Steven Carr

Professor Larry Hurtado has another excellent blog entry on the Gospel of Mark.



It can be found at http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/20...shape-of-mark/

Here’s a key quote:

“Indeed, it is striking that many of the most notable Markan ‘omissions’ involve matters which are not susceptible of imitation, including the virginal conception and the pre-eschatological resurrection. Mark’s whole story of Jesus can be read as a blueprint for the Christian life: It begins with baptism, proceeds with the vigorous pursuit of ministry in the face of temptation and opposition, and culminates in suffering and death oriented towards an as-yet unseen vindication.”

The whole story was crafted as a blueprint for the Christian life.

Presumably in the same what that the whole story of the Good Samaritan can be read as a blueprint for morality.

So why should either story be taken as historical?

Especially as the Gospel of Mark has such exemplars for Christian life as Simon of Cyrene picking up the cross and following Jesus, the centurion seeing Jesus die and calling him the Son of God, and such bad examples as the disciples who betrayed and denied Jesus.

stephan huller

Apparently this 'blueprint' included repaying Mark for his gospel writing efforts by failing to recall Mark's full name, his background, and his motivation for writing the gospel in the first place - in short removing Mark from our interpretation of his text - indeed subordinating this, the true architect of Christianity, to a bunch of morons whose fitness for leadership in the Christian community is challenged by his original document, stripping the Evangelist of his original status as an apostle, subordinating his original church in Alexandria to a false church in Rome with no real historical connection to him or his gospel, forgetting what day, month and year the Passion he witnesses actually occurred, expanding the number of years that Jesus engaged in his mystery, obscuring the original ending to the narrative and heavily editing his original MS by deleting narratives and saying that appeared in his gospel and then finally - as the ultimate act of respect - not preserving the original autograph of his Gospel of Mark.

Let's all celebrate Hurtado's 'Christian blueprint' - a master plan of disrespect which above all else wants to separate the artistic creation from the original artist all in the name of 'serving and honoring' God the Creator.

But what about man the creator, the creator of the gospel? He doesn't exist for people like Hurtado.

Littlejohn

"..He doesn't exist for people like Hurtado.."

I think at least on this prof. Hurtado is right. The Marcus to which the relative canonic Gospel has been credited, although he has been a real historical figure did not had, however, nothing to do with Christianity (or chatolic-Christianity), since such a character was a heathen, and remained so until to the his death (however it is possible that he may have felt sympathy for the Judaism)

The historical character Marcus, was none other that the official Roman which picked the Peter's confession, before he was crucified by order of Nero.(*) The same character you occupied then to set such a material, collected during the Peter's confession, in the imperial archives, where it remained until the early years of the 140 decade, when was decided to use it for the composition of the first canonical Gospel, which, for such a reason, was called 'Gospel of Marcus'.

The Marcus of Rome, therefore, had nothing to do with the 'Marcus' of Alexandria: a character quite distinct from the first, despite the efforts of forger fathers to do us believe that they were the same person.


Greetings

______________________________

Note:

(*) - Peter, in fact, with his gang of killers, probably the same with which massacred the couple Ananias and Sapphira, had attempted to the life of Simon Magus, which was became a highly influential character at the court of Nero, as to be considered almost one person of the Nero's family. Hence the decision to crucify Peter with head towards down: a typical sentence for those guilty of the crime of 'lese majesty' in the person of the Emperor.

Littlejohn

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Jane H

Hurtado goes into this in more depth in this (or via: amazon.co.uk) book esp p309-314. Essentially he sees Mark's Gospel as saying, 'If you want an example of how a Christian life should look, here it is...' In other words, it's outlining Jesus life as an example for Christians to look at and copy.

That, according to LH, explains why there's no birth tradition (a Christian life begins at baptism). And- this theory has grown on me a lot- why there's no resurrection tradition, even though it's clearly assumed (Mark 10:34). The resurrection happens to us after our Christian life finishes. Given priority of Mark, he wouldn't have known that you're 'supposed' to have resurrection appearances; and given his aim, he wouldn't have thought to put them in. Everyone in the church knew Jesus had been resurrected and it didn't fit Mark's agenda to include it.

Why in contrast to the Good Samaritan, is it not to be read as an ahistorical moral parable?

LH says that Mark is writing against the background of the AD70 troubles, and he has decided to write a bios style account to motivate believers to hold firm. If Jesus suffered and was prepared to pay the ultimate price, Christians need to be prepared to copy his (real life) example. The whole Markan approach is, “follow this man's example, he actually suffered and you may also have to”, rather than, “follow this parable”.

stephan huller

Obviously Hurtado is an informed authority and much of what he says comes as a result of thoughtful reflection on the familiar sources. The question though is whether there is more to Mark's gospel than what a European tradition which denies the Evangelist a place among the apostles has passed on to us. I think there is.

Hurtado's understanding of Mark is really what we might call a reverse inference. Here is what the European Church has always stood for. Mark must be the original gospel writer. All we have to do is draw a straightline backwards from us to Mark through the writings of the Church Fathers.
That has some validity certainly but is that all there is?

JoeWallack

JW:
I think LH is wrong about a lot, including this. If it's not the primary theme of "Mark" than one of the main ones is that the historical Disciples were not promoting the resurrection of Jesus. A significant segment of "Mark's" audience did not know that Jesus was claimed to be resurrected because "Mark" is the original narrative making the claim.

What I've never seen discussed before is that because "Mark" is clearly Separationist, there is no point in a Jesus/Disciple reunion. Jesus is a nobody from Galilee who receives the Christ Spirit at baptism. At the crucifixion the Christ leaves him and it is Jesus who is resurrected, not the Christ which has gone back to Heaven. The only thing the audience needs to know is that Jesus was resurrected. Jesus has gone back to Galilee to resume nobodiness and even if the Disciples met him there, he wouldn't have anything to say to them anyway without the Christ Spirit. Jesus Christ had already explained during the la-la that false Christs would appear and the only way to recognize the real Christ would be through signs. The implication is that you could not recognize the return of Christ through physical appearance. That's not how you recognize Spirits. The Christ Spirit is returning, but it could be into anyone.

Regarding LH, also check out his blog for his nonsense on Mark 16:8.



Joseph

Chili

Yes, that is true and is how the self proclaimed Christians can claim apostolic tradition on the anathema side of the Church right back to John 6:66 when they first parted company from the body of Christ.

Solo

LH is probably a nice guy, alas, one who lives in the Sunday school verities. There were no Christians in Mark's time. There were Paulinist clubs of Christ pneumatics going toe to toe with the Petrine exiles from the 66-70 war. They hated each other's guts, and competed for converts. There is no nativity in Mark for the simple reason that Matthew had not yet created one - as an allegory of the spiritual 'second' birth.

Mark follows Paul's resurrectional schema - you imitate Christ, you will be raised after death (donning something imperishable). But Mark knows that to follow Jesus you have to give up on this world - "good teacher what must I do to earn eternal life ?". And Jesus answers "why do you call me good ?" ...go and sell what you have and give it to the poor. Certainly there is no useful (!) moral precept in that. Mark simply wants to show why the grandiose Spirit passes.


And yet Mark displays Jesus as the risen Lord (on the lake, on the mount) and promises that some will not 'taste death' before seeing 'kingdom of God come with power' (9:1). Remember - there was no church yet, it was still 'cooking' when Mark wrote. Come to think of it, his gospel was the main course.

Because, it is not principally a moral parable. Actually, that was one of things that Matthew 'corrected'.

I think LH is right about the post-70 troubles. Transparently, Mark was written to re-assert Paulinist primacy based on a written gospel against incursions of Petrine exiles in Diaspora, who began proclaiming Jesus as a Davidic Messiah, and the apostolic 'tradition' against Paul's 'scripture'.

Again, this looks more like the syncretic Jesus built by Matthew over Mark. Mark's Jesus Christ is the spirit not the man. His gospel is the guide through the spirit's passing to those 'eklektoi' who themselves have the spirit and think either they won a lottery or they are damned to madness.

Best,
Jiri

aa5874

Did you get that story from another "nice guy"?

There is no nativity in the Petrine epistles but Peter was supposed to be an apostle of Jesus.

There is no nativity in the epistle of James but he was supposed to be called the Lord's brother.

There is no nativity in the Epistle of Jude but he was supposed to be a sibling of Jesus.

The gospel according to John has no nativity but is supposed to be written after gMatthew and gLuke.

Revelation by John has no nativity.

"No nativity" may be an indicator of a late writing.

And the Pauline writers mentioned JESUS over 150 times and that he was a Messiah who was betrayed, crucified, had died, resurrected and was the Creator of heaven and earth.

In the NT Canon, the Pauline Jesus was a God/Man not a "pneumatic".

The author of gMark did NOT indicate that he was aware that over 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus Nor DID he appear to have even heard of any Pauline writers' resurrectional schema...

The visitors to the tomb in gMark ran away trembling with fear. See Mark 16.8.

Please explain how running away and trembling with fear follows Paul's resurrectional schema?


You forgot "Paul" ALREADY started churches ALL over the Roman Empire.

You are not following your own PAULINE SCHEMA.

You forgot that YOUR "Paul" traveled to Jerusalem and ARGUED about his "pneumatic Christ".

You forgot that your "Paul" persecuted the church and wasted it.

Your Markan and Pauline SCHEMA is flawed.

What!! You just made a massive bungle.

The gospel called according to Mark is NOT about YOUR "pneumatic Christ". gMark is about JESUS the Messiah who lived and preached in Galilee. The Markan Jesus was on trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate and was crucified by soldiers on earth.

The gMark is about the gospel of Jesus the God/man Messiah and the coming of the kingdom of God according to perceived prophecy in Hebrew Scripture like Joel 2.10&31. There is ZERO about your "pneumatic Christ"


Mr 1:1 - Mr 1:14-15 Mr 13.24 After the Fall of the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem the author of gMark appear to have believed or wanted people to believe that prophecy was about to be fulfilled and that the world as it was known then would be NO more and that people should believe in HIS GOD/MAN MESSIAH.

The author of gMark appears to have used NOTHING from the Pauline writings, not even a sentence.

Chili

I would like to point out that there is reality behind the parable and call the crucifixion itself a parable so that we can follow the example set by Jesus and also walk away from it.

What in reality must happen is that we are born into eternal life (as 'stream entrant' in Buddhism), where we first realize that we are eternal beings and so conclude that we have an option to not die (this is based on the basic premiss that if eternal life is real ours must not be = first step in awakening).

Mark does not know anything about that and so remains a total outsider to the event from which follows that there will be no resurrection and so he just predicates religion for the sake of relgion without any justification for faith itself wherein the believer is supposed to find relief in understanding.