gstafleu

Mark's purpose was to show that a Messiah doesn't work in the real world. So he presented him as realistically as he could. It is potential believers who are being cautioned: "See, even a real Messiah doesn't work."

Gerard Stafleu

gstafleu

"Genre" seems to be a magic or code word around here. What I'm talking about is what message Mark meant to convey with his story, irrespective of what "genre" you think it is.

Gerard Stafleu

Lógos Sokratikós

The text says Peter rebuked Jesus after Jesus said he would be killed and rise again. It does not show Peter thought it was nonsense. The words are not stated, so we can only imagine. What would you do if you were the follower of a guru and he said he'd get killed, especially if youy've seen him prophesy before with great success? Maybe he said "Don't say that! That's terrible! OMG, how can you possibly...!" In any case, you're speculating that Peter scolded Jesus becuase he believed the martyrdom prophecy was nonsense.

31And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
32And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
33But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
-KJV, biblegateway.

Ben C Smith

This repetition of the phrase get behind me is just one instance of a much wider trend in Matthew, that of repeated and transposed formulae.

The textual variant in Matthew 4.10, if it were original, would be another example.

Ben.

the_cave

I agree that Peter's intent here is a little confusing, and that it's possible he's just upset that Jesus is saying it out loud. But if Jesus and his followers weren't supposed to talk about crucifixion theology, what were they supposed to talk about? Again, it seems there is a contrast in Mark between a supposed public message (presumably resembling the military messianism of the time) and a private message about spiritual salvation.

And besides, you're taking it as fact that Mark's description of Jesus predicting his own death and resurrection is accurate. I think there's room to be skeptical about this.

Look also at the contrast Jesus draws here:

Again, Mark sets up a contrast between heavenly, spiritual matters, and earthly, worldly matters, specifically in the context of Peter's problems with public declaration of the crucifixion theology. But if Jesus is contrasting his theology with that of Peter's, what was Peter's theology about? Remember, Peter has just declared Jesus the Christ. So what was Peter's intent in rebuking Jesus?

gstafleu

Mark leaves off after the resurrection, so he doesn't go there. He simply presents Jesus as a failed present (in the time of his story) Messiah
Given that Jesus got killed before he even took Manhattan, it was rather tough for him to get to Berlin.

We agree that Mark presented Jesus as a real Messiah--whether he (Mark) actually believed this or not. Now a Messiah is not an ordinary Joe Blow, he is an extraordinary figure. What extraordinary things does Mark have Jesus do? Miracles, unusual teaching, apocalyptic predicting and dying/resurrecting. These then must be the things Mark thinks are enough to establish someone's Messiahness, otherwise we are postulating things external to Mark that he doesn't indicate. Jesus succeeds in all these things, but does not succeed in convincing the people.

You're no doubt right that resurrection is not a usual tribute of a Jewish Messiah, but then neither is having already appeared. The main strength of a Jewish Messiah was his futureness! So I think we may have to look mainly within Mark if we want to figure out what he thought a Messiah (his version of Messiah, or at least the version of Messiah of the believers he was addressing) was.
That is more or less what I'm saying, with a few differences. In my version Jesus is the real Messiah only in the story, I don't see any need to postulate that Mark really believed in him. Also, I think that Mark's Jesus actually did succeed in all the extraordinary tasks that Mark has him attempt, except one: the people don't buy it.

Given that Mark clearly portrays Jesus as failing to convince anyone, why not assume that that is what Mark was trying to say? Adding other things, like Mark really believing it or Jesus being an actual historic Messiah, just is reading things into the story.

BTW, here is a footnote. Jesus fails with respect to his target audience, the Jews. This leaves open the logical possibility (meaning it is not contradicted) that he may have succeeded with respect to another audience. When Jesus says that a prophet is not honoured in his own country, one might think of a corollary: but a prophet has better chance of being honored in another country. This is a bit iffy, because why would, for example, the Phoenicians honor an Egyptian, or for that matter Judean, prophet? But let's go with it for a moment. Who could this other audience be?

We note that Jesus seems to have most success in Gallilee of the Gentiles. Not only that, he seems to return to it after his resurrection. This brings up the possibility that Mark is portraying the Gentiles as Jesus' "real" audience. This is reinforced by the fact that when Jesus dies, it is the centurion, a gentile, who clues in to the truth: "Truly this Man was the Son of God!" Finally someone has gotten it, but, alas, not a Jew.

This is possible, but iffy. If this is really Mark's primary message, he is awfully cryptic about it. So I don't think it merits more then a footnote, or at best a short postscript. But the door is, just, open.

Gerard

Ben C Smith

This is to utterly ignore the apocalyptic prophecies as if they did not matter; again, a significant amount of space is accorded them, and one of the intercalations is set up at least in part to certify them; Mark must have something bigger in mind than messiahs make apocalyptic predictions, so here goes, especially since you have provided no evidence that this is indeed something messiahs do.

No need for me even to click the links. I am quite familiar with that song.

With the probable exception of the resurrection, those are not what make Jesus the messiah in Mark.

I completely disagree. Mark does not present teachings, prophecies, healings, exorcisms, and miracles as messianic badges. Indeed, those things would be typical of a prophet, or of a resurrected John the baptist, or of Elijah, as Mark tells us (twice).

We have to. When Mark calls Jesus the messiah, he is using a term already invented.

Looking to Mark alone ignores the fact that you are calling Mark a cautionary tale. It has to make sense to the readers, or else it is not cautioning against anything.

Imagine I am writing a cautionary tale against trusting big multinational corporations with bigwig chief executive officers. As soon as I mention such a company and its CEO in my story, the reader is going to get a mental image of how such companies and their leaders act, and what in their actions may need cautioning against. But suppose that, instead of showing my fictional multinational corporation and its CEO doing the usual things that might need cautioning against (wheeling and dealing, bribing politicians, marking up obscene profits, rigging markets, and so on), I show the CEO getting drunk, having illicit sex, and doing drugs, and do not even much mention the business.

As a cautionary tale against multinational corporations, such a story has failed. As a cautionary tale against partying too much, it may be a success, but in that case the corporation and the CEO are no longer central to the storyline; they are unessential, and could have been a record label and a rock star, or a team of lifeguards, or a logging firm and a lumberjack.

This is the sort of thing I think your hypothesis entails. You have Mark all worried about messiah figures who set out to attack Rome, but writing a tale against such figures that has nothing to do with attacking Rome.

Well, no wonder! The messiah in Mark does not do what the messiah was supposed to do.

I do think that is one thing Mark is trying to say.

No, it is just reading the story as written, with all due consideration to what the original readers would have thought of it (back to genre!).

Ben.

gstafleu

Which, according to you, would be (at a minimum) to get rid of Rome, right? Doesn't this just add some satisfyingly combustible logs to my fire? In your version, Jesus does a number of things that should, at least, establish him as an extraordinary person, without much effect. Plus, the one big thing that a Messiah should do, he doesn't even touch. Isn't that failure on a nicely metropolitan scale?

Now, what expectations would Mark's readers have had of a Messiah? Remember our discussion about the Messiah concept in Paul. We concluded there, I think, that while this concept originated from churches in Judea--Jewish churches who knew what they were talking about--it may not have meant much, beyond perhaps "generalized holy man" (with some soteriological aspects), to Paul's audience. Is Mark's audience any different? If he was writing for Hellenistic expatriates, let alone for a Roman audience as is sometimes suggested, is it reasonable to expect that this audience had an image of "Christ" that corresponded to what the Jews thought of as "Messiah"?

In this light, I don't think it is unreasonable to think that Mark was portraying Jesus as a Christ in the lights of his audience, which may not have been much more than this generalized holy man. And if it was a Roman audience, he probably didn't want to bewail the fact that Jesus failed to raze the City!

So, considering that, my idea that what Mark is telling us is that it is closing time for the whole Messiah/Christ/Holy Man idea, is not all that strange. (I wonder how long I can keep these links going ).

Gerard

aa5874

Based on gMark, Jesus did predict his outcome at all times. Everything Jesus said came true, and his predicted crucifixion and death by those who appeared not to be conviced was told to the disciples in advance.

GMark's Messiah story was a 100% success.

gstafleu

Yes, quite so. A real Messiah would of course know that he could not succeed in convincing the people.

Gerard Stafleu