A key for Mark 4?

[jude77]

Hello Stefan:

This is just a thought concerning your exegesis of Mk 4. I think a problem that I see in your analysis where you say:
"Note that all four kinds of soil "hear" the Word. This means being a Christian."
What I would offer is that the parable of the soil implies the exact opposite. "Hearing" is not the same thing as "understanding" or "accepting". I think Mark's Jesus points that out in vs. 15 where, as soon as the word is sown, (i.e. preached) it is snatched away before it ever has a chance to take root. So it would seem to me that the first "soil" would represent those who hear but never respond and become Christian.

Also, in response to my comment you write:
"Mark creates a clear cut division between those who are given the secret and the outsiders for whom everything comes in parables, who hear but don't understand. But those who are given the secret are exactly the disciples, or "those around Jesus with the twelve" (Mark 4:10), and if they are the third soil, a shoe which indeed seems to fit, then that's a problem. Because then both of the groups of his division, those inside given the secret and those outside who don't understand, are those who fail, i.e. the three first soils."
It's true that the disciples are given the "secret" of the Kingdom, but that doesn't mean that they understand the secret. As MK progresses it seems, in fact, that they are clueless as the Pharisees (see especially 8:17-21).

Also, in support of 4:5 as referring to the disciples see Ben C. Smith's comment above.

I think you are on to something very important and exciting here and if there is indeed a grand method of reading MK 4 I'd love to see you find it!!
I'll be watching this thread for you developments.

All the best to you.

[Stefan Kristensen]

Maybe we should also consider a political reading of Mark 4:1-34.
To start we have to determine the setting of this fragment. I believe Jesus shows himself here as a propagator of God’s rule, in other words as a messianist, and not as the messiah (see also gLuke 4:16-21). In the view of the Zealots God’s rule was to replace Roman rule, so messianism was a concept of resistance and war, with a free Israel under God and his messiah as the ultimate goal.
The whole fragment centers around the ‘word’, with verse 14 as the central verse: The sower sows the word. How can this ‘word’ be understood? In a ‘kingdom of God’ context this word seems to be the messianic word, the message of the impending coming of the messiah to overthrow Roman rule*. So I start from the following meaning of verse 14: The propagator spreads the messianic message.

Within this context the subject of this parable is a discussion of the reception of the messianic idea in Jewish society. The are some clues that the four groups of receivers of the seed may be groups in society.
The first group, from which the word is immediately taken away by Satan, may be the Herodians. Literary ‘Satan’ means ‘the adversary’, referring to the possibility of the civil and judicial authorities to prosecute people. That Satan comes immediately to take away the messianic word could point in the direction of the swift exercise of power.
The second group then may be the Sadducees. In verse 17 they are described as ‘the temporary ones’, those ‘who have no scion in themselves’, referring to their rejection of the immortality of the soul, afterlife and resurrection. This group was in power and therefore they were most interested in maintaining the status quo. They collaborated with the Romans; of course they did not risk tribulation or persecution for a revolutionary anti-Roman movement.
Verse 19 depicts a group that loves money, and this connects with gLuke 16:14: The Pharisees, who were loves of money, heard all this, … Maybe their ‘desire for other things’ refers to their predilection with supplementary rules, as Josephus states in Antiquities XIII:297: For the present I wish merely to explain that the Pharisees had passed on to the people certain regulations handed down by former generations and not recorded in the Laws of Moses.
That Mark saw these three groups as opponents is also clear from chapter 12. The Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees are staged in Mark 12:13-27.

As the subversive idea of an impending messianic era could not be discussed openly throughout society, the members of the revolutionary party had to keep it secret and therefore speak in parables. The secret of the preparation of a revolution was given to the insiders, the Essene Zealots. Between each other they could discuss the subject openly, but towards the outside world this was way too dangerous.

In my opinion the whole of Mark 4:1-34 fragment can properly be explained in this political reading. Only verse 24-25 seem to be alien to this otherwise homogenous pericope. The harvest in verse 29 for example is the time of war against and victory over the Romans. The preceding verses depict the growth of the messianic Zealot movement. When the movement has become powerful enough (‘ripe’), it is time for the messianic harvest.

* There are two instances in the New Testament where ‘logos’ clearly refers to ‘messiah’: Revelation 19:13 and 1John 5:7 v.l. See also the commentary in BDAG (3rd edition, p. 601) which says that in the fourth gospel ‘this divine ‘Word’ took on human form in a historical person, that is, in Jesus’.

Thanks, it an interesting proposition. But I don't understand this section in Mark 4 as a fragment but as an integreted part of the whole, and my basic understanding of the narrative as a whole is that it is all about the "Jesus Christ gospel", Mark 1:1, and this I regard as the Christian message at the time of Mark. So Mark has Jesus running around proclaiming the gospel concerning himself, only in cryptic form. And the keyword Mark uses for this is "the word".

As I described above in my answer to jude77, I think the content of the parable of the Sower is so general and central a teaching for Mark, that he kind of groups every human being within these four frames. The same goes for all the Christian texts, so everyone can always be seen to belong to any one of the soils, as I see it. The fourth soil are the ones who do the will of God because they can overcome the trials and temptations described with the three soils. These trials and temptations in the three soils sum up the basic opposition that human beings must overcome to become part of God's heavenly sphere, which has now become a possibility with the coming of the gospel message, or "the word".

[Stefan Kristensen]

The theme of the specific 'messianic secret' that Wrede spoke of has to be abandoned, and instead we need to look at the whole secrecy aspect of Mark's narrative as a permeating idea, imo.

Wrede's premise, at its most basic, was that Mark was reconciling two different traditions: one in which Jesus was declared to be the son of God, the Messiah, at his resurrection/exaltation (as in Romans 1.4) and another in which that declaration happened at his baptism (as in Mark 1.9-11). The natural result was that Jesus' sonship and messiahship must have been kept private (a secret to everyone except the demons) between his baptism and his resurrection, at which point it became public. Does that basic premise have to be abandoned, in your view?

No, not necessarily, in my view, if "premise" means that we might assume this in order to try and make sense of the whole secrecy aspect in gMark. If our goal is to conclude something historical behind the text, which was Wrede's errand, such as the existence and fusing of two different traditions in the earliest communities, sure why not. But if instead our errand is to try and solve the problems of the whole secrecy aspect in the actual text of gMark, and this is my errand, then this basic premise of the traditions is merely a starting point.

One can reverse engineer a car for the purpose of finding out which parts it consists of, or one can do it for the purpose of finding out how the car works when all the parts are put together in their place.

So, if we frame Wrede's thesis in terms of the baptism and resurrection events in gMark, then what is important for understanding the text (as opposed to understanding the historical traditions current in the earliest communites), imo, is not so much to discuss a possible reconciling by Mark of one historical tradition with another, but more importantly to discuss a reconciling by the earliest Christian theologians of one theological concept (Jesus' resurrection) with another (the Christian baptism).

Paul is a witness of this 'reconciling' of these two theological concepts, especially in Romans (I hardly think Paul was the only one to think this up). Mark describes Jesus' baptism as the type for any Christian baptism, imo, the same way that Paul throughout Romans describes baptism (or more broadly, inclusion into God's people). Because all Christians become God's sons in baptism. Or Jesus' "family", a new generation, a new humanity who are "like the angels in heaven". Jesus was special, of course, in that his sonship is more complex, but in his theological narrative Mark juggles with the different meanings of being a 'son of God'. It can be purely messianic (as e.g. Nathan's promise, Ps 2) or it can mean being a Christian, regenerated inwardly by the spirit, and also the state of the Christians after the general resurrection, when they will be "like the angles in heaven", who are also "sons of God".

For me, Rom 1:4, together with other central parts of Romans, describes well what happens in Mark's narrative, including the baptism. In gMark Jesus is inserted as ruler at his death and resurrection, which is why his annointing happens in this connection. His burial annointing is his messianic annointing, and until that point he was messias designatus. The "ορισθεντος" in Rom 1:4 can indicate alot of things.

I myself have come to the conclusion that even though different characters throughout the narrative seem to fit more or less with the four (or three) soils, this is not intended, and the attempt to correlate the four soils with them only causes problems.

So "Rocky" (Πέτρος = Peter) being the disciple intended with the seed falling on the "rocky" (πετρώδης) soil does not impress you?

No. Well, maybe. I dunno.

But ok, I was too coarse when I wrote that I don't think Mark "intended" any correlation between the soils and various characters in his narrative. I don't think the correlations are completely accidental, but I also don't think that e.g. the Rich Man is specifically intended to model the third soil mentioned earlier in the narrative. I think that Mark has a clear idea about the concept of how riches can blind a man from what is really important, faithfulness to God.

I mean that if we use these correlations as a key to understand the four soils and thus understand the parable, then we miss the broader point of Mark 4. Some characters may correlate, and the disciples may be in view with the second soil (this is almost impossible to rule out), and a specific reference to Peter may even be in view also. But what Mark means to say with the parable of the Sower is a much broader teaching. So if we spend too much energy to try and fit different concrete characters into the parable, we miss the point of Mark 4.

Peter could also be said to exemplify the first soil in 8:32-33. Jesus "spoke the word openly", i.e. the very first so-called passion prediction, and what follows can well be described by the the description of the first soil, with Satan removing the Word from Peter. So is Peter also the first soil? Or is there a connection between the first and second soils? But this event in 8:32-33 could also be considered an example of the second soil, because it is precisely the Word concerning persecution, that Peter reacts to.

But if the disciples, or just Peter maybe, is the second soil, does this mean he isn't redeemed? Is his "scandalization" final, as surely seems to be the tone in the parable? Hardly, because Peter meets up with Jesus after the resurrection. His scandalization is merely because he is a sheep without a shepherd for a moment, his "shepherd is struck down" (14:27), and the "scandalization" of the disciples, possible modelled in the second soil, is thus merely a temporary "scattering" (14:27) before the reunion. And if his redemption is meant to come as the pure mercy of Jesus, appearing surprisingly to Peter (and the disciples), then does this also apply to the other bad soils, that they are also mercifully redeemed in the end?

And does the reunion also impart, finally, the all-important understanding to the disciples, and what would that tell us about the second soil? That these are the ones that are scandalized, but still understand in the end? Jesus does say "don't you understand yet", pointing to the eventuel understanding of the disciples at some point in time. Do all soils understand eventually, then, like the disciples who are the second soil? What about the outsiders, who "hear but don't understand"? Are they not the three soils? But if the disciples are the second soil, then they will eventually understand, so..?

All these questions are not meant to asked, as I see it. That's why I say let the parable of the Sower be it's own, and let the various characters who might correlate with the soils in the parable be their own. They are not intended to be used as an illumination of the meaning of the parable, and any close comparison will only raise difficult and unnecessary questions, as I see it.

Maybe the disciples are used in gMark as an image of what Christians who are the second soil do, but they are not themselves the second soil?

[Stefan Kristensen]

Hello Stefan:

This is just a thought concerning your exegesis of Mk 4. I think a problem that I see in your analysis where you say:
"Note that all four kinds of soil "hear" the Word. This means being a Christian."
What I would offer is that the parable of the soil implies the exact opposite. "Hearing" is not the same thing as "understanding" or "accepting". I think Mark's Jesus points that out in vs. 15 where, as soon as the word is sown, (i.e. preached) it is snatched away before it ever has a chance to take root. So it would seem to me that the first "soil" would represent those who hear but never respond and become Christian.

You're right, this is a problem. What I meant was that there is also the important element of degree, which plays a role in the whole thing. The exhortation to "hear" or "let him hear, who has ears to hear", points to this element of degree. There are degrees of hearing, and my point was that this concerns the 'true' hearing, the actual understanding. Some humans don't understand, some humans do understand. But, for those who understand, the insiders, there are still degrees of understanding, and those are the four soils, four kinds of insiders.

So those who actually do understand, the insiders (or "Christians"), further need to understand very carefully, or else it won't matter, then you'll just be like those who don't understand to begin with, the outisders. In this way verse 24 says: "Pay close attention to what you hear". Meaning that you when you are one who can understand, then you can choose to hear very attentively or not so attentively. And this is followed by a saying involving a measure, which exactly is about degrees. You can use a big measure or a small measure.

The first soil are the ones who have ears to hear, i.e those who are able to understand, and they actually also do this, they "hear", but since the measure they use to try to understand is so small, they only understand ("hear") a little. Therefore, what little understanding they have is taken away as they fall away. "From the one who doesn't have [i.e. adequate understanding having used a little measure], even what he has will be taken away from him". And "the one who has [adequate understanding having used a big measure], to him will be given [some kind of addition referred to in the preceding verse, perhaps an abundance of understanding]".

That was the way I understood it. The "hearing" of the three bad soils is the kind of hearing spoken of when Jesus says "the one with ears to hear, let him hear". It is not the kind of hearing spoken of when Jesus cites Isaiah, those who "hear" but don't understand.

However, I now recant that particular reading after further consideration! And so now I have a new proposition for a reading, see my coming post maybe later today.

Also, in response to my comment you write:
"Mark creates a clear cut division between those who are given the secret and the outsiders for whom everything comes in parables, who hear but don't understand. But those who are given the secret are exactly the disciples, or "those around Jesus with the twelve" (Mark 4:10), and if they are the third soil, a shoe which indeed seems to fit, then that's a problem. Because then both of the groups of his division, those inside given the secret and those outside who don't understand, are those who fail, i.e. the three first soils."
It's true that the disciples are given the "secret" of the Kingdom, but that doesn't mean that they understand the secret. As MK progresses it seems, in fact, that they are clueless as the Pharisees (see especially 8:17-21).

(I meant to write the disciples fit 'the second soil', of course, not the third.)
Yes, the disciples indeed don't understand the secret as the story progresses, but in the end they obviously do, because they go on to become the first Christians, as it were, also in Mark's narrative (although it is outside of the narrated events). In this way they do exemplify the second soil, but they also do not. Unless we must understand an implied addition in the parable in 4:17, "and they are immediately scandalized - but after that, though, they stil get the chance to understand in the end".

Let's not forget that they are disciples, from μανθανω, "to learn". They are students, that's why they fail, that's why they don't understand everything. If they didn't fail and if they understood everything, then they wouldn't be "disciples"! A "learner" is someone who needs to learn something, not someone who knows the whole curriculum.

For me the discples have to be the fourth soil, even though they also seem to exemplify the second soil. Reaching the point of bearing fruit, or "doing the will of God" (3:35), is a process, like a student taking a course. (I think this Christian epistemological growth process is what is symbolized in 4:28 with the gradual growth of the grain, just as the term "mature" is used for the top Christians in the epistles, and the term "disciple" is used in Acts for the regular members of the Christian communities.) And so, during this process to become the fourth soil, they also go through the stage of the second soil. But this would entail an understanding of the soils not as types of humans, but as possible stages in one's Christian progress.

[Ben C. Smith]

The theme of the specific 'messianic secret' that Wrede spoke of has to be abandoned, and instead we need to look at the whole secrecy aspect of Mark's narrative as a permeating idea, imo.

Wrede's premise, at its most basic, was that Mark was reconciling two different traditions: one in which Jesus was declared to be the son of God, the Messiah, at his resurrection/exaltation (as in Romans 1.4) and another in which that declaration happened at his baptism (as in Mark 1.9-11). The natural result was that Jesus' sonship and messiahship must have been kept private (a secret to everyone except the demons) between his baptism and his resurrection, at which point it became public. Does that basic premise have to be abandoned, in your view?

No, not necessarily, in my view, if "premise" means that we might assume this in order to try and make sense of the whole secrecy aspect in gMark. If our goal is to conclude something historical behind the text, which was Wrede's errand, such as the existence and fusing of two different traditions in the earliest communities, sure why not.

Your use of the term "historical" here is a bit confusing, since Wrede is generally associated with the move to disassociate Mark's composition from a recounting of historical events. His point is, at least in part, that the messianic secret does not reflect anything historical from the life of Jesus, that it is a measure taken in order to preserve two contradictory propositions (whether you wish to characterize them as traditions or as theological concepts): (A) Jesus was appointed as son of God at his resurrection and (B) Jesus was appointed as son of God at his baptism. Nothing historical about the life of Jesus even need be at stake here; the two concepts require some harmonization, and in Wrede's view the messianic secret is a result of such harmonization.

One can reverse engineer a car for the purpose of finding out which parts it consists of, or one can do it for the purpose of finding out how the car works when all the parts are put together in their place.

Or one can do both. In fact, I am not sure how your second option is even possible without your first. How can one figure out how all the parts work together if one does not even know how any given individual part works on its own? If one does not even know that the battery provides the charge necessary to get the solenoid going, which kicks in the starter, which in turn gets the combustion engine itself to turning, how can one in any way claim to know how the engine starts? One would have to admit that the car runs, but one would have no idea how it runs. One may as well never have even tried to reverse engineer the thing in the first place.

I know this is just an analogy you are using, and that no analogy is perfect, but I think you have to run into the same issue in understanding the gospels: any of the gospels. Whether Mark got the parable of the sower from tradition or created it himself from scratch, for example, has to make a difference for the kinds of interpretations we are applying to it in this thread, does it not? If Mark created the parable from scratch, I think our expectations are high that its four categories of seed should make sense in its authorial context; if, on the other hand, Mark got it from tradition, then surely it is possible that its four categories might not line up perfectly with categories which Mark elsewhere has established of his own volition (insiders and outsiders, perhaps).

Paul is a witness of this 'reconciling' of these two theological concepts, especially in Romans (I hardly think Paul was the only one to think this up). Mark describes Jesus' baptism as the type for any Christian baptism, imo, the same way that Paul throughout Romans describes baptism (or more broadly, inclusion into God's people).

Paul consistently relates Christian baptism to Jesus' death and resurrection, not to his own baptism by John, which Paul never mentions. This is a pretty big difference from Mark, and it forms part of Wrede's reconstruction of how these various ideas developed.

For me, Rom 1:4, together with other central parts of Romans, describes well what happens in Mark's narrative, including the baptism. In gMark Jesus is inserted as ruler at his death and resurrection, which is why his anointing happens in this connection. His burial anointing is his messianic anointing, and until that point he was messias designatus. The "ορισθεντος" in Rom 1:4 can indicate a lot of things.

I have looked into the meaning of ὁρίζω in Romans 1.4 before: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2494&start=20#p55982. The treatment of this verb in LSJ: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... %28ri%2Fzw, confirms to my satisfaction that it is more likely that Jesus' sonship is beginning with ὁρίζω than that it is merely being confirmed. Romans 1.4 is adoptionist through and through, and the point of adoption is the resurrection.

I myself have come to the conclusion that even though different characters throughout the narrative seem to fit more or less with the four (or three) soils, this is not intended, and the attempt to correlate the four soils with them only causes problems.

So "Rocky" (Πέτρος = Peter) being the disciple intended with the seed falling on the "rocky" (πετρώδης) soil does not impress you?

No. Well, maybe. I dunno.

That is a great answer.

But ok, I was too coarse when I wrote that I don't think Mark "intended" any correlation between the soils and various characters in his narrative. I don't think the correlations are completely accidental, but I also don't think that e.g. the Rich Man is specifically intended to model the third soil mentioned earlier in the narrative. I think that Mark has a clear idea about the concept of how riches can blind a man from what is really important, faithfulness to God.

I mean that if we use these correlations as a key to understand the four soils and thus understand the parable, then we miss the broader point of Mark 4. Some characters may correlate, and the disciples may be in view with the second soil (this is almost impossible to rule out), and a specific reference to Peter may even be in view also. But what Mark means to say with the parable of the Sower is a much broader teaching. So if we spend too much energy to try and fit different concrete characters into the parable, we miss the point of Mark 4.

Peter could also be said to exemplify the first soil in 8:32-33. Jesus "spoke the word openly", i.e. the very first so-called passion prediction, and what follows can well be described by the the description of the first soil, with Satan removing the Word from Peter. So is Peter also the first soil? Or is there a connection between the first and second soils? But this event in 8:32-33 could also be considered an example of the second soil, because it is precisely the Word concerning persecution, that Peter reacts to.

But if the disciples, or just Peter maybe, is the second soil, does this mean he isn't redeemed? Is his "scandalization" final, as surely seems to be the tone in the parable? Hardly, because Peter meets up with Jesus after the resurrection. His scandalization is merely because he is a sheep without a shepherd for a moment, his "shepherd is struck down" (14:27), and the "scandalization" of the disciples, possible modelled in the second soil, is thus merely a temporary "scattering" (14:27) before the reunion. And if his redemption is meant to come as the pure mercy of Jesus, appearing surprisingly to Peter (and the disciples), then does this also apply to the other bad soils, that they are also mercifully redeemed in the end?

And does the reunion also impart, finally, the all-important understanding to the disciples, and what would that tell us about the second soil? That these are the ones that are scandalized, but still understand in the end? Jesus does say "don't you understand yet", pointing to the eventuel understanding of the disciples at some point in time. Do all soils understand eventually, then, like the disciples who are the second soil? What about the outsiders, who "hear but don't understand"? Are they not the three soils? But if the disciples are the second soil, then they will eventually understand, so..?

All these questions are not meant to asked, as I see it. That's why I say let the parable of the Sower be it's own, and let the various characters who might correlate with the soils in the parable be their own. They are not intended to be used as an illumination of the meaning of the parable, and any close comparison will only raise difficult and unnecessary questions, as I see it.

Maybe the disciples are used in gMark as an image of what Christians who are the second soil do, but they are not themselves the second soil?

Okay, I can agree with you that the connection between the various soils and characters in the rest of the gospel is generally tenuous. I can also sympathize with your reluctance specifically to dismiss Peter from the second soil, since that is where the pun comes in (Πέτρος and πετρώδης), making this potential connection by far the strongest of any between the soils and actual characters elsewhere in the gospel. The evidence is uneven. The pun for the second soil comes off as almost brilliant, encouraging the reader to look for connections in the other soils, as well, only to be disappointed that the connections there are less than brilliant, to say the least.

The resulting confusion is, in my view, a phenomenon to be explained in its own right. Had Mark wished to correlate the four categories of soils with characters in the gospels, he could easily have done so. And yet one of the soils does seem to find a representative, so to speak, in the person of Peter.

This is my current best explanation for the unevenness, and for the parable as a whole with relation to its Marcan context:

1. The parable is not of Marcan origin. Mark likes to simplify spectra of humans into binary categories: insiders and outsiders, those "with me" and those "against me," those who will enter the kingdom and those who will not. (Mark is not alone in this Christian predilection.) The parable, however, dwells upon nuances. A similar process can be seen in Matthew and Luke with respect to the parable of the pounds/talents, vis-à-vis the version in one of the Jewish-Christian gospels, which I argue to have preceded the canonical version: an original array of three separate outcomes has been flattened into only two outcomes, acceptance and rejection.
2. But the parable is colorful and meaningful, is part of the growing tradition, and it is a good example of something that a Galilean peasant teacher might have uttered, so Mark includes it in his gospel, the more so because he can both relate it to the kingdom of God and wring an allusion to Peter out of it in the second kind of soil.
3. The explanation of the parable is younger than the parable itself, however. The explanation does not always fully reflect the parable itself. For example, there is no real sense in which the first seed, which falls by the side of the road and is immediately eaten by birds, can be said to have entered into the ground, yet the explanation speaks of the word that "has been sown into them" (τὸν ἐσπαρμένον εἰς αὐτούς), the hearers. The first soil, for which "hearing" consists of the seed merely falling upon the ground, contrasts with the third soil, for which "hearing" seems to consist of the seed actually starting to sprout.
4. Mark knows that the disciples would later become apostles and leaders of the church, and he has no desire to mitigate this fact. However, Mark also wishes to use the disciples as foolish foils for Jesus in the gospel. This bifurcation creates a real tension in the gospel: are the disciples insiders or outsiders? In fact, Mark is inconsistent on this score, even within chapter 4. On the one hand, the disciples are given "the mystery of the kingdom of God" in verse 11, explicitly contrasting them with outsiders who receive only parables; the disciples receive, not only the parables, but also the explanations, which Jesus immediately proceeds to give them in verses 13-20. So obviously the disciples are insiders. On the other hand, it is outsiders who are characterized as hearing and not understanding in verse 12; and Jesus immediately expresses frustration that the disciples, despite hearing, have not understood in verse 13. So obviously the disciples are outsiders. Real life does not tend to fall neatly into insider and outsider categories. Just as the disciples' insider/outsider status is ambiguous, due to the uneasy interplay of the fact that they became respected church leaders with the probable fiction that they were bumbling idiots during Jesus' ministry, so too the insider/outsider status of each of the first three categories of soil is ambiguous, because it is hard in real life to force nuance into binary categories.
5. The whole parable comes off in the end as a warning not to lose one's insider status and become an outsider. Be like the soil in which the seed multiplies manifold, not like the soils in which the seed sooner or later fails to produce. This paraenetic focus is what renders the imperfect fit of the four categories with a simple insider/outsider status irrelevant from the authorial point of view, explaining why the author either did not notice or did not care about the tensions in this chapter.

I believe that this explanation of mine attempts both to understand each aspect on its own (understanding the fourfold parable as a traditional element forced imperfectly into the Christian twofold understanding of one's status in the kingdom) and to understand how it all works together for Mark as an author (whose purpose is not descriptive, as if to map out the different kinds of Christians, but rather prescriptive: do this and not that). It explains both why the numerous discrepancies exist (because the author is adapting materials to uses they were not originally intended for) and why Mark would tolerate them (because the author was instructing, not analyzing).

What do you think, not only of the specific conclusions reached, but also of the general approach in trying to understand both the individual parts and the overall composition, as it were?

[jude77]

Hello Stefan;
When I first read your original post I misinterpreted it and thought you were experiencing some type of existential crisis and were in need of consolation (by training I am both a psychologist and clergyman so I tend to see that almost automatically!). Anyway, as I've re-read this thread I see you're seeking something entirely different. If I understand you correctly you are looking for a "key" that will reveal not only a consistent meaning for the parable, but also for all of chapter 4. That will be an exercise well worth following and I'll watch this thread with great interest and I hope, in some small way, to be of help.

This, incidentally, is an excellent point you made in responding to my thoughts that soil #32 represented the disciples:
"Peter could also be said to exemplify the first soil in 8:32-33. Jesus "spoke the word openly", i.e. the very first so-called passion prediction, and what follows can well be described by the the description of the first soil, with Satan removing the Word from Peter. So is Peter also the first soil? Or is there a connection between the first and second soils? But this event in 8:32-33 could also be considered an example of the second soil, because it is precisely the Word concerning persecution, that Peter reacts to."
After reading the above I have had to reconsider my position. That paragraph is a superb observation, and I think you are definitely going in the right direction.

Concerning Ben C. Smith's post from above I would comment (whatever it is worth):
His point #1 is excellent.
point #3 Is good, but I'm not throughly convinced of it. To me (and this is ONLY my opinion) the parable seems more primitive than the explanation since it is more simple. In the parable the seed is sown, the birds eat it. Done. The explanation is more complex: Satan appears and snatches the seed. Also, I'm not sure of how much should be made of translating "eis" in "τὸν ἐσπαρμένον εἰς αὐτούς" as "sown 'into' them . I took Greek in graduate school (30 years ago!), and I am certainly NO scholar, but to the best of my recollection "eis" can also be translated something like "among". Again, I would emphasize my Greek is very rusty and I would quickly yield to Mr. Smith should he contest that reading.
Point #5 is excellent too.

Lastly, an article that may be of help to you is "The Mysterious Parable" by Madalyne Boucher. I have not actually been able to find a copy, but I have seen it referenced in several commentaries on MK 4.

All the best.

[Ben C. Smith]

Concerning Ben C. Smith's post from above I would comment (whatever it is worth):
His point #1 is excellent. .... Point #5 is excellent too.

Thank you.

point #3 Is good, but I'm not thoroughly convinced of it. To me (and this is ONLY my opinion) the parable seems more primitive than the explanation since it is more simple.

I agree with this. This is what I meant when I said that "the explanation of the parable is younger than the parable itself." The parable is older; it came first, and the explanation came later, making it younger.

Also, I'm not sure of how much should be made of translating "eis" in "τὸν ἐσπαρμένον εἰς αὐτούς" as "sown 'into' them . I took Greek in graduate school (30 years ago!), and I am certainly NO scholar, but to the best of my recollection "eis" can also be translated something like "among".

Yes, it often can. I will have to think about whether that is the best translation here with ἐσπαρμένον. Something feels off about it in context, but let me think about it for a bit.

Lastly, an article that may be of help to you is "The Mysterious Parable" by Madalyne Boucher. I have not actually been able to find a copy, but I have seen it referenced in several commentaries on MK 4.

I think that is an entire book/monograph, not just an article.

[Ben C. Smith]

I love and hate Mark 4:1-34, the discourse of Jesus with the Sower and the "secret of the kingdom of God" and the light and measure and mustard seed etc. There are so many interpretive options it drives you nuts, and just when you think you have found a way that it all makes sense, then there is a verse that doesn't fit in and seems to say the opposite. But it is also a great section dealing with the awesome theme of mystery and secrecy!

There are also quite a few puzzles which precede those interpretive options, since they lie on the level of just basically reading the text. For example, in the explanation of the parable of the sower the seed for the first soil represents the word, while grammatically the seed for the second, third, and fourth soils represents the people hearing the word:

Mark 4.15: 15 "But these are the ones who are beside the road [οὗτοι δέ εἰσιν οἱ παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν], where the word is sown [ὅπου σπείρεται ὁ λόγος]; and, when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them."

Mark 4.16-17: 16 "And these are the ones being sown upon the rocky places [καὶ οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ ἐπὶ τὰ πετρώδη σπειρόμενοι], who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away."

Mark 4.18-19: 18 "And others are the ones being sown among the thorns [καὶ ἄλλοι εἰσὶν οἱ εἰς τὰς ἀκάνθας σπειρόμενοι]; these are the ones who have heard the word, 19 and the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful."

Mark 4.20: 20 "And those are the ones having been sown on the good soil [καὶ ἐκεῖνοί εἰσιν οἱ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν τὴν καλὴν σπαρέντες]; and they hear the word and welcome it, and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."

I mean, why even change the syntax, and thus the symbolism, like that? The explanation is disjointed.

[Stefan Kristensen]

The theme of the specific 'messianic secret' that Wrede spoke of has to be abandoned, and instead we need to look at the whole secrecy aspect of Mark's narrative as a permeating idea, imo.

Wrede's premise, at its most basic, was that Mark was reconciling two different traditions: one in which Jesus was declared to be the son of God, the Messiah, at his resurrection/exaltation (as in Romans 1.4) and another in which that declaration happened at his baptism (as in Mark 1.9-11). The natural result was that Jesus' sonship and messiahship must have been kept private (a secret to everyone except the demons) between his baptism and his resurrection, at which point it became public. Does that basic premise have to be abandoned, in your view?

No, not necessarily, in my view, if "premise" means that we might assume this in order to try and make sense of the whole secrecy aspect in gMark. If our goal is to conclude something historical behind the text, which was Wrede's errand, such as the existence and fusing of two different traditions in the earliest communities, sure why not.

Your use of the term "historical" here is a bit confusing, since Wrede is generally associated with the move to disassociate Mark's composition from a recounting of historical events. His point is, at least in part, that the messianic secret does not reflect anything historical from the life of Jesus, that it is a measure taken in order to preserve two contradictory propositions (whether you wish to characterize them as traditions or as theological concepts): (A) Jesus was appointed as son of God at his resurrection and (B) Jesus was appointed as son of God at his baptism. Nothing historical about the life of Jesus even need be at stake here; the two concepts require some harmonization, and in Wrede's view the messianic secret is a result of such harmonization.

Ok, my wording is confusing, but notice that I write "something historical behind the text", as opposed to 'within the text'. True, Wrede is associated with the groundbreaking move to disassociate Mark's composition from a recounting of historical events, but that is in the text, not 'behind it'. Wrede was interested in the historical matters of the earliest communities, and he treats gMark as a window into this. I want to treat gMark as a window also, but only as a means to treat the text itself.

One can reverse engineer a car for the purpose of finding out which parts it consists of, or one can do it for the purpose of finding out how the car works when all the parts are put together in their place.

Or one can do both. In fact, I am not sure how your second option is even possible without your first. How can one figure out how all the parts work together if one does not even know how any given individual part works on its own? If one does not even know that the battery provides the charge necessary to get the solenoid going, which kicks in the starter, which in turn gets the combustion engine itself to turning, how can one in any way claim to know how the engine starts? One would have to admit that the car runs, but one would have no idea how it runs. One may as well never have even tried to reverse engineer the thing in the first place.

I know this is just an analogy you are using, and that no analogy is perfect, but I think you have to run into the same issue in understanding the gospels: any of the gospels. Whether Mark got the parable of the sower from tradition or created it himself from scratch, for example, has to make a difference for the kinds of interpretations we are applying to it in this thread, does it not? If Mark created the parable from scratch, I think our expectations are high that its four categories of seed should make sense in its authorial context; if, on the other hand, Mark got it from tradition, then surely it is possible that its four categories might not line up perfectly with categories which Mark elsewhere has established of his own volition (insiders and outsiders, perhaps).

Well, I'd say your wording is unfortunate here, so I can't really answer this question. Because we don't know in advance whether it's traditional or Mark's creation. Now, I agree that if Mark was the one to create the parable, then we might reasonably expect everything to fit. But! If Mark got it from tradition, then in my view and not in your view, we should also automatically expect everything to fit (crucially: at the sublevel). As the starting point, of course, with the possibility ever open that it doesn't fit after all (it is an "approach").

I have a tendency to view apparant discrepancies as a problem that can be solved with a method of theological-literary analysis, whereas you have a tendance to view discrepancies more as a natural phenomenon inherent in a text composed partly by traditional material. But please do understand this, that this method that I prefer in no way excludes the existence of traditional material. It's just that I'm a little reluctant to use the proposed/possible presence of traditional material as explanations for apparent discrepancies. This also means that I'm less likely than you to view apparant discrepancies as a sign of the presence of traditional material. I believe there is traditional material, but I also believe that (almost) everything fits, namely at the sublevel. E.g. Mark forgets to tell when the scene in Mark 4:21-32 shifts back to the crowd, which could be hint at sloppy editing. But even though we can conclude that Mark has used traditional material here, the discrepancy at the surface level of the narrative (the missing scene shift) should not be treated in the same way as the apparent discrepancy in the teaching material of Jesus here, because here we're dealing with the meaning of the text at the sublevel, and this is where Mark har concentrated the communication of his message.

After my years of studying gMark I have come to my present specific view of the text, which is what makes me insist on this approach, to stubbornly assume that all fits, somehow, we just need to keep looking. You don't want to be so stubborn in this regard, I suppose, because the basic view of the text you have at this point in time after your years of study, is slightly different from mine, but enough that our basic approaches are quite different.

But I should of course have added to my analogy that the second option is impossible without the first option (especially with a car!) And it also applies the other way around, of course, investigating the parts of the car also involves knowledge of how the car works as a whole to begin with. So it is a dialectic maneuvre either way, i.e. whether one's purpose is to investigate its parts or investigate how it works as a whole, one has to do both to move forward.

Paul is a witness of this 'reconciling' of these two theological concepts, especially in Romans (I hardly think Paul was the only one to think this up). Mark describes Jesus' baptism as the type for any Christian baptism, imo, the same way that Paul throughout Romans describes baptism (or more broadly, inclusion into God's people).

Paul consistently relates Christian baptism to Jesus' death and resurrection, not to his own baptism by John, which Paul never mentions. This is a pretty big difference from Mark, and it forms part of Wrede's reconstruction of how these various ideas developed.

Yes, but like I said, imo Mark describes (or perhaps even invents) Jesus' baptism as the type for any Christian baptism. Paul describes the Christian baptism and connects it with Jesus' death and resurrection. Mark models Jesus' baptism on the Christian baptism. Naturally, then, Jesus' baptism in gMark is intimately connected with his death (the splitting, the spirit, the 'God's son' proclamation) and resurrection (the Transfiguration). This is all an expression of Mark's incredibly sophisticated theology, just like the sophisticated theology expressed explicitly in the epistle literature only in gMark expressed implicitly through the very different medium of a narrative. For me, the only real argument against this, imo, is the completely unwarranted assumption that the author, "Mark", was not so theologically sophisticated that he was capable of thinking these complex thoughts.

For me, Rom 1:4, together with other central parts of Romans, describes well what happens in Mark's narrative, including the baptism. In gMark Jesus is inserted as ruler at his death and resurrection, which is why his anointing happens in this connection. His burial anointing is his messianic anointing, and until that point he was messias designatus. The "ορισθεντος" in Rom 1:4 can indicate a lot of things.

I have looked into the meaning of ὁρίζω in Romans 1.4 before: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2494&start=20#p55982. The treatment of this verb in LSJ: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... %28ri%2Fzw, confirms to my satisfaction that it is more likely that Jesus' sonship is beginning with ὁρίζω than that it is merely being confirmed. Romans 1.4 is adoptionist through and through, and the point of adoption is the resurrection.

I disagree, but this whole thing is another discussion involving a delving deep into the theological universe of Romans. I'll just say that in Rom 1:4 it is not just the word itself, ορισθεντος, which can have several meanings, but practically every element in the verse! Especially, what does sonship mean in this particular context. does "power" go with the sonship or with the appointment (or installment)? Is there a sonship with and without "power"? To understand "ορισθεντος" I insist we need to look in the dictionary, but also to discuss all the other elements in the verse and the entire context and the entire letter!

[Stefan Kristensen]

I love and hate Mark 4:1-34, the discourse of Jesus with the Sower and the "secret of the kingdom of God" and the light and measure and mustard seed etc. There are so many interpretive options it drives you nuts, and just when you think you have found a way that it all makes sense, then there is a verse that doesn't fit in and seems to say the opposite. But it is also a great section dealing with the awesome theme of mystery and secrecy!

There are also quite a few puzzles which precede those interpretive options, since they lie on the level of just basically reading the text. For example, in the explanation of the parable of the sower the seed for the first soil represents the word, while grammatically the seed for the second, third, and fourth soils represents the people hearing the word:

Mark 4.15: 15 "But these are the ones who are beside the road [οὗτοι δέ εἰσιν οἱ παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν], where the word is sown [ὅπου σπείρεται ὁ λόγος]; and, when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them."

Mark 4.16-17: 16 "And these are the ones being sown upon the rocky places [καὶ οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ ἐπὶ τὰ πετρώδη σπειρόμενοι], who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away."

Mark 4.18-19: 18 "And others are the ones being sown among the thorns [καὶ ἄλλοι εἰσὶν οἱ εἰς τὰς ἀκάνθας σπειρόμενοι]; these are the ones who have heard the word, 19 and the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful."

Mark 4.20: 20 "And those are the ones having been sown on the good soil [καὶ ἐκεῖνοί εἰσιν οἱ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν τὴν καλὴν σπαρέντες]; and they hear the word and welcome it, and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."

I mean, why even change the syntax, and thus the symbolism, like that? The explanation is disjointed.

Indeed. Technically, as the text stands, we're dealing with four sowing situations rather than four soils. Technically. But this is a case of sloppyness, no doubt. Either sloppyness in editing or in the creation of this material. It is quite clearly a mistake: "The sower sows the word ...", and then he goes on to describe how the sower sows the people. One could attempt an interpretation that makes sense of this. Maybe the word sown is Jesus planting his apostles who carry the word, and then the fruit are the Christian communities growing all over the world as a result of the missionary activity. But that's stretching it, I'd say.

This only tells us what we already know, imo: The important point for Mark is the results of the sowing situations.