Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:54 pmMy own impression is that Mark 16:1-8 is a text that should be read with ease but most interpreters ask and want to answer eager questions which ultimately have little to do with the story.

Does the text prove the resurrection?
How could the word get out and Christianity begin?
Are the disciples rehabilitated?
Is there a lost ending?
and so on

Are such questions illegitimate, in your view? After all, the author can hardly be held responsible for the ending of his text being lost. If he meant his readers to have it, but we no longer do, there is no other way to approach the issue than to ask questions that the author himself could not have foreseen. (The same goes for interpolations and other textual events that can happen to an author's beloved text.)
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:54 pmIs Mark 16:1-8 not essentially a story about the last remaining Galilean followers of Jesus? Is the essential content of the story not the illlustration that these women, although they were devoted followers of Jesus, did not understand the essentials, because

- they were Sabbath observers
- they did not expect a resurrection
- they did not receive the message with sympathy
- they did not pass on the Good News

Does not this story about the women reflect in some sense what Mark had already said about the Galilean male disciples?
My own view is that no, Mark 16.1-8 is not essentially a story about the last remaining followers of Jesus. They are there, obviously; they are involved; but the story is principally about Jesus. All along, throughout the gospel story, people have been amazed at and even afraid of Jesus: his teaching, his preaching, his healing, his exorcisms, his beating the religious leaders at their own exegetical games during his last week or so in Jerusalem. Mark 16.1-8 is no different. The female followers of Jesus are amazed. After receiving the message they are afraid. True, they have not understood Jesus' teachings or predictions any better than the male followers did. But all of that human failure simply leaves Jesus standing alone in the gospel as the only person with any spiritual power at all. It is not about the women (nor is it about the men); they are foils. It is all about the son of God.

YMMV. :cheers:
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Stefan Kristensen
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Paul the Uncertain wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:08 am
So I'd like to regard it more as a literary device than as
The end of that thought got cut off, than as what?
Hmm.. good question!
And I understand gMark more traditionally, not as a play, but as a literary work,
"Play?" We're pretty sure that typical narrative writing (until relatively recently) was composed to be read aloud, and often before some audience (although people also read aloud to themselves, or had a servant read to them alone). There's also a good case that Mark was written to be experienced as a single event, from beginning to end, and that much justifies the word I chose, performance.

A live performance with two or more performers can be called a play, without special pleading. The issue in this thread doesn't depend on the number of performers, so I'll just stay with performance.
Fair enough, performance. Personally I'm not convinced by some performance critics' claim, that gMark was intended for 'performance' and not for silent reading, or even theological scrutinizing as with 'Scripture'. For me that's underestimating the sophistication of the work as well as of the phenomenon of early Christianity itself.
meant by the author to be understood and treated in the same way the Christian communities treated "the Scriptures"
If you don't mind, and it's not strictly on-topic, but do you have any evidence that Mark was a Christian at the time of composition? I know it's a popular assumption, but I wonder if there's any evidence for it.

Of course I get it that the work was a big hit with Christians, and influential upon later, indisputably Christian works like the other canonical Gospels.
Not sure what you're thinking, but I think that's an open-and-shut case: Mark was a Christian at the time of composition, because his composition is a Christian work.
However, not all the disciples are fra Galilee. So we may expect Peter to go to Galilee, but it has to be an organized effort, if "the disciples and Peter" are all to go to Galilee.
Peter, James, John and Andrew are all from Galilee and depicted as having family and business connections there. There was never any indication that the mission to Jerusalem was to be a permanent relocation (and in John it was a seasonal thing). PJJ&A are the first four and also the "final four" who ask Jesus an intelligent question (when?) and get what passes as his answer. Who else is needed on site, actually, to get the ball rolling?

Judas probably isn't invited; the other seven may or may not have Galilean contacts. John thinks some of them do; his chapter 21 has eight or nine of the boys working together on the sea of Tiberias, which I'm told is another name for the sea of Galilee. Regardless, I'm sure everybody has everybody else's Facebook; they'll get in touch (Peter: You'll never guess who I just ran into! You must come visit ASAP.)
Well, perhaps within the narrative universe of Mark's story, the prophecy of Jesus that he will "go before" them, implies that either all of them go in an organized fashion and God's plan moves forward, or else the whole thing fails.
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:51 am
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:40 am I just had an idea concerning the woman at the tomb and the reason they don't convey the message they're told. Firstly, my theory is based on the premise that it's a literary device, something put in there by Mark for some specific reason. I've always wondered why interpreters and preachers and biblical historians often talk about this scene as if it involved an historical problem or some kind of mystery, i.e. if the women "didn't say anything to anyone", then how could the Word get out and Christianity begin? But that is not a very close reading of the text at all.
I agree with this assessment. Jesus can appear to the disciples regardless of whether the women report back to them or not, just as he apparently does in the gospel of Peter. Any such reunion back in Galilee will naturally come as something of a surprise to the disciples, just as it seems to be in John 21.
Well, I'd say that in this case the reunion would not be a surprise as in John 21 or gLuke, but instead the same situation as in Matt 28. Jesus had told them that they should follow him to Galilee after his resurrection ("I will go before you"), so if they actually do this (which we can't tell because of the ending) then it wouldn't be a surprise for them to meet him. It would, however, be abit surprising for the reader if they went, because they had failed horribly when the reality of the gospel hit upon them, i.e. the persecution and death of Jesus. So after having 'lost their faith' having left Jesus, they do after all show faith and all travel to Galilee to meet him resurrected.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain that Jesus had appointed for them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth .....etc”
(Matthew 28,16–18 ESV)

My own judgment is that the ending of Mark has probably been lost or removed (or, to combine the two ideas, lost and deliberately not replaced, possibly because something in it reeked too much of something which the church later found offensive, like docetism; but that much is just speculation on my part). My problem with the gospel ending at 16.8 is not that Jesus cannot appear to his disciples anyway, but rather that this conscious authorial choice of where to end the text casts unnecessary doubt on other implications in the gospel, including those rightly drawn from 14.28 and 16.7. For me, 16.8 is not what it is usually called, a suspended ending, but rather a sabotaged ending. The attempts I have seen to try and justify Mark's decision to end the work at 16.8 come off as suspiciously postmodern to me; rather, I hold with the vast majority of exegetes who read the text before the rise of postmodernism and suspect that 16.8 was not the originally intended ending.

If it may be of interest, I have a discussion of the Marcan ending (one intended for Kunigunde) here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3092. Also related, my discussion of the restoration of the disciples in Mark: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3049. Joe has discussed the possibility that 14.28 is an interpolation: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2134. And I have a layout of the Fayyum fragment on this forum, as well: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1863.
Excellent, thanks.
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 2:51 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:51 am
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:40 am I just had an idea concerning the woman at the tomb and the reason they don't convey the message they're told. Firstly, my theory is based on the premise that it's a literary device, something put in there by Mark for some specific reason. I've always wondered why interpreters and preachers and biblical historians often talk about this scene as if it involved an historical problem or some kind of mystery, i.e. if the women "didn't say anything to anyone", then how could the Word get out and Christianity begin? But that is not a very close reading of the text at all.
I agree with this assessment. Jesus can appear to the disciples regardless of whether the women report back to them or not, just as he apparently does in the gospel of Peter. Any such reunion back in Galilee will naturally come as something of a surprise to the disciples, just as it seems to be in John 21.
Well, I'd say that in this case the reunion would not be a surprise as in John 21 or gLuke, but instead the same situation as in Matt 28. Jesus had told them that they should follow him to Galilee after his resurrection ("I will go before you"), so if they actually do this (which we can't tell because of the ending) then it wouldn't be a surprise for them to meet him. It would, however, be a bit surprising for the reader if they went, because they had failed horribly when the reality of the gospel hit upon them, i.e. the persecution and death of Jesus. So after having 'lost their faith' having left Jesus, they do after all show faith and all travel to Galilee to meet him resurrected.
Or they go back to Galilee because that is where they live, as per the gospel of Peter and, in its own weird way, John 21.

On any reading, it cannot very well work out as neatly as it does in Matthew, since Matthew 28.16 says that the disciples' rendezvous with Jesus happened at "the mountain which Jesus had designated." But neither Matthew nor Mark narrates Jesus giving such explicit instructions. This is one reason why I feel that Matthew is just making up for Mark's lost ending; his own resurrection appearance gives us little more information than the shorter Marcan ending, and this callback to instructions about a mountain already given by Jesus lands nowhere in the gospel, betraying its ad hoc character.

So at least the time and the exact place (somewhere in Galilee) of the reunion is going to be a surprise to the disciples in Mark. But I think you are more onto something with that bit that I highlighted, to the effect that "It would be a bit surprising for the reader" if the disciples actually were to follow Jesus' instructions here. That is the kind of insight that I was following up on. So far as the reader is concerned, the disciples have lost all faith and all hope, I think. All the more impressive, then, when Jesus, in the hypothetical ending, comes back with mercy and forgiveness, as a surprise, and gives them a second chance, just as is implied by the triangulation of John 21 with Luke 5 and Peter 14.

Incidentally, I also believe that Mark shows distinct signs of retelling a story and having to call back to something which was not narrated in order to do so, much as Matthew has done. Mark 15.41: "When He was in Galilee, [the women] used to follow Him and minister to Him; and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem." Okay, so where are these women in the early going of the gospel? They are missing in action. In order to show readers the empty tomb, Mark has had to bring characters in from earlier in the story (refer to Luke 8.1-3) without having narrated them before, much as Matthew, in order to show readers the promised resurrection appearance, has had to imagine instructions being given earlier in the story without having narrated them. All of our canonical gospels show these signs of retelling an already extant story. While I am pretty convinced, for example, that something like Mark preceded something like Matthew, I am not at all convinced that we possess (in Mark or in any single extant gospel) the earliest version of the story, a suspicion that is at least consonant with the observation that there was once a version of Mark, no longer extant, which actually once showed a Galilean resurrection appearance.
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Stefan
Fair enough, performance. Personally I'm not convinced by some performance critics' claim, that gMark was intended for 'performance' and not for silent reading, or even theological scrutinizing as with 'Scripture'. For me that's underestimating the sophistication of the work as well as of the phenomenon of early Christianity itself.
Performance doesn't and can't exclude private reading, including scrutiny in parts. A performance script, by nature, contemplates interpretive contributions by people other than the author. It is the foundation of a collaborative art.

Later Gospels provide evidence that some people (later authors) did pick Mark apart, with "improvements" in selected "performance" elements (Mark's something purple becomes Matthew's soldier's scarlet cloak), "scriptural foundation" (Matthew's notorious two asses), and theology (Mark 16:15-20 is absurdly inauthentic, as bad as the received Flavian Testimony).

The problem for me is how much of what later people did was intended by the original author, as opposed to merely foreseen as a possibility and accepted as an inherent and inevitable property of the chosen medium. Since the entirety of what we know about Mark is one composition of about 11,000 words, I urge caution when attributing intention beyond improving audience experience (that is, what authors generally seek in their work, and what, if not achieved, prevents fulfillment of any other intention).

Sophistication of the work is no problem for me at all. This is a Swiss watch, wheels within wheels, a fractal composition with detail at all scales of scrutiny. Plus, it plays as well as Antigone, even though it sounds like On the Waterfront. Mark has sophistication covered.
Not sure what you're thinking, but I think that's an open-and-shut case: Mark was a Christian at the time of composition, because his composition is a Christian work.
I don't see the evidence for that. It is easy to project support for a view onto somebody who wrote about the view. For example, Victor Hugo was a peculiar sort of "socialist," but he has been "lumped in" by others, both contemporaries and successors, with all sorts of lefty (and some not so lefty) "isms." Les Miserables alone is a lot longer than Mark.

Let me try a "compared with what?" Pliny the Younger mentions somebody who had been a Christian and quit sometime in the late 70's. Peter Kirby, our host here, estimates 65-80 CE for the time of Mark's composition.

What is on the page in Mark that excludes its author having once been a Christian, but someone who is no longer a Christian at the time he's writing?
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Paul the Uncertain wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 1:21 am Stefan
Fair enough, performance. Personally I'm not convinced by some performance critics' claim, that gMark was intended for 'performance' and not for silent reading, or even theological scrutinizing as with 'Scripture'. For me that's underestimating the sophistication of the work as well as of the phenomenon of early Christianity itself.
Performance doesn't and can't exclude private reading, including scrutiny in parts. A performance script, by nature, contemplates interpretive contributions by people other than the author. It is the foundation of a collaborative art.

Later Gospels provide evidence that some people (later authors) did pick Mark apart, with "improvements" in selected "performance" elements (Mark's something purple becomes Matthew's soldier's scarlet cloak), "scriptural foundation" (Matthew's notorious two asses), and theology (Mark 16:15-20 is absurdly inauthentic, as bad as the received Flavian Testimony).

The problem for me is how much of what later people did was intended by the original author, as opposed to merely foreseen as a possibility and accepted as an inherent and inevitable property of the chosen medium. Since the entirety of what we know about Mark is one composition of about 11,000 words, I urge caution when attributing intention beyond improving audience experience (that is, what authors generally seek in their work, and what, if not achieved, prevents fulfillment of any other intention).

Sophistication of the work is no problem for me at all. This is a Swiss watch, wheels within wheels, a fractal composition with detail at all scales of scrutiny. Plus, it plays as well as Antigone, even though it sounds like On the Waterfront. Mark has sophistication covered.
Ok, I understand you better now. It's just that, as I see it, gMark has its message hidden in all sorts of ways, which means that we can only understand it if we properly 'unlock' it. I further think that Mark meant to hide the message in order that it be unlocked, because his message is the gospel of God, which is indeed hidden as a secret, "so as to be revealed" (cf. Mark 4). The question is, then, how to go about this unlocking of the text's meaning, and some of the claims of some of the performance critics, that I have come upon, seems to me to be that the meaning in the text is unlocked not by theological, literary analysis but an analysis of what the text does to a person or a crowd when it is 'performed'.

So, e.g., the reason Mark has this ending with the silence of the women is not because of some theological message, but instead because of the dramatic or 'emotional' effect it has on a live audience expriencing the text being performed. So the meaning in the text is there not to improve the cognition of the audience, but rather to create an experience. I may understand performance criticism incorrectly and I may be doing a parady of it here, but it seems to me, that we have to choose between to different interpretations: a theological, or 'cognitive', interpration (the traditional exegetical methods), and then the 'effect' interpretation (the performance critical one), i.e. the meaning of the text lies in its emotional effect upon its hearers.

That said, I think performance criticism is of course validated, because of the fact that texts were generally read out loud. And I also definately think that the author ("Mark") had this in mind when writing the text. But so comes the question of genre. Because I do not regard gMark as belonging to the genres that could be described as entertainment. Mark obviously knew of various genres, and his text show similarity with a variety of them, such as bios and novels, but also biblical texts such as the Elijah/Elisha-cycles and even apocalypses.

And we know that entertainment genres were also written for the purpose of not just improving audience experience but also to function as didactic texts. Aiming to improve the personal virtues of the audience through entertaining stories. This we can compare with Mark's text in that can be regarded as preaching, in my view, even exhortation. This can be regarded as the tertium comparationis between gMark and the letters of Paul. But, crucially, Mark's intention was not to improve the audience with regard to general virtue and moral, but indeed to save their souls!

I think Mark wrote his text with the view that it was to be an extension of God's saving work. An extension of the Christian preaching, an extension of Jesus' own preaching. Therefore I think that everyting in his narrative ultimately is meant to edify the Christian faith of the audience. Just like God sent the gospel to the world, for the sole purpose that it help convert people to faith and faithfulness, so Mark has this idea about his text. Its sole purpose is to be a channel for the saving power of God's gospel message. That's why it was anonymous, so Mark could distance himself from the message, so that the message was presented as divinely as possible. The concrete text was his, but the message was God's. If the events he narrates had taken place in the past, he might have put the name of a past righteous person to it, as with the pseudepigrapha and Jewish apocalypses. In a way this is what the Church went and did later on, bringing in the figure of John Mark. But the author was a nobody in the great Christian scheme of things, he regarded himself as an unimportant messanger for an all-important message that wasn't his, a saving message from God.

If he thought that a dramatic effect on the emotional state of the audience would help with this end goal of his composition, to help save souls, then I can accept that this was intended by him, but the effect was not the goal itself. The goal is edification of the faith, in my view. Compare the introduction to Luke's gospel: He states that he writes his text "in order that you may recognize the certainty of the things you have been taught".
Not sure what you're thinking, but I think that's an open-and-shut case: Mark was a Christian at the time of composition, because his composition is a Christian work.
I don't see the evidence for that. It is easy to project support for a view onto somebody who wrote about the view. For example, Victor Hugo was a peculiar sort of "socialist," but he has been "lumped in" by others, both contemporaries and successors, with all sorts of lefty (and some not so lefty) "isms." Les Miserables alone is a lot longer than Mark.

Let me try a "compared with what?" Pliny the Younger mentions somebody who had been a Christian and quit sometime in the late 70's. Peter Kirby, our host here, estimates 65-80 CE for the time of Mark's composition.

What is on the page in Mark that excludes its author having once been a Christian, but someone who is no longer a Christian at the time he's writing?
Ah, you're thinking that the author was an apostate Christian? And so he wrote the text for a general audience, but then the Christians picked it up?
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 3:29 pm
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 2:51 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:51 am
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:40 am I just had an idea concerning the woman at the tomb and the reason they don't convey the message they're told. Firstly, my theory is based on the premise that it's a literary device, something put in there by Mark for some specific reason. I've always wondered why interpreters and preachers and biblical historians often talk about this scene as if it involved an historical problem or some kind of mystery, i.e. if the women "didn't say anything to anyone", then how could the Word get out and Christianity begin? But that is not a very close reading of the text at all.
I agree with this assessment. Jesus can appear to the disciples regardless of whether the women report back to them or not, just as he apparently does in the gospel of Peter. Any such reunion back in Galilee will naturally come as something of a surprise to the disciples, just as it seems to be in John 21.
Well, I'd say that in this case the reunion would not be a surprise as in John 21 or gLuke, but instead the same situation as in Matt 28. Jesus had told them that they should follow him to Galilee after his resurrection ("I will go before you"), so if they actually do this (which we can't tell because of the ending) then it wouldn't be a surprise for them to meet him. It would, however, be a bit surprising for the reader if they went, because they had failed horribly when the reality of the gospel hit upon them, i.e. the persecution and death of Jesus. So after having 'lost their faith' having left Jesus, they do after all show faith and all travel to Galilee to meet him resurrected.
Or they go back to Galilee because that is where they live, as per the gospel of Peter and, in its own weird way, John 21.

On any reading, it cannot very well work out as neatly as it does in Matthew, since Matthew 28.16 says that the disciples' rendezvous with Jesus happened at "the mountain which Jesus had designated." But neither Matthew nor Mark narrates Jesus giving such explicit instructions. This is one reason why I feel that Matthew is just making up for Mark's lost ending; his own resurrection appearance gives us little more information than the shorter Marcan ending, and this callback to instructions about a mountain already given by Jesus lands nowhere in the gospel, betraying its ad hoc character.

So at least the time and the exact place (somewhere in Galilee) of the reunion is going to be a surprise to the disciples in Mark. But I think you are more onto something with that bit that I highlighted, to the effect that "It would be a bit surprising for the reader" if the disciples actually were to follow Jesus' instructions here. That is the kind of insight that I was following up on. So far as the reader is concerned, the disciples have lost all faith and all hope, I think. All the more impressive, then, when Jesus, in the hypothetical ending, comes back with mercy and forgiveness, as a surprise, and gives them a second chance, just as is implied by the triangulation of John 21 with Luke 5 and Peter 14.

Incidentally, I also believe that Mark shows distinct signs of retelling a story and having to call back to something which was not narrated in order to do so, much as Matthew has done. Mark 15.41: "When He was in Galilee, [the women] used to follow Him and minister to Him; and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem." Okay, so where are these women in the early going of the gospel? They are missing in action. In order to show readers the empty tomb, Mark has had to bring characters in from earlier in the story (refer to Luke 8.1-3) without having narrated them before, much as Matthew, in order to show readers the promised resurrection appearance, has had to imagine instructions being given earlier in the story without having narrated them. All of our canonical gospels show these signs of retelling an already extant story. While I am pretty convinced, for example, that something like Mark preceded something like Matthew, I am not at all convinced that we possess (in Mark or in any single extant gospel) the earliest version of the story, a suspicion that is at least consonant with the observation that there was once a version of Mark, no longer extant, which actually once showed a Galilean resurrection appearance.
1) Jesus appears in an organized reunion for the whole inner circle. This we have in Matt 28.
2) Jesus appears as a surprise, first to some then others. This we have in gJohn and gLuke (and gPeter).

When Mark writes that "his disciples and Peter" will meet Jesus in Galilee, this to me sounds like an organized reunion for the whole inner circle, and not just the ones who happen to live in Galilee.

But you're right, the text in gMark cannot support an event where the disciples rally to a specific location in the expectation of meeting Jesus. So in a way the appearance would be a surprise. Matthew's text cannot support it either, even though this is exactly what happens. In this way you would understand Jesus' prophecy in 14:28, which is repeated in 16:7, as nothing more than that, a prophecy? 'After my death, when you return home to Galilee, I will in fact appear to you'.

But if the disciples travel in organized fashion to Galilee in the expectation of meeting Jesus at some point, in some place as of yet unknown, then the element of surprise is reduced to time and place. The point being that the disciples were seeking Jesus, and that's what's important. They all go to seek him, because they believe in the word he spoke about his resurrection and his "going before" them, they don't need the confirmation (16:7).

And the motif of seeking Jesus, or to seek out Jesus, to come inside of the house with him, accept it when he invites/calls (καλεω), etc. is part of a theological theme in the narrative imo, the whole theme of 'following', and so the disciples going to Galilee in organzied fashion would be another example of people trying to get close to Jesus, but this time with the belief that he is the savior despite the fact that he was executed. So this seeking out is qualitatively different, because they have seen Jesus' apparant failure and weakness. And yet they still seek him.

It just seems important to me, that the angel says "his disciples and Peter", just like Jesus had spoken to all of the twelve in 14:28 saying "I will go before you to Galilee". From this I can understand why Matthew would come up with the scene in Matt 28, with all eleven disciples gathered together in Galilee. It looks like in Mark 14:28 Jesus implicitly says that he will meet up with all twelve disciples in Galilee, which means we imagine them going there together in organized fashion.

So I still think it a viable suggestion that Mark wants the disciples to "pursue" Jesus to Galilee, like "Simon and those with him" also "pursued" Jesus who had 'risen from the bed', as it were, in 1:35ff. Not so much because of a possible allegorical parallel in 1:35ff, which is pretty speculative, but rather because of the whole grand theme of 'following', together with the particular term used in both instances: "go before you".

The verb, προαγω, can also be translated "lead", so "I will lead you to Galilee" is a possibility also, as the shepherd who was stricken but now in risen form will still shepherd them (I'm thinking Obi Wan guiding Luke in spirit after his is struck down!) If this aspect of the verb προαγω is also in there, that opens up the possibility that Jesus directs them, "leads" them, toward a specific location in Galilee. But I think προαγω should be translated as "go before" and not "lead", though. But it's a possibility.

If you think that there was a lost ending (I'm undecided but leaning towards 'suspended ending'), then what do you make of the scene with the women, and the fact that the disciples never get the confirmation message from the angel? Why the confirmation message to begin with?
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Stefan
Ah, you're thinking that the author was an apostate Christian?
Just as a possibility. Sometimes its easiest to discuss one plausible concrete alternative to a dominant hypothesis. Mark obviously knows a lot about Christian lore. One way to acquire that knowledge would be to have joined. Staying is a separate decision.

Joining isn't the only way. Celsus is well-informed about Christianity, without any known involvement. Pliny learned a few things from prosecuting Christians. I wonder how much Paul learned while he was a persecutor.

Speaking of Paul, there's reason to think that Jews generally knew something about Christianity back then. Mark is happy to show how much he knows about Judaism (like Celsus or Justin). Maybe Mark was investigating Judaism and discovered Christianiy.

Regardless, the founding myth of Christianity is a great story, a fine credit for any writer. You don't have to be Christian to like the story (which had better be true if Christians are going to attract seekers with this text, as it is rumored that the Alexandrian Catechetical School did). Why must you be a Christian to write it?
And so he wrote the text for a general audience, but then the Christians picked it up?
He may have written it for general audiences whether or not he was a Christian at the time. If he was, then general appeal would serve recruitment purposes. If he wasn't, then it appeals generally because it's a ripping yarn. Either way, as theater folk say, it's good to put bums in the seats!
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 2:08 pm
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:54 pmMy own impression is that Mark 16:1-8 is a text that should be read with ease but most interpreters ask and want to answer eager questions which ultimately have little to do with the story.

Does the text prove the resurrection?
How could the word get out and Christianity begin?
Are the disciples rehabilitated?
Is there a lost ending?
and so on

Are such questions illegitimate, in your view?
I do not mean „illegitimate“ but „not helpful“, if one tries to understand Mark 16:1-8 from a specific perspective.

My impression was that Stefan tried to understand Mark 16:1-8 from a literary point of view.
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:40 am I just had an idea concerning the woman at the tomb and the reason they don't convey the message they're told. Firstly, my theory is based on the premise that it's a literary device, something put in there by Mark for some specific reason.
This intent implies that questions about lost ends, interpolations and/or sources are not meaningful. My only point was that also the further questions are not helpful to understand the text from a literary point of view because imho the focus of the story is not on these questions. I agreed with Martin that Stefan has a question for the text but the text apparently no satisfying answer for Stefan.
Martin Klatt wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 2:42 am You cannot know if they succeed, because it is the end and the other gospels have not been written yet, they are irrelevant to this one. ... and as such the end must be the end, the rest can only be in the imagination of the reader.
imho Mark 16:1-8 is a much-discussed text, but in some sense also an "unread" text because almost all interpretations are developed with regard to the problems discussed.


Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 2:08 pmMy own view is that no, Mark 16.1-8 is not essentially a story about the last remaining followers of Jesus. They are there, obviously; they are involved; but the story is principally about Jesus.
I do not understand on what basis you can hold this view, but that could be my fault. The text starts and ends with the women. The events are narrated from the perspective of the women and the text gives insight into their inner world. You are right that these peculiarities are not limited to this story, but they are rare on this scale in GMark. Comparable examples may be the Gerasene demoniac, the hemorrhaging woman and Herod, but not much more. This way of storytelling is in Mark 16:1-8 only interrupted by the message of the young man, which also partially refers to the feelings, the perception and the task of the women.

1 When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.
3 And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.
6 And he said to them,Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”
8 And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

imho GMark is at great length and some major parts not only about Jesus, but also about understanding, trusting and following Jesus, in short discipleship.

At the end of classical Martyr stories the victim often triumphs in some way over his enemies, at least in words. But Mark 16:1-8 looks rather like a triumph over uncomprehending followers, maybe with some sympathy and with a tragic aftertaste. To me it looks like the sweet revenge by the author on some characters of his story. Maybe that's 70 percent of Mark 16:1-8.
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Re: Mark 16 and the silence of the women: The disciples redeemed?

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Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:19 pmI do not understand on what basis you can hold this view, but that could be my fault. The text starts and ends with the women. The events are narrated from the perspective of the women and the text gives insight into their inner world. You are right that these peculiarities are not limited to this story, but they are rare on this scale in GMark. Comparable examples may be the Gerasene demoniac, the hemorrhaging woman and Herod, but not much more. This way of storytelling is in Mark 16:1-8 only interrupted by the message of the young man, which also partially refers to the feelings, the perception and the task of the women.
My point is that the women appear out of nowhere apparently for the sole narrative purpose of bearing witness (on behalf of the reader of the gospel, not on behalf of anyone in history) to the cross and to the empty tomb; they are present, not for what they believe or disbelieve, not for who or what they are, but rather for what they see:

Mark 15.40-41: 40 There were also some women looking on [at the crucifixion] from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. 41 When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him; and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.

Mark 15.47-16.8: 15.47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were looking on to see where He was laid. 16.1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, they come to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 Looking up, they see that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. 5 Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. 6 And he says to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. 7 But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” 8 They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Their reactions to what they see are little different, as I have mentioned and you seem to agree, from the reactions of others in the gospel to what they have seen Jesus do or heard him say.
imho GMark is at great length and some major parts not only about Jesus, but also about understanding, trusting and following Jesus, in short discipleship.
Oh, I agree. When I say that Mark is about Jesus, it is about Jesus precisely as a means of encouraging belief in Jesus. The idea is that Jesus is so deserving of respect that your natural reaction ought to be amazement and fear (as with so many characters in the gospel) followed by unswerving devotion and discipleship. But I think it is a categorical mistake to think that Mark is concerned about the actual, specific discipleship of the characters in the story; the characters are there only to highlight how one can and should or cannot and should not react to Jesus. So I think that Joe is mistaken when he finds messages to the reader about the actual, historical ministries of Peter and others. And I think that you are digging well beyond the text when you say that it "gives insight into" the women's "inner world," or at least when you suggest the following:
At the end of classical Martyr stories the victim often triumphs in some way over his enemies, at least in words. But Mark 16:1-8 looks rather like a triumph over uncomprehending followers, maybe with some sympathy and with a tragic aftertaste. To me it looks like the sweet revenge by the author on some characters of his story. Maybe that's 70 percent of Mark 16:1-8.
Sweet revenge by the author on some characters whom he introduces to us only after Jesus is already dead? I must be misunderstanding you, because what I am reading you saying sounds well nigh impossible, not to mention symptomatic of some great pettiness on the part of the author.
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