Basic reason why Mark is NOT marcionite

[Giuseppe]

I am using this definition of 'Messianic Secret':

The Messianic Secret is a motif in Mark’s gospel wherein Jesus exhibits behavior that appears to be aimed at self-concealment. In other words, he seems to be trying to keep the fact that he is the Messiah from the general public. He commands demons to shut up. He tells people not to spread the word about his healing of the sick. He teaches the crowd in riddles, so that they can’t understand him. Moreover, his own disciples fail to comprehend his teaching or his intentions.

https://vridar.org/2013/01/03/what-is-t ... ic-secret/

It is an anti-marcionite motif since Marcion didn't aim at self-concealment of his own Jesus, but, at contrary, at his self-promotion as new deity known only now for the first time in the world.

The god of the Jews said, Aure audietis et non audietis (Is. vi. 9). Jesus, on the other hand, wishes all ears to be opened (Tertullian iv. 19). All should listen, since there is no longer anything hidden; everything is made clear.

(P.-L. Couchoud, Creation of Christ, p. 399)


What prof MacDonald has partially seen, is that the the self-concealment of Jesus is based on the self-concealment of Odisseus but with a correction: Jesus doesn't kill his enemies when the self-concealment ceases (One may say that the "enemies" are killed in the real History in 70 CE, but that is a different question). The corollary is that Jesus is better than Odisseus insofar he leaves the punition to a distinct entity (YHWH). In conclusion, the self-concealment is the way by which Jesus recognizes humbly the presence of a supreme god (YHWH).

In Marcion there is not a such recognition, since the Son is the Father and the Father is the Son, de facto if not de jure. If you hidden the Son, then you are hiddening ipso facto the Father, also. It is logical why Marcion would disagree with Mark.

[rgprice]

MacDonald's explanations are so often "off the mark". I don't think it has anything to do with the Iliad and Odyssey. As usual, one can find much better explanations that relate directly to Jewish works and themes.

And I don't think the secrecy issue is anti-Marcionite or necessarily that the revelation of who Jesus had to have occurred prior to the resurrection.

Again, I think we have to go back to the Vision of Isaiah, where the Beloved descends from heaven through a process of transfigurations in order to conceal his identity so that he can deceive Belial. There is an implication, in a portion that appears to be lost, that the ministry of the Beloved and the revelation of who he is, is revealed upon his return, when he is resurrected. It is as that point that he engages in a ministry. So a revelation occurs, it's just not until after the resurrection.

We see this theme retained to some degree in the Gospel of Luke and Marcion's Gospel when the eyes of the apostles are opened after his resurrection.

As for Mark, I suspect that the ending of Mark we have in our canonical texts all go back to the version from the four Gospel collection that Irenaeus had, and in this version the ending was changed. I suspect that everything after Mark 15:39 is not original, and that in the original either the ending was more abrupt or just different.

But I think the original narrative that forms the basis of what we call the "Gospel of Mark", which I think would more properly be titled the "Gospel of Jesus Christ", the ending was setup to lead directly into the Pauline letters, directly to Galatians, where we hear about the revelation of Jesus to Paul. In the original story, Jesus is a mystery (as Paul describes him) who is only truly revealed by Paul, not any of the other disciples.

The mystery is borrowed from the first narrative, which is preserved in Vision of Isaiah, where the Beloved must trick the the Lord of this World into executing him so that he can enter his domain. This is retained in Mark, but utilized in order to have Paul The Apostle be the one to reveal the risen Lord. But the revelation happens in the Pauline letters, it is not a part of the narrative.

I'm not arguing for Mark being or not being Marcionite, just saying that the secret is not anti-Marcionite.

[Giuseppe]

Again, I think we have to go back to the Vision of Isaiah, where the Beloved descends from heaven through a process of transfigurations in order to conceal his identity so that he can deceive Belial.

I have a hard time to accept this view insofar I see that the self-concealment in Ascension of Isaiah is really done by Jesus: he succeeds to conceal himself. At contrary, in Mark Jesus aims to self-concealment contra factum (and Mark concedes a such fact) that the notoriety of Jesus spreads in defiance of his command to silence.

Accordingly, Mark starts from the assumption (derived probably from a previous source, docet Wrede) that the notoriety of Jesus is already widespread someway. The impression is that Mark appears to be embarrassed by a such notoriety, since it would increase the christology: more the notoriety is high, more the christology is high.

My mention of Marcion follows logically from this described scenario.

[rgprice]

Firstly, I don't consider "embarrassment" a criteria for evaluating anything. The "criterion of embarrassment" is junk.

I think the writer of "Mark" is transforming a story in which the ministry of Jesus took place after his crucifixion into one where it took place before. So he's mixing the pre-execution secrecy of the original story with the post-execution notoriety of the original story. If the original story was secrecy > execution > ministry, "Mark" then changes it to secrecy + ministry > execution. So he's just combining two elements of a story together in a way that conflicts with the original flow.

But again, he does this because he wants Paul to be the one who announces his resurrection. It is Paul who reveals the risen Christ, no one else, not even himself. I think certainly, in the original story there was a connection between the end of the Gospel and the letters of Paul that followed. And Paul is the revealer of the mystery.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Or alternatively, Mark isn't anti-Marcionite because maybe he wrote before Marcion was born.

I don't see anything on the page that Mark favors any particular would-be orthodoxy. The baptism fits with any number of christologies, from delusional through the Prince of Heaven. Herod's theory of a John the Baptist revenant is depicted as neither unique nor solecist. Maybe the point of the performance is to present some of the diversity of approaches to the puzzle of Jesus.

The poorly kept messianic secret can be fully explained by the secular need to control crowds in the story universe. Apart from Jesus being wary about being crowded, Josephus (or if you prefer pseudo-Josephus) tells us that crowd-drawing is what got John killed. Yes, Jesus is on a suicide mission, but his objective is Jerusalem: to die there, not to be killed en route.

He commands demons to shut up.

But not former demoniacs; he even commissions one of those to spread the word in the Decapolis. And the demons? Jesus is accused, in a crowd, of being in league with them after Mark has established that a conspiracy has been hatched to destroy him. How helpful for the defense that demons explicitly worship Jesus.

He tells people not to spread the word about his healing of the sick.

Some, not others. Many of the healings are public events anyway. (The lover of irony will appreciate that Jesus publicly cures Bar Timaeus's blindness apparently shutting him up about sedition, speaking of things that could get someone killed.)

He teaches the crowd in riddles, so that they can’t understand him.

So that some can't understand him. On the page, Jesus's teaching, not just his free eats and free healthcare policies, draws crowds. Odd, then, if nobody understands what he's saying. Oh wait, some of the headline teaching isn't in parables. The divorce thing is plain enough: Moses made it up. Regardless, apart from his disciples, there's nothing on the page about anybody else actually being left in the dark by figurative expression. The Syrophoenician woman, for instance, not only gets his riddle, but turns it back on him. By the time he gets to Jerusalem, apparently everybody gets the subtle-as-a-brick "Tenants" parable.

Moreover, his own disciples fail to comprehend his teaching or his intentions.

And nearly 2000 years later, specialists with earned doctorates are still arguing over what Jesus was on about with the seven Jewish-style baskets of left-overs versus twelve less distinctive baskets.

The MS hypothesis fits the data only loosely. It is also a solution to a problem that Wrede had, but that Mark evidently did not. Mark's Jesus preferred to acknowledge his claim to the messiahship at a time of his own choosing, as suited the mission profile as he understood it. Apparently Wrede felt that Jesus should have courted death from the outset in Galilee, where Antipas already had one notch on his belt, is depicted as being aware both of Jesus and his disciples, and "Herodians," presumably allies of Antipas, were conspiring to destroy Jesus.

[Giuseppe]

The messianic secret is nothing other than the attempt made by Mark to account for the absence of messianic claims by Jesus himself.

This absence of messianic claims by Jesus himself is 100% expected in the Marcion's Evangelion. In Marcion, Jesus never claimed, and for obvious reasons, to be the Jewish Messiah, in reward he does a lot of miracles, gains a lot of notoriety, etc. Mark's correction was: Jesus commanded silence about his being the Jewish messiah, therefore he was secretly the Jewish messiah already while alive, pace Marcion.

Remember also the Jewish view:

"no man can be defined as a messiah before he has accomplished the task of the anointed"

Even Bar-Kokhba rejected for himself the title of Messiah in virtue of the same reason. Was Mark's Jesus following the same view? I think that the answer is 'yes' insofar it shows a common respect towards the Jewish god (YHWH): an anti-marcionite or anti-pagan theme.

[Giuseppe]

This same phenomenon of (1) external acclamation, (2) reticence on the part of the individual to speak 'of himself in the terms others were using, yet (3) a consciousness on that individual's part of the ultimate validity of the titles employed, seems to be true as well of Simeon ben Kosebah, the leader of the Jewish revolt against Hadrian, and of the materials from his desert headquarters at Wadi Murabba'at. We kno.w from rabbinic sources that with his initial victories over Roman power there arose a wild enthusiasm among the Jewish populace as to Simeon's Messiahship and Kingship, and that this enthusiasm engulfed even the leading rabbi of the day, Rabbi Akiba.29 But what must be noted is that from the few remains of his letters at Murabba'at,-there is evidence only that Simeon ben Kosebah called himself Prince (nasi), and not King or Messiah, even though he undoubtedly expected to fulfil the messianic expectations of his people as he understood them.30

https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/1 ... necker.pdf

[Paul the Uncertain]

The messianic secret is nothing other than the attempt made by Mark to account for the absence of messianic claims by Jesus himself.

There is no such absence. The high priest asks Jesus at trial (14:61):
Q: Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
Jesus answers (14:62):
A: I am.

The messianic secret is nothing other than the attempt made by Mark Wrede to account for the absence of messianic claims by Jesus himself. Mark's Jesus until such a claim directly and rationally furthers the mission.

[Giuseppe]

There is no such absence. The high priest asks Jesus at trial (14:61):
Q: Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
Jesus answers (14:62):
A: I am.

in Marcion the answer: tu dices, ego non.

[Paul the Uncertain]

OK. So the messianic secret hypothesis isn't what distinguishes Mark's Jesus from Marcion's, as indeed it couldn't be because both Mark and Marcion were long dead before Wrede projected his brainchild onto GMark.

In the absence of evidence that Mark knew Marcion, I have no other dog in this fight.

Happy New Year, Giuseppe. (I have lentils for the occasion, such is the influence of my Italian friends ).