Amaleq13

I think the majority of scholars have done a superb job of calling into question any reliance on Peter. As I am fond of repeating, even The Catholic Study Bible feels compelled to caution against assuming "too much Petrine influence".

There is really nothing in the text to suggest it and I consider Papias an unreliable source.

That is an illogical shift of the burden. What evidence exists that the tradition is reliable? Papias tells us he obtained his information from either folks who heard the disciples or folks who heard disciples of the disciples and, right along with the authorship traditions, repeats a story about Judas getting squished by a chariot after becoming bloated with guilt. At the very least, I would suggest that taints his credibility somewhat, even if we could assume that second or third-hand rumors have much from the outset.

You might be interested in reading this thread: Mark's view of the disciples.

You'll find plenty of motivation for the author that has nothing whatsoever to do with actually knowing the disciples.

I've always held that Paul either knew nothing about Jesus or deliberately avoided mentioning him for the same reason you describe.

Diogenes the Cynic

Why do you think it's likely that the author knew anyone who knew Peter? There is no evidence either internal nor external to suggest that?
You have your burden backwards. It's your burden to prove that the tradition has anything to it, not on anyone else to prove it doesn't.

But since you asked....


The author makes no claim to such a relationship.

The chiastic structures of his narratives as well as his heavy reliance on the Tanakh show that they are purely literary creations with no possibility of an origin in oral tradition.

Mark makes numerous mistakes in geography, Jewish custom and Jewish law which would not be possible if his book was derived from any sort of genuine oral anecdotes from a follower of HJ.

GMark does not fit Papias' description as an unordered collection of anecdotes.


The real question is why the Canonical Gospel of Mark should be assumed to have anything to do with what Papias was describing. Papias claims he heard about Mark from someone called John the Elder (who was not an apostle). There is no reason whatever to believe that Papias information was accurate (his information about Matthew's logia doesn't match the canonical Gospel either) or that even if there was some sort of collection of anecdotes collected from Peter that such a compilation was any sort of basis for Canonical Mark.
What is the basis for your assertion that Peter and co. believed in a crucified Jesus? That's an assumption with no evidentiary support. We don't know that anyone before Paul believed any such thing. For all we know, Peter saw Daniel's "Son of Adam" in the sky and decided that he was coming any day to kick ass. The whole death and resurrection thing need not have played any role in the Jerusalem cult at all. Certainly there is no reason to assume they believed in anything like a Pauline soteriology.
How so?

Afghan

Well I'm trying not to assume "too much" Petrine influence, but I am curious as to how far you can stretch the separation between Mark and Peter. I mean, the Christian community of the 1st Century wasn't huge and there was only about 25 years between them (according to my back of a fag packet calculation).

I don't think it is shifting the burden. The only information that we have about the author of the Gospel of Mark was that Papias thought (or claimed) he was the "interpeter of Peter". The fact that Papias made this claim is evidence for it. Not strong evidence but evidence nevertheless. And prima facie it is the only evidence.

I've been flicking over it already and, you are right, it is interesting although a poor mathematician like me struggles with the subtleties of textual criticism.

Doubtless. I'd hardly call Mark's account objective reportage. But Mark's motivations are a slightly separate issue to what sort of material he was working with.

TedM

Sorry for jumping in here, but Mark's main character among the apostles was Peter, so that is another reason--which may or may not have influenced the words quoted of Papias. I don't remember the numbers now, but Peter is in something like 15 places, and the next most popular disciple is in half a dozen or so.. Plus, Mark is mentioned as knowing Peter in one of the epistles. Plus, Mark wasn't a 'big name', which would have served the church better..

There is a notable difference. First, Judas' death would have been 40 years before "Mark" wrote Peter, so more time elapsed for the tradition of his death. I'd also suggest that Papias' account of Judas is different, but the attribution of guilt to his death, as well as his large size (Acts says he "swelled up") and his bowels burst open was consistent with the other traditions, so there is some consistency in a much older tradition. I would think a tradition regarding the author of the first main biography of Jesus--so influential that others copied it--would have been much stronger than the exact details of a person who hadn't been in the Christian community for 90 years.

Why 80? Mark is considered by the vast majority of scholars to have been written (at least in part) around 70AD, cutting the time down to about 40 years.

ted

Afghan

You see. that's what I was after.

Try again. That wasn't what I was asserting. At least not there.

Because, to assume Historicism for a moment, Paul did not know Jesus whereas his political opponents did. Paul, on the other hand, did a very nice line in Stoic metaphysics, which (a) he was much better at than the Jerusalem crowd and (b) removed the need for real world connection to Jesus for his authority.

Diogenes the Cynic

When you say "stretch the separation" you are still assuming there is any reason whatever to suppose a connection. There is none.
We don't know that Papias was talking about the Gospel of Mark. We know that he made a claim that A book of Petrine anecdotes was compiled by a secretary named Mark. We have no reason to believe that this compilation - if it ever existed - was Canonical Mark or if it served as any sort of basis for Canonical Mark. The internal evidence is all against it (and I think the argument that Peter is a prominent character therefore the author must have known him is incredibly specious and reaching). GMark doesn't match Papias' description. The narratives are literary creations rather than transcriptions of oral anecdotes, the author makes no claim to know Peter, the author doesn't LIKE Peter and the book is riddled with factual errors that could not have come from a witness.

Papias does not actually represent an explicit claim about Canonical Mark. It represents a claim that A book of some sort was compiled by a secretary of Peter's. Any conection drawn between what Papias describes and Canonical Mark really has nothing to support it and much to contradict it.

Afghan

I agree. But Mark only shows the presence of a Historicist position, not its overwhelming prevalence. I thought I'd play it safe and go with Ignatius and Tacitus as evidence of a general acceptance of Historicism. And much longer after that and the Mythicists probably wouldn't have escaped the attention of heresiologists like Tertullian and Irenaeus.

In short, I was betting conservatively.

Afghan

Unless Peter was living on a completely different planet there must have been some connection. Let's face it, with enough degrees of separation, you are connected to Peter.

Diogenes the Cynic

Ok. Maybe I misunderstood. What exactly is that you are asserting we can definitely know about what the Pillars believed?
This would be an accurate analysis IF Jesus was historical but not if he wasn't. As such, I'm not sure if it's useful.


For the record, I am agnostic on HJ. I am playing a bit of devil's advocate in this thread but I don't actually reject the possibility of HJ outright. I've basically just decided that we don't yet have enough data to know right now. I do think that the beliefs of the Pillars almost certainly represent the true origin of the movement but the nature of those beliefs are frustratingly unavailable to us.

TedM

True, but do we really think the author of a book immediately deemed worthy of copying by several authors would have been unknown? Ancient manuscripts had (I don't know how often) cover pages, which included the author's name, so the absence in the text doesn't mean the author didn't identify himself with the work.

These so-called chiastic structures are highly subjective and the ones I've looked at look like fabrications in the minds of people who would probably be good at numerology. I can't speak to the Tanakh other than to say its use does not "show" that it is a literary creation.


Why not? If Mark wasnt' himself familiar with them and was recalling after the fact I would expect such mistakes.

All the more reason to conclude that whoever it was that was quoting Papias wasn't making up the quote. Are we to believe that Christian tradition mistook this quote as referring to an ordered book? Why would they do that? How do we know that Mark as is, really is "ordered"? John might agree that it is not orderly since it ommitted a number of events.