Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

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MrMacSon
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Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

Post by MrMacSon »

.
Gospels before the Book by Matthew D.C. Larsen, OUP, 2018.

In Gospels before the Book, Matthew Larsen....explores a host of under-appreciated elements of ancient textual culture such as unfinished texts, accidental publication, post-publication revision, and the existence of multiple authorized versions of the same work. Turning to the gospels, he argues that the earliest readers and users of the text we now call the Gospel according to Mark treated it not as a book published by an author, but as an unfinished, open, and fluid collection of notes (hypomnmata). In such a scenario, the Gospel according to Matthew would not be regarded as a separate book published by a different author, but as a continuation of the same unfinished gospel tradition. Similarly it is not the case that, of the five different endings in the textual tradition we now call the Gospel according to Mark, one is "right" and the others are "wrong." Rather each represents its own effort to fill a perceived deficiency in the gospel. Larsen offers a new methodological framework for future scholarship on early Christian gospels. https://global.oup.com/academic/product ... us&lang=en&#

Candida Moss has an article on it in the daily beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/are-the-g ... ref=scroll (from which the title of this thread was borrowed). Moss also discusses another book, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity by Eva Mroczek which also refers to 'fluid, unregulated, and unbounded set[s] of textual liturgical traditions.'

Both are available in Kindle format.
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark was more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 2:03 pmWas the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?
I have long thought that Mark may have been just that, a collection of "notes" (so long as we properly understand what is meant in antiquity by "notes"): viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3907.
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 2:11 pm I have long thought that Mark may have been just that, a collection of "notes" (so long as we properly understand what is meant in antiquity by "notes"): viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3907.
Yes, it stands to reason given the textual traditions of those times. And the predominance of non-specific texts would explain why there are scant pericopes of extant books in the works of early church fathers such as Justin Martyr.
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

Post by MrMacSon »

Neil Godfrey did a nice blog-post on Eva Mroczek's Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity nearly 2 yrs ago, https://vridar.org/2017/02/08/divine-re ... ble-canon/
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

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There is nothing "incomplete" about Mark that could not also be said of any script successfully employed for third-party performance, whether that script reaches us from ancient times, or is in workshop this afternoon.

It is obvious that Mark's parts are dependent across all scales of distance within the text. Jargon lovers will someday latch onto the term fractal dependence for that quality. We see scholarly recognition of this dense dependence in the "chiasm" literature. There's a good chance that many proposed chiasms are projected onto the text. Finding chiasms, like overfitting "clusters" in other data, is almost inevitable in any highly autocorrelated data set. Nevertheless, a strong interdependence of a possibly less mechanically unimaginative structure really is there.

And then there are "notes," labile parts. How much could the order of Mark's incidents be changed without eroding the coherence of the performace? Could a Roman centurion interrupt Jesus' baptism to proclaim him the son of a god, while after the crucifixion, a nebulous voice acknowledges paternity of Jesus with pleasure? That might be an interesting evening in the theater, but it might also fairly be classed as a different work, rather than an "alteration" of Mark. On pain of incoherence, meaningful dependency constrains order of presentation.

Could you, however, depict a resurrection appearance integral to a performance of Mark through 16:8 without changing the text at all? Sure, that experiment's been done.

There is a popular modern musical-theater harmony of the gospels called Godspell. It opens (after a non-gospel number that introduces the cast) with "Prepare ye." In "original" Broadway versions, it also ended with "Prepare ye," sung by the company after Jesus' male disciples return from carrying his corpse off. Curtain.

This Easter-free quality was off-putting for conservative religious theater groups. But, in 2005, ultra-conservative Azusa Pacific University mounted a production. With modern intellectual property laws and trade practice, APU couldn't change a word. So they didn't. They did, however, notice that the "company" includes Jesus, and so after being carried off, Jesus simply returns to lead the company in its final "Prepare Ye." There's a lot of special business involving a grand entrance, the miming of recognition and rejoicing, etc. Special bsuiness is not regulated by law or practice, and by its nature, it's impossible to regulate anyway.

There are many lessons to be learned from this bit of "experimental archeology." The only relevant thing that marks the episode as "modern" is that APU had no lawful choice but to respect the integrity of what was on the page. Apart from that, while Sophocles would marvel at the technology, the idea of non-authorial performers shaping the audience's experience within the constraint of a fixed text would be old hat to him.
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark was more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 2:11 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 2:03 pmWas the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?
I have long thought that Mark may have been just that, a collection of "notes" (so long as we properly understand what is meant in antiquity by "notes"): viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3907.
Actually, the thread linked to there - the
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2018 3:32 pm ... thread about ancient book dissemination in the Classical Texts & History forum
- is well worth revisiting -
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:59 pm
I have been interested in ancient book publication for a good long while now: partly because of my own interest in books, partly because of how complex and challenging it can be to sort it all out, and partly because it may help me devise realistic models for how early Christian and Jewish texts came into being. On this thread I will simply lay out some of the ancient evidence for how ancient books were disseminated, and what could happen to them in the process.

Two Stages of Dissemination

The ancients knew of (at least) two very distinct steps in the dissemination process. One first made notes or memoirs; then one crafted, if desired, those notes or memoirs into a polished rendition for official publication: ...

< . . snipped . . >

It is clear that, while the notes or memoirs stage was considered a normal step in arriving at a polished product for publication, there was not always a perceived necessity to push the text beyond that first stage, especially in a didactic situation such as that described by Galen.

Multiple Editions

Sometimes an author, upon publishing (in whatever sense) a work, might republish it:

Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.1.1-2: 1 Nothing I have previously written against Marcion is any longer my concern. I am embarking upon a new work to replace an old one. My first edition [primum opusculum], too hurriedly produced, I afterwards withdrew, substituting a fuller [pleniore] treatment. This also, before enough copies [exemplariis] had been made, was stolen from me by a person, at that time a Christian but afterwards an apostate, who chanced to have copied out some extracts very incorrectly [mendosissime], and shewed them to a group of people. 2 Hence the need for correction [emendationis necessitas facta est]. The opportunity provided by this revision has moved me to make some additions. Thus this written work, a third succeeding a second, and instead of third from now on the first, needs to begin by reporting the demise of the work it supersedes, so that no one may be perplexed if in one place or another he comes across varying forms of it [varietas eius].

Obviously, if a person can hijack an edition of a work, then it seems unlikely that any edition of that work can have truly been withdrawn from circulation in antiquity. Multiple editions of the same work in circulation might be a good source for textual variants.

Bootlegged Editions

The extract from Tertullian above gives an example of bootlegging, as does the following:

Quintilian, Oratory Institution 1, preface 7-8: Two books [duo... libri] are now circulating under my name on the art of rhetoric which were neither published [editi] by me nor agreed to for this purpose. For the one is a lecture held over two days that the boys to whom it was presented took down, the other a lecture captured [in print] for many days, as much as the good youths were able to follow in notation, but it was with too much love that they rashly made them available by doing me the honor of publication [editionis honore]. Wherefore in these books some things will also be the same [eadem aliqua], many things changed [multa mutata], many more added [plurima adiecta], all things more truly composed and elaborated as much as we are able.

Any situation involving oral teaching would be susceptible to this kind of treatment at the hands of listeners, whether well meaning or not.


Additions & Subtractions

We have rather many indications from antiquity that books were regularly subtracted from or added to (interpolated):

Revelation 22.18-19: 18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.

Artemidorus, Oneirocritica 2.70: 70 I ask those who read my books not to add to or remove anything from the present contents. For any person who is able to add points to my work would more easily write a work of his own. And if certain things that I have written in these books seem superfluous, the reader should use only those things that please him without discarding the rest of the books. For he should realize that it was out of obedience to Apollo, the overseer god and guardian of all things in addition to being my own native god, that I undertook this treatise. Apollo has encouraged me in the past, and now especially, when I have made your acquaintance, he clearly presides over my work, and has all but commanded me to compose this work.

Eusebius, Church History 4.23.12: 12 The same writer [Dionysus of Corinth] also speaks as follows concerning his own epistles, alleging that they had been mutilated: "As the brethren desired me to write epistles, I wrote. And these epistles the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, cutting out some things and adding others. For them a woe is reserved. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if some have attempted to adulterate the Lord's writings also, since they have formed designs even against writings which are of less account." There is extant, in addition to these, another epistle of Dionysius, written to Chrysophora, a most faithful sister. In it he writes what is suitable, and imparts to her also the proper spiritual food. So much concerning Dionysius.

Rufinus, preface to On the Falsification of the Books of Origen: I do not think it can be doubted that it could in any way happen that a man of such an education and so prudent — which of course even his accusers can grant — a man who was neither foolish nor insane, would have written what is contrary to himself and repugnant to his own opinions. Or even if we grant that this could in some way have happened — for perhaps someone will say that in the decline of life he might have forgotten what he had written in his youth, and that he later brought forth things at variance with what he had formerly thought — what shall we do about the fact that sometimes in the very same passages, and, so to speak, in practically the next section, an opinion is found inserted that is of a contradictory sense? Could he have forgotten his own views in the same chapter of the same book, [or] sometimes, as we have said, immediately in the next section? For example, when he had said just before that nowhere in all the Scripture is it found that the Holy Spirit was said to have been made or created, would he immediately add that the Holy Spirit had been made along with the rest of the creatures? Or again, could he who has pointed out that the Father and the Son are of one substance — which is said in Greek as ὁμοούσιος — have said in the immediately subsequent sections that he is of another substance and was created, the one whom he had but a little before declared to have been born of the very nature of God the Father? Or again, concerning the resurrection of the flesh, was it possible that he who so clearly declared that the nature of the flesh ascended with the Word of God into heaven, and there appeared to the heavenly powers, presenting to them a new and marvelous sight of himself, has said, on the other hand, that this [flesh] is not to be saved? Since, then, these things could not happen even to a man who was out of his mind and who was not sound in the brain, I will briefly clarify the cause of this to the best of my ability.

We also have rather many indications that entire books could be forged under false names, but that topic seems to deserve a treatment unto itself. Bart Ehrman has published books dealing with ancient forgery of books.

I conclude (for now) with a quote from a modern researcher on the topic at hand:

Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church, pages 84-85: In providing copies of a work to friends an author effectively surrendered further personal control over the text. A recipient might make her copy available to another, who could then make a copy in turn. No expense was involved other than the cost of materials and, if need be, the services of a scribe. In this way copies multiplied and spread seriatim, one at a time, at the initiative of individuals who lay beyond the author's acquaintance. Since every copy was made by hand, each was unique, and every owner of such a copy was free to do with it as he or she chose. In this way a text quickly slipped beyond the author's reach. There were no means of making authoritative revisions, of preventing others from transcribing or revising it as they wished, of controlling the number of copies made, or even of assuring that it would be properly attributed to its author. In principle the work became public property: copies were disseminated without regulation through an informal network composed of people who learned of the work, were interested enough to have a copy made, and knew someone who possessed the text and would permit it to be duplicated. Thus a text made its way into general circulation gradually and for the most part haphazardly, in a pattern of tangents radiating from the points, ever more numerous, where the text was available for copying.

It is my feeling that the hazards of ancient book publication may have particular implications for how early Christian and Jewish texts have come down to us.

Ben.
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

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This article examines the significance the gLuke statement of "an orderly account." Perhaps this was meant to contrast with the gMark's account?
https://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/hand ... sAllowed=y
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

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arnoldo wrote: Sun Dec 16, 2018 10:12 am This article examines the significance the gLuke statement of "an orderly account." Perhaps this was meant to contrast with the gMark's account?
https://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/hand ... sAllowed=y
Thanks for the link. Part of his conclusion is:

Benjamin W. W. Fung, The Meaning of "Orderly" Account in Luke 1:3, pages 217-218: Moreover, I discovered that if Greco-Roman and Jewish historians do not mention in their prefaces what order they are going to write, they will write in chronological order, which gives further confirmation that Luke’s writing order is chronological. Therefore, the findings from chapter 2 lead to the conclusion that Luke likely writes both his gospel and the book of Acts in chronological order.

This conclusion seems quite consonant with my longstanding suspicion, voiced on another thread a few months ago, not only that the order meant by various writers is a literary order, but also that the default literary order for works involving history is chronological.
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

Post by hakeem »

MrMacSon wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 2:03 pm .
Gospels before the Book by Matthew D.C. Larsen, OUP, 2018.

In Gospels before the Book, Matthew Larsen....explores a host of under-appreciated elements of ancient textual culture such as unfinished texts, accidental publication, post-publication revision, and the existence of multiple authorized versions of the same work. Turning to the gospels, he argues that the earliest readers and users of the text we now call the Gospel according to Mark treated it not as a book published by an author, but as an unfinished, open, and fluid collection of notes (hypomnmata). In such a scenario, the Gospel according to Matthew would not be regarded as a separate book published by a different author, but as a continuation of the same unfinished gospel tradition. Similarly it is not the case that, of the five different endings in the textual tradition we now call the Gospel according to Mark, one is "right" and the others are "wrong." Rather each represents its own effort to fill a perceived deficiency in the gospel. Larsen offers a new methodological framework for future scholarship on early Christian gospels. https://global.oup.com/academic/product ... us&lang=en&#

Candida Moss has an article on it in the daily beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/are-the-g ... ref=scroll (from which the title of this thread was borrowed). Moss also discusses another book, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity by Eva Mroczek which also refers to 'fluid, unregulated, and unbounded set[s] of textual liturgical traditions.'

Both are available in Kindle format.
It is hardly likely that gMark was a rough draft or collection of notes. We have the stories of Jesus of gMark and virtually all events were invented from the baptism to the resurrection .

One does need to take notes to fabricate the stories like Jesus walking on water, transfiguring, the killing of the fig-tree, feeding thousands with a few loaves and fish, making the blind see, the dumb talk, the deaf hear and raising the dead.

The Gospel according to John confirms that stories of Jesus in gMark were not a collection of notes or draft since the author rejects almost all the events and fabricates his/her own Jesus whom he calls God Creator, the Logos which is not found in any of the Synoptics.

The multiple versions of the Jesus story are really no different to the fabrication of multiple versions of the stories of Romulus.

See Plutarch Romulus.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/r ... ulus*.html
2 1 Others again say that the Roma who gave her name to the city was a daughter of Italus and Leucaria, or, in another account, of Telephus the son of Heracles.......... or, in another version, to Ascanius the son of Aeneas. Some tell us that it was Romanus, a son of Odysseus and Circe........ and others still that it was Romis, tyrant of the Latins, after he had driven out the Tuscans, who passed from Thessaly into Lydia, and from Lydia into Italy. Moreover, even those writers ........ do not agree about his lineage.

2 For some say that he was a son of Aeneas and Dexithea the daughter of Phorbas........ 3 Others say it was Roma, a daughter of the Trojan woman I have mentioned......and others still rehearse what is altogether fabulous concerning his origin.

3 1 But the story which has the widest credence and the greatest number of vouchers was first published among the Greeks, in its principal details, by Diocles of Peparethus, and Fabius Pictor follows him in most points. Here again there are variations in the story.....
a virgin must have intercourse with this phantom, and she should bear a son most illustrious for his valour, and of surpassing good fortune and strength.
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Re: Was the Gospel of Mark more like a rough draft or collection of notes than a book?

Post by arnoldo »

hakeem wrote: Sun Dec 16, 2018 2:45 pm . . The multiple versions of the Jesus story are really no different to the fabrication of multiple versions of the stories of Romulus.

See Plutarch Romulus.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/r ... ulus*.html
. .
Well one difference is that the events described in the founding of Rome allegedly take place around 750 BC while Plutarch's account is written sometime in the late first/early second century AD. The time frame between the time the gospels were written and the events depicted therein are considerably narrower.
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