Vorkosigan

I believe the answer to this question is correct, once removed. The ancient romances that draw on homer were in turn drawn on by the writer of Mark.

Vorkosigan

Adam, whether or not John Mark was a real person has nothing to do with atheism. Not everyone posting here or disagreeing with you is an atheist. Should John Mark be non-fictional, it does not make gods real or Jesus into the son of one of the Canaanite sky gods.

Vorkosigan

spin

Assertion #1.

Filler.

Unfootnoted assertion.

Generalized assertion that has no support given to it.

More assertion purporting to represent others' views.

Assertion that hints at the writer's aim in which a conjecture of eye witnesses is introduced.

Exposition of Baukham's opinions mingled with opinions about Baukham's opinions.

An assertion apparently criticizing Bauckham.

Assertion about the views of two groups of christians who for some reason disagree with the opinion that Adam has highlighted from Bauckham.

Assertion about the value of Bauckham's opinion given his inability to come up with eye witnesses.

A generalization appealing to readers to react against the crypto-liberalism of Bauckham and those who like him don't go all the way into obscurity and come up with clear eye witnesses behind gospels.

And it doesn't here. We need arguments and evidence.

He's already said it. This is merely an opinion and has no probative value in an argument.

The density of assertion here is commendable, but it offers nothing that furthers the argument, or rather here the tangent about Bauckham not quite making it by accepting there really were eye witnesses. But at least we come to the end of the Bauckham cul-de-sac.

Assertion claiming to represent two centuries of scholarship, unfootnoted.

Some scholars like...? Yes, it's an assertion, but did I need to say so? It's sufficient that it is an appeal to nameless people whose views cannot be checked.

An assertion promising to go somewhere of substance.

Likewise many scholars...who? Ooops, he's done this again. This assertion seems to be pointing a criticism at Q without footnoting it or even enunciating it.

We finish our romp through the two source theory with the following observation.

Oh, dear. The writer has a bee in his bonnet regarding eye witnesses for some reason. Whatever the case, the two source theory is not worth the effort in the opinion of the writer, who has spent at least three sentences demonlishing it. So, let's destroy another theory with the same level of analysis.

Well, that's it for the four source theory.

Assertion (#umpteen). Let's wait and see what he will show.

Umm, critics like who? Assertion (#umpteen +1)

A statement of intention! Bit late of course with umpteen plus one assertions and no evidence thus far.

Scalpel sharp rhetoric... concluding in yet another assertion without evidence.

How novel, an assertion!

And another, working on the assumption that there needs to have been a single source, presumably written source, that was behind both subtraditions and not just the fact that there was a common oral tradition behind these similarities. The communities of christians knew nothing of traditions from being proselytized and depended on written sources from the get-go. Otherwise an oral tradition would seem to be a reasonable source for the common material. We know for example that there were itinerant preachers who went around communities living off the communities while telling them stories (see the Didache).

Assertion (#lost count). Does one wonder how "John Mark" comes into this story? I mean beside the fact that the gospel of Mark contains the name "Mark"? Ergo, because Acts mentions a John surnamed Mark who knew Peter, it must be that he was the writer of the earliest material in the gospel. Hmmmm.

There is some reason for mentioning this factoid, isn't there? I mean the distinction between αγαπη and φιλεω (not the fact that αγαπη is a noun and φιλεω is a verb and that you can't αγαπη anyone, perhaps αγαπαω). Oh, I see φιλεω--love like a brother as in Philadelphia. The one who Jesus loved. This somehow because Jesus loved him live a brother indicates the writer of the as yet unindividuated tradition was John Mark. :constern01:

Because they are there they had to be direct from the real Peter's mouth and therefore had to have been written down by the one who Jesus loved like a brother, who by necessity was John Mark. (Just filling in what appears to me to be some of the unstated assumption glue.)

And so...?

I'm pleased to know that Teeple believed that, but I don't know how he came to believe that and Adam doesn't tell us, nor do we know why Adam thinks that he correctly called the information a source. And unpacking this stuff doesn't make it any more relevant, does it?

Who were the scholars who were surveyed for this conclusion that no one regards them thus?

These verses listed here from John have been individuated somehow, I guess. I don't believe that they have been randomly placed here. But how they were decided, who knows?

Really? I guess we'll have to wait for later once again before we get some reason for making this statement.

Do I need to ask... who?

And this collective opinion is of what value?

Still no reason for this sort of conjecture. I guess it was just plucked out of there.

Oh, yes, Q.E.D., John called Mark, the person in whose mother's house Peter stayed, was by necessity of the logic presented here the person who wrote the earliest layer of the gospel of Mark, which was also used by the person who wrote the gospel of John, who obviously wasn't an eye witness because he had to depend on this material by John called Mark. Stunning explication. How could I not find this compelling?

Watch and ponder, my children, as the goalposts get moved yet again.

Sheshbazzar

Perhaps I should mention to Adam at this point, that I am not an Atheist.
Simply my beliefs are not his beliefs, and nothing at all like his professed beliefs.
My views on the Biblical texts and the various Abrahamic religions are so fundamentally and radically different from his that he cannot even begin to conceive of how huge that difference is, much less understand the hows and whys of those differences.

Adam

Thank you, spin,
You analyze every word of mine instead of those with which you disagree. (Oh, isn't that the same thing?)

My first sentence needs "eyewitness" inserted between "written" and "records".
I was not necessarily rejecting the two-source theory, just presenting it as the prime contender and the basis for the Synoptic side of my presentation. I don't deal with the M of the four-source theory at all (since not from an eyewitness), and my version of Proto-Luke presents L as less a source than an editor's addition.

Naming each eyewitness is not integral to my thesis, though I don't hesitate to suggest names where I see evidence. The original Passion Narrative is best seen as broken out by Teeple in his "S" portion of John 18 and 19. "S" means source for him. He of course did not believe any of gJohn traces back to eyewitnesses, but his "layers" lend themselves to evaluation as to their source. (My enumeration of verses in "S" for John 18 and 19 closely follows his. The Roman numerals indicate the number of times I saw in the section what looked to me like eyewitness touches.) If the source was early, it might be a person named in the New Testament. Some scholars have named Lazarus as the author of gJohn, for example. Peter is, of course, the traditional candidate for information in the Passion Narrative and much else in gMark, but gJohn should have included more about Galilee and Peter if he had ever been involved in the composition of that gospel. Other possibilities for "the disciple known to the High Priest" are Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, or of course anonymous.

I have never seen much reason for believing oral tradition explains the earliest stages of any gospel, nor do I see the finished Synoptics as having influenced gJohn. The similarities are best explained by a common written source. However, this most reasonable theory has been stymied by the orthodox who insist no sources underlie any gospel and the radical critics who refuse to admit any early source except falliable word of mouth, and both who for opposite reasons insist on dating gJohn late. See also my Post #187:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=306983
Regarding John 20:2, I am not saying that John Mark was the Beloved Disciple, but that he was not. My exegesis is that the Beloved Disciple was not there at the Resurrection in 20:2, because the word agape that would have supported that is not there, but Teeple is correct that the word phileo that is there is a later gloss. Teeple saw the "other disciple" of John 20:2 as "the disciple known to the high priest" of John 18:15-16.
So, yes, I am saying that John Mark accompanied Peter to the tomb. Teeple did not call anything in John 20 (or 21) "S", however, but I see his label "P-1" as probably "S" here as well, though with a lower degree of probability that it is from the same author.

Adam

Not fiction? That you would even ponder the thought! Almost persuaded?

Or maybe you could go the Joe Atwill route in Caesar's Messiah, or better yet how about The Real Messiah by one of our own here? John Mark was not fiction but a God? (That is, represented himself as God.)

Adam

Taking your story-poem in #381 literally, you have transformed your former Fundamentalism into a new, apparently theistic, metaphysic. Some radically anti-Christian, anti-Catholic sect (as implied by "Babylon")?

The problem you guys have with me here is that for stylistic purposes I don't repeat words, saying "atheist" in one place, "anti-Christian" in another, and maybe "irreligious" somewhere else. I could be more repetitive, but wherever any of these classifications would be necessarily opposed to me, I treat them as synonyms. No offense meant by it.

(I see Vork is having trouble with formatting again, I'll see if I've corrected the (lack of) attribution to me.)

Adam

I appreciate you coming in to help out the problem left by Doug Shaver's Post #153 that there is nothing going on about eyewitnesses in the gospels, but he probably meant just academic scholarship, which would probably not include this Crandell. We're still hunting for some academic scholarship that proves there were no eyewitness records to Jesus. (Hey look, I could have said, "prove that there were no eyewitnesses to Jesus", which would be awfully hard if there was a real Jesus. Oh, that's right, maybe there wasn't.)

spin

Could anyone agree or disagree with the loosely connected bunch of ramblings in the o.p. that makes no argument and uses no evidence? One can only sit back and marvel as one would at a fascinating museum exhibit.

Doug Shaver

Whoever these "we" are have more time to waste than I do.