Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier

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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

Post by Ben C. Smith »

JoeWallack wrote:JW:
The offending verse:

Mark 14:28

Strong's Transliteration Greek English Morphology
235 [e] alla ἀλλὰ But Conj
3326 [e] meta μετὰafter Prep
3588 [e] to τὸ - Art-ANS
1453 [e] egerthēnai ἐγερθῆναί having arisen V-ANP
1473 [e] me με I, PPro-A1S
4254 [e] proaxō προάξω I will go before V-FIA-1S
4771 [e] hymas ὑμᾶς you PPro-A2P
1519 [e] eis εἰς into Prep
3588 [e] tēn τὴν - Art-AFS
1056 [e] Galilaian Γαλιλαίαν. Galilee. N-AFS

And the offending word here:
4254 [e] proaxō προάξω I will go before V-FIA-1S

Part of Speech: Verb
Tense: Future
Mood: Indicative
Voice: Active
Person: 1st Person
Number: Singular
Ben, this is the Transitive form yes? Transitive indicates a cause and effect relationship.
Transitive verbs do not have their own form in Greek (any more than they do in English; compare "I am eating" to "I am eating tacos"), but yes, I believe this verb is transitive: it comes, after all, with its own direct object (ὑμᾶς).
I had a most unpleasant related "discussion" with Jeff Gibson:

http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... 546&page=9

where he lied about the meaning of the offending word because it was more important to him to try and discredit me than honestly discuss the meaning of the word. I should have filtered him but I could not resist the opportunity to discuss the meaning of a Greek word with a Greek professor (well, ajunk. assistant professor). You witnessed this. My memory is that after a sufficient amount of time and Threads had passed you agreed with me that the form is transitive, but you are a better source of what you think/thought than my memory.
I doubt what was at stake was its transitiveness. Was it? I do not recall the exchange except in the haziest terms; but even Gibson says at that link you provide that it is transitive.

Ben.
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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Transitive verbs do not have their own form in Greek (any more than they do in English; compare "I am eating" to "I am eating tacos"), but yes, I believe this verb is transitive: it comes, after all, with its own direct object (ὑμᾶς).
JW:
And at the risk of leading you on. "Transitive" = cause and effect relationship. Here, "I will lead you". Yes?


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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

Post by Ben C. Smith »

JoeWallack wrote:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Transitive verbs do not have their own form in Greek (any more than they do in English; compare "I am eating" to "I am eating tacos"), but yes, I believe this verb is transitive: it comes, after all, with its own direct object (ὑμᾶς).
JW:
And at the risk of leading you on. "Transitive" = cause and effect relationship. Here, "I will lead you". Yes?
Transitive = having or requiring a direct object. I am hoping that is what you mean by "cause and effect". In this case, either "I will lead you" or "I will go before you" seems fine.
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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

Post by JoeWallack »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
JoeWallack wrote:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Transitive verbs do not have their own form in Greek (any more than they do in English; compare "I am eating" to "I am eating tacos"), but yes, I believe this verb is transitive: it comes, after all, with its own direct object (ὑμᾶς).
JW:
And at the risk of leading you on. "Transitive" = cause and effect relationship. Here, "I will lead you". Yes?
Transitive = having or requiring a direct object. I am hoping that is what you mean by "cause and effect". In this case, either "I will lead you" or "I will go before you" seems fine.
JW:
France points out in NIGTC page 577 the following reasons to have the leading translation be "I will lead you" :
  • 1) The only other transitive use of the offending word in GMark, besides 16:7, is 10:32:

    10
    32 And they were on the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them the things that were to happen unto him,
    Clearly "leading" is meant here.

    2) The previous verse "27 And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered abroad." has the image of shepherd and sheep and the two strongly associate with a lead relationship.

    3) In general the transitive usually means "lead".
Your conclusion however is duly noted that it could not mean "lead".


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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

Post by Solo »

Ben C. Smith wrote:[
Are you referring to the FRDB? I had no idea that was a Richard Carrier thing.
Yes, I am and yes, it was.

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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

Post by Solo »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
You say: "To leap from the women failing to deliver the news to the disciples hearing of the resurrection only through Mark's writing is a fallacy". That is an ipse dixit, or "so he said", a statement that does not have to be reasoned out, or even explained, because the "authority" spake.
It is, rather, a pointing out of a position that your post did not even consider. It is a fallacy to assume that, because the women failed to tell the disciples about the empty tomb, therefore Jesus never appeared to the disciples. There is no better characterization of the argument than "fallacy".
It is obvious that we have a different understanding of the meaning of the word 'fallacy'. If you can show me in Mark where the disciples get anything of gospel substance coming from Jesus, Ok, I will agree that my argument is fallacious. But my point to you - from which you are trying to run away like Peter from the scandal of the cross - is that you cannot show from anything Mark wrote - up to that point - that he intended a different ending.
Ben C. Smith wrote:
The point I argue here is that the intent written into that sentence is categorical, so final in fact, that anything that would come after, trying to qualify it or excise it, would look un-Markan, and argue with him.
And I am saying that you are mistaken. It is not obvious at all that Jesus will not appear to the disciples just because the women say nothing. And when I say that it is not obvious, I do not mean that the opposite is obvious; I mean that it is genuinely unclear.

And this is why: in the abrupt version of Mark that we have extant, we find Mark 14.28 ("but after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee") and 16.7 ("but go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you'"). These are predictions by Jesus, and everything else on point in the gospel thus far has primed us to expect Jesus' predictions to come true. On another thread I pointed out that, just as Jesus' prediction of Peter's three denials was coming true in the courtyard outside the trial, Jesus was simultaneously predicting to the priests inside the coming of the son of man. The contemporaneous fulfillment of one prediction certifies the eventual fulfillment of the other. There is nothing in Mark to suggest that Jesus will not fulfill his prediction in 14.28 and 16.7.
Jesus is dead by 16:7 and makes therefore no further predictions. On a point of textual fidelity Jesus does not say in 14:28 the disciples would "see him" in Galilee; that is something the messenger adds in 16:7 to Jesus' statement. Whether he was authorized, by whom and to what end, is a question, but lesser as to what he meant. Given the verb here is 'horáō', i.e. 'seeing spiritually', what the messenger really might be saying is far from a scene out of Matthew, Luke or John. Mark ridicules throughout the spiritual capacity of the disciples - that much should be clear.
But the argument falls as soon as you look at it from the specific Markan point of view. Would in Mark's milieu not allowing the disciples to hear the news, cause Jesus' most important prophecy to go unfulfilled? We know of course that from the later church's point of view the ending was judged deficient and the text was expanded in several attempts to deal specifically with this deficiency. But is it possible that Mark himself perceived the end that way, and bridged the chasm between the disciples and the gospel ? It is possible but not at all probable.

This is because in Mark's writing, the disciples not only do not get "resurrection", they frighten of the idea (and its demonstration on the lake and on the mountain) and in one instance, Peter's unsuccessful attempt to talk Jesus out of it at Caesarea Philippi, violently resist it. In the gospel, the subject of the Son Man's rising is broached in 8:31, 9:9, 9:31, 10:34 and finally with Jesus using first person singular, in 14:28. In In all these instances, the disciples do not know what Jesus is talking about, discussing it among themselves (9:10), and afraid to ask Jesus (9:32), misapprehending his "secret" kingdom (Zebs in 10:35-40), and finally Peter "not hearing" (14:28-29) the part that Jesus would go "before them" to Galilee after he has risen. All of this is consistent with the shocking abrupt ending.

What does it mean ? By all appearances, the disciples' incomprehension of the prototype of Messiah who would be killed and rise after three days, is given by their unfamiliarity with the "gospel" which closely relates to "rising from the dead" and belongs exclusively to "faith". Mark's text (like Paul's) proclaims "faith in resurrection". This is not a fact, or Easter "event", of which the writers know nothing (1 Co 15:17, Mk 4:3-20). Also for Mark's community faith was something that separated them from everyone else, and that would include the Petrine tradition. So, naturally, the disciples stand "hoi exo", on the outside of faith, which is in places difficult to get out of the text due to the harmonizing of Mark with Matt and Luke. The later synoptics no longer feature this sharp divide internally between Jesus and the disciples; "unfaith" will be projecting strictly to the outside of the Christian community. Matt may be scathing of Paul and Paulinism, but he cleverly hides it behind general moral maxims and wisdom sayings.

On Markan terms then, denying Peter and the disciples the "knowledge" of resurrection (in the narrative, the "annunciation" in the cave) follows the pattern of his defining and treating this group. Mark was writing in an early community that saw itself as the privileged elect. Their Jesus was not trying to reach everyone: one's faith and spiritual competence was a gift of the Spirit which was tested 4:11-12 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. These two verses shock all those who subscribe to de Lerins paradigm.

So Mark would likely think nothing of cutting out Peter and Co. from the mystery of resurrection since they, though apparently devoted to Jesus and idolize him, do not get him, i.e. fail the test. According to Mark, they lack moral fibre. They think of him as Messiah, the restorer of the old kingdom; which he teaches them he is not (Mind you, he teases them with the "triumphal entry" but that's just Mark thickening the plot). Because of this divide, the failure of the disciples to see Jesus in Galilee, can hardly be interpreted as leaving a stain on Jesus' fiability, faith here is the sine qua non to the promise of resurrection. The disciples did not the gospel but for their heirs Mark's gospel was an open invitation: "Repent and accept the cross!".
Your answer basically boils down to the proposition that Jesus made a prediction that went unfulfilled. It is not as if Jesus was averse to making negative predictions: "Tonight you will all fall away from me!" "Tonight you will thrice deny me!" Why did he not do so in this case? "You will see me no more."
I really don't know how to answer this question. I am not Mark (even though I like to imagine I know what he was up to). All I can tell you is that William Wrede composed a pseudo-beautitude for him, saying "blessed be those whose speech is plain for they shall be understood". Incidentally, if you ever wanted to come out with a different point of view on Mark, I recommend Donald H. Juel's Master of Surprise and George Aichele's Phantom Messiah
You have Mark deliberately putting a false prediction on Jesus' lips, and then you accost me on ideological grounds for not accepting it, a truly incredible approach to the debate.

Verily incredible! Now, image the crazy SOB put a non-existent Commandment of the Decalogue on Jesus' lips! (10:19) Isn't that an impossible scandal!
In the meantime, everything you say about the mystery potentially being denied to the twelve is fine. I can easily imagine a version of Mark in which the twelve do not get to see the resurrected Lord. Trouble is, it is not a version that contains 14.28 and 16.7! Those verses are the main stumbling blocks, not some ideological factor (of which you appear to understand nothing in my case, anyway).
So, you mean you haven' seen a version of Mark ending at 16:8. Hmmm, you know there are no other version known to Christendom than that one and later attempts to apologize for it, which now appear so clumsy that it is impossible to assign them to Mark. No other versions of Mark's gospel ending exist. Period. Nobody has ever seen or heard of the one that you seem to think was lost (perhaps like the missing sura of the Koran, that the Shia believe Aesha mistakenly fed to the goat). Again, we have different views what on what constitutes freedom from partisan obsessions.
But then we have the Fayyum fragment, which lacks any parallel to Mark 14.28. Unfortunately, it is such a small fragment that it can shed no clear light on anything beyond a few verses in chapter 14. What if an earlier edition of Mark lacked both 14.28 and 16.7? That would be a version that could maybe, with a bit of tweaking, lack any postresurrectional material about the disciples. (I say it may need some tweaking because, even if we excise both 14.28 and 16.7 cleanly, it is still not completely clear just from 16.8 that nothing is expected to transpire afterward; verses like 4.11 and 9.1 are still in the mix. It is especially not clear that no negative follow-up should come after 16.8, something to emphasize that the disciples lost what they were apparently given in 4.11.) But, then again, what if the Fayyum version lacked the empty tomb altogether, and not just 16.7? The fact is that we cannot tell what the extent of the rest of the fragment would have been, despite me being very much in favor of using its evidence that 14.28 is secondary in its context.
Except, again, Joe has been telling us the Fayyum is not "really" Mark, so I take that as an attempt to deconstruct the argument which by now most people without some commitments seem ok with. There are new and new titles out in support of the AE. So I am good. If you won't be converted to the true gospel, what can a rationalist do ? Not helluva lot.

You quoted the next part of my post, but did not respond to it:
Ben C. Smith wrote:
Ben C.Smith wrote: Another option, to my mind, is that John 21 and Luke 5 (and probably Peter 14) present sanitized versions of an original ending in which Jesus appears to the disciples in order to reject them for their unbelief and move the needle on the meter of Christian culture decidedly toward "gentile" and away from "Jew".
Ben.
What response, if any, do you have to this possibility? It would preserve everything you said about the disciples genuinely being rejected, and it would preserve the force of the dominical prediction in 14.28 and 16.7.
I told you, there was no dominical prediction; you are inventing verses. And I addressed your for looking for solution in other gospels to a non-existent problem in Mark .

As best I can read Mark's intent of the "as he told you" by the messenger, it was to accentuate the shocking effect of the abrupt end after the negative response of the women that immediately followed.
PS: I will respond to other points in your post by PM.
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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

Post by JoeWallack »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
Tenorikuma wrote:Charles Talbert (Paideia Commentary):

Who doubts? (Do the Eleven worship and others doubt? Do the Eleven worship but some of them doubt? Do the Eleven worship and the Eleven doubt?) In Matthew, the particular phrase (hoi de + a verbal construction) always refers to the entire group of people mentioned previously or their spokesman (e.g., 2:9; 8:32; 9:31; 20:4–5; 22:5; 28:9; 28:15; etc.). The point of view of a subgroup is never set against the point of view of the whole body. In Matt. 28:17, therefore, they doubted refers to the whole group of the Eleven.

What that paragraph fails to mention is that in all of those cases οἱ δὲ also refers to a completely different subject than what came immediately before, taking advantage of the usual force of the δὲ.

Those who try to grant the δὲ its usual force will say that the doubters have to be miscellaneous others besides the Eleven. Those who try to grant the οἱ its usual force will say that the doubters have to be the Eleven. Those who want to try to do a little of both, but admittedly with some inadequacy on both counts, will say that the doubters have to be a subgroup of the Eleven.

Matthew has written confusingly here.
JW:
Gundry, in his assassination of Peter, also has an understanding of "some" and just says it's "possible" that Peter is included among that "some". (Peter - False Disciple 14:22-33)


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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

Post by Ben C. Smith »

JoeWallack wrote:Gundry, in his assassination of Peter, also has an understanding of "some" and just says it's "possible" that Peter is included among that "some". (Peter - False Disciple 14:22-33)
I get the impression you like Gundry more now than you used to, now that he can be reasonably accused of Petricide. :D
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Re: Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrie

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Ben C. Smith wrote:
JoeWallack wrote:Gundry, in his assassination of Peter, also has an understanding of "some" and just says it's "possible" that Peter is included among that "some". (Peter - False Disciple 14:22-33)
I get the impression you like Gundry more now than you used to, now that he can be reasonably accused of Petricide. :D
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