Amaleq13

Or, those who read Papias with more faith than we have gladly assumed him to be describing the canonical text because it created the appearance of a reliable apostolic tradition for the contents.

Rick Sumner

Mark would resurrect it in order to ascribe accurate prophecy to Jesus. The same reason you suggest he uses the temple prophecy.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not sure why you're addressing it to me. I haven't contested any of your other points, I've contested your argument regarding the relative dates of Caligula and the gospel of Mark. It's an argument that isn't made for any other text--Daniel, of course, being the most obvious example, but it isn't the only one. It seems to me that your endorsement of such a tact is a marriage of convenience.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

S.C.Carlson

That was John A. T. Robinson's argument. I wouldn't say that "many" scholars date Luke before 70. In fact, few do.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

The irony is that Papias's description of Mark is lukewarm.

Stephen

Diogenes the Cynic

A statement that the entire Temple complex (all the buildings, not just the Temple itself) would be leveled sounds pretty specific to me.
When faced with the Caligula threat, the Jews were willing to fight to their deaths to prevent his statue from being installed in the Temple. While it may have been reasonable to assume the Romans would try something like that again if they ever destroyed Jerusalem, I don't think it's reasonable that Mark would urge (or expect) them to run for the hills rather than fighting to prevent such a thing in the future. That doesn't match the Caligula model.
Nobody knows, but GMark is clearly not a Petrine memoir (or a memoir of any witness at all) and it doesn't match Papias' description in other ways either. What more context did they really have? What real critical skills did they bring to their analysis? They also thought that the logia which Papias attributed to Matthew was the same as the Canonical Gospel.
Chapter and verse? In 2 Corinthinas Paul mentions having suffered an "affliction" in Asia. Is that what you mean? Or maybe you mean 12:10:

Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong

.

That sounds pretty generic to me.
I've read the arguments. I don't really have anything to add to what I've already said about this. I'll just reiterate my contention that the Western Wall was not part of the Temple complex (and was not a "building") and so its partial survival would not contradict Mark.

Ben C Smith

I think Tacitus tells us otherwise. You are correct to note that what Caligula had planned for the temple did not transpire, but that was only because he died at just the right moment, and his orders (already given!) were not carried out. Tacitus notes that there remained a fear that some other princeps would give the same orders (manebat metus ne quis principum eadem imperitaret). I doubt the events leading up to 70 did a thing to alleviate this fear.

Ben.

Diogenes the Cynic

Right. I get what you're saying now. I'm not sure what I was thinking last night. I guess I was still half arguing with Stephen in my response to you. My contention that reading the "abomination" language as a reference to Caligula is a) that I don't believe its an accurate description of that event (Caligula's statue was never installed, the people were willing to fight to the death rather than run away) and that b) Mark's l.a. is invested with an urgency and fatalism that would have no longer had any currency with regard to Caligula.

If Mark wanted to show an accurate prophecy of the Caligula crisis, why does he have Jesus saying that people would run to the hills when they didn't?

Ben C Smith

This may be the source of the disagreement. I do not think anybody is arguing that Mark 13.14 was meant to predict the Caligula crisis (whether after the fact or not), but rather that Mark 13 was meant to predict the fall of Jerusalem (whether after the fact or not), but with language and ideas conditioned by the Caligula crisis.

Ben.

Amaleq13

I'm not sure what you mean by "lukewarm". A connection to Peter is all that would be needed regardless of how "warmly" he described the text or how little his description actually resembled the text.