Did Mark know the story of the birth of Jesus?

[Giuseppe]

The story of the baptism, we are said, allegorizes the birth of Jesus as adopted son of God.

So Mark had already in mind the concept of a birth of Jesus.

But if the later Matthew and Luke added the story of a birth in addition to the baptism event, this means only that they didn't realize - differently from Mark - the baptism episode as already the description of a ''birth''.

The question arises: if Mark knew already the concept of a Birth of Jesus, which was his source ?

I dont' refer to the fact that Mark invented an explanation for the Baptism practice already shown in Paul. I mean precisely: which is the source of the idea of a Birth of Jesus for Mark?

You don't allegorize x with y, if you don't know already x.

[Giuseppe]

I wonder if this is a possible argument against the presence of the baptism in proto-Mark.

Mark knew the idea that Jesus was born (since he wrote an allegory of that Birth).

But, according to Matthew and Luke, Mark didn't know the idea that Jesus was born, contra factum that Mark knew about that idea.

So the interest of Mark is the same interest of Matthew and Luke: to introduce the idea of a Birth for Jesus in a proto-gospel where that idea was totally absent.

[Giuseppe]

A similar problem happens with John the Baptist.

If he is Elijia redivivus, why did Mark insert explicitly Elijah in the Transfiguration episode? Wasn't John already sufficient to make that point?

This is an indication of a later introduction of the Transfiguration episode in Mark.

In both the cases the Baptism episode already allegorizes the birth and the coming of Elijiah before Jesus.

But were the two ideas linked between them? The coming of Elijiah had to precede the idea of the birth of Jesus.

[Giuseppe]

A clue is in Gal. 4:4: "Born by woman, born under the law".

There also birth and fulfillment of the scripture are temporally linked.

Just as the baptism by John allegorizes both birth and fulfillment of the scripture.

Insofar Jesus is "born under the Law", an Elijiah redivivus has to come before the his birth.

But Jesus is before "born by woman" and immediately after he is "born under the Law" So we have two births and not one. Or better: two baptisms and not one. The baptism by the dove/holy spirit/Sophia/"Mother of Jesus" precedes the baptism by John/Elijiah.

So if "born by woman, born under the law" is an anti-marcionite interpolation, then also the baptism by John is an anti-marcionite episode.

[TedM]

Where are you getting the idea that Mark saw the baptism as a birth? It doesn't say "You just were born as my son". It says "You are my son." Before that it says he 'came from Nazareth in Galilee'. So, obviously he had to be born physically prior to the baptism. The idea that Jesus was adopted at the time of the baptism is just a theory. Mark never indicates that is what he believed, does he? Even so, an adoption is not the same thing as a birth. It is an adoption. And 'you must be born again' is from John, not Mark.

[Joseph D. L.]

It is my opinion that the baptismal scene in the Synoptics constitutes a later stratosphere of the tradition.

If ur-John + Paul is the original compilation, then the crucifixion scene announces the baptism (mikvah) of the New Covenant as the effuse of water and blood out of Jesus.

This may be why Jesus is not baptized in John or pseudo-Marcion, because it goes against what was originally being conceived with the new baptism rites.

[arnoldo]

Tertullian seems to be addressing this issue allegedly raised by Marcion.

But how can that Christ of yours be liable to a shame, which it is impossible for him to experience? Since he was never condensed816 into human flesh in the womb of a woman, although a virgin; never grew from human seed, although only after the law of corporeal substance, from the fluids817 of a woman; was never deemed flesh before shaped in the womb; never called foetus818 after such shaping; was never delivered from a ten months' writhing in the womb;819 was never shed forth upon the ground, amidst the sudden pains of parturition, with the unclean issue which flows at such a time through the sewerage of the body, forthwith to inaugurate the light820 of life with tears, and with that primal wound which severs the child from her who bears him;821 never received the copious ablution, nor the meditation of salt and honey;822 nor did he initiate a shroud with swaddling clothes;823 nor afterwards did he ever wallow824 in his own uncleanness, in his mother's lap; nibbling at her breast; long an infant; gradually825 a boy; by slow degrees826 a man.827 But he was revealed828 from heaven, full-grown at once, at once complete; immediately Christ; simply spirit, and power, and god. But as withal he was not true, because not visible; therefore he was no object to be ashamed of from the curse of the cross, the real endurance829 of which he escaped, because wanting in bodily substance. [12] Never, therefore, could he have said, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me." But as for our Christ, He could do no otherwise than make such a declaration;830 "made" by the Father "a little lower than the angels,"831 "a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people; "832 seeing that it was His will that "with His stripes we should be healed,"833 that by His humiliation our salvation should be established. And justly did He humble Himself834 for His own creature man, for the image and likeness of Himself, and not of another, in order that man, since he had not felt ashamed when bowing down to a stone or a stock, might with similar courage give satisfaction to God for the shamelessness of his idolatry, by displaying an equal degree of shamelessness in his faith, in not being ashamed of Christ. Now, Marcion, which of these courses is better suited to your Christ, in respect of a meritorious shame?835 Plainly, you ought yourself to blush with shame for having given him a fictitious existence.836
http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf ... 96_1714901

[Giuseppe]

Where are you getting the idea that Mark saw the baptism as a birth? It doesn't say "You just were born as my son". It says "You are my son." Before that it says he 'came from Nazareth in Galilee'. So, obviously he had to be born physically prior to the baptism. The idea that Jesus was adopted at the time of the baptism is just a theory. Mark never indicates that is what he believed, does he? Even so, an adoption is not the same thing as a birth. It is an adoption. And 'you must be born again' is from John, not Mark.

the baptism is a second birth, so Mark knew that Jesus was "born" during the Baptism. This clearly, as you observe, is not a physical birth. But it vehicles at any rate the idea of a spiritual birth. So there is at least a sense of a birth of Jesus for Mark. Why did the later Gospels introduce a physical birth, too? Beyond their reasons to do so (against Marcion or not against Marcion), it is a fact that they considered Mark as a Gospel without the idea of a birth, contra factum that Mark had really that idea, since he allegorized it by the Baptism episode.

Idem with the idea of John as new Elijah. Why did Mark introduce directly Elijah in the Transfiguration episode if he had already shown John as new Elijah? Clearly the Transfiguration episode is a different or later source.

So it becomes clear that the Baptism Episode allegorizes the dual birth of Jesus: a birth "by woman" (the baptism by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove) and a birth "under the Law" (John being the Law and the Prophets just as Elijah and Moses on the Transfiguration episode).

But the controversial passage "born by woman, born under the Law", per Ehrman, is an anti-marcionite interpolation.

So also the Baptism Episode in Mark is an anti-marcionite episode.

This is in short my point.

[TedM]

Where are you getting the idea that the baptism is a 'second birth'? Nor from Mark. So you can't make that claim without acknowledging that it is a theory without supporting evidence from Mark, it appears to me. I do not agree that there is a'at least a sense of a birth of Jesus for Mark'. That is a fabrication in your own mind. You are just making things up, it appears. There is basis of course but not from Mark - that I'm seeing.

[Giuseppe]

Where are you getting the idea that the baptism is a 'second birth'? Nor from Mark. So you can't make that claim without acknowledging that it is a theory without supporting evidence from Mark, it appears to me. I do not agree that there is a'at least a sense of a birth of Jesus for Mark'. That is a fabrication in your own mind. You are just making things up, it appears. There is basis of course but not from Mark - that I'm seeing.

the idea that the baptism marks the beginning of a new life not more "according to flesh" precedes Mark (since it is found in Paul) and so he may have had it allegorized behind the Baptism episode.

And don't ignore the dove: it is a feminine symbol of the Holy Spirit. A maternity is expressed so (in the Gospel of the Hebrews the Spirit descending on Jesus during the Baptism is called the "mother", if I remember well).