"He is calling Elijah"

[Martin Klatt]

. . .

[Giuseppe]

Finally there is Pilate showing surprise that he is dead already, but no word about Elia.

NOTA BENE: I am applying the hermeneutics of suspicion or criterion of embarrassment. The my point is that Mark connects the surprise of Pilate (and of the centurion: their reaction is identical, pace your "atomistic" exegesis able to explain the centurion without connecting him with Pilate, despite of the fact that Pilate asks the centurion about Jesus) with the sudden death of Jesus to eclipse the original connection (found in Cdn) between the surprise of Pilate/centurion with the disappearance of Jesus.

So far your strange notion that the fact of Elia not coming causes surprise.

In Mark it seems that the rapidity of the death of Jesus causes surprise. A "reason" that is so stupid/clumsy just as the not coming of Elijah. That "reason" serves to eclipse the original true reason of the surprise: the disappearance of Jesus from the cross.


Note that what you write after is perfectly expected if Mark introduced Joseph of Arimathea to explain why Pilate came to be surprised: Joseph told him that the Jesus was dead rapidly.

Now let's look at a very peculiar play with words where the genius of Mark is shining brightly:

Joseph of Arimathea is asking Pilate for the (living)body σῶμα then Pilate wonders if he is already dead and asks the centurion to bring witness and only after that he allows for the corps πτῶμα to be released. Now that is creating dramatic tension, is he dead or isn't he? Did the centurion really see it right? He never took his pulse or such did he? We know that he lives because the final scene in the tomb tells us. So was he ever dead or did he rise from the dead? The Christians made their choice, I go the other way. He wasn't even dead in the first place.

[Giuseppe]

Sorry to disappoint you Giuseppe, but after reading Mark on your latest parallel there can only be a negative verdict:
Crooked parallel Joe, there is no amazement or surprise about Elia not showing in this section of Mark. Check it again. It's not there. Then again, why would they anticipate Elia to appear anyway? Elia is a legendary prophet who went to heaven a long time ago. After all the mocking why would they expect the tables to turn again?

I see that you have modified the your comment above.

The original your comment was:

Crooked parallel Joe, there is no amazement or surprise in Mark in this section.

what escapes you is that the people around Jesus really believed or hoped or feared that Elijah was going to show himself. Hence the rapid death of Jesus or the not coming of Elijah provoke surprise.

it is already a FACT that Pilate was surprised about the rapid death of Jesus. I think that it is a clumsy reason to be surprised, even if you can say me that it is a common mediterranean tropos. A better reason to be surprised is about the disappearance of the victim in extremis.

I call EDITORIAL FATIGUE the Elijah episode in Mark, insofar it is an episode about the presumed presence of someone who is not there.

[Giuseppe]

Are yourself surprised to see how much clumsy (=EDITORIAL FATIGUE) is Mark in the his absurd claim that the surprise was provoked by the rapid death of Jesus (!) and/or by the not coming of Elijah?

Cdn	Mark
Jesus invokes the Father	Jesus invokes YHWH
people think he is a man	people think he invokes Elijah
but Jesus disappears	but Elijah doesn't come and Jesus dies rapidly
surprise of the people around	surprise of the people around

[Giuseppe]

I am using here the definition of "editorial fatigue" given by Ehrman:

When one writer is copying the work of another, changes are sometimes made at the beginning of an account, which are not sustained throughout. The writer lapses into docile reproduction of his / her source. Like continuity errors in film and television, examples of editorial fatigue are unconscious mistakes, small errors of detail which naturally arise in the course of constructing a narrative. This phenomenon of ‘fatigue’ is thus a tell-tale sign of a writer’s dependence on a source.

https://ehrmanblog.org/a-new-argument-t ... -goodacre/

The fact that Mark isn't giving the people around a valid reason to be surprised (apart the rapid death and/or the not coming of Elijah) is precisely what I call EDITORIAL FATIGUE.

What is more is that I am able to infer the reason: Mark was so editorially clumsy because he was imitating the surprise motive found in Cdn without agreeing about the cause of the surprise.

[Martin Klatt]

. . .

[Giuseppe]

You are the only person making assumptions about the presumed presence of someone who is not there

I am sorry. I thought that you was able to realize at least that Elijah is considered about to arrive, even only for a moment, by the people around.

I have made the my case.

[Martin Klatt]

. . .

[Giuseppe]

You forgot I already made a case there never was an expectation of a prophet Elia, but instead the perceived reappearance of the sun by the spectators.

We are talking about the same thing. The people around Jesus believed blindly for a moment that Elijah was going to appear, given the fact that they imagined that Jesus had just invoked the help of Elijah. Hence the not coming of Elijah and the rapid death of Jesus - according to Mark - surprised them.

What is clumsy and sign of editorial fatigue by Mark is just the causal connection made by him:

Jesus invokes Elijah (in the eyes of people around) -----> they believed that Elijah had to arrive really ---> Elijah doesn't come but Jesus dies ----> surprise by the people around.

What you don't realize for a sense of pure opposition against my conclusions is the presence of the causal connection just described by me.

[Martin Klatt]

...