Solo

FYI, R.M. Fowler (Let the Reader Understand (or via: amazon.co.uk), p. 262) raises the possibility the "awkwardly placed conjunction gar, together with the ambiguous allusion to Galilee in 16:7" might be analogous to a musical notation of a coda, prompting the reader to return to the beginning of the gospel.

Best,
Jiri

JoeWallack

JW:
I do not see the ending as pointing to the beginning but the final word of a conjunction "and", which even though it is needed for the preceding effect and cause, does suggest an open ending. Thematically I think the author intended to show a failed Mission here. Jesus failed to make the disciples understand. The resurrection is secondary. The purpose is to present a prequel to Paul. Why was Paul needed to understand the significance of the Passion. The story is open ended because no historical person understood "Mark's" Jesus at the time. Not because "Mark's" Jesus did anything after he was resurrected. "Mark" has no use for resurrected Jesus (as opposed to Sky Jesus).

I think we have successfully blocked the claim that the ending is ungrammatical and even moved to the offensive, showing that it is evidence for 16:8 as original. Lost fans (including Ehrman!) than have to move back to 14:28 as the only evidence for a lost ending:

http://biblos.com/mark/14-28.htm

Strong's	Transliteration	Greek	English	Morphology
235 [e]	alla	ἀλλὰ	But	Conj
3326 [e]	meta	μετὰ	after	Prep
3588 [e]	to	τὸ	–	Art-ANS
1453 [e]	egerthēnai	ἐγερθῆναί	arising	V-ANP
1473 [e]	me	με	I,	PPro-A1S
4254 [e]	proaxō	προάξω	I will go before	V-FIA-1S
4771 [e]	hymas	ὑμᾶς	you	PPro-A2P
1519 [e]	eis	εἰς	into	Prep
3588 [e]	tēn	τὴν	–	Art-AFS
1056 [e]	Galilaian	Γαλιλαίαν	Galilee.	N-AFS

"I will go before" is taken by many as a prediction with the implication that there is a reunion in Galilee because the author always shows the Christ's predictions fulfilled by narrative. Of course this is not true. Possibly the most important prediction, the destruction of the Temple, is not shown. The predictions are usually fulfilled by narrative though.

I've argued here that there is reason to doubt that "Galilee" above is original. Let's say it is for now. Supporters of Lost want to accept that there is a reunion based on 14:28 and than interpret the rest of the Gospel based on it. I say it should be the other Way around. Let the rest of the Gospel interpret 14:28.

The Gospel as a whole is about discrediting the Disciples as witness to the Passion. 14:28 can be a prediction and work just fine with this theme. The Disciples return to Galilee but for the wrong reason. Because they think Jesus dead, not alive. This would be typical Markan irony. There's no requirement of a reunion based on the language because the related verb is intransitive. Jesus does not lead the disciples to Galilee (as confirmed by the Messenger), he just gets there before they do. Even if there was a reunion, the Gospel has given us no reason to think "Mark's" Disciples would have believed Jesus was resurrected.

Kelber has the best understanding of "Mark" and he explains that 14:28 is a promise and not a prediction based on interpreting 14:28 by the rest of the Gospel. Jesus promises to the Disciples that he will go back to Galilee before they do. The emphasis is on him.

So 14:28 is not helping the Lost cause much.

Bonus material for Solo = note the critical phrase above, "I will go before you". How does "Mark" use this phrase for the disciples in his Gospel? (I have faith that we can similarly use 14:28 as evidence for 16:8 as original and.


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Adam

"original end", I guess you meant.
Mark 14:28 in directing the disciples to Galilee is as you say secondary in the higher critical sense (because missing in Luke and John), but is confirmed in lower criticism because it is present in Matthew 26:32. However, this parallel to Matthew indicates that the lost ending of Mark must be like Matthew 28:16-20 and its setting in Galilee (which itself has similarities to Luke 24:50-51 and Acts 1:6-12, except that the setting is Jerusalem instead of Galilee).

The conflict between the Mt-Mk version on the one hand and Luke on the other could easily explain why the discordant Markan ending got lost and was clumsilly replaced.

Solo

Do you see the "you are seeking Jesus of Nazareth...he has risen" in 16:6 pointing to "...and the Lord you are seeking" in the "hidden" verse of Malachi (3:1) ?
Do you see the word play of "temple" and "body" in 14:58, and the word play on "body" and "corpse" in 15:43-45 ?
Now, if you can't see that how do you expect to understand the metaphor for the unfinished vision of the gospel (8:24) ?

(Clue : the "carpenter" is in the process of shaping the gospel in "the beginning" as it is written in the prophet Isaiah.)


Well, it's open to two things: 1) knowing the mystery of the kingdom through faith (4:10-12), or 2) blundering in the vain search through the gospel for things which are not there but which you think should be there, and actually you believe you saw there.

Again, I have an issue with this. I see Mark as writing essentially to three audiences: one, the inner core of Paul's Christ mystics (i.e. the unseen "body" of Christ), who know the mystery, two, to the Jewish messianic exiles whose original missions Paul fought (when he was not busy trying to win an apostolic concession from them), and three, the traditionalist pharisee community of his time.
For the first group, Mark brilliantly allegorizes Paul and the passing of the spirit. He makes an offer of the gospel to the second group which in his time had not accepted the cross (and therefore it would be silly to call it "Christian"). This faction, which in Paul's days saw Jesus as a prophet of the last days and the coming God's kingdom, now (after the war) evidently switched and to lure Pauline converts, proclaimed Jesus himself was a Davidic messiah who would return. It is for them that Mark builds the passion in Jerusalem both, to show the futility of the messianic hopes for restored Israel, and to fulfil Paul (specifically 1 Cr 1:23). His Jesus is fully aware of his fate on the cross, and proclaims it as soon as Peter 'recognizes' him as the messiah. Naturally, Peter and the Zebs do not have in mind Paul's Christ crucified, but the "real" messiah who will rule Jerusalem (below). It is on this crucial misunderstanding that Mark builds the passion story. The disciples believe that Jesus is the traditional messiah (of course I think this is anachronism which addresses the "Jesus-as-Davidic-messiah" preaching of the Petrine Nazoreans displaced by the war), and the Sanhendrin believe that he's a pretender to the throne and denounce him as such to the Romans. Of course the demand to crucify Jesus is "folly" to Pilate, but he does it anyhow to fulfil Paul.

So, I believe that to Mark and his community Jesus' mission was not failed but fully accomplished.

BTW, the pharisee audience is derided by Mark's outrageous reading of the tanakh, and the affected primitive grammar and diction. I don't believe for a second that Mark is as unschooled as he appears to some. He exhibits great cunning and fondness for paradox. The simplicissimus he affects to be as a narrator and the outrageous leaps of logic, again I attribute to his "fulfilling" Paul who had a sense of inferiority about his presentation skills ("Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" 1 Cr 1:20).


Because he was the first one who preached the crucified Messiah. Without a doubt, his messianic paradox was an inspiration to Mark.

What do you mean, "the destruction of the Temple is not shown" ? Personally, I can't imagine Mark was composed before the fall of the temple. The passion plot, with Jesus' prediction of the fall, the accusation that he plotted to destroy it, his "teaching in the temple", the scene in the tomb with its transparent reference to Malachi 3:1, would not have worked with the temple still standing, IMHO.

As for "Galilee", I basically argued here (with Amaleq13, and Ben Smith) the same thing as you do. Jesus offers no guarantee of reunion except in saying he was going to go there before the disciples do. If Mark intended for the reunion to take place then the flight of the women from the tomb makes no sense whatsoever. There is no other reason for the women to flee than to assure the gospel arrive through Mark !!!

Ergo, I tend to read "Galilee" here as allegorical allusion to the gentile churches founded by Paul.

That would be my preference also ! Luke (and the Fayyum fragment) cuts out the difficult pointer in preference to Matthew's insistence on its literal meaning. Partially owing to Kelber's reading of the Galilean "divide", I think the idea of "preceding" the disciples to Galilee would have been Mark's. As you often note Mark's irony, I am sure you could appreciate the humour of Jesus suggesting of going ahead of his witless disciples to the part of the land where the messianist rebels were defeated first in the war of 67-73.

The disciples are clueless about the Pauline "resurrection" - that is the major underlying theme of Mark. In 9:9-10, the three major figures debate among themselves what it is. In 9:32 they do not understand the saying that the son of man would be killed and rise (after three days) and they are afraid (ἐφοβοῦντο) to ask him. In 16:8 the women fail to transmit the good news
because....?

Best,
Jiri


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

sotto voce

What was the belief of the people whom Paul intended to persecute on the road to Damascus?

Diogenes the Cynic

Nobody knows. Paul doesn't tell us. We really don't know anything at all about pre-Pauline Jesus beliefs. We have no data.

It's possible that the Jerusalem cult thought Jesus would return as the Danielic bar Enosh. It's highly unlikely they thought he was God.

Paul did probably invent the resurrection, though.

tanya

Link?

Evidence?

Just, please, step back for a moment. Imagine you are reading Mark's good news gospel, hot off the press.

Since, it is your view, that "Paul" invented the resurrection, wouldn't you be surprised, as you sat in the shade perusing Mark, to find NOT ONE WORD, attributing this dramatic revelation: a human who came back to life, to the pen of "Paul"?

Is Mark so shallow, that one should wholly discard it, as worthless, for failing to cite the contributions of "Paul", in elaborating this resurrection story?

As I see it, the fact that Mark makes NO REFERENCE, in any way, to the epistles of "Paul", provides overwhelming evidence that "Paul" FOLLOWS, not precedes, Mark. I have no idea which one of Paul's epistles you are quoting, in support of this thesis, that "Paul" invented the resurrection story, which then was picked up by Mark.

Looking forward to some evidence....

Diogenes the Cynic

Well, for one thing, Paul said he got all his information from his own personal hallucinations, and there doesn't appear to have been any tradition of a resurrection before Paul or independent of Paul so...
I would expect no such thing. Paul is not even born yet relative to events of Mark, so why would he be in it, and how would the author know that paul made up the resurrection?
I have no idea what you mean by "worthless," but it makes no sense to expect the author to know that Paul made it up.
This is laughably uneducated.
Galatians.

aa5874

Why do you continue to make UNFORCED errors??

The Pauline writer did NOT invent the resurrection in the NT Canon.

Why??? Why??? Why can't you accept that it is FOUND in the Pauline writings that Paul stated Jesus died, was buried and Jesus was RAISED on the THIRD day according to the Scriptures.

The Pauline writer destroys your claim. Paul most likely did NOT invent the resurrection.

Even, If you claim 1 COR.15 was interpolated then Paul still did NOT invent the THIRD day resurrection.

Again, you MUST understand the Canon.

Paul was supposed to be a WITNESS of the resurrected Jesus FOUND in the Canonised Gospels.

The Jesus story was fabricated FIRST then Paul was INVENTED afterwards.

Diogenes the Cynic

Paul was referring to the OT, not to any Christian writing.