Ben C Smith

We have already agreed on this point. I made the further point that the young man at the tomb predicted that the disciples would actually see Jesus in Galilee (16.7); moreover, the young man said that Jesus himself had made this same prediction.

Your response quoted Mark 16.1-8, but did not in any way address my further point. It is a simple matter of fact that in the gospel of Mark the young man at the tomb predicts that the disciples would see Jesus risen, and says that Jesus had made such a prediction as well. I am waiting for you to defend your statement that according to Mark no such event ever took place.

The statement in 16.7 is explicit, not implicit.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Ingenious, and I seriously thought about it for a while after reading this. But there is a huge problem with it, Michael. Jesus never asked the demons to tell him who he was; their blurting out his identity was uninvited. But in this case Jesus has explicitly asked the disciples who they think he is (Mark 8.29):

And he questioned them: But who do you say that I am? Peter answers and says to him: You are the messiah.

Jesus asks; Peter answers. The only way I could possibly see this as a bad thing is to assume that Mark himself really did not think that Jesus was the messiah (that is, only if Peter gave the wrong answer could it be bad to answer the question posed), an impossibility, it would seem.

Ben.

Julian

A very good counter-point, Ben.

Ben C Smith

I agree with you that many of the preconceived orthodox views are a tough fit. But I disagree with you that Mark is gnostic. Separationist is an interesting option, but it is not the Christ that enters and exits Jesus in Mark; it is the spirit. I hold (at least for now) with my current view: Mark is adoptionist.

Not the Christ; the spirit. Mark nowhere equates the messiah and the spirit.

I missed it somehow.

Ben.

Julian

Why?
I believe that the spirit and the very thing that makes Jesus the Christ, is one and the same. I see nothing Markan that speaks against this, but I could be going blind. If adoptionistic then the Ps. 22 quote becomes much harder to explain, while separationism explains both neatly.
But he doesn't speak against it either, if memory serves. Again, I think that it neatly fits. The only reason to believe in adoptionism is the 'begotten' quote, which in my mind fits either equally well. Now add to that the fact that something enters into Jesus. Add to that that he is forsaken at the end. How does adoptionism jibe with Jesus being forsaken? With separationsim this problem is resolved.
The thought is new to me so I am not married to it, but at first glance it seems that it might have merit.

Julian

andrewcriddle

IMO there is a primitive passion narrative starting with Palm Sunday going on to the empty tomb which was used by Mark and John independently and is hence older than either.

But that isn't necessarily what I meant. I may be wrong but I think it possible for there to have been a debate in early Christianity about whether writing down the tradition of Jesus would be a good idea, before any substantial composition of gospels had begun.

Pro: It preserves accurately a fixed form of the tradition and makes it more widely available.

Con: It may end up casting pearls before swime and cause the tradition to lose the guidance of a living voice.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

Having Jesus call four named disciples aside in private to inform them of the persecuted future of his movement in chapter 13 is not an implication. Mark went out of his way to emphasize that these men were the future of the Jesus movement.

I am getting tangled up in the argument here. Help me out. According to you, Mark is criticizing the church from without, correct? He is what the church in his day would call a heretic, and he attacks the orthodox or proto-orthodox church of his day by attacking its leaders, correct? Mark does not regard Peter and company as his leaders; they are leaders of a parallel movement, a movement of which Mark does not consider himself a member, but that claims ideological descent from Jesus of Nazareth. This is what I gather from your statements.

If that is not a parody of your view, then I have several questions:

1. Who are the people that Jesus encourages to hold on to the end, and thus win salvation, in Mark 13.13? Are they the proto-orthodox? Or do they belong to whatever group Mark himself sees as the true way?

2. Who are the people that Jesus praises in Mark 10.29-30? Are they the proto-orthodox? Or do they belong to whatever group Mark himself sees as the true way?

3. Why does Mark go out of his way to foreshadow a resurrection appearance to Peter and the other disciples in 14.28 and 16.7?

I think he did emphasize it, and the ending of his gospel was lost. (Much hangs on this for both of us, I think.)

Mark 16.7 looks like much more than the possibility of a resurrection appearance. It looks like a claim that Jesus actually predicted one. Would Mark let a dominical prediction fall through?

Let me back up for a second. Look at Matthew. It is sometimes urged that Matthew rehabilitates Peter and company after Mark had slammed them so viciously. But I agree with Goodacre, The Rock on Rocky Ground, that this is not the case. Where Matthew has a chance to forge his own path against Mark in Matthew 14.28-31, he instead does something that Mark could easily have done: Peter steps out of the boat enthusiastically enough, but then sinks beneath the waves and hears that familiar rebuke from Jesus (O you of little faith).

Why does Matthew do this? Why not rehabilitate Peter, as it were? If anybody has the motive it would seem to be Matthew (see 16.17-19, for example). Yet he sticks to the script: Peter tends to start well and end badly.

I have my own answer to this question, but you might not like it. I think that it was well known in the early church that the disciples had abandoned Jesus at his crucifixion, and also that they had not altogether understood his message at that time. It was also well known that most of them (not Judas, of course) had experienced or at least claimed to experience an encounter with the risen Lord, and it was on that basis that they claimed their authority in the early church (even Paul, who had not known Jesus, and James, who had apparently rejected Jesus during his lifetime, earned the status of apostle via a vision of the risen Lord).

If their desertion and misapprehension were indeed well known in the early church, then Mark reporting it is not very different than Matthew having Peter sink in the water. I dislike one-to-one readings in which attacking the disciples during the ministry of Jesus pans out to attacking them years later. I also dislike readings which would require an author to keep his protagonists completely clean and virtuous from day one. Such readings lack nuance. If thoroughly Jewish chroniclers could report the warts on David, then surely Mark could report the warts on Peter. The key is that Mark anticipates that the disciples will be restored. How? By an appearance from the risen Lord, the very basis for most apostolic authority.

Ben.

Julian

Good post, Ben, with some excellent questions. I shall have to ponder this for a bit.

Your characterization of my views is essentially correct. (Except for the Nazareth bit, which I think should have been Nasorean).

Julian

Ben C Smith

I do not see anything in Mark that reflects the usual tenets of gnosticism. What you identify as gnostic (secret meanings to parables and such) is so loose as to make almost anyone a gnostic.

Maybe it is just the term gnostic that I object to. It has been badgered into uselessness, in my opinion.

The claim is yours to defend. Noting that Mark nowhere says that the spirit is not the messiah does not in any way imply that Mark thinks it is.

In my view what Paul calls the spirit of sonship. Jesus is adopted as the son of God at the baptism.

Good question. Let me mull that over for a while.

Turns out I did not miss what Joe had said. I answered it differently somewhere.

Ben.

Julian

I agree. It is too broad. My usage here simply refers to secret teachings. For now.
You are correct. If he had spoken against it, however, my idea would have been dead before it left the ground. In this case I am still alive. I do realize that I shall have to present a coherent case eventually. I am just testing the waters to see if there are any obvious and immediate reasons why I would be dead wrong.

Julian