Re: Kartagraphy Markoff. Did "Mark" Get Any Geography Right?
Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2017 12:09 pm
It has long seemed to me that the gospel of Mark is better at geography in the Jerusalem area, where more specifics are given, than in Galilee, where vague generalities abound.Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:52 amand here (Bauckham, Richard. "The Gospels as Eyewitness Accounts" (PDF). Retrieved 21 March 2015)pavurcn wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:16 pm Consider Bauckham:
From here. Lecture available here.Richard Bauckham has noted that the geography in Mark is accurate when looked at from the perspective of fisherman from Capernaum, which is consistent with Mark relaying the gospel from Peter, who indeed was a fisherman. Many scholars use modern maps to gauge Mark, which often results in errors in judging Mark's geography. A fisherman would not have had a modern map in mind, but instead a mental map based on his experiential world.[79]
I was very curious about how Bauckham dealt with the famous problems of Mark 5:1 (Gerasa/Gadara) and Mark 7:31 (the way from Tyre via Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the midst of the Decapolis). But he preferred the minor variant „Gergesa“ (an unknown town) at Mark 5:1 and did not comment on Mark 7:31. This is a little disappointing.
Bauckham assumed that „the locations (in GMark) they (Peter & Co.) remembered best were those with which they were already very familiar“ and that „the topography of Jerusalem and the particular places to which Peter went with Jesus will have been etched on Peter’s memory probably more other places to which he had travelled with Jesus. But we should also note that if the author of Mark’s Gospel was John Mark of Jerusalem, as I think there is good reason to suppose, then in this latter part of his narrative Mark’s own intimate knowledge of Jerusalem could have come into play.“
Some of Bauckham's problems could be that GMark gives no detailed description of Caphernaum and the best „remembered“ description of place is probably the colt „at a door outside in the street“ in the „village in front of you“ „immediately as you enter it“, when they were drawing „near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives“ (Mark 11:1-4).
I think this one would actually work as Peter's memory. Both Aramaic יַם and Hebrew יָם are apparently used to designate both lakes and seas, so it would all be down to the Greek translation of Peter's words. (But, for my money, the influence of the Septuagint is probably in play anyway, in which case Peter's memories become a superfluous explanation.)Furthermore, I tend to think that from Peter's memory we would expect a different designation than the unusual „Sea of Galilee“....