Mark Wrote for Highly Educated People

[Secret Alias]

A similar idea is expressed in the Nag Hammadi Exegesis on the Soul:

So it is right to pray to the father and to call on him with our soul—not externally with our lips but with the spirit, which is inside and comes from the depths, sighing, repenting for the life we led, confessing sins, recognizing the deception we were in as shallow; perceiving the empty zeal; weeping over how we lived in darkness and in the wave; mourning for what we were so that he might pity us; hating ourselves for what we still are.

[Secret Alias]

I think 'secretly' meant 'privately' and ultimately silently. It seems I am not alone - https://books.google.com/books?id=T2xbD ... ly&f=false

[Secret Alias]

It seems to be a part of Valentinian gnosis at least too. DeConick notes:

[Tertullian] says that the Valentinian Gnostics configure themselves like Eleusinian worshippers, consecrated by a “profound silence.” The only thing celestial about them, he jokes, is their silence (1.3). Tertullian goes so far to say that the Gnostic God is one that imposes silence on his faithful (9.1). https://books.google.com/books?id=vr-lD ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Apparently Plato was meant to be read aloud as were most of the other philosophical treatises of antiquity:

https://books.google.com/books?id=O6J7X ... to&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Mohammad “spoke” the Qur'an. The Qur'an is not a book meant to be read silently.

[Secret Alias]

The first reference to reading silently I can find is in Augustine who acknowledged Ambrose's (late fourth century) ability to read silently while also admitting that he could not. But, and the full force of Augustine's sed must be registered, Ambrose read silently: sed cum legebat, oculi ducebantur per paginas et cor intellectum rimabatur, vox autem et lingua quiescebant “but when he read, his eyes followed the pages and his heart pondered the meaning, though his voice and tongue were still" (Confessions VI. 3; 1989, 1:272). Augustine is careful to specify that Ambrose would read silently to himself even when others were present and might have wanted to ask him questions.

"Indeed, Augustine suggests that Ambrose read silently either to seek privacy by concealing the content of his book or to rest his voice."

[outhouse]

. 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?

Its almost non sequitur bud

Daniel is some very important text for the origins of Christianity bringing in new Jewish practices, and that book did not have age to it.

Mark imho was created to save the traditions being shared at Passover before the temple fell. with the fall of the temple a new need was created for literature to proselytize. That and preserve what certain communities found valuable at Passovers and they decided to save them.

And on the flip side they were combatting against heretical Christology with this new text.

Yes authority building was the foundation part of the prose they wrote in, hence then plagiarizing OT text and traditions they valued.

[Secret Alias]

Apparently there are other examples of silent reading dating back to the 5th century BCE:

https://books.google.com/books?id=IClnh ... 22&f=false

[Peter Kirby]

The first reference to reading silently I can find is in Augustine who acknowledged Ambrose's (late fourth century) ability to read silently while also admitting that he could not.

Alexander the Great is said to have read letters silently (Plutarch, "On the Fortune of Alexander").

There's actually a scholarly topic of sorts on "silent reading in antiquity" - it's a real controversy regarding when and how much. The Augustine passage has been frequently touched on here, but there's other stuff.

https://www.google.com/search?q=silent+ ... +antiquity

Apparently there are other examples of silent reading dating back to the 5th century BCE:

https://books.google.com/books?id=IClnh ... 22&f=false

Okay yeah, and that.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Peter, Secret Alias

It is straightforward that most people who have the capacity to read aloud can also read silently (although, as is routinely seen in those first learning to read, some practice may be required before one can do so effortlessly - and without silently moving the lips, an intermediate performance between spoken reading and entirely internal reading).

However, if an ordinary and usual thing in Hellenistic culture for written works of thousands of words was to voice them, then we may infer that an author foresaw such use. That is especially salient for Mark, IMO, where a further question may be how many voices might be asked to perform, rather than whether there were any voices at all.

I am unpersuaded that prayer practices, some forms of which do not even involve words, much less scripted words, apply to reading a story which has been reduced to words written in phonetic notation.