Is the baptism (but not John) interpolated in Mark?

[Giuseppe]

Well, I just disagree with that. It would have been just as easy to add a small birth narrative emphasizing Jesus' divine nature; no need even to make it as elaborate as the infancy narratives we find in Matthew and Luke; something as scattered as what we find in the longer ending of Mark would suffice. It makes no sense to avoid one error by introducing another. Catholics knew how to avoid both Charybdis and Scylla; but to pen the baptism scene in Mark as it stands is to steer the ship directly into harm's way.

I understand your point. But the alternative, for me, would be to accept, docet Rylands, a Baptism Episode without the minimal trace of an apology to cover the possible embarrassment of such baptism by John. Which is a non-sense. Unless the readers were not already immunized from a possible embarrassment, being already aware of its relative apologies in both Luke and Matthew. What I can not get rid of is the belief that the baptism by John the Baptist is a Catholic expedient to ''judaize'' in an anti-docetic sense Jesus.

Without the baptism narrative in Mark, the reader does not know how or why this person came to have such powers. There is no discussion of a virgin birth, of pre-existence as God, or of an adoption.

This resembles the ''strange'' God of Marcion, indeed! Thanks for that!

[Secret Alias]

To Ben,

But (a) if Jesus was baptized at the start of the narrative and (b) the text is an adoptionist narrative where Christ = the Father

1. why does Jesus speak speak of the Father as someone else in Mark 10:18?
2. why is the Father still in heaven (cf. the Sinai narrative parallel) announcing Jesus as his Son in the Transfiguration narrative?

The adoptionist baptism necessarily supposes that Christ = the Father. All our sources about adoptionism, monarchianism, Patripassianism point to the same conclusion. Somethings not quite right in Mark.

[Secret Alias]

Also why isn't Jesus called 'Christ' more often in the narrative if indeed he is adopted as Christ at the very start of the narrative?

[Secret Alias]

And what's the point of the adopting 'Christ' at the beginning of the narrative only to have him escape before the crucifixion? To me that doesn't make any sense as a narrative. You haven't even given Jesus a minute to breathe as a separate entity. He is suddenly introduced in Mark and then just as suddenly he is one with Christ/the Father and then - when he walks around the earth it is presumably Christ talking, Jesus is the background. And then, just went you almost forget that Jesus is even there, it's time to die. So Christ leaves Jesus at the crucifixion and Jesus is left screaming out something. Who was Jesus? What do we even know about him if Christ is doing all the talking? It can't be the original narrative. At least the birth narratives introduces us to something or someone called 'Jesus.' In the adoptionist gospel - if so arranged with an immediate baptism - Jesus is absolutely non-existent. We know nothing about him. Why even resurrect him when he never lived to begin with?

[Secret Alias]

In an an adoptionist gospel narrative there only two things that Jesus actually does

1. he walks toward John the Baptist
2. he dies.

Everything else is 'Christ.'

This gives new meaning to a 'minimal Jesus'

[Secret Alias]

And then there's the messianic secret business. In the traditional understanding there is this historical person named 'Jesus' who is walking around on the earth and only we 'the audience' know that he's the messiah while everyone else he encounters in the narrative sees only the man. That's a clever literary construct - basically resembling the bit in children's puppet shows where one puppet turns to the audience and tells them something which only they know while the other puppets are 'outside the loop.' But does such a literary construct work in a narrative like the adoptionist gospel where we never get to know Jesus before his transformation?

I guess this is a literary question. Even Superman or Spiderman comics let us 'get to know' Clark Kent and Peter Parker. Horror movies introduce us to victims of the killer for a few minutes so that we feel something when they die. I guess there is the example of the red shirted victims on Star Trek who are beamed down to the planet only to die. But I guess I am wondering how we are supposed to empathize with 'the human half' of Jesus if we aren't introduced to him? If it's all Christ in the gospel, isn't it a meaningless sacrifice at the end? More akin to:



Is such a crucifixion tragic?

[Ben C. Smith]

Well, I just disagree with that. It would have been just as easy to add a small birth narrative emphasizing Jesus' divine nature; no need even to make it as elaborate as the infancy narratives we find in Matthew and Luke; something as scattered as what we find in the longer ending of Mark would suffice. It makes no sense to avoid one error by introducing another. Catholics knew how to avoid both Charybdis and Scylla; but to pen the baptism scene in Mark as it stands is to steer the ship directly into harm's way.

I understand your point. But the alternative, for me, would be to accept, docet Rylands, a Baptism Episode without the minimal trace of an apology to cover the possible embarrassment of such baptism by John.

We agree, then, that the extant text of Mark shows no embarrassment about Jesus' baptism, right? No need for any apology if there is no embarrassment. But, on my view, this unembarrassed narrative was penned by an adoptionist, precisely the sort of person who would not be embarrassed by such a baptism; the baptism, far from being a source of confusion, is the very moment at which the adoption took place. No problem. On your view, however, this unembarrassed narrative was penned by a Catholic. Where I have an essentially adoptionist narrative being penned by an adoptionist, you have an essentially adoptionist narrative being penned by a nonadoptionist.

[Ben C. Smith]

Also why isn't Jesus called 'Christ' more often in the narrative if indeed he is adopted as Christ at the very start of the narrative?

Because of the messianic secret. Whatever motive you may consider for this motif appearing in Mark, it does in fact appear there, and it is in fact the answer to the question.

[Ben C. Smith]

To Ben,

But (a) if Jesus was baptized at the start of the narrative and (b) the text is an adoptionist narrative where Christ = the Father

1. why does Jesus speak speak of the Father as someone else in Mark 10:18?

Because Mark clearly distinguishes between Christ and the Father. Mark does not have to fall in line with certain later strands of adoptionistic or patripassianistic thought.

2. why is the Father still in heaven (cf. the Sinai narrative parallel) announcing Jesus as his Son in the Transfiguration narrative?

Same answer. The Father is still in heaven (even at the baptism, after the entrance of the spirit into Jesus).

The adoptionist baptism necessarily supposes that Christ = the Father. All our sources about adoptionism, monarchianism, Patripassianism point to the same conclusion. Somethings not quite right in Mark.

Mark's adoptionist logic requires the Father and Christ to be separate entities.

[Secret Alias]

Because Mark clearly distinguishes between Christ and the Father. Mark does not have to fall in line with certain later strands of adoptionistic or patripassianistic thought.

Where is that clearly defined? So what gospel was later adoptionist and patripassianistic thought developed from if not THE adoptionist gospel of Mark? Just curious what your thoughts are on this.