Against the "Primacy Arguments"

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Charles Wilson
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Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:13 am

Against the "Primacy Arguments"

Post by Charles Wilson »

Lost in the "Composition Arguments" and the "Primacy Arguments" is a Proposition that hasn't been given much thought at all: Perhaps the original assumption is false. The Statement that the NT is a Greek Text, wholly and completely, might be wrong. The Statement that the NT originated as an Aramaic Text which might have been translated into Greek and then Suppressed, might not be correct.

Perhaps there was something before the NT that was reworked into what we have now, something that had Roots in something else entirely.

1. Acts 12: 25 (RSV):

[25] And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, bringing with them John whose other name was Mark.

2. "Jay Raskin, The Evolution of Christs and Christianities, p 149 (After a lengthy Analysis):

"Mark has the stone being placed in front of Jesus' tomb but does not have the spices being placed with Jesus. John has the spices being placed with Jesus but does not have the stone. It would seem that both would necessary in both stories. Mark would not want us to think of Jesus' body stinking without spices and John needs the stone placed in front of the tomb so that Mary can see it missing. There is one explanation for such enormous lapses and for the pieces in Mark fitting so well into John. Originally the two texts were one and contained both bits of important information. We may deduce that Mark was literally cutting out the text of a manuscript to create his new manuscript. Whoever published John must have had the very same manuscript with the holes Mark had left in it..."

This is a "Common Source" view. We are, of course, invited to think that "Barnabas" and "Saul", from the Acts quote above, are two people who traveled with a person who had two names for the same person - John Mark. It is possible, however, to follow Raskin's lead and view John Mark as a document. "Barnabas" - "the son of the Father" - and "Saul" - a person I identify as one "Mucianus" - are not on a Christian Mission at all but are returning from the Sack of Jerusalem and the Destruction of the Temple. They carry with them a most important Document. It is a Noir Story.

3. The greatest of the "Common Source" Parts are descriptions that have been in plain sight for 2000 years. Since the "Jesus" Character has "Existence as a Predicate" because of his godhood, however, these discrepancies in detail must be "Explained Away" rather than used as a Pointer to the deeper Story.

There were two Crucifixions.

Mark 15: 1, 25 (RSV):

[1] And as soon as it was morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate.

[25] And it was the third hour, when they crucified him.
***
John 19: 14 - 18 (RSV):

[14] Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your King!"
[15] They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar."
[16] Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.
[17] So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Gol'gotha.
[18] There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

There will be a lot more "explaining away" by the time this Thread is over. As will be seen, even just below, there has been massive amounts of Indirection that must be brought out into the open to make Empirical Sense out of these Stories.

4. If "Existence is not a Predicate", even for the Character "Jesus", then the use of 2 Crucifixions must be explained. A person could not be crucified twice AND DIE each time, to say nothing of rising on a third day. We come to the Decision Point where we must decide whether to accept the Metaphysical Truth of a Divine Being who came to Earth to save Humanity or some other alternative.

Did either Mark or John see another alternative? Yes. Mark did:

Mark 5: 25, 42 (RSV):

[25] And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years,
***
[42] And immediately the girl got up and walked (she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.

We are given two Stories that cannot have been literally True with a common statement between them: "Twelve Years". The Woman has had a twelve year issue of blood and the girl is not dead but is 12 years old. These Stories are related to the 2 "Crucifixions". They point the way out.

As will be seen, there were 2 "Crucifixions". Mark is writing an astonishing story of Indirection which will be exploited and rewritten. One Crucifixion will be Symbolic in Character, the other actual. The Markan Version is aware of this completely. Mark has telescoped the 2 Stories into one.

Thus, if Mark and John came from a Common Source, they are telling a Story which was Unified originally. The Authorship of the Original, as will be seen, had knowledge of Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, with a little Latin thrown in by at least one person who thought in Latin and probably wrote in Greek.

The Primacy Arguments, whether Greek or Aramaic, miss the point.
First up: The Aramaicists in John.

CW
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