hatsoff

Before I get into this too far, I want to say I think this is a wonderfully interesting topic, and I thank Diogenes for his input and challenges. However, I do have a few arguments to put forward...

Since I don't know much about it, I cannot dispute this, but can you please tell me why you think Mark was written outside of Palestine?

Mark was a student of Peter, a Jew. How was he descended from Paul's movement?

This applies to pretty much everything about so-called Law errors: Plainly, not even the Jews of their time had a sufficient intellectual grasp of Jewish Law. The absurd Sabbath restrictions, for instance, are a great example of that. Mark was not necessarily talking about Jewish Law, but rather Jewish Law as practiced in 1st-century Palestine.

Lack of proof is not lack of evidence.

I'll get to the rest later.

Diogenes the Cynic

Because it was written in Greek, because it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem and because Mark makes several large mistakes about Palestinian geography.
The tradition that Mark was a secretary of Peter's comes from the 2nd century and is completely spurious. In fact, all four authorship traditions for the Canonical gospels come from the 2nd century and all are regarded as spurious. The Gospels are anonymous. The ascriptions of authorship come from dubious patristic testimony, none of which holds up to analysis. GMark is a Pauline, ANTI-Petrine work.
I;ve already addressed this. The errors in Mark's trial are not esoteric or trivial. They are mistakes that any Jew would recognize.
The so-called "evidence" for Mark being Jewish is exceedingly weak and tendentious.

hatsoff

How is it anti-Petrine?

Diogenes the Cynic

It depicts Peter as a dunce and a coward who not only fled after Jesus was arrested but who denied even knowing him. Mark does not present this as a prelude to any sort of repentance or awakening by Peter. Peter runs away and that's it. Mark does not even give him (or any of the other disciples) an appearance narrative. Remember, Mark ends with the women running away from the empty tomb and Mark says they were too afraid to tell anyone, THE END. One of Mark's overriding themes is that the disciples didn't know who Jesus was, never understood his teachings and that they ultimately betrayed him and abandoned him. According to Mark, the story ends there. Since it is inconceivable that a Petrine memoir of Jesus could end without a Petrine witness to the resurrection (which should be the most important part of the story) it must be concluded that the 2nd century legend of John Mark as a secretary to Peter (something which is unattested in the Gospel itself, I might add) is extraordinarily unlikely to be authentic. There are other grounds for rejecting the tradition as well, but that's one of the main ones.

JoeWallack

JW:
This is primarily for you Vork. You seem to have forgotten but your most excellent site remembers that the proper Translation of the Original here is:

"with a fist they wash the hands"

Now as far as I know, I Am the only person in the history of the world who understands what "Mark" meant here. I Am going to give you a Hint so that you can be the Second. The Theme of the Pericope is the Outside is Clean but the Inside is Dirty. Now go to Work Pal. Ben, as Jack Nicolson said in the classic "Batman", "Do I sound like I Am joking?".



Joseph

ynquirer

One of your jokes? The fact remains that blasphemy was defined much earlier and in less narrow terms than you have been defending in this thread. Agree?

No, I didn’t misunderstand Stanton. You did and still do. You of course did not mean that “a pericope that did not originate to Mark� is “a pericope authentic to Jesus,� did you? For, in this case, that would imply that was Jesus himself that used Halacha. Do you mean that?

Try again, and try harder, Cynic, and you will perhaps persuade me and others that it is not 10:10-12 that might have been inherited by Mark from earlier stage but the authentic 10:6-9 that is an addition to the original contents of the gospel.

Diogenes the Cynic

Not at all. You said this:
I was just agreeing with you. It's out of the question. Is that not what you meant to say?
Nope. Cursing God is pretty consonant with the Mishnah and claiming to be the Messiah cannot conceivably be interpreted as cursing God.
Nope. I understand it fine. I don't know why this is so difficult for you.
Quite possibly, yes. I'm not a mythicist. I think it's possible that Mark was quoting HJ. If not then he inherited some other sayings tradition. It really doesn't matter. The point is that the saying was not original to Mark. I don't think that anybody, traditionalist, mythicist or in-between, actually believes that Mark was the author of all his Jesus sayings. Was it your impression that anyone did?

Notwithstanding any of this, Stanton certainly believes the saying was authentic to Jesus which means he believes it did NOT originate with Mark. Do you dispute this or do you think that Stanton meant something else?
This is gibberish. I haven't claimed that 10:6-9 is an addition to the Gospels. All I did was quote Stanton as saying that 10:6-9 was "authentic" (to Jesus) and that 10:12 was "added by the evangelist."

Who is "the evangelist," ynquirer?

ynquirer

Of course, not. But now that is tangent to the main discussion. See below.

Have you read Mishnah? Cursing God is blasphemy only if the name of God is expressly mentioned, and not just any name of God but the Tetragrammaton, and still the Tetragrammaton must be uttered at least twice. Is this what you read in Levitus 24:10-16?

You have repeated so many times in this forum that the gospel of Mark is fiction that I had come to believe you. Now, it seems that it may contain some history, after all. In any event, you ought to check your use of the word fiction so as not to mislead the rest of us.

Diogenes the Cynic

The Mishnah doesn't say the name has to be uttered twice. I think you must be referring the Boraitha which says

One is not guilty unless he blesses (i.e., curses) the Holy Name by the Holy Name (as illustrated in the Mishna): "Jose shall be beaten by Jose."

Boraithas are not part of the Mishnah proper, although both are contained in the Talmud. Having said that, I don't see what any of this has to do with the discussion. Mark does not have Jesus say the Tetragrammaton twice or once. nor does Mark claim that he "beat Jose with Jose" (curse Yahweh by Yahweh). He claimed to be the Messiah, which fits no definition of blasphemy whatever.
The narratives are fiction. He got some of the sayings from somewhere else. The sayings, in themselves, are neither fiction nor non-fiction. They're just sayings. Even if they're authentic to HJ, they have no bearing on whether Mark is fiction. I can write a science fiction novel set on the moon which incorporates some authentic witticisms from Mark Twain. My novel would still be fiction.

ynquirer

Tractate Sanhedrin, Chapter 7, Mishnah 6:

One is only guilty of sacrilege when expressly using the Divine Name. Rabbi Yehoshu'a ben-Korĥah says that during each day the witnesses use a surrogate phrase: "May Yosé strike Yosé". But after the verdict has been delivered, the person found guilty of sacrilege may not be put to death simply on the evidence of the substitute term. The court is completely cleared and then the prime witness is told to say what he heard in exact terms. He says it and the judges rise and rend their garments, a rent which is never sown up. The next witness then says, "That is what I heard too", and the third also says "That is what I heard too".

"Blood, sweat and tears" is by no means fiction; it is of course non fiction, and not just a saying by Winston Churchill; it is history. If the sayings are authentic to HJ, they are not "just sayings" any more. They are history, too.

You do not have more information on the sayings than on the narratives, except misinformed notions on the Jewish law that make you think that something of which you don’t have a notion could never have happened.