stephan huller

After a lengthy citation from Mark 10:17 - 31 Clement writes:

But this Greek word means "come to terms" or "agree upon." It is used when settling an amount owed when a note is pre-existent. I can't help get the sense that Clement is saying Mark wrote his gospel first and the others did their best to come to terms with what he wrote, but I wonder if I am reading too much into this. If it is true, Clement is the first to witness what scholarship has discovered by textual criticism.

Sheshbazzar

Sounds reasonable, even likely...
whomever 'Clement' actually was, and applying to whomever it actually was that authored that portion of 'Clement'.

Stuart

Three comments.

1. Clement's comment is specific to this passage. It is a major extrapolation to apply beyond that.

2. Whatever the view, even in my late dating preference for the Gospels, Clement would only know tradition of prior generation or two, so he would not have any knowledge beyond the prejudices of the day.

3. This section has a high degree of agreement between the three Gospels. Mark has every element found in each of the other two, except a couple expansions in Matthew. And he has a couple expansions of his own.

So Clement's comments are very accurate for this segment, Mark does agree with the other two here. To expand that to a general comment about the entire Gospel composition sequence is a serious stretch, takes the remarks out of context, and assigns to Clement special knowledge that is simply not established. Therefore you should not make such an assumption, and even if you do you can't put any weight on it.

stephan huller

So Clement is saying that the other canonical gospels ONLY copied Mark 10:17 - 31 from Mark but nothing else? Really??

stephan huller

Interestingly William Petersen reads:

These things are written in the Gospel according to Mark, and in all the others [= the other gospels] in a slightly irregular fashion, perhaps each of the utterances modified, but all display identical agreement in intent.

stephan huller

I think I re-constructed the sentence incorrectly. It should read slightly literally:

These things are written in the Gospel according to Mark, and in all the others acknowledgement (ἀνωμολογημένοις) to varying degrees, perhaps everywhere the same words exchanged, but all the same meaning displayed.

Any criticism of this translation would be appreciated.

καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις δὲ πᾶσιν τοῖς ἀνωμολογημένοις ὀλίγον μὲν ἴσως ἑκασταχοῦ τῶν ῥημάτων ἐναλλάσσει, πάντα δὲ τὴν αὐτὴν τῆς γνώμης συμφωνίαν ἐπιδείκνυται

Sheshbazzar

Guess you will have to be the one to decide for yourself if ἀνωμολογημένοις means "come to terms" with or "agree upon", or really only signifies "acknowledgement" to you.

If you make up your mind, what difference would anyone else's, especially any non-Greek speakers opinion make?

All the best to you,

Sheshbazzar

stephan huller

But you Americans don't speak another language. Words don't have just 'one' corresponding term in another language. It's a hard thing to translate a passage especially when you are not trained in that language.

stephan huller

in modern Greek ομολογημένος means 'acknowledged'

stephan huller

I think Petersen's source takes the prefix ἀν to be ἀ- (= not) but with the added consonant because it comes before a vowel. But the usual way of taking the passage is that the prefix is ανα- (ana-) which means re- in English. But the sense in English is the same. Do we have a word 're-acknowledgment'? I don't think so. The idea would be the same especially given the fact that 'several gospels' are mentioned before. We would say I think that Matthew and Luke 'acknowledge' what Mark originally wrote. We wouldn't say 're-acknowledge'