spin

:hysterical:

Adam

What's the big laugh? That I got your name wrong, should have been "spin" (not "Spin") that would have been both correctly your name and better grammar?
I'm thinking the joke is that you set me up. I had already decided to research Michael Turton's Commentary on Mark for the chiasms, but I find there that you misled me that the chiasms are trampled by both Luke and gMatthew. Instead I find that the Marcan chiasms that begin at Mark 1:9 are followed carefully by gLuke from Mark 1:21 on through Mark 3:19, paralleled in Luke 4:31to Luke 6:19 (except for the intrusion of Luke 5:1-11 that breaks in with a parallel to Mark 1:16-20). So the pattern of chiasms began not later than with Layer 4 (the first layer surely originating in Greek). Now I can go back to doubting that Layer 6 can be proven to be necessary?

Most likely you had simply forgotten that it was in gMatthew that the chiasms from Mark 1:21 to Mark 3:19 are garbled, not in Luke that faithfully reproduces same.

So back again to my question as to whether you are serious. I can't confirm from your interplay with Joseph Atwill whether you had any purpose other than tormenting poor Joe.

spin

Your novel joke!

:hysterical:

fatpie42

You're a joke? :wave:

Adam

OK, so the big laugh is that I'm the new guy on the block who didn't know that the play on your name of "spin" as spinning spin has been overused? At least it doesn't seem to have crushed your ego.
Thanks for your earlier lead about Maurice Casey and Aramaic sources. (My survey of the last few years stopped just short of reaching his 2005 and 2007 books on Aramaic origins, and his Jesus of Nazareth is apparently too new.)
Information from Amazon:
RE: An Aramaic Approach to Q (2005)
This is the first book to examine the Aramaic dimension of Q since the Aramaic Dead Sea scrolls made such work more feasible. Maurice Casey reconstructs sources of Q--material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and not taken from the Gospel of Mark--and replaces the conventional model of Q as a single Greek document with something more complex. The reconstruction and interpretation of the Aramaic sources raises the level of proof that Jesus said and did some of the things attributed in our earliest sources. [overstated, right? How about Matthew Black?]
RE: Jesus of Nazareth (2010)
'In several important respects this lively book goes against the grain of recent scholarship, both conservative and radical. But it is a needed and challenging reminder of the fragility of much that passes as the 'assured results' of scholarship. The detailed attention to the relevance of the Aramaic language for constructing Jesus is particularly noteworthy and consistently provocative.' - Dale C. Allison, Jr., Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, PA, USA.
'This learned and comprehensive book should prove to be the major historical Jesus publication of the decade. While we all know that much has been written on the historical Jesus, Casey still manages to provide a distinctive slant, most notably with his reader-friendly use of Aramaic reconstructions of Jesus' words and actions. The review of scholarship, which combines savage humour with scholarly insights, hits hard at numerous approaches to the quest for the historical Jesus, from famous historical Jesus scholars to 'mythicist' and conspiratorial theories in popular culture. This book should reinvigorate a tired scholarly quest and raise the bar in the learning required to do serious historical Jesus work.' -- James G. Crossley, University of Sheffield, UK.

So I'm exactly with Casey on the Aramaic origins within the Synoptics of Q and gMark. He follows older scholarship, however, in rejecting historicity of gJohn. In Jesus of Nazareth Casey demolishes Form Criticism as virtually the handmaid of Nazi-era German scholarship. Long-term influence can be a bad thing, as Crossley confirms above. In the main it looks like I have the highest-level of current authorities in agreement with me that there is something very rotten in Denmark (er. Germany, U. S., wherever), particularly among Evangelicals and atheists.

Adam

Following up on Spin's lead about Maurice Casey (whom I had only encountered before as a book reviewer) led on to James G. Crossley as well. His book The Dating of Mark's Gospel (2004) refutes conventional scholarship and the usual dating of Mark to 65 to 75 CE. He proposes mid thirties to mid forties, based on Mark 13 (developed by the early church in response to persecution) and details of Jewish law. (p. 3, 37, 43)
Date of Mark's Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk)
He summarizes Maurice Casey as showing gMark came from literal Aramaic from eyewitnesses, dating gMark to about 40 AD. (p. 56)
He cites Adolf Harnack in detail for dating Acts to 64 AD, hence gLuke before that, and hence gMark before that. (p. 45, citing Harnack, Dates, p. 100)
I was not relying on current scholarship to start up this Gospel Eyewitnesses thread (my first here), but I certainly had good fortune that now is the time that top scholars are actively trashing current presuppositions (both on the liberal and Evangelical sides) and giving very early dates for the Synoptics.
So it pays to be a contrarian, as I am? (Or is a broken clock correct twice a day?)
Looks like the joke's on you, spin.

tanya

Mark was written, not in 40 CE, but in 140CE.

1. Oldest extant copy of any portion of Mark (incomplete) is Papyrus P45, dated 200 CE. Adam, if Mark had been originally written in 40 CE, where are the copies of it, from that era? Even P52, a scrap of papyrus, containing portions of a half dozen lines on each side, from the gospel of John, dates from 150CE, i.e. more than a hundred years later, and only a scrap, at that. If you want to push a first century date of composition, then we need to see the first century papyrus, supporting such a view.

2. Most people, not including yours truly, believe, (as far as I am concerned, utterly without any basis), that Paul's letters were written first, then Mark's Gospel. If so, and if Mark was written in 40 CE, then, how to explain that:
a. there is no reference to anything of, by, or about, Paul, in Mark.
b. the earliest epistle claimed to represent a document written by Paul, dates, so far as I am aware, to 50 CE. (I reject that idea, (I think "Paul's" letters were written about 150CE) but, present it here to invalidate the absurd claim of a first century date of authorship of Mark.) There are, in other words, a couple of issues to be sorted out, before jumping on the first century bandwagon.

What do you think, Adam? How about FIRST finding some data to support a first century date of composition?

How about Menander, for example. Do we possess papyrus manuscripts of his poetry and drama? When were they written? Do we have at least SOME of those in the second century CE, having been written, with certainty, in the first century? Yes. Bodmer collection. Anywhere else? I think so: Yes: Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan. So, Menander's philosophy/poetry/political thinking/drama had been quoted by Paul (1 Corinthians 15:33), so we can be reasonably confident that Menander's work was available and read, in the first century CE. Can we say the same about either Mark's gospel, or Paul's epistles?

I don't think so. If either author was quoted, as was Menander, then, I am unaware of those citations.

Finally, Adam, hello? wake up? In the first century, Jews would have killed a blasphemer claiming to be the messiah, or the son of god, or both. However, in the second century, with the Jews having been expelled from Jerusalem, a good story writer, could have successfully marketed his book, without facing criminal charges, as would have been the case, prior to Roman Law taking over. Jewish law is not terribly forgiving, Adam.....

Toto

Crossley was Maurice Casey's student, and that book is his PhD thesis. It has not persuaded many in the scholarly community - it seems to be an outlier in the dating of Mark.

There are two reviews for the SBL, which is not a radical outfit:

review by David du Toit

review by John Painter

Crossly's response

stephan huller

That explains this I guess:

http://earliestchristianhistory.blog...y-stephan.html

It always puzzled me. All these people were "hatin' on me" I had never heard of before. Scholarship is such an incestuous cesspool.

Sheshbazzar

Gahhh! what muck!