Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Professor Larry Hurtado has another excellent blog entry on the Gospel of Mark.



It can be found at http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/20...shape-of-mark/

Here’s a key quote:

“Indeed, it is striking that many of the most notable Markan ‘omissions’ involve matters which are not susceptible of imitation, including the virginal conception and the pre-eschatological resurrection. Mark’s whole story of Jesus can be read as a blueprint for the Christian life: It begins with baptism, proceeds with the vigorous pursuit of ministry in the face of temptation and opposition, and culminates in suffering and death oriented towards an as-yet unseen vindication.”

The whole story was crafted as a blueprint for the Christian life.

Presumably in the same what that the whole story of the Good Samaritan can be read as a blueprint for morality.

So why should either story be taken as historical?

Especially as the Gospel of Mark has such exemplars for Christian life as Simon of Cyrene picking up the cross and following Jesus, the centurion seeing Jesus die and calling him the Son of God, and such bad examples as the disciples who betrayed and denied Jesus.

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Apparently this 'blueprint' included repaying Mark for his gospel writing efforts by failing to recall Mark's full name, his background, and his motivation for writing the gospel in the first place - in short removing Mark from our interpretation of his text - indeed subordinating this, the true architect of Christianity, to a bunch of morons whose fitness for leadership in the Christian community is challenged by his original document, stripping the Evangelist of his original status as an apostle, subordinating his original church in Alexandria to a false church in Rome with no real historical connection to him or his gospel, forgetting what day, month and year the Passion he witnesses actually occurred, expanding the number of years that Jesus engaged in his mystery, obscuring the original ending to the narrative and heavily editing his original MS by deleting narratives and saying that appeared in his gospel and then finally - as the ultimate act of respect - not preserving the original autograph of his Gospel of Mark.

Let's all celebrate Hurtado's 'Christian blueprint' - a master plan of disrespect which above all else wants to separate the artistic creation from the original artist all in the name of 'serving and honoring' God the Creator.

But what about man the creator, the creator of the gospel? He doesn't exist for people like Hurtado.

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Because you're Canadian I'll say - je n'ai aucune idée de ce que vous venez d'écrire! (but then again ont-ils encore enseigner le français en Alberta?)

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

[b]

I think at least on this prof. Hurtado is right. The Marcus to which the relative canonic Gospel has been credited, although he has been a real historical figure did not had, however, nothing to do with Christianity (or chatolic-Christianity), since such a character was a heathen, and remained so until to the his death (however it is possible that he may have felt sympathy for the Judaism)

The historical character Marcus, was none other that the official Roman which picked the Peter's confession, before he was crucified by order of Nero.(*) The same character you occupied then to set such a material, collected during the Peter's confession, in the imperial archives, where it remained until the early years of the 140 decade, when was decided to use it for the composition of the first canonical Gospel, which, for such a reason, was called 'Gospel of Marcus'.

The Marcus of Rome, therefore, had nothing to do with the 'Marcus' of Alexandria: a character quite distinct from the first, despite the efforts of forger fathers to do us believe that they were the same person.


.

Originally Posted by Chili

Well pardon me Toto but if you are are a hawker of religion and a squacker from the pulpit you must give the gawker some thing to look for in the past or his ambition will soon dry up and that is exactly why they tied it to history, but beyond that there is no history in the bible or it would not be the living word.

Originally Posted by Toto

This is why your deep thoughts and poetic expression deserve their own thread.