Mk 9:49 Proof that Canonical Mark is Not the Ur-Text

[Stuart]

But the bigger point is - people who are praying over canonical Mark hoping answers come are wasting their time. It's not the ur-text.

Typical of you, you make a correct statement about Mark not being the ür-Gospel, and yet display a unique bias of your own. (FYI the umlat, when dropped should be replaced by an "e" after the vowel with the umlat, and pronounce ir very similar to the Chinese 3rd tone)

I think we identified here the heart of your problem here. You are looking for a "true" confessional, hidden among the debris of mistranslated lost texts in another language - for you a holy language. A true myth, which you are sure is just beyond your grasp, to replace the accepted false myth. The zealousness is impressive, but clearly blinds you. You hit correct insights here and there, then to to force it in your new myth and go off into the weeds.

Interesting that the salt passage was chosen to be the one that showed Mark not original. I separately thought the same using textual criticism techniques comparing the three versions. This is not decisive, as all three Canonical Synoptic Gospels and even Marcion's text as best I reconstructed, betray secondary features and original likely preserved original texts in various spots (often different places).

For me the obviousness that Mark is not the original text is most pronounced in Mark 8:14-19, as it a post conflation of two source stories about the feeding stories. Clearly the bread loaves stories of four and five thousand are different versions of the same stories. We could say fine, Mark conflated ür-Gospels, but I think not, for we find the same summary in Matthew 16:5-12. Each has peculiar word variations in the summary of this section and the stories themselves. This leads me to believe the common source of Matthew and Mark was the same, but each worked from a different local text.

Consider this concurring agreement. You hit on something correct about Mark. But the rest of what you say I don't agree much with.

[Secret Alias]

"Hitting the correct insights" is subjective and would imply that you are always right and I am right only when I agree with you. Every participant at this forum thinks pretty much that way. Can't all be true. Sorry busy day will come back to this Monday or so

[Adam]

For me the obviousness that Mark is not the original text is most pronounced in Mark 8:14-19, as it a post conflation of two source stories about the feeding stories. Clearly the bread loaves stories of four and five thousand are different versions of the same stories. We could say fine, Mark conflated ür-Gospels, but I think not, for we find the same summary in Matthew 16:5-12. Each has peculiar word variations in the summary of this section and the stories themselves.

This leads me to believe the common source of Matthew and Mark was the same, but each worked from a different local text. [By Adam] YES YES YES!

Consider this concurring agreement. You hit on something correct about Mark. But the rest of what you say I don't agree much with.

[Tenorikuma]

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.

[Solo]

These meaningless terms. The point still stands. A Hebrew text underlies the Greek edition of Mark. Unless of course you have a better explanation for what 'salting with fire' means or how it got there ...

Mark 9:49 seems inspired by Paul's 1 Co 3:13: "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire (ὅτι ἐν πυρὶ ἀποκαλύπτεται); and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. Interestingly, in the very next verse, Mark repeats Paul's exhortation from 1 Thessalonians:

Mk 9:50 … be at peace with one another (εἰρηνεύετε ἐν ἀλλήλοις).
1 Th 5:13 ….be at peace among yourselves (εἰρηνεύετε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς).

Best,
Jiri

[Secret Alias]

You and I agree about Paul's "use" (for lack of a better word) of the gospel. I would argue it goes back to the original Marcionite paradigm that the same man wrote the "Gospel" and the "Apostle." The question is why the relationship isn't stronger. My answer is that - again following the Marcionite paradigm - the canonical gospels are deliberate attempts to subvert the Pauline foundation of the Gospel. The problem is that when we continue to go deeper into this darkness it is hard to tell if everything we think we see is really there.

[Bernard Muller]

What strikes me in Mk 9:49 is that every one will be salted with fire. Every one would include the Christian elects. If we assume the phrase came from the Hebrew (or Aramaic), with "salted" meaning "destroyed", then we would have also the Christian elects being destroyed, which does not make any sense.
The next verse is:
Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
Salt is good, so being salted is good also (as long as salt does not lose his saltness ). Then Jesus allegedly exhorts to have salt in oneself. So being salted is not a bad thing leading to destruction, confirming my observation for Mk 9:49.

I still do not know what "Mark" meant in 9:49 by "salted", but it does not look the word meant originally "destroyed".

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

Mark 9:49 seems inspired by Paul's 1 Co 3:13: "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire (ὅτι ἐν πυρὶ ἀποκαλύπτεται); and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. Interestingly, in the very next verse, Mark repeats Paul's exhortation from 1 Thessalonians:
Mk 9:50 … be at peace with one another (εἰρηνεύετε ἐν ἀλλήλοις).
1 Th 5:13 ….be at peace among yourselves (εἰρηνεύετε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς).

Solo might be right. That would explain somewhat "with fire" in Mk 9:49.

Cordially, Bernard

[Diogenes the Cynic]

The article does not actually offer any attestation for "salted with fire" being a Hebrew idiom, it just hypothesizes it. I would need to see an actual example of that specific phrase being used in Hebrew (or Aramaic). This is an appeal to a purely conjectural idiom.

[Secret Alias]

You misunderstood the argument Diogenes. At an airport but in Hebrew and Aramaic the word for salt really goes back to a root meaning to be in powdered form (remember Carlson) or destroyed. There's no way around this one.