The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Charles Wilson
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Charles Wilson »

Ben --

If I can pull together some notes that are Mark Specific, I'll try to show the importance of children in the Gospels as an Explanatory Device. This would help in understanding "Peter", "Simon Peter" and etc.

The Big One:

Mark 13: 27 (RSV):

[27] And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

The SynApoc in Mark 13 is a Construction. The Tribulation et.al. has already occurred and it was concerned with Alexander Jannaeus after his defeat at the hands of Demetrius Eucerus, who committed the Abomination of Desolation. YMMV. In the rewrite, after these things occur, the Angels are sent out. "Angels" <=> "Children". The verse, as a description, is OK. It leaves its fingerprints on the resultant story, however.

For those who came in late, I believe that Peter comes into Jerusalem for the Passover of 4 BCE. He is a child and expects to see the Glory of God expel the Herodians and the Romans. Herod dies in Jericho a week too soon and gives the Pharisees time for a Counter-Revolution. 3000+ are murdered. Peter, however, saves a Priest and they Plot for a return 12 years later, when the Mishmarot Priestly Rotation puts them back in Jerusalem for anothe Passover.

The above paragraph is not for Ben. He knows this and remains unconvinced.

The point is that the unusual use of "Angels" points to something else. If angels are to be used, why not just sweep up the entire Set Piece and declare the Millenium or something. "Angels" are not necessary at all. Unless they are representative of children in the Symbolic Structure. Peter, as a child - an Angel - saves a Priest. He returns with the Priest 12 years later to finish the job.

Mark 9: 36 - 37 (RSV):

[36] And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them,
[37] "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me."

This completely explains this set of verses, which leads me to believe that passages such as "I name you Simon-Peter" and the like are about children and the Return to Jerusalem.

Thnx,

CW
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ben C. Smith wrote:Major arguments.

These are the arguments that have actually persuaded me.

1. Anachronistic reader responses.

Robert H. Stein writes at the beginning of his article, The Ending of Mark:

In the first part of the 20th century, the predominant view was that the original ending had been lost, but in the latter part of the century this was replaced by the view that 16:8 was Mark’s intended ending, and numerous attempts were made to explain how 16:8 serves as a fitting ending for the Gospel.

Simply put, I find it suspicious that the idea that Mark 16.8 was the intended ending of the gospel came to dominance only with the rise of postmodernism from the middle of century XX. Indeed, many if not most of the defenses of 16.8 as the original conclusion to Mark strike me as very postmodern or poststructural, with emphases on reader response and allied approaches to the text. As such, I think such interpretations are anachronistic (examples are from Stein's article):

“The readers are asked to complete the story, not only by imaging the fulfillment of the promise of appearances, as 14:28 and 16:7 should probably be interpreted, but also by imaging the fulfillment of the dramatic and vivid promises that the Son of Man would return (13:24–27; 14:62).” — Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Empty Tomb in the Gospel according to Mark,” in Hermes and Athena: Biblical Exegesis and Philosophical Theology, page 123.

The ending is a “‘highly sophisticated’ narrative trap” whose “narrative breakdown demands the actual reader’s involvement in rescuing the story, which is its ultimate rhetorical effect.” — J. David Hester, “Dramatic Inconclusion: Irony and the Narrative Rhetoric of the Ending of Mark,” JSNT 57, pages 62-63.

Well, I agree that the story stands in need of rescuing, but I doubt that Mark had in mind that his readers should be the ones to do it.

2. Good news and fear.

How appropriate is it for a book that basically gives itself a title like "the good news of Jesus Christ" (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) to end on a note of fear and confusion? Now, I actually think that Mark may well have suffered damage at the beginning of the gospel as well as at the end, so this argument is actually not valid as it stands on my own view, but the possibility of frontal damage would bring up a weird conundrum for me in this case; essentially, I view the arguments for damage at the beginning to be weaker than arguments for damage at the end, and it would be weird to accept the former but reject the latter. It would be different if this were the only major argument, but it is not. I would have to see similar examples from antiquity in order to be completely comfortable with any of them.
1) I agree that in the first part of the 20 century the predominant view was that the original ending had been lost. But I tend to see this situation in a broader context that also involves the textual discussion about the LE, the discussion about Markan priority and some presumptions of that time. I think that for most scholars the view of a lost ending was a rational position, but for some others a theological compromise. In defence of the LE there were also such claims that Mark would be an Antichrist if he wouldn't have wrote the LE and that Codex Sinaiticus is a bible of some heretics. I assume that there were some conservative scholars who thought beyond their arguments: Okay, we accept Markan priority and the spuriousness of the LE, but only with „a lost ending“.

But more importantly there were also predominant views
- that Mark was only a humble collector of oral traditions and few written sources and
- that Jesus‘ appearance to Peter was not only one of the earliest traditions (going back to Peter himself and proved by 1 Cor 15:5), but also one of the most important traditions which gave rise to Christianity.

I think that for many of these scholars it was unthinkable that Mark as collector of the traditions did not know this important tradition or that he had deliberately omit it in favour of a seemingly suggestion against it. In those times such views were almost “nonsense“ and a lost ending made really sense.

2) But even when we haven't the same presupposition as these scholars I do not think that some problems with Mark 16:8, at least in a similar form, would be not there. I agree with you and Stein „that numerous attempts were made to explain how 16:8 serves as a fitting ending for the Gospel“, often with interesting ideas but without a justified methodology. You quoted two reader-response-theories (Collins, Hester) and Darrell J. Doughty‘s suggestion with the further problem of a possible anachronism. I would add also more conservative interpretations, for example Larry Hurtado‘s claim that „they said nothing to no one“ would mean „they said nothing to no one except Peter and the disciples“. Again, I do not think that an intended end at Mark 16:8 is such an unsolvable problem as the scholars of the early 20 century thought, but it seems that current scholars tend a bit to ignore the problem with this end.

It seems that almost all interpretations or text critical positions are in search of a „Happy Ending“ of GMark - before (our own Bernard) or after 16:8 (in the LE, in a lost ending or in a continuation of the story, made by interpretations, in reader-response-scenarios or even in Ulan’s suggestion about further teachings after the end of GMark as a drama). All are in the same boat 8-)
Michael BG
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Michael BG »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
Michael BG wrote:For me the appointment of the disciples is when he calls them as disciples. The commissioning of them as apostles is a variant reading (A D λ etc.).
… (incidentally, D is not one of the manuscripts which has "apostles" there).
I am surprised as I was quoting from a footnote to Gospel Parallels Ed. by Burton H Throckmorton Jr. (third edition 1967 which had updated and corrected the footnotes).
Ben C. Smith wrote:I am sympathetic to Simon and Peter being two separate people:
When I was looking at the different sections with Simon or Peter it did cross my mind that Simon might be a different person to Peter. I would have liked to be able to find in Mark a section where Jesus in talking to Peter and uses the name Peter for him (something like ‘Jesus said to him, “Peter …”’) I couldn’t find such a section.

It is likely that “Peter” in Mk 14:37 (where there is “Peter Simon”) is redaction and possible it is Marcan redaction. If it is Marcan redaction I don’t know how one could identify Marcan redaction in the 19 other places where Mark has “Peter”.

“Andrew” only appears four times and therefore we might expect the only time when “Simon” is missing is when Mark has replaced it with “Peter” i.e. Mk 13:3
[1] And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!"
[2] And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down."
[3] And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,
[4] "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?"
Verses 3 and 4 look like Marcan redaction and not part of any earlier tradition. I suppose the named disciples could have been moved from within verse 1.

I would like to see evidence for Simon and Peter being different people but I couldn’t find anything convincing and I was left with just an impression.
Ben C. Smith wrote:
Michael BG wrote:I am not sure Mark ever refers to him as “Simon Peter” as a stand alone.
Correct. But he links both names together ("Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter") in Mark 3.16.
Michael BG wrote:
3:14 And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach

3:16 He surnamed Simon Peter
Mark is careful thereafter to always use “Peter” and then there is the only other place where Mark has Simon
But you catch my point, right? How fitting it would be if "Simon" and "Peter" appeared together only twice in Mark, once at the commissioning as one of the twelve and again at the recommissioning after Jesus' resurrection?
I see your point, but I was pointing out two issues which I think make your hypothesis unlikely, secondly that Mark in 14:37 has “Peter Simon”.

And firstly that Mark has Simon in his gospel earlier than 3:16. I think a better argument could be made if “Simon Peter” was used when he is first introduced and when he last appears, but this is not the case.
Ben C. Smith wrote:Mark has always evinced two stages to discipleship. There is a calling to be a disciple, and then there is a calling to be one of the twelve. There are more disciples than 12 in the gospel. Since Simon/Peter belongs to both groups (general disciple, specific member of the twelve), his restoration would be to both groups.
This is a possibility, but another possibility is that Mark has a number of traditions – the calling of disciple traditions and the twelve disciple traditions (nearly half of Mark’s references to the “twelve” are in Mk 14) and he has used both but doesn’t really deal with the tension between them, because he was not interested in providing a solution to that tension.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Michael BG wrote:I see your point, but I was pointing out two issues which I think make your hypothesis unlikely, secondly that Mark in 14:37 has “Peter Simon”.
But not as a name, "Peter Simon". Rather, Jesus "said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep?'"
And firstly that Mark has Simon in his gospel earlier than 3:16. I think a better argument could be made if “Simon Peter” was used when he is first introduced and when he last appears, but this is not the case.
I still find something notable about "Simon, whom he named Peter" coming in only at the commissioning. It is not huge, but it still strikes me as something.
Ben C. Smith wrote:Mark has always evinced two stages to discipleship. There is a calling to be a disciple, and then there is a calling to be one of the twelve. There are more disciples than 12 in the gospel. Since Simon/Peter belongs to both groups (general disciple, specific member of the twelve), his restoration would be to both groups.
This is a possibility, but another possibility is that Mark has a number of traditions – the calling of disciple traditions and the twelve disciple traditions (nearly half of Mark’s references to the “twelve” are in Mk 14) and he has used both but doesn’t really deal with the tension between them, because he was not interested in providing a solution to that tension.
It is pretty explicit in chapter 3. Jesus is surrounded by his disciples (verses 7 and 9), and then he summons twelve to himself (verse 14). This is a funny way of phrasing things if the disciples number only and exactly twelve already.

Furthermore, we have chapter 14. Jesus sends two of his disciples to prepare the Passover (verse 13), which they do (verse 16); later he comes to that very room with the twelve (verse 17). Now, you might say that, well, those two disciples were members of the twelve, and they simply rejoined Jesus, in an unnarrated episode, before he came to the room, so that only the twelve are in the room as disciples. Maybe, but then the phrase "one of the twelve" in verse 20 becomes supremely superfluous; if only the twelve are present, and Jesus has already specified that the betrayer is one of those in the room (verse 18), why say now that the betrayer is one of the twelve? It makes sense only if there are more disciples than just the twelve.
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andrewcriddle
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by andrewcriddle »

Michael BG wrote:
andrewcriddle wrote: (In John 21 it is implausibly unexpected given the previous appearances).
I don’t see any statement that the resurrection appearance in Jn 21 is particularly unexpected. I see the normal resurrection motif that the disciples do not recognise Jesus (Jn 21:4, cf. Lk 24:16, Jn 20:14) because the earliest traditions have a heavenly bodily resurrection as per 1 Cor. 15.
The disciples do not recognise him on first meeting the resurrected Jesus.

However in the context in John the disciples in chapter 21 are meeting the resurrected Jesus for the third time.

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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ben C. Smith wrote:3. A sabotaged ending.

I have seen Mark 16.8 called a "suspended ending" (Lee Magness, for example, in Sense and Absence) and then compared to other examples of this phenomenon, none of which seem to me to match up with what we find in Mark. (If you have one that you think is similar, I would like to see it.) Suspended endings generally amount to the writer letting the reader fill in unnarrated details; one thinks of TV procedurals, for example, in which the entire show is about identifying and catching the criminal, but the trial and conviction are not narrated; the viewer is invited to fill in that blank on his or her own. But that is not what we find in Mark. Instead, we find what I call a sabotaged ending.

The moment has come to discuss Mark 14.28 and 16.7, two obviously interrelated verses which I deliberately left out of my thread about the restoration of the disciples because they merit separate treatment. Posters on this forum have written about these two verses before, and this present discussion presumes knowledge of all of the following:
  1. Joe has a discussion of Mark 14.28 here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2134&p=47785.
  2. Bernard has a discussion of both Mark 14.28 and 16.7 on his web page: http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3.html#emptyt (you have to scroll down a bit to the end of the section in gray).
  3. Andrew discusses the Fayyum fragment here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2429.
  4. I lay out the Fayyum fragment here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1863.
It might be a good idea to set forth these Marcan verses themselves, along with their Matthean parallels (Luke lacks both, though 24.6b seems to have transformed Mark 16.7 into something quite different). I have included the main textual variants, but excluded those variants which are of spelling only:

Matthew 26.32: μετὰ δὲ τὸ ἐγερθῆναί με προάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν.
~ No major textual variants.

Mark 14.28: ἀλλὰ μετὰ τὸ ἐγερθῆναί με προάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν.
~ W adds ἐκ νεκρῶν after ἐγερθῆναί με.
~ The Fayyum fragment omits this entire verse.

Second, Matthew 28.7 = Mark 16.7:

Matthew 28.7: Καὶ ταχὺ πορευθεῖσαι εἴπατε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ ὅτι ἠγέρθη ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν, καὶ ἰδοὺ προάγει ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν, ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε· ἰδοὺ εἶπον ὑμῖν.
~ D lacks ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν and ἰδοὺ.

Mark 16.7: Ἀλλὰ ὑπάγετε εἴπατε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ τῷ Πέτρῳ ὅτι προάγει ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν· ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε, καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν.
~ D has ὑπάγεται for ὑπάγετε, and both D and W add καὶ after this word.
~ Both D and W add ἰδοὺ after καὶ τῷ Πέτρῳ ὅτι.
~ Both D and W have προάγω instead of προάγει.
~ D has ἐκεῖ με instead of ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν.
~ A, D, and W have ὄψεσθαι instead of ὄψεσθε.
~ D has εἴρηκα instead of εἶπεν.

And here are synopses of the verses in question:

[/tr]
Matthew 26.32
Mark 14.28
Μετὰ δὲ τὸ ἐγερθῆναί με
προάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν.
Ἀλλὰ μετὰ τὸ ἐγερθῆναί με
προάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν.
And after I have been raised
I shall proceed before you into Galilee.
But after I have been raised
I shall proceed before you into Galilee.


[/tr]
Matthew 28.7
Mark 16.7
Καὶ ταχὺ πορευθεῖσαι
εἴπατε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ
ὅτι
ἠγέρθη ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν,
καὶ ἰδοὺ,
προάγει ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν·
ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε·
ἰδοὺ εἶπον ὑμῖν.
Ἀλλὰ ὑπάγετε
εἴπατε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ
καὶ τῷ Πέτρῳ ὅτι


προάγει ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν·
ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε,
καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν.
And having journeyed quickly
tell his disciples
that
he has been raised from among the dead,
and behold,
he shall proceed before you into Galilee;
there you shall see him;
behold, I have told you.
But go on,
tell his disciples
and Peter that


he shall proceed before you into Galilee;
there you shall see him,
just as he has told you.

Mark 14.28 and 16.7 jointly promise the disciples a rendezvous with a risen Jesus, but the only messengers entrusted with passing this information on to the disciples themselves, the women at the tomb, say nothing to anyone, for they are afraid. So how are the disciples supposed to meet up with Jesus? This question does not find itself a natural answer already suggested in the course of the narrative; to the contrary, 16.8 has, barring further information, sabotaged 16.7. The extent of this sabotage may be seen in the confusion of modern exegetes, some of whom opine that Mark intended to keep the disciples in the dark, others of whom assume that they reunite with Jesus and are restored. Even exegetes on the same side of the overall issue of the originality of the abrupt ending cannot find agreement; they offer different answers to the question of whether the reader ought to assume that the disciples reunite with Jesus (examples are, again, from Stein's article):

Yea: “From these words [16.7] the reader understands that at the time of the young man’s speech Jesus is already on his way to Galilee where he expects to encounter Peter and the other disciples.” — Norman R. Petersen, “When Is the End Not the End? Literary Reflections on the Ending of Mark’s Narrative,” Int 34, page 153.

Nay: “Mark is assiduously involved in a vendetta against the disciples. He is intent on totally discrediting them. . . . As the coup de grace, Mark closes his Gospel without rehabilitating the disciples.” — Theodore J. Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict, pages 50-51.

Among those who suppose that Jesus does rehabilitate his disciples there is a further divide of opinion regarding how they actually come to reunite with Jesus, with some supposing that the women's silence was temporary and others imagining that it was permanent, but Jesus met with the disciples anyway, on his own terms, and surprised them. This kind of confusion does not happen when people read the other gospels: any of the other gospels, and I do not think that Mark intended to confuse the reader so badly. If he wished to make it clear (as per 16.7) that the disciples were going to meet Jesus, why make it unclear (as per 16.8) that this was going to happen after all? Conversely, if he wished to make it plain that the disciples were not going to reunite with Jesus, why include the prediction in the first place?

I trust you understand that I find most unconvincing those few attempts to make the young man at the tomb an unreliable predictor of events, though I readily admit that I do not really know what exactly is going on with this fellow. It is Jesus himself promising to "proceed before" the disciples himself in 14.28, and that has to mean something. (This opens up yet another possible outcome for those who suppose that Jesus reunites with his disciples: perhaps the disciples remember this prediction from Jesus himself and go to Galilee without the women't instructions; but the more possibilities there are, the more bizarre it becomes that Mark did not take greater care to tell the reader which one is correct.) It is true that the young man says in 16.7 that Jesus has already told them that they would see him in Galilee, and that is a little bit further than what Jesus literally says in 14.28, but that problem is not as big, in my opinion, as the problems that start to pile up once one begins to suggest that the combination of 14.28 and 16.7 do not imply a reunion with Jesus; and I think that 14.28 can easily be taken as implying a reunion (after all, Jesus says that he will proceed before the disciples into Galilee, thus predicting that they would go there, as well, which is not the same as simply saying that he himself would go to Galilee, full stop). If you have a reconstruction that makes sense along those lines, then I am more than happy to hear it.

Now, there is always the possibility that Mark 14.28 and 16.7 are interpolations. And I am actually very sympathetic to this view. But, just as with my first major argument above, adhering to this option actually creates a new argument for a lost ending in place of the one already laid out here. For we would have to imagine an interpolator who was willing and able to insert these predictions of a meeting with Jesus without actually inserting the meeting itself. (Such a scenario is similar to the view that Mark intended to end his gospel but was unable to do so for some reason.) If it was just a scribe harmonizing Mark to Matthew (which happened a lot over the centuries), then again, that scribe evidently took care to insert these two verses from Matthew, but apparently did not bother to insert Matthew's ending, the most important thing, complete with a resurrection appearance in Galilee! I will agree that this is possible, but I see it as less likely than the alternative: the scribe or interpolator was working with a gospel text of Mark that contained an ending, including a meeting in Galilee, and wanted to foreshadow that meeting and turn it into yet another fulfilled dominical prediction (of which there are many in the gospel of Mark), either on his own or with inspiration from the gospel of Matthew. Just to be clear, I think it is more likely that an interpolator would include the predictions without the event itself than that the author would, but I also consider it even more likely that there was an ending already in place to occasion those verses, interpolations or not, in the first place.
1) I assume you know that your question is not the major problem of Mark 16:7-8 that is usually discussed. This is the question of how the message about the resurrection of Jesus was preached because the women said nothing to no one, especially nothing to the disciples. But your problem is a bit different.

I agree with your argument against Mark 16:7 as an interpolation and the meaning of “προάγει ὑμᾶς“ in the sense that also the disciples are in Galilee and follow Jesus. If Peterson’s interpretation is right, that “Jesus is already on his way to Galilee where he expects to encounter Peter and the other disciples”, I think we would rather expect “προάγει“ without “ὑμᾶς“ (see Mark 6:45). I would also claim that Mark used the verb usually in the sense of leading the way, guiding, going ahead. But to be fair, the argument would work also in favour of Darrell J. Doughty’s loop theory (beyond a common logic). The verb is in present indicative and “leading/going before the disciples in Galilee” may mean a bit more than an “appearance to the disciples”.

I assume further you know that there is still a problem. Even if we could call it a “sabotaged ending” and I agree in some sense, the “saboteur” would be Mark (whatever his reasons were).

2) In one regard I would friendly, but completely disagree with you. ;) It is what you expect as the content of the lost ending.

Let’s assume there is a lost ending and we can’t reconstruct it, not even a bit. Your job is to write a happy ending in the spirit of Mark. You can write a modern version, but with his themes, intentions and positions. What would you write? :mrgreen:

I would tend to a resurrection party in the house of Levi (if it is big enough) with all the sinners and tax collectors. On top of the guest list would be the guys who removed the roof of the house in Capernaum, the woman who had had a discharge of blood, the crazy people of Gennesaret who ran about the whole region to bring the sick people on their beds to Jesus, the alien exorcist and the unnamed woman of Bethany with the alabaster jar. Then all the children, especially Jairus’s daughter with her parents and the children that Jesus putted in the midst of the disciples, then the 7000 of the feedings, all the Gentiles, the sick, the poors and the little ones. The disciples would be also there, but they never would get the best seats or the places of honor, but must serve the children and the poor widows with hot chocolate, fruit and sweets. And all sing hymns and psalms, read Isaiah and praise God. :cheers:

But seriously, I would not think that Mark’s ending could be a private meeting of Jesus with an elitist club of Church apostles, whatever the other Evangelists wrote.
Secret Alias
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Secret Alias »

why say now that the betrayer is one of the twelve? It makes sense only if there are more disciples than just the twelve
.

Or Irenaeus:
They endeavour, for instance, to demonstrate that passion which, they say, happened in the case of the twelfth AEon, from this fact, that the passion of the Saviour was brought about by the twelfth apostle, and happened in the twelfth month ... Then, again, as to their assertion that the passion of the twelfth AEon was proved through the conduct of Judas,
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Michael BG
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Michael BG »

andrewcriddle wrote:
Michael BG wrote:
andrewcriddle wrote: (In John 21 it is implausibly unexpected given the previous appearances).
I don’t see any statement that the resurrection appearance in Jn 21 is particularly unexpected. I see the normal resurrection motif that the disciples do not recognise Jesus (Jn 21:4, cf. Lk 24:16, Jn 20:14) because the earliest traditions have a heavenly bodily resurrection as per 1 Cor. 15.
The disciples do not recognise him on first meeting the resurrected Jesus.

However in the context in John the disciples in chapter 21 are meeting the resurrected Jesus for the third time.

Andrew Criddle
One of the normal motifs for resurrection appearances is that the resurrected person is not recognised. I am not sure that the angelic appearance parallels have places where an angel after being recognised disappears and then reappears and is recognised. You see the disciples not recognising Jesus as unexpected, while I expect such a thing in a resurrection appearance story.
Ben C. Smith wrote:
Michael BG wrote:I see your point, but I was pointing out two issues which I think make your hypothesis unlikely, secondly that Mark in 14:37 has “Peter Simon”.
But not as a name, "Peter Simon". Rather, Jesus "said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep?'"
I thought that the Greek does not have punctuation and so there is no coma in the Greek. I also read that the word order in Greek is not as important in Greek as in English. Therefore it could be translated as ‘he said to Peter Simon, “are you asleep?”’ and it means the same as ‘he said to Simon Peter, “are you asleep?”’
Ben C. Smith wrote:
Michael BG wrote:
Ben C. Smith wrote:Mark has always evinced two stages to discipleship. There is a calling to be a disciple, and then there is a calling to be one of the twelve. There are more disciples than 12 in the gospel. Since Simon/Peter belongs to both groups (general disciple, specific member of the twelve), his restoration would be to both groups.
This is a possibility, but another possibility is that Mark has a number of traditions – the calling of disciple traditions and the twelve disciple traditions (nearly half of Mark’s references to the “twelve” are in Mk 14) and he has used both but doesn’t really deal with the tension between them, because he was not interested in providing a solution to that tension.
It is pretty explicit in chapter 3. Jesus is surrounded by his disciples (verses 7 and 9), and then he summons twelve to himself (verse 14). This is a funny way of phrasing things if the disciples number only and exactly twelve already.

… It makes sense only if there are more disciples than just the twelve.
I think you might have misunderstood me. I accept that the traditions have more disciples than twelve. I accept that Mark has more disciples than twelve. I accept that Mark passes on a tradition where the twelve are appointed as special in some way. However I don’t think Mark does much with it. Luke I think does do something with it because he differentiates between the many disciples and the twelve apostles
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

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Michael BG wrote:
Ben C. Smith wrote:But not as a name, "Peter Simon". Rather, Jesus "said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep?'"
I thought that the Greek does not have punctuation and so there is no comma in the Greek. I also read that the word order in Greek is not as important in Greek as in English. Therefore it could be translated as ‘he said to Peter Simon, “are you asleep?”’ and it means the same as ‘he said to Simon Peter, “are you asleep?”’
Your reading is impossible. The Greek is:

καὶ ἔρχεται καὶ εὑρίσκει αὐτοὺς καθεύδοντας, καὶ λέγει τῷ Πέτρῳ· Σίμων, καθεύδεις; οὐκ ἴσχυσας μίαν ὥραν γρηγορῆσαι;

Punctuation has nothing to do with it. In Greek, case is what counts, and Peter and Simon are not even in the same case (Simon is in the vocative; the identical nominative would not make sense here; Peter is in the dative). Something is being said to Peter (therefore outside the quotation), and that something addresses Simon (therefore inside the quotation).
I think you might have misunderstood me. I accept that the traditions have more disciples than twelve. I accept that Mark has more disciples than twelve. I accept that Mark passes on a tradition where the twelve are appointed as special in some way. However I don’t think Mark does much with it. Luke I think does do something with it because he differentiates between the many disciples and the twelve apostles
What was your observation, then, based on this understanding? How does this relate to the ending of Mark?
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The ending of Mark (for Kunigunde).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Thank you, Kunigunde, for your awesome posts. I am thinking about them — in between fantasies about hot chocolate (miraculously transported to Palestine a millennium and a half before the Columbian exchange), fruits, and sweets — and will get back to you. :cheers:
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