Solo

It's not psychoneurotics who argue that, Ted; it's therapists saying that of psychoneurotics. But I think you are on the right track.

some peasant from Galilee or a despised fool and blasphemer on earth, as Paul taught. And this nobody handles a legion of demons (Rome) . Why would Mark write something like that ? Why would he put it in Galilee ?

I would say 1) Mark's gospel is a way to deal with his historical-cultural equivalent of a Walter Mitty syndrome, as you already suspect. He projects his power phantasy into Jesus on earth, as Paul projected it into the spiritual Christ. The nobody we came to know as Mark was most likely himself derided as a crazy psycho and blasphemer. 2) The simplest explanation is that Mark was told that Jesus was from Galilee.


Interesting, that: 'adoptionist Christology'. Now, we know, (or rather compute) that if Paul decidedly was not 'adoptionist', his opposition (the Petrines) most likely were. They would be (in my scenario) preaching the deeds and prophecies of their earthly buddy whom they (as the stories went around Mark) abandoned in his final hour. They believed that Jesus had some special standing with God (not quite Messiah, mind you) and was sent to preach the coming kingdom through the apparitions of the Son of Man.

Now, against this band of buddies who had no clue what (Paul's Christ) Jesus was all about, Mark sets up the imaginary throngs of true followers (like himself, 4:10) who do have a clue ! They ask Jesus : 'why do you talk to them in parables ?' And Mark answers through Jesus, [paraphrasing:] I write this gospel as one huge parable, which only you (the true disciples) understand - because you know the 'bodily mystery of Paul's Christ' - but everyone else is clueless about. Do the twelve belong to the outside ? You bet. The very reason Mark wrote his mystery thriller.

Nope. Go back to your first paragraph. You said:

I can write a story where spin gets his ass whupped by a little girl. It doesnt mean I believe spins as was whupped. And it doesnt mean I believe a little girl can whup spins ass. Carthasis.

I think this answers your own question ! Why present Jesus as mentally unstable ? Because when Mark discovered Jesus in his body through Paul's teaching he was being scorned (likely by his own family, and his own friends) as having gone off the deep end, as having a demon, etc, etc....I don't think there is more to it than that, Ted. The pointing to the ridicule and humiliations that Jesus suffered on account of being believed insane had a great therapeutic effect. The taboo by Mark on ridiculing the Holy Spirit is a clue.

I think there was.

It is a possibility but I believe the issue here is generic. Jesus stands for the experience of the community of pheumatics (today bipolars). You will note though that Mark's Jesus commands filial respect (10:19), even though he publicly disrespects his mother (3:34). Luke's Jesus proclaims that unless one's hates one's father and mother, one cannot be a disciple. This most likely relates to the perceptions of abnormal behaviour and attempts to correct it.

Jiri

Ted Hoffman

Where is spin? Is this about the little girl? Ooooh! Now look spin, I didn't mean to say a little girl actually kicked your ass spin, it was just an example. I think your ass is unkickable by anyone. Are we cool?

Thanks Solo of the correction, yes, I meant psychoanalysts, not psychoneurotics.
Who was Jesus then?
through the apparitions of the Son of Man? what does that mean?
But Paul's Christ was a cosmic, resurrected Christ! Or do you disagree?

Hey, this is interesting! But answer my questions above first.
I have read that thread and its a long one. Why do you think there actually was a demoniac? Why does he immediately acknowledge Jesus' greatness?

You didn't talk about baptism and JBap - have you factored them in your emerging theory?

Malachi151

I think the main points are these:

1) You can't address all of the Gospels in the same way, they have to be addressed individually.

2) In regard to Mark, if the author did receive a collection of odd tales and anecdotes, which he then compiled together into a single narrative then its conceivable that the author actually believed that these anecdotes were "true" and really happened.

However, I feel extremely strongly that this is not at all what happened. I think that the author of Mark invented the entire narrative himself. Given this case, and the obvious symbolism of the scenes as well as the obvious allusions that are used in their construction, I think that it can be quite safely said that the author of Mark did not believe that the narrative he was writing was historically true at all, any more than Mark Twain thought that the actions ascribed to Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were real. The author of the Gospel of Mark was clearly writing a fictional story. The Gospel o Mark is very clearly an intentional fiction, never mean tot be taken as real history.

3) Nevertheless, it seems that people did take it as real history. It is certainly more conceivable that the authors of Matthew, Luke, and John thought that what they were writing was "true" and really happened, even though at least the authors of Matthew and John were also clearly fabricating scenes on their own based on passages from the Hebrew scritpures. Whether or not the author of Luke ever actually invented anything is highly suspect IMO. I don't think that the author of Luke invented any narrative elements. I think that he was completely reliant on existing sources, and almost certainly thought that everything he was writing was absolutely true history.

Ted Hoffman

I agree with you Malachi. To move forward, particularly with spin/Andrew, I would like to ask, do they think Matthew (or his redactor) believed that the birth narrative took place as he narrated them in his gospel?

The argument seems to boil out to this:

1. Evangelist X must have written the tradition he received, even if he embellished it in the process.

2. Because he received it and wrote it, he most likely believed that the tradition was true.

But:

1. Evangelist X also had theological motives and fabricated some stories. The people he received the traditions from also had theological motives as we can tell from the tendenz and conflicting traditions. They are equally likely to have engaged in some creativity.

2. Because of (1.), Evangelist X and his predecessors most likely wrote or passed on what they did not believe, but preserved or wrote it because it supported or served their beliefs. A belief may lack a footprint then they create a footprint for it.
(For example, someone fabricating and perpetuating the birth narrative because they believe in divine Christology).

I think a combination of these is the balanced position.

aa5874

gMark has been canonised, it is therefore reasonable to consider that the gospel was written to be taken as real history. According to early christian writers, gMark is, in effect, the account of Peter's recollection of Jesus.

"Church History" 2.15.1 It would appear, based on the extant writings of Justin Martyr, that gMark was originally written anonimously which may indicate that the author knew he/she was writing propaganda.

If the authors were fabricating scenes, then it is likely that they knew that they were writing fiction.

And the author of gLuke very likely invented the stories surrounding the conception and birth of John the Baptist, the conception, birth, and some of the sayings of Jesus.

All the dates and geographical locations of events with respect to Jesus, peculiar to gLuke, are very likely inventions of the author of Luke, for example, the genealogy in Luke is likely to be an invention.

spin

Whoa! I like little girls kicking my ass.

I've mainly been off doing "something completely different" A little quality time for my poor brain. (Example: consider "He's hopeless to teach." and "He's happy to teach." Who does the teaching in each sentence and how exactly do we know? There were also three old episodes of Angel, the cat to the vet, why I can only get the center of images in focus with a 3x tele conversion lens and trying to fathom what Magen & Peleg were not telling us in their Qumran dig report, but it was mainly semantic intrusion into parsing.) I need to dig my way out again....


spin

spin

Contemplate this: why did the writer of Mt put Jesus on two animals? Bloody silly isn't? You know where it comes from, a misunderstanding of Hebrew poetic writing that features parallels to allow a richer understanding of the one thing described. The writer or someone before him has put Jesus on two animals. What benefit is there from such a change?


spin

andrewcriddle

Hi Malachi

Could you say briefly why you think Mark invented the entire narrative himself ? At face value I don't think it plausible. IIUC there are at least some elements tht you believe Mark got from an earlier source ie Paul eg that Jesus was crucified and presumably that Jesus opposed divorce etc. It seems unlikely that Paul was the only previous source for Mark and some parts of Mark's story, eg that Jesus was a Galilean wonder worker, seem IMO pre-Markan in the sense that Mark seems to be rewriting these stories in order to emphasize his own view of Jesus as suffering servant.

Andrew Criddle

Malachi151

So are you arguing that in addition to the author of GMark, the author of GMatthew also did not believe that what he was writing was historically true?

I think its very clear that the author of GMatthew also "developed" scenes via the use of "prophetic interpretation" of Hebrew scritpures.

The question is, as I understand it from the OP, did the author in doing so think that these were things that really literally happened as he described them.

To this I would say that it is POSSIBLE that the authors of GMatthew and GJohn both used "prophetic construction" and also believed that these things were "historically true".

Its also possible that they understood that they weren't actually true. Its hard to comprehend the mind of a religious writer 2,000 years ago writing from inside the ancient Jewish traditions that included apocalyptic devices and prophecy and scriptural reinterpretation. How exactly were these things used and understood by anyone of the time?

What exactly did the author of Revelation think, or of the Letter to the Hebrews, or the author of Daniel or Enoch or the Martyrdom of Isaiah? Did any of these authors think that anything they were writing was "true"? What was the concept of truth? All I'm saying is that I find it likely that the authors of Matthew and John wrote using similar traditions as these other writers and thus may have viewed what they were writing as "true" even though they themselves were making it up. I think the same applies to these other writings, such as Revelation, Daniel, etc.

Malachi151

Because the entire story is cohesive, has a complex narrative, uses the same types of literary allusions throughout, builds on distinctive patterns and shows a consistent style from beginning to end.

To use the Mark Twain reference again, its like asking why you would think that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the product of a single author who created the narrative himself.

The reason to think that is because the narrative is cohesive and builds upon itself, which each of the scenes containing symbolism that has relevance throughout the narrative such that it is not likely that the narrative is simply a strung together collection of anecdotes.

This is even stronger in the Gospel of Mark because not only do you have a cohesive and complex narrative that fits together from beginning to end and builds upon itself, but you also have a pattern of literary allusion.

The same types of literary allusions are used throughout the work from beginning to end. The allusions are drawn from a relatively small collection of scriptural sources.

Also take some specific examples. Again, the cursing of the fig tree and the disruption at the temple.

I'm saying that this scene is directly based on Hosea 9.

If its based on Hosea 9 then its obviously not an anecdote that the author is writing down from a secondary source.

Furthermore, the reference itself fits into a larger pattern, so even the idea that it could be a third party anecdote that was itself based on a literary reference doesn't make sense, plus the language is too close to the scripture so the author would have to have been working directly from the scripture itself, not a second hand account.

My view is that the Gospel of Mark has a singular cohesive underlying theme, and this can only be accounted for by a story that was developed in the mind of a single person who crafted all of these elements in a purposeful manner.

My view is that its an allegorical story about the destruction of Jerusalem, and the symbolism and literary allusions is too complex and well fitted together for it to be a random collection of second hand accounts and traditions.