Ben C Smith

Too much of a failure as the expected messiah to be a cautionary tale against one.

But plenty of fodder for an apology for one.

I think the Judean churches had to make apologetic moves (two separate advents, for example, one in humility and another in glory) similar to those that Mark is making.

Ben.

gstafleu

It is interesting that, starting with the same data and drawing to a large extent the same conclusions, we still arrive a diametrically opposed final conclusions! Still, I find it hard to see how, if one wants to show how a real Messiah in the real world is bound to fail, too much failure diminishes that effect. Rather, it seems to me that Mark succeeds admirably in showing exactly how such a person would fail.
Now, exactly what kind of religion is it if it has to start out by apologizing for the unconvincing nature of its founder? This must be a first. Possible of course, but also open to the accusation of special pleading. This way we can explain away anything. Joe Smith, e.g., wasn't all that convincing in his bit with the mysteriously vanishing golden tablets. So obviously he must have been the real thing! This interpretation of Mark only works, I think, if one assumes a-priori that Jesus was indeed a real historic Messiah, even if he was a bit of a klutz (or at least that Mark thought so, I suppose). Could be, but the story can be read very well without that assumption.

Gerard

Ben C Smith

The failure I am talking about is not failure as a messiah; it is failure to even try to be what was expected of the messiah.

And in doing so he cautions against a kind of messiah that never existed... unless Jesus did.

Oh, not at all. You can find apologies for Julius Caesar withing the cult of the Caesars, for example. (Ovid: He only seemed to be stabbed by all those daggers; but really Vesta took the real Caesar away moments before it happened. Likewise, Jesus only seemed to fail as the messiah, but really his execution was part of the divine plan, which will culminate when he comes again in glory.)

That does not even closely resemble my argument on this thread. I am not certain, not being an expert on Mormonism, but I bet one can find Mormon apologies for Joseph Smith. That does not mean that everything he claimed was true, or even that everything claimed of him is true, but it does mean that adherents to a religion are more than capable of writing apologetics on behalf of their founders.

That last part is correct; it works if Mark thought that Jesus was (A) real and (B) really the messiah. Sure, I myself think that Jesus existed, but this thread is not about what actually happened, right? It is all about what Mark thought to be the case, what he intended by his text.

Ben.

bacht

Is Mark doing anything with the Suffering Servant material, using Jesus to represent either Israel or the Judean church?

spamandham

I think so. The passion certainly folds in ideas from Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, so much so, that Mark even has Jesus quoting from Psalm 22 as his final words.

But I don't think this prohibits Mark from also being a satire.

Personally, I tend to view Mark as a work involving multiple authors over time, each layering on his own agenda. I don't see Mark as being the work of 1 person who sat down and wrote a book.

bacht

Thanks. Any idea about how it got started, and what was being said?

spamandham

Heh, if I knew that I'd write a book and win the Pulitzer prize.

Vorkosigan

The Life of Aesop, for one. The problem is that GMark crosses and unites several genres.

Vorkosigan

The failure I am talking about is not failure as a messiah; it is failure to even try to be what was expected of the messiah.

Yes. And yet the writer of Mark is clearly a believer who reveres the letters of Paul as scripture, so whatever you may say about Jesus being a Jewish messiah, he was without doubt a Christian one. What he is really doing is using the character of Jesus to demonstrate the truth of the Christian interpretation of scripture. He's a Christian messiah, not a Jewish one. Ths gsatfleu is wrong here, I think...

But Mark's Jesus is not a failed messiah. GMark's Jesus is a complete success -- he is resurrected -- the "first fruits" of Paul. His prophecies come true, many within the text. He's a Christian messiah and Mark goes to some length to show that the Jewish concept of the messiah is wrong -- the Fig tree representing Israel is faded, the Temple prophecy, and, I suspect, Jesus is crucified on the temple mount as the new temple. Mark also presents Jesus as the Jewish high priest (see Crispin Fletcher's work), another indicator in which Christianity is to replace Judaism while subsuming many its central ideas. Mark is not indicating that the whole idea of the messiah is silly, just that the Jewish messianic view is dead and been replaced by the superior Christian Messiah.

Vorkosigan

gstafleu

This is more or less what I was getting at in the "postscript" I added to a previous posting:
As a matter of naming, let us call the Christian version of the Messiah idea "Christ" (innovative, that), and the Jewish one "Messiah." Ben and you make a good point that what Mark was talking about was a Christ, not a Messiah. This also fits in well with a recent discussion Ben and I had about the nature of the Christ concept in Paul's audience. We concluded that it probably wasn't close to the Messiah idea, although it may have started there in some churches in Judea.

What then constitutes a Christ as Mark's audience saw it? We can of course start with Paul, who is usefully vague about the issue. His Christ has died and resurrected in order to accomplish some soteriological goal. Paul does not go much beyond that. He supplies no historical details for us to compare Mark to. We thus have to extract the Christ characteristics from what is presented by Mark. What did Jesus do that set him apart form an ordinary person? The answer seems to be: miracles, unusual teaching, apocalyptic predictions and resurrection. Signally not included in this list is getting rid of the Romans, something I would agree is a minimal requirement for a Messiah at that time.

Jesus succeeds in all of these activities, but one thing is missing: he does not convince his audience. The question now is: does convincing his audience form part of what a Christ is supposed to do? If the answer is Yes we arrive at my conclusion, to wit that Jesus ultimately failed. If the answer is No the door to the apologetic interpretation is opened. Is there any way in which we can answer the question with Yes or No?

Going just by what Mark wrote I don't think that can be done. To arrive at a Yes, you have to somehow read into the text that Mark actually believed that there had been an actual Christ named Jesus in Palestine around the time of Pilate. If you don't want to read that into the text, you end up with a Christ, presented as a generalized holy man, who didn't make much of a splash and as such was pretty useless. What indication from Mark do we have that the Markan Jesus wasn't just a ship that passed in the night?

Gerard Stafleu