aa5874

I have read your post.

I do NOT know Tom Sawyer, his aunt Polly, the bakery or Kansas city. I do NOT know if what you wrote is true. I do NOT know if the author expected me to know anything, maybe he was suppling information that he thought I did NOT know.

Maybe YOU KNOW WHAT THE AUTHOR EXPECTED YOU TO KNOW. I DO NOT.

Now, do you know what aa5874 expected you to know about his aunt Janet, the school, and Nazareth?

spamandham

Are you telling me you've never heard of Tom Sawyer!?

Have you ever heard of a genre known as fiction? If so, please tell me a fictional work you've read, so I can construct a meaningful example.

aa5874

I have answered your question from the previous post.

Now, you tell me, what did the author expect you to know about Tom Sawyer, Polly, Kansas city and the bakery?

Only people who already knew Polly read the book?

Only people who already knew Tom Sawyer and his aunt Polly read the book?

If you do NOT know Tom Sawyer and Polly you are barred from reading the book or it is not recommended that you read the book?

Please tell me what did the author expect you to know?

neilgodfrey

Yes. The disciples are made to look like silly gooses (geese?) throughout. If the readers do not understand then they (the readers) would agree with the disciples that Jesus was a bit of a ning-nong.

Neil

neilgodfrey

No, your addition about the witnessing functioning of the women was not a simple "IOW". My point was that your "witnessing" interpretation derives from John's gospel, not Mark's. There is no "witnessing" in Mark. I am pointing out that in Mark there is "seeing" and "blindness". But not "witnessing".

The "witnessing" idea brings with it the "eyewitness" baggage, and changes the discussion entirely. This might have a place in a discussion in relation to GJohn, but not GMark.


This has never been clear from the beginning. Are you really conceding that the readers may just as equally understand James and Joses as figurative ciphers as real people sitting in the same room as them?

You have twisted my argument. It certainly IS circular reasoning to assume that an author has a particular indication to his readers in mind in his text, and then to argue that this particular indication is clear because that is the best interpretation of his text. But your "counterclaim" addresses and goes somewhere else.

I would be very interested in any comparable example from "ancient history" you could offer here. All internal indications of a text from "ancient history" that I can think of are ultimately contingent upon secure verifications of the provenance of such texts. Care to pin down the provenance of the gospels?


Yes, my answer is "no". When Mark says "they crucified him" we read that as three words of but one verse! His inscription, "The King of the Jews" is but a part of one verse. The crucifixion of two bandits either side of him is but "one verse". The baptism of Jesus by John is but one verse. The role of Simon of Cyrene was so embedded as part of the narrative that 2 evangelists repeated it and one evangelist denied it. I suggest you are mistaking "narrative" for "plot".



But your interpretation of Mark (e.g the emphasis on the role of "witness") is fed, I would suggest, by a gospel narrative that is in some sense external to Mark.

Nobody reading John by itself would miss the Last Supper! The Last Supper is not central to the PLOT! You do not seem to grasp the difference between narrative and plot.

If you cannot believe what I am proposing then stop and read it again and think it through. Your proposition, which is a bland repeat of a mathematical proposition that we hear ad nauseum, simply sidesteps the real-world conditions of a relatively new and socially ostracized sect scattered throughout the Mediterranean. We are not talking about modern day Anglican congregations in Canberra or Tokyo who try to stifle yawns when they hear of prayer requests for so and so in London. Try to put yourself back in the time of the generation of witnesses of Jesus himself -- think that one through.

Are you disagreeing with my assertion that friends, contacts and relatives of anyone associated with the gospel narrative would have been the hot topic of gossip, discussion, conversation. . . . . .??


?? I don't understand you here. Where on earth did I suggest anything remotely that "everybody whose mom once knew a famous person [is] supposed to be famous"????

You didn't. I did. Consider it.

No-one is arguing this. Of course the names are used as identification! Of course Cyrene is a place name!

Can you run by me again where or which of my points are "so obviously incorrect"?

Neil

neilgodfrey

i was addressing something by aa. if you want to know what my arguments are based on in relation to anything you have argued, then simply read what i have said in reply to you. no hidden agendas.

but if you are sincerely interested in which "theory" (the symbolic/metaphorical or real-life historical) accounts for more of the details then i am very happy to argue the point in another thread.

neil

Ben C Smith

I think you are interpreting witness as testifier, or as an eyewitness on the stand. I am saying that they, in Mark, are witnesses in the sense that they watch the proceedings. And that is indisputable. It also seems to be of some importance to Mark, since he repeatedly uses verbs of seeing or watching for these women.

Again, my whole interest on this point in this context was to note that the abandonment theme is not the only theme these women are supporting in the text. Mark is also interested in having sympathetic parties (as opposed to enemies alone) watching the proceedings, even if only from a safe distance.

No. I am saying that Mark must have had reason to believe his readers knew who these people were. Nothing less and nothing more, at least as yet.

Then you have twisted mine, too. I was describing my take on what Joses and James imply about provenance, and how it was not circular.

This is circular, but this is not what I am doing.

Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History, page 147:

One has frequently to resort to the conjectures known to the historian as the terminus non ante quem ("the point not before which") and the terminus non post quem ("the point not after which"). These termini, or points, have to be established by internal evidence — by clues given within the document itself.

The execution (crucifixion) of Jesus is a fairly central theme in Mark, as evidenced by its frequent repetition in the gospel. Mark 8.31:

And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mark 9.31:

For he was teaching his disciples, saying to them: The son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.

Mark 10.33-34:

...saying: Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.

Mark 14.1b:

And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him.

Mark 15.13:

And they cried out again: Crucify him.

The inscription is part of a broader king of the Jews theme in chapter 15. See Mark 15.2, 9, 12, 18, 26, 32.

Both the crucifixion and the king of the Jews theme are more central than Simon of Cyrene.

Perhaps you could explain more clearly to me how I might be confusing narrative with plot, and how this confusion is leading me to incorrect conclusions as to what is central and what is peripheral in a text.

The two bandits are also peripheral characters, just like Simon of Cyrene.

The point that you (still) seem to be making regarding Joses and James, to wit, that if they were known to readers of Mark then they would have been known to readers of Matthew and Luke, as well.

I cannot get my head around the assumptions that must be fueling this view.

Ben.

spamandham

In the example I gave, it's obvious to any 6th grader that the author expected you to have heard about Tom Sawyer. I think it's obvious to you as well.

aa5874

Only a sixth-grader would think such a thing!

Tom Sawyer was fiction. That's what the author expected you to know.

spamandham

...at least you acknowledge you know who Tom Sawyer is. However, I think (know?) you're just being obstinate and refuse to admit that an author who writes

Later in life, Tom Sawyer's aunt Polly moved to Kansas City and opened a bakery.

...expects his audience to be familiar with the fictional character Tom Sawyer.