I will speak for myself alone.Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 7:56 amNo problem.Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 5:07 am I apologize for being dense — I can see that you are trying to distinguish your interpretation of the women from mine and others', but I am not "getting it" yet.
So what Ken and you (?) want to say....
No, the author meant what he wrote. He wrote that they said nothing, and he meant that they said nothing. He did not mean that they gossiped about it with all the neighbors. They said nothing. And I think the author intended his readers to believe that the women were there and then said nothing; he was not writing deliberate fiction which he meant his readership to treat no more seriously than Bugs Bunny cartoons....is that Mark wrote it ("they said nothing to no one"), but that he did not really mean what he wrote.
The connection with the creed is Ken's work, and I find it very suggestive. I am still considering it; not sure yet. But yes, the author wanted to solve problems (probably more than just one). And no, solving problems was likely not the only reason he wrote it.He wrote it only because he wanted to solve the alleged "problem" with Paul's creed.
The problems at issue are those which will, in the presence of certain kinds of people, naturally arise if somebody claims that a dead person has risen from the dead. If you were to claim that Otto von Bismarck has risen from the dead, at some point (were I to pay the claim any attention at all) I would be asking you about tombs and such. Some religious people are content to leave well enough alone and just believe, but others are of a nature which compels them to make history line up with that belief. So it is hardly surprising that the claim that Jesus rose from the dead would lead to discussions about tombs and such, and it is hardly surprising that the gaps would be filled in, whether in good faith or bad, by stories of this kind.
No, the author wanted to solve the problems because they were problems, and wanting to solve them is a very natural reaction.He wanted to solve the "problem" because Mark favored always the proof by historical witnesses against the proof according to the scriptures.
No, "they said nothing to no one" does have to do with the women because the women are the "they" who said nothing; it also has to do with the disciples because they are implicitly included among the people ("no one") to whom the women said nothing; and it definitely has to do with Mark's story because it is a part of Mark's story.Actually, it ("they said nothing to no one") has nothing to do with the women, the disciples and Mark's story.
(This part of your post really, really confused me.)
If I take the word "worried" more seriously, then no, nobody needs to be "worried" about Mark 16.8, because nothing is at stake (to my knowledge) in our understanding of Mark 16.8. Nobody is going to live or die because I happened to get Mark 16.8 right or wrong.Because of this nobody needs to be worried about Mark 16:8.
If I take the word "worried" more casually, then yes, we ought to be "worried" about Mark 16.8 because it is a weird way to end a book, and because it is part of Mark's gospel, and because part of what we are doing here is trying to understand Mark's gospel.
(This part of your post also really, really confused me.)