bacht

I assume someone has suggested this before: What about Plutarch, would his biographies have been an influence or model for Mark? I don't know how well known the Lives were by the early 2nd C.

JoeWallack

JW:
The better question is why does "Mark" do this in General? Consistency is what gives weight to conclusions. At one extreme, if this was the only instance in "Mark" of someone defined by their children, any explanation would be very speculative. At the other extreme, the stronger the pattern of doing this in "Mark", the more weight can be given to logical explanations.

I've already demonstrated it likely in:

Mark's DiualCritical Marks. Presentation Of Names As Evidence Of Fiction

that in General "Mark" uses Names as a Literary device (Fiction) in a number of ways.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Mark_15

In the offending verse, Simon of Cyrene, who is obviously replacing Simon of Petros, by following Jesus and carrying his stake, is defined by his children. Note in the big picture that "Mark" has rightly divided his Gospel into Ministry verses Passion. As usual, "Mark's" source is Paul. Paul's theology was that Jesus' Passion defined the Jewish Bible. The Revelation determined the History so that the usual relationship is Bauckwards. Paul started with Revelation of Jesus and than looked for him in the Jewish Bible.

"Mark" associates Jesus' Ministry with the Traditional understanding of the Jewish Bible. In this Ministry everyone is defined by their Fathers. Go through "Mark" up to the Passion and I have Faith that everyone who is defined is so defined. "Mark's" Literary Transition is who is David's Lord's/Son?

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Mark_12

"Mark's" Jesus explains that it is not the Christ who is defined by being the son of David but David who is defined by being the Father of the Christ.

Once the Passion starts all who are defined are defined by their children:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Mark_15

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Mark_16

"Mark" was communicating that Jesus' Ministry was based on ancestors' tradition and Jesus' Passion would be based on a new Generation. The past Fathers would be defined based on their children. This also explains "Mark's" Jesus' "Generation" prophecy. At the Text level it is a Failed prophecy of the Fathers. At the Sub-text level though it was an open prophecy for the Children.

A related Framing technique of "Mark" is that he assigns the emotion of Anger to Jesus at the start and finish of the Galilean Ministry. He assigns the emotion of Love to Jesus at the start and finish of his Judean Ministry. So the key emotion of the traditional Ministry of the Jewish Bible was Anger and the key emotion of the Passion Ministry was Love. Marcion must have loved that and we see once again that the distance between the original Gospel and Marcion is less than the Traditional Christian Fathers have led us to believe.

The son of Bauckham's position that the sons of Simon were witnesses could never be more than rank speculation, more unreasonable than anything aa has ever said here, because:

1) The thought that they witnessed a story with a primary Assertian that Jesus was resurrected by witnessing that they never witnessed that Jesus was resurrected, is ridiculous. Anyone who is doing this is doing what Paul did. Starting with the belief that there is witness in "Mark" and than looking for evidence.

2) "Mark" is clearly written to people who did not know Jesus' witness.

3) "Mark" is anti-historical witness in style.

4) The best placement of "Mark" is Rome and it is unlikely that relatives from the Israel setting were there with "Mark".



Joseph

aa5874

Please pont out a single unreasonable statement that I have said here!

I think it is unreasonable to make such claims and not make a single reference to anything I have said.

Isn't this a bit disingenuous?

JoeWallack

JW:
A reasonable response. See what I mean Ben.



Joseph

neilgodfrey

I will try to focus on just one section of your post since my response indirectly covers responses to your other points, too.

I am not presuming that Mark knew them as literal historical persons.

I have explained this several times in this and other threads now. But I suspect it fails to register partly because it is at odds with an implied image that tags along with phrases like "early traditions floating around" about Jesus.

Assume the historicity of the events as your model proposes. Assume the early Christians emerged as a consequence of these events. Assume these early Christians were immersed in a sub or alternate culture more or less in synch with the image portrayed in Paul's epistles and Acts and Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. Assume all three of the above as an indivisible single trinity.

What we have is a closed group, a sub-culture, grounded in a radically alternative view of the world and their place in it. There may have been some differences of practice, but one thing they had in common was there roots in the historical Jesus.

My experience and reading and understanding of such groups tells me that there is nothing about the life of Jesus they would not have craved from the grapevine -- and such groups are overgrown with grapevines of news and gossip. People travel. Rumours fly. The fewer people who travel the more locals hang on their every word and attempt to draw out and extend all the more from their mouths. Audiences do not have to know personally the people spoken about. Quite the contrary. They will hang on opportunities to learn more about others in the story (their cult story) that they do not yet know.

This is the sociology, the psychology, the history (and my experience) of such groups. It is the same throughout other cultures, and other periods of history.

The entire passion and crucifixion scenes in Mark are artfully contrived but let's assume their historicity. It is inconceivable that people in the associated religious subculture would have no interest in the details of Jesus crucifixion, how Jesus himself looked and what sounds he made or words he uttered at any point, and this interest inevitably extends to anyone else closely involved with him. We see the same interest among cult-like devotees of their religious leaders. Such interest does extend to those closely associated with them, too. It can hardly fail to do so, given the way normal human psychology works.

Traditions don't just "float around" in such groups. They are sought out and seized upon and explored and cemented or recast. Or rather, I should say stories, rumours, anecdotes, details, names, events, places, times . . . . "Traditions" by definition are surely things grounded, unfloatable.

Assuming the historicity of the events, audiences of Matthew and Luke did not need to be informed of the existence and prior role of Simon the Cyrenian, and the authors of those gospels certainly did not learn about Simon for the first time from Mark's gospel. We know from other comparisons of these gospels that the dialogue between them was essentially theological, not a matter of simple narrative trimming. Zebedee the father of James and John plays no narrative part, either, yet he is not omitted in Matthew and Luke. So the argument that they omitted Alexander and Rufus for narrative trimming is a Bauckham-like ad hoc-ism.

The assumptions underlying certain arguments about the differences in content among the gospels (to which you refer) only make sense to me in a historical context quite alien to the model that assumes historicity of the events and a church arising out of those events only one and a bit or two generations old.

The fact that evangelists felt free to re-write the stories, omitting and adding events and characters, does not testify of the historical or grapevine interests of the subcultures proposed by the historical models of the rise of Christianity. A lot of "floating" thinking (clouds float) riddles biblical scholarship, and some floaty assumptions are carried over into the best minds on the task.

Neil

Amaleq13

Can you recommend any specific references from your reading on the subject?

neilgodfrey

My reading days in this area are a few years old, meaning over ten at least. I've done nothing since I left a cult (one of many cousin branches tracing back to the Millerite movement of the 1840's and the Seventh Day Adventists. among whom incidentally is the Dave Koresh movement). At the time I also formed an informal support group for others who had been through similar experiences and got to share many stories with Mormons, JWs, and quite a few others from lesser well known subgroups. What struck me from these shared experiences, and from reading more formal accounts and studies of such groups, both by academics and members/ex-members, was how much they/we all had in common in the way we functioned culturally or sociologically.

I have since been involved in loose associations (subculture) of secular and political natures and am struck by the similarities of the way the social and group dynamics work.

One critical thing that plays a large part in binding such subcultures is sharing talk and information and speculation about the founders and key people and events who are at the centre or beginnings of such groups. This is to be expected, surely, since once personal identity is attached to an alternative group or subcultural identity then that identity needs feeding. Sharing discussions about the personalities and events that are core to that group is an obvious way to achieve this.

Many members of Mormons, JWs and others and even subcultural political groups soon acquire almost encyclopedic knowledge about their groups history and key personalities. Indeed, this is a problem with some groups whose leaders have things to hide -- they need to control what is said out there on the grapevine, and even the questions asked. Hence the authoritarian controls and emphasis on cognitive behavioural therapy (thought stopping) that some groups become infamous for. Some attempt to pre-empt and guide the speculation and grapevine frenzies by publishing their own histories and biographies. These may have no interest for outsiders but many members will read this repeatedly and be able to discuss any and all of the persons and events related in them.

Where discussion of such details is in large measure about nourishing the new (subcultural) identities of members people will pick up on everything about significant figures, including their personal habits, any little anecdote that helps bring them more "alive" or "real" in their imagination, and the details extend to those who have been associated with them in one way or another. If a name is dropped out of a narrative without serious accounting, that will normally arouse curiosity, not kill off interest, as members attempt to create mentally as full a picture as they can of the new world with which they have chosen to identify themselves.

There are several avenues for this sort of conversation and feeding on new details to build up the image of the new world/group identity. Casual discussions among guests and friends, utterances either formally or semi-formally dropped from one seen as something of "a pillar" in the group, are a couple of the most common. In the case of the latter, you can be sure that hearers would be losing no opportunities to find out more about what was said from each other or in a less formal situation from that "pillar" himself.


Neil

DCHindley

Well,

If Friz Freleng directed it, by golly I believe it!

Joimany? Yipe!

DCH