Went to Oracle at Delphi, it was Clothed.Mark use of Clothes

[JoeWallack]

Went to the Oracle at Delphi Once. It was Clothed. GMark's use of Clothes.


JW:
The subject of this Thread, the Markan use of clothing, fits in my other Award winning Thread here:

Is "Mark" a Simple Fish Story or Smooth Sualvific and Deboanerges? An Inventory of Markan Literary Technique.

but the subject of clothing in GMark is so pervasive that I think it deserves a dedicated Thread. A detailed article on the subject can be found here:

UNDRESSING JESUS IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK: A NARRATIVE-CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CLOTHING OF THE CHARACTER OF JESUS
Calogero A. Miceli

For starters, let's begin to break down the attire of GMark's successful Christ/Son of God candidate:

Verse	Word	Literal	Context	Theme	Spiritual	Commentary
9:3 and his garments became glistering, exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them.	3022 [e] leuka λευκὰ white Adj-NNP	Jesus' clothes became extremely white	Heaven announces high up to Jesus' main disciples that Jesus' has heavenly authority	The entire Gospel consists of evidence being presented to Jesus' disciples regarding who/what he is. Here the evidence is directly from Heaven	The "evidence" from Heaven is revelation and not historical witness (per the narrative the supposed historical witnesses to this do not tell anyone about it). The extremely white clothing is a spiritual marker that identifies the revealed nature of Jesus = son of God (This is my beloved Son).	First use of the offending word which is often used in a religious context
16:5 And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe; and they were amazed.	3022 [e] leukēn λευκήν, white, Adj-AFS	Female followers of Jesus witness a young man in the tomb who is wearing white	The young man proclaims the risen Jesus	The entire Gospel has a theme that none of Jesus' followers believed in his Passion mission. Here Jesus' male disciples don't even have enough faith/respect to even show up while some female followers receive potentially quality evidence for the Passion mission but don't believe it	Historical witness in GMark never follows spiritual authority	White traditionally represents purity/divine. These are the only two times "Mark" (author) uses the "white" description suggesting a connection in the narrative between Heaven revealing Jesus' proper identity in the first usage and a human witness accepting Jesus proper identity in the second usage. Nota Ben = GMark, as always, reveals its Separationist nature here (so to speak). It is "Jesus" that has been resurrected, not "the Christ".

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

The subject of this Thread, the Markan use of clothing, ...

the Gerasene	the Neaniskos
5:15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.	16:5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.

[JoeWallack]

JW:
For Ben:

Mark 11:7

[td]3588 [e][/td] [td]ton[/td] [td]τὸν[/td] [td]the[/td] [td]Art-AMS[/td] [td][td]2532 [e][/td] [td]kai[/td] [td]καὶ[/td] [td]And[/td] [td]Conj[/td][/td]

Strong's	Transliteration	Greek	English	Morphology
2532 [e]	kai	καὶ	And	Conj
5342 [e]	pherousin	φέρουσιν	they led	V-PIA-3P
4454 [e]	pōlon	πῶλον	colt	N-AMS
4314 [e]	pros	πρὸς	to	Prep
3588 [e]	ton	τὸν	-	Art-AMS
2424 [e]	Iēsoun	Ἰησοῦν,	Jesus,	N-AMS
1911 [e]	epiballousin	ἐπιβάλλουσιν	they cast upon	V-PIA-3P
846 [e]	autō	αὐτῷ	it	PPro-DM3S
3588 [e]	ta	τὰ	the	Art-ANP
2440 [e]	himatia	ἱμάτια	cloaks	N-ANP
846 [e]	autōn	αὐτῶν,	of them,	PPro-GM3P
2532 [e]	kai	καὶ	and	Conj
2523 [e]	ekathisen	ἐκάθισεν	he sat	V-AIA-3S
1909 [e]	ep’	ἐπ’	on	Prep
846 [e]	auton	αὐτόν.	it;	PPro-AM3S

JW:
Question = the offending word here (in red) looks a little ambiguous to me from a literal grammatical meaning as to who/what exactly it refers to, Jesus or the colt. The word normally means "him" instead of "it" since it is a personal pronoun but it all depends on what it refers to. The context clearly supports the colt as being referred to = the colt is brought to Jesus, the two disciples put their clothes on the colt (which is strange by itself) and Jesus sits on the colt.

Without the context though, is the literal grammar clear as to who/what is being referred to?

Textual Criticism:

http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php

Shows no editing for the offending word but does show that the corrupt Byzantine text has changed the final personal pronoun from αὐτόν to αὐτῷ thereby making the personal pronouns agree exactly and clearly the final one refers to the colt since Jesus sits on a singular object.

So my specific question Ben is to what extent do you think the Byzantine here has reduced the ambiguity?

Bonus material for Solo = How important is the image of clothing transfer between the Believer and the crucified Christ to Paul?



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

[Ben C. Smith]

Question = the offending word here (in red) looks a little ambiguous to me from a literal grammatical meaning as to who/what exactly it refers to, Jesus or the colt.

Grammatically, yes, it is ambiguous. Both colt and Jesus are masculine and singular, so the masculine singular pronoun could grammatically refer back to either of them.

The word normally means "him" instead of "it" since it is a personal pronoun but it all depends on what it refers to.

Right. Every Greek noun has a gender, and even for inanimate objects that gender might be masculine or feminine (and sometimes for people it might even be neuter, though this is admittedly rare). The gender of the pronoun is supposed to match that of the antecedent.

The context clearly supports the colt as being referred to = the colt is brought to Jesus, the two disciples put their clothes on the colt (which is strange by itself) and Jesus sits on the colt.

I agree with this.

Without the context though, is the literal grammar clear as to who/what is being referred to?

No, the literal grammar is not clear. Without the context, there may even be, if anything, a slight presumption in favor of taking Jesus as the antecedent, since Jesus is the most recently mentioned noun. But, in practice, pronouns can certainly skip back to a previous noun, snobbish grammarians be hanged; context is what (usually) helps us keep it all straight.

I would add, too, that Mark is not exactly known for his elegant Greek prose.

Textual Criticism:

http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php

Shows no editing for the offending word but does show that the corrupt Byzantine text has changed the final personal pronoun from αὐτόν to αὐτῷ thereby making the personal pronouns agree exactly and clearly the final one refers to the colt since Jesus sits on a singular object.

The Byzantine is joined by Alexandrinus and Washingtonianus.

So my specific question Ben is to what extent do you think the Byzantine here has reduced the ambiguity?

I would not say that it is impossible that the change was made with a mind to reducing the ambiguity, but I suspect that it rather had something to do with the preposition ἐπί. Many (most?) Greek prepositions take objects in one case only (for example, ἐκ takes only the genitive, εἰς only the accusative). Some frequently occurring prepositions, however, take more than one case, and the meaning or exact shade of meaning for the preposition itself can vary depending on what case its object has taken. The preposition ἐπί is one of those that can take the genitive, the dative, or the accusative. You can see the range of meanings this preposition has with each of the three cases in LSJ. In general, the dative will give a more stationary sense, implying the final position of being seated on the colt, while the accusative will give a more directional sense, implying motion toward or over the colt (in the act of sitting down). So it may well be that, to the scribe, one of these cases simply sounded more fitting for the action than the other.

Mind you, I do not think the Byzantine is above resolving these kinds of ambiguities. I just am not sure that is what is going on in this case, though (again) I would not say it is impossible.

Ben.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Question = the offending word here (in red) looks a little ambiguous to me from a literal grammatical meaning as to who/what exactly it refers to, Jesus or the colt.

Grammatically, yes, it is ambiguous. Both colt and Jesus are masculine and singular, so the masculine singular pronoun could grammatically refer back to either of them.

Interesting. Thank you both

btw I would suspect that the "patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment", the rending of the veil and perhaps also the eye of the needle are parts of the "cloth(ing)-theme".

[Solo]

No, the literal grammar is not clear. Without the context, there may even be, if anything, a slight presumption in favor of taking Jesus as the antecedent, since Jesus is the most recently mentioned noun. But, in practice, pronouns can certainly skip back to a previous noun, snobbish grammarians be hanged; context is what (usually) helps us keep it all straight.

I would add, too, that Mark is not exactly known for his elegant Greek prose.

Ben.

Hi Ben,
it has been a long time since I had the pleasure. I remember having discussions with you on whether Mark was a simple-minded collector of Jesus traditions or a sophisticated dissembler writing cultic material which was not to be accessible outside of those unto whom 'it was given to know the mystery'.

From my vantage point, Mark was likely creating a deliberate double meaning, as he did with the 'ego eimi' in 6:50 (which does not deny the disembodied form of Christ walking upon the water - which must have been very funny to Mark's pneumatic friends), or the switching of references in 5:39-5:40, 15:20-22, or the hilarious play on 'soma-ptoma' in 15:43-45. Based on this and that something bothered Matthew about that Mark's donkey - and made him create another of those ridiculing doublets in the story - I would say the chances are good that putting clothes on Jesus to ride a donkey was another of Mark`s clever ways to bug Petrine 'psychics'.

Best,
Jiri

[Ben C. Smith]

Hi Ben,
it has been a long time since I had the pleasure. I remember having discussions with you on whether Mark was a simple-minded collector of Jesus traditions or a sophisticated dissembler writing cultic material which was not to be accessible outside of those unto whom 'it was given to know the mystery'.

Hi, Solo. It has indeed been a while.

I trust you recall enough from those discussions to realize that I tend to think of Mark as neither a simple-minded collector of Jesus traditions nor a sophisticated writer of cultic materials.

Ben.

[DCHindley]

I once posted my "apologetical" table of Greek prepositions and which cases you are most likely to find them in (I do see exceptions occasionally):

English transliteration	Basic	Genitive (of -)	Ablative (from -)	Dative (in -)	Locative (to -)	Instrumental (by -)	Accusative
ana	up						up, again
anti	against	against, instead of
apo	from		from, away from
dia	through	through	through, by				because of
eis	into				into, unto
ek	out of		out of
epi	upon	upon, on (in contact with)			upon, on, at, over (stress on position)		upon, on, to, up to (stress motion)
ev	into				in, on	by (stress means)
kata	down	down upon	down from				along, according to
meta	after	with	after
para	beside		from, away from		before, beside, by the side of		beside, beyond, along
peri	about	about, concerning	about, around
pro	before		before
pros	toward		from (point of view)				to, at, toward, with
sun	with					with
uper	over		in behalf of, instead of				over, above, beyong
upo	under		by (stress on agency)				under

While there are five cases indicated, there are only 3 Greek case forms (excepting the Vocative, with which prepositions are not used). All reference works will only distinguish nouns as Genitive (Genitive and Ablative in chart above), Dative (Dative, Locative & Instrumental above), and Accusative (Accusative in chart above). This chart was created at a time when NT Greek cases were getting hypothetically subdivided. Today, many do not recognize these subdivisions.

DCH [1/12/2021: edit to make the correction to "eis" as recommended by Ben]

[Adam]

Reminds me of Don What's-his-name's song "American Pie", "I drove my Chevy to the levee and the levee was dry", everything was closed. Oh, "CloTHed", sorry, carry on.

[Ben C. Smith]

I once posted my "apologetical" table of Greek prepositions and which cases you are most likely to find them in (I do see exceptions occasionally):

English transliteration	Basic	Genitive (of -)	Ablative (from -)	Dative (in -)	Locative (to -)	Instrumental (by -)	Accusative
ana	up						up, again
anti	against	against, instead of
apo	from		from, away from
dia	through	through	through, by				because of
eis	into		into, unto
ek	out of		out of
epi	upon	upon, on (in contact with)			upon, on, at, over (stress on position)		upon, on, to, up to (stress motion)
ev	into				in, on	by (stress means)
kata	down	down upon	down from				along, according to
meta	after	with	after
para	beside		from, away from		before, beside, by the side of		beside, beyond, along
peri	about	about, concerning	about, around
pro	before		before
pros	toward		from (point of view)				to, at, toward, with
sun	with					with
uper	over		in behalf of, instead of				over, above, beyong
upo	under		by (stress on agency)				under

While there are five cases indicated, there are only 3 Greek case forms (excepting the Vocative, with which prepositions are not used). All reference works will only distinguish nouns as Genitive (Genitive and Ablative in chart above), Dative (Dative, Locative & Instrumental above), and Accusative (Accusative in chart above). This chart was created at a time when NT Greek cases were getting hypothetically subdivided. Today, many do not recognize these subdivisions.

Good one, David.

Your definition of eis needs to go in the accusative column. (I have not verified the entire table; that one just stuck out for me.)

Even by the classical period the Greek language was no longer really distinguishing the ablative from the genitive or the locative and instrumental from the dative; old forms had been lost and consolidated. We went over all of those distinctions in my Greek classes in college, but my professors were clear about them belonging, if at all, to an earlier period of Greek. They retain their force for me only as different purposes to which the genitive and the dative may be put.

Ben.