neilgodfrey

familiarity, and the systemic bias towards seeing Mark as rooted in the OT and no other, and seeing it through the eyes of the theology we know from Matthew, Luke and John.

and as for "culling out false positives", literary criticism does not work that way. i'm not working with black and white certainties.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

neilgodfrey

I wonder if there is some esoteric significance in the way the gospel the gospel has 4 disciples identified by 2 different parents at the beginning and the unusual feature of 2 different parents at the end identifed by 2 disciples -- twice.

James and John are the Sons of Zebedee and Simon is the father of Alexander and Rufus.

Levi is the son of Alphaeus and later we read that another James is also the son of Alphaeus; compare Mary who is mother of both James and Joses is identified separately as mother of Joses at one place and later as the mother of James.

It does look like the author is structuring something here for his esoteric audience. Not certain, of course. But I sometimes wonder.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

jakejonesiv

Hi Ben and Neil,

If the image of Simon Magus, the "Father of Heresy" is indeed hiding behind Simon, then Alexander and Rufus are coded references to Gnostic leaders known to the esoteric readers of the gospel. Similar to the blasphemous heretics Alexander and Hymenaeus, who were "consigned to Satan" by the catholic writer of 1 Timothy 1:20.

Jake Jones IV

neilgodfrey

Good point. Of course. Hence their exclusion by Matthew and Luke.

And not to overlook Detering's argument that Peter and Paul being the rival schools/interpreters of that Simon. By removing the identifiers of Simon of Cyrene, Matthew and Luke are reclaiming Simon for the Petrine christianity.


Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

neilgodfrey

I don't think its "suffering" is all that acute. The Triumph was a centuries old event and while anything is possible I don't think it's necessarily a very big leap to assume a little detail brought out incidentally by Heliodorus had been a longstanding traditional feature.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

gstafleu

Tsk tsk Jiri, a strawman. These are only fun if they hand out strawberries. Of course Mark didn't read the not-yet-existing Campbell. And the question is not if there were king-for-a-day's in Rome, it is if the stories about them could have made it to there. Given that the tradition made it to Sumeria/Babylonia, and that e.g. Ovid mentions Ethiopia and India in his Metamorphoses, I don't think we can just cavalierly dismiss the notion.
Another tsk tsk, as you make it sound as if the two are mutually exclusive. Are you sure you haven't joined the literalist one-meaning-at-a-time camp ?

Plus, you've totally ignored the repeated "Yes, Yes! Oh shit." structure I pointed out. Note that this structure is independent from the king hypothesis in that the structure (per se) doesn't necessitate the hypothesis, neither does the hypothesis necessitate the structure.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

I thought that the connection was supposed to be more direct than that. My mistake.

But of course I agree that Heliodorus may preserve a detail that is centuries older. In such a case, if you wish to read Mark with reference to this detail preserved for us only much later, I ask only that you and the readers of this thread remember this methodology next time somebody wishes to read Paul with reference to the slightly later gospels.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I see Mark as rooted both in the OT and in the concepts and language of the imperial cult. I am all in favor of reading Mark apart from the theologies of Matthew, Luke, and John. (I also know from experience that many who caution against reading Mark in light of the other gospels will readily do so themselves when it suits their purposes; for example, there is a tendency on this board to read Joseph of Arimathea in Mark as a covert disciple of Jesus, when it is really only the later gospels that make him that. Mark himself offers to relationship between Joseph and Jesus.)

This statement comes off as quite fair and balanced, but I had thought that this much was granted for the sake of the discussion, and that we were discussing relative probabilities.

For example, would your statements come off as equally fair and balanced if the topic were whether or not Mark 15.34 is an allusion to Psalm 22.1? Or would you perhaps be a little more certain of that allusion than to merely say that we are not working with black and white certainties? Does it not seem to you that, within the range of relative probabilities we are stuck with (since we are working with history and literature, not science), Mark 15.34 alluding to Psalm 22.1 is one possibility that might be fairly classified as more likely than not?

So, in keeping with this notion of relative probabilities, how probable is it, in your judgment, that Mark intended Simon of Cyrene to fulfill the role of the axebearing executioner in a Roman triumph?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

That is correct.

Origen notwithstanding, I am wondering how you know this. Not a few scholars have expressed doubt that Basilides ever wrote anything other than a commentary or compilation or both. That he wrote a text that we would recognizably call a gospel is certainly possible, but not proven.

What is the force of shades over in this statement?

This is Matthew, who follows Mark quite closely in this instance.

This is Basilides. Our extant text of Mark has nothing about Simon being crucified and Jesus standing by laughing.

This is Simon Magus, who claimed some sort of divine status.

(Question for you: Above you quoted Price as saying that Simon Magus claimed to have undergone an apparent crucifixion in Judea. Irenaeus here says that he claimed to have undergone apparent suffering. Where do we learn about the crucifixion claim?)

How are these elements supposed to fit together? For the Basilidians it was Jesus who only seemed to suffer and Simon who really did suffer. But for the Simonians it was Simon himself who only seemed to suffer. How do these mesh?

Ben.

Solo

Oh, Gerard, you disappoint me: have you not heard yet of non-local reality ?

The question to me is how does it fit to Mark's purpose. I don't see it fitting into anything that I am familiar with.

Yes, yes, oh shit ! I completely forgot about that !

Jiri