Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Nice work, KK. We may add that the historical scenario surrounding John the Baptist's death (according to Josephus) puts it around 37. This is incompatible with Mark, in which Jesus begins his ministry after JBap's death, yet is crucified by Pilate (who was removed from office in 36).

Clearly the bread loaves stories of four and five thousand are different versions of the same stories.

Or they were both invented by Mark to demonstrate how dull-witted the disciples were.

Thanks, Andrew. The point would be the same, though: Mark doesn't seem to know the daughter's actual name.

In the best manuscripts of Mark, he calls the daughter Herodias. (And as is well known, he get wrong the detail of which of Herod's sons Herodias the mother had been married to. It's quite a spectacular mess.)

My issues, then, are twofold: 1. Why introduce the anti-temple motif at all? It couldn't have been a part of Christian apologetic until after the Jewish War. 2. Does Mark (or ur-Mark) really seem like the kind of writer who is well-versed enough in Rabbinic law to hang the trial narrative on such a ...

Let me try to retrace Weeden's arguments. He relies heavily on a case made by John Donahue for a pre-Markan trial narrative. • Donahue (whose book I don't have) argued that the pre-Markan trial tradition was "an apologetic historicization arising out of complex reflections on a variety of Old T...

I would merely like to add that Herodias herself supplies some context for the second (female) half of the double divorce command in Mark 10.11-12… Interesting idea — that never occurred to me. I have assumed that Mark was writing from a more Hellenistic perspective in which wives could divorce the...

Weeden's position (which I find convincing) is that Mark himself composed the trial scene, so there is no "original" meaning to the pericope other than Mark's. Are you of the position that there was a pre-Markan Gospel that had Jesus standing trial before the Sanhedrin and committing blasp...

I have only read the first seven pages of this discussion so far. But since I'm currently finishing The Two Jesuses (a tremendously insightful book) by Theodore Weeden, let me offer his interpretation. Nearly all key elements of Jesus' trial and punishment are mirrored by premonitive statements in M...

At what point does a hypotext become an ur-text?