The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

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Giuseppe
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by Giuseppe »

Surely a view I reject is the idea of midrash for midrash's sake (this I have meant by writing before "midrash per midrash").

The midrash for midrash's sake is too much irenic and dull as explanation. It didn't work even as theodicy for a real event.

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neilgodfrey
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 8:52 am Surely a view I reject is the idea of midrash for midrash's sake (this I have meant by writing before "midrash per midrash").

The midrash for midrash's sake is too much irenic and dull as explanation. It didn't work even as theodicy for a real event.

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I have never said the gospels were midrash for the sake of midrash. Nor do I know of anyone else who has pointed out midrash in the gospels who has said the same thing.
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 2:46 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 9:42 pm Or are you suggesting that the origin of the gospels was with a Jewish "gnostic" type group that downplayed the place of YHWH and acknowledged a higher Alien God?
that is the view I am going to learn by reading (very gradually) this book.

Image
Bolland's thesis -- that we should look outside Palestine and closer to Alexandria, Egypt, for Christian origins -- is quite similar to the way I had been thinking for a long time about gospel and Christian origins. I do not discount those arguments totally, but I do think we need to do more to find a relationship between those sorts of arguments and the apparent evidence for a quite different provenance of Christian origins in the context of Jerusalem's and the Temple's destruction, considering both 70 and 135 events.
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by andrewcriddle »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:08 am
rgprice wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 3:21 am If we put ideas about Markan priority aside for a moment and forget about trying to figure out the order in which things may or may not have been written, consider this proposition:

Some earliest narrative existed in which a "mother of Jesus" had no name. She was just the "mother of Jesus". But this "mother of Jesus" was actually denied to be his mother, indeed in the earliest narrative the only point of the mention of his family was for him to deny that he had a family. In addition, early narratives existed in which there was a female companion named Mary. Now this Mary was a sort of Gnostic wisdom figure, who became Mary Magdalene. In later narratives, Mary Magdalene was conflated with the "mother of Jesus", thus giving rise to the name of Mary as Jesus' mother.

Now, the details of all this I make no claim to having worked out, and it throws a wrench into my concept of Gospel origins, but it does seem to have something going for it.

Thoughts?
I know I'm coming at this question from a quite different perspective but fwiw, ......

To add to the comment above where I see a strong likelihood that Miriam, sister of Aaron and Moses was, the inspiration for the name of Jesus' mother. . . .

Mariam in early Jewish tradition was equated with the sister Wisdom of Proverbs.

An ancient argument for this equation is found in the rabbinic midrash on Exodus, -- see 1:22-23 where as the sister she is equated with the sister-wisdom of Proverbs 7:4

There are other equations but the above appears to be the earliest I am aware of.

If we accept that the evangelists or their sources took an interest in gematria, then Miriam and Wisdom in the Hebrew are equated by a very unusual double gematria (both words equalling 37 and 73 by the two different methods of gematria).

So if Miriam/Mary is equated with Wisdom through early Jewish midrash and/or gematria we have before us a good reason for the appearance of at least two Marys in the gospels: one the mother of Jesus and the other the ("platonic") lover of Jesus.

That's speculative, of course, but I leave it here for what it's worth.

Now for a bit of ad hoc rationalization of the difficulties....

Mary as mother is not a good saint during Jesus' ministry, but I mentioned in the previous comment that we have Miriam also blotting her copybook.
Ditto for the Mary disciple of Jesus. If her reputation as a former sinner comes to mind we might also recall the two sisters in the midrash, and the false and true wisdom, one being converted to the other.

Okay, I said it was ad hoc.

So the two Marys could thus be "explained" by the two associations of wisdom in Jewish midrash: one with Wisdom and the other with Miriam (who was also equated with Wisdom -- thus having a double role which becomes two characters in the gospels.)

By the way, it doesn't hurt the Miriam-Mary connection to note that the same Midrash on Exodus extols Miriam as the prophetess who foretold that her mother, who was "re-virgined", would give birth to a son who would save Israel.

P.S. -- a bit more ad hoc....

The Gospel of Mark speaks of Jesus' mother in a scene before he brings her into another setting where she is named: Compare Exodus where Miriam is unnamed when we first meet her in Exodus where she tends to Moses but she is named quite some chapters later after crossing the Red Sea.

One can understand a Marcionite gospel not mentioning the Jewish-associated mother's name. One can also imagine a later redactor of Marcion's gospel sticking it to Marcion by adding lots of mentions of Mary by name in additional chapters.

As for the Gospel of John, the Mary association with Wisdom would not sit comfortably with the christology we find there where Jesus is the Logos and therefore Wisdom himself.
Shemot Rabbah/Exodus Rabbah is late (early medieval in its present form). I'm unclear how much of the tradition about Miriam is genuinely ancient.

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neilgodfrey
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by neilgodfrey »

andrewcriddle wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 1:22 am
Shemot Rabbah/Exodus Rabbah is late (early medieval in its present form). I'm unclear how much of the tradition about Miriam is genuinely ancient.

Andrew Criddle
That is debatable. Other scholars disagree. Or rather, yes, "it is unclear how much" ... a truism. "In its present form".... which leaves the relevant question open. I trust one is not relying on the earliest manuscripts as the indicator of the origins of a writing. That's certainly a no-no for Christian lit and for the Greco-Roman classics.

One question that is pertinent in the minds of Daniel Boyarin at al is whether it is reasonable to think that Jews would borrow ideas from Christians in a form that does not dispute Christianity.
rgprice
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

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neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:08 am The Gospel of Mark speaks of Jesus' mother in a scene before he brings her into another setting where she is named: Compare Exodus where Miriam is unnamed when we first meet her in Exodus where she tends to Moses but she is named quite some chapters later after crossing the Red Sea.
Yes, but Mark is extremely sparse with the naming of women. Unless I'm missing something, the only named woman in Mark outside of Mary in 6 and the women in 15 and 16 is Herodias, who is a sort of villain and a historical figure.

When we look at the names in Mark, they seem quite gratuitous to me.

3 Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are His sisters not here with us?”

What is the point of these names? They are never used again in the story. These aren't historical figures. They make no impact on the narrative. They are completely unnecessary. Their function seems to be entirely doctrinal. It seems that the only point of presenting these names is to reinforce a tradition, but the rest of Mark seems to lack such a motive. Mark is not interested in documenting traditions, it is interested in telling a theological story.

40 Now there were also some women watching from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome.

Same issue here. Why so specific with the names? The overwhelming majority of Mark is symbolic and mystical. The focus is on conveying concepts, not documenting facts. The roles of characters are allegorical. Why get so specific here with the documenting of these figures?

So again this looks to me like a later revision by an anti-Marcionite who was establishing a broader set of traditions to be shared across the four Gospel collection.
One can understand a Marcionite gospel not mentioning the Jewish-associated mother's name. One can also imagine a later redactor of Marcion's gospel sticking it to Marcion by adding lots of mentions of Mary by name in additional chapters.
Yes. But interestingly, Mary the mother is mentioned surprisingly few times in the main narrative across the Gospels. She's in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, but then only mentioned once in Mark, once in the main body of Matthew, and not named in the main body of Luke nor in John.

I know its a very messy proposition and maybe very difficult to defend, but I suspect that the naming of Mary in Mark 6 is actually a harmonization of Mark with Matthew. I hate even proposing that because it raises a whole host of issues. But, if we take the proposition seriously that the Gospel used by Marcion was not created by Marcion and was not redacted to fit Marcionite doctrine, which is what several scholars such as BeDuhn propose, then we can't assume that the writer of the Gospel Marcion used would have had a reason to remove these names. What would be the function of removing the names? But we have testimony that they didn't exist in Marcion's Gospel.

If indeed Marcion's Gospel was derived from Mark, which I believe to be the case, then is it not likely that it may be a more faithful witness to the original state of Mark than Matthew? We know that in many ways the main body of Luke stays closer to Mark than Matthew does. Of course there are scenes in Matthew that more closely resemble Mark than Luke as well, so, as with most things, its difficult to make definitive conclusions.
As for the Gospel of John, the Mary association with Wisdom would not sit comfortably with the christology we find there where Jesus is the Logos and therefore Wisdom himself.
Possibly, but John already looks like a Frankenstein story, stitched together from multiple disparate narratives. I'm talking about Mary Magdalene originating as a consort of Jesus associated with Wisdom, not necessarily that she was portrayed as such in John, which would have just been cobbling together and repurposing of existing narratives. Again, very speculative I know.
Last edited by rgprice on Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by neilgodfrey »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 8:52 am Surely a view I reject is the idea of midrash for midrash's sake (this I have meant by writing before "midrash per midrash").

The midrash for midrash's sake is too much irenic and dull as explanation. It didn't work even as theodicy for a real event.

All here.
I'll try to clarify. Every activity must have a purpose and various reasons have been proposed for the passages generally acknowledged to be some form of midrashic activity in the gospels. Crossan et al. speak of the Passion scene in Mark as "prophecy historicized", and we could say that the purpose of this sort of midrashic activity is to equate the death of Jesus with the fulfilment of God's word. I am currently thinking of the primary purpose being related to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and creating a narrative of hope for a "new people of God" born out of that disaster. So far that purpose explains a lot of what we see in the gospels.

Bolland's thesis also makes sense of many details. But there is a problem. Both Bolland's thesis and the Jewish-disaster thesis cannot be right, or at least some new thesis is needed to try to explain some sort of relationship between the two kinds of ideas.

I don't see many arguments or snippets of ideas (as you often post here) as either-or postulates. "Both-and" doesn't work well, either. There's still something missing. Then how do we get to Marcion? We can zero in on this of that bit of data or series of passages that seem to explain everything one way of the other, but if I accept those apparently "obvious" explanations I soon return to all the other stuff and see we still have many other things unexplained. I am not sure it can ever be possible to know fully exactly how Christianity began, but I prefer to take snippets of this or that "proof-text" or idea that you present and place it beside a whole bunch of other stuff and try to figure out where it fits in that thousand piece jig-saw of which we only have half the pieces we need.
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

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rgprice wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:09 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:08 am The Gospel of Mark speaks of Jesus' mother in a scene before he brings her into another setting where she is named: Compare Exodus where Miriam is unnamed when we first meet her in Exodus where she tends to Moses but she is named quite some chapters later after crossing the Red Sea.
Yes, but Mark is extremely sparse with the naming of women. Unless I'm missing something, the only named woman in Mark outside of Mary in 6 and the women in 15 and 16 is Herodias, who is a sort of villain and a historical figure.
Quite right. I only mention that early absence of her name with much tentativeness.
rgprice wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:09 amWhen we look at the names in Mark, they seem quite gratuitous to me.

3 Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are His sisters not here with us?”

What is the point of these names? They are never used again in the story. These aren't historical figures. They make no impact on the narrative. They are completely unnecessary. Their function seems to be entirely doctrinal. It seems that the only point of presenting these names is to reinforce a tradition, but the rest of Mark seems to lack such a motive. Mark is not interested in documenting traditions, it is interested in telling a theological story.
Your last sentence, I think, hits the nail on the head. GMark is not a particularly polished story. It really is a series of "midrashic" units strung together (as someone said, like pearls on a string). Names keep popping up that have no larger thematic or narrative function; even episodes are told in a crude and incoherent manner.

I have just completed Le Maguer's book on midrashic associations with the various names of Mary in the gospels. If he is half way on the right track then we may be able to find "midrashic" associations that do make sense of those names if we take that approach to the question.
rgprice wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:09 am
40 Now there were also some women watching from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome.

Same issue here. Why so specific with the names? The overwhelming majority of Mark is symbolic and mystical. The focus is on conveying concepts, not documenting facts. The roles of characters are allegorical. Why get so specific here with the documenting of these figures?
Le Maguer actually raises an interesting possibility to these three women. Like Joseph of Arimathea, they are unheard of in the narrative but suddenly turn up at the death and resurrection scene. I am preparing some blog posts that will include his explanation for this trio with those particular names turning up at this point.
rgprice wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:09 amSo again this looks to me like a later revision by an anti-Marcionite who was establishing a broader set of traditions to be shared across the four Gospel collection.
I can't say it's not. But my approach at the moment is to move away from using Marcion as the "get out of jail free" card. If the way this scene is told is consistent with the patchy and funny way the rest of the gospel appears to be told then why not assume a unity of the composition as we have it -- with only the minor corruptions here and there from variant copying practices?
rgprice wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:09 am Yes. But interestingly, Mary the mother is mentioned surprisingly few times in the main narrative across the Gospels. She's in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, but then only mentioned once in Mark, once in the main body of Matthew, and not named in the main body of Luke nor in John.
Yes. When I said a redactor of Marcion's Luke went to town with a vengeance to bring in Mary's name I was only referring to his adding the opening birth chapters.

The name Mary, along with her person as a narrative figure who does and says things, increases in importance over time. Other figures get only spare mentions generally -- Jesus really is all there is to take note of, apart from his Simon Peter friend.
rgprice wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:09 amI know its a very messy proposition and maybe very difficult to defend, but I suspect that the naming of Mary in Mark 6 is actually a harmonization of Mark with Matthew. I hate even proposing that because it raises a whole host of issues. But, if we take the proposition seriously that the Gospel used by Marcion was not created by Marcion and was not redacted to fit Marcionite doctrine, which is what several scholars such as BeDuhn propose, then we can't assume that the writer of the Gospel Marcion used would have had a reason to remove these names. What would be the function of removing the names? But we have testimony that they didn't exist in Marcion's Gospel.
Are the grounds for arguing the interpolation of Nazareth in Mark (from Matthew) similar to those that would justify a similar interpolation of Mary in ch.6? I'm open to the idea.

Maybe it's the shadow of Marcion that's distorting the problems we see or how we see them?
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

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There are other [i.e. NON-Marcionite] solid theological reasons -- all based on faithful reference to the Jewish Scriptures -- for portraying the disciples of Jesus as failures. Ted Weeden's thesis fits well with the Marcionite idea, but another "what if" here .... what if the original portrayal of the disciples as failures had more to do with the typical lessons of Israel's failure to live up to God's call rather than with Marcionite polemics?

Marcion would understandably pick up on such a gospel and reinterpret it for his own agenda if that's what circumstances allowed.
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by rgprice »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:46 am There are other [i.e. NON-Marcionite] solid theological reasons -- all based on faithful reference to the Jewish Scriptures -- for portraying the disciples of Jesus as failures. Ted Weeden's thesis fits well with the Marcionite idea, but another "what if" here .... what if the original portrayal of the disciples as failures had more to do with the typical lessons of Israel's failure to live up to God's call rather than with Marcionite polemics?

Marcion would understandably pick up on such a gospel and reinterpret it for his own agenda if that's what circumstances allowed.
That's true. This is a general problem with the Jewish scriptures to begin with. So many of the stories depict Jews/Israelites in a negative light, which people like Marcion used against the Jews. So its certainly possible that the theme is an emulation of these themes in the Jewish scriptures, but we do also have the issue of the conflict between Paul and Peter, James, John to contend with. Of course, you may argue that even that theme is derived from the scriptures, but regardless, that conflict was present in the Pauline writings prior to the writing of Mark, no matter of those writings are themselves "inauthentic" later works or not. Even if there was no real Paul, there was a real collection of writings that was produced before Mark.

I do still wonder why the mother of Jesus is not named in John though.

It does seem to me that Mary Magdalene and Lazarus come out of nowhere in John, as if we should already know who they are.

3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”

Surely we have missed something here. Lazarus is not a stranger, he is someone Jesus already knows. Not only does he know him, he has some special relationship with him. Yet we have heard nothing about him before. Something must be missing.

This seems to indicate that in some lost narrative Jesus had already met Lazarus, Martha and Mary "Magdalene", all of whom are related (brothers and sisters). Another interesting thing is that the name "Magdalene" in John is almost certainly a later addition made when John was put into the 4 Gospel collection, because when she is introduced in John 11 she is not called Mary "Magdalene", she is instead referred to as, "the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment". If the original version of John included the name Mary "Magdalene", then why wouldn't the writer have clarified here that this was Mary "Magdalene" instead of "the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment".

So I think the naming of Mary "Magdalene" in John 19 and 20 is also a later revision.

The mother of Jesus is mentioned twice in John. Once prior to Jesus meeting Mary and once alongside Mary "Magdalene". If we replace "mother of Jesus" in the wedding scene of John with "Mary" then we have an introduction of Mary prior to John 11. Given the way that John 11 is written, it seems that Jesus should have already met Mary, Martha and Lazarus. So is the wedding not the meeting of Jesus and Mary (or Martha for that matter)? From there, we perhaps have missing scenes where Mary/Martha introduced Jesus to Lazarus, who becomes an additional "beloved disciple".

Or is this part of a tradition that even predates the idea of twelve disciples? Is there some older story in which there were not twelve disciples, but rather it was just Jesus, Mary and Lazarus? Mark introduced the twelve as a product of its use of scriptural references, but prior to Mark there may have been a narrative that didn't have twelve. Now I'm contradicting my own thesis that Mark was the first narrative about Jesus, but I'm just exploring possibilities here.

But you see the point that John 11 looks very odd, like we should already know who Martha, Mary and Lazarus are. The wedding scene and the way the "mother of Jesus" is used in that scene is also very odd. He talks to his "mother" like she is a stranger whom he doesn't know. It looks like a scene in which Jesus is meeting a woman for the first time.

But, why wouldn't the writer of John have used the name Mary for his mother? Why not use it as an opportunity to clarify the two Marys? Why didn't a potential later reviser do it? All very odd.
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