Mark is first, give him his due translation.

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Martin Klatt

Mark is first, give him his due translation.

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Last edited by Martin Klatt on Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:34 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Mark is first, give him his due then.

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Martin Klatt wrote: Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:51 am The gospel according to Mark is known for more than a hundred of years to be the first gospel about Jesus written, subsequent gospels are plagiarist and corrupt and both worthless and even contra-expedient as sources to attempt to understand the original story Mark wrote.
I have serious problems about the fact that non whatsoever attempts have been undertaken to translate and interpret it on it's own merits. Current translations and following interpretations are still based on the old adagio that Mark is only the abbreviated version of Matthew, thus erroneous like in all the ages before our time.
Methodologically the whole community of experts, the ones stressing method to be their craft on anything New Testament, is to blame for this oversight, it only takes a humble lay person to spot this abomination. :cheeky:
So, what would it look like to give Mark its due and to interpret it on its own merits?
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Mark is first, give him his due then.

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What happened to my posts?
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Mark is first, give him his due then.

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Mar 10, 2020 7:10 pm What happened to my posts?
Here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=407&start=600
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Mark is first, give him his due then.

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Wait, I can still view them from my page. What's happening?
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Mark is first, give him his due then.

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None this matters anyway. He'll just delete his posts in a few days anyway.
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Re: Mark is first, give him his due then.

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Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Mar 10, 2020 7:06 pm So, what would it look like to give Mark its due and to interpret it on its own merits?
"Disharmonization" may be tedious, but it's straightforward.

An easy example is Jairus' daughter (5:35-43). "If we had only Mark," then it wouldn't even occur to anybody that Jesus raised her from the dead.

Jesus says otherwise as clearly as is possible in human language (but as with all human utterances, the listener can always say, "Oh, he was speaking figuratively."). It is a major plot point in Mark that the disciples do not understand what the phrase "raising from the dead" might mean ("Oh, but Mark wants to make the disciples into cartoon characters - morons who can't figure out what the phrase means, which is reasonably WYSIWYG, even when the three brightest among them witness a worked example first-hand").

We pretty much know the problem lies in the interpretation, not on the page, because of the "difficult exorcism" at 9:14-27, expecially the last three verses:
When Jesus saw that a multitude came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!” After crying out and convulsing him greatly, it came out of him. The boy became like one dead, so much that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him up; and he arose.
The textual evidence favoring the boy having briefly been dead is at least as good as for the girl. The three disciples who witnessed Jesus with the girl have arrived on the scene with Jesus just before this exorcism. Wow, Peter James and John must really have been morons to fail to understand death-raising when they've seen not merely one but two examples!

Another major disharmonization opportunity is the young man in white in the tomb at 16:1-8. Of course that's >wink-wink, nod-nod< an angel. Why? The only evidence for an angel being intended is that the other three canonical tellings of this tale put one or more angels in the corresponding position. And of course Mark doesn't write that well anyway, poor dear can't get the hang of Koine to save his soul ...

It may be challenging completely to scrape away the influence of some other works you're read, especially when it may help sometimes to take other works into account. For example, let us return to Jairus' daughter. Pliny in his Natural History, written near in time to Mark, observes (in Book 7, part 53) on the topic of "Persons who have come to life again after being laid out for burial,"
The female sex appear more especially disposed to this morbid state, on account of the misplacement of the womb ; when this is once corrected, they immediately come to themselves again. The volume of Heraclides on this subject, which is highly esteemed among the Greeks, contains the account of a female, who was restored to life, after having appeared to be dead for seven days.
This may have some relevance to our inquiries, as Richard Feynman once said in another context.
Martin Klatt

Re: Mark is first, give him his due translation.

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Last edited by Martin Klatt on Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:42 am, edited 13 times in total.
Martin Klatt

Re: Mark is first, give him his due translation.

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Last edited by Martin Klatt on Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Mark is first, give him his due then.

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Howdy, Martin

Thanks for those links.

I tried to keep my reply responsive to Peter's reasonable and narrow question,
So, what would it look like to give Mark its due and to interpret it on its own merits?
Maybe it's the girl's very first menstruation, maybe not, According to Pliny, some ancients recognized apparent death as a possible gynecological complaint, even if we moderns don't. There's nothing in Pliny that associates apparent death specifically with menarche. Would it really alter the interpretation if it were her second menses?

Not a "disagreement" between us as much as something I'd rather not be on the hook for. I get into enough trouble sticking with what's on the page :)
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