stephan huller

1. Upon what do you base your assertion that Mark was written in Egypt?

John Chrysostom, Clement of Alexandria, the Acts of Barnabas (by implication) various Arabic texts

outhouse

Ah yes people who used theology to do historical work, instead of modern scholarships who can look at the whole picture these ancient people had no clue of. :Cheeky:

stephan huller

Like trying to find vegetarians who hunt. so what's your point

stephan huller

And if we expand the argument to include 'witnesses that Alexandria was the home see of St Mark' we'd have to include Eusebius of Caesarea. Given that Eusebius lived c. 263 – 339 and didn't invent the association of St Mark with Alexandria how far are we removed from Clement here?

stephan huller

2. By what means would Clement be able to divine the authorial intentions behind a book written ~70-100 years before?

Only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants think like this. Clement was part of a tradition. He cites Philo almost unconsciously. Schaff has shown he draws from the Marcosians. Clement wasn't 'divining' Mark's intentions. He was privy to a tradition - no different from his Jewish contemporaries.

And with respect to Clement not explicitly citing his intentions. Origen was his student and Origen never mentions Clement. Go figure.

DCHindley

Only if the time machine had a reverse gear.

DCH

Solo

Gospel of Thomas clearly does not present Jesus that way. He is an oracular source of his fleshy twin.

There is a detectable differentiation from the earliest time of a human being called "Jesus" and a Spirit of God that entered him and confirmed him as "Christ". Again this differentiation is not present in Thomas, who presents instead an oracular source called "living Jesus". But this differentiation is present in the Pauline Christianity, even though Paul was not at all concerned with what Jesus did and said on earth; he received the gospel direct fom the risen one.

Christian gnosticism, IMO grew out of the Paulinism when the judaising Christianity (best seen in Matthew) took over, corrupting Paul's teaching in claiming - contra a basic tenet of Paul - that Jesus was a perfect human on earth. Mark, clearly hinted at the impossibility of this: 'Why do you call me good ?' For Mark like for Paul, the Spirit was the gift of God, that could not be appropriated.

I think the christological development can still be reconstructed, even though I agree the sources are biased. Jesus was clearly not God in the synoptics. This is a later development of gnosticism (including the Johanine hookup with orthodoxy), where the asceticism of Paulines was theologized, and Christ separated from human flesh altogether. Of course, Paul's Christian brotherhood was a spiritual one, but not written up as anything that could be considered docetic. Paul was a dualist; it is not hard to see how his dualism progressed to the concept of lower and higher God, reflecting the dualism of 'psyche' and 'pneuma' in human nature. First it manifested itself in the neutral and dependent demiurge of the Valentinians, then in the evil independent Jewish demiurge of the Marcionists.


Again, I think you are being too pessimistic. Elaine Pagels did a great job in The Gnostic Paul (or via: amazon.co.uk). There should be more studies like hers.

They apparently read Romans without the pathetic forgery of 1:2-6, and they had Mark (not Luke !) as their Euangelion.

But back to to the nonsensical charges of Sanhendrin against Jesus in Mark. I recently contacted a well-known Markan scholar to get a feel what to expect when I come out arguing that the passion play has no sources other than the "scriptures" that Jesus is to fulfil (Mk 14:49), i.e. the tanakh and Paul's corpus. Mark's use of Paul is of course paradoxical; his letters come historically after the events narrated. Jesus is proclaiming the fulfilment of scriptures that have not been written yet, but that of course is part of the "messianic secret" asserted by the plot. Mark's paschal drama is so original and its plan so tightly tied together with the events narrated, that it makes no sense to read them as actual, historical events. To posit pre-Markan written or oral sources, makes no more sense than saying Hamlet is a report, originating in Danish folk tales and lost correspondence of Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern.

Of course I did not come out saying things like that. I asked him about some verses he considers pre-Markan. He wrote to me that whatever objection I might have, these verses were pre-Markan; this was not his position but that of the current Markan scholarship. End of discussion. In other words, if the pig won't fly, and the book says it does, refer the matter to scriptural authorities. Now these were critical verses because if one admits them as part of the plot, then one has to admit that the messenger in the tomb, and the tomb itself, are symbolic tools of Mark to run as a complement to the messenger at the Jordan. Again, this fulfils Paul (Rom 6:3-6).

So, the charges against Jesus, and the trial before Sanhendrin, is not supposed to make sense. Jesus nowehere claims he is a Davidic messiah; as a matter of fact he flat out denies it. 'How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David ?' (12:35). So, Peter in his confession and the Sanhendrin believe is that Jesus is a pretender to the throne and wishes the rule as a Davidic king over restored Israel. But Mark's Jesus knows he is not that kind of Messiah. He is the one not yet preached by the gospel (of Paul) ! So the disciples' idolatry of him, the charges against him, and Jesus response to them are an executed comedy of errors. However, the ecstatic semantic riot in Jerusalem around the meaning of 'king', 'Christ', 'temple' and 'body' had a dead-serious purpose in Mark; it was not a slapstic for its own sake. Mark likely himself performed the exorcism he imputed to Jesus, and his gospel was an ancient form of hypnotherapy that would have been effective to a surprising degree.

But the Sanhendrin did not find Jesus guilty because he was claiming to be messiah. He is condemned for blashphemy, in claiming he is messiah AND that they will see Son of man (i.e. him as messiah) seated on the right hand of power. Of course if he had made himself seated on the right hand of (the Lord, glorious in) power (Exd 15:6), he would have been blaspheming (Lev 24:16, Deu 5:11) and yes, IIUC, he would have been condemned to death by stoning.

Best,
Jiri

stephan huller

Judas the twin
Peter and Andrew being 'brothers'
John and James being 'brothers'

all suggests to me at least that adelphopoeisis was part of the early Agape. In other words, Jesus was 'the firstborn of many brothers.' Recall the Arian interest in the term 'firstborn' = the diving being first created from God the Father (= the Son) who floats down to earth to establish Peter as his brother through baptism. I bet the tradition of Judas assumed that Judas was the first to have undergone adelphopoeisis no less than the Basilidean tradition Simon (= Peter). The idea that you have three pairs of 'brothers' among the disciples makes it impossible in my mind for this to be historical brotherhood.

Look at Mark 10:17 - 31 in Clement's gospel of Mark in Quis Dives Salvetur. He tells Peter leave your family of the flesh and after you die you will receive brothers, land and house in the kingdom of God. Give me a break. Peter somehow was told to give up his brother but somehow takes along a material brother once becoming a disciple. I think not.

Peter and Andrew, James and John, Judas and Jesus were all married or bound according to the spirit in the same way as we see George the Arian bishop and his pal or later John Moschus and Sophrinus or John the almsgiver and his brother or any of the other examples from later antiquity.

stephan huller

Goodacre has a paper being reviewed at this moment about Judas Thomas being dependent on the synoptics. I am not sure what date we should assign Judas Thomas but the title alone suggests familiarity with brother-making

stephan huller

Elaine Pagels did a great job in The Gnostic Paul

I used to like that book and Pagel's scholarship generally before I actually started to become intimate with her sources. Her interpretation is very weak. I won't get into the particulars but she over values Epiphanius, ignores the Marcionites and over-emphasizes the Valentinian tradition.