Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

An intriguing conclusion, en passant:

A second consequence of the model assuming a consistent origin of the Gospel tradition applies to historical research on Jesus and the possibility of identifiying 'authentic' traditions within the aggregate inventory of Gospels. If the common origin is not designated simply as 'historical', the identification of 'authentic' traditions can no longer be supported by arguments pertaining to the tradition history. For determining the historicity, only 'internal' criteria remain. Since they are necessarily always circular, the distinction between 'authentic' and 'secondary' traditions is entirely subjected to a methodological non liquet. The search for reliable Jesus traditions, which in the outgoing 18° and throughout the 19° century motivated the Gospel research and their source-critical efforts, remains without methodologically valid results.

(p. 230, my bold)

Amen. :cheers:
lsayre
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by lsayre »

If the search remains without methodologically valid results, why do you persistently attempt to force everyone to accept your contentions in regard to Jesus ben Saphat as being valid?
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

lsayre wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 5:31 am If the search remains without methodologically valid results, why do you persistently attempt to force everyone to accept your contentions in regard to Jesus ben Saphat as being valid?
the answer should be obvious:
  • An independent and reliable source is necessary, to know if Jesus existed and who was him.
  • Josephus is that independent and reliable source. There are no others.
  • And a crossed reading between Josephus and the Gospels proves beyond any doubt, in virtue of the Argument from the Extreme Improbability of a Coincidence, that the name of the victim saved in extremis from the cross by Josephus was: Jesus b. Sapphat.
lsayre
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by lsayre »

Giuseppe wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 5:42 am the answer should be obvious:
  • An independent and reliable source is necessary, to know if Jesus existed and who was him.
  • Josephus is that independent and reliable source. There are no others.
  • And a crossed reading between Josephus and the Gospels proves beyond any doubt, in virtue of the Argument from the Extreme Improbability of a Coincidence, that the name of the victim saved in extremis from the cross by Josephus was: Jesus b. Sapphat.
But everyone should know that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Whereas you seem to believe that it does.
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

lsayre wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 5:53 am But everyone should know that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Whereas you seem to believe that it does.
the correlation I am talking about is too much impossible as "coincidence" to be not the result of a causation. In their ignorance, the Gospel writers didn't know why Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple of their Jesus. I know the reason (it is in Josephus' Vita 57).
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

Continuing the rapid reading prima facie of this great book (in all the senses!), I see a strong reason against Mark's priority in the following words:

From the beginning, *Ev anticipates the readers' knowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that his mission lies in proclaiming the basileia. *Ev anticipating his readers' principal knowledge of Jesus is less striking than *Ev not even trying to make plausible this knowledge and to imbed it narratively in some way.

Mark, quite differently, tries to position the entrance of Jesus into a framework that transparently conveys knowledge of him.

(ibid.p. 231, my bold)
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

I consider particularly decisive the following Klinghardt's point:

The Markan report of Jesus' baptism not only places the beginning of the Gospel into a framework of salvation history, it also provides the opportunity to have God himself proclaim the true identity of Jesus as 'my beloved son' (Mark 1:11). Compared to Jesus' identification by the demons at the beginning of *Ev, this is a skilled and advanced development.

(ibid.p. 233, my bold)

Klinghardt doesn't derive the easy theological implications of this point, I can: it was probably part and parcel of an anti-marcionite agenda, to have the Son of God recognized first by the creator god as opposed to his first recognition (as if he was assumed to be an alien being) by demons.
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

The Argument from the Extreme Improbability of a Destruction of an Elaborate Construction is applied particularly well to the final of Mark:

Adopting the reports of Jesus' appearance from *Ev would have undermined the literary concept of Mark and missed his own text-pragmatic goal: inviting the implied readers to repeat the disciples' walk on the path of the account and thereby attain awareness. Understanding the ending of Mark in that way awards a series of insights of which only two shall be mentioned here.

Firstly, it becomes apparent how the traditions of Jesus' appearance in Jerusalem (*24,36ff; John 20,11-29; Luke 24,34.36ff) and in Galilee (Matth 28,9f.16-20; John 21) emerged. The tradition history proves that Jesus' appearances in Jerusalem are older than those in Galilee, since the Jerusalem appearance-tradition was already part of the pre-canonical Gospel. The Galilean appearance-tradition, however, goes back to the *Markan redaction of *Ev. *Mark was aware of the Jerusalem appearances of Jesus in *Ev, but he withheld them because of the compositional reasons mentioned. His reference, that Jesus will walk before the disciples in Galilee and that they would see him there (Mark 16,7: ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε), was intended neither as a replacement for the Jerusalem appearances nor as an authorized justification of a Galilean Christianity. The proclamation of Mark 16,7 targets rather the literary imagination of the implied readers and not the 'appearance' of the resurrected Jesus in the sense of a 'historical' Christophany before the disciples. Thus, the proclamation (Mark 14,28; 16,7) cannot be understood as authorizing those who received the visions.

(ibid., p. 236)

That "Mark" (author) replaced entirely a previous less-elaborate episode with a new more-elaborate episode is decisively more expected than the contrary.

It makes sense.
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

I confess sincerely that my reaction would have been different (in a negative sense) if Klinghardt had shown not sufficient awareness of the skilled abilities of "Mark" (author).

At contrary, this scholar appears to be well aware of the artistic genius of "Mark" (author), since it is part of his larger argument to put Mark after Mcn.
Giuseppe
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Re: Marcion versus Mark: who comes first?

Post by Giuseppe »

A curiosity:
Klinghardt in p. 1181 in a footnote says the accepted meaning of 'Barabbas' as 'Son of Father' and adds that Tertullian reports 'Barrabas' meaning 'Son of the goods, rich man'.


This may reveal something as an original 'Son of Mammon' ? Then brutally judaized as 'Son of Unknown Father' ?
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