Vorkosigan

There is no pre-Markan tradition, Andrew. This is an assumption of NT scholarship that has never been demonstrated. The pre-Markan tradition is all either the Old Testament or Paul. The sayings are commonplaces or inventions of Mark. There's no need to postulate a tradition.

The general motifs of the Markan tale come from two sources as well, the Old Testament and related Jewish writings, and Greek novelistic fiction. Travel narratives, trials, magnificent entrances into a city, being taken for a God, empty tombs, resurrections, being reflexively hated by the powerful, ships and sailing on the sea, location in the historical past, explanations of local customs, and embedded religious messages are also found in the Greek novels. Markan compositional techniques, including "midrash", doublets, chiasms, parables told to enemies as warnings, and similar, are also found in those tales. One might also note that some authorities argue that the Greek novels were originally used as cultic texts, although that is no longer the majority view.

Mark is an authentic new genre, but it is not an authentic new set of techniques and ideas. Compositionally there is nothing new in Mark; it is all prefigured in the Hellenistic fiction of the first and second century. Just as Christianity begins with Paul, so Jesus begins with Mark.

Vorkosigan

andrewcriddle

Hi Vorkosigan
I've got two separate problems here.

a/ Mark appears to me to combine more than one picture of Jesus, eg Jesus as the eschatological prophet teacher and wonder worker like Elijah/Elisha rejected by his own people but vindicated by God and Jesus as the Davidic Messiah/Son of God who avoids mass popularity and in humility submits to death to bring about redemption.

I find it easire to explain Mark if at least one of these pictures already existed in narrative form and was known to Mark's intended audience.

Note 1/ This is a separate point firstly from whether or not this pre-Markan material was oral as compared to written and secondly from how historically reliable it was.

Note 2/ It is possible to try and explain these sort of features of Mark as a deliberate effect by the author See eg Kermode 'The Genesis of Secrecy' but I am not convinced.

b/ The question of external evidence for pre-Gospel tradition is obviously affected by the date assigned to the Gospels.

If to take an extreme case one followed Robinson and dated all the canonical Gospels before CE 70 then it would be simpler to explain knowlege of traditions about Jesus in say the apostolic fathers as derived directly or indirectly from the Gospels (or Paul).

If to take another extreme case one dated all the Gospels in the 2nd century CE then I would find it very difficult indeed to believe that all traditions about Jesus derive from the canonical Gospels and Paul.

IIUC your preferred dates for the Gospels are late enough for me to have a problem with explaining parallels between the Gospels and other writings as all derived from the Gospels rather than from some common source.


Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

The latter was known previously from the beliefs of Paul et al. The former is the creation of the author of Mark in his narrative depiction of the Savior Christ. [added later]I don't see why the author would need a written account in order to create his narrative version of earlier beliefs.

Paul's Jesus makes no eschatological prophecies nor performs any wonders. Paul's eschatology comes from his belief that Christ's resurrection is a signal of the coming end and it is the apostles who perform miracles because their risen Christ has given them the power.

andrewcriddle

IMO the material with resemblances to Paul seems to be modifying the Elisha/Elijah like material not the other way around, although this is to some extent a subjective judgment.

On a more general point; for the narrative in Mark to be almost entirely Markan creation does seem to require both i/ a surprising level of creation of narratives about Jesus and acceptance of this by the Christian community at the time of Mark and ii/ a surprising absence of such narrative production and/or acceptance thereof in the pre-Markan church.

I find it hard to believe that Christians at the time of Mark would have been so accepting of narrative creation about Jesus by Mark in the absence of earlier precedents. But if there were such earlier precedents one would expect Mark to make use of this material.

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

Why is it hard to believe that early Christians were just as willing to accept stories about Jesus that agreed with their beliefs as modern Christians despite any precedent?

Why assume that AMk's audience wasn't entirely aware of his Hebrew Scripture sources and accepted the story as what "might" or "should" have been rather than an actual record of history, given their shared faith in a Pauline theology? For that matter, why assume they weren't entirely willing to believe that Mark's author had obtained a divine revelation of "the truth" in the same way Paul obtained his eucharist?

andrewcriddle

I have difficulty believing that such claims were
a/ readily accepted when made at the time of Paul
b/ readily accepted when made at the time of Mark
but c/ either not made at all or made and rejected during the period between the time of Paul and the time of Mark.

To clarify: this is not (at least not directly) an argument for the historicity of non-Pauline material in Mark but an argument against the great majority of it being specifically Markan creation.

Eg it seems unlikely that Mark's audience would have accepted him creating stories about Jesus on the basis of the Hebrew Scriptures if they themselves had all refrained from doing any such thing.

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan

I have two problems with this. First, the narrative IS clearly based on the Old Testament. And Mark did survive. Ergo...

Second, what's Mark's audience? It's new recruits. Of course they would accept anything he threw at them.

andrewcriddle

FWIW I think you are exaggerating the amount of material in Mark clearly based on the Old Testament although I agree that such material exists.

However my main point is that it seems unlikely that all or even the great majority of material in Mark based on the Old Testament is Markan creation. IMO unless there was significant previous pre-Markan production of such material then it is unlikely that such creation of material by Mark would have been accepted by his fellow Christians.
Could you give evidence that this was Mark's main audience ?

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

There is no evidence that any of Mark's story, except the bare fact of crucifixion and resurrection, was known at the time of Paul.

IIRC, there is little evidence of Mark's popularity beyond the use of it by the authors of Matthew and Luke. In fact, I remember reading some scholar make the observation that the manuscript evidence for Mark was so sparse that we are lucky not to have to rely on speculative reconstructions of a hypothetical source-Gospel from the text of Matthew and Luke.

I don't understand the basis for your skepticism given that earlier Christians were apparently quite willing to embrace Paul's assertions that apparently lacked any precedent (e.g. the eucharist). He supported his gospel with two assertions: that it was "according to Scripture" and that several people had the risen Christ appear to them. Why would Mark's story require any greater evidence than Paul's claims given that Mark's audience already believed the former? IOW, I see no reason to assume Mark's story was intended to obtain converts. In fact, it seems to me to be primarily devoted to reinforcing the beliefs of the author's community in opposition to those held by the men depicted as Jesus' original disciples. Why else portray them as knuckleheads who never really understood Jesus? That doesn't strike me as a very good recruiting technique but it does serve as good propoganda for shared beliefs.

I don't see why this is unlikely if they were willing to accept Paul's claims which were also largely based on Hebrew Scripture.

andrewcriddle

The point I'm trying to make here is that, (even if one holds a strongly skeptical position about the Gospel narratives), to claim that almost everything in Mark but not in Paul is Markan invention, seems to require (among other things) that Mark's community in the period between Paul and Mark had not substantially developed or added to Paul's teaching about Christ.

This seems unlikely in any case and the greater the role one gives to creation by the Christian community in the origin of the Gospel narratives, the more unlikely this stasis between Paul and Mark becomes.

Andrew Criddle