Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 12-10-2011, 06:13 PM

It is amazing to see that James Snapp is another one who (a) is absolutely convinced Secret Mark is a forgery but (b) attributes the long ending to Mark or Peter even though he does not think it was original to the gospel. Listen to the language he uses to describe the long ending. It is almost identical to Watson's description of the 'fake' addition to Mark in to Theodore:

Quote:

Fairly recently, the view that the Long Ending originated as a pastiche of material from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts has become somewhat popular. James Kelhoffer’s doctorate-book Miracle and Mission, which J.K. Elliott described as “overwhelmingly convincing,” advocates that view. Kelhoffer proposed that the Long Ending was composed to complete the Gospel of Mark by an author who consciously borrowed language from 60 sourcepassages (18 of which are in Mark) in order to write the 170-word Long Ending in a way that would imitate the writing-style of Mark and the writers of the other canonical Gospels. Such an approach eliminates the risk of identifying any linguistic fingerprints in the Long Ending as Mark’s fingerprints, because consistencies with Markan vocabulary and style are assumed to be imitations of Mark.

That theory requires a special sort of author. The author would be bold enough to add his own literary creation to the Gospel of Mark, but timid enough not to adjust the jarring shift between 16:8 and 16:9. He would be thoroughly acquainted with the Gospel of Luke, and yet write that the disciples rejected the two travelers’ report (in 16:13), which is not suggested by Luke, and he would present Jesus’ subsequent appearance to the disciples as if it occurred some time after the two traveler’s report, which also is not suggested by Luke. He would be so cautious that he consulted the Gospels and Acts 60 times, but also so bold that he inserted unparalleled material about serpent-handling (which Mk. 16:18 does not suggest to be accidental) and poison-drinking. Though dependent upon Matthew, Luke, and John, he would differ from all three by relating that main group of disciples rejected Mary Magdalene’s announcement that Jesus was alive and had been seen by her. And this author, though he realized that the Gospel of Mark ended with an explicit forecast of an appearance in Galilee, would decide not to use John 21, and would choose instead to summarize events which anyone acquainted with the Gospel of Luke would locate in and around Jerusalem rather Galilee. Such an author is, I believe, complicated beyond the point of plausibility. The theory of a mad mimic ought to be rejected in favor of a much simpler and more credible explanation of the textual fingerprints in the Long Ending.

Mark 16:9-20 did not begin its literary life as part of the Gospel of Mark. It existed in Rome as a catechetical or liturgical text. Whether it was composed by Peter or Mark, or merely used by them, it was regarded at Rome as a text which had apostolic authority.

I am beginning to wonder how it is possible that the idea the long ending was a pastiche only became credible with Kelhoffer how it is possible that another addition discovered in 1958 could have anticipated this discovery over forty years later? Were there precursor's to Kelhoffer's work?

andrewcriddle · 12-11-2011, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Here is Hurtado making the same Secret Mark is a modern forgery because it is a pastiche of other gospels argument as recently as May of this year:

http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/20...2/secret-mark/

I think you may be misunderstanding Hurtado.

Although he presents other arguments for a recent origin he doesn't IIUC use the pastiche argument in that way.

Quote:

Analysis of the excepts has convinced a number of scholars that it is a pastiche of phrases from Mark and John in particular. Also, the excerpts seem to depend upon and expand passages in Mark, especially the reference to the unidentified “young man” in Mark 14:51-52 where Jesus is arrested. The ancient copying/transmission of texts tended more to resolve difficulties rather than to create them, and to explain/expand narrative scenes, not so much to make them puzzling. So, on these bases, the purported excepts of “Secret Mark” are (whether ancient or modern in origin) more likely secondary, not indicative of a version of Mark earlier than the familiar text.

Hurtado seems to be using the pastiche argument to show that Secret Mark is later than canonical Mark (and canonical John). This is compatible with a date between the 2nd and 20th century. Hurtado's preference for a 20th century date seems based on other grounds.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller · 12-11-2011, 08:05 AM

From May of this year

It is further curious that some scholars (e.g., Helmut Koester) take the purported excerpts of a “Secret Mark” as stemming from a version of Mark supposedly earlier than the familiar text. *Analysis of the excepts has convinced a number of scholars that it is a pastiche of phrases from Mark and John in particular. *Also, the excerpts seem to depend upon and expand passages in Mark, especially the reference to the unidentified “young man” in Mark 14:51-52 where Jesus is arrested. *The ancient copying/transmission of texts tended more to resolve difficulties rather than to create them, and to explain/expand narrative scenes, not so much to make them puzzling. *So, on these bases, the purported excepts of “Secret Mark” are (whether ancient or modern in origin) more likely secondary, not indicative of a version of Mark earlier than the familiar text

Yes I am aware of Hurtado's claims. Yet he never bothers to acknowledge the obvious parallel between both additions to Mark. Someone like James Snapp denies that the long ending is a pastiche and so it stands to reason that when he discovers that the addition mentioned in to Theodore is a pastiche he has a right to raise suspicions.

Yet Hurtado and Watson accept that the long ending is a pastiche and that in some form the ebding is “authentic” (in Watson's case quite explicitly). Both point to Kelhoffer's work written forty years after the discovery of Mar Saba 65 as making manifest the pastiche nature of the long ending. It is odd that a modern forger would have developed his addition to chapter 10 according to principles that Morton Smith did not recognize even existed in 1958

andrewcriddle · 12-11-2011, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

From May of this year

It is further curious that some scholars (e.g., Helmut Koester) take the purported excerpts of a “Secret Mark” as stemming from a version of Mark supposedly earlier than the familiar text. *Analysis of the excepts has convinced a number of scholars that it is a pastiche of phrases from Mark and John in particular. *Also, the excerpts seem to depend upon and expand passages in Mark, especially the reference to the unidentified “young man” in Mark 14:51-52 where Jesus is arrested. *The ancient copying/transmission of texts tended more to resolve difficulties rather than to create them, and to explain/expand narrative scenes, not so much to make them puzzling. *So, on these bases, the purported excepts of “Secret Mark” are (whether ancient or modern in origin) more likely secondary, not indicative of a version of Mark earlier than the familiar text

Hi Stephan

That is the same passage that I quoted. We seem to be interpreting it differently.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller · 12-11-2011, 09:09 AM

No I am not interested necessarily interested in what Hurtado wants us to see as much as the inconsistencies in his argument

stephan huller · 12-11-2011, 02:07 PM

I am going through Swete's The Gospel according to Mark: the Greek Text in order to see if the idea that the long ending was a pastiche ending was already present then. I don't see it (but I am still looking). I do see this however:

The writer of v. 9 introduces Mary of Magdala as if she were a person who had not been named before, or not referred to recently; but St Mark has already mentioned her thrice in the previous sixteen verses. Moreover, both the structure and the general purpose of this ending are remarkably distinct from those which distinguish the genuine work of Mark. Instead of a succession of short paragraphs linked by kai, and an occasional de, we have before us in xvi. 9 20 a carefully constructed passage, in which pera Se ravra, vcrrepov Be, 6 pev ovv, eKeivos Se, mark the successive points of juncture. The purpose is didactic and not simply or in the first instance historical; the tone is Johannine rather than Marcan. [p. cx]

There is also a very interesting note that has nothing to do with the question of Secret Mark but I thought I should quote anyway

Quote:

A recent discovery assigns a name to the author of this fragment. In November 1891 Mr F. C. Conybeare found in the Patriarchal Library of Edschmiatzin an Armenian MS. of the Gospels written A.D. 989, in which the last twelve verses of St Mark are introduced by a rubric written in the first hand, Of the presbyter Ariston 1 . Mr Conybeare with much probability suggests that the person intended is the Aristion who is mentioned by Papias as one of the disciples of the Lord.

[Papias (Eus. H. E. iii. 39) is quoted]

Through Mr Conybeare s kindness a photograph is given of the leaf which bears the name of Ariston. He has sent me the following note in explanation of the facsimile.

" In this codex verse 8 of ch. xvi. ends at the beginning of a line, in the second column of a page. The line is partly filled up with the vermilioned flourishes which indicate that the Gospel proper of Mark is ended. Verse 9 however is begun on the next line, and the whole 12 verses are completed in the same large uncials as the rest of the Gospels. As it were by an afterthought the scribe adds the title Ariston Eritzou just above the flourishes mentioned, and within the columnar space. It is written in vermilioned smaller uncials identical in character with those which at the foot of each column denote the Ammonian canons, and also with those which the scribe uses to complete a word at the end of a line, thereby preserving the symmetry of the lines and avoiding the necessity of placing the last one or two letters of a word by themselves at the beginning of a fresh line. The title therefore was added by the first hand; or, if not by him, at least by the diorthwtes. In any case it is contemporary and must have stood in the older copy transcribed, from which also were perhaps transferred the fifth century full-page illuminations included in the existing codex. At first it was intended to omit the title, but on second thoughts it was added. If the scribe had from the first meant to keep it, he would have left room for it, instead of cramping it in above the terminal flourishes. That he regarded Mark proper as ending with verse 8, is further shewn by the large circular boss consisting of concentric circles of .colour added against the end of verse 8 between the columns. The paler tints in the photograph correspond to vermilion in the codex ; and the vermilioned lettering of the title was so faint in the positive sent to Mr Conybeare from Edschmiatzin in 1895, that he has strengthened it with ink for the preparation of the present facsimile. The parchment of the codex is so thin and fine that the writing on the back of the page here and there shews through in the photograph."

Though neither Eusebius nor Papias as quoted by Eusebius says that Aristion committed his διήγησις to writing, nothing is more likely than that they were collected and published by those who heard them. To such a collection, made under the influence of the school of St John, this summary of post-Resurrection history I may well have belonged, and in the exemplar which was the j archetype of the codices known to Irenaeus it had been judged worthy to complete the unfinished work of the Evangelist. While the shorter ending passed over to Carthage and established itself in some circles at Alexandria, Rome and Gaul were quick to perceive the higher claims of this genuine relic of the first generation, and it took its place unchallenged in the fourfold Gospel of the West.

I did not know that a manuscript in a library identified the author of the long ending. How many of you knew that?

stephan huller · 12-11-2011, 02:18 PM

Here is James Snapp's explanation of the Ariston reference

Quote:

In the Armenian MS Arm E229 , copied in the year 989, a note between the lines of text stat Mark 16:9 “Ariston eritzou,” which suggests to some scholars that the passage was written by a elder named Ariston. According to Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History 3:39, Ariston (also known as Aristion) was the name of a contemporary of John mentioned by Papias. Eusebius states that Papias “hands on other accounts of the sayings of the Lord belonging to Aristion, who has been mentioned above, and the traditions of John the Elder.”

The note in Arm E229 probably exists due a misunderstanding of a note in an older MS in which the same note was placed in the margin alongside 16:18. Originally intended to to concisely identify the source of Papias’ story about Justus Barsabbas’ survival of poison-drinking, it was misinterpreted to mean that the entire passage was the work of Aristion.

It seems unlikely that the Aristion mentioned by Papias could be the author of the LE, if for no other reason than Aristion was connected with the Christian community in Asia Minor, rather than to the community in Rome. However, an interesting interpretation of this note is mentioned by Bruce Metzger: “The identification [of the individual mentioned in the note in Arm E229] has been contested by, for example, B.W. Bacon and Clarence R. Williams, who took the Ariston to be Aristo(n) of Pella, who, according to one erpretation of a statement by Moses of Chorene, was the of secretary of the Evangelist Mark. If the short note in Arm E229 was intended to refer to a secretary of Mark then this piece of evidence is consistent with the theory that the LE was appended prior to the book's publication. It would also indicate that the editorial activity of Mark’s survivors was not unknown to the ancient Church.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

12-11-2011, 08:05 AM	#13
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	From May of this year It is further curious that some scholars (e.g., Helmut Koester) take the purported excerpts of a “Secret Mark” as stemming from a version of Mark supposedly earlier than the familiar text. Analysis of the excepts has convinced a number of scholars that it is a pastiche of phrases from Mark and John in particular. Also, the excerpts seem to depend upon and expand passages in Mark, especially the reference to the unidentified “young man” in Mark 14:51-52 where Jesus is arrested. The ancient copying/transmission of texts tended more to resolve difficulties rather than to create them, and to explain/expand narrative scenes, not so much to make them puzzling. So, on these bases, the purported excepts of “Secret Mark” are (whether ancient or modern in origin) more likely secondary, not indicative of a version of Mark earlier than the familiar text Yes I am aware of Hurtado's claims. Yet he never bothers to acknowledge the obvious parallel between both additions to Mark. Someone like James Snapp denies that the long ending is a pastiche and so it stands to reason that when he discovers that the addition mentioned in to Theodore is a pastiche he has a right to raise suspicions. Yet Hurtado and Watson accept that the long ending is a pastiche and that in some form the ebding is “authentic” (in Watson's case quite explicitly). Both point to Kelhoffer's work written forty years after the discovery of Mar Saba 65 as making manifest the pastiche nature of the long ending. It is odd that a modern forger would have developed his addition to chapter 10 according to principles that Morton Smith did not recognize even existed in 1958

12-11-2011, 09:09 AM	#15
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	No I am not interested necessarily interested in what Hurtado wants us to see as much as the inconsistencies in his argument

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.