stephan huller

That's an unproven assertion strange and thus 'illogical' - strange from someone who chooses to call himself 'Logical' here. The Gospel of Mark is a very sophisticated literary composition - something which is reinforced, but by no means dependent upon the discovery of the Letter to Theodore.

Any reasonable interpretation of the narrative would come to the conclusion that it is strange that Jesus seems to reject a title (or possibly 'titles' i.e. good + Lord) which would seem at first glance to be complementary to his person. In my mind the most logical starting assumption is that whatever the proper interpretation of the material should be the passage has been deliberately crafted by Mark to draw attention to the person of Jesus. However the material is interpreted the exclamation is about Jesus and it is a statement which demonstrated by the artificiality of the faux narrative (who can faithfully remember the exact details of a conversation two decades earlier especially if Mark was never there!) and one where the exactness of the wording of the address is demonstrated to be surprisingly incorrect and thus refuted (i.e. one would think that Jesus was either 'good,' a teacher or a 'good teacher').

Mark is trying to correct a popular interpretation of Jesus in his own time rather than faithfully preserving verbatim a dialogue from the time of Jesus.

That is what I think is 'logical' about the material.

Logical

OK I retract everything I said.

What is the likelihood that the author of Mark was fighting early heresies that were deifying Jesus?

stephan huller

but what was jesus? man or god or both?

outhouse

Emperors were seen as divine and "sons of god" while alive.

And we know Gmark parrallels the Emperors divinity.

I dont think Gmark addresses Jesus divinity as much as his messages through a Hellenistic lense, trying to make his character more divine then the Emporer.

stephan huller

but jesus wasn't the ruler of the world. there would be reason to mistake him for a god

outhouse

But those Hellenist found him after death, to be the ruler of their world.


So then it begs to really understand if they wrote Gmark with metaphor, mythology and allegory, and it was never ment to be read literally as history.


It was definately not a literal piece, or should I say "pieces" since it is known to be a compilation of earlier sources.

stephan huller

But it is ridiculous to assume that a failure was recast as God. The argument that he was God must have either preceded his crucifixion or the whole thing was entirely invented as a poetic allegory. No one like failure.

Logical

My understanding is that the deification of Jesus happened over time. So it stands to reason that earlier sources would portray him as human and middle sources would even reject his deification (such as this rich man story in Mark).

It's not unusual for religious groups to have holy texts that contradict their current beliefs. The Second Commandment condemns all forms of graven images. But the Catholic Church loves graven images.