GakuseiDon

Since you believe that Mark knew Paul, I'm not really sure of your logic here, Vork.

Paul talks about the night when Jesus was given up, a story that his hearers had arguably heard, where Jesus took bread, etc. Mark describes an evening in similar terms. Paul doesn't appear to be writing fiction. If Mark took this from Paul, then isn't this an example of Mark writing something that at least Paul believed really happened?

Vorkosigan

I don't think the issue is WHAT he is describing but WHETHER the data in Paul can be read to say that Paul is telling the Corinthians something they already know. Whether so much can be read into that "in". I am skeptical. Besides, doesn't Paul say he has already "handed it on" to them, past tense? Why doesn't that make Goodacre's case? What am I not reading right? I read an earlier version of that paper a couple of years ago....

Yes, it is an example of Mark taking from Paul -- at least I think so -- and I agree that Paul is writing an authentic letter. But Paul is not relating something he knows as history, but something he recieved from the Lord -- in a vision. So the fascinating Paul-Mark question is how the writer of Mark understood Paul. <shrug>

Vorkosigan

Ben C Smith

Because Paul having already handed the information in the pericope on to the Corinthians goes to who knew (what Paul knew, what they knew). Goodacre, IIUC, is making a different point, to wit, how much Paul knew. Does his information in this pericope exhaust his knowledge of the night Jesus was handed over? Goodacre answers that the wording implies it did not exhaust his knowledge. He is clearly aware of a connected story of some kind from which he has extracted this pericope.

What did you think of the rest of the paper? I have never been all that keen on the liturgical angle that made Goulder (in)famous, but Goodacre is sorely tempting me to consider it with regard to the passion story alone.

Ben.

Steven Avery

Very little on Peter's website page demonstrating any such 'scholarly consensus'. And no reference to the early church writers who supported Pauline authorship.

And we saw in the 2 Peter discussion how unreliable is Peter's extraction of sources on dating and authorship, leading readers to conclusions different than the actual scholarship discussion.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Amaleq13

Thanks, I've downloaded it to my desktop.

I will be particularly interested in how he justifies "a good deal more". I can see it suggesting prior knowledge that probably included some extra information but I don't see how one can go beyond that to assuming some sort of full-blown story.

GakuseiDon

I agree, but I'm not sure how that's relevant. I think it's reasonable to conclude that Paul doesn't appear to be writing what he regards as fiction. If Paul thought that he was passing on history, then how can Mark's use of Paul be anything other than a passing on of history?

Amaleq13

False dichotomy. "Theological truth" is neither fiction nor history.

GakuseiDon

I was thinking of this in conjunction with Goodacre's comment: "What is interesting is the way in which Paul introduces the eucharistic words. He says in the night that he [Jesus] was handed over (11.23). Sometimes in history you can find out interesting things by observing what a writer thinks his or her readers can take for granted. Paul here apparently assumes that the time note, the night that he was handed over, would be understood by his hearers. "O, that night"; not any other night, not any ordinary night. It is a note that hints that his hearers knew a good deal more of this story than Paul has time or need to share here."

If Paul regards "the night that Jesus was handed over" as an event that actually occurred at some point in time, then Mark's reproduction of that from Paul is a passing on of history.

Amaleq13

That there was more ("good deal" seems like unsubstantiated speculation) to the story does not require or even suggest it to be "what really happened" (ie history as we define it).

Paul believed the story of Jesus' sacrifice and Mark's author provides an expanded version but there appears to be no good reason to assume any of it is a reliable representation of "what really happened".

To assume that either Paul or Mark's author thought of the story in the same way we think of "history" is to ignore the very real possibility that such a notion involves an anachronistic projection of modern thought into the minds of 1st century individuals. The most we can say with any reliability is that both men believed the story to be "true" in whatever way they defined that concept.

Ben C Smith

That is a problem (ancient history versus modern) that we have with all ancient history; it is not a problem unique to ancient Christian texts. And I gently suggest that finding virtually no difference between Plutarch and Petronius is the result of a modern mindset, not of an ancient one.

And a statement such as this one is thoroughly modern.

Ben.