JoeWallack

Genre

JW:
For most of its history Christianity has asserted that the Gospels were first-hand eyewitness reports except for "Mark" which was second-hand and "Luke" which was 3rd hand. Relatively recently Christianity accepted that "Mark" is the original Gospel and even more recently, accepted the logical conclusion, that if the original Gospel was not a first-hand witness, than the Gospels that used "Mark" as a source were not either. From an evidential standpoint Christianity than retreated from a position of saying the Gospels were eyewitness evidence (1st hand and support for 1st hand) to saying the Gospels contained eyewitness evidence (higher hands). This is the background for the context of the interest in the genre of the Gospels.

Greco-Roman Biography (GRB) was the genre 2,000 years ago that was most interested in evidence based on witnesses. Just as Dr. Lechner said in the Lamb Trilogy, "If one acts like God, than one becomes like God", so too does Christian Bible Scholarship (CBS) believe that if an author wanted people to believe that her writing was based on witnesses, the related writing is more likely to contain evidence from witnesses. Since GRB was the acknowledged style for presenting evidence from witnesses, a style of GRB made a general communication:

1) The author believed that the sources believed they were witnesses.

2) The author believed that the sources were witnesses.

3) The author wanted the audience to believe 1) and 2).

From a practical standpoint I think a majority of CBS accepts Richard Burridge's What Are the Gospels as proving that the Gospels are GRB. Burridge is either unable or unwilling to clearly articulate what hand witness GRB would provide here. The closest he comes is:

From a theoretical standpoint I have already demonstrated that Burridge has not proven the Gospels are GRB:

Wrestling With Greco Tragedy. Reversal From Behind. Is "Mark" Greek Tragedy?

due to:

1) Flawed criteria.

2) Flawed analysis of evidence.

3) Failure to evaluate "Mark" separately.

4) Failure to properly consider competing genre.

Separately, Dr. Carrier told me that in researching his upcoming MJ/HJ book, he did not even bother with Burridge's book because it was so poor and outdated.

"Mark" may contain significant characteristics of GRB and may even contain a larger amount of GRB characteristics than any other genre. Hell, it could even be outright GRB. But none of these has been demonstrated. Burridge is the go to guy for GRB but has been discredited. The Gospels as GRB currently has no Champion. Rick Perry could do more good for Christianity by trying to champion the Gospels as GRB than winning the Presidency.

Since there is no Champion's argument to evaluate here it looks like once again we are just going to have to duke it out here. For starters we have another poll. Vote on what genre you think "Mark" is and to what extent and give a summary of your argument.

Note that this Thread is not about proof-texting that "Mark" must be or can not be a specific genre because of one, two or three criteria (AA).



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

ApostateAbe

Joseph, I think you have made a few worthy arguments. If I can be indulged, I would like to know the justification for your list of three criteria for Greco-Roman biographies:

1) The author believed that the sources believed they were witnesses.
2) The author believed that the sources were witnesses.
3) The author wanted the audience to believe 1) and 2).

Sometimes, at least, the author of a Greco-Roman biography does indeed claim that his sources are eyewitnesses, but Plutarch seems to write no such thing for his biography of Alexander the Great, nor would it be expected, since the subject of his writing is 400 years in the past. Instead, his sources seem to be purely spoken myths.

Plutarch wrote:

It is agreed on by all hands, that on the father's side, Alexander descended from Hercules by Caranus, and from Aeacus by Neoptolemus on the mother's side. His father Philip, being in Samothrace, when he was quite young, fell in love there with Olympias, in company with whom he was initiated in the religious ceremonies of the country, and her father and mother being both dead, soon after, with the consent of her brother, Arymbas, he married her. The night before the consummation of their marriage, she dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were extinguished. And Philip, some time after he was married, dreamt that he sealed up his wife's body with a seal, whose impression, as be fancied, was the figure of a lion. Some of the diviners interpreted this as a warning to Philip to look narrowly to his wife; but Aristander of Telmessus, considering how unusual it was to seal up anything that was empty, assured him the meaning of his dream was that the queen was with child of a boy, who would one day prove as stout and courageous as a lion. Once, moreover, a serpent was found lying by Olympias as she slept, which more than anything else, it is said, abated Philip's passion for her; and whether he feared her as an enchantress, or thought she had commerce with some god, and so looked on himself as excluded, he was ever after less fond of her conversation. Others say, that the women of this country having always been extremely addicted to the enthusiastic Orphic rites, and the wild worship of Bacchus (upon which account they were called Clodones, and Mimallones), imitated in many things the practices of the Edonian and Thracian women about Mount Haemus, from whom the word threskeuein seems to have been derived, as a special term for superfluous and over-curious forms of adoration; and that Olympias, zealously, affecting these fanatical and enthusiastic inspirations, to perform them with more barbaric dread, was wont in the dances proper to these ceremonies to have great tame serpents about her, which sometimes creeping out of the ivy in the mystic fans, sometimes winding themselves about the sacred spears, and the women's chaplets, made a spectacle which men could not look upon without terror.

Copied from classics.mit.edu.

I suppose it is a possibility that Plutarch intended his reader to believe that anonymous eyewitnesses attested that Alexander descended from Hercules, and other eyewitnesses attested that Olympias danced with serpents, but I can't help but think that Plutarch would have specified these eyewitnesses if that were truly the case.

Maybe you have good reasons for thinking that Greco-Roman biographies are very much typified by claiming to be sourced from eyewitnesses?

ApostateAbe

You poll has option for "Religious" and "A Majority of Religious." I most certainly think that the gospel of Mark is 100% religious, but I don't think that it is a genre that is in any way mutually-exclusive from Greco-Roman biography. Like many modern biographies, ancient biographies can be very much steeped in religion or cult adherence. So, I am thinking that I should have voted for "A Mix of Genres."

I don't even think that "Religious" is a useful genre, since it is a label that can be applied to a book that qualifies as landing squarely within any other genre. It is like asking, "Is this book a comedy, or is it paperback?"

Vorkosigan

You've left out an important genre, and that is Hellenistic folk biography. See Wills' book on the genre of Mark.

Toto

The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Lawrence Will.

$100 for the Kindle version!

aa5874

What genre is "PAPERBACK"?

Sorry, I now understand.

You are a comedian. Right?

jgoodguy

If it is that much, then it must be correct.

ApostateAbe

I know for darn sure that the gospel of John is derived primarily from earlier written accounts, not earlier oral accounts, because of its stark literary seams, so I have a gut feeling that Lawrence Will's book is heavily overpriced.

jgoodguy

For the unscrupulous, there are pirated downloads. :innocent1:

aa5874

But, that is EXACTLY what we are NOT sure about. We hardly know anything about the author, the actual date he wrote and how or why he wrote his story.

All we have is a FICTION story about the Word who was God, the Creator of heaven and earth who was made Flesh and was RAISED from the dead.

The story of raising Lazarus from the dead in gJohn cannot be found in the Synoptics so you don't even know what you are talking about.