Clivedurdle

I'm sending my preacher ahead of you
I'm sending my messenger on ahead



Thompson Messiah Myth essay agrees with you Vork!

Bede

There was time when people who brought ideas to the Sec Web were expected to defend them. Now, it seems all you have to do is say that scholars got there first and that is all that needs to be said. Remind to use that one next time I have to tackle the conflict myth.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

yalla

Referring to "Mark" 7.31 and 8.22.
Clearly there is a relationship to Isa.35.5-6.But IMO "Mark" "stole" the actual elements of his 2 healings from the healer-god Asclepios.
The "gestures" etc. of JC "all of them are known to have formed part of the healing techniques of contemporary wonder workers"..."the incidents both have close parallels in Hellenistic healing stories"...."the 2 stories developed if not originated in the syncretistic atmosphere of the Hellenistic world".So writes D.Nineham in his commentary on "Mark" [p.217]
More specifically: "..a fairly close parallel can be cited from an inscription regarding a cure in the temple of Asclepios at Epidaurus..[cites source].."A certain Alcetas of Halice was cured of blindness by the god and THE FIRST THING HE SAW WERE THE TREES IN THE TEMPLE PRECINCTS". Does this strongly suggest Markan plagiarism? But wait, there's more.
In some other book [not sure which at this stage] I remember reading that there is an alleged "fairly close' parallel" between 7.31 and another Asclepios healing where [from memory] a Roman soldier, Valerius Aper, was cured by the god using a salve of chicken blood and spittle on the eyes for 3 days.Or something like that.
Now I don't think that this is just coincidence or mere syncretism.I think it's direct copying. The source for the author of Mark is not some hypothetically convenient "oral tradition" but existing, in this case Hellenistic but normally Tanakh, non-Christian material on which "Mark" has draped a different cloak.Of side interest here is that this tells me that the author of "Mark" knew of, directly or indirectly, the inscriptions at Aslepios' temple[s].

Marxist

Even if Mark is "obviously straining" to make something fit, this doesn't imply it was historical. A better explanation would be that Mark had already made it up himself, and is "straining" to find something in the OT to describe the fictional event.

Of course, the only one "obviously straining" here is Bede and his ilk, who so desperately are trying to hang on to something historical out of the Gospels. The only thing they can do is lame special pleading. "Well, maybe it was historical, and has been merely cast in OT terms!" It reminds me of Schweitzer's lame criticism of Strauss regarding the feeding miracles. Just because it is exactly paralleled in 2 Kings doesn't mean Jesus didn't do it!

And maybe Star Trek is a documentary from the future.

Marxist

Here is the passage in question:

Schweitzer's protests are absolutely pathetic. Nevermind we know the event isn't historical because it is impossible, but he offers up the vaguest, lamest excuses against Strauss. Strauss hasn't explained the "origin," there is "too much individuality," "too closely articulated an historical connexion." This is pure garbage. The best that guys like Schweitzer and Bede can do is scream "Doesn't mean it didn't happen!" till everyone around them goes deaf.

Vorkosigan

Please do. The shortened posts will save much bandwidth.

Vorkosigan

Thanks! That is VERY useful information. Very useful.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

I don't put all of Mk 5:1-20 (Gerasene Demoniac) to Isa 65. Gundry point out the parallels. There are many possible stimuli for the demons-into-pigs sequence. In any case it is supernatural and not historical, so I don't dwell on its origin.

There are actually several here. Dale Allison had some really good stuff, arguing that the Temptation story is a reading of the Myth of the Fall.

• "In paradise Adam lived in peace with the animals and was guarded and/or honored by angels. There too he was fed angels or (according to another tradition) ate the food of angels, manna. But after succumbing to the temptation of the serpent he was cast out (the verb is ekebalon in Gen 3:24 LXX).
  
  This sequence of events is turned upside down in Mark. Jesus is first cast out. Then he is tempted. Then he gains companionship with the animals and the service of angels."(p187-8)

Inverted parallels are not common in Mark. So if you don't like that, there is Psalm 91:11-13, courtesy of Robert Grant:

• 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. (NIV)

But 1 Kings 19 is my personal favorite, as Mark uses it in Gethsemane, thus providing an underlying link between the two tests of Jesus. In any case the idea of divine men in the wilderness is a popular one in antiquity.

I doubt there is any older tradition. How would that be demonstrated? Not only do I see Galilee as coming from Isa 9:1, but I think there is another motive here: because Galileans were seen as rednecks with funny accents, by placing his disciples here, Mark has in effect lampooned them again.

In addition to the parallels pointed out by Brodie (worth noting again)

• *the action begins with a caller...and with motion toward those to be called;
  *those called are working (plowing/fishing);
  *the call, whether by gesture (Elijah) or word (Jesus) is brief;
  *later, the means of livelihood are variously destroyed or mended, the plow is destroyed, but the nets are mended -- a typical inversion of images...;
  *after further movement, there is a leave-taking of home;
  *there is also a leave-taking of other workers;
  *finally, those who called follow the caller.

....Lucian complains about ordinary people becoming mendicant philosophers:

• "Even if you are quite ordinary - a tanner, fisherman, carpenter, money-changer - there's nothing to stop you annoying others, so long as you have the cheek, the nerve... How about boat-man or gardener? Lucian, Philosophies for Sale, II." (Cited in Downing 1988, p5)

of course, in Xenophon's erotic novel Ephesian Tale the hero Habrocomes learns wisdom from an old fisherman who adopts him as his son, in Syracuse in Sicily. Perhaps we are looking at tradition, but perhaps also there's some Hellenistic motif we haven't seen properly yet.

It's doubly based on the OT. Not only has Brodie noted the parallels:

• *the action begins with the leper; and with the motion toward Elisha/Jesus:
  *the healer should/does extend his hand;
  *the leprosy is cleansed immediately;
  *there is an aftermath concerning worship (a Temple, the priest)

But as Crispin Louis-Fletcher points out, this is also influenced by Numbers 5

Skin disease, discharge, the dead, all communicants of ritual impurity. And who does Jesus heal? A leper (skin disease) and then in the same pericope in Mk 5, he heals a bloody discharge and then raises the dead.

The parallel is inverted. The paralytic is saved by faith, the king is damned by the lack of it. There is also another parallel here, to the empty tomb, a place dug out (like a hole in the roof) into which a body is passed (paralytic, Jesus), accompanied by (four men/Peter, James, John, Andrew, the only disciples named at this point).

This one is once removed, for it is built by paralleling 1:14-20. Hence the weaker resemblances! But its ultimate source is the OT, so I have included it here.

Because Mark will parallel 2 Sam 15-16 in the Gethesemane scene later, that's what! He's referring to the future of his literary structure. Do you think that tradition transmitted this name erroneously, and then Marked picked it up and thought it would make a neat framework for his Gethsemane story? Naw. The whole thing is conceived as a literary unity.

This was Price's idea. I forgot about this one the other day when I answered Peter. Do you have Hobbes' book on Mark and the Exodus? I think he discusses it too? It's not a great parallel, I'll grant!

Sorry! typing too fast on Zech, it is 13:3

• And if any one again appears as a prophet, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, `You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the LORD'; and his father and mother who bore him shall pierce him through when he prophesies.(RSV)

I will look.

Stopping here! Rest tomorrow.

andrewcriddle

One problem with the idea that the feeding miracles were invented on the basis of 2 Kings is that some of the parallels appear to be later additions rather than part of the original form. Eg the reference to 'barley bread' parallel 2 Kings 4:42 is only found in John.

It is arguable that the variations among the accounts of the feeding miracles provide examples of an originally distinct story being assimilated to 2 Kings 4.

Andrew Criddle

Marxist

Variations among the Gospels? Any variation in the feeding miracles is the creation of the other Gospel authors, as they all got it from Mark. Thus, it does not indicate anything about any "originally distinct" story.

Of course, Mark relies extremely heavily on 1-2 Kings in many places, even going so far as to almost acknowledge it in his text. To deny this is pure nonsense.