JoeWallack

Got To Pay Your (Temple) Dues
If You Want To Be The Jews
And You Know It Don't Come easy


JW:
Yes, "Mark" does seem to be obsessed with something he likely never saw:

Mark 13: (KJV)
"1 And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!
2 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.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,
4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?
5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:
6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
9 But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them.
10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations.
11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
12 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death.
13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:"

Another Temple reference and the key I believe to understanding "Mark":

"14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:"

This sign is for the Readers of "Mark" ("let him that readeth understand") and not the Characters. "Mark's" Jesus explicitly states that there will be no sign for his generation. "Mark's" Jesus' last words, in front of Jesus' last witnesses are "My God, why have you forsaken me?". What better evidence could Jesus' final followers have at this point that it was over and in the words of the modern Prophetess, Tracy Ulman, "Go home."?

"Mark's" Gospel is written primarily for effect on its Readers and not priMarily for the effect Jesus had on its Characters. This is literature, a play, Fiction (which is why someone like Helms can deal with it so much more effectively than Gundry) which is a Sophisticated literary concept, as opposed to simply recording history, especially for 2,000 years ago.


Joseph

CLERGYMAN, n.
A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.

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Bede

Not at all. Highly intelligent people writing in another language tend to be too formal and stilted rather than writing in the language of the street. Mark is almost certainly a Greek speaker anyway - his language is common Koine and not the Attic that an educated foreigner would learn. Many people had their local language but anyone who was vaguely literate also spoke the lingua-franca. Finally Vork presupposes Mark has a quite brilliant grasp of the Septuagint which was also in Greek. Frankly, that is the style Mark would immitate if he was capable of such artistry.

So Mark's poor Greek being deliberate is Vork's only option to explain it consistant with the "Mark is a genius" scenario. Quite apart from this being a completely ad hoc explanation, AFAIK this also makes Mark the only person in the history of literature prior to post modernism to play this game.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Vorkosigan

Bede....who was talking about Mark's Greek? I was talking about his alleged "errors" like the Abiathar reference and "do not defraud." I think you have misunderstood my point, which was that Mark's "errors" often seem to be intentional.

The quality of Mark's Greek is not relevant to his being a genius, any more than Joseph Conrad's second language errors are relevant to his genius. That is why I have no comment about it.

Vorkosigan

Toto

This recent discussion on "bad Greek" in Revelations in Grammatical Errors in ze Bible? seems relevant here.

JoeWallack

JW:
You can do better than this Vork. You sound like an Apologist here who denies/ignores evidence just because it's not the best category of evidence. If the manuscript evidence indicates the Gospel of "Mark" is a brilliant piece of literature then there is no other category of evidence, such as the grammar of "Mark", that can outweigh evidence regarding whether "Mark" is a brilliant piece of literature. This is what you need to say. Of course by itself, god awful grammar is evidence of stupidity.

Bede makes a good point, that bad grammar is evidence contradicting the assertion of brilliancy. But the answer may be that "Mark", as we now see it, was just copied and edited by some dope from an original brilliant piece of literature, making changes to suit his theology, just like "Matthew" and "Luke". There may be a big difference between what was originally written and what the extant evidence now shows. That's why I always refer to the author as "Mark". Again though, since you've already demonstrated that "Mark" contains many sophisticated elements you don't need to provide any reasonable argument here for bad grammar to demonstrate that "Mark" contains many sophisticated elements.

Another sophisticated element of "Mark" is the beginning:

Mark 1 (KJV)
1 "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

Compare to the end of the Jewish Bible (per Christianity):

Malachi 4: (KJV)
5 "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

"Mark's" implication here is that his Gospel is simply a continuation of the Jewish Bible. This isn't your standard Greco-Roman biography starting with a miraculous birth. As Hans said in the classic and aptly named Die Hard, "No, this is something else." "Mark" is implying that Jesus' history is the Jewish Bible! This isn't some simpleton writing real history, this is sophisticated evangelism setting up proof-texting that alternates between deception and dishonesty ("prophecy fulfillment").

Now "Mark" doesn't stage the first scene of his play in the Temple but unlike Bede, "Luke" noticed "Mark's" Temple obsession and projected it back to the beginning:

Luke 1 (KJV)
5 "THERE was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
7 And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.
8 And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course,
9 According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord."



Joseph

MYTHOLOGY, n.
The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

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Vorkosigan

In a first language, perhaps yes, although I have worked as an English teacher for 20 years, and so am not as certain that you are right. But in a second language, bad grammar is only a signal of the level of language mastery. As I said, no one has ever disputed the genius of people who write in second languages, like Joseph Conrad, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, or Chinua Achebe, even though their grammar and usage is sometimes funky.

Bede was not even addressing the actual remarks I made. As Conrad demonstrates, strange grammar and usage do not mean anything. They might even be a positive sign of genius: the ability to see and do things in a different and unique way.

That could well be true. But how would you demonstrate that? And whoever edited Mark was no dope.

Do all Greco-Roman biographies start with miraculous births? Talbert divided Greco-Roman biographies into 4 sub-categories. Which is "standard?" As Wills notes, the Greco-Roman biography is simply too ad-hoc for easy classification (The Quest of the Historical Gospel. Wills also notes that Jesus' life resembles many lives of philosophers, particularly the Life of Aesop.

Ok....how is it that the dope who edited Mark managed to preserve all that.

That's an interesting way of putting it.

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

Funky? Ngugi wa Thion'go? You may wanna illustrate this.

Ngugi is the most prolific Kenyan writer and his mastery of the English language had him nail a teaching job as a lecturer in Northwestern University in Evanston in the United States as early as 1970 and in 1992 he was the Professor of comparative literature and performance studies at New York University where he held the Erich Maria Remarque chair. Plus, he has taught at the University of Bayreuth and the University of Auckland, New Zealand; and Yale, Smith, and at Amherst. He has over 20 books under his belt. Funky? This is soemone whose funky twists, if available, will redefine the meaning of the word funky.

Achebe was Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has over ten novels under his belt. Funky?

I will need to see examples.