Vorkosigan

I got to thinking -- a bad habit when you have 40,000 chinese characters awaiting translation -- and revisited Mk 16:2-8 to see if I could create a chiasm. The problem is that 16:8 cannot possibly be the end of the gospel, because there is no A' bracket involving geographical location/ movement to balance the A bracket.......

• A And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen.
  
  B And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?"
  
  C And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; -- it was very large.
  
  D And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed.
  
  D And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you."
  
  C And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them;
  
  B and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.
  
  A It was the last day of the feast of the unleavened bread and many people were going out, returning to their houses since the festival was over.

...so, with cheerful disregard for good methodology, I leapt over to the Gospel of Peter to borrow the last line. It doesn't really work -- there's no transition there between B' and A', and the C' and B' brackets are doublets that suggest they originally might have been the center of the chiasm -- but while I was rooting around in Gospel of Peter, I realized that if Mark had originally written an ending that resembled GPeter, the legend of his connection to Mark might have its roots there. Here's the last section of GPeter:

"(58) It was the last day of the feast of the unleavened bread and many people were going out, returning to their houses since the festival was over. (59) But we, the twelve disciples of the Lord, were weeping and grieving, and although everyone was mourning because of what had happened, each departed for his own house. (60) But I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew took our nets and went out to the sea. And with us was Levi, the son of Alphaeus, whom the Lord [. . .]"

Imagine if early versions of Mark had a sudden shift to the first person at that point, with Peter as the narrator (GPeter almost certainly knows the Synoptics). Then the legend of Mark's connection to Peter originated as an etiological myth to explain why the "I" suddenly cropped out in the now-vanished ending.

Just a suggestion.

Vorkosigan

andrewcriddle

One problem IMO is that Papias (as distinct from later forms of the tradition) does not IIUC claim that Mark wrote his Gospel as Peter's secreatary, but that he composed it himself on the basis of what he remembered of what Peter used to say.

A simpler non-historical explanation IMO is that a/ for whatever reason Papias believed the Gospel was by Mark. b/ Papias knew the 1st epistle of Peter (as apparently claimed by Eusebius book 2 chapter 15) which mentions Mark as apparently on Peter's team (chapter 5:13) and he deduced from a/ and b/ that Peter was Mark's source of information.

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan

Ah. Right. That one's much better.

Vivisector

I'm having trouble reconciling this explanation of Papias's account with other information. From Paul and GMk itself, Peter was married; from a plain reading of 1 Pet 5:13, Mark was Peter's son. Leaving Paul aside (along with questions of the degree to which Papias knew the epistles of Paul), it seems Papias could have inferred from 1 Pet that Mark was Peter's son, with corroboration of Peter's marriage in GMk. And yet, Papias does not allude to the relationship that seems most easily inferred from GMk and 1 Pet, a relation that - it seems to me - would strengthen the authority of GMk. It suggests to me that GMk came to Papias with the Mark/Peter tradition already attached. I suppose two Marks is another possibility, as would be the possibility that Papias didn't consider the Mark of 1 Pet as Peter's literal son.

Regards,

V.

S.C.Carlson

The last possibility is the most plausible. Paul also referred to Timothy
as his son (1 Cor. 4:17).

Diogenes the Cynic

Do we know that Paul didn't have any sons?

Toto

We don't know. We don't know if he was married or not, but Eusebius assumes that he was. And according to various sections of the NT, Peter a/k/a Cephas was married.

From Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History Book 3, Chapter 30:1, quoted by Origin here:

Eusebius here refers to 1 Corinthians 9:5 which is a bit ambiguous as to whether Paul actually has a wife.

If Paul were a Pharisee, which I tend to doubt, he would have been obligated to marry and procreate, and he very well might have had a son. (But would he have given him a Roman name like Markus?)

N.T. Wright argues that Paul must have been married because he was a Pharisee, but that when he converted to Christianity, he and his wife parted ways for one reason or another, and that Paul then devoted himself to his ministry.

jakejonesiv

According to Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 3.39.1ff cf Irenaeus Adv. Haer. 5.33.4, Mark wrote based on Peter's eyewitness testimony. Then we have Mark by tradition to Prester John. Whoever he was, Iraneus and Eusebius cannot agree to his identity. Papias then listens to Ariston, allegedly one of the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus.
Papias then wrote a book (or a volume in "five books"), but there are no extant copies. Then Iraneus and Eusebius read this book, and it is only on their reports that we have any extant record.

Robert Price has called into question the very existence of Papias. Even if Papias existed, how can we independantly judge his credibility? And if Papias is deemed to be truthful, how do we know that the fabulous Prester John and Ariston weren't inveterate liars? :down: If Papias was really not very intelligent (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.13) maybe he was a sucker for tall tales.

I don't see how the words attributed to Papias can be viewed with any degree of confidence.

Jake Jones IV

S.C.Carlson

Assuming you mean literal (i.e. biological) sons, it's hard to tell from the little evidence we have. Of marginal relevance, 1 Cor. 7:8 indicates that Paul was unmarried when he wrote that. Nevertheless, the full passage in 1 Cor. 4, including verse 15 "I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel," establishes the existence of the metaphorical use of such kinship terms.

S.C.Carlson

Is this on-line anywhere?

Stephen