Hi again, Stefan. Here is our full Marcan passage again:
Mark 9.33-50:
33 And they came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, "What were you discussing on the way?" 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. 35 And sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, "If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all." 36 And taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 37 "Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me."
38 John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to hinder him because he was not following us." 39 But Jesus said, "Do not hinder him, for there is no one who shall perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. 40 For he who is not against us is for us. 41 For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward."
42 "And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea."
43 "And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, 44 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than having your two feet, to be cast into hell, 46 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into hell, 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." 49 For everyone will be salted with fire."
50 "Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."
Let us trace how this material fares in the other synoptic gospels. First Matthew:
Matthew 18.1-5:
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea."
7 "Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!"
8 "And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into the fiery hell. 10 See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven. 11 [For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.]"
Matthew 5.13-16: 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 13 You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
Matthew 5.27-30: 27 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery,' 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell."
Matthew 10.37-42: 37 "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it. 40 He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. 41 He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. 42 And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you he shall not lose his reward."
Matthew 12.30: 30 He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
Matthew has done some shuffling and duplicating, as the color coding will indicate. Everything parallel to our Marcan passage is marked with a highlighter, but I have colored the text of some stuff not found in Mark which will find further parallels as we go on.
Now Luke:
Luke 9.46-50:
46 An argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest. 47 But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took a child and stood him by His side, 48 and said to them, "Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great."
49 And John answered and said, "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name; and we tried to hinder him because he does not follow along with us." 50 But Jesus said to him, "Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you."
Luke 10.13-16: 13 "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades! 16 The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me."
Luke 11.23: 23 He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
Luke 14.25-35: 25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. 34 Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? 35 It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Luke 17.1-2: 1 He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble."
Luke 22.24-27: 24 And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest. 25 And He said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. 27 For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves."
Luke, too, has done some shuffling and duplicating.
Notice how both Matthew and Luke have moved (assuming Marcan priority and a purely literary relationship) some Marcan sayings into completely different contexts. Sometimes the move seems a bit weak to me (such as Luke moving the salt saying to 14.34), but at other times the move is very strong (such as Matthew moving the salt saying to the Sermon on the Mount and paralleling it with the saying about light: pretty brilliant, pun intended; there is a reason the Sermon on the Mount has been so widely admired for nearly two millennia).
Matthew and Luke are not the only ones who duplicate material; they do it more often than Mark, but Mark does it too, and 9.33-37 is not the only time a child finds his or her way onto Jesus' lap:
Mark 10.13-16: 13 And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, "Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." 16 And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.
Matthew 19.13-15: 13 Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." 15 After laying His hands on them, He departed from there.
Luke 18.15-17: 15 And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. 16 But Jesus called for them, saying, "Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17 Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all."
Notice that Matthew lacks the bit about becoming like a child here, but he already has it elsewhere, in 18.3, in a section which parallels the first part of our original Marcan passage.
Some of those new contexts into which Matthew and Luke have placed Marcan sayings (again, assuming Marcan priority and a purely literary relationship) actually contain sayings which draw out further parallels in other parts of the three synoptic gospels. For example, both Matthew and Luke above have something about family relationships and carrying the cross, thus roping in the following passages:
Mark 8.34-9:1: 8.34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." 9.1 And Jesus was saying to them, "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power."
Matthew 16.24-28: 24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds. 28 Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom."
Luke 9.23-27: 23 And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it." 25 For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God."
And Luke had something about Jesus cursing various cities, which Matthew also has:
Matthew 11.20-24: 20 Then He began to reproach the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. 21 "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 Nevertheless I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You shall descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. 24 Nevertheless I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you."
One of Luke's new contexts was all about the greatest and the least, leading and serving. The following passages include relevant parallels:
Mark 10.35-45: 35 And James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Him, saying to Him, "Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You." 36 And He said to them, "What do you want Me to do for you?" 37 And they said to Him, "Grant that we may sit in Your glory, one on Your right, and one on Your left." 38 But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" 39 And they said to Him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. 40 But to sit on My right or on My left, this is not Mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." 41 And hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and John. 42 And calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. 43 But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
Matthew 20.20-28: 20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Him with her sons, bowing down, and making a request of Him. 21 And He said to her, "What do you wish?" She said to Him, "Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left." 22 But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you are asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" They said to Him, "We are able." 23 He said to them, "My cup you shall drink; but to sit on My right and on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father." 24 And hearing this, the ten became indignant with the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to Himself, and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26 It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
The interconnections here are already pretty tangled, but there are still other parallels to catch:
Matthew 23.1-12: Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, 2 saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; 3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. 4 They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. 5 But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. 6 They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7 and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men. 8 But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. 11 But the greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted."
Mark 12.38-40: 38 In His teaching He was saying: "Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes, and like respectful greetings in the market places, 39 and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, 40 who devour widows' houses, and for appearance's sake offer long prayers; these will receive greater condemnation."
Luke 14.7-11: 7 And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, 8 "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this man,' and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. 10 But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher,' then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Luke 17.33: 33 Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
And I have still not caught them all. Luke had Jesus say, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," for example, and that phrase is used in different contexts in all three synoptic gospels. But what I have drafted above will make my point, which is simply that we are dealing, for the most part, with very simple images (salt, light, cups of water, children, angels, hell, crosses, body parts) and very simple themes (suffering now, being rewarded later, social and cosmic reversals, cause and effect, missionary zeal). Partly because of the simplicity of these images and themes, and partly because of the shared interests among Christians in this stream of Christianity, it is therefore quite easy to transfer a saying from one context and use it in another. We find the evangelists doing it all the time: sometimes brilliantly, sometimes not quite so brilliantly.
Take that cup of water, for example. In one spot it is being offered to little ones; in another it is being offered to disciples. Are the little ones children here? Or are they really disciples, because the disciples are supposed to be
like children? It almost does not matter, I think, because a set of corresponding opposites has been set up in advance (adult/child, greatest/least, master/servant, exalted/humble: some of those social reversals I spoke of), and those opposites are basically interchangeable.
So you write:
Stefan Kristensen wrote: ↑Tue Dec 19, 2017 6:13 amBen, you say that you think verse 50 is not related to 49 by theme, only by the catchword "salt". But about verse 50, what do you think of this verse? Why is it placed here and what do you think it means? Do you think that verse 49 was first added to vv. 43-48 because of the theme (hellfire), and then only after the translation of the whole of 43-49 into Greek the verse 50 was added on?
Verse 49 is really a strange verse. But I see verse 50, including the salt imagery in verse 50, as participating in the same theme as the rest of the passage 9:33-50: The unity of the people of God as a missionary entity.
"They had disputed amongst themselves" (9:34)
[alot of teaching about the consequences of not remaining as a harmonious unit]
"Have peace amongst yourselves" (9:50).
....
But what about v.49 then? I don't know.
I agree with you that verse 50 can be linked to the foregoing in a loosely thematic way, but I also think, for the reasons given above, that such linking is pretty easy to do. So I have no problem with a sequence in which verse 49 was a part of the Gehenna/hell passage, all of it probably originally in Hebrew or Aramaic, and at some point verse 50 was added on,
either because of the catchword "salt"
or because of its loose thematic unity with the part about getting along ("he who is not against us is for us"), or possibly even for both reasons at once; but the clue for us that the sayings have different origins is that the salt means two completely different things in verses 49 (destruction) and 50 (seasoning).
I do not think it should be controversial that a saying such as we find in verse 50 probably had an independent existence before being incorporated into the gospel of Mark. There are similar sayings involving salt, after all:
Job 6.6: 6 "Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the white of an egg?"
Colossians 4.5-6: 5 Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person.
And, on Marcan priority, we know that Matthew (for example) did not originate the saying, but he was able to use it to splendid effect in his great Sermon. The saying is even better suited for its context in Matthew than it is in its context in Mark. So for Mark to have taken the saying from elsewhere and tagged it onto verses 43-49 seems more probable than that he created the saying on his own precisely for that context. I just do not think the fit is smooth enough to make such an assumption.
Another saying in this complex definitely existed outside of the gospels:
Cicero, For Ligarius 33: 33 ....
Valeat tua vox illa quae vicit. te enim dicere audiebamus nos omnis adversarios putare, nisi qui nobiscum essent; te omnis qui contra te non essent tuos. .... / 33 .... Let that expression of yours have weight now which gained the victory; for we heard that you said that (A)
we thought all men our enemies, but those who were with us; but that (B)
you considered all men as your friends who were not actually arrayed against you. .... [Link:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ction%3D33.]
Mark gives us only version B, Matthew only version A, and Luke both versions (in different contexts). There is no need to assume that any of them had read Cicero; this is just the kind of saying that can exist in a culture and be drawn upon at any time.
And the incident with the strange exorcist may well have been based on the story of Eldad and Medad:
Numbers 11.26-30: 26 But two men had remained in the camp; the name of one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them (now they were among those who had been registered, but had not gone out to the tent), and they prophesied in the camp. 27 So a young man ran and told Moses and said, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." 28 Then Joshua the son of Nun, the attendant of Moses from his youth, said, "Moses, my lord, restrain them." 29 But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!" 30 Then Moses returned to the camp, both he and the elders of Israel.
No direct literary contact is even necessary here; a basic familiarity with the story and with the theme (the desirability of delegating spiritual gifts; refer also to Joel 2.28-29) would do.
Recall all of the moving around of sayings from one context to another amongst the synoptic gospels that I highlighted above. I am still working on the details and such, but my strong suspicion is that at least some of that movement is not literary; that is, not every single saying had to be drawn from a written source; at least some of them may have been circulating orally in the churches, and when, say, Matthew read such a saying in the gospel of Mark he would not have been surprised; nor would he have needed Mark to learn of the saying, any more than a modern charismatic preacher needs to have read Oral Roberts to know about "seed faith" and other common concepts.
Please pardon a brief digression here. I was involved with Christian churches of various varieties all throughout my youth, and during the course of that involvement I had the opportunity to memorize vast tracts of the Bible for Sunday School classes, church camps, and youth clubs. I was quite good at it, my finest achievement taking place at a week-long camp meeting in Mexico during which there was a memorization contest, with first prize being a brand new Hitachi tape cassette player/recorder. I was 10 years old, and the contest was in Spanish, which I had been learning for less than a year at that point. I memorized entire chapters from Joshua, Romans, 1 Corinthians, and other books, and I ended up winning first prize (and my first ever tape cassette recorder, which was nice).
Now, I have not actively tried to memorize anything like that in decades. Those days are long past. But here are the results of a little experiment of mine which I devised just for this occasion. Without looking up the verses, I wrote some down to see how well I remembered them:
John 3.16
King James Version: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Ben C. Smith, 2017: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Romans 5.1
Reina Valera, 1977: Justificados, pues, por la fe, tenemos paz para con Dios por medio de nuestro Señor Jesucristo; ....
Ben C. Smith, 2017: Justificados, pues, por la fe, tenemos paz para con Dios por medio de nuestro Señor Jesucristo.
1 Corinthians 13.1
King James Version: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
New American Standard Version: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
Ben C. Smith, 2017: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become like a clanging gong or a noisy cymbal.
Not bad, I should think. 1 Corinthians 13.1 is especially interesting, since I memorized it in the King James Version, but, ever since I received a New American Standard Bible as a Christmas gift when I was probably about 8 years old, the NASB has been my favorite translation, and the one which I consult most frequently, so it is really not surprising that my original KJV memory should have shifted in the direction of the NASB, as can be seen above.
I bring this up, not because I think that early Christians necessarily memorized entire passages of dominical sayings (though some may well have), but because I know that I, for one, could drop those verses, and many others, into a conversation or a piece of writing without any trouble at all. I would not need to consult the text to get the wording well within range of the usual synoptic variation. There are some synoptic passages that are so verbatim that I doubt I could come close to them (Matthew 3.7-10 = Luke 3.7-9, for instance), but there are many, many others that I could easily match.
Furthermore — even without actively memorizing the passages — just reading them and rereading them, focusing on them, and studying them is often enough for me to cite them with considerable accuracy. So it would not surprise me at all if some of the complexity outlined above owed itself to certain sayings being remembered rather than drawn directly from a text. I still think that most parallel passages between the synoptics are literary parallels; but some may well be oral parallels.
On this forum, mentioning oral tradition can be frowned upon, but I am not advocating the kind of argument which identifies a potential oral tradition and then suddenly assumes that Jesus must have uttered it. No, my appeal to oral transmission of certain items derives from the fact that we already
know that there were apostles, teachers, preachers, and prophets in early Christianity. How likely is it that, in the gospels which we possess, virtually all of the materials came from the pen of one of the evangelists and virtually none of them came from some of those traveling apostles and preachers? I mean, what
happened to the sermons that were preached, the lessons that were taught, or the prophecies that were delivered by these revered believers? Did no one remember anything of them? Did no one collect them and meditate upon them? Did no one take notes? Did no one integrate them into ritual and liturgy (not at all an unlikely spot to find a passion narrative, for example)? Out of the thousands of Christians who must have preached and taught and prophesied, did only a select handful (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Thomas, and the few others, whether anonymous or pseudonymous or whatnot) actually originate the sayings and stories which we now have in our extant gospels? I say, when we find an inconsistency or a seam or a glitch in our gospels, it is
at least as likely that it derives from the use of sources as that the author just stumbled all on his or her own. We can see the kinds of seams and inconsistencies that later gospels owe to their use of sources, and sometimes those same kinds of glitches can be found in the earlier gospels, too. I bet in quite a few cases the cause is the same.
In this case, we find a Marcan passage bearing an assortment of loosely related sayings, some of which seem a bit inconsistent with one another (the two meanings of salt, for example), and I think the obvious step to take is to compare this passage with similar collections in Matthew and Luke. Those two apparently collected their sayings from earlier sources (Mark, either Matthew or Luke, and/or something like Q), so why should Mark not have done the same? That we may have lost his sources, whether to the fate which has befallen a huge percentage of ancient texts or to the fact that they were oral in the first place, should occasion exactly zero surprise.
Ben.
ETA: Here is another little experiment. I have never actively tried to memorize Mark 9.50, but obviously I have been in fairly close contact both with it and with its Matthean and Lucan parallels recently. After writing this huge post last night, I got a good night's sleep and woke up this morning to write the verse out from memory, without consulting the text first:
Mark 9.50
New American Standard Version: Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
Ben C. Smith, 2017: Salt is good, but if salt has lost its savor, how will it become salty again? Have salt within yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
What I notice there is that I said that salt "has lost its savor," which is not found in the NASB of Mark 9.50; it is, however, found in the KJV of Matthew 5.13, and I did memorize a significant portion of the Sermon on the Mount as a child. But the second half of Mark 9.50, whose Matthean and Lucan parallels are far from exact, I pretty much nailed. And, more importantly, the
sense of the verse is the same in both halves.