Vorkosigan

Yes, that's the POV I took in my most recent reply to Rod at JM. Here it is.

ROD G : What you are suggesting (I think) is that Mark midrashed his own document and projected it into the future! There is no similar other example within Mark and I know of no other in all of Jewish literature.

MICHAEL T: No, Rod, I am suggesting that Mark modeled himself after Daniel, who did exactly the same thing. Mark is writing from the middle of great events, just as Daniel was, and attempting to guess their end. And like Daniel, failing.

Consider Mark 13:18:

Pray that it may not happen in winter.(RSV)

This is a terribly odd sentence and the more you think about it the odder it gets. Titus laid siege to the city in April, during Passover. The Temple fell in August, and the city fell a month later. No events happened in winter. So what is that line doing there? It is a signal: Mark does not know the outcome of events, so he gives Jesus an ambiguous prophecy that looks like a warning, but could be disregarded if things didn’t work out.

Consider also the injunction in 13:14

"But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the
mountains;(RSV)

Remember that the story is always working on two levels, one for the characters and one for the readers. Reading Mark as a 70s document unites these two levels -- which is not the way that Mark works. Why would Mark be advising his readers to flee to the mountains in the wake of an event that has already occurred? Why would he advise them to worry whether it
happens in the winter when it already had not happened in the winter?

Now you COULD argue that Mark is merely giving Jesus an example of a warning that went unheeded – “If only you bums had fled to the mountains, you wouldn’t have died by the thousand in Jerusalem.� Or that Mark is writing midrash off of Maccabees. But on the whole, both of those statements are strange.

ROD G: For me, literally nothing about Mark's first century story-line resonates for a 135 CE audience, and a Gentile one at that. The connection hangs by a thread from the temple motif, and even this has no real correspondence. We are correlating a temple that might be torn down with a temple that might be built (and then torn down again?

MICHAEL T: Yes, that’s essentially it. In Mark’s discourse all of the Temples are related all of the time, past, present, and future. That’s the significance of 11:17, which yokes a bright future from Isa where the Temple is the place where all nations worship, to Jer, which refers to the destruction of the first Temple.

Here in Mark 13 we see that trick again. Jesus is made to prophecy of events that will occur during “this generation.�

30: Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place.(RSV)

Mark here is up to his usual tactic of making the narrative function on two levels. On the story level, here refers to the lifetime of the apostles and the
destruction of the Temple under Titus. But on the discourse level, he refers to the FUTURE lifetime of the hearer of the tale. But that cannot be the 70 AD destruction, because that event has already occurred. It cannot exist in the future for the reader/hearer, it is already in the past.

ROD G: Of course they had [been dragged before governors]. Mark will tell us about one example just a single chapter later! The fact that Mark made it up is irrelevent. To understand Mark's creation we must live in his literary world. I might add that Paul was brought before numerous authorities, and the last we hear, he might even have received an audience with the Emperor.

MICHAEL T: By all means let us live in Mark’s world, the putative world of 70 where there is not a single Roman governor recorded as having a Christian dragged before them. The only persecutor of Christians is Paul, allegedly sent by the JEWISH authorities to persecute Christians, not by the Romans. Acts is fanciful history. No serious record of Roman interest in Christians exists until Pliny and Trajan, and it is clear that Pliny is clueless about what Christians are (although according to Acts a Christian has been dragged all the way to Rome where they lived under house arrest and preached, and not a decade before Pliny’s letter Ignatius was dragged away in chains to Rome, stopping off in territories near Bithynia where Pliny governed in a showy parade across the Eastern Mediterranean, and although Tacitus has Nero burning Christians in Rome after interrogations. Something is very wrong with this picture). Mark also refers to Christians being dragged before kings but that had also not happened prior to 70. Mark’s world is a world where Christians are dragged before Kings to die as martyrs. That is not the world of the 70s.

ROD G: Then fact that we don't know what happened to Paul does not mean that Mark didn't. The fact that we have only a handful of texts and anecdotes about early persecution does not mean that Mark did not have them in abundance. Your argument here is from silence, and as just explained, that silence is a bit noisy.

MICHAEL T: Rod, this is plainly poor logic. We don’t know what happened to Paul, and no evidence suggests that Mark knew either. We have few texts about persecution from ~70. Going by the evidence we have, Mark could not have been writing in the 70s because there was no great torture-interrogation going on. The only period we know of where that occurred happened much later. Hence, going by the evidence we ACTUALLY
HAVE, and not by the evidence we assume Mark MIGHT have had, Mark was not writing in the 70s.

ROD G: : The term Christian is never used in Mark's gospel and so this analogy has no relevence. I have already pointed out numerous examples where Paul writes "in Christ's name."

MICHAEL T: Your examples didn’t really strike to the heart of the issue. Mark was perfectly capable of distinguishing between “for my sake� and “for my
name’s sake.� Clearly Mark was writing from a time when the NAME was key. Here is the entire sentence:

13: and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.(RSV)

Note the “by ALL.� Mark is writing at a time when Christians were known as a separate group and widely detested. Again this time cannot be the 70s, when Jews and Christians were basically indistinguishable. Persecution also crops out in Mark elsewhere:

4:17: and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.(RSV)

Of course, followers must take up Jesus’ cross, a clear sign that they could be expected to suffer.

And finally, Rod, Mark most definitely lives in a time when Christians were known as CHRIST-IANS, for he writes in Mark 9:

9:41: For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward. (RSV)

So, my conclusion here is that Mark lives in a time when persecutions were common, Christians exist in such great numbers that many could be expected to fall away, and Christians are known by Jesus’ name.

ROD G: Yep, you got me here. Many of Mark's quotations have the temple in them. If you'll check, you'll find that the Temple shows up about 700 times in the OT, and is alluded to another 400 times (and the in the entire first half of the OT, there isn't even a temple to reference!). Is this important? Should we be surprised that the temple shows up in Mark's midrash? Are you making too much of this fact? You say it's always connected to violence, death, and
ruin? Have you reviewed the OT recently? The entire book is about violence, death, and ruin!

MICHAEL T: That’s a good point, but then again, Mark knows his OT well, and need not reference anything that he does not want to. Go back to 11:17 again, a key verse for understanding Mark’s use of Temple midrash. The yoking of the future perfect Temple to the past destroyed Temple has to be deliberate, for Mark had to intentionally construct the verse that way. Mark’s use of the Jehu narrative climaxes with the destruction of the Ba’al Temple, which in the narrative occurs when Jesus cleanses the Temple. It can’t be coincidence. Mark’s midrashic focus is destroyed and plundered Temples.

ROD: Same argument works against the 130CE's. Why would a Mark living in 135 CE expect the Parousia? God hadn't shown up then either. Here's the difference. Mark associates the end times with the destruction of the temple. If writing near 70 CE, Mark COULD make the case that the Parousia was imminent. The temple's destruction (one of the signs) had now been completed. Mark does not know it's not going to happen! The scenario in 130's CE? Mark has still associated the end-times with the destruction of the temple. Yet it’s now been 60+ years. The imminent scenario is past. Yes, he could attempt to rekindle it, by redefining expectations, but keep in mind, it was Mark that set the expectations in the first place when he correlated
the temple destruction with the end-times! This makes no sense!

MICHAEL T: I agree that Mark could make a case based on the 70s destruction of the Temple, but then if that is the case, why would Mark write about the “fig tree� growing new leaves? In the 70s there was no revival of Jewish national hopes, that occurred only in the short period in the 130s. In ~75 no intelligent writer could imagine that “the time was near.� That could only be a safe prophecy when indeed “the time was near!�

A further problem for your scheme is that in this period of 70 there are no cases known of Christians being dragged before GOVERNORS. That is purely a development of the second century. Mark lives in a period when persecution is so widespread that he has to comfort his people by both Jesus’ words and Jesus’ example. That cannot be the period around 75, for no such trend existed.

The “imminent scenario� is carefully defined in Mark. And it doesn’t apply to the 70s at all.

ROD G: I'm not following you here, Michael. If Mark is writing in 70 CE, the destruction of the temple has NOT receded into the past. It just happened. The Lord hasn't come, but he's about to.

MICHAEL T: The problem is again that Mark lays out clear signals for the Coming of Jesus, only one of which is the destruction of the Temple.

The period of Mark must be the time when:

*the Temple is destroyed
*the abomination was installed in the Temple (it’s
standing there)
*Israel is renewing itself
*Christians are persecuted and this activity is
widespread and normal.
*people have fled to the hills
*the Pharisees are the major Jewish elite
*Christianity is a Gentile movement
*the Gospel has been preached “to all nations.�
*Jews and Christians are generally distinguished
*Christians are known as CHRIST-ians.
*there is enmity between Christians and Jews.

Additional late date indicators:
*the Crucifixion scene of one man surviving and two dying being rescued by a “Joseph� is paralled in Josephus’ _Vita_, published after 110.
*the Pauline letters have a unique status
*the Greek novelistic literature, which Mark strongly
resembles, is prominent
*Mark does not know the name of the high priest under Pilate, nor does he know that the chief priests are Sadducees. Even though the Sadducees appear in Mark he never makes the connection.
*Mark 10:51 refers to Jesus as Rabbi meaning “teacher�– Donahue and Harrington point out that this usage postdates 70 at least.

And of course, the final nail, via the article of TE
Schmidt:

*there is a Capitoline Temple on the Temple Mount, which “GOLGOTHA� slyly refers to.

I should add that this signal of Mark's can be read two ways: either Mark is writing during the war, about the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on the Temple Mount, or the reference to "Capit" is a reference to Jerusalem itself, known as Aelia Capitolinus after the war. Mark is writing either during the war, or in its immediate aftermath.

Michael

judge

This may not relate directly to mark necessarily although it would if one argues Mark is one of the first gospels.

In Talmud Shabbat 116A. There is a record of a discussion amongst rabbis as to how to destroy the books of the nazarenes.

The Seferim Ha Minnim contained the divine name so they would have been in Hebrew or Aramaic perhaps but I beleive that this discussion amongst the rabbis would be early second century.

I cab find out more if anyone is interested.

Toto

I thought that the Babylonian Talmud dated to around 550. How can you connect this with the early second century?

This seems to be discussed on this unique website

Vorkosigan

Not really. Supernatural prophecies are ipso facto impossible. Layman has pointed out, as have I, and many others, that the scene does not require that Jesus had supernatural powers (referring to the Temple prophecy alone, as many foresaw the end of that institution). However, rest of the scene DOES imply that Jesus is foretelling the future in a supernatural manner. As Malina points out, the soon-to-die are held to have a heightened sensitivity toward the future, and Jesus' speech here takes on the same attributes. Since the speech as it stands is clearly supernatural, yes, the normal scholarly modes of analysis, which rule out "Godidit" as explanatory strategies, are in force.

In any case the speech is midrashic in construction, with almost every line, citing the OT. That gives you another fallback position for a pre-70 date.

Vorkosigan

judge

Fair question. I will try to see if there is any good reason.

Vorkosigan

Rod caught me in an error here in the followup:

ROD G: Young’s Literal reads “in my name, because ye are Christ’s,�

MICHAEL: Yes, that accords with the very literal translation in Donahue and Harrington and Gundry as well. The RSV is wrong. My bad.

ROD G: Mark 9:41 thus includes a literary connector that was not originally a part of the proverb.

MICHAEL T: Yes, it functions as a literary connector.....

ROD G: So is Mark’s literary connector referring to the community name “Christian� here? The first observation is that he doesn’t say so, and he could have used the term “Christian� if he knew it. He doesn’t. The term “Christian� only exists here within your interpretation. The text does not command it.

MICHAEL T: Yes, I believe you are correct. This cannot support my conclusions.

ROD G: I do this to concur that these passages, the only two long discourses within Mark, are both about the themes of persecution and defection. It is central to Mark’s message. The question is, are these themes anachronistic in 70 CE?

MICHAEL T: Yes, I agree that it is central to Mark's message. In fact, I was going to say that earlier, but I decided not to get in a scrap about that.

ROD G: The themes are trials, persecutions, families turning against families, and mixed results or even defections with potential converts. I would argue that most if not all of these themes have already been introduced in the Pauline corpus twenty years earlier.

MICHAEL T: Yes, I know. But the Pauline corpus does not have tales of Kings and Governors. Why should that detail find its way in there? Was Paul beaten in synagogues in his letters? Was Paul "tried?" He seems to refer to being in prison, but he does not seem to refer to being tried or "delivered up" whatever that means in Mark's context. For all we know Paul's prison experiences had nothing to do with his religious beliefs, but rather stemmed from his service to the Gospel as an itinerant who must have had unpaid debts and vagrancy problems as a matter of course. Mark's whole experience of persecution is different than Paul's. In Mark's day it is the community that is persecuted. In Mark's day believers have to be prepared to face trials.

ROD G: This is a highly prejudiced reading. There is no intimation that persecutions were “common� or “so wide spread�, only that they occurred.

MICHAEL T: Begging your pardon, but Mark clearly states that ALL will hate Jesus' followers in his name.

13: and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

Mark is no doubt exaggerating, but the core is there; lots of people detested Christians. Does that really describe the 70s, when Christians weren't even clearly differentiated from Jews?

This "ALL" compels interest because of the widespread silence on Christians from the writers of this period. For example, if being detested as a Christian was already widespread in the 70s, why didn't Juvenal and Martial, writing within a few decades, lampoon Christianity? There are few, if any clear references to Christianity in this period.

ROD G: Although some were clearly described as being before authorities (such as Paul’s own experience), other persecutions could have simply been from Jews or locals who did not trust this new superstition. The faithful did not have to exist “in such great numbers� to have defectors. Paul worried about this twenty years earlier and his congregations were quite small. I do not see Mark “comforting� his followers as much as providing instructions.

MICHAEL T: Bad language choice. I agree that Mark is providing instructions.....but Jesus' matter of fact tone refers to "persecutions" in Mark 4,ALL in Mark 13. Again the plural in Mark 13 is "beaten in synagogues..." Mark writes as if this were not abnormal activity, as if it is plausible in his day. Mark has to give instructions precisely because in his day this was a commonly-encountered event. I mean, why would he write all this if it were not something that many believers would face?

ROD G:In summation, there is nothing here that precludes a 70 CE date (or 80 CE).

MICHAEL T: I've tried not to make the claim a 70 date is precluded, but rather, I've been attempting to argue that the 130s provide a better background for what Mark is describing Mark 13 and elsewhere. It explains more of the details. As well as the apparent hint that Mark knows of a Temple on the Temple Mount that is called Capit-something, or else, that Capit-something is associated with Jerusalem.

ROD G: to require dual corroboration for every item of interest. There IS extant evidence within the Pauline corpus supporting Mark’s allusions to pre-70 CE Christ Cult persecutions, instability/defections, and people speaking “in the name of Christ.� It is reasonable to infer that these were not the only examples, and that we have not been the miraculously fortunate beneficiaries of all the evidence that once existed. Even if we don’t make such an inference, there is more corroboration here than is
usually available to the historian of antiquity.

MICHAEL T: I guess we'll have to disagree on what the silence about persecutions means (for that matter I do not think the Paulines are pre-70, but that is an argument for another day). I don't think it is proper to argue that the history must exist -- we just don't have it -- in order to fit Mark into the 70s time frame. This especially true because the kind of situation Mark describes is not present in any of the satirists after 70, nor in other major non-Christian writers.

Toto

To judge, on the Talmud: I would not be surprized if some remarks about "Minim" in the Talmud were just assumed to refer to Christians, and the dating of the second century was based on that.

Peter Kirby

Often these sayings are attributed to rabbis. If so, the date given reflects the flourit of that rabbi.

best,
Peter Kirby

rlogan

Hi Peter.

I have read what you have submitted here. With all due respect I suggest that the same arguments may be applied to date Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind to the Civil War and Reconstruction period.

And yet, it is well over half a century later. You can't argue that the date of the subject matter is the date of authorship.

As far as dating the book is concerned, or the movie, there are some technical issues that nullify a 19th century dating. Such as that she wasn't even born yet, or that color film wasn't invented until much, much later.


Once we break free of the tremendous inertia of the Christian dogma "Big Bang Jesus" model, everything falls neatly into place. There is no gospel for Josephus or any other historian to take note of.

If you propose a gospel of such astonishing character appearing in the 70's it would have had absolutely zero credibility because it alleges events for which thousands upon thousands of living witnesses or sons and daughters of witnesses would still be surviving.

A mystery religion can of course be speaking of all kinds of metaphorical "truths" that ultimately express themselves in a gospel down the road.

- cheers

andrewcriddle

Such attributions are not always accurate.

Saying found only in the Babylonian Talmud attributed to Rabbis before 200 CE are particularly problematic.

Andrew Criddle