Do the demons recognize Jesus in Mark?

[Giuseppe]

I am assuming here the Mark priority (because I know that my interpretation would change drastically - it would be even more simple! - if I assume the Mcn priority).

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the Holy One of God!”

(Mark 1:24)

In Paul, the demons don't recognize Jesus at his entering in their realm.

Apparently, in Mark the demons recognize Jesus. They recognize that they don't share nothing with Jesus.

In Paul the demons kill Jesus because they don't know his true identity, and yet they know at least one thing about him: he is not one of them, therefore he is worthy of death in their realm (otherwise, why to kill him?).

In Mark the demons don't kill Jesus but they recognize fully his true identity.

Summing:

in Paul:	in Mark:
demons don't recognize Jesus	demons recognize Jesus
demons kill Jesus	demons don't kill Jesus
demons recognize him as not a demon	pharisees recognize him as a demon.

Therefore Mark has a problem with the scribes and pharisees. Why do they play the role of the demons in Paul?

Some say that the reason is basically not found in Mark (by introducing a HJ or a previous heretical Gospel) but the more natural reason would be in Mark 3:22 :

Some teachers of the law were there. They had come down from Jerusalem. They said, “He is controlled by Beelzebul! He is driving out demons by the power of the prince of demons.”

In Mark Jesus is killed basically because he he has decided to appear not different from demons. So his fate is sealed from that moment on. To the question of the demons

“What do we have in common, Jesus of Nazareth? ...

Jesus answers impliciter with a ''yes, we share something in common''. Hence he opens himself to the possibility of being taken for a demon, too. And so it happens.

To that extent, there is determinism in Mark, about the death of Jesus.

Because Jesus gave up to keep the abyssal distance between him and the demons, then he allows in essentia to be mistaken for a demon, and being killed as a (possessed by) demon.

[Giuseppe]

Mark is using the same 'game rules' found in Paul:

for Paul, if demons had known Jesus, then they would not have crucified him and they would continue their unopposed domination on the world.

Mark is adding something new compared to Paul.

Mark is saying that even if the demons know Jesus and do not allow to kill him (in order to remain ''the archons of this aeon'') however Jesus is always able to deceive them making people believe of him being a demon, and so getting killed (and thus arriving to his original aim: to overthrow Satan's power on the world).

This would be the sense of Mark 3:22-30 :

Some teachers of the law were there. They had come down from Jerusalem. They said, “He is controlled by Beelzebul! He is driving out demons by the power of the prince of demons.”	Jesus allows to be taken for a demon.[/color]
So Jesus called them over to him. He began to speak to them using stories. He said, “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom fights against itself, it can’t stand. If a family is divided, it can’t stand.And if Satan fights against himself, and his helpers are divided, he can’t stand. That is the end of him.	Jesus is not really a demon because otherwise Satan cannot kill him (and realize so the divine plan).
In fact, none of you can enter a strong man’s house unless you tie him up first. Then you can steal things from his house.	Therefore, Jesus has to find even so a way, an expedient, to be killed and so to overthrow Satan). At that point, the reader knows already that expedient: Jesus has already allowed scribes and pharisees to take him for a demon in verse 22.
What I’m about to tell you is true. Everyone’s sins and evil words against God will be forgiven. But whoever speaks evil things against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. Their guilt will last forever.” Jesus said this because the teachers of the law were saying, “He has an evil spirit.	Jesus is forgiving precisely his apparent enemies (the scribes and pharisees) because they are doing his plan without knowing it. They are not blaspheming the holy spirit when they accuse Jesus of being a demon, because they are sincere in believing that because Jesus himself allowed to appear similar to the demons in verse 1:24. After all, that is his plane!

[Giuseppe]

At this point, I am just curious to answer the next question: who would be the Holy Spirit in Mark?

Have the reader some idea, please?

Thanks in advance,
Giuseppe.

[GakuseiDon]

I am assuming here the Mark priority (because I know that my interpretation would change drastically - it would be even more simple! - if I assume the Mcn priority).

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the Holy One of God!”

(Mark 1:24)

In Paul, the demons don't recognize Jesus at his entering in their realm.

Apparently, in Mark the demons recognize Jesus. They recognize that they don't share nothing with Jesus.

In Paul the demons kill Jesus because they don't know his true identity, and yet they know at least one thing about him: he is not one of them, therefore he is worthy of death in their realm (otherwise, why to kill him?).

In Mark the demons don't kill Jesus but they recognize fully his true identity.

Not sure what you mean by "fully" here. In Mark, Jesus is the adopted Son of God. He has a mother, brother and sisters, thus a human origin. So the demons are recognizing Jesus as presumably a human who is the adopted Son of God.

Also, that Paul has the demons killing Jesus is not established in the text. Personally I think that Paul is working from Psalm 2 to claim that the kings and rulers of the earth got together against God and the Messiah ("Ps 2.2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed"). If you want to work with the assumption that Paul believed that demons killed Christ, that's fine; but it should be acknowledged as an assumption.

[Giuseppe]

I think rather that you should acknowledge as an assumption that ''Paul is working from Psalm 2 etc'' since I can equally assume that Paul is assuming the original version of AoI. (ignoring the fact that Pilate is not a ''king of the earth'', and the fact that according to some old tradition, the same ''kings of the earth'' were meant as demons).

I think it's evident that, according to Paul, the demons ''crucified'' Jesus (1 Cor 2:6-8).

Paul means clearly the act himself of crucifixion as an action made by demons. You are free to mean it as a mere assumption, but for me it is already evidence.

Not sure what you mean by "fully" here. In Mark, Jesus is the adopted Son of God.

By ''fully'' here I mean that the demons know the existence of a divine being named 'Jesus' already existing secretly in heaven. 'Nazarene' implies, for them (and via midrash for the readers), that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.
You are right that in Mark Jesus is an adopted Son, a mere human vessel of the pre-existing Christ. He is meant equally as a mere human vessel of Belzebul in Mark 3:22. When I write: the pharisees think that Jesus is a demon, I should write more correctly ''is possessed by demon''. But are not the ''possessed by Demon'' better called as ''adopted Demon'' ?

[GakuseiDon]

I think rather that you should acknowledge as an assumption that ''Paul is working from Psalm 2 etc'' since I can equally assume that Paul is assuming the original version of AoI. (ignoring the fact that Pilate is not a ''king of the earth'', and the fact that according to some old tradition, the same ''kings of the earth'' were meant as demons).

I think it's evident that, according to Paul, the demons ''crucified'' Jesus (1 Cor 2:6-8).

Paul means clearly the act himself of crucifixion as an action made by demons. You are free to mean it as a mere assumption, but for me it is already evidence.

Fair enough.

By ''fully'' here I mean that the demons know the existence of a divine being named 'Jesus' already existing secretly in heaven. 'Nazarene' implies, for them (and via midrash for the readers), that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.
You are right that in Mark Jesus is an adopted Son, a mere human vessel of the pre-existing Christ. He is meant equally as a mere human vessel of Belzebul in Mark 3:22. When I write: the pharisees think that Jesus is a demon, I should write more correctly ''is possessed by demon''. But are not the ''possessed by Demon'' better called as ''adopted Demon'' ?

No, not at all. "Possessed by a demon" is a common expression. No-one ever uses "adopted demon" AFAIK.

[iskander]

At this point, I am just curious to answer the next question: who would be the Holy Spirit in Mark?

Have the reader some idea, please?

Thanks in advance,
Giuseppe.

Giuseppe,
Mark is telling the story of a man who lived in a society very different from ours.
Apparently Palestine in those olden days was full of exorcists practising their medicinal art in a variety of ways, The healing career of Jesus is only one example of the variety of ailments that were encountered by the healers and of the variety of remedies in the bag of those healers.

The film , Dybbuk from one hour 37 minutes shows a ceremony to exorcise one such possession, performed by a Rabbinical Court on a young woman.

http://www.jewishfilm.org/Catalogue/films/dybbuk.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eaz_JEHqXM

Paul is only one commentator and he is of no importance in the story of Mark.

[Giuseppe]

No, not at all. "Possessed by a demon" is a common expression. No-one ever uses "adopted demon" AFAIK.

To be possessed by a demon is equivalent to be son (biological or adopted or spiritual) of Satan. For example:

John 8:44 :

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.

Clearly the implication is that the Jews are possessed by Satan, ''therefore'' they have Satan as their father.
So, if the human Jesus is possessed by the holy spirit, ''then'' he is the Son of God, the Christ.

So prof Stevan Davies :

The question that repeatedly arises in Mark's gospel in not whether Jesus was possessed but by whom is Jesus possessed and so, what is Jesus' identity.
...
Immediately Jesus responds, ''How can Satan cast out Satan?'' (3:23) and so concedes that while he exorcises thourgh a possessing entity, it is not Satan.

(Spirit Possession and the Origins of Christianity, p. 130)


Prof Davies continues:

Mark, then, provides two quite different and unacceptable kinds of answers to the question of by what was Jesus possessed: it is not the case that Jesus having received the spirit from John (Elijah) should be identified with John (Elijah) and it is not the case that Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul, Satan, or any other unclean spirit. Rather, it is the case that Jesus was possessed by the Holy Spirit: to deny this and offer instead the demon-possession hypothesis is an unforgiveable sin.

(p.131)
I disagree with prof Davies in the last his proposition (in my bold). I think that Jesus is saying that the pharisees of 3:22 are forgiven (and not condemned) when they offer the demon-possession hypothesis, because they are moved to that hypothesis by Jesus himself, since he allows implicitly that possibility in

“What have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the Holy One of God!”

(Mark 1:24).

There the demons wonder whether Jesus means to be confused deliberately with one of them. Therefore they do that question:

What have we to do with thee?

In short, ''to have to do with demons'' means deliberately to offer the plausibility of the demon-possession hypothesis.

Jesus is deliberately offering the people a reason to kill himself as ''possessed by Satan''.

The true enemies ''against the Holy Spirit'' (3:28-30), therefore, are not the pharisees (even if they suspect that Jesus is a demon-possessed) but the same demons, because they know who is really Jesus and yet continue to be his enemies.

[Garon]

How does Near and Middle Eastern culture address illnesses thousands of years ago?

1. God is doing everything and humankind is a puppet.
2. God and Satan (Job 2: 1-10) are doing everything and humankind is a puppet.

3. Today, The Political and Religious Class are doing everything and humankind are Puppets.

[Giuseppe]

Demons in Mark	Scribes and Pharisees in Mark
see a mere son of man.	see a mere son of man.
know that he is possessed by the cosmic Jesus Christ of Paul.	suspect that he is possessed by Beelzebul.
blaspheme the cosmic Christ Jesus of Paul.	blaspheme the mere son of man.
don't want and cannot kill Jesus Christ.	crucify the mere son of man.
will see the Lord of the Glory.	will see the Son of Man coming at right of God.
and will go to Hell.	and the old Israel will be punished by Rome.