TedM

Hi Vorkosigan,

I haven't still reviewed your entire work on Mark, but my impression from passages/ideas we discussed in the past is that while you have found a large quantity of evidence for your belief that Mark's Jesus is entirely fictional, the quality of the evidence and associated arguments varies significantly. I was wondering if you might point to your top 3 or 4 evidences/arguments for your position re: Mark, if that can be done. I'd like to take another look at your position but am hoping to save time by focusing in on your strongest evidence. Would you mind doing that?

thanks,

ted

Vorkosigan

Well, actually, my interpretation of Mark is where I lay out all the evidence in a cogent argument. But I am withholding it from public view at the moment as I flog the book to publishers.

The case for Markan fiction is cumulative. The strongest evidence is that the narrative and the passion are created by paralleling the OT, and that the sayings are actually either Markan invention or borrowed from Hellenistic/Roman ones. But you have to do a pericope by pericope review to see the whole thing.

Vorkosigan

TedM

Dang, I was hoping there is an easier way Surely some narratives are more compelling than others, some OT parallels are more compelling than others, and some pericopes are more compelling than others, no? (one last try)

ted

Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan had an interesting post a while back to IIDB listing all his parallels in Mark to the OT on a pericope basis. Vork, do you know where that post is?

best,
Peter Kirby

Amaleq13

Is this the thread you mean?:

How much of Mark is from OT?

Peter Kirby

That's it! Thanks.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

TedM

Thanks Kirby. I see from that thread that I"m not the only one that thinks that many of the parallels are not convincing. And, I see that Vorkosigan did reference a few he thinks are particularly strong. Those are the ones that should be discussed and examined for an understanding of what Mark might have been trying to do: The strongest parallels to any other possible influences (OT, Paul, various sects, and other) should be identified and then examined for a theme that makes sense. If there is something to them they should answer the question: What was Mark trying to do and why?

ted

Vorkosigan

Like anything else, some are going to be more convincing than others. The problem is that one would reject the paralleling only if one already had a commitment to historicity as a default position. This is one of the biggest problems one has in dealing with this topic.

Imagine if there was no Christianity and no insistence that Mark was history, and you found Mark on the road. You wouldn't for a second believe it history, once you realized that large chunks of it were constructed by paralleling and by taking extant sayings and assigning them to Jesus. For the weak parallels, you'd simply toss up your hands and say either that the paralleling is not as strong,, or in certain cases that there were several possibilities and no culprit can be identified (for example, where do the 12 disciples come from? So many twelves in the OT).

Imagine if anyone read the greek novels that way. Imagine if you read Luecippe and Clitophon, and observed that in some parts paralleling was weak and others strong. Would you conclude that in areas where paralleling was weak that those must be historical? No one would conclude that. Nor should you with Mark, nor would you, unless you carried around a default assessment method that everything that wasn't provably fiction must be fact. Whereas, the vast amount of reasonable secure fictions in Mark, as well as known construction techniques, call into question the historicty of everything in the Gospel.

Why would the construction methodology reveal what Mark was trying to do? And if the theme makes sense, how would you demonstrate that it had been encoded by the writer of Mark? And further, why would a coherent theme in the typology be related to what Mark was trying to say? It's not as easy as you think to relate construction techniques to what the author was trying to say, especially since he may have said different things to different audiences.

Vorkosigan

TedM

While a prior commitment is one reason a person might reject parallels, it isn't the only valid reason. Another might be that a particular parallel is not convincing, and reminds them of the bible code attempts. The question that leads one to conviction on the matter is not the quantity of parallels but the quality of them. If we have exact duplicates of words or events in Mark from other sources then we can deduce something from that because the source then becomes convincing. But, if we conclude that the sources for Mark are not clear we can't deduce as much.


I'm not so sure. If the book alludes to real historical places people and events, and it contains certain passages which seem to argue for a historical basis because they appear to be addressing embarrasing historical issues that readers knew about that were related to the person the book is about, then I would wonder if there is a historical core to that person and if so, how much. It becomes more than just a 'toss up' because it is crucial to Christianity, but even without Christianity I would for at least a second consider it quite possible that some aspects may in fact be historical.

I didn't mean to say it would be easy. I guess there are many questions related to Mark's intention, some that would be answered by construction methodololgy and some that wouldn't be. My guess is that the more sources for Mark and the more ambiguity of sources, the less we will be able to figure out how much of Mark is history and how much isn't. Until all the sources are clearly identified and seen to be very strong parallels, I don't see how we can ever conclude that Mark is an account of activities of an entirely fictional character. As it stands the best we can do is determine for ourselves what strong parallels say about Mark's attempts to write based on history and what we think are the most likely sources for the weak or non-existant parallels--tradition, Mark's imagination, or real history.

ted

Vorkosigan

Well, exact wording does exist.

Which issues would you consider embarrassing, and why? And further, how can it be an embarrassing historical issue if you have not yet decided whether the book was history? There's plenty of embarrassment for the heroes of innumerable fictional tales.

You also raise the issue of "historical core" but how do you know that there is one. And what about Mark would stimulate you to imagine that parts of it were history?

But if Mark were not the source of a religion that insists Jesus was real, what about it would convince you that we were dealing with real history somewhere in it? It can't be embarrassment, for that is only applicable when you have decided a tale is history -- I mean, no one believes that the Lord of the Rings is history because Frodo failed at the end, embarrassingly. So what prior judgment about text signals that there is some history in it?

Vorkosigan