Ben C Smith

I did not know that such an explanation was so important to you. My apologies.

The connection between asking for the body and Jesus already being dead is direct; they are adjacent phrases. The connection between waiting for the kingdom and being not far from the kingdom (in chapter 12) is also direct; the verbal similarity is too close for coincidence, even if it was unconscious for Mark (and I am not saying that it was). The connection between waiting for the kingdom and asking for the body of Jesus is indirect, unless Mark mentioned the boldness of the request for the reasons you adduce. If he mentioned them for my reasons, then the connection is neither adjacent nor verbal; the only connection would be that both items described Joseph (with therefore no more necessary connection with one another than that I both have dark brown hair and like mushrooms).

What your translation has as boldness the Greek has as daring: Joseph dared to go in to Pilate. This certainly sounds to me as if Joseph is nervous about Pilate. If he is also nervous about his council colleagues (and I suspect that, if historical, he must have been), Mark has not mentioned it. Byron McCane writes in his article:

Mark 15:43 says that Joseph of Arimathea "dared"... to approach Pilate and request the body of Jesus. Why "dared?" Because such a request would indeed have been daring in light of the fact that victims often remained hanging on crosses as symbols of Roman will.

I am sorry that does not seem credible to you (even, apparently, on the level of Marcan fiction). There is nothing for it, I fear. But recall that you asked:

What indeed? I think your implication here is correct: Joseph had nothing to fear from the Sanhedrin for wishing to bury a body. Burying a body would not in any way blow his cover, as it were, or raise eyebrows or suspicions. He would merely be acting like Tobit; it would not matter whether the corpse was of a criminal, a saint, a beggar, a priest, or a prophet.

The only person Joseph had to be nervous about would be a Roman, just as the person Tobit had to be nervous about was an Assyrian.

Ben.

Amaleq13

I do not deny these connections. I contend that they can only be considered secondary to the initial connection created by placing them all in the same description of Joseph.

Phrases in the same sentence are indirectly connected while adjacent phrases are direct? That sounds like the author chose the parts of the sentence for individual reasons and it is simply an unfortunate coincidence that their collective implication is of specific sympathies for Jesus. That dog won't hunt, Ben.

Yes, "without fear".

As I've already indicated, that doesn't seem to correspond to what has just happened in the story. The previous depiction of Pilate does not suggest that he would be reluctant to grant a token indication of the man's innocence nor that Roman protocol was a particular concern for him. He just freed a convict, after all.

Since the story eliminates any reasonable fear of Pilate's response to the request, it can only be the council Joseph fears.

Does McCane specifically explain what consequences he believes Joseph feared for his request of the body of a man Pilate considered unfairly and, according to Roman law, illegally executed?

Standard Roman practice tended to involve actual seditionists, didn't it? With men like Pilate believing they were serving the Empire by executing legitimate threats and leaving them to hang as discouraging symbols.

Standard Roman practice went out the window at the trial, Ben. It seems specious to make an appeal to it later.

But there does not appear to be any good reason for Joseph to be nervous about Pilate's response so something must be wrong with your view.

Ben C Smith

Hi, my name is Ben, and I have a special offer for you. For a limited time only, I am offering....

In this statement, my name is Ben and I have a special offer are in the same sentence. Are they more intimately linked than I have a special offer and for a limited time? I think not. The division of sentences is a red herring.

I will discuss the granting of a token below. But where did Pilate abandon protocol?

As demanded by protocol, according to Mark.

Illegally executed according to Roman law? Pilate had the power. What Roman law did he break?

Seditionists, escaped slaves, or anybody who looked like he might cause trouble during a Jewish feast.

I would appreciate an explanation here. There is much legitimate debate about the lawfulness of a night meeting of the Sanhedrin, but what is at stake in what Pilate did?

You suppose that, in the narrative logic, Joseph had nothing to fear from Pilate. I simply disagree. I have the second recension of the gospel of Nicodemus on my side, I think, in which Nicodemus refuses to go with Joseph to beg the body of Pilate for fear of what Pilate will do (and this despite Pilate having defended the innocence of Jesus and washed his hands of his blood during the trial!). If the author of the gospel of Nicodemus thought it natural that anyone begging the body of a convict should be fearful of Pilate, I fail to see why the author of the gospel of Mark cannot have thought it natural too. I find it quite natural myself (it makes perfect sense politically), but I doubt you would take my word for it.

I should mention that, although neither Joseph nor Nicodemus express fear of the Jewish leaders before going to Pilate, the Jewish leaders do get pretty ticked off at them for a while.

Another aspect that should be explored in both recensions of that apocryphal gospel is that Joseph of Arimathea is introduced almost exactly as in Mark or Luke, with nary a hint of his being a secret follower as far as I can tell. He is simply presented as a godfearing Jew who thought that Jesus was innocent. In one scene the risen Jesus appears to him, and Joseph not only does not recognize him at first (much like those in the canonical gospels) but also fails to recognize him even after being told who he was (unlike those in the canonical gospels). He believes that it is Jesus only when Jesus shows him where he had laid him. In short, it appears that Joseph has no particular past relationship with Jesus in this text.

This seems all the more remarkable given that the author of this text clearly knows the gospels of Matthew and John. Yet, having introduced Joseph in the Marcan or Lucan way, he seems to presuppose that Joseph was simply acting out of piety.

Ben.

Amaleq13

You've got to be kidding. Try again with a genuinely analogous example (eg a narrative context, multiple phrases in a single sentence describing a character performing a key act in the story) because this one just isn't.

Is ordering the execution of an innocent man following Roman law?

Yes, more evidence that the author was not terribly concerned with accurately depicting Roman practices in his story.

It was legal to execute an innocent man according to Roman law?

Yes, but they were generally actually guilty of their crimes or, at the very least, their guilt was sufficiently established according to the law. Pilate only established Jesus' innocence.

Executing a man he considered innocent of any crime against Rome.

That is my conclusion, yes. It just makes no sense within the context of what has just happened in the story and nothing you've offered appears to change that. For example, you have yet to establish what consequences Joseph risked by making the request. What possible reason could Pilate have to do anything worse than refuse?

That the author of the gospel of Nicodemus joins you in embracing the idea Joseph feared Pilate fails to make that alleged fear any more credible. IMO, he simply joins you in ignoring the previous scene in the story.

I think the fact that he wrote the preceding scene with its milquetoast depiction of a weak-willed Pilate controlled by the Sanhedrin makes it inherently less likely that he would join you and the other author in ignoring that depiction and imagining that making the request involved some sort of risk from Pilate.

Ben C Smith

Okay. Mark 14.51-52:

A young man was following him, wearing a linen sheet over his nakedness, and they seized him. But he left behind his linen sheet and escaped naked.

Narrative context, multiple phrases (three, to be exact) in a single sentence describing a character performing a key act.

Here the young man is (A) following Jesus, (B) wearing nothing but a sheet, and (C) getting seized, all in one sentence. While A and C are certainly related (that is, surely he was seized because he was following Jesus), B intervenes, and has nothing to do with either following Jesus or being seized. Rather, it has to do with the next sentence, in which he escapes naked. Again, the sentence markers are not necessarily what bind ideas together.

Yes, of course. As long as Pilate pronounced him guilty (implied in the order to crucify him), he was legally guilty.

Even in American law, there are people sitting in prison right now who are innocent of the charges that were brought against them, and not one law had to be broken in order to put them behind bars. The judge, the jury, the bailiff, the warden... all were acting well within the bounds of the law in sending these innocent people up the river.

He risked, for example, being lumped in together with the condemned man, being thought one of his allies, and thus possibly sharing his fate or at least being thrown into prison on suspicion of conspiracy.

The goalposts have shifted. I have intentionally tried to keep the conversation away from what is actually, really credible or incredible, historical or ahistorical. What matters here is what the author of Mark might or might not have intended. If you think that what he intended is credible, then you might be thinking of analyzing it as history. If you think that what he intended is incredible, then you will be thinking of invention or even fiction. But the point here is: What did Mark actually intend?

You have argued that it is not possible (or plausible) that Mark could have meant that Joseph was afraid of Pilate. I have argued that it is possible (or plausible; I have not yet ventured to call it highly probable). And the gospel of Nicodemus backs me up. If it was possible for that author to imagine Joseph being afraid of Pilate, then why is it impossible for Mark to have done so?

The author of the gospel of Nicodemus portrays Pilate every bit as weakly as Mark does, and yet he still recognizes that Pilate wielded the sword of Rome.

Ben.

ETA: I just found Peter Kirby quoting Raymond Brown on our issue:

As Brown says of those who take Mark as meaning that Joseph was a devotee of Jesus, "If that was what Mark meant, why did he take such an indirect and obscure way of saying so?"

Peter himself adds:

An original tradition that Jesus was buried by hostile figures would count against the disciple interpretation.

And earlier he has said (underlining mine):

Yet along comes the noble knight riding in from Arimathea, daring to ask Pilate to be able to meddle in his affairs, disregarding the prohibition on honorable burial for the condemned....

It seems Peter Kirby also has a reason why Mark might think of Joseph as afraid of Pilate.

ynquirer

I think John 1:42 (khfas ho hermhneuetai petros) is probably right. Truth to be told, the writer of the fourth gospel does not say that Khfas and Petros are the same person; it is an interpretation (ho hermhneuetai), from which one can infer that the writer ignored whether or not both names denoted the same person and just made a guess. The guess, on the other hand, seems prima facie totally warranted. Khfas is supposed to be Greek transliteration of Hebraic KF - plural KFYM. The noun is mentioned twice in the Tanakh as meaning “stone” (Job 30:6, Jer 4:29). In both places the vowel after the KAP is specified in the BHS as a long, defective scriptae /e:/.

Let’s, however, accept ex hypothesis that Cephas and Caiaphas were alternative transliterations of the same Aramaic name: QYP)/QP).

If Cephas and Peter were not the same person, who was Cephas and why is this name not mentioned in the Synoptics? In Galatians 2:9 Cephas is shown to be one of the “pillars” of the early Christianity, and an outstanding one: he is mentioned four times in 1 Corinthians and another four in Galatians, while James is mentioned once in 1 Corinthians and three times in Galatians, and John is mentioned once in 1 Corinthians and twice in Galatians; Peter is mentioned only twice in Galatians. Additionally, Cephas is said to be the first one in seeing Christ after resurrection - James being only the third, after Cephas and the Twelve. And when Paul went to Jerusalem to meet the “pillars,” he met with Cephas (Gal 1:18).

Provided that Cephas was the same name as Caiaphas, Paul’s Cephas might have been a member of the high priest’s family. The possibility is intriguing. Why, if so, did so outstanding a Christian fell into oblivion for the later tradition? The writer of the fourth gospel seems to be ignorant of the connection, likewise Matthew and Luke seem. What about Mark?

Most strikingly, Mark does not mention Caiaphas by name - he speaks only of the “high priest.” The omission is no less intriguing than the omission of Cephas. Mark mentions neither one. Why did Mark omitted such an outstanding character from his narrative? I can only think of one explanation: Mark wished to protect the man Paul calls “Cephas.”

Caiaphas was a Sadducee, and an ally to the Romans. After the Jewish war of 70, the Sadducee party was discredited and disappeared while the Pharisees’ influence became paramount. A member of a Sadducee family, who was altogether a leading Christian, would have been in the greatest danger. Mark perhaps omitted his name to protect him. Yet, would he have omitted any reference to his person? I surmise he wouldn’t. Who in the gospel of Mark might have been a member of the Caiaphas family appearing under a different name? Most of the clues point at Joseph of Arimathea:

1) Joseph is said to be a “respected member of the council” - that is, of the Sanhedrin. Though Mark does not goes as far as the gospel of Peter, who calls Joseph “a friend of Pilate,” it is quite clear that he was in the best terms with Pilate - which a Sadducee might have been while a Pharisee would never have.

2) No exact match has ever been found in Palestine for the patronymic Arimathea. It sounds like a fake name. There are, in principle, many reasons why the writer used such a fake name, yet one of course was to conceal the identity of the named person.

3) The Caiaphas ossuary, discovered in 1990, had two tombs. One of them has an inscription that says YHWSP BR QYP), that is, “Joseph son of Caiaphas (or Cephas).” Therefore, Joseph as a given name was used within the family.

4) Paul says that Cephas was the first to see Christ after resurrection (1 Cor 15:5). That the owner of the tomb where Jesus’ body was kept were the first to know of its disappearance would be all too natural. Mark certainly does not say that much, but he says that when the women arrived at the tomb it was open; someone else, therefore, could possibly have discovered the disappearance before them and seen resurrected Jesus first. If Mark wished to conceal the Christian leadership by one Joseph son of Caiaphas/Cephas he would have omitted that he was the first to see Jesus after resurrection, for otherwise his identity would have been disclosed from Paul‘s words. Mark precisely has the reader think that the women were the very first, so erasing Cephas’ track.

To sum up, if Cephas has the same Aramaic source as Caiaphas, then the man that the gospel of Mark calls Joseph of Aritmathea could possibly have been the same person as Paul calls Cephas and the high priest‘s son. And if such outstanding Jews - father and son - would have been buried together in two tombs, then “Joseph son of Caiaphas” that appears in a tomb discovered in 1990 might be Joseph of Aritmathea, and in that case the cave where it and another tomb were discovered would be the very place where Jesus’ body was laid down.

Possible though this interpretation is, I don’t think it to be very likely, as I said before, because Cephas seems to me an implausible pronunciation of QYP)/QP).

Amaleq13

Another bad example, IMO. Key act? The naked youth is more of a peripheral curiosity if only because we don't know why the author included him.

It certainly does connect to being seized and we are told exactly how in the next sentence. The linen sheet is specifically what was seized.

How did you determine that his clothing has nothing to do with being a follower?

Knowing he was innocent? I don't believe that. It is my understanding that the Romans took their law more seriously than that.

No law is broken if a judge convicts a man he knows to be innocent? False conviction is not illegal?

First, aren't you conceding my point here that the author's description of Joseph suggests he was a sympathizer?

Second, why would Pilate be concerned about a wrongly executed man's "allies" and what "conspiracy" involves such an innocent man besides the one that got him killed?

No, mine have always involved a coherent story regardless of historicity.

What matters here is whether it is reasonable to assume that the author would ignore his previous depiction of Pilate as a non-threat to the Sanhedrin and depict Joseph as afraid to ask him for the body of a man he ordered executed despite knowing he was innocent.

Implausible or, at least, less likely than his fellow Sanhedrin members.

I've already answered that question:
What need would he have for the sword of Rome against a request for the body of an innocent man he wrongly executed?

I've already addressed this question in an earlier post from the viewpoint of fiction as well as history. The bottom line is we don't know why the author didn't choose to explicitly establish Joseph's relationship, if any, to Jesus.

My point is that I simply do not believe he would have failed to recognize the obvious implication and left it had he not intended it to remain.

Considering Mark as an effort to deny such an earlier tradition would count for it.

Do you think I'll consider it more credible coming from Peter? Nope

What is the basis for Joseph's fear of Pilate?

The fear is of being considered a sympathizer but Pilate would only be concerned about potential followers of actual rebel leaders.

The Sanhedrin, however, would be concerned about Jesus sympathizers and especially so if it was one of their own.

spin

This is all very interesting, but why do you think that the KAF didn't change to a chi rather than a kappa, which usually comes from a QOF?

Perhaps the two entities had been conflated by the time the first synoptic was written. After all the Gal 2:7-8 is obviously an interpolation, isn't it?

Then again, the Cephas tradition may not have been initially available to the synoptics. Obviously the petros (the Simon guy)/petra (the doctrine that Jesus was the messiah) wordplay doesn't work in Aramaic. It would be K)P) both times and assuming it was a nickname for a person, it is certainly not the source of choice for a translation of petra. If you check Greek equivalents to the Peshitta, you'll find, rather than petra, liQos for K)P), ie something much smaller than a foundation of a church.

That all seems reasonable to me.

I think it more likely that the information just wasn't available to Mark, as is the case with the birth narratives and the resurrection sightings.

The speculations about Caiaphas, forgive me, but I'll leave them for someone else to take up, with one exception...

Arimathea is derived from Ramoth, as in LXX Jos 20:8, arhmwQ, plus a formal Greek toponymic ending with the diffusion of Greek colonization and culture.

You certainly haven't made a strong case for this claim, but I think that Khfas is an implausible derivation from K)P). The vast majority of names starting with a KAF have a chi in Greek transliteration, from Caleb to Cush. The best way to explain it is if it is a secondary development, ie that the name Cephas already existed, as for a transliteration of QYP), and it later became related to K)P). As I said, the petros/petra wordplay doesn't work in Aramaic: it is surely of Greek origin.


spin

Ben C Smith

Hmmm. What does the key act qualifier have to do with sentence boundaries anyway?

On that level, everything connects. My point is that being dressed in a sheet on its own merits has no more to do with being seized than, say, Joseph looking for the kingdom and Joseph asking for the body of Jesus. In both cases, we have to look elsewhere for the connection, not to the phrases themselves.

Same standard as before. It does not have any intrinsic connection to being a follower. If there is a connection, we have to go hunting for it.

Please cite for me the Roman law that would condemn Pilate for sentencing an innocent man to death.

Judges often sentence people whom they themselves think are innocent.

No, I do not think so.

Speaking of Pilate in this way suggests that the debate is about history. Let me reframe the question. Why would Mark choose to portray Joseph as fearful of Pilate? My answer, because there were very real tensions between Roman officials and Jewish leaders. Even if (and I am by no means conceding this point) this particular scenario makes no sense, the general relationship of Romans to Jews would make a Jew fearing a Roman not an unnatural thing to include.

We do not have to assume this in the case of the gospel of Nicodemus. This is exactly what that author did. Why is it impossible for Mark to have done this when it is certain that the author of the apocryphal text did it?

But you say that you have already answered this question, and you cite your answer as follows:

Let me replace Mark with Nicodemus in this paragraph:

I think the fact that Nicodemus wrote the preceding scene with its milquetoast depiction of a weak-willed Pilate controlled by the Sanhedrin makes it inherently less likely that he would join you in ignoring that depiction and imagining that making the request involved some sort of risk from Pilate.

Yet that is exactly what Nicodemus did. You are essentially saying that Mark cannot have done exactly what Nicodemus did. Then, when pressed for a reason for your opinion, you repeat that Mark cannot have done exactly what Nicodemus did. So I ask again: If Nicodemus can do it, why not Mark? (Citing elements of Mark that are also true of Nicodemus cannot, by definition, answer this question.)

As I said before, Mark is ambiguous here. On its own merits it could go either way.

Well, that is the real difference. It is obvious to you. All I can say is that it is not at all obvious to me (or to McCane, or to Brown; I cite these men not as an appeal to authority but rather on behalf of my own sanity ).

An effort to assert that Jesus was buried by friends that does not call the burier a friend? That is an interesting oversight.

In sentencing Jesus to death, he has publicly declared him an actual rebel leader. He could have any sympathizers put to death simply to preserve that illusion, to which he has now openly committed himself.

Agreed. In fact, the gospel of Peter makes a play at that angle. The Sanhedrin could be (part of) the reason for his fear.

But it is not obvious. (At least not to me.)

Ben.

Amaleq13

It relates to the deliberate nature of the author's choice of words. Key act = more deliberation = less likely to ignore those efforts later in the story.

My (repeated) point to you has been that you are completely missing the point by focusing a given phrase's "own merits" and must, instead, take it in the specific context of the sentence and the general context of the story. You keep tearing the author's work into pieces and looking at them individually despite the fact that the author has clearly and consciously put them together for this pivotal character/scene.

The sheet is what was seized.

Joseph's search for the kingdom is why he makes the request.

And, in both cases, we learn that the phrases within the sentence relate to each other.

The only way you can know that is if you know why the scene exists in the story and why the youth ends up naked and that none of it relates to his being a follower.

We do but the connection may have been readily apparent to the author's intended audience.

The mysterious nature of this scene is one reason why I consider it a bad example.

My collection of ancient Roman law texts is out being cleaned. False accusations were called "calumnia", if that helps.

Do you have any support for the notion that executing an innocent man was not prohibited by Rome? It sounds ludicrous to me. Aren't they the source for our own "innocent until proven guilty"? Everything I'm reading online about Roman law suggests it did not condone false convictions and especially for a capital crime.

That is not analogous and you know it. How many judges sentence people they know are innocent?

You are in denial.

The phrase "being lumped in together with the condemned man, being thought one of his allies" is not synonymous with "being considered a sympathizer"? Please.

There is no difference between what you wrote and the following except it makes your concession more obvious :

"He risked, for example, being considered a sympathizer, and thus possibly sharing his fate or at least being thrown into prison on suspicion of conspiracy."

His actions clearly create that impression but he was bold enough to do it, anyway. Is Pilate a figure to be feared in the story? No. Who has the power in the story? The Sanhedrin. Do we fear people with power more or people who concede to those with power?

I have to say, Ben, that this is not one of your better attempts to defend a position.

No, just coherence.

Where is there any sense of that tension in the previous scene depicting Pilate as capitulating to the desires of the Sanhedrin?

Abandoning the internal coherence of the story in favor of the contemporary situation of his audience for this scene though not the previous? Possible, I suppose, but I see no reason to assume it.

I guess you didn't grasp my point even after repeating it. It comes down to the difference between the original author of a story and a second author changing that story for his own purpose. Who is more likely to ignore a carefully constructed depiction? The man who created it or a second author changing his story?

And there is no need to exaggerate my position. I've never argued "impossible".

Obvious enough for Brown that he feels it necessary to argue against it. His argument is flawed, as Kirby points out, but I think McCane is simply making the same mistake you are in ignoring the scene the author had just written which eliminates Pilate as a source of fear for any Sanhedrin member.

No, an effort to deny that Jesus was buried by enemies by suggesting it was done by a sympathetic member of the Sanhedrin. I'm assuming here that Mark's intended audience was more perceptive than either you or McCane.

Unknown fate/buried by enemies -> buried by a sympathizer -> buried by a secret disciple

This is the developmental path of the tradition I'm suggesting.

Yes and doing so after publicly declaring his innocence constitutes a false conviction.

I would be interested in any historical evidence that supports the notion you are putting forth that the Roman legal system was treated as a joke by its participants. That is the exact opposite impression I have of an almost religious reverence for the law.

Frankly, I think you lost this argument with your explanation of Joseph's motivation. As Kirby points out in the article you linked, Jewish piety is simply not credible as his motivation:

"The only motivation for a pious Jew to undertake a tomb burial for the man would be a strong belief that the crucified deserved an honorable burial."

You've got no credible motivation for Joseph's actions and a fear of Pilate that conflicts with the author's previous scene.

My view of his motivation and fear corresponds to the recent depiction of Pilate, the depiction of the Sanhedrin, and the choice of identifying Joseph with Jesus' key preaching phrase.