PhilosopherJay

Hi patcleaver,

Yes, I think that this is a good point. If the reader had imagined that the writer was one of the apostles, who had witnessed all the events of the narrative, the line at 14:50 And they all forsook him, and fled eliminates that idea. By undercutting the idea of an eyewitness reporter, Mark does suggest to the reader that he is writing fiction.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Analyst

But this is perfectly reasonable if you are writing a 'comic book' / gospel to expand on Paul's very terse description of the purported events.

dog-on

You still don't get it, do you.

My original post, in this thread, was a direct answer to the question posed by the OP:

You tried to introduce ancient readers and their perceptions, which I told you was simply irrelevant, as even today, people willingly believe all kinds of untrue things.

I told you that I believed that author intent was actually the best way to determine whether or not the author, indeed, thought he was writing history or fiction.

I then asked you to show me evidence that Mark thought he was writing history.

The fact that you continued arguing, what I already told you was irrelevant, seems more an issue for you, than for me.

Understand?

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

I think that I have found where Matthew impeaches his own narration. While not as simple as the endings of John and Mark or the fleeing apostles line at Mark 14:50, I think it creates the same effect of casting doubt on the possibility of the truth of the narration. By so doing, it reveals the narrative as a fiction. Here are the relevant passages:
The narrator tells us that the Jewish leaders expected the Jesus followers to steal the body and to say that he had risen. Pilate sends Roman guards to specifically prevent this from happening. The Roman guards witness the miracle of Jesus rising according to the narrator. The Roman guards report the miracle to the Jewish leaders. The Jewish leaders bribe them to lie and say that exactly what they feared would happen happened, that The followers of Jesus stole the body. The Roman witnesses support the story of the Jewish leaders that the followers of Jesus stole the body.

So the narrator has introduced witnesses to what happen to Jesus' body -- Roman Soldiers. Only the Roman Soldiers do not support the narrator's miraculous version of events about Jesus rising. The Roman soldiers support the Jewish version of events, that the followers stole the body.

The narrator says that they were bribed to lie. In other words, the only witnesses who were not followers of Jesus, who witnessed Jesus' rising, cannot be trusted because they bore false witness for money. The narrator impeaches the only disinterested witnesses to his miracle story. So, we are left with the fact that the Jews have independent witnesses to back up their story, while the narrator and the followers of Jesus have none to back up their version of events. The narrator has been subverted.

If we think about the source for the claim that the narrator makes that the Jews bribed the Roman soldiers, we, likewise, find the narrative subverted. Did the soldiers tell him this? Why does he believe the soldiers who are liars? Did the Jews tell him this. Why does he believe people who pay money to spread lies. If both the Jews and Romans tell him this, he has double the reason not to believe either one. We may imagine that he knows that the Roman Soldiers were bribed because he was spying on them, but how can we trust a spy?

By impeaching the credibility of the narrator's own witnesses, the author impeaches the credibility of his own narration.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Amaleq13

That was never the focus of my point and I stopped mentioning it when you made it clear you didn't understand the rather obvious and necessary connection between an author's alleged indications and the intended recipients of that alleged indication. Your return to this side issue is nothing but a red herring totally unrelated to the flaw in your assumption.

Yes and this continues to be a request that is irrelevant to both my stated position in this thread as well as the OP. Continuing to focus upon it is another red herring totally unrelated to the flaw in your assumption. It continues to be nothing but an effort to shift the burden.

That you imagine I have been "continued" arguing either of those irrelevant tangents when, in fact, I have repeatedly tried to get you to refocus on the actual point suggests you haven't actually been reading the posts to which you purport to be responding.

Not all that surprising, I suppose, given the intentional avoidance of reading required for your sustained conclusion.

That point, since you have apparently missed it each time it has been repeated, is that the inclusion of obviously fictional elements or the obvious use of older, familiar stories to describe more recent events/people was not an indication in ancient that the entire story was fiction. We know this because authors who were explicitly claiming to relate actual events and describe actual people engaged in those same practices.

Please note that neither the understanding of the readers nor the idea that any Gospel provides reliable history has anything whatsoever to do with that point.

Yes. You apparently want an easy answer more than you want to actually think or learn.

dog-on

"Explicitly claiming" to be writing history, was my point...

Amaleq13

Either you didn't read or didn't understand this post because it explains why your "point" actually contradicts your assumption.

If an alleged indication of fiction is found in works purporting to relate history, it quite obviously cannot be considered reliable. An unreliable indication really isn't much of an indication at all.

Analyst

Maybe. Sometimes it was dangerous to publish one's opinions or comments directly. This was the source of many 'nursery rhymes'. Nursery_rhymes

patcleaver

Nonsense,

Regarding fictional elements, the ancients knew that The Golden Ass by Apuleius was fiction because of the fantastic dialog and events, but it is no more fantastic than gMark. Neither work claims to be history or fiction. Why shouldn't we believe that both Mark and Apuleius are telling us that their works are fiction by including the fantastic in their stories.
:huh: :huh:

Regarding the obvious use of older, familiar stories, Mark is not copying ancient stories. He does not copy their characters or their plots. He is incorporating phrases and incorporating multiple parallels to ancient stories to unambiguously reference them as if he was writing a parody. In the movie "Space Balls" we immediately recognize the references to "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" and "Planet of the Apes" and other movies. That is what Mark is doing. I am not aware of any ancient biography that includes such references, and I think that its incredible to believe that anyone who recognized the references could have thought that Mark was history. The only reason that Mark was ever confused with history is that the intentional references were forgotten or mistaken for prophesy.

It is also possible that when his original audience asked Mark if it was fiction or history, then he said "it was fiction of course". We will never know.

dog-on

Thanks, Pat.