Mark Wrote for Highly Educated People

[Paul the Uncertain]

Ulan

I'm unsure that "sophistication" in the estimation of modern New Testament scholars is the be-all and end-all of good writing. I suspect that some part of their disappointment is in the area of theology. As it happens, I don't look to Mark for advice on that subject, which could help explain why I am less disappointed than they are.

Secret Alias

But we have two sources that say his purpose was 'mystical.'

I don't reckon either source ever met the guy. If not, then 'mystical' is their take on the piece. That's nice to know, but it doesn't make it so.

The irony of specifically Jewish commentators (myself and Joe) who despite not 'believing' per se in the message of Mark, necessarily being 'drawn in' because of its literary structure.

I'm an Irish agnostic myself, and I love the thing.

Again who would begin a story of a man without at least providing some background on the man.

A dramatist. Anybody with an interest in and aptitude for writing who's seen a stage play and wishes to achieve similar effects.

Open with something happening. Works on stage and works on the page.

Could someone 'hearing' the gospel take note of the chiasms?

Probably not, chiasm is a bluntly visual figure of speech. The listening audience would more likely experience the structure as a frequent sense that what they're hearing now is related to something they heard a while ago.

It was meant to be read.

Which at the time would mean read aloud. Possibly by an employee if privately read; if publicly read, then it'd mostly be heard.

Most note Mark's chiastic structure wouldn't have been noticed by hearers:

The experiment is easy enough to do. Alec McCowen's solo performance of the KJV Mark is on YouTube (it's a playlist; it runs about 100 minutes, including the brief audience orienation and warm-up)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... _391EcZicM

Now, nobody is likely to report "I think I hear something that reminds me of the letter X." Lol. What you might experience is the coherence of the structure, the balance about the pivot of the transfiguration (even though McCowen takes his intermission right before then - the performer's choices matter a great deal to what precisely the audience experiences).

Just because hearing doesn't somehow summon up a mental picture of a right-angle-bracket doesn't mean that there is no aesthetic effect on the listener, such as an impression of chosen orderliness. It isn't surprising that many people would be hard pressed to articulate the finer particulars of that orderliness, regardless of whether they read the work or listen to it read or performed.

If they watch it performed, there is ample opportunity for visual aspects of performance to reinforce structure. Not just chiastic stuff, but also variable-interval threading, like coin business and cup business, for instance.

[Secret Alias]

I don't reckon either source ever met the guy. If not, then 'mystical' is their take on the piece. That's nice to know, but it doesn't make it so.

I think most informed people have noted that there are two interpretations of Clement's τὸ μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον. Smith's 'secret gospel' and Brown's 'mystic gospel.' I actually noticed the other day that there is a third possibility - a nuance of Smith's understanding. It could be the 'the private gospel' of Mark. What I mean by that it isn't necessarily a 'secret' that was being kept about the gospel. It might have been that the text wasn't read aloud. Not necessarily a secret but something that was read silently and pondered, the way Plato would be read.

Kok hints at this meaning when he describes the letter to Theodore as a text "discovered by Morton Smith in 1958, documents the existence of an esoteric edition of Mark that privately circulated among advanced readers in Alexandria." My question would be how is 'private' to be understood? Here is someone trying to argue that the gospel of Mark was read aloud like any other work - https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSidB ... ce&f=false. But was it? Does that really make sense?

[Secret Alias]

Consider also

The mystikos (Greek: μυστικός, "the secret one") was an important Byzantine office of the imperial chancery from the 9th through to the 15th centuries. Its initial role is unclear; he was probably the Byzantine emperor's private secretary. In time, the office also exercised judicial duties. It became an important fiscal official in the Komnenian period, and remained one of the highest-ranking state offices into the Palaiologan period as well.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystikos

The sense here is 'something that outsiders can't hear'

[Blood]

I'd say that Mark wrote not for highly educated people per se, but for people steeped in the Septuagint, which required a serious education in order to read and understand. The trick was how to create a text that reads as if it were as ancient and authoritative as the Septuagint, but was actually written last week? Will people believe it since it isn't old? I presume that Mark himself engaged in the basic deception of pretending that the text was authorless and therefore had real authority. It "sounded" like the Septuagint and that was good enough for most people. Only a few intimates knew that Mark had dreamed up the whole thing.

[Paul the Uncertain]

The sense here is 'something that outsiders can't hear'

Or they can hear it, but not understand what they've heard without a direct, face-to-face explanation.

Maybe a way forward is to modify the hypothesis a bit. Perhaps it is not so much that Mark wrote for educated people, but that Mark himself was somewhat educated or well-read and wrote for a diverse audience including but not exclusively the educated?

If so, then it's not unusual to get from a work what you bring to it. The better educated, or those more inclined to meditate upon a text, might have had a richer experience, within the scope of Mark's intentions, than others could.

Mark wasn't, and wasn't writing for, a fastidious scholar. He's hardly begun when he attributes to Isaiah what is actually a mash-up of Isaiah and Malachi. Shortly afterward, he leaves us in the dark about who saw the sky open at the baptism, John or Jesus? Later on, it's a betting proposition whether Simon of Cyrene ended up on the cross. Mark's geography is a shambles. Herod Antipas wasn't a king, and (assuming Josephus got it right), Mark confused which of Herod's brothers was Herodias' ex.

Jesus' explanation about why all food is clean is bluntly down-market (it all ends up in the latrine). The quality of Jesus' rhetoric is shaky overall. However quotable, it is simply false that a coin belongs to whoever's face appears on it. If Beelzebub were pulling shenanigans, then he might well sacrifice a few foot-soldier demons for the greater evil. It is also absurd that Jesus' debaters don't follow up ("Bottom line, Rabbi, you're saying we should all pay Roman taxes. Thank you for your candor.")

Manipulating the other characters' reaction to a charismatic character is a device to represent charisma without the writer needing to be charismatic (that is, without crafting a genuinely disarming reply to a charge of witchcraft, or a true politician's answer to "should we pay these unfair taxes?" - just have the focal character blow a little superficially witty smoke, and then write the crowd to have been "amazed" and the opponent speechless).

Mark uses the device effectively, but it is a device. The more educated audience member (somebody who's studied rhetoric, for example) would likely see through it (be able to rebut Jesus' rhetoric). The overall presentation may still be effective even for that educated audience member (who might accept the representation of charisma for what it is, an indication but not an example of divine wit), but it's hard for me to infer a special concern for favorable reaction among the educated.

[Secret Alias]

But was Mark intended to be read aloud? That's my modified question. People say "it must have been" because they assume there is nothing distinctive about the writing style. I think there are distinctive elements. My next question I suppose would be determining whether Plato was read aloud.

[Secret Alias]

When were books or what types or genres of books first intended to be read privately or "in your head."

[Secret Alias]

Perhaps it is not so much that Mark wrote for educated people, but that Mark himself was somewhat educated or well-read and wrote for a diverse audience including but not exclusively the educated?

Again I think the question really is - when was the start of books being written to be read 'privately' or in your head? A clue might be Matthew 6:6 where it is commanded to pray (viz. προσεύχομαι) in secret. Why is it that we treat the Christian attitudes toward books and reading out loud as 'typical' of the age when they recitation of pray was different?

Clementine Homilies "Pray in secret, and your Father, who sees secret things, will reward you."

[Paul the Uncertain]

Secret Alias

When were books or what types or genres of books first intended to be read privately or "in your head."

Here's an essay with some seriousness discussing what was ordinary and usual,

https://web.stanford.edu/class/history3 ... aders.html

Why is it that we treat the Christian attitudes toward books and reading out loud as 'typical' of the age when they recitation of pray was different?

Unless early Christian prayers were read from books, I am not seeing the dots you're connecting here. Also, I don't find silence (with or without reading) in Matthew 6:5-8, nor is its advocacy of brevity in prayer immediately suggestive of how someone should approach a work of 11,000 words (the length of Mark, give or take).

I suppose brevity is relative, but competent solo performances of Mark range from 100 minutes (an elite professional like McCowen) to almost 150 minutes (a leisurely reading-aloud pace). As I recall, Matthew's Jesus gives an example prayer. It runs about 70 words. I'll bet some Christians could do that from memory .

[Secret Alias]

Well I guess it depends on how you interpret the concept here. Gill cites what he sees as a similar concept in the Zohar:

This is agreeable to what the Jews sometimes say, "that a man ought not to cause his voice to be heard in prayer; but should pray "silently", with a voice that is not heard; and this is the prayer which is daily accepted (Zohar in Gen. fol. 114. 4).

I don't see how else this could be interpreted.