Those stupid disciples!

[outhouse]

You are overreaching when you claim to know who the text was written for. The consensus opinion is Christian texts shot for the middle, not the top or bottom.

I would ask you to substantiate your claim. If it is a consensus it should be easy. By the way there was no middle, wither rich or poor. Middle class was unheard of.

Fact is, all of Christianity was started in Hellenism in paterfamilias households, and we have evidence from Pauline text it was everyone, with text that actually attacks wealth, and asks slaves to be set free that were part of the early movement.

I would attribute this attack on wealth as something that existed in the Aramaic movement in Galilee, as all of these oppressed people, lived lives below that of the common peasant.


"And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in; it chokes the Word, which becomes unfruitful" – Mark 4:19.

[Stuart]

You are overreaching when you claim to know who the text was written for. The consensus opinion is Christian texts shot for the middle, not the top or bottom.

I would ask you to substantiate your claim. If it is a consensus it should be easy.

Fact is, all of Christianity was started in Hellenism in paterfamilias households, and we have evidence from Pauline text it was everyone, with text that actually attacks wealth, and asks slaves to be set free that were part of the early movement.

I would attribute this attack on wealth as something that existed in the Aramaic movement in Galilee, as all of these oppressed people, lived lives below that of the common peasant.

You have a theory there. One I strongly disagree with. Partly because think you read Paul incorrect and too simply (the Pauline writings have many hands, many theologies, and cover multiple generations of Christian development; they are not from a single period). The attack on wealth I think is largely in the modern readers eye. It certainly was not seen that way at time. The parts asking monks and nuns to renounce wealth is an aspect of all religions, nothing special in Christianity there. You will find that same stipulation in Hinduism and Buddhist and others. Same for celibacy, that was practiced by the priests and nuns of many ancient cults. They were called the Vestal Virgins because ... gulp ... they were celibate and thus virgins!

Hellenized Judaism is very complex. The LXX came from bilingual communities, that much we know. But a version of the LXX is unique to Christians, one that substituted "Lord" for the Tetragrammaton. This is clear in all the NT texts. Psalms 110:1 was misread by the very earliest Christians because they did not read Hebrew or Aramaic, and because they were not in contact with Palestinian Jews. I come to that opinion because any Jewish exegete who could read Hebrew and speak Aramaic would have corrected that glaring mistake. In my view this is a major problem and hints at a different history than tradition gives us.

I would suggest that Christianity separated from Judaism BEFORE evangelism, and that it happened outside of Palestine, in what today are places like Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Greece. And I would suggest it happened AFTER the ethnic make up of the movement had switched from Jewish to gentiles. Yes it started from movements, monastic like the Theraputae Philo wrote about, in the Greek speaking parts of the world. But these movements, like their sister movements in Palestine such as found at Qumran, were ascetic and celibate.

This last part is why they changed ethnic makeup. (I give my opinion here of the process, also to answer Giuseppe) The monasteries in these semi-isolated places deep in Greek speaking gentile territories, were not able to sustain themselves with a steady stream of Jewish youth from the diaspora. So they recruited a few monks and nuns from the local surrounding population. This process accelerated in the next generation, as the gentile monks and nuns of course only recruited from the gentiles. It probably only took two or at most three generations before these monasteries were entirely gentile (or nearly so). The read, prayed and wrote commentaries in Greek. They also had no personal or familial contact anymore with Palestine, even though it was still the center of their religious affiliation. It was in these communities that Christianity formed. And also in these communities that monks and nuns were steeped in Christianity, spent years learning, reading and writing. So when somebody got the bright idea of not just recruiting monks and nuns, but recruiting lay people they army of apostles was already there ready to go. What is more, being gentiles and from the same tribes as the surrounding population they already had an "in" to homes and other places; they knew the languages and the customs; they had immediate family and childhood friends who made accessible targets for conversion to a new "cult." Ethnic Jews lacked these advantages and would have been stymied by Greek animosity to Jews. What is more the names we find in the Pauline letters are not Jewish, but Greek.

The earliest names of patron saints, John, Jacob (James), Judas, Simon (Peter) and Mary/Martha are for sure Jewish, excepting of course Philip which is Greek. But the letters are full of Greek and Latin names. And the placement of the action seems centered around Asia Minor and Greek states. So yes a Hellenization occurred, but I think it happened prior to evangelism, not as a result of evangelism. In fact I think evangelism only happened because the ethnic turnover in the Hellenized monasteries occurred before the explosion. What we have in all the stories of the various Acts, canonical or not, are idealized versions of the history tying them back to Palestine. But it's an invented history, including the idea of the fist apostles being illiterate peasants and fishermen (this is similar to stories that portray Muhammad as illiterate and yet able to magically transcribe the Quran) meant to illustrate how miraculous this was.

My view may be wrong, but I think it much better fits the data we do have much better, and gives a much easier and more plausible path. it explains why Christianity was able to explode so quickly in the 2nd century and why they got things like Psalms 110:1 all wrong. It also explains the distancing and things gotten wrong about Jewish practices that even a ethnic Jew, Hellenized or not, would never get wrong.

[Ben C. Smith]

Zabdi is just an alternate form of Zebediah/Zabadiah, which is the form obviously intended in the gospel of Mark:

I would say Mark's source. Mark had no idea what the name meant. This is clear from 3:17.

This opinion of Mark's work could be a model difference, as I do not think Mark invented any stories....

I agree that Mark used sources. I am not sure I would go so far as to say that he never invented anything of his own to add to the growing story.

...he at places even breaks the clearer meaning of his source, showing he didn't get what it was saying.

I am always on the lookout for such instances, if you would care to share any.

[outhouse]

I would suggest that Christianity separated from Judaism BEFORE evangelism, and that it happened outside of Palestine, in what today are places like Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Greece. And I would suggest it happened AFTER the ethnic make up of the movement had switched from Jewish to gentiles

.

See, I see this as a mistake. Judaism was already divorcing itself with the rise of Hellenism due to the amount of gentiles and proselytes coming to Passover by the hundreds of thousands yearly. ALL before Christianity started, and before crucifixion. Due to the temple and a 30 year period, Hellenistic Judaism exploded all due to the temple. This was one of the wonders of the world in its time, and it brought people from long distances again by the hundreds of thousands yearly.

This is exactly why Christianity exploded and there was never a transition to Jews to Christian. FACT is Aramaic Judaism that Jesus taught died the day Jesus was crucified. It did not evolve into Christianity. After crucifixion Jesus was martyred and the only people who found value were the Hellenist, and all the mythology grew only in Hellenism. Its why you had the Hellenist authors combatting heretical Christology that made him anywhere from all man to all god like the gnostics. I see exactly why the authors portrayed the Aramaic followers as cowards, and deniers, and misunderstood turncoats. They had nothing to do with the Hellenistic perversion of Judaism that had been going on for a long time.

Before Jesus had even been crucified, Hellenistic Proselytes were joining in numbers never seen before. In Hellenistic circles they abused Judaism so bad they would label each other as Jews, simply for swearing off pagan deities. Most people today have no clue how unorthodox Judaism and early Christianity even was.

[outhouse]

My view may be wrong, but I think it much better fits the data we do have much better, and gives a much easier and more plausible path. it explains why Christianity was able to explode so quickly in the 2nd century

The temple and how many gentiles and proselytes it created explains this without any other explanation. That is in the first and second century.

Think about it, had there been a transition from Aramaic Judaism to Christianity, with all the people coming and going in and out of the temple for 30 years after crucifixion, there would be no excuse for the lack of Aramaic transliterations. There should have been a clear trail from the so called pillars, with a lot of Aramaic transliterations. Not an almost complete lack of them, but these pillars were never on board, and I do not trust the Pauline communities version of said conversations.

[outhouse]

Think about it, the fact we have very few Aramaic transliterations is evidence the traditions only flourished in Hellenistic Judaism after crucifixion.

Think about it, John was the popular teacher, not Jesus.

[lsayre]

Stuart and Outhouse, I extend a virtual handshake to both of you. I wish this forum had the means to apply "likes" to posts.

[davidlau17]

Just for the sake of argument, even if we did choose to interpret ἀμφίβληστρον as meaning 'getting tangled', or something along those lines, it would hardly prove that Jesus chose them for that reason.

Nevertheless, it's true that the disciples show an obvious stupidity whenever they open their mouths; and their feeble-mindedness is by no means limited to the Gospel of Mark. The only disciples spared, I suppose, are those who never utter a word.

I think the most straightforward explanation for this was to make Jesus appear wise and intelligent by comparison. His counterparts' loutishness takes its fullest effect, IMO, in these passages:

Matthew 16: 5-12 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.
“Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Luke 9: 52-54 And he [Jesus] sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.
When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”
But Jesus turned and rebuked them.

John 11: 11-14 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.”
Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead."

Mark directly informs us that the disciples have difficulty understanding his parables.

Mark 4: 10,13 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parable. Then Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?"

Mark 7: 17-19 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.”

Note that in each of these examples, the disciples' remarks are met by Jesus either rebuking them or pointing out their stupidity. This a simple method of making him appear wiser, albeit less kind. Evidently the authors thought it more important to emphasize his intellect over his kindness.

[Stuart]

...

[davidlau17]

It says that Martin Klatt edited (deleted) his opening post around an hour before I posted my response on Saturday - but the OP was still up hours after I posted. I usually wouldn't care, but it makes me look like a bit of jackass here.