jakejonesiv

Yes, that would put it in a different light. Jesus displayed a certain amount of hubris, a tragic flaw, which led to his downfall and death.

So let's look at gMark as a play, a Greek Tragedy. When we do this, we begin to see that the audience plays a much greater role in the story than even the disciples.

In the baptism of Jesus in Mark 1:9-11, when the heavenly voice speaks, it addresses Jesus directly in the second person. Most commentators correctly identify that this is a private revelation to Jesus, which Matthew changes to a public announcement by using the third person. But what often escapes comment is that someone else hears the voice from heaven, the audience of the story.


Jesus seems to act at a different level than the characters in the story. Even though they may be portrayed in the same scene, the interaction between them seems to be illusory. But there is never much distance between the narrator of the story and Jesus. They are almost one and the same.

Who watches and prays with Jesus in Gethsemane? The disciples are sleeping, and after Jesus’ arrest, there is no opportunity to tell them. It is only Jesus and the narrator informing the audience of what happens.


As the story proceeds, the distance between the disciples and Jesus becomes greater and greater, until at the end he is deserted by them all. At the same time, the reader is compelled to identify more and more closely with Jesus until only the audience is left to witness. At the end the women at the tomb fled, and “they said nothing to anyone." Jesus is completely abandoned. A Greek Tragedy indeed!

(Yes, Mark 16:8 is the end of the gospel).

Only the audience is left to tell the tale. Isn't that interesting? At the bookends of the play, the baptism and the empty tomb, only the audience is aware of the secrets.

It is striking that the disciples never seem to understand the major pronouncements of Jesus. It is as if they never heard them. This includes the women who go to the tomb (Mark 16:1) to anoint the body of Jesus. They apparently had completely forgotten that Jesus had already been anointed (Mark 14:8). As much as the disciples and Peter are castigated for not understanding, the women prove to be just as dense.

The impression left is that Jesus is operating in some other realm apart from the normative "Forrest Gump" characters of GMark. They may occupy the same stage, but they walk and talk past each other as when Jesus
walks upon the sea.

Jesus tells the disciples, "But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee" (Mark 14:28). The narrator has already plainly told the reader, "But
without a parable spake he not unto them" (4:34). In Mark, Jesus is always telling his readers to "Follow me." Even so, at the end of the gospel, Jesus appears to no one; again, he must be followed. "Galilee" (4:34) from which Jesus comes and returns, and to which the disciples (and the audience) must follow (16:7) if they are to see Jesus again.

At the end of GMark, the narrator finally drops the mask of Jesus for good and speaks unadorned to the audience. He is the young man in the tomb. (not an angel, that is reading the context of the other gospels back into Mark). It is the narrator, and only he, who tells the audience that Jesus is risen, and where he is to be found.

And of course, when we follow Jesus back to Galilee, we find oursleves where we started. We are again at the beginning of the story.
Jake Jones IV

Bingo the Clown-O

It looks like John 21 “rotated” the loop by placing the Miracle of Fishes after Jesus was crucified.

TedM

I value the Jewish Encyclopedia's opinions more highly than yours spin, and they say you are just dead wrong about this. Please tell me why I should pay attention to your narrow definition of a Messiah and not continue in my belief that a broader perspective was held:

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/ar.../10729-messiah


I won't admit something that isn't true. In my mind the future period of peace and prosperity prophecied in the OT is a period ushered in by the Messiah, and called the Messianic age. In some cases that involves a military leader, in others it doesn't appear to require one. Sins and salvation of the people are closely tied to their suffering and the hoped for removal of suffering for all time. Others don't seem to be future related but since they were believed to be written by David, were seen to apply to a future Messiah since he was to be 'like' David and from his line..

You have made claims and pointed me to a recent scholar that suggest the Messianic expectation was much more narrow. Unless we have a book from the time of Jesus that clearly purports to examine all of the then-current thinking regarding the expected Messiah and his attributes and purpose I don't know why I should consider your view or the scholar that you mentioned to be doing anything other than speculating. Can you tell me what you are bringing to the table other than arguments from silence that seem to be contradicted by not only the usage of passages within that same century but by the Jewish Encyclopedia?

I don't automatically accept your authority on this spin even though I know you have a much greater knowledge of many subjects than myself. I need you to convince me that you know what you are talking about.

TedM

I'm not sure what you are saying as it relates to what I've written. I view a sacrifice as voluntarily giving up something for the benefit of others. I've often wondered if Jesus orchestrated his own death to happen during Passover on purpose. Suicide? I guess it is a matter of perspective, but normally I wouldn't consider a self-sacrifice to be a typical suicide.

stephan huller

But if someone gives up a coat for someone else when its cold, that's self-sacrifice. Someone running up to the police in Bogota with a fake machine gun - that's suicide.

stephan huller

Ted, Ted

You've got to stop citing old books. Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, the world was Christian. In Europe, in America, Jews had to find ways of adapting what they believed to what Christians believed. It was only as society became secularized that Jews could actually say what they thought ... that is, until the demands of sustaining the state of Israel made them co-opt the idiotic evangelic community in the United States.

If the concept was really ran 'through the Old Testament' why is it the concept unknown to the Samaritans? Even the references to the Ta'eb - a slightly different conception - are generally taken to be later additions. There is the expectation of a second Moses figure in Deuteronomy, but who or what is Moses? A king? The Samaritans don't think so. It's Joshua who does the fighting. The real question is 'who or what is Moses?' to help determine who or what is 'the one who is to come.'

TedM

Yes, but it is also self-sacrifice if he is doing it for others. I'm not sure what the point is that you want me to see here.

sleep time...

TedM

Maybe some were satisfied with just knowing that someone great was coming and would do something good.. I just can't imagine that a culture with so many divergent sects would be in complete unison about who the Messiah was going to be, ESPECIALLY when there were hundreds of potential passages that one could use to apply a Messianic interpretation, depending on how creative they were.

Is the Jewish Encyclopedia an old book? Are you saying it doesn't represent the Messianic views properly? How do you know?

stephan huller

The Samaritans are the purest tradition. They only care about the Pentateuch and the Pentateuch does not specifically reference the concept of messiah.

Indeed there is no Hebrew or Aramaic word “Messiah”. This is an artificial word only existing in late modern English. Yes, there is the Hebrew word משיח Mashiach and the Aramaic Meshiach and definite Meshicha and the Greek phonetic transcription Messias (where the 's' is a Greek suffix). Messiah means Christ and Christ means Messiah and the two words only mean anointed

There are many reasons for the confusion which surrounds the terminology. The Aramaic and Greek forms also render the Hebrew Kohen Mashuach, an anointed High Priest, the word Mashiach = Christos in the Psalms usually refers to any earthly temporal king, in some places it refers to a heavenly figure known from Canaanite mythology and from contemporary writings about Melchizedek, seen as manifestation of a heavenly figure.

But there are a number of core conceptions - like the resurrection of the dead - which are completely absent from the Pentateuch. The messiah is another.

Bingo the Clown-O

Daniel 12:1-2
At that time Michael, the great prince who watches over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress unlike any other from the nation’s beginning up to that time. But at that time your own people, all those whose names are found written in the book, will escape. Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake – some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence.

Okay. Okay.

So it’s not exactly the Pentateuch.