NOGO

Vinnie,

Ok for the church editing much of it out but this does not really answer my concern.

Want I want is for you to explain the purpose and target audience of the original text which exposed Jesus as gay?

Vinnie

You want a discussion of Secret Mark then?

NOGO

No discussion required, I am willing to buy.

The youth in question may be Lazarus etc John etc.

What was the purpose and target audience?

JoeWallack

JW:
Bultmann revolutionized Christian Bible scholarship by stating that Gospels are only a primary source of information for history in the time of the author and just a secondary source of information for history of the time period they are describing. We need to further revolutionize Christian Bible scholarship as follows:

1) Any story which is primarily based on the Supernatural is only a primary source of information for the theology of the author.

2) Such a story is only a secondary source for history in the time of the author.

As the Impossible (Supernatural) is Impossible no description of any Supernatural event could be historical. For those who whine that Skeptics should leave open the possibility that the Impossible is Possible no problem. You can retreat to this position but still have to acknowledge that it's extremely likely (understatement) that a description of a Supernatural event was not historical. Reasoning should be based primarily on what is likely as opposed to what is possible.

Since "Mark" is based primarily on the Supernatural a logical assumption is that it is based primarily on "Mark's" theology rather than history of the time described. Therefore, in order to guess at the significance of the naked young man story we shouldn't limit ourselves to what may have happened historically and in fact we should be primarily concerned with its significance to Markan theology.

The weight of "Mark's" gospel indicates that everyone of Jesus' time failed Jesus. His closest disciple, Peter, after being told he would and denying it, still denies Jesus, three times. One of his own disciples betrays him. His own family thinks he's crazy. His hometown doesn't believe him. "The Jews" deny him. The Gospel originally ends with no one even believing that Jesus had been resurrected. Even Jesus indicated that no sign would be given to his generation. With the theology that everyone of Jesus' time failed him we can make some sense of the naked young man story. Earlier "Mark's" Jesus had said:

10: (KJV)
21 "Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me."

(Course you're probably interested in the "loved him" part).

Now compare to the naked young man story:

14: (KJV)
50 "And they all forsook him, and fled.
51 And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:
52 And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked."

My guess is that the significance of the naked young man is that it was intended to reflect people who had followed the advice of "Mark's" Jesus in 10:21 and given up everything in order to follow Jesus. The linen cloth cast about the naked body represents someone who had given up absolutely everything, including their clothes, to follow Jesus. This is the very last person to forsake Jesus and the author's intent is to show that even someone who had absolutely nothing in this world except for Jesus abandoned Jesus too.

"Mark's" Gospel is written in the style of a classic Greek tragedy. It's written for the benefit of the audience and not the characters in the play who end up blind to what the audience can see. In this case, that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.


Joseph

HOMOEOPATHY, n.
A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/abdulreis/myhomepage/

Vinnie

""""""The weight of "Mark's" gospel indicates that everyone of Jesus' time failed Jesus. His closest disciple, Peter, after being told he would and denying it, still denies Jesus, three times. One of his own disciples betrays him. His own family thinks he's crazy. His hometown doesn't believe him. "The Jews" deny him. The Gospel originally ends with no one even believing that Jesus had been resurrected. Even Jesus indicated that no sign would be given to his generation. With the theology that everyone of Jesus' time failed him we can make some sense of the naked young man story. Earlier "Mark's" Jesus had said:""""""""

Interpretation of the end of Mark is very common.

A: Mark presents everyone as INITIAL failures in the story. This is a rhetorical move aimed to "moive the audience" to do what others didin't.

B. Mark was trying to apologize for why no one knew about the empty tomb (I critiqued this elsewhere).

C. The women obey Jesus. THe weight of Mark's Gospel shows him telling everyone to "be quiet" and to not to say anything (MESSIANIC SECRET!). THe women, in "holy awe and fear" finally do precisely what Jesus commaned all along.

d. Mark was writing a tragedy where everyone fails.

Unbfortunatyely you are DEAD WRONG when you write: "The weight of "Mark's" gospel indicates that everyone of Jesus' time failed Jesus. "

One of the theological heroinnes of Mark's account is the unnamed woman who annoints Jesus. She alone, in all the Gospel knows that Jesus will die and must be annoined now. I favor the ending whereas the women "go too late to annoint Jesus". They should know he would be arisen as its the time of his constant predictions when he would.

There is a parallelism here if you ask me with the accurate//inaccurate annointing. Its also possible this view is consistent with the women leaving the tomb with "holy awe" finally obeying Jesus as the KNOWN theological here of Mark's account is a woman whereas ALL the males fail save a centurion at the cross who realizes who Jesus was! But this is during the crucifixion. The women knows before hand on the basis of Jesus' teaching. She alone was faithful and understood during the ministry of Jesus and knew he had to be annointed before it was too late. She understood he would die where the others didn't. So Mark may be prioritizing women over men by having the twelve male disciples as failures. The woman fail too at the end in Mark but in the end, on this view, they are finally obeying Jesus and thats how the Gospel ends.

Is that in line with a Greek tragedy? Mark may be a literary chimera rather than a single stream of cohesive literary thought as well.

One person guesses that its Mark showing everyone failed Jesus, even those who gave away everything. Of course everyone didn't actually fail Jesus in Mark. Aka the woman (who John decides to give a name to) who annoints him so this link is tenuous at best.

Others have suggested the account comes from Midrash. I pointed out some issues with Mark doing this here that have not been satisfactorily met. One has to show this them is abundant common so as to be known by an ignorant Gentile or EXTREMELY stupid Jew like Mark who shows himself not to know the OT or Palestinian customs in several places.

This one reason why I also tend to think there was a Pre-Marcan passion source. I think GPeter even preserves earlier cores of it at times (see Crossan). A pre-marcan source maybe, but now I wish to mention that there are several syntax errors in the account as it stands. Gundry pointed them out in his commentary on Mark.

These may support my theory that this account comes from Secret Mark which GMArk dismembered and scattered. Also, the account appears similar to the story of Lazarus in GJohn yet the Secret Mark version looks appreciably more primitive.

A fourth view of the incident is that it parallels Jesus' crucifixion. THe linen garment stripped symbolizes Jesus' garments being stripped and so on and so on. Gundry documented this view over the course of a few pages. Of course Jesus nowhere ever tried to escape capture so this parallel is not very strong either. The cross is God's Son victoriou over death and his enemies, not him barely escaping them by running.

I want to follow this post up with a citation on Secret Mark:

Vinnie

From the Anchor Bible Dictionary, here's M. Meyer's article:

MARK, SECRET GOSPEL OF [IV, 558–59] An edition of the gospel of Mark
known only from an incomplete letter of Clement of Alexandria
discovered at the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba in the Judean
desert. M. Smith has described how he found the hitherto unknown
Clementine letter as he was studying and cataloging manuscripts in the
monastery library in 1958. The letter was written in cursive Greek,
dated to about 1750, on two and a half pages at the back of a printed
volume of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Isaac Voss, editor,
Epistulae genuinae S. Ignatii Martyris [Amsterdam: Blaeu, 1646]). In
1973 Smith published both his scholarly and his popular editions of the
letter of Clement and the Secret Gospel of Mark, and almost at once
controversy began to swirl around the text. The controversy has focused
upon questions concerning the authenticity, contents, and
interpretation of the Mar Saba text. To the present day Smith seems to
be the only scholar who has seen the original manuscript, although at
least one other scholar (T. Talley) made an unsuccessful attempt to
view the text. Nonetheless, as Smith has summarized in his
bibliographical essay (1982), most scholars he has reviewed now are
willing to attribute the letter to Clement of Alexandria and the letter
itself has been included in an addendum to the second edition of O.
Stählin’s Clemens Alexandrinus.

The Mar Saba manuscript opens with a titular phrase that indicates the
source of the letter: “From the letters of the most holy Clement,
(author) of the Stromateis� (lr:1). In the letter Clement commends and
supports the recipient, a certain Theodore, for his opposition to the
Carpocratians, who were libertine gnostics well known from ancient
heresiological reports (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 3.2–6; Iren.
haer. I.25; Hippol. haer. 7.32; cf. Smith 1973b: 295–350). According to
Clement’s letter from Mar Saba, the Carpocratians employed an edition
of the gospel of Mark which Carpocrates falsified by “mixing the most
shameless lies with the undefiled and holy words� (lv:8–9). In contrast
to the Carpocratian edition, Clement recognizes two authoritative
editions of the gospel of Mark: (1) a public edition of the gospel,
which Mark composed while Peter was in Rome and which seems to be
identical or nearly identical with the canonical gospel of Mark; and
(2) the Secret Gospel of Mark, “a more spiritual gospel for the use of
those being perfected,� which also included “the things appropriate for
those progressing in knowledge� (lr:20–22). When Mark died, Clement
writes, he left the Secret Gospel to the care of the Church at
Alexandria, “where it even now is very carefully guarded, being read
only to those being initiated into the great mysteries� (lv:1–2).
According to the letter of Clement, the Secret Gospel contained at
least two passages not included in the public gospel of Mark, and
Clement cites both of these two passages. The first passage
(lv:23–2r:11), to be located immediately after Mark 10:34, recounts the
story of the raising of a rich youth (neaniskos) of Bethany (cf. themes
in Mark 10:17–22 par.). At the request of the sister of the youth,
Jesus goes to the tomb, rolls the stone away from the door, and raises
the youth from the dead. The youth looks upon Jesus and loves him, and
after six days Jesus instructs him. In the evening the youth, “wearing
a linen cloth on his naked body� (2r:8; cf. Mark 14:51–52, also perhaps
16:1–8), comes to Jesus, and Jesus teaches him “the mystery of the
kingdom of God� (2r:10; cf. Mark 4:11). The second passage (2r:14–16),
to be located within Mark 10:46, describes Jesus coming to Jericho and
refusing to receive three women, including the sister and the mother of
the youth.

Recent studies on the Secret Gospel of Mark suggest that the
significance of the text may be realized through a redaction-critical
study of the Secret Gospel. Several scholars (H. Koester, H.-M.
Schenke, J. D. Crossan, M. W. Meyer) have proposed interpretations of
the Secret Gospel that attempt to place the text within the redactional
history of the Markan tradition, and in so doing they are unanimous in
advocating the priority of Secret Mark to canonical Mark. “The basic
difference between the two,� Koester has stated, “seems to be that the
redactor of canonical Mark eliminated the story of the raising of the
youth and the reference to this story in Mark 10:46� (1983: 56).
Scholars have also noted that this Markan account of the raising of the
youth is remarkably similar to the story of Lazarus in John 11, except
that the Secret Gospel account may well be more primitive than the
Johannine account (the Secret Gospel lacks the details—personal names,
descriptions of features of the miracle, etc.—and the theological
themes of John 11). The presentation of the youth “whom Jesus loved� in
Secret Mark (2r:15; cf. Mark 10:21) also bears striking resemblance to
the BELOVED DISCIPLE in the gospel of John. These observations
contribute to the discussion of the relationship between the Markan and
Johannine traditions, and the roles of the Johannine Beloved Disciple
and the Markan neaniskos as paradigms for discipleship.

Bibliography
Crossan, J. D. 1985. Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of
Canon. Minneapolis.
Koester, H. 1983. History and Development of Mark’s Gospel. Pp. 35–57
in Colloquy on New Testament Studies, ed. B. C. Corley. Macon, GA.
Meyer, M. W. fc. The Youth in the Secret Gospel of Mark. Semeia.
Schenke, H.-M. 1984. The Mystery of the Gospel of Mark. SecondCent 4:
65–82.
———. 1986. The Function and Background of the Beloved Disciple in the
Gospel of John. Pp. 111–25 in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early
Christianity, ed. C. W. Hedrick and R. Hodgson, Jr. Peabody, MA.
Smith, M. 1960. Monasteries and Their Manuscripts. Arch 13: 172–77.
———. 1973a. The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the
Secret Gospel According to Mark. New York.
———. 1973b. Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark.
Cambridge.
———. 1982. Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark. HTR 75: 449–61.
Stählin, O., ed. 1980. Register. Vol. 4/1 in Clemens Alexandrinus. 2d
ed. GCS. Berlin.
Talley, T. 1982. Liturgical Time in the Ancient Church. StLtg 14: 34–51.
MARVIN W. MEYER

Vinnie

Look at Mark 10:21:

21Jesus looked at him and loved him.

Does Mark anywhere else use this type of saying in reference to Jesus' reaction? Or should this be viewed as part of Mark dismembering of Secret Mark which also had a disciple whom Jesus loved"?

As the Anchor Bible Dictionary said:

Call me ignorant but I share the views of Koester, Crossan, Meyer, and Schenke. Secret Mark has priority over canonical Mark which dismembered parts of it.

What role of dependence can we posit? Would Mark dismember a controversial Secret Mark in such a way? Or would Secret Mark dismember Mark in such a way? Don't forget some of the syntax problems with the naked young man in canonical Mark. THough not a linguist myself:

The syntax errors are highlighted by Gundry on pp. 861-2. He tends to attribute them to Mark's "eagerness to parallel the resurrection". There are three and here is the second:

As Gundry writes: "So a second violation of narrative syntax--the mention of a young man's following with Jesus before it is said that the crowd led Jesus away . . . ".

Could this be indicative that Mark was dismembering Secret Mark and inserting bits into his narrative, which create several syntax irregularities?

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Vinnie, which Gundry tome are you citing....?? Did I miss the reference?

Vinnie

His commentary on Mark: "Mark A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross."

Vinnie

aikido7

Vinnie! What a book! That darned Bible can prove ANYTHING!