his time were passing around stories about the burial of Jesus.
5. The gospel of John claims the beloved disciple, apparently (recently?) deceased, as an eyewitness of Jesus; and the event par excellence of which the gospel claims he was an eyewitness is the crucifixion.
6. Tacitus says that Jesus was crucified under Pilate.

It is my position that the actual crucifixion and burial of Jesus is the best explanation for the above data (of which there are other instances, too, but this ought to suffice for now). But for the purposes of this thread I do not even have to claim that much; all I have to claim is that the above points indicate that the gospel of Mark seems to have been intended, at least in the bare fact of the crucifixion and the burial, as some kind of history.

In deciding on a place to begin looking for history in Mark, I myself would not start in that section of the gospel.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I myself reject that approach. I prefer to argue that some parts are fiction (the walking on water, for example), others are historical (the crucifixion and burial, for example), and others are of unknown character. Non liquet is a pretty big category for me in the gospels.

Ben.

Toto

If Matt and Luke thought that Mark was history, why did they feel free to alter details where necessary for their theological purpose?

Solitary Man

Why do other historians alter details? Why does Josephus alter the details from one of his books to the next?

Ben C Smith

What Solitary Man said. And your question really only applies, at its best, to those who view Mark as pure history. I do not. I view it as a mixture, just like a lot of ancient biographies.

Ben.