aa5874

When I asked the 1st question, "Is not this spamandham? Is not his mother Mary?", you did not object, you never noticed that I substituted a proper name.

But, all of a sudden, when I asked, "Is this not spamandham's son? Is not his mother called Mary?", you begin to see all the problems.

And that is exactly what I wish you to see. Questions do not confirm anything unless they are answered truthfully.

The author of gMark asked a series of questions, he never answered them.

I cannot answer those questions. The author must answer.

Spamandham has a mother named Mary. There may have been multiple persons, carpenters and carpenter's sons whose mothers were called Mary at anytime in antiquity.

spamandham

In the first question you asked, there is no possible confusion, as only one person is mentioned. In the second, confusion is possible, because two people are mentioned.

However, the subject is still the son and not the carpenter (or the spamandham in your example).

Unless you presuppose that the author is a reporter trying to accurately record what he heard, then we do know the answers, because rhetorical questions are a well known literary device even in ancient texts.

Amaleq13

He doesn't need to since the questions are obviously rhetorical and rhetorical questions require none. They are "asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information"*.

Apparently, I was wrong to think you had obtained an understanding of this concept.



*Oxford American Dictionaries

Jeffrey Gibson

And in doing so, gave an expression that is not the equivalent to Mk. 6:3 or Mt. 13:55 and therefore not evidence of what is being said in either Mk 6:3 or Mt. 13:55..

The problems are false ones. They arise from your using "spamhand" in a way that is different from the way that Mark and Matthew use "carpenter" -- i.e. as a title, not as a proper name, which respectively has two different referents, not one.

To be an exact equivalent to Mk. 6:3 your example would have to read

"Is not this the Spamhand?" with "Spamhand" being understood as something other than a proper name.

To be an exact equivalent to Mt. 13:55 your example would have to read

"is this not the son of the Spamhand?"

Nice of you to skew things so that you get the conclusion you want to get.

Now where's that evidence that you are the expert in first century Judasim that you claim to be?

Jeffrey

aa5874

There is no confusion at all.

The author of Mark is very clear in his question, Is not this the CARPENTER, the son of Mary.....?

The author of Matthew is equally clear, "Is not this the carpenter's SON? Is not his mother called Mary.......?



So if both authors of gMark and gMatthew are asking rhetorical questions, a well known literary device even in ancient texts, then what can we extrapolate from these rhetorical questions when they apear to contradict each other?

Rhetorical question 1 from gMk. "Is not this the carpenter?

Rhetorical question 2, gMatthew. "Is not this the carpenter's son?

bacht

Or, Mark was making a comment about the "brothers of the Lord" he knew by name (James, Jude), writing after they were gone.

Throughout Mark's story the disciples are depicted as missing the point of who the Christ really was. gMark seems more like satire than hagiography.

Jeffrey Gibson

Actually, Mk 6:3 is not strictly speaking a rhetorical question. It is, rather, a question which not only has and expects an answer, but which specifies what its correct answer is.

Not to mention what οὐ (οὐκ, οὐχ) at the beginning of a question signifies.

Jeffrey

gstafleu

I see, the problem is not so much the bridge, it is that the bridge is of unusual construction, right? Let's see if my idea that Mark's purpose is to spread the message "Messiahs don't work" helps any.

In Mark 6:3, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Jude and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?" we see Jesus being defined as anything but himself. A Messiah, OTOH, is a rather sui generis entity who certainly merits definition in his own terms. What we see here is thus an instance of Mark's central message: the town's people simply saw him as just another neighborhood boy, not a Messiah. Jesus underlines this with “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”, another indication of how Messiah's don't work, certainly not where you most need them.

The occurrences in 15 and 16 of "Mary the mother of <anyone but Jesus>" is an ironic elaboration of this theme. Here the poor guy has died, and now his mother is not even defined as his mother, rather this relation is stated indirectly via his brother Joses. A rather sharp description of messianic insignificance, I'd say.

So Mark may or may not have been building a bridge to current times here. In either case (multiple authorial purposes for a scene are not unusual, I'd say), he certainly grabbed the opportunity to drive his message home.

Gerard Stafleu

Jeffrey Gibson

Actually Matthew says "this [Jesus] is the son of the carpenter, isn't it? (οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τοῦ τ�*κτονος υἱός; οὐχ ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ) and he makes it clear that the one he refers to as "the carpenter" was not Jesus, but someone else entirely.

And BTW, the questions found in Mk 6:3 and Mt. 13:55 are not questions that AMark or A Matt ask. They are questions that they put upon the lips of characters in their story. Furthermore, they are not, strictly speaking rhetorical questions (which in Greek usually begin with μή -- see here), bottom of page). To use the terminology of Greek Grammarians -- i.e., people whose works you've never read even though you claim to have knowledge of matters NT -- they are questions which presuppose and expect an affirmative answer.

Jeffrey

spamandham

We can extract that Matthew layered his own agenda over Mark's. Should we be surprised by that?