Vorkosigan

Clivedurdle claimed that I had dismissed Carotta out of hand although by that point we were many pages into the thread, and already had three long blogposts up on Carotta's theory. It seems, like Carotta, that you enjoy the rewriting of history, and with similar accuracy.

Vorkosigan

Juliana

Good, but please do read it carefully and at least twice. Also look at those passages which explain why "in no other document of Julius filius divi do we come with Iesus dei". You might also want to reflect on Marcion i.a.

Juliana

Juliana

Guru :notworthy

is the above message with the hysterical ROFL icon intended to be read as:

Holy shite, why didn't I think of that?

?


Juliana

Aquila Pacis

No, just "Signs and Parables", i.e. the whole chapter (p.203-209) because the parables of the sower and the mustard seed are originally based on one Caesarian source, namely the prophesy of C. Cornelius from Padua.

In general, the things that Carotta writes as an accompaniment make sense: the reference to Mark's audience as a community of farmers, the beginning of the "kingdom of God", i.e. Caesar's victory at Pharsalos etc. But the philological argumentation - although I'm anything but an expert on this - still leaves me skeptical:

As far as I recall Carotta writes that the primary requisites clearly show up in the two Markan parables. Personally I rather see it the other way around: secondary requisites (the rocky ground etc.) as well as images and locations show up easily, like Caesar at Ephesos, at the coast, with lots of people being on his side, which mutated into Jesus teaching by the sea side, people gathering in multitude etc., and both are entering ships, Caesar sailing off to pursue Pompeius to Egypt.

It is logical that these elements match as well as in many other pericopes, because - and this is my personal theory - it is about the action. Here something is actually happening, it's a decisive plot line (Caesar in pursuit), or to quote David Mamet freely: Person X is moving from A to B, executing action C. It's very simple, straight-forward story-telling.

A prophesy however gives you a lot more headroom, for one thing because it is part of a different culture. A plot, a piece of action (see above) can be translated or translocated into a different culture easily, if you re-arrange the context. A prophesy IS context. It's a comment, a meta-level, esoterics. It needs to be bended far greater to re-fit into a different cultural setting. There is no backbone of action alongside of which the Markan author could move forward in order to construct his drama. This may be the reason why - at least in my view - the primary requisites in the Markan parallel seem to be diffused: because they were part of the context in the first place.

Again, from the chronological setup Mark vs. Pollio, chances are high that Cornelius' prophesy is the parallel to the Markan parables; and in principle everything is there: the ground, a plant that is growing, birds etc. But if you look at the primary requisites (palm tree, fighting birds), the parallels are not as clear as in other pericopes: "phoinika" and "sinapi" don't really match, and Carotta sees this. So he continues drawing the parallel between "phoinika" and "peteina", which is more probable, but it's still only a speculation...and later on "phoinika" ("palm") and "peteina" ("fowls") are paralleled again in Mark, with the addition of an obvious mistranslation of "epese" ("fell") as "ephyse" ("grew"). This is also a requisite crossover (palm > birds). With the way I understand Carotta's argument, it is still unclear to me where the Markan mustard seed stems from. If the birds ("fowls") are based on the palm, the Caesarean plant, where does the Markan plant come from. And I'm also not sure, where the fighting birds have "landed" in the Gospel. Since the Markan birds are originally the palm, where are the primary birds, the ones who fight?

A lot of the stuff in Carotta's book is very clear and straight-forward, but a few things here and there - e.g. these two parables - leave me a bit puzzled.

Vorkosigan

It's a basic human metaphor, of course known in Hellenistic thought. Seneca wrote:

"These words should be scattered like seeds. However small a seed is, once it's sown in suitable ground, its potential unfolds, and from something tiny it spreads out to its maximum size...I'd say brief precepts and seeds have much in common. Great results come from small beginnings."

Paul in 1 Cor talks about being sown in weakness and raised in power. The spreading tree recalls similar trees in the OT, in Ezek 17


22 " 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. 23 On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. 24 All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.(NIV)

and of course Daniel 4:


19: Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshaz'zar, was dismayed for a moment, and his thoughts alarmed him. The king said, "Belteshaz'zar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you." Belteshaz'zar answered, "My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies! 20: The tree you saw, which grew and became strong, so that its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth; 21: whose leaves were fair and its fruit abundant, and in which was food for all; under which beasts of the field found shade, and in whose branches the birds of the air dwelt -- (RSV)

Of course Ezek 17 earlier offers:

1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "Son of man, set forth an allegory and tell the house of Israel a parable. (NIV)

The themes and ideas here are basic to Hellenistic and OT thought. There's nought here that requires a set of parallels to Caesar's life to invent.

All staples scenes in Greek novels, all borrowed by the writer of Mark for his narrative of Jesus.

Vorkosigan

Aquila Pacis

And in writing this, Seneca is directly recalling Iulius Caesar, who had written: "Parvae res magnum [...] momentum" ("Small things, great effects"; Caes. Civ. 3.70)

Well, this would actually be an indication that the current mainstream theory on the origin of the Gospel is a much too complicated one: Mark borrowing here and there, putting together pieces of an unknown puzzle, even from Greek novels. On the other hand, the idea of Mark re-writing an already pre-existing story, a story that was read, told and worshipped all around the Empire - with a few extra additives, the cultural flavor, Septuagint and OT being merely the icing on the Markan cake - seems to me like a much more simpler and uncomplex origin, moreover a more logical one.

You are right in saying that a growing tree - even today - can easily stand as a basic metaphor for a growing idea, and furthermore trees have always been safe havens for birds, even for the ancestors of homo sapiens for that matter. It's understandable that the Roman source used common metaphors. So it is legitimate to also look for different sources, because there might be many; and Ezek 17 has some of the basic requisites: the growing plant and the birds. But is there any possibility of "cedar" becoming "mustard", or more correctly the "sprig from shoots" becoming the "(mustard) seed" and the "cedar" turning into the Markan plant? The fact that Ezek has a sprig from shoots means that another plant was already in existence. In Mark it's the seed that grows on barren soil, a plant coming - almost literally - out of nowhere. So Ezek is basically about the idea of reproduction - or the adaptation of a preexisting idea - while Mark is about the genesis of something new, a (maybe revolutionary) idea that manages to grow against all odds. Then AFAIK Mark doesn't have the plant bearing fruits. There is no mountain, but the sea side. So one would have to see if there is a linguistic probability that "mountain" can mutate into "sea", "sea shore" etc. In addition, one would need to present other Mark-OT parallels with exactly the same mutation. How about the ship? The many people?

My answer is a definitive "No". Ezek 17 is an extremely weak parallel. Daniel 4 has even less analogies. Maybe - or even probably - Mark knew Ezek 17 and Daniel 4. That may be the reason why he readily adopted the Caesarean prophesy, maybe even with a smile on his face, and had no problems in making it a parable, because it bore a certain resemblence to OT sources. But again: "certain resemblence", not a definite parallel. The Roman source - although a bit shaky as I said earlier - is much more probable.

Vorkosigan

Ah...no. Very illogical. The writer of Mark knew perfectly well what he was doing. And he was rewriting a pre-existing story -- he borrowed his framework from the novels of Hellenistic antiquity. The method you describe above, borrowing from hither and yon, and stitching it together, is in fact very common in Greek novels, indeed some of the better authors made a fetish of borrowing parallels from all over (achilles tatius, for example). Once you restore Mark to its proper context, there is nothing unusual about it except its topic. It's a Hellenistic narrative right down to its toes.

<shrug> At this point, with no linguistic evidence, and no other evidence of borrowing from the Caesar story, and no valid parallels, you're really outta luck.

....because not only was the mustard seed proverbial for its small size in Palestine (CH Hunzinger cited in Gundry p29 also in Donahue) -- strange how Mark's erroneous reading of the Caesar tale accidently hits on a Palestinian saying -- but Mark 4:32 and Ezek 17:23 echo each other with the birds nesting under its shade (hypo ten skian) -- as Donahue notes on p152 of the excellent Sacra Pagina commentary on Mark. The connection with Ezek 17:23 is so 'weak" that nearly all the commentaries make it, liberal, conservative, skeptical, atheist.

It's not hard to see where this comes from, unless you have an a priori commitment to another source and hew to that regardless of evidence. The theological, linguistic and literary evidence connects it to the LXX. No evidence connects it to Caesar.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

How could that be considered more complicated than the trail of apparently unique mistranslations and word transformations required by Carotta's theory? Your "here and there" is misleading because the suggested sources are really only two (ie Hebrew Scripture and the general themes of Greek novels). The former makes sense given the apparent beliefs of the author and the specific context of the story while the latter makes sense given the general context of the literary milieu. I'm not sure we have to assume the use of familiar themes from Greek novels was even a conscious effort on the part of the author. In terms of the number of assumptions necessary for the explanation, I see no way to argue that Carotta's has fewer.

Again, I'm not arguing that greater complexity equals less credibility. I'm arguing that greater complexity requires the claimant to directly address the simpler explanation with regards to specific arguments establishing why one should consider the more complicated explanation as better.

Juliana

Aquila Pacis, I'll reply to your earlier post later, just a remark on what Vork. wrote here:

V. repied to this with:

"....because not only was the mustard seed proverbial for its small size in Palestine (CH Hunzinger cited in Gundry p29 also in Donahue) -- strange how Mark's erroneous reading of the Caesar tale accidently hits on a Palestinian saying -- but Mark 4:32 and Ezek 17:23 echo each other with the birds nesting under its shade (hypo ten skian) -- as Donahue notes on p152 of the excellent Sacra Pagina commentary on Mark. The connection with Ezek 17:23 is so 'weak" that nearly all the commentaries make it, liberal, conservative, skeptical, atheist.

It's not hard to see where this comes from, unless you have an a priori commitment to another source and hew to that regardless of evidence. The theological, linguistic and literary evidence connects it to the LXX. No evidence connects it to Caesar."

The fact that the mustard seed was proverbial for its small size in Palestine explains well Mark's erroneous reading of the Caesar sources. In reverse order: Caesar's sources explain also why Mark's version differs from that of Esek. If one supposes that Ezek 17:23 was the primary source for Mark 4:32, one would have to explain why the variations introduced by Mark fit so well in the Caesar sources. In fact the basis for this parable was a midrash, called over by the erroneus reading of "finika" (palm) as "sinapi" (mustard).

BTW, it's nice you quote Caesar's "Great results come from small beginnings.", Parvae res magnum momentum. Not all people know this

Aquila Pacis

This is marginally true. For one thing, textual criticism has shown that the genre of the "Gospel" can't be described anymore as a product of chance or a compilation. The history of the form is "modified" (Theissen 1995). The Gospel is rather a consciously chosen genre in the framework of the biographical literature of antiquity. For another thing, the "hellenistic narrative" had already been swallowed by the Graeco-Roman biography. The Gospel shows a very high amount of historiographical individuality, which corresponds to the Latin Vita. According to Dihle (1983) Greek biographies had been lacking primary historiographical elements, had few anecdotes and many commentaries. Moreover, the hellenistic biography, dating back to Peripatos, systemizes ethics and the art of living, and was therefore never a means of Greek historiography. Biography and history started to merge with Alexander the Great (Albrecht 1994), but the final stage, the political biography was a Roman genre, as can be seen by comparing Plutarch's Roman biographies with his Greek biographies. For example Alexander and Caesar are written in two different styles. The Roman political biography, as analysed in Plutarch, probably dates back to Asinius Pollio's Historiae, which was doubtlessly one of Plutarch's primary sources. As Dormeyer (2000) shows, the Gospel of Mark is situated extremely close to the Roman vita, in genre, style, drama, structure and - this is a parallel to Carotta's research - also extremely close to Plutarch's biography of Caesar, from matching principle textual elements, parallel words and sentences, prophesies (oracles), lines of action etc. to superstructural aspects of soteriology, the passion, autocracy, imperial Golden Age / Kingdom of God and so on.

I've stated that the linguistical crossover of the primary requisites (actually a "cis-mutation" rather than a trans-mutation) appears twice in Mark (although it's a bit shady), in two different parables (1. sower, 2. mustard seed), the ephyse-misreading is highly probable. Moreover the secondary requisites and locations are structurally compliant. This all hints to the Caesarean prophesy. Except for the proverbial mustard seed in Palestine folk etymology and the merely figurative birds and the tree, Ezek 17 is otherwise completely autonomous. You will have to come up with a better source.

Well, first of all, none of the authors had ever looked into Roman sources, so it's logical that none of them mention Asinius Pollio and therefore chose the one source that "resembles" the Markan parable at least a little bit, and secondly, does any of those commentaries explain the blatant divergence in the philosophical undertones that I've mentioned (reproduction vs. genesis), or a cultural momentum that might show how the one meaning (Ezek) could mutate in the other (Mark)?