Solo

I wonder what evidence that Mark was consciously writing a 'mythos' would be convincing to people predisposed to believe he wrote a 'bios'. Could they be conviced by :

1) the uncanny composition of the gospel in which the first and last scene both feature a messenger sent ahead of the Lord ?

2) Jesus sending his "apostles" by themselves to a secluded place (6:31) but the rendez-vous is known to five thousand people who rush there ahead of the party ?

3) Jesus not denying he is a ghost to the startled disciples on the boat impeded by the storm ? By his stilling the storm and the confused disciples still clueless landing the vessel at Gennesaret instead of Bethsaida as he had commanded ? By Jesus paying no heed to the change of landing and going about the business of healing the sick as if nothing was amiss ?

4) Jesus being unable to supress his followers to proclaim him zealously, in fact the more he told them not to, the more they did it (7:36) ? How could they disobey him if they were convinced he was sent by God ?

5) Jesus in verse 8:17 being aware that the discussion of the disciples (in 8:16) was not over what he just told them but by what Mark wrote down in verse 8:14 ?

5) Mark refering to his own text and John the Baptist in 9:13 in stating that "Elijah has come and they did to him whatever they pleased".

7) Jesus refering to the owner of the donkey on which he is to enter Jerusalem as "his lord" ?

8) the accusers of Jesus before the Sanhendrin charging falsely that Jesus prophecized the destruction and rebuilding the temple in three days, when the reference was clearly to the "temple of his body" and the resurrection ?

9) Pilate releasing Barabbas at the whim of the mob thereby committing treason against Rome, apparently to play out the "folly" of executing Jesus, in fulfilment of Paul's maxim of Christ as "stumbling block to the Jews - folly to Gentiles" ?

I doubt it.

Best,
Jiri

Vorkosigan

There are no conspiracy theorists here except the Romans-wrote-the-NT crowd, in any case history abounds in intentional fictions accepted as history by believers: Scientology, Mormonism, etc, and of course, the early layers show that the Gospel fictions were unknown to Christians until nearly the middle of the second century.

Vorkosigan

spin

In both examples, Scientology and Mormonism, we have religions concocted by a single person, a conspiracy of one, providing all the literature, and in both cases we are dealing with a modern phenomenon, both in context and regarding means.

The production of "gospel fictions" in itself implies a conspiracy of a number of contributors to the intentional fiction, as these texts were not the work of a single author. I don't see for example that a lone author wrote of Jesus 1) coming from Nazareth of Galilee (Mk 1:9), 2) being at home in Capernaum (Mk 2:1) or 3) having the unnamed home town where Mary and his brothers were from. There are a number of indicators that the gospel works evolved within disparate christian contexts. That doesn't recommend a bunch of fiction writers.

aa5874

Your claim that the story of Jesus was not originally from a single source cannot be substantiated.

It is far more more likely that the Jesus story would have started from a single source than multiple simultaneous authors.

In the Canon we can see that the story of Jesus was changed by LATER authors.

It is virtually impossible and implausible for multiple persons to come up with the same fiction story word for word and in the same chronological order at the same time.

The story of Jesus in gMark is not even claimed to be an historical account by the author so it cannot be argued at all that it could not be intentional fiction.

The fact that people of antiquity believed the story does not in any show that the story itself was not known to be fiction by the actual author.

ph2ter

14.8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burying. 14.9 And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."

How the writer knows that his gospel will be preached in the whole world?
It must be that he is aware that he is writing the official document of the sect. He must have been appointed by the leadership of the sect.

From the content of the gospel it is not openly obvious that he is writing fiction. That probable fact is hidden under the literal reading of the text.
Initiates into the sect very certainly were not aware that the gospel is essentially a set of parables that ultimately have a deeper meanings than a plain literal reading.
I think that the writer certainly knew that what he is writing is not literally true, and that it becomes true only when someone has a key of correct interpretation.

Evidence of intentional fiction is not strong, but can be detected if someone has a proper 'key'. Probably the author believed that what he wrote is not literally but allegorically true.

Vorkosigan

That's quite like Mormonism, actually. There are many sects, some with evolving literature and messages -- we're only in the second century of Mormonism. There is (logically) a single point of origin of the gospel tales, IMHO GMark.

Further, the editing of Mark you refer to tends to support my view that the later writers and editors knew full well Mark was fiction. Whoever inserted text into the center of GMark had to know that Mark was written by construction off the OT, because that's what he did. Matthew also knew that, as his infamous f*ckup with Zech 9:9 shows. The writer of Luke also knew that, for he added details to stories originally from Mark that showed he recognized their origin in the OT. So did the editor who inserted Nazareth in 1:9 of Mark -- for surely his text only showed "Nazarene" everywhere else. So did the editor who tore off the ending of Mark and IMHO grafted it onto John. All of them must have thought of these texts as fiction at some level, or they would not have messed with them.

I'd be curious to know if well-known histories like Tacitus and Suetonius and Dio and Cicero's letters and Caesar's memoirs and Herodotus have been messed with in similar ways. Surely the ancients could not have thought of them as fictions....

Vorkosigan

aa5874

The evidence of fiction is extremely strong from the very start of gMark. It is claimed that John the Baptist baptized people of Judea for remission of sins when no such thing would have been done by Jews.

The Jews made sacrifices for the remission of sins at their Temple in the 1st century before c 70 CE.

It is clear that the author of gMark fabricated his fable outside of Judea and to an audience that were NOT familiar with Jewish customs.

Even Jesus cult writers ADMITTED for hundreds of years that the Jews did NOT acknowledge or know of a character called Jesus who was the expected Messianic ruler.

Mark 1 Josephus completely contradicts the author of gMark in Antiquities of the Jews 3.9.

Antiquities of the Jews 3.9 The Baptism by John for remission of sins in gMark in Judea is utter fiction.

Solo

You may want to take another look at the mysterious 'oikos' in the verse. Are you sure Mark meant to imply Jesus was 'at home' ? Are you sure Mark was not hinting at the fictitious 'house' in Isa 44:13 ?

What does 'his house' mean in 2:15 ? And would that be the same 'house' as in 3:19 ? or 7:17, or the 'household' in 6:4, 7:24, or 9:28, or the 'household' in Capernaum again in 9:33 (not 'en oikw' but 'en th oikia') ? But that would not be the (!) house (eis thn oikian) in 10:10 where the disciples inquire about the divorce matter ? It does not look at all like that household was in Capernaum since the latest locator (in 10:1) places Jesus in 'Judea, beyond the Jordan'. Does it ? You should note that in all these instances a reference is made to a (or 'the') house or household which materializes out of nowhere in the story, in each instance with a strange whiff of familiarity as though this object has a specific meaning in the parables told by Mark about Jesus. Call me crazy but I think Mark means everywhere exactly the same house(hold) as in the parable of 13:34-37.

However, this is not obligatory. It is perfectly legal to read 2:1 as a part story "retold" by Mark from what was handed down to him by Peter or the community tradition police.

Best,
Jiri

spin

The Greek idiom (prep. + οικ–) is well known. While arthrous forms of οικος with preposition are plentiful in the LXX, the idiom is infrequently found (eg Deut 6:7, Lam 1:20). When οικος is qualified in any way, "my house" or "the house of the lord", it is not idiomatic, so ". Gundry acknowledges it at Mk 2:1 (Apology for the Cross, p.110) then tries to explain it away as referring to the home of Peter and Andrew! You can understand why he does. Sadly, the healing of the paralytic is recontextualized in Mt and Capernaum is repudiated as Jesus's home in Lk.

You find the idiomatic εις οικον in 3:19, 7:17 and 9:28. These would suggest the home of Jesus and points to a collection of traditions ordered by a redactor who puts them in his own narrative framework. The house (οικια) in 2:15 is the house of Levi. 7:24 uses οικια, as does 10:10, which may be another pointer to different sources. (There are 12 exemplars of οικος in Mk and 15 of οικια, though the idiomatic forms are with οικος.)

spin

I don't see that you are reflecting what happened in early christianity at all.

How you know how people had to know things seems a mystery.

When people believe divinely inspired events related to holy scriptures, it's not hard to understand that they can change a "faulty" telling of it to reflect their own perceived reality.

Nazareth in 1:9 is one of the later developments in the text, after the establishment of the Nazareth tradition. Mt 3:13 doesn't support it. Once the tradition was established, all that was needed was a marginal note of Nazareth by the text saying Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized.

I don't see any evidence to support this.

They didn't have a community attachment to them.