boneyard bill

I previously posted a theory on this board that didn't gain too much attention. But recent discussions have led me to re-think it; and I now wish to present it again in greater detail. I believe it provides a reasonable explanation for why Mark reported an empty tomb but did not describe the resurrection. Hopefully people with greater knowledge of the Bible and Talmud will be able to offer some valuable criticisms and refinements.

My baisc thesis is that the author of the gospel of Mark was attempting to reconstruct events, and he was doing so based on the principles of Talmudic scholarship. This tradition would have regarded scripture as authoritative and would have required that no interpretation could contradict scripture and no interpretations could allow a contradiction within scripture.

I further assume that Mark is a Christian in the Pauline tradition. In other words, while Mark may not have had Paul's writings, he shared the basic Pauline understanding of Christ and was familiar with the hymns and slogans that Paul quotes. In particular, he believed that the Christian story happened "in accordance with scripture," and as a result of that beleif, would have regarded the Pauline tradition as being as good as scripture itself. I further assume (with Doherty, Wells, et.al.) that this tradition was not originally grounded in a recent earthly event.

I further posit that Mark had available to him an oral tradition which conflicted in some details with the Pauline tradition and which placed Jesus' death in the recent past, and the task Mark had before him was to reconcile and reconstruct events in a scholarly manner. The scholarly manner he used was Talmudic method, and Talmudic method would have regarded scripture as more authoritative that faulty human memory.

Therefore, Mark has three sources and two of them are scriptural. There is the Old Testament scripture, almost certainly the Septuagint. I will abbreviate this as SEP. He had Pauline tradition, (hereafter cited as PT) as good as scripture. And he has oral tradition (abbreviated as ORT) which cannot be held to be as reliable as his other sources.

Finally, I assume that Mark is writing within a Christian/Jewish diaspora community where the Pauline tradition and the oral tradition have merged within a single community, and Mark's gospel is an attempt to reconcile these two different understandings of the history surrounding their "savior messiah" Jesus Christ.

Given these assumptions scripture, being more authoritative, would have imposed itself upon the oral tradition. By the same token, if you subtract what must must necessarily be there because of the Old Testament (SEP) and because of the Pauline Tradition (PT), what is left would be the oral tradition (ORT).

What, then, would ORT look like? I suggest that there was a Galilean preacher who traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles and met a violent death, probably by the hand of one of his followers. After he was assassinated some of his followers experienced his resurrection. Mary Magdalene had such an experience first in Jerusalem while his main disciples underwent a similar experience in Galilee.

Some scholars, I don't remember who, have suggested that "Iscariot" is a bastardization of "sicarii" (assassin), and on this basis suggest that Judas was or had been a member of the Zealot sect. I suggest that Judas earned the epithet because he did, in fact, assassinate the Galilean.

Michael Goulder has also pointed out that many of the details of passion week in Mark's gospel are inconsistent with the Passover Feast. Palm branches do not grow in Jerusalem in the spring, but they do in the fall when the Feast of Tabernacles is held. And at this celebration people shout "Hosanna" and "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Exactly what is described in Mark's gospel.

But much of this does not conform with PT which says that Christ was betrayed or literally "handed over" and was crucified by the "powers and forces of the world." was buried, and was raised from the dead. So our Warren Commission-style "lone assassin" claim doesn't fit the scriptural evidence of PT. Christ must have been "handed over" to the "powers and forces of the world." Who could these powers be? In Jerusalem thay had to have been Pontius Pilate, Herod, the High Priest, and the Sanhedrin. ORT need not have specified any particular role for these people. It merely needed to specify this general time frame. Likewise, the Christian Eucharist(PT) is about passover. The new lamb of God is sacrificed for personal salvation. It is not about Tabernacles.

The Jews, of course, execute by stoning. But the Romans crucify. Furthermore, it fits precisely with the "man of sorrows" of Isaiah 53. Both PT and SEP, therefore, support crucifiction. It couldn't have beeen Judas acting alone.

And Jesus had to have been crucified between two thieves because of SEP. Likewise Judas must have received thirty pieces of silver, and Jesus must have entered Jerusalem on the colt of an ass because scripture (SEP) says it happened that way.

And Jesus was buried (PT) so there must have been a tomb. And he was raised from the dead so there must have been an empty tomb. And he appeared before his disciples (PT) in Galilee (0RT). But PT does not say that he appeared to Mary Magdalene. But if ORT says that Mary Magdalene was the first to learn of the resurrection, how could this be? She must have discovered the empty tomb.

So Jesus does not "appear" before Mary Magdalene in Mark's gospel, but we are told that he will appear before his disciples in Galilee. All of this is consistent with PT. But Jesus' appearance itself is not described. Why not?

First of all, Mark's reconciliation is complete. Secondly PT has Jesus appear before "the Twelve." But Judas has betrayed Christ and committed suicide according to ORT and SEP. So any further elaboration risks contradiction within scripture. And since no further elaboration is necessary, Mark's gospel ends.

That is my thesis. One important advantage of this theory, I believe, is that it does not assume any "pious fraud" on any attempt to deceive. It assumes a conscientious attempt to present the facts according to an established scholarly tradition. Any "inventions" that may occur, such as Joseph of Arimathea perhaps, would be the result of logical inference - a necessary, even if unproven, historical figure.

Koyaanisqatsi

if you haven't already, you should read Crossan's, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060614803/qid=1014155119/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0284688-2330574" target="_blank">Who Killed Jesus?</a>.

It covers all of this in a much more detailed and exhaustive manner.

On a sidenote: What is fraud if not "any 'inventions' that may occur, such as Joseph of Arimathea perhaps, would be the result of logical inference - a necessary, even if unproven, historical figure?"

(edited for sidenote - Koy)

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

-DM-

Quite plausible and vastly superior to pious fraud theories.

--Don--

boneyard bill

koyaanaquatisi writes:

I mean that there is no intent to deceive. If Jesus was buried, there must have been someone who provided the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea represents that someone rather than just saying Mr. X or something like that.

Vorkosigan

BB,

Are you on the list XTALK? They spend a lot of time on historical methodology there. You might enjoy lurking.

I think you put too much dependence on the accuracy of oral tradition. I doubt very much that Jesus was executed at Passover, or that the trial and execution took place so quickly, or that thieves were executed with him. But it is possible.

I think Mark DID mention the resurrection. Evan Powell has argued that John 21 was the original ending of Mark. Very convincing argument based on thematic and stylistic grounds. See <a href="http://home.att.net/~david.r.ross/Mark/" target="_blank">Here</a> Read about halfway down. It's a well-prepared site and worth spending the time reading.

That's a neat idea with Judas being the one who killed Jesus. Neatly wraps up everything.

Michael

boneyard bill

turtonm writes:

I think you miss my point here. I'm suggesting that Mark would have concluded on the basis of the Pauline Tradition that it had to have taken place at Passover and on the basis of the Old Testament that the thieves were executed with him. He would have given priority to scripture over the oral tradition. But I'm claiming that the oral tradition had it at Tabernacles (hence the details of a Tabernacles feast in the narrative), and that the oral tradition had Judas as the assassin. But Mark concluded that it couldn't have happened that way because scripture said otherwise.

I don't know what XTalk is.

boneyard bill

turtonm writes:

Thanks for the link. It was very interesting. Of course, it creates a little difficulty for my thesis but is not devastating to it.

I'm not sure I'm saying Judas killed "Jesus." I'm suggesting that he killed someone who became the historical figure that brought the basic Pauline message forward in time to a near-contemporary status.

MortalWombat

John Shelby Spong, in his book "Liberating the Gospels," delineates a theory about the structure of the gospel of Mark, that Mark was written as a series of lections to be read on successive liturgical occasions, rather than as a historical document. He notes that some of the earliest copies of Mark, exemplified by the Codex Alexandrinus, demarcate the texts into small numbered units with titles. If one starts with the empty tomb scene to be read on Easter and works backwards through the Jewish liturgical year to the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hoshana), one can find a striking correlation between these units in Mark and events of the Jewish liturgical calendar.
A review and summary of "Liberating the Gospels" by Earl Doherty can be found here:

<a href="http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus/spongrev.htm" target="_blank">http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus/spongrev.htm</a>

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: MortalWombat ]</p>

boneyard bill

Mortal Wombat,

Thanks, I have read several of Spong's books. It was from Spong that I got Micheal Goulder's claim that the Passover descriptions in Mark relate to the Feast of Tabernacles, and it was in attempting to figure out how that could happen that I arrived at the theory I have posted above.

Kosh

Why do you think it is we don't hear more about
this? Pretty blatant problem, IMHO. You would
expect the Jewish to point it out (do they?)
loudly. Or has everyone forgotten the ancient
customs?