aa5874

After coming across a passage in Mark 13:1-2, I am of the opinion that the book called Mark appears to have been written after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.

If we assume Jesus to be an ordinary person, then the passage was not prophetic and was written after the event.

Mark 13:1-2, 'And as he went out of temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buidings are here!

And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.




When was the book called Mark in the Christian Bible likely to have been written ?


1. after the fall of Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

2. before the fall of the Temple.

3. don't know.

Malachi151

I voted don't know, because of this part of the passage:

It seems from this that it could have been written during the war or shortly before, but its very hard to tell. I think that it was probably written between 66 and 75, but then that's what most people think

aa5874

My basic premise is that anything that proclaims to be prophecy coming from the character called Jesus was written after the event so that the prophecy would appear to have been fulfilled.
In that way, the prophecies of Jesus would appear to be 100% accurate and let him appear to be truly divine to the readers.

Malachi151

Possibly, but I'm not sure that thats the case with Mark. It could have been written when the destruction seemed eminent.

aa5874

But it's difficult for me to envisage that the passages in chapter 13 of the book called Mark would have been put on hold until there was some concrete evidence that the Temple was about to fall.

Roger Pearse

This is the petitio principi of all 19th century rationalism, tho, and it seems always to lead to a particular bit of circular logic.

I'm sure we all know that people reasoning along these lines then tend to dismiss the witness of Mark to Jesus on the grounds that it was written late. Now we can (a) start with the presumption that the supernatural does not exist, and then date Mark late; or we can (b) work out the date of Mark by other means, and then use it to determine whether the supernatural occurred. What we cannot rationally do is start with (a) and then plug the result into (b) to prove that the supernatural does not exist. One or the other, yes, but not both.

Leaving that aside, we might wish to consider whether we are certain that intelligent human beings in Jerusalem in 33 AD looking at the Roman garrison at the edge of the temple and remembering the destruction of the first temple and the events of Maccabees could not have predicted that the temple would be destroyed. How sure are we of this?

For instance, I can tell you that western civilisation will collapse. Your argument would then require that either this post was written after the collapse of western civilisation, or else that I am endowed with supernatural knowledge. (If you incline towards the latter, I can tell you that giving me all your money now will be a step towards prosperity at a later date... )

Just my humble opinion, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

jeffevnz

Don't know.

I've never thought that these passages clearly refer to the fall of Jerusalem. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. They're vague enough that they could easily be lucky guesses. Bear in mind that Jesus was predicting the end of the world in general.

Malachi151

#1) We can conclude that "Mark" was not an eyewitness to anything because "his" story is a) not even written as history and b) pulls all of its details from the Septuagint.

#2) Without using the reference to the destruction of the temple, there isn't any way to date Mark at all, aside from dating it prior to 130. So from that viewpoint, it could be written anywhere from 100 BCE to 130 CE, but if we look at the fact that Paul never mentioned it and had no details from it, we can perhaps conclude that it couldn't have been in circulation while Paul was writing, which puts us right back to a date of around 66-70 at the earliest.

yalla

There is more evidence for a post 70 date than just the temple [alleged] prophecy.
4 or 5 other elements indicate a later, in some cases much later, date.
Let us not confine ourselves to consideration of just one indicator from what is a fairly full basket of such.
cheers
yalla

aa5874

The book named Mark cannot be confirmed to be written by an author of that name, we therefore can only assume 'Mark' was a witness of 'Jesus'. And, in any event, due to lack of credibility of the Gospels, one can only speculate about certain events written therein.

I am yet to see anyone determine that the supernatural occurred using the date of a biblical text. Proof of the supernatural have never being realised by those who believe in them up to this presnt date.

The so called prophecy in Mark was not arbitrary, it relates to specific building. And I cannot tell you the state of mind of every person in Jerusalem, but it is my opinion that the words attributed to character called Jesus is not of divine origin and could only be known after the event occurred.