Vorkosigan

You have to go back and look at the conventions of the various types of writings and decide which one Mark aligns himself with. The basic problem with that, of course, is that fictional narrative grew out of historical narrative, so that it retained many of the elements of historiagraphy. It also evolved its own conventions.

I cannot know of course what the writer of Mark intended. Yet it seems that if he had intended to write history, there was an established set of conventions he could have availed himself of. He could have dated things, described more about the politics, referred back and forth to past and present, the way Tacitus or Polybius does, discussed his sources, and distinguished in his own presentation between what is myth, hearsay, and fact, as all the ancient historians did, with varying levels of success and commitment. Yet he does not, unlike Luke, who is writing faux history, knows the conventions, and uses some of them. Mark never discusses his sources. He never dates -- without Jbap and Pilate, we'd have no idea when the story was set. He never distinguishes how he has received certain information. He follows no almost conventions of historical presentation in antiquity. Etc, etc, etc. Instead, the conventions of Mark are the conventions of the Greek fiction -- crowds following the hero, trials before potentates, typologies, construction by paralleling older and sacred texts, etc. Further, the writer's story is located entirely in the past and references to the present are coded rather than open. So what would you call Mark?

Yes. One thing I discovered when reading Ludemann closely is that he offers no escape from the problem of when criteria clash. He is the only one to offer negative criteria and positive criteria formally. The others all use negative criteria but do so implicitly, and downplay them, privileging positive criteria. Confirming and disconfirming criteria frequently clash, and exegetes neither comment on this as a formal problem nor do they offer ways out of it, except by fleeing into subjectivity.

I have reversed this emphasis. I got rid of positive criteria because they are all circular -- they contain the assumption of history within them, and thus cannot discover history on their own. I also decided to do what no one else did and make all my criteria formally declared. This reduced subjectivity, but of course didn't eliminate it.

I was hoping actually that there would be a large residue of historical items so that I could simply point to that and say "see? The methodology is validated!" because there are some things it can't sort out/dispose of. But as I went through Mark -- prior to my reading on Greek fiction -- I came to realize that it had TWO sources, the OT and the letters of Paul -- and that those together account for almost everything. The "residue" of potential history consists of things that look a lot like fiction -- a few names. So the suspicion will always remain that by using negative criteria I have simply engaged in circular reasoning. There's no escape from it. All I can do is point to history, such as Tacitus, and say that the methodology won't work on that -- it doesn't make fiction out of Tacitus.

Later when I went and studied Greek fiction I came to understand Mark in a much deeper way, and realize what was going on, and how those insights supported my methodology.

Sorry about the length.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

No, because the assault on the embarrassment criterion is there to demonstrate that the historicity of the texts is an axiom of the methodology rather than a conclusion from it. The prior decision about genre is the target of the discussions of conventions.

It certainly reads that way. But then Jn 21 is very late. David Ross turned up evidence that even Tertullian knows John has two endings, and one doesn't have Jn 21.

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/zimriel/Mark/

Scroll down about halfway through to the "Missing Ending of Mark."

Vorkosigan

mata leao

again, Vorkosigan is ascribing an enormously conspiritorial motive to the earliest writers (or redactors)Take your pick)....In thinking it through I just dont see what such persons -if fabrication was their goal, had to gain. And I certainly could have easily done it much better than they did if I was creating the Christian/gospel paradigm out of whole cloth, Submission to Roman rule, submission to taxation by the sovereign,vows of relative poverty for leaders and elders, strict sexual morality, prohibition against pre-marital sex, prohibition of prostitution, and a scarifical system of working to evangelise, feed the hungry, heal the sick, etc.

Vorkosigan

Incorrect. The writer who deliberately lied was Luke. The writer of Mark never intended his piece as history, IMHO. So I am not ascribing conspiracy motives to anyone.

Vorkosigan

mata leao

Luke did not lie.

Vorkosigan

Whatever. Point is, I am not pushing a conspiracy, but an evolution. So stop with that nonsense.

hallq

The movie contradicts the book because its fiction and the producers aren't concerned with truth. No matter how much Luke may have been influenced by ideology, we have every indication he was concerned with the life of a person. What made Luke look at Matthew's birth story and say, "no, it couldn't have been like that"?

On Mark - who claims he was a Greek historian? He was writing haigography, not history. How many ancient haigographies discuss politics and such? How many many hawkers of extraordinary tales in any age have been meticulous about citing sources?

Ben C Smith

More than five words, actually:

Matthew 1.21a:...τεξεται δε υιον, και καλεσεις το ονομα αυτου Ιησουν.
Luke 1.31b: ...και τεξη υιον, και καλεσεις το ονομα αυτου Ιησουν.

...and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

I have a synopsis available.

Ben.

Steven Avery

Ironic to see this. When the six word direct agreement was pointed out (not looking for an agreement in a long text) of Paul quoting Luke as scripture, folks went into all sorts of "oral source" "common proverb" and "aphorism" types of explanations, anything to avoid the obvious -- Paul quoted Luke as scripture.

Now here you find one such agreement in the birth narratives and it can be accepted as powerful evidence of a clear direct dependence.

Hmmm

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Ben C Smith

I was not trying to sneak John 21 in as early evidence, just looking for a common ground in the use of the embarrassment criterion. Since it looks like this rumor is something that the author of the appendix had to explain away somehow, it likewise looks like the rumor itself has a good claim to historicity.

Thanks for that link; I had never seen it before, yet late in 2004 I uploaded a page on this very issue, Tertullian and the Johannine appendix. I was set onto the Tertullian text by a friend; maybe he got it from that web page.

And, like David Ross, I am sorely tempted to see John 21 as a reworking of the original ending of Mark. There is yet another bit of evidence leaning in that direction on top of what that page offers; Ross notes the fragmented ending of the Akhmîm fragment, which mentions Peter, Andrew, and Levi just before breaking off. But what do those three have in common in the gospel of Mark? All three were the recipients of direct personalized commands to follow Jesus (Mark 1.17; 2.14). The sons of Zebedee also receive such a command (Mark 1.20), and they happen to be the only persons on the list in John 21.2 that do not appear elsewhere in John; could they be residual characters from an original Marcan ending that presented a second call of the disciples, as it were? Peter, Andrew, and Levi, and probably James and John, look like distinctly Marcan personnel to me.

That would explain why Jesus reissues the call to Peter in John 21.19. It would also make the Lucan move of the miraculous catch eminently appropriate; Luke picked up on the themes crisscrossing the Marcan accounts of the call and of the resurrection appearance on the lake and knew it all meant the same basic thing.

Well, this is all attractive to me, at any rate. Take it or leave it.

BTW, the gospel of John in manuscript 16 (century XII) of the Clark Collection at Duke University ends with John 20.29. But I do not know whether this ending is sudden or not.

Ben.