Rick Sumner

In other words, you don't know what Halakah is, or else you would be aware that it doesn't matter whether he got it from the CD, from Paul, or from his own imagination. It doesn't matter if it is adding to the Law, or not. What matters is the method of argumentation used, and this passage--by definition--is Halakah.

Your above argument (confusing Halakah with dependence), as well as your further misunderstanding here indicate beyond any reasonable doubt that you don't know what the term means. Perhaps you should look into it before commenting further on whether or not this passage is Halachic?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

JoeWallack

God I Love The Sound Of Psalms In The Morning


JW:
Good X-Uh-Jesus should be rewarded. According to "Mark" were there any Apostles? Let's take a look at "Apostle" in "Mark":

Mark 3:14 (NIV)

"He appointed twelve—designating them apostles[a]—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons.

Footnotes:

1. Mark 3:14 Some manuscripts do not have designating them apostles."


And now The Metz:

"3.14 δώδεκα, [οὓς καὶ ἀποστόλους �*νόμασεν,] ἵνα ὦσιν μετ᾽ α�τοῦ {C}
Although the words οὓς … �*νόμασεν may be regarded as an interpolation from Luke (6.13), the Committee was of the opinion that the external evidence is too strong in their favor to warrant their ejection from the text. In order to reflect the balance of probabilities, the words were retained but enclosed within square brackets."

Metzger, B. M., & United Bible Societies. 1994. A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition; a companion volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) . United Bible Societies: London; New York

Since Andrew is back amongst us I leave it to him to provide the detail Textual Evidence that "Apostle" is a Forgery here.

And so Christian Bible scholarship confesses to us their Sin of adding "Apostles" to Mark 3:14.

Generally "Disciple" has the Connotation of "Student" while Apostle, in comparison, has the Connotation of "Teacher". Note that per "Mark" here Jesus sent The Twelve out to "Preach", not "Teach", and to drive out demons (you getting all this Ben?). The only other supposed use of "Apostle" by "Mark" is:

6:30 (NIV)
"The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught."

There is no Textual Variation here but it would be strange for "Mark" to use "The Apostles" here if they were never previously designated as the Apostles. It also says "taught" which goes with "Apostles" but if "Apostles" is a Forgery here than "taught" may also be.

Certainly "Mark's" overall theme is to depict The Twelve as primarily Students and not Teachers since "Mark" shows The Twelve as all Failing Jesus and not carrying on The Jesus Generation. If the Disciples couldn't Understand what Jesus taught them than how could they Teach others to understand? A primary theme of "Mark".

"Matthew" who follows "Mark" closer than "Luke" does, only uses "Apostle" in his corresponding 10:2 story. But if "Mark" had "Apostle" Edited in to agree with "Luke" than "Matthew" could have too, huh. Looking at "Luke" you have "Apostle" all over the place and a Narrative which is much more Disciple friendly.

Again, Evidence that The Gospel developed as Follows:

"Mark" - Disciples Fail - "The Reader" Replaces The Disciples

"Matthew" - The Jews Fail - The Disciples are Resurrected at the End

"Luke" - The Jewish Authorities Fail - The Disciples become Apostles

"John" - The Disciples become Christian Apologists


Joseph (Not a Christian Apologist)

APOLOGIZE, v.i.
To lay the foundation for a future offence.

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

Ben C Smith

You crack me up, Joe.

Ben.

Rick Sumner

For the benefit of those who don't know what the term means (yes, Vork, that means you), Halakah, in this instance, refers to treating something as though it is part of the Law (Halakah actually is the Law, including Rabbinics). When it is said that a reading is "Halachic" it means that it is treating something as though it is part of the Law--in this instance, Gen.1.27 is being read as though it were part of the Law, though it isn't, and being used to justify a legal position.

No matter how you cut, whether Mark is a Greek, a Jew or a Martian, that is, by definition halachic. To suggest otherwise is not simply misinformed, it's dead wrong.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

andrewcriddle

Neusner and some other scholars would claim that the most distinctive feature of the Pharisees was the belief that ordinary Jews in their own homes should (largely) follow the purity laws required of priests in the temple.

Andrew Criddle

Diogenes the Cynic

Mark does none of those things.

Incidentally, Paul said that he was "blameless under the Law" only to push his message that following the Law wasn't good enough. He was a converted Jew, yes. But his message diverged significantly from Judaism.
Theologically speaking, pretty much the moment he adopted the Christ myth as his credo. Demographically speaking, his movement became non-Jewish when he began to aggressively evangelize Gentiles, in particular when he dropped circumcision and dietary laws as requirements. As soon as he did that, he was off the reservation as a Jewish teacher and his movement was not Jewish. Even if he had some disapora Jews in his earliest congregations, that demographic was pretty much gone by the time Mark came around.
So you think that Gentiles converted to Christianity counted as "Jews" in 70 CE? Well if that's how you're going to define "Jew" then I guess Mark was a Jew.

How Paul viewed his movement is irrelevant, by the way. That doesn't make his followers ethnically or religiously Jewish. It just means that Paul had a bizarre interpretation of Judaism. To put it bluntly, Paul was a nutcase. His opinion that his movement was "Jewish" has no more definitive value than the fact that David Koresh thought his movement was "Christian."
This is incredibly disingenuous. Do you think the average Jew would not know that you can't hold a trial on Passover or on the sabbath? Do you think the average Jew didn't know what blasphemy was? The errors in Mark's trial are not esoteric errors of ritual bathing, or sacrifice or food preperation. They're huge, whopping boners that any Jew would spot. Just because the average Jew would probably be uneducated about boring ritual details does not mean that they wouldn't know you don't go out on Passover night, nor would they think that claiming to be the Messiah was a crime. Rabbinical commentary that lay people were poorly educated about the Law does not equate to a proof that they didn't know anything.
I think that something as simple as a definition of blasphemy is pretty easy to transmit.

The fact remains that the only documentation that we DO have defines blasphemy very narrowly and there is NO evidence to suggest that it would have been considered blasphemous to claim to be the Messiah, nor would such a suggestion make any sense since claiming to be the Messiah was not a comment of any sort about God. It's a non-sequitur with regards to insulting God. You're making an argument from absence and a rather silly one at that. Can you say for sure that it wasn't considered blasphemous to fart in a synagogue or to claim to be Jeremiah? You can't just say that we don't know for sure how reliable the Tractate Sanhedrin is, therefore we may presume anything we want counted as blasphemy.
That's all very nice but I wasn't disagreeing with any of it. I only quoted the passage to show Mark's mistake about women having the right of divorse. I was making no comment at all the law as it pertained to men. I also think that your assertion that Mark cited the Halacha in 10:6 is a little tendentious since 10:6 is from a different pericope and probaly didn't originate with Mark. From Graham Stanton on Mark 10:6-9::
Now here is Stanton on 10:12:
So you're using a pericope which probably did not originate with Mark to try to "Judaize" a passage that did. Your citation of the Damascus Document is neither here nor there if Mark didn't originate the saying and I don't think you believe that Mark was the author of every saying he attributes to Jesus, do you? I would submit that Mark inherited 10:6, "Halachic" or not, so it can't be used to indicate any sophisticated knowledge by Mark, it only means that he inherited a sayings tradition from someone who did. I would not deny that some of the individual sayings are Jewish in origin, only that Mark was not the author of those sayings. The catalogue of mistakes listed by Michael and myself in this thread, including the interpolative thumbprint in 10:12 are not explained away by the presence of some pre-Markan Jewish sayings.
How so? Would the average Jew be unaware that women had no right of divorce?
Semantics. Call it "traditions" or "customs" rather than "Law," if you like. Mark still gets it wrong.
No, he shows ignorance of Jewish customs. From Bart Ehrman:
Note that Ehrman not only supports my assertion that Mark was wrong about Jewish customs, he also makes the excellent point that if Mark was writing for Jews, he would not have had to explain the custom.
I've already addressed this. The errors in Mark's trial are not obscure or technical. They are obvious mistakes that any Jew would recognize.
I'm sorry but that's not much of a case. Billy Graham relies heavily on the Tanakh, that doesn't make him a Jew, Mark uses the Tanakh to construct his narratives but he does so in a manner which ignores all context and intent of those passages and recontextualizes them in a non-Jewish paradigm. When it comes to anything but his knowledge of the HB, Mark is about as Jewish as a fucking Christmas ham.
It's weak evidence. Claiming that Mark used Halacha presumes without support that 10:6 was original to Mark. His use of Hebrew scripture means very little since Gentile Christians have been appropriating Jewish scripture since the days of Paul himself and both of your points are more than offset by the many other instances of Mark's ignorance of or hostility towards Judaism.
Paul took it to the next step and Mark came from a Pauline Christian community descended from Paul. That still doesn't make it Jewish and in fact we know that Paul's (and Mark's) Christology was emphatically rejected by Judaism.
My point was not that he was unaware of it but that he tried to change the meaning. The apologetic part is the part that's un-Jewish.
Again. my contention on this part was not that it showed ignorance but that it showed an attempt to redefine the Messiah in untraditional (un-Jewish) terms.
These are beliefs which originated with Paul. who was a nutcase, who was off the reservation as a Jew and who started a GENTILE movement based on his own unorthodox beliefs....beliefs that were not only out of step with Judaism but out of step even with the Jewish Jesus cult in Jerusalem (which I don't believe was Messianic, but that's a different thread).
What is your evidence that Paul's movement was ever significantly Jewish?
Clearly, you think this Halach angle is very clever but unless you can prove 10:6 was original to mark, it's meaningless.
I would suggest that your own tone has been more hostile in this thread than mine has, but my "apologist" comment was intended as a joke. I actually have heard the same sort of defense against NT anti-Judaism offered frequently by apologists and found the similarity amusing. If you really feel that you've been wronged, please click the little red triangle and another moderator (not me) will decide if I've gone over the line. Regardless, I will not compare you to Christian apologists anymore but I will note that I think there's a difference between actually calling you an apologist and expressing an opinion that you "sound like one" in a single, specific intance.

I would like to know if you have any substantive rebuttal to my points about Mark showing the disciples as failures.

Ben C Smith

I do not think that this is a Marcan mistake. It is true that Jewish custom did not allow the wife to divorce her husband, but Mark IMHO is writing primarily for gentiles, and his addition of this clause could be no more than an accomodation for them (Paul does the same thing in 1 Corinthians 7.13). This happens all the time in the gospels, I think, and should not be any more surprising for an ancient eastern text than changing all instances of he to he or she in a modern western text.

Besides, it is by no means certain that the Jew Jesus could not have uttered such a thing. He was very familiar with, and in opposition against, Herod Antipas and the entire Herodian family, and he may well have been reacting specifically against the action of Herodias according to Josephus, Antiquities 18.5.4 §136:

...Salome, after whose birth Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorced [διαστασα, active voice] herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod [Antipas]....

I see no reason why either Jesus or Mark (or both) could not be reacting to the bold Hellenistic action of Herodias.

Ben.

Vorkosigan

Yes. It is also Cynic. By definition. See the problem?

I'm sorry Rick. Your above statement (confusing my argument about dependence with an argument about Halakah) as well as your general nastiness indicate beyond any reasonable doubt that I should be kicking myself for ever interacting with you in the first place.

Vorkosigan

ynquirer

Wrong. Have a look at Leviticus 24:10-16 and find the original definition of blasphemy. It is not a very narrow one BTW: Moses defines a blaspheme as “any person who curses his God.� It is out of the question that what Jesus said before the Sanhedrin might have been thought by many to be his cursing his God, regardless of later, narrower definitions of blasphemy.

Who says that? Stanton? Absolutely not. What he suggests is precisely the opposite view. This is your quotation:

It is quite clear, if one of the two pericopes is an interpolation, that the candidate is 10-12, not 6-9.

It is you that is using a pericope which possibly did not originate with Mark – the mention to a woman’s right to divorce – to try to Romanize a passage that did – the Halacha use of Genesis.

False. Claiming that Mark did not use Halacha presupposes without support that 10:6 was not original to Mark.

And clearly, you think boldness in throwing the load of the proof upon your opponent makes good bold misrepresentation of texts, but unless you can prove that 10:6 was not original to Mark, the Halacha angle remains meaningful.

Diogenes the Cynic

I agree. It's out of the question. Claiming to be the Messiah could not possibly be intepreted as "cursing God" or as representing any comment on God whatsoever. I'm glad we got that straightened out.
You misunderstand Stanton by a country mile. When he says that 10:6 is "authentic," he means it's authentic to JESUS. In other words, IT'S NOT ORIGINAL TO MARK. When he says that 10:12 is ''added," he means that iy was added by MARK. Read what Stanton says again and pay careful attention to what I will bold:
Who do you think the "evangelist" is? Are you aware that the term "evengelist" is customarily used to designate the authors of the Gospels or did you think that Stanton meant someone else. What Stanton is saying, if you read with a little more comprehension, is that 10:6 was inherited by Mark (either from HJ or from some other preexisting sayings tradition) and that 10:12 was added either by Mark or before Mark. In case you still want to dispute this, I ask you to read the quote again and ask yourself who the "evangelist" is.
No need to belabor this. You misunderstood Stanton. Hopefully, this issue has now been resolved.