Those stupid disciples!

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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arnoldo
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by arnoldo »

Martin Klatt wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:37 am . . Conclusion: Jesus selected these guys because they were stupid.
The Pauline writer put it the following way.


1 Corinthians 1:26-30 King James Version (KJV)

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Bernard Muller »

"Mark" made the disciples look stupid, or Jesus issuing gag orders to them, because they never observed (or heard) anything divine or extraordinary things which would support the Christian faith. All that divine and supernatural stuff was "Mark" doing in his gospel.
The disciples never had any reason to become Christians (that goes for James also), and the disciples (more so Peter) were never heard relating the aforementioned stuff: "Mark" used these tricks in order to get around the silence of the disciples on the most critical items "proving" Christian beliefs.

Everything explained here: http://historical-jesus.info/108.html.

Cordially, Bernard
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Giuseppe
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:50 pm
Back to the father who is thunder, well that is Zeus, the King of the Gods (Lord of Hosts) who is equivalent in the Gnostic view with Jehovah the Jewish God. So this could be seen as representing James and John leaving their old father, the Jewish God, to follow a new God, Jesus.
A very suggestive interpretation. Thanks.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Giuseppe »

"Sons of Thunder" may be a reference to Revelation, where two prophets have the power of throwing thunders, if I remember well.

I wonder about "Zebedee" being a cryptical reference to John the Baptist, given that "John" means "Grace", too. But John was in prison by that time hence the possible need of another name for the father of James and John.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Giuseppe »

If the sea of Galilee is the Sheol, then the two Fishers were working there as archons, as guards of the souls of Sheol. Jesus converts them in the role of apostles, i.e. they abandon the surveillance of the souls (the net) and so they become the exact contrary: liberators of souls.

But the archontic nature of the two Pillars remains their basic DNA.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 5:36 pm
Zebedee is not an actual name anyone ever had.
זַבְדִּי • (zab'di) m

Zabdi, the name of four Israelites in the Hebrew Bible.
A son of Zerah and grandson of Judah; grandfather of Achan.
A one of the sons of Shimhi, a Benjaminite.
An officer of David, in charge of the produce of the vineyards for the wine cellars.
A son of Asaph the minstrel; also called 'Zaccur' and 'Zichri'.
This isn't good evidence, you are quoting fictional character names from essentially the same well source. These are not likely real names you cite either. The OT is just as chalk full of charactonyms and aptonyms as the NT, beginning with Adam. [1] You can;t use a biblical source to show non-biblical use of a name. I stand by what I said, Zebedee is almost certainly not a name anyone had, it is more probably a charactonym. And if you take the meaning as "bestowed by Yahweh' or "gift of Yahweh", the the sons of Zebedee are then, symbolically, gifts from yahweh or blessed by him.

But Mark doesn't seem to be aware of this meaning of Zebedee from his source, nor that it is an Aramaic/Hebrew transliteration into Greek. So in 3:17 has Jesus assign a new name, intending to give them a Hebraic (Aramaic) translation of that name (Zebedee) to Boanerges "sons of thunder". This tells us Mark didn't actually know Aramaic, as if he did he would not need to apply a new name that he probably thought meant the same. (And that is what this tread is about.) This also tells us Mark's use of Aramaic words would be akin to you or I having a character say "I'll have a cerveza (which in Mexican means Beer)" [2]

Digression:
Stephen, I know we differ on this, and in fact many points, largely because we hold that the ethnic replacement of Jews by Gentiles happened at very different stages in the development of Christianity. You think it came about in the process of evangelism, which led to a morphing of the religion away from Judaism. I think the ethnic replacement happened at a much earlier stage, near the beginning of the incubation period in semi-isolated monastic communities in Greek speaking regions set up by diaspora Jews. Of necessity they recruited the next generation from the indigenous populations surrounding them -- they were not only ascetics, they were celibate. It probably took two or three generations for the process to complete. This had profound effects. But this topic is for another thread


footnotes:
[1] There are also inaptronyms such as the silversmith Demetrius who made idols for Artemis the goddess of hunting. But Demtrius means belongs to Ceres, which is Demeter in Greek, the goddess of agriculture. The writer of Acts 19 (or his source) definitely had a sense of humor with that one.
[2] I used "Mexican" instead of "Spanish" to drive home that the gospel writers and Acts would transliterate into Greek Aramaic words and then say they were "Hebrew", which they were not. But they were associating the spoken language with an ethnicity, Aramaic with Hebrews, like Spanish with Mexicans.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Mark's Jesus is no Einstein himself, nor is there any reason why he should be. Mark is realistic; the smart learned people in his story have real jobs. Like their boss, the disciples display other virtues.
Martin Klatt

Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Martin Klatt »

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Last edited by Martin Klatt on Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stuart wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:41 am
Secret Alias wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 5:36 pm
Zebedee is not an actual name anyone ever had.
זַבְדִּי • (zab'di) m

Zabdi, the name of four Israelites in the Hebrew Bible.
A son of Zerah and grandson of Judah; grandfather of Achan.
A one of the sons of Shimhi, a Benjaminite.
An officer of David, in charge of the produce of the vineyards for the wine cellars.
A son of Asaph the minstrel; also called 'Zaccur' and 'Zichri'.
This isn't good evidence, you are quoting fictional character names from essentially the same well source. These are not likely real names you cite either. The OT is just as chalk full of charactonyms and aptonyms as the NT, beginning with Adam. [1] You can;t use a biblical source to show non-biblical use of a name. I stand by what I said, Zebedee is almost certainly not a name anyone had, it is more probably a charactonym.
Zabdi is just an alternate form of Zebediah/Zabadiah, which is the form obviously intended in the gospel of Mark:

Mark 1.20: 20 Immediately He called them; and they left their father Zebedee [Ζεβεδαῖον, nominative Ζεβεδαῖος] in the boat with the hired servants and went away to follow Him.

1 Chronicles 26.2: 2 Meshelemiah had sons: Zechariah the firstborn, Jediael the second, Zabadiah [Ζαβαδιας] the third, Jathniel the fourth.... [Refer also to 1 Chronicles 8.15, 17; 12.7; 27.7; 2 Chronicles 17.8; 19.11; Ezra 8.8; 10.20.]

It is not just a biblical name. There is an ostracon from the Persian period found at Ashdod:

Joseph Naveh, "Hebrew Texts in Aramaic Script in the Persian Period?" Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 203 (October 1971), page 31, note 30: The ostracon reads krm zbdyh/pg, "the vineyard of Zebadiah, half a jar" ....

The Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot, quotes both from a Rabbi Jacob bar Zebedi and from a Rabbi Zabdi son of Rabbi Jacob bar Zabdi.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Those stupid disciples!

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Martin Klatt wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:42 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 9:20 am The word ἀμφίβληστρον is cognate with ἀμφιβάλλω, and it simply means a casting net (among other things). Classical writers tended to use περιβάλλω for the act of casting it, but the meaning for ἀμφιβάλλω would be much the same, as is shown by the Old Greek of a verse in Habakkuk:

Habakkuk 1.17 (OG): 17 Διὰ τοῦτο ἀμφιβαλεῖ τὸ ἀμφίβληστρον αὐτοῦ καὶ διὰ παντὸς ἀποκτέννειν ἔθνη οὐ φείσεται.

Habakkuk 1.17 (Brenton): Therefore will he cast his net, and will not spare to slay the nations continually.

Habakkuk 1.17 (Vulgate): 17 Propter hoc ergo expandit sagenam suam et semper interficere gentes non parcet.

Your example is not the best around, as the Septuagint is a Greek translation of a Hebrew text with a poor reputation especially when the Christians started to mess with it, this variant could just as well be from the Christian era, so not at all "Old Greek" as you said. In the corresponding Masoretic text the same fragment is translated as emptying the net, not casting it. In the commentary of Habakuk that was among the Dead Sea Scrolls there was even a different and older variant that could be best translated as "drawing the sword" which is even more plausible in the context of slaying the nations. All these variants show it is not as easy like you make it out to be.
Mark is the first and only evangelist that uses ἀμφιβάλλω and he is the originator of the story in the first place, so we should be aware he could be using it in any meaning he chose to apply here, so why not the more generic meaning of wrapping around as clothing as I posited?
Because it is the cognate verb of ἀμφίβληστρον, which in the context of fishing means a net. Notice also the use of another cognate, ἀμφιβολεῖς ("those who cast on both sides"), as a synonym for ἁλεεῖς ("fishermen") in Isaiah 19.8 OG. (Speaking of which, OG is simply the designation for the text; it is not a comment of mine on how old the Greek is. I prefer OG to LXX because, strictly speaking, the LXX should apply only to the Pentateuch.)

I found that information about the "sword" variant and noticed the Masoretic reading, as well, but do not view them as relevant if the Greek version of Habakkuk 1.17 predates the composition of Mark, since the likely original reading of a verse in Habakkuk is not what is under discussion. As for whether the Greek for Habakkuk 1.17 predates Mark, sure, it is possible (as far as I know) that a Christian scribe exported the word from Mark into Habakkuk. I do not think this is at all likely, given the inconsequential nature of that maneuver, but if you want to take Habakkuk 1.17 off the table, fine. Take Isaiah 19.8 off, too, if you like. We are still left with the undeniable linguistic fitness of the term ἀμφιβάλλω for fishing.

Possibly of relevance, there is a papyrus fragment (not a Christian one) from century III in which ἁλιεῖς ("fishermen") ἀμφιβάλλουσι ("are casting"). The text is available here: http://papyri.info/ddbdp/sb;6;9467v; however, I am not certain about the rest of the transcription, including the words in between ἁλιεῖς and ἀμφιβάλλουσι, since BDAG reconstructs this same papyrus more sparsely: οἱ ἁλιεῖς... ἀμφιβάλλουσι, stating that the gap represented by the ellipsis cannot be reconstructed with any certainty. (LSJ refers to this same papyrus; I have been unable to locate a photograph of it.) At any rate, the verb is at home in a setting involving fishing, and I am not persuaded that Mark meant anything more than fishing by it. No one who knows what an ἀμφίβληστρον is is going to see the term ἀμφιβάλλω used in a fishing context and then automatically think of the action entailed in putting on a toga. It is odd that he uses the verb absolutely; except for the bare possibility of that papyrus fragment, I cannot find any other examples of that; but that (rare/unique) usage does not distinguish between my interpretation and yours, since in both cases some kind of net is the understood direct object.

You are as free as can be to think that Mark was sneaking extra meaning into this word; but I think it is a fantasy.
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