Pilate as a later addition in Mark

[Ben C. Smith]

A "prophet like Moses" trope, based on Deuteronomy 18.15-19, was one of the four kinds of messianology that modern scholars discern for the years between 170 BCE and 140 CE.

[The others being

1. The Messiah as military leader
2. The Messiah as sage
3. The Messiah as high-priest]

What is the attestation for the Messiah as sage? I am familiar with:

1. A prophet like Moses (= Taheb) or like Elijah.
2. A king like David (= Messiah ben David).
3. A priest like Aaron or like Melchizedek.
4. A warrior like Joshua or Joseph/Ephraim (= Messiah ben Joseph).

Is the "sage" figure one of those, or is he a different character? What are the references?

I got that list from https://www.livius.org/articles/religio ... ike-moses/ which hyperlinks 'The Messiah as sage' to https://www.livius.org/articles/religio ... ah-3-sage/

Ah, I see. Thanks. The Messiah as sage seems to be a sort of variant of other types, especially the Davidic king. I prefer to use the typology given in 4QTestimonia, but it is very good to keep in mind that the Messiah could easily be viewed as the antithesis to a warrior king.

[MrMacSon]

Ah, I see. Thanks. The Messiah as sage seems to be a sort of variant of other types, especially the Davidic king. I prefer to use the typology given in 4QTestimonia, but it is very good to keep in mind that the Messiah could easily be viewed as the antithesis to a warrior king.

Ah, yes, I noticed you'd posted about that on another thread, which I think is quite helpful so will post it below for posterity.

Pertinently, 4Q175 is one of the Dead Sea Scroll containing a collection of scriptural quotations seemingly connected to a messianic figure. The manuscript, known as The Testimonia, was written in Hasmonean script of the early 1st century BCE. It's a short document containing five Biblical quotations arranged in four sections concerning God's activities at the end-time.

The first section consists of two texts from Deuteronomy and refers to the prophet-figure who is like Moses (Deuteronomy 5:28-29; 18:18-19). The second section is an extract from a prophecy of Balaam about the Messiah-figure, who is similar to David (Numbers 24:15-17). This prophecy predicts "A star shall come out of Jacob and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel; he shall crush the temples of Moab and destroy all the children of Sheth." The third section is a blessing of the Levites, and of the Priest-Messiah who will be a teacher like Levi (Deuteronomy 33:8-11). The last section begins with a verse from Joshua (6:26), which is then expounded by means of a quotation from the Psalms of Joshua (see 4Q379). These verses show that the Qumran community was interested in the messianic prophecies found in the Tanakh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4Q175

The Livius site has noted

Several persons were inspired by the idea that the Messiah was someone like Moses. One may think of John the Baptist, the Samaritan prophet, an Egyptian prophet (52-58 CE), an anonymous prophet about 59 [and Moses of Crete in 448]. https://www.livius.org/articles/religio ... ike-moses/

My own tentative typology is as follows:

• A prophet (like Moses or Elijah): the Samaritan (promised to reveal treasures hidden by Moses on Gerizim), an anonymous prophet under Festus (promised signs and wonders in the desert), Jonathan the weaver (promised signs and wonders in the desert), Jesus ben Ananias (? imitator of the prophet Jeremiah).
• A king (like David): Hezekiah the bandit (?), Judas the Galilean (?), Simon of Peraea (?), Athronges (a shepherd who assumed a diadem and led a band of men against the Romans), Menahem (appeared in the temple dressed in royal garments), Simon bar Giora (appeared before the Romans dressed in purple).
• A priest (like Aaron or Melchizedek): Banus (?), John the baptist (? promoted a cheap and easy purification rite).
• A warrior (like Joshua): Theudas (promised to part the Jordan), the Egyptian (promised the walls would fall).

4Q175 (4QTestimonia), lines 1-30:

[Prophet:] 1 And **** spoke to Moses saying: [Deuteronomy 5.28-29] «You have heard the sound of the words of 2 this people, what they said to you: all they have said is right. 3 If (only) it were given (that) they had /this/ heart to fear me and keep all 4 my precepts all the days, so that it might go well with them and their sons for ever!» 5 [Deuteronomy 18.18-19] «I would raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and place my words 6 in his mouth, and he would tell them all that I command him. And it will happen that /the/ man 7 who does not listen to my words which the prophet will speak in my name, I 8 shall require a reckoning from him.» ....

[King:] 9 And he uttered his poem and said: [Numbers 24.15-17] «Oracle of Balaam, son of Beor, and oracle of the man 10 of penetrating eye, oracle of him who listens to the words of God and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who 11 sees the vision of Shaddai, lying down and with an open eye. I see him, but not now, 12 I espy him, but not close up. A star has departed from Jacob, and a sceptre /has arisen/ from Israel. He shall crush 13 the temples of Moab, and cut to pieces all the sons of Sheth.» ....

[Priest:] 14 And about Levi he says: [Deuteronomy 33.8-11] «Give to Levi your Thummim and your Urim, to your pious man, whom 15 I tested at Massah, and with whom I quarrelled about the waters of Meribah, /he who/ said to his father {not} 16 {...} and to his mother ‘I have not known you’, and did not acknowledge his brothers, and his sons he did not 17 want to know. For he observed your word and kept your covenant. /They have made/ your judgments /shine/ for Jacob, 18 your law for Israel, they have placed incense in your nose and a whole offering upon your altar. 19 Bless, ****, his courage and accept with pleasure the work of his hand! Crush /the loins/ of his adversaries, and those who hate him, 20 may they not rise!» ....

[Warrior:] 21 .... At the moment when Joshua finished praising and giving thanks with his psalms, 22 he said [Joshua 6.26] «Cursed be the man who rebuilds this city! Upon his firstborn 33 will he found it, and upon his youngest son will he erect its gates!» And now an accursed /man/, one of Belial, 24 will arise to be a [fo]wler’s tr[ap] for his people and ruin for all his neighbours. And 25 [...] will arise [to b]e the two instruments of violence. And they will rebuild 26 [this city and ere]ct for it a rampart and towers, to make it into a fortress of wickedness 27 [in the country and a great evil] in Israel, and a horror in Ephraim and Judah. 28 [... And they will com]mit a profanation in the land and a great blasphemy among the sons of 29 [Jacob. And they will shed blo]od like water upon the ramparts of the daughter of Zion and in the precincts of 30 .... {in} Jerusalem.

[neilgodfrey]

If we start with the view that the Gospel of Mark is a narrativization of Paul's theology, and if we accept that Paul was responsible for the passages bringing Jews and Gentiles together into the one body in Christ, both equally guilty and equally saved, then is there not a ready explanation for Pilate being original to the Gospel of Mark? With Pilate in the story we have both Jews and gentiles together responsible agents for crucifying Jesus. Roman soldiers, Jewish pressure. Both Jew and Gentile condemned and saved. Yes?

[Giuseppe]

If we start with the view that the Gospel of Mark is a narrativization of Paul's theology, and if we accept that Paul was responsible for the passages bringing Jews and Gentiles together into the one body in Christ, both equally guilty and equally saved, then is there not a ready explanation for Pilate being original to the Gospel of Mark? With Pilate in the story we have both Jews and gentiles together responsible agents for crucifying Jesus. Roman soldiers, Jewish pressure. Both Jew and Gentile condemned and saved. Yes?

My objections:

• Is it not an impossible «divine» coincidence, the fact that the First Gospel was just one where «both Jew and Gentile are condemned and saved» ? Usually the compromises of this kind (and you would agree that this is a compromise) are reached later, not more before.

• Even in Mark, Pilate is not «equally guilty» as the sinedrites. Pilate would be «equally guilty», even more guilty than the Jews, if we remove the Barabbas episode and if we reduce the relation between Pilate and Jesus to this short dialogue:
  
  
  They led Jesus to the high priest,
  
  and the elders and the scribes gathered and,
  
  the morning come, they took counsel and,
  
  having bound him, they brought him to Pilate.
  
  Pilate asked him: “Are you the king of the Jews?”
  
  Jesus asked, “You say so”.
  
  Then Pilate handed Jesus, having him flogged, to be crucified.
  
  This is really the view of Jean Magne about the Earliest Gospel. Pilate becomes bluntly cruel when he realizes, after confirmation by Jesus himself, that Jesus is simply the king of Jews sic et simpliciter. Note that Jean Magne's case was praised even by a Christian scholar as Bruce Chilton. But Magne's point is that Pilate was evil in connection with the declared Jewishness of Jesus's claims. Since the goal of the first gospel was, according to Magne, to judaize the Gnostic deity by euhemerizing him as a Davidic Messiah. Hence, Pilate was basically introduced to claim that Jesus was the Jewish Messia and not the alien gnostic deity. The my point is that I think that Magne is right (specifically about the reason of the presence of Pilate as a way to contrast the Gnostic views of Jesus, by reiterating that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and as such - only as such - was killed) even if the First Gospel didn't mention Pilate at all. Hence Guillet (a historicist) would agree with Magne and with myself when he points out that Pilate was introduced by Jewish-Christian editors of Mark after Bar-Bokhba as anti-gentile agenda.

[neilgodfrey]

• Is it not an impossible «divine» coincidence, the fact that the First Gospel was just one where «both Jew and Gentile are condemned and saved» ? Usually the compromises of this kind (and you would agree that this is a compromise) are reached later, not more before.

That's a reasonable inference, a general principle, to apply tentatively pending the surfacing of evidence to confirm or deny in particular cases.

But if Paul's letters are about the calling of both Jew and gentile together then is it unreasonable to think that Mark was fleshing out that theme from the beginning?

• Even in Mark, Pilate is not «equally guilty» as the sinedrites. Pilate would be «equally guilty», even more guilty than the Jews, if we remove the Barabbas episode and if we reduce the relation between Pilate and Jesus to this short dialogue:
  
  
  They led Jesus to the high priest,
  
  and the elders and the scribes gathered and,
  
  the morning come, they took counsel and,
  
  having bound him, they brought him to Pilate.
  
  Pilate asked him: “Are you the king of the Jews?”
  
  Jesus asked, “You say so”.
  
  Then Pilate handed Jesus, having him flogged, to be crucified.
  
  

Pilate was not the only Roman but involved -- his soldiers carried out the crucifixion order -- but a metonomy for gentiles. It was a Roman, a gentile, who first recognized the identity of Jesus at the foot of the cross -- and in the above quote Jesus is pointing out the irony of Pilate being on the verge of recognizing him just prior to his crucifixion.

The other scenario re rivalry with gnosticism is a possibility. I suppose it comes down to which hypothesis is the simpler, requiring the fewer sub-hypothesis to sustain it.

[MrMacSon]

... if we accept that Paul was responsible for the passages bringing Jews and Gentiles together into the one body in Christ ...

I know the whole point of your post this excerpt is from is about G.Mark "hav[ing] both Jews and gentiles together [as] responsible agents for crucifying Jesus", and the Pauline corpus being a foundation or seed for that, but it raises for me the question of whether Paul was actually documenting 'bringing Jews and Gentiles together' (whether in or under Christ or not), or if the Pauline epistles are/were as much or even more propositional or wishful-thinking in that respect than might have previously been considered?

eta: and Neil alludes to that with "if Paul's letters are about the calling of both Jew and gentile together" in your next post above.

[MrMacSon]

Since the goal of the first gospel was, according to Magne, to judaize [a] Gnostic deity by euhemerizing [anthropomorphising] him as a Davidic Messiah. Hence, Pilate was basically introduced to claim that Jesus was the Jewish Messia and not the alien gnostic deity ... my point is that I think that Magne is right (specifically about the reason of the presence of Pilate as a way to contrast the Gnostic views of Jesus, by reiterating that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and as such - only as such - was killed) ...
.

Certainly writing about a deity as a human executed by a real, known human -Pilate- would help to reify or accrete the proposition-premise that said deity was human. As would references to the Sanhedrin (which would also help frame him as a rebel or eccentric Jew)

I'm not sure one can say or confirm that "Pilate was introduced by Jewish-Christian editors of Mark after Bar-Kokhba as [part of or the basis for an] anti-gentile agenda." (I know Bar-Kokhba isn't your primary focus here, Giuseppe, but it would be interesting to know how Bar-Kokhba died: if he was executed and, if so, how, as a potential influence on the development of the Christian narrative).

[Giuseppe]

But if Paul's letters are about the calling of both Jew and gentile together then is it unreasonable to think that Mark was fleshing out that theme from the beginning?

good point.

Pilate was not the only Roman but involved -- his soldiers carried out the crucifixion order -- but a metonomy for gentiles. It was a Roman, a gentile, who first recognized the identity of Jesus at the foot of the cross -- and in the above quote Jesus is pointing out the irony of Pilate being on the verge of recognizing him just prior to his crucifixion.

yes but in GPeter who tortured Jesus before the crucifixion were not the Romans but the Jews. The Mark's priority would require a very drastic modification on this specific point.

The other scenario re rivalry with gnosticism is a possibility. I suppose it comes down to which hypothesis is the simpler, requiring the fewer sub-hypothesis to sustain it.

I think that what is decisive to decide here is the dating of the Gospels. If the assumption is that GMark was written at least after 115 CE, then the Gnostic threat had to be more great and influential.

[neilgodfrey]

but in GPeter who tortured Jesus before the crucifixion were not the Romans but the Jews. The Mark's priority would require a very drastic modification on this specific point.

I once wrote often attempting to argue for the priority of the Gospel of Peter but as happens so often I come to a point where I change my mind. The Road to Damascus is fraught with ambushes.

I think that what is decisive to decide here is the dating of the Gospels. If the assumption is that GMark was written at least after 115 CE, then the Gnostic threat had to be more great and influential.

You would think so. But then again in those days authors were quite capable of totally ignoring whole schools of thought surrounding and assailing them if they so chose. Note Justin Martyr's apparent ignorance of Paul.

Having said that, I'm currently updating my knowledge of Basilides. Irenaeus linked him to the Gospel of Mark for some reason, iirc.