"Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

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Stefan Kristensen
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

andrewcriddle wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:40 am SSee Hippolytus Apostolic Tradition for the prayers of the hours.
5If you are at home, pray at the third hour and praise God. If you are elsewhere at that time, pray in your heart to God. 6For in this hour Christ was seen nailed to the wood. And thus in the Old Testament the Law instructed that the shewbread be offered at the third hour as a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ. And the sacrifice of the irrationalb lamb was a symbol of the perfect Lamb. For Christ is the Shepherd, and he is also the bread which descended from heaven.

7Pray also at the sixth hour. Because when Christ was attached to the wood of the cross, the daylight ceased and became darkness. Thus you should pray a powerful prayer at this hour, imitating the cry of him who prayed and all creation was made dark for the unbelieving Jews.

8Pray also at the ninth hour a great prayer with great praise, imitating the souls of the righteous who do not lie, who glorify God who remembered his saints and sent his Word to them to enlighten them. 9For in that hour Christ was pierced in his side, pouring out water and blood, and the rest of the time of the day, he gave light until evening. This way he made the dawn of another day at the beginning of his sleep, fulfilling the type of his resurrection.
Andrew Criddle
Thanks for this. It is curious here, in v.7 (the sixth hour), that "the cry of him who prayed" is connected with the darkening? Who is the one crying out and praying here, Jesus? Because none of the gospels say that Jesus either cried out or prayed before the ninth hour, after the darkness? In fact, none of them even says that Jesus prays. But if his Ps 22:1 cry in the ninth hour is in mind here, "the cry of him who prayed", then this supports the idea, that Jesus' last words should be understood as a prayer.

The showbread thing mentioned in the third hour (v.6), that's the kind of theological explanation intended by Mark, I could buy.
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Ethan »

Jesus was never citing Psalm 22:1, that is an urban legend and after the cry, the people said that he was crying to 'Elijah', this verse is a rewriting of 2 Kings 2:12 'And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father', for Mark was fulfilling Malachi 4:5 'Behold, I will send you Elijah'.
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

andrewcriddle wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:40 am
... And the sacrifice of the irrationalb lamb was a symbol of ...
i don't know which image of the mind is more entertaining, an irrational lamb or a rational lamb!
Stefan Kristensen
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Ethan wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 12:35 pm Jesus was never citing Psalm 22:1, that is an urban legend and after the cry, the people said that he was crying to 'Elijah', this verse is a rewriting of 2 Kings 2:12 'And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father', for Mark was fulfilling Malachi 4:5 'Behold, I will send you Elijah'.
Well, if Jesus' cry on the cross is an "urban legend", then the whole of Mark's story is an urban legend. I suppose we could call it that. But I never considered 2 Kings 2:12 a possible background for Mark 15:34, thanks for that. Also, Elisha's "tearing his (old) clothes in two pieces" is interesting.
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stefan Kristensen wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 12:12 pmWhere can I learn of Goodacre's hypothesis?
The hypothesis originates with Goulder (whom I have read) and Trocmé (whom I have not). But Goodacre summarizes and expands it a bit here: http://markgoodacre.org/swan.pdf.

ETA: Oh, and Goodacre also mentions Carrington (whom I have also not read).
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Ethan »

2 Kings 2:12, Elisha is crying to Elijah, but he refers to him as 'Father', even though his father according to 1 Kings 19:16 was Shaphat, similar confusion in the New Testament, with Jesus being the son of 'Eli' and 'Joseph, see Luke 3:23.

The first part of the name Elisha (אלישע) can also be a definite article, so in poetry, the name is just ישע / Ἰσς hence Ἰησοῦς
and ישע is similar to the Arabic rendering, ISA, although Arabic names should be prefixed with the article, hence Al-Isa or Elisha.
this is all byproduct of Hebrew <> Greek transliterations.
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by MrMacSon »

Stefan Kristensen wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 12:41 pm Well, if Jesus' cry on the cross is an "urban legend", then the whole of Mark's story is an urban legend. I suppose we could call it that. But I never considered 2 Kings 2:12 a possible background for Mark 15:34, thanks for that. Also, Elisha's "tearing his (old) clothes in two pieces" is interesting.

.
The Elijah-Elisha narrative ... is...a literary model for the Gospels ..//.. the Gospels’ foundational model is the Elijah-Elisha narrative. By shifting the emphasis of the Primary History —from history toward biography, and from history toward the (prophetic) word— the account of Elijah and Elisha prepared the literary way for the writing of the Gospels. Thus the Elijah-Elisha narrative constitutes the key bridge between the foundational narratives of Judaism and Christianity.

Thomas L Brodie "The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah-Elisha Narrative as Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a Literary Model of the Gospels"


.
Much of the story called the Gospel of Mark follows the story of Elijah and Elisha from 1 and 2 Kings ... For anyone seeking to understand the Gospels, I strongly recommend reading the entire books of 1 and 2 Kings.

... In the Gospel called Mark, John the Baptist represents Elijah ... Readers are told this at the very beginning of the story through the use of literary allusion. In fact, readers are clued in to the fact that the story will parallel much of 1 and 2 Kings right from the beginning. The author uses an implicit reference to the Hebrew scriptures when the author describes the character of John the Baptist.

Price, R.G. Deciphering the Gospels ... (Kindle Locations 300-304; 316-334). Lulu Publishing Services

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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

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I guess I am wondering about the Markan mistake that Jesus was crucified at the third hour. It was the sixth hour as even the Marcosians knew. So what originally happened at the third hour? Ignatians to the Trallians 9:
On the day of the preparation, then, at the third hour, He received the sentence from Pilate, the Father permitting that to happen; at the sixth hour He was crucified; at the ninth hour He gave up the ghost; and before sunset He was buried.
The Nag Hammadi text Melchizedek:
And you crucified me from the third hour of the Sabbath-eve until the ninth hour.
The Gospel of Peter:
And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.
On the hours of prayer in Tertullian On Fasting:
In like manner they censure on the count of novelty our Stations as being enjoined; some, moreover, (censure them) too as being prolonged habitually too late, saying that this duty also ought to be observed of free choice, and not continued beyond the ninth hour,-- (deriving their rule), of course, from their own practice. Well: as to that which pertains to the question of injunction, I will once for all give a reply to suit all causes. Now, (turning) to the point which is proper to this particular cause--concerning the limit of time, I mean--I must first demand from themselves whence they derive this prescriptive law for concluding Stations at the ninth hour. If it is from the fact that we read that Peter and he who was with him entered the temple "at the ninth (hour), the hour of prayer," who will prove to me that they had that day been performing a Station, so as to interpret the ninth hour as the hour for the conclusion and discharge of the Station? Nay, but you would more easily find that Peter at the sixth hour had, for the sake of taking food, gone up first on the roof to pray; so that the sixth hour of the day may the rather be made the limit to this duty, which (in Peter's case) was apparently to finish that duty, after prayer. Further: since in the self-same commentary of Luke the third hour is demonstrated as an hour of prayer, about which hour it was that they who had received the initiatory gift of the Holy Spirit were held for drunkards; and the sixth, at which Peter went up on the roof; and the ninth, at which they entered the temple: why should we not understand that, with absolutely perfect indifference, we must pray always, and everywhere, and at every time; yet still that these three hours, as being more marked in things human-- (hours) which divide the day, which distinguish businesses, which re-echo in the public ear--have likewise ever been of special solemnity in divine prayers? A persuasion which is sanctioned also by the corroboratire fact of Daniel praying thrice in the day; of course, through exception of certain stated hours, no other, moreover, than the more marked and subsequently apostolic (hours)--the third, the sixth, the ninth. And hence, accordingly, I shall affirm that Peter too had been led rather by ancient usage to the observance of the ninth hour, praying at the third specific interval, (the interval) of final prayer.

These (arguments), moreover; (we have advanced) for their sakes who think that they are acting in conformity with Peter's model, (a model) of which they are ignorant: not as if we slighted the ninth hour, (an hour) which, on the fourth and sixth days of the week, we most highly honour; but because, of those things which are, observed on the ground of tradition, we are bound to adduce so much the more worthy reason, that they lack the authority of Scripture, until by some signal celestial gift they be either confirmed or else corrected. "And if," says (the apostle), "there are matters which ye are ignorant about, the Lord will reveal to you." Accordingly, setting out of the question the confirmer of all such things, the Paraclete, the guide of universal truth, inquire whether there be not a worthier reason adduced among its for the observing of the ninth hour; so that this reason (of ours) must be attributed even to Peter if he observed a Station at the time in question. For (the practice) comes from the death of the Lord; which death albeit it behoves to be commemorated always, without difference of hours yet are we at that time more impressively commended to its commemoration, according to the actual (meaning of the) name of Station. For even soldiers, though never unmindful of their military oath, yet pay a greater deference to Stations. And so the "pressure" must be maintained up to that hour in which the orb--involved from the sixth hour in a general darkness--performed for its dead Lord a sorrowful act of duty; so that we too may then return to enjoyment when the universe regained its sunshine. If this savours more of the spirit of Christian religion, while it celebrates more the glory of Christ, I am equally able, from the self-same order of events, to fix the condition of late protraction of the Station; (namely), that we are to fast till a late hour, awaiting the time of the Lord's sepulture, when Joseph took down and entombed the body which he had requested. Thence (it follows) that it is even irreligious for the flesh of the servants to take refreshment before their Lord did.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 2:37 pm I guess I am wondering about the Markan mistake that Jesus was crucified at the third hour. It was the sixth hour as even the Marcosians knew. So what originally happened at the third hour? Ignatians to the Trallians 9:
On the day of the preparation, then, at the third hour, He received the sentence from Pilate, the Father permitting that to happen; at the sixth hour He was crucified; at the ninth hour He gave up the ghost; and before sunset He was buried.
Just to be clear, this part is present only in the long recension.
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Stefan Kristensen
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 1:20 pm
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 12:12 pmWhere can I learn of Goodacre's hypothesis?
The hypothesis originates with Goulder (whom I have read) and Trocmé (whom I have not). But Goodacre summarizes and expands it a bit here: http://markgoodacre.org/swan.pdf.

ETA: Oh, and Goodacre also mentions Carrington (whom I have also not read).
Thanks. I think there are lots questions that Goodacre answers way too quicly or not at all in this paper, such as what exactly Paul means by "proclaiming" the death of Christ when eating the Lord's supper. If I understand him correctly (but I've only read this one paper, of course) then he assesses that the evidence supports that in Paul's time there was a coherent narrative in place concerning Jesus' passion, and not concerning his ministry, and that it is this also shows in gMark?
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