Amaleq13

Gotcha. Pesky translations.

Yet another reminder why I purchased Mounce's textbook.

JoeWallack

Rabbi Valach said in Rabbi Maimonides name, "A wandering man got lost in a forest. He was struck between the eyes by a falling wooden tree. A doctor held up One finger and asked, "How many fingers are there?". Due to the man's injury he saw three fingers. How many fingers were there?"


JW:
You've broadened my question from the context it was presented in:

The Context was Initial Acceptance of Jesus and subsequent Rejection of Jesus. Normally, at this point The Wallack Treatment goes into effect but I'm going to turn the other Eye because Public Demonstration (in English) that "Mark" Presented The Disciples as Total Failures should Significantly Move the Numbers of this Generation.

8: (NIV)
22They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"
24He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."
25Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26Jesus sent him home, saying, "Don't go into the village.[a]"

Your claim of a Second chance would be Nonsense in any case as it's Jesus who gets the second chance and not the Blind man. So my Point stands. No one in "Mark" gets a Second chance. For Lovers of Truth, the Original probably just had Jesus Spit in the man's Eyes abing a famous Greco-Roman story. The Editor saw this as smacking of Magic (physical activity healing) and being reluctant to remove added the second stage for a proper "hands on" healing.

Continuing...

5: (NIV)
"A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
32But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' " - The Disciples can only see what's on The Outside. They have no conception of seeing what's on The Inside (I had temporarily suspended size but you earned it here Ben) - The Motivation - Faith that Touching Jesus would lead to Healing.



Joseph

"The carpenter measures with a line
and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels
and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in the form of man,
of man in all his glory,
that it may dwell in a shrine.

He cut down cedars,
or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.

It is man's fuel for burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself,
he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.

Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
"Ah! I am warm; I see the fire."

From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
"Save me; you are my god."

- Isaiah

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Ben C Smith

Hi, Joe.

In my reading of Mark it is indeed Jesus who gets a second chance, as it were, to heal the blind man, and it is also Jesus who gets a second chance to commission his disciples for service. That is why, in my hypothetical ending, the disciples are again in Galilee, again fishing, again out of sight of the messiah. It is a do-over, a mulligan. Jesus has to take the initiative (again) to recall his commissioned few.

It is not the innate goodness and nobility of the disciples that I am defending here; it is merely the fact (as I see it) that Mark knows their failure at the crucifixion was not the end of their relationship with the messiah. He called them again.

Did Jesus fail the first time he tried to heal the blind man? I am not sure. Did Jesus fail the first time he commissioned the twelve? I am not sure. But the situations are, in my view, analogous on that level. It is Jesus who must take the initiative in the restoration, whether of sight or of apostleship.

By the way, I regard my argument from the blind man as the weakest of the lot. I offer it here only as ballast for your argument from the parable of the sower. In both cases it is important not to let our readings interfere with what is plain from the rest of the gospel. And it is quite plain from Mark 10, Mark 13, and Mark 16 that the author is aware that the desertion of the disciples was not the utter end of their faith; he knows they came back, and does not mind saying so.

Ben.

JoeWallack

JW:
Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I don't like to switch conversations in Threads because Momentum is lost. Now that Ben has fallen off the pace (I suspect that if there was a historical Jesus he would have done about as well against an Experienced Pharisee as Ben is doing against me) I will. Love your name by The Way.

I think Julian gave a Good response. At the time there would have been No authoritative Jesus story and therefore No De-Finite beliefs. My guess is Vorkosigan is closest to Right that the Original "Mark" may have primarily been intended as just a really good Story. The primary point was to illustrate The Failure of The Disciples. Note that it's Possible that The Author believed The Disciples did continue The Jesus movement in some way but wanted to discredit them by writing an exaggerated story of their Failure. It may have subsequently been Adopted by the "Markan Community" which was not necessarily associated with The Author. This Community was Faith based and didn't Believe in a Post resurrection meeting with The Disciples. Belief in the Resurrection was just based on Faith and not the supposed historical witness of post resurrection evidence (The "Young Man" at The Tomb is probably just The Author speaking - a common Literary Technique). As you can see in my X-Uh-Jesus The Disciples aren't just portrayed Negatively, they are used as the Counter Example for Faith.

Regarding Paul as a Sourcerer of witness testimony for post resurrection sighting what's Ironic is that Paul himself didn't believe in such supposed Witness testimony when it came from other men. He only believed when he thought he heard from Jesus hisself. Not such a great witness for people who had never heard from Jesus! Fortunately for Paul, as Resurrections are Impossible and therefore there could not have been any Real witnesses to an Impossible event, he didn't have to compete with any Real resurrection testimony from Real witnesses.

What's funnier is that Irenaeus of Lyons (yes, "Lyons") who probably was as important as anyone in creating a Unified Un-unified Jesus story, witnessed that Jesus died under Claudius. So you would have had Paul preaching about the significance of Jesus' death while Jesus was still alive! (Doherty, look out!). Subsequent Christianity had to preserve Irenaeus' Claudius comment, because they really weren't sure. Maybe Irenaeus was right.

This all gets back to the same thing. The problem with Christian Bible scholarship is that it starts with the Wrong Assumption. For most of its History it has assumed that the Impossible happened. The only question was the Source of Jesus' Impossible actions. God or Satan. Relatively recently and with Apologies to Mr. Carlson, Christian Bible scholarship has Retreated to a Position of being Neutral regarding The Impossible. If we start with the Assumption that the Impossible is Impossible then we can get the following scenario:

1) Jesus was a 1st century Jew who did the Possible.

2) When Jesus died generally his Disciples knew he wasn't the Messiah. Real Disciples, possibly Peter, continued Jesus' Possible career (Teaching).

3) Some of Jesus' followers gradually developed Legends about Jesus including the Impossible (The current/past Schneerson is probably a good parallel)

4) "Mark" wrote when all witness to the Possible Jesus was dead.

5) "Mark" explains that there were no Disciples who understood the Impossible Jesus because they all Failed and this Failure was part of The Plan.

6) There were no longer real witnesses to the Possible Jesus to contradict "Mark".



Joseph

STORY, n.
A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Amaleq13

Not a problem, I also thought Julian's response was good.

Thanks. The spelling variant (q=k French?) throws some folks off but, IMO, you just can't beat a screen name that defies a command from the Lord.

Given cultural saturation of The Gospel Story (at least in my culture), it is as difficult to avoid assuming the same level of familiarity then as it is to read Paul without the Story(ies) in mind.

IIRC, based on the number of surviving early copies, Mark was far less popular than Matthew or Luke and I've even heard it said we are lucky we aren't engaged in a Q-like debate about the existence of Mark as the "lost shared source" of Mt&Lk. I don't know whether it can be determined if that is because Mark was not initially received well or not distributed as well or because the "new-and-improved" versions resulted in a textual version of natural selection.

JoeWallack

JW:
Irenaeus indicates in Against Heresies that there was a wide variety of Gospels available through his time as well as a wide variety of Gospels within the same Gospel! You had Gospels with no VB, The God of the Jewish Bible as The Bad Guy, and Jesus souly as a Spirit so there wouldn't be any physical resurrected Jesus for The Disciples to meet. Consider the last carefully for a Gospel with a lot of Gnostic qualities (diechotomy of Flesh Bad/Spirit Good). Christian Polemics through Justin consisted mainly of philosophical arguments rather than than specifics based on authoritative Narrative. Tatian, Justin's student, presumably knew that the favorite Gospels of the time were just compilations of Legends rather than historical witness from one person and so had no problem Conflating the Gospel story in a brilliant attempt to eliminate Gospel contradiction at The Source. Paul's writings show no evidence of his knowledge of any Unified Gospel narrative and his attitude indicates that whatever he heard was not authoritative to him.

Brown's confessional position is that Christianity started with the belief that Jesus was resurrected. My position is that after that it was wide open as to the supposed Evidence. I picture Jesus' mother (played by Michael Myers) having a Gospel of the month meeting and Saying, "The thought of My son going out of the House of God without a coat. (Puts hand over chest). I Am getting all Fehklempt! Discuss the evidence for the resurrection amongst yourselves."

I agree that in "Mark's" time Paul's letters indicated that some disciples witnessed the resurrected Jesus. "Mark" could even have been in some way, a reaction and commentary to these claims. However, I don't think at that time there would have been any Christian consensus on witness of the resurrected Jesus. This is also supported by the variation in witness of the Gospels. At the same time it's contradicted by apparently most subsequent Gospels claiming resurrected witness. I see this though as simply Reaction to "Mark", the original Gospel and transition from the Legend of "Mark" to supposed history by "Matthew" and "Luke". "Faith" in the resurrection was fine for "Mark" but if you want to present it as History you need resurrection witness from someone other than an anonymous author.

JW:
Christianity still hasn't come to grips with the observation that generally manuscripts are not freely available until Christianity had Control in the Sixth century. The subtlety of "Mark", such as the Ironic portrayal of The Disciples as The Examples of Failure, has helped prevent Christianity for Seeing "Mark" for what it is, the Copying by "Matthew" and "Luke" gave the appearence of agreement and intolerable problems were Forged away early on such as putting "son" in the beginning, throwing Apostles" in a few times and especially adding resurrection sighting. The result was than explained away as an abbreviated version of "Matthew". For the last 2,000 years then Christianity has treated "Mark" like that deformed relative that is at every Family get together but makes everyone uncomfortable and no one talks to or about. Christianity has thereby unwittingly preserved what was likely the Original Gospel, which when properly understood is devasting to Christian assertion, because it didn't understand what "Mark" was Saying. Thus non-Christian Demons like you and me Understand "Mark's" Jesus while people trying to be followers of Jesus, like Ben, don't. I Am sure The Author of "Mark" would say, "That's what I Am trying to tell you guys!".



Joseph

Church Tradition - An oral memorization technique whereby stories are continually transmitted orally until no one remembers what originally happened.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Ben C Smith

If my suspicion is correct that Mark knew the epistles of Paul, then it would be all the harder for him to avoid the implications of the resurrection tradition while composing his own ending.

Ben.

Amaleq13

I agree. I don't know if you've read it but Vorkosigan posted a thread on that very topic not long ago:

Mark Knew Paul

JoeWallack

JW:
The Original related discussion here was more along the lines of whether "Mark's" Presentation of The Disciples by Narrative was mostly Negative or Positive. You've Expanded the discussion by adding what you think are "Mark's" predictions of The Disciples' future. If we limit our determination of whether "Mark" presents a generally Negative or Positive illustration of The Disciples by excluding what we think are predictions of their future, than it sounds like you would agree with me now that "Mark's" treatment was mainly Negative. Even if we have the Expanded definition that you want it's still arguable whether simply predicting a second chance is Positive treatment. It's obviously not a reward that was earned for Positive behaviour and actually an Implication that it was necessary due to Negative behaviour.

Continuing:

6: (NIV)
7 "Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil[b] spirits.
8These were his instructions: "Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. 10Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them."
12They went out and preached that people should repent. 13They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them."

JW:
Now this is Positive treatment. Ironic that you would miss the best evidence you have.

Continuing:

6: (NIV)
45 "Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
47When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. 48He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, 49but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50because they all saw him and were terrified.
Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." 51Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.
53When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. 54As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. 55They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed."

"the boat was in the middle of the lake" - The water Divides Faith from No Faith (again).

"when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50because they all saw him and were terrified." - They had no Faith that Jesus could do that.

"Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed," - Now the Wind (Spirit) is Calm and The Disciples are Stirred. Calmed Their Outside but not Their Inside. Because:

"they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened." - Just like Pharoah or misbehaving Jews from the Jewish Bible. No Faith in God (or at least the Right One).

"As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. 55They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed." - (Yawn) Shown up again by Strangers who Come to Jesus rather than have Jesus Come to them. It's all getting so predictable. Maybe I should just Number the different Types of Stories.



Joseph

PRAY, v.
To ask that the immutable 15 billion year old Laws of the universe be temporarily suspended without regard for the Possible effect on the other 6 Billion people in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Ben C Smith

I have read it, but let me skim it again. I do not yet know if I agree with his particular take on Marcan knowledge of Paul, but I think I agree that Mark knew Paul.

Ben.