vid

Can someone please explain me reasons for (quite common) dating Mark to times during Jewish War, and not some years after it?

Deus Ex

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.html

This person makes a case for 70-75 CE as the most likely time of composition.

yalla

Which Jewish War?
The first one, 66-73 CE, or the second, 115-117 CE, or the third 132-135 CE?

bacht

The Little Apocalypse (chap 13) is often interpreted as describing the first war in the 60s. Some see it as referring to the Simon bar-Kochba revolt of the 130s.

There's a general preference for dating every NT text as early as possible to allow for the memories of contemporaries to have been recorded while still alive. Thus early heros like Peter and James are believed to have had their teachings written down some time in the second half of the 1st century.

Modern scholars are seeing Paul's influence in Mark, and Paul is sometimes identified with the heretic Marcion, who was active ca 140.

jgreen44

This is interesting.

"And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. " (Eusebius quoting from Papias on the Gospel of Mark in Hist. Eccl. iii. 39)

Justin Martyr quotes from Mark as being the memoirs of Peter (Dial. 106.3).

If general opinion was that this gospel represented the memoirs of Peter, why on earth did it come to be named after the scribe (a secretary named, "Mark") who took dictation from Peter? And even if we were talking about two disciples instead of one disciple and a secretary, would not the name "Peter" hold more apostolic weight than the name "Mark" and therefore represent a more desirable and advantageous name for a gospel?

JoeWallack

JW:
My guess is that Gospel of Peter was named before "Mark" was and hence the distinction. The Gospel of Peter was considered authoritative in the 2nd century.

Note that historicity guides everything here. It was impossible for there to be historical witness to the original Jesus narrative so the original author ("Mark") knew there was no historical witness to his story and thus did not claim any. Subsequent authors, such as the author of The Gospel of Peter, took "Mark" as historical, and therefore ascribed supposed historical witness to it.



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Toto

There was a Gospel of Peter, which has not survived intact.

eta: cross posted with Joseph.

Stephen Huller has some theories on "Mark."

aa5874

The "failed prophecy" ("this generation prophecy") in the Synoptics tend to indicate that the original anonymous Jesus story was written within a generation of the governorship of Pilate.

But, Peter and James were themselves fictitious characters in the Jesus stories who witnessed Jesus transfigured, walking on water and saw him after he was raised from the dead.

Peter and James are irrelevant to the dating of gMark.

When one uses the very same parameters to theorise that gMatthew was influenced by gMark then it becomes BLATANTLY OBVIOUS that gMark was NOT influenced by the Pauline writings.

Consider these complete contradictions.

1. gMatthew was influenced by gMark since gMatthew contains OVER 90% of the verses in gMark.

2. gMark was influenced by the Pauline writings but it contains ZERO percent of the verses in the Pauline writings.

The claim by scholars that gMark was influenced by the Pauline writings is by far most absurdly and ridiculously FLAWED.

stephan huller

... and here I am always choosing to find time to avoid doing boring old work that I dread so much.

I am not an expert by any means BUT I have I think asked questions - natural questions - which would have arisen HAD THE GOSPEL not been associated with 'the word of God.'

For instance all the Church Fathers (and even my beloved Marcionites cf Adamantius Dialogues) have a tendency to read the gospel as if it were written by God or the Holy Spirit. Well, talk about impossible literary critiques ...

That's the real problem that there's an uncritical formula which pervades even those outside of Catholic Christianity (at least publicly) which says (a) God wrote the gospel and (b) anything's possible with God. So as a result there is a wall that naturally formed around making sense of the gospel AS A LITERARY WORK.

Normally of course, we pick up the work of James Joyce or Beethoven and we ask 'what was going on in the person's life that might have led to him making this work of art.' But again because this particular work of art is NOT considered to be a human creation, it's not understood as 'art.'

Take the traditional way of regarding the Torah by contrast. The Samaritans and the Jewish Sadducees ADMITTED that most of the Torah was written by a human being. Only the 'ten utterances' came as fire from the finger of God. They say the rest of the 603 commandments were written by Moses. The rabbinic tradition is open to Ezra being the true author. Irenaeus and various Church Fathers also perpetuate the 'rewriting' of the Torah by Ezra as 're-inspiration.' But that's another issue.

The official position on the gospel is however very different. As Trobisch notes the 'according to Mark' notation is splashed across the top of most manuscripts as part of an effort of a later editor to establish the idea that 'the gospel' is 'of four' witnesses. If you went into the Marcionite church there was undoubtedly NO reference to the author.

I think that Luke was established against the Marcionite gospel and the report in the Philosophumena (7.18) that the Marcionite gospel was a variant of Mark follows from what appears from the mouth of Megethius the Marcionite in Adamantius (and the reference in Tertullian iv.3 "Marcion, on the other hand, you must know, ascribes no author to his Gospel." In other words, since the Marcionites didn't have 'kata Markon' scribbled on the top of their manuscript there was no testimony about the name of the author of the gospel. Mark 1:1 (which appears at the beginning of the Diatessaron too) is thus taken to mean 'the gospel OF Christ' or 'the Gospel OF Jesus' (i.e. an identification of authorship.

Incidentally Trobisch wasn't the first to notice this. Knox takes it one step further and says that the ancient headings still used centuries later “kata Matthaian”, “kata Markon”, “kata Loukan”, “kata Iôannên” imply the concept of a SINGLE Gospel. The heading is not “The Gospel according to Mark” and so on, but only “according to Mark. The heading “the Gospel” is therefore implicitly reserved for the book of which these are the four parts. He points out that this is the kind of wording used by all early authors.

But the point is that we are left with a puzzling dilemma where - as many have noted - there is clearly a shroud of secrecy being perpetuated about the author of the gospel (literary works don't just fall from heaven, they come from human beings) AND at the same time the narrative keeps reinforcing the existence of a 'gospel secret.'

I think the two ideas must be related. In other words, Jesus being portrayed as 'keeping a secret' and the author's name being KEPT SECRET or 'kept off' the first page of the original manuscript are one and the same.

My assumption has always been that the traditions before Irenaeus KNEW (or at least thought they knew) the answer to the gospel secret and Irenaeus's job was to discredit the very existence of this 'knowledge falsely so called' by demonstrating that (a) because the heresies were in other respects utterly unreliable (b) BY INFERENCE no one should trust their secret knowledge about who the original author of the gospel was.

Indeed we can use Trobisch and Knox's assumptions about the organization of the Catholic canon (and indeed all the editorial 'tricks' used by Irenaeus) as a way of dismissing the very existence of such a secret 'gnostic system.'

Who is the author of the gospel? God, the Holy Spirit THROUGH four witnesses. Who are the four witnesses? As Trobisch notes the final editor of the New Testament provides 'clues' too (so he is following a kind of secret system too) by the manner in which information about Mark is found in Acts and the letters of Paul and Peter. Luke in Acts and the letter of Paul etc.

Where we can one step further I believe is the Mar Saba letter which I believe witnesses the original Alexandrian response to this Catholic system ('the Carpocratians' are the associates of Marcia the Christian 'wife' or concubine of Commodus who is referenced in Against the Heresies as coming to Rome in the middle of the second century when she was a little girl hence the form 'Marcellina').

The traditional Alexandrian way of preserving the gospel must have been the same as the Marcionite (because in its purest form the Alexandrian tradition must have Marcionite i.e. 'of Mark'). I take it that the Catholic canon was forced on it with the collaboration of the Imperial court. It was accepted and the Alexandrians worked around deliberate identification of their Mark with overtly subordinated 'John Mark' of Acts by developing a shadow canon as described in the letter.

The problem was then that the 'secret gospel' formerly identified to outsiders as simply a work written 'by God' or 'by Christ' didn't work any longer because Irenaeus's teacher Polycarp had introduced his own tradition (and undoubtedly his gospel) associated with John Mark.

This is the whole problem which Irenaeus's fourfold canon was attempting to resolve. Polycarp claimed that John deposited a gospel at Ephesus which was in reality just Polycarp adding stuff or changing the Alexandrian gospel. I believe this text went on to become the Diatessaron. The Diatessaron was a full single gospel attributed to one 'John who called Mark' and the Alexandrian gospel of Mark who was also called John were utterly antithetical poles in Christianity in the period before the introduction of the fourfold canon c. 180 CE. I take Gaius's attack against John to be directed against Polycarp's original gospel rather than our canonical John.

As kooky as they may sound at least one part of the equation seems to be accepted by Trobisch who notes that our John MUST be a shortened version of a longer gospel. Why for instance does John forget to mention the Transfiguration, an event he surely witnessed? At the same time, the Alexandrian tradition (the Coptic tradition of Severus of Al'Ashmunein) records a 'secret presence' Mark at a number of scenes already seemingly known to the author of the Muratorian canon. Severus's list includes scenes found only in John. The fact that 'Mark' never appears as a name of any disciple leads me to suspect again that both Polycarp and the contemporary Alexandrian tradition inherited an identification of 'John the disciple' as a secret reference to the presence of the original author of the gospel as a witness to all the acts of Jesus. This 'gospel secret' thread was deliberately severed by the final editor of the canon who puts forward four witnesses and an impossibly problematic and imperfect system which prevents any one of those four figures to be identified with this beloved disciple.

So when Origen says in his Commentary on Matthew that 'John' is the child held up by Jesus his Alexandrian tradition would say this is Mark but the statement is ambiguous enough that it could to mean Polycarp's John.

This VERY INTRODUCTION is intended to demonstrate that there is nuance and layers to the wall developed around the understanding that 'the gospel of Jesus' had no human author. The gospel was said to have no human author TO OUTSIDERS in the same way as Jews and Samaritans claimed that the 613 commandments were written by God TO OUTSIDERS.

There were Samaritans who held that 'Dositheus' wrote the Torah just as Jews argued that Ezra was its true author. This position was certainly a 'secret' and the change of POV now opens a new a set of questions - what was Ezra trying to convey with his 're-writing' of the Torah. The messianic concept is clearly present in various passages. However the change of POV from Moses as the author to Ezra as the author (or Dositheus) clearly transforms the interpretation of the original narrative.

The idea Ezra developed a narrative that Moses would know that Israel would be punished for iniquity in some future age and only be redeemed by the appearance of a 'prophet like Moses' would seem to indicate TO ME AT LEAST that Ezra wrote the Torah to establish himself as a second Moses.

In the same way, all indications seem to lead to me to believe that Mark wrote the gospel to have himself secretly recognized as the Christ by Jesus. THIS WHY A WALL IS ERECTED AROUND THE IDENTITY OF THE AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL. It isn't just that the Catholics were trying to prevent 'us' from seeing that Mark wrote the gospel with a self-serving agenda. Mark had already established the wall to prevent outsiders from having knowledge about his gospel secret. The Catholics were merely trying to wipe out the knowledge and the gnostics - the 'viva voce' [AH iii.2.1] spoken among them that are perfect - because this knowledge was deemed incompatible with loyalty to Caesar.

Why is that? Well, just look at the system. The gospel of Mark was written around the time of the Jewish revolt. Why? Because the original author 'Marcus' uses the prophesy of seventy weeks in Daniel to argue not only for the coming of the destruction of the temple but for the appearance of the messiah. There's no argument about this. You can't have one without the other.

After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Christ will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

You can't say, like Mark cite the prophesy at the heart of Daniel chapter 9 viz. "When you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains" [Mark 13.14] and then make EXPLICIT reference to the coming of the messiah AT THAT TIME again through Daniel "at that time men will see the Son of Man coming" [Mark 13:26; Daniel] and somehow be thought NOT TO BE the same as the messiah prophesied in Daniel 9:26.

The dramatic scene in Daniel chapter 7 needn't imply a heavenly descent ON a cloud. The passage can just be invoking a scene reminiscent of a rock concert:

and, behold, there came with the heavy mist of heaven one like unto a son of man.

The messiah that is originally 'cut off' to initiate the destruction of the narrative could well appear once all the rest described in Daniel 9:24 - 27 in order to receive all that was promised him in chapter 7 i.e. "there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

The question of the dating of the gospel of Mark to the destruction of the temple necessarily also HAS TO GET entangled with the question of who is Mark that developed the 'little apocalypse' and whether the literary composition served a personal agenda for Mark. Yes, the ministry of Jesus seems to be the subject of the gospel but the revelation of the messiah is connected with events long after the crucifixion.

The son of man prophesied by Daniel clearly was originally expected by Mark to have received his kingdom at the time of the destruction of the temple. Marcus Agrippa is said by both Josephus AND Justus to have had his kingdom EXPANDED in the aftermath of the destruction - i.e. Agrippa "who received his rule from Claudius, and was augmented by Nero, and still more by Vespasian." Agrippa is also identified by a Jewish chronology written by either Justus or Josephus (I favor the former) and known to Origen as the messiah of Daniel 9:26 and this understanding is perpetuated through Jewish and Christian documents down through to the modern period (at least in the case of the rabbinic tradition).

The augmenting of Agrippa's kingdom in the period that followed the destruction is undeniable. The problem is that we have no direct evidence as to whether he inherited Judea. I say he did merely because of the closeness of his sister and Titus. If you can't inherit Jerusalem when the Jews are lowered to the status of cockroaches, your sister is fucking the Emperor's son, and no one else wants to clean up the mess from a four year war - you are biggest loser in history!

Given that we have no indication that anyone else ruled Judea in the period, I place my money on Agrippa especially since his kingdom was expanding in every other direction. What? The Romans worried about offending the Jews as they sent them into the ring to get ripped apart by elephants?

How then can't Marcus Agrippa be a PRIME CANDIDATE for the historical Mark who wrote this self-serving gospel? There is of course a lot, lot more to this but I think you have all the elements here to make a very strong case that the gospel HAD TO HAVE BEEN written in the lead up to the Jewish War (i.e. from Agrippa's being 'cutting off' and rejected in 66 CE). I think Weeden's identification of Paneas as the place where Mark wrote the gospel (and indeed more recently ALL the gospels were written) fits in here as well as the underlying dynamic of a hostility with the Jerusalem party of 'Simon' called Peter.

bacht

Sorry Stephan I'm confused here. If we count 490 years "from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem" (by Cyrus?) we're ca 48 bce; if the dating starts with Darius I we're still in Herod's era :huh:

[oddly enough the fall of the temple is approx seventy weeks after Ezra, weird]