split from: Jesus is not the Christ: A Reading of Mark

[Giuseppe]

My argument is the following:

1) In Mark there is again and again secrecy about the true identity of Jesus;
2) at least in three places Mark breaks a such secrecy;
3) in the exact correspondence of these three places, the secrecy is still there in *Ev;
4) the fact (3) is not a mere coincidence: it has to be explained;
5) I can find an explanation for Mark breaking the secrecy, while I can’t find an explanation for *Ev preserving the secrecy where Mark broke it. Therefore: Mark corrected *Ev.

I think that this argument is the more simple and economical to prove the Markan posteriority. Note that this argument concedes that Mark is an enigmatic text with all the his emphasis on secrecy (hence you cannot deny that I am ignoring the commentaries on Mark’s secrecy).
The second argument is less strong but yet valid: frankly I don’t see the reason for Mark inventing or preserving John’s disciples allied with Pharisees against Jesus (at least not after that the reader is reassured in the incipit that Jesus and John are both on the same page), unless it is a trace of a previous gospel where John the Baptist is put in a bad light. To think otherwise exposes to the easy criticism of doing harmonization of the text, the exact thing I don’t like to do because it resembles too much the expedients used in apologetics (especially to prove that in Paul there is not contradiction between different passages).

You cannot say that the secrecy is not about the god of Jesus, since the reader would like to know why the Barabbas’ sin is to be the “Son of his Father”: who is his Father?

[Giuseppe]

I have found another “coincidence”, number 4:

The episode of Bartimaeus is found in both Mark and *Ev. It may be strumentalized in a marcionite way along the following lines: Bartimaeus gives up to hail Jesus as davidic only after, not before, he gains the sight (just as Adam and Eve realize the salvific function of the Serpent only after their act of disobedience). Realizing the danger of the marcionite interpretation, Mark adds the episode of the blind of Bethsaida that is exactly simmetrical to the Bartimaeus episode: Marcion has only the rapid healing of the blind called Bartimaeus while Mark has added the delayed healing of the blind of Bethsaida. The delay is explained by the vision of “men as tree walking”, i.e. blind people want a king-messiah for themselves (the allusion is to Judges 9:8-15). The inference is that Bartimaeus is healed rapidly just because he recognized Jesus as already the davidic Messiah and didn’t wish one yet to come. In this way the initial recognition of Jesus as davidic messiah by Bartimaeus is not seen more in (Marcionite) antithesis to his secondary recognition of Jesus as son of god.

[Peter Kirby]

that is precisely the point made in the last book by Markus Vinzent, Christ's Torah.

Why would *Ev be written in a way that is anti-messianic?

Two answers:

1) because the principal hero in it is an unknown figure ("unknown" means that he is not even the messIah of YHWH).

The first sentence of the Marcionite gospel book gives the fifteenth year of Tiberius as the date and has an unknown character walk down to “Capharnaum, a city in Galilee,” where people call him “Jesus of Nazareth.”

(E. Trobisch, On the Origin of Christian Scripture, p. 106, my bold)

2) because, even if the original author meant it in a messianic sense (the Klinghardt's position), the point continues to be true, that *Ev in the hands of Marcion was brandished as attesting the non-messianic status of Jesus, obliging even Mark to take the "right" measures against it. The principal measures are listed by me here.

I think you're arguing that *Ev was anti-messianic? That wasn't my question. Let's assume that *Ev is anti-messianic.

Why does *Ev adopt the position of being anti-messianic? And why is that pursued as a theme in the text?

*Ev doesn't adopt the position of being anti-messianic. *Ev in the hands of Marcion is used as a gospel adopting the position of being anti-messianic. What was sufficient and necessary for a such use of *Ev by Marcion was what Wrede has called the "Messianic Secret in Mark" and what Trobisch has described as what makes Jesus an "unknown figure" in *Ev.

I.e. Wrede and Trobisch are talking about the same thing, without knowing it. The fact that Jesus denies that he is the Christ, beyond of what is meant for the original author of *Ev, represented for Marcion the essence of anti-messianism in a Gospel. It could be a mere interpretation limited to Marcion and Marcionites, if it wasn't that Mark is embarrassed by a such interpretation, and this embarrassment is seen in the way Mark breaks the Messianic Secret with the Parable of the Vineyard. Because it is not a coincidence that just immediately after Jesus didn't answer to Pharisees about his own identity, Mark makes him answer de facto by introducing the Parable of the Vineyard (absent in *Ev).

Are you saying that Marcion misunderstood *Ev as being anti-messianic because he misunderstood the "messianic secret" in *Ev?

If not, why did Marcion misunderstand *Ev as being anti-messianic?

And what is the original position of *Ev regarding these topics?

[davidmartin]

*Ev doesn't adopt the position of being anti-messianic. *Ev in the hands of Marcion is used as a gospel adopting the position of being anti-messianic. What was sufficient and necessary for a such use of *Ev by Marcion was what Wrede has called the "Messianic Secret in Mark" and what Trobisch has described as what makes Jesus an "unknown figure" in *Ev.

so you're suggesting Marcion added a gospel onto his existing epistle collection right, that would make sense
it is irony to imagine a scenario where the gospel is set in a land who is awaiting their great redeemer, should have a great redeemer come but not be the expected one. to me, it's just simpler to think the irony is a reading not just Marcion might enjoy. Mark could make use of it too

PS Marcion is by definition an anti-Messianic person and any text associated with him surely must be written or interpreted that way by him

[Giuseppe]

Why would *Ev be written in a way that is anti-messianic?

Two answers:

1) because the principal hero in it is an unknown figure ("unknown" means that he is not even the messIah of YHWH).

The first sentence of the Marcionite gospel book gives the fifteenth year of Tiberius as the date and has an unknown character walk down to “Capharnaum, a city in Galilee,” where people call him “Jesus of Nazareth.”

(E. Trobisch, On the Origin of Christian Scripture, p. 106, my bold)

2) because, even if the original author meant it in a messianic sense (the Klinghardt's position), the point continues to be true, that *Ev in the hands of Marcion was brandished as attesting the non-messianic status of Jesus, obliging even Mark to take the "right" measures against it. The principal measures are listed by me here.

I think you're arguing that *Ev was anti-messianic? That wasn't my question. Let's assume that *Ev is anti-messianic.

Why does *Ev adopt the position of being anti-messianic? And why is that pursued as a theme in the text?

*Ev doesn't adopt the position of being anti-messianic. *Ev in the hands of Marcion is used as a gospel adopting the position of being anti-messianic. What was sufficient and necessary for a such use of *Ev by Marcion was what Wrede has called the "Messianic Secret in Mark" and what Trobisch has described as what makes Jesus an "unknown figure" in *Ev.

I.e. Wrede and Trobisch are talking about the same thing, without knowing it. The fact that Jesus denies that he is the Christ, beyond of what is meant for the original author of *Ev, represented for Marcion the essence of anti-messianism in a Gospel. It could be a mere interpretation limited to Marcion and Marcionites, if it wasn't that Mark is embarrassed by a such interpretation, and this embarrassment is seen in the way Mark breaks the Messianic Secret with the Parable of the Vineyard. Because it is not a coincidence that just immediately after Jesus didn't answer to Pharisees about his own identity, Mark makes him answer de facto by introducing the Parable of the Vineyard (absent in *Ev).

Are you saying that Marcion misunderstood *Ev as being anti-messianic because he misunderstood the "messianic secret" in *Ev?

If not, why did Marcion misunderstand *Ev as being anti-messianic?

the need of the propaganda. Because Marcion's fanatical anti-demiurgism moved him to use the first text fallen in the his hands as support of the his own anti-demiurgism. If Marcion had been active in Rome and not in Pontus, then Hermas would be fallen in his hands and not Paul. He would have used Hermas as the true apostle and not Paul.

And what is the original position of *Ev regarding these topics?

I am expecting the next book by Klinghardt (or Trobisch) where the prof of Dresda will explain *Ev from the POV of the its own theology and christology: themes by him held deliberately out the discussion in the previous books.

[Peter Kirby]

Two answers:

1) because the principal hero in it is an unknown figure ("unknown" means that he is not even the messIah of YHWH).

The first sentence of the Marcionite gospel book gives the fifteenth year of Tiberius as the date and has an unknown character walk down to “Capharnaum, a city in Galilee,” where people call him “Jesus of Nazareth.”

(E. Trobisch, On the Origin of Christian Scripture, p. 106, my bold)

2) because, even if the original author meant it in a messianic sense (the Klinghardt's position), the point continues to be true, that *Ev in the hands of Marcion was brandished as attesting the non-messianic status of Jesus, obliging even Mark to take the "right" measures against it. The principal measures are listed by me here.

I think you're arguing that *Ev was anti-messianic? That wasn't my question. Let's assume that *Ev is anti-messianic.

Why does *Ev adopt the position of being anti-messianic? And why is that pursued as a theme in the text?

*Ev doesn't adopt the position of being anti-messianic. *Ev in the hands of Marcion is used as a gospel adopting the position of being anti-messianic. What was sufficient and necessary for a such use of *Ev by Marcion was what Wrede has called the "Messianic Secret in Mark" and what Trobisch has described as what makes Jesus an "unknown figure" in *Ev.

I.e. Wrede and Trobisch are talking about the same thing, without knowing it. The fact that Jesus denies that he is the Christ, beyond of what is meant for the original author of *Ev, represented for Marcion the essence of anti-messianism in a Gospel. It could be a mere interpretation limited to Marcion and Marcionites, if it wasn't that Mark is embarrassed by a such interpretation, and this embarrassment is seen in the way Mark breaks the Messianic Secret with the Parable of the Vineyard. Because it is not a coincidence that just immediately after Jesus didn't answer to Pharisees about his own identity, Mark makes him answer de facto by introducing the Parable of the Vineyard (absent in *Ev).

Are you saying that Marcion misunderstood *Ev as being anti-messianic because he misunderstood the "messianic secret" in *Ev?

If not, why did Marcion misunderstand *Ev as being anti-messianic?

the need of the propaganda. Because Marcion's fanatical anti-demiurgism moved him to use the first text fallen in the his hands as support of the his own anti-demiurgism. If Marcion had been active in Rome and not in Pontus, then Hermas would be fallen in his hands and not Paul. He would have used Hermas as the true apostle and not Paul.

And what is the original position of *Ev regarding these topics?

I am expecting the next book by Klinghardt (or Trobisch) where the prof of Dresda will explain *Ev from the POV of the his own theology and christology: themes by him held deliberately out the discussion in the previous books.

Summarizing:

(a) *Ev is not anti-messianic, and Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) These features were first in *Ev, which Marcion read as being anti-messianic.
(d) Marcion would have misinterpreted any parts of *Ev that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(e) Because Marcion would have misinterpreted *Ev as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

Or, following similar logic and applying it to the text of Mark:

(a) Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) Someone would have misinterpreted any parts of Mark that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(d) Because someone would have misinterpreted Mark as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

And, of course, and in any case:

Mark is an incredibly anemic text in terms of the refutation of anti-messianic views. It seems impossible that it was developed for this purpose, which also means that all the speculative interpretations according to which it was developed for this purpose are wrong. This of course also means: because this interpretation of Mark's purpose is wrong, those interpretations are wrong, and all of those directional arguments have false premises.

[Giuseppe]

Summarizing:

(a) *Ev is not anti-messianic, and Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) These features were first in *Ev, which Marcion read as being anti-messianic.
(d) Marcion would have misinterpreted any parts of *Ev that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(e) Because Marcion would have misinterpreted *Ev as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

correct. That is my actual view. My point is that Vinzent has proved that, among the "others" of the point (e), Mark figures in primis. I.e. Mark is affected soundly by anti-marcionism.

Or, following similar logic and applying it to the text of Mark:

(a) Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) Someone would have misinterpreted any parts of Mark that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(d) Because someone would have misinterpreted Mark as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

this view is less probable than the former, since the subset of Mark of the point (b) is enough extended that it may even point to an original proto-Mark that was anti-messianic in the more anti-demiurgist sense one may use the term.

And, of course, and in any case:

Mark is an incredibly anemic text in terms of the refutation of anti-messianic views. It seems impossible that it was developed for this purpose, which also means that all the speculative interpretations according to which it was developed for this purpose are wrong. This of course also means: because this interpretation of Mark's purpose is wrong, those interpretations are wrong, and all of those directional arguments have false premises.

not so anemic when one reads the Parable of Vineyard in Mark, where the author appears blatantly to break all the possible anti-messianic readings by totally ignoring any attention for the crypticism and secrecy thst we call (wrongly?) "markan".

[Peter Kirby]

And, of course, and in any case:

Mark is an incredibly anemic text in terms of the refutation of anti-messianic views. It seems impossible that it was developed for this purpose, which also means that all the speculative interpretations according to which it was developed for this purpose are wrong. This of course also means: because this interpretation of Mark's purpose is wrong, those interpretations are wrong, and all of those directional arguments have false premises.

not so anemic when one reads the Parable of Vineyard in Mark, where the author appears blatantly to break all the possible anti-messianic readings by totally ignoring any attention for the crypticism and secrecy thst we call (wrongly?) "markan".

Thank you for proving my point.

[Peter Kirby]

Or, following similar logic and applying it to the text of Mark:

(a) Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) Someone would have misinterpreted any parts of Mark that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(d) Because someone would have misinterpreted Mark as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

the subset of Mark of the point (b) is enough extended that it may even point to an original proto-Mark that was anti-messianic in the more anti-demiurgist sense one may use the term.

So you're saying that there was a proto-Mark between *Ev and Mark, which was more anti-demiurgist and/or anti-messianic than both? (If not, what are you saying?)

[Giuseppe]

Or, following similar logic and applying it to the text of Mark:

(a) Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) Someone would have misinterpreted any parts of Mark that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(d) Because someone would have misinterpreted Mark as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

the subset of Mark of the point (b) is enough extended that it may even point to an original proto-Mark that was anti-messianic in the more anti-demiurgist sense one may use the term.

So you're saying that there was a proto-Mark between *Ev and Mark, which was more anti-demiurgist and/or anti-messianic than both? (If not, what are you saying?)

no, I introduce proto-Mark only to save the Markan priority under the recognition that only the anti-messianic parts of Mark (aa signalled in the OP) are found in a such proto-Mark.

Under the *Ev priority, the anti-messianic part of Mark is inherited in Mark from *Ev where it is not really anti-messianic, but misinterpreted by Marcion as being anti-messianic. Mark is anti-messianic but in a different sense from how *Ev is anti-messianic. *Ev is anti-messianic in an innocent way: it was Marcion who read *Ev anti-messianically. Mark is anti-messianic in a not-innocent i.e. tendentious way: because "Mark" was fully aware that Marcion was using *Ev as an anti-messianic gospel.