The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Jesus

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JoeWallack
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The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Jesus

Post by JoeWallack »

The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for "Mark's" Jesus' Passion

JW:
I think everyone would agree here that David from the Jewish Bible is a source for "Mark's" (author) Jesus' Passion. The better question though, and one which CBS (Christian Bible Scholarship) tries to avoid, is to what extent David from the Jewish Bible was a source for "Mark's" Jesus' Passion.

Some defenders of HJ (historical Jesus) claim that the supposed lack of Messianic Passion in the Jewish Bible is proof/key evidence of HPJ (historically passionate Jesus). The serious student should know by now though that this is a Literary Criticism and that without any quality Source Criticism to support it, can not prove anything. Measuring the extent to which "Mark's" Jesus' Passion has a source of the Jewish Bible is also a Literary Criticism and thus has the potential to help swing this category of evidence towards MJ (mythical Jesus, not Michael Jordan), depending on the extent.

I foresee confusion here as to the combination of my claim that this thread is not about Source Criticism and my continued use of the word "source" referring here to the Jewish Bible. Source Criticism refers to the author, "Mark", of which we know little.

Interestingly/ironically Jesus' Teaching & Healing Ministry, which was impossible, was presented by "Mark" as relatively unimportant while the Passion Ministry was presented as the important part, which was possible (but implausible). The extent of contrivance is another type of Literary Criticism but this thread will be dedicated to the source issue above.

I have faith that believers here as well as Skeptics will be surprised at the extent to which "Mark's" Passion has a source of The Jewish Bible. I've already indicated that "Mark's" Jesus' baptism has parallels to David receiving the spirit and than being driven to fight Goliath verses tested by Satan:

# GMark I Samuel Commentary
1 1:9 "And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan." 16:12 "And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look upon. And Jehovah said, Arise, anoint him; for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren" Both are baptized as part of a group and God chooses the one.
2 1:10 "And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon him" 16:13 "Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of Jehovah came mightily upon David from that day forward" The Spirit comes upon David/Jesus
3 1:13 "And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan" 17:16 "And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days." The hero is tempted for 40 days by Satan/Goliath
4 1:13 "And he was with the wild beasts" 17:34 "Thy servant was keeping his father`s sheep; and when there came a lion, or a bear" With the wild beasts
5 1:23 "And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit" 16:14 "Now the Spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled him" The evil spirit presents a challenge
6 1:26 "And the unclean spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him." 16:23 "David took the harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him" Exorcism of the evil spirit

So as I write in Peter's for your profit, I send my message before your face, preparing your way.
The voice of one crying about the wilderness of CBS. Make ready the way in which "Mark's" Jesus' Passion was created, make straight the path between The Jewish Bible and GMark;


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Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

I give thanks and would like to add some math

LXX-Lev 24:5
And ye shall take fine flour, and make of it twelve loaves (δώδεκα ἄρτους); each loaf shall be of two tenth parts.
LXX- 1 Kings (1 Sam) 21:3-4
And David said to the priest ... And now if there are under thy hand five loaves (πέντε ἄρτοι), give into my hand what is ready.
LXX- 2 Kings (2 Sam) 6,
15 And David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting ...
19 And he distributed to all the people, even to all the host of Israel ..., to every one a cake of bread (ἄρτου), and a joint of meal ...
Mark 2,25-26
And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did ... how he entered the house of God ... and ate the bread (ἄρτους) of the Presence ... and also gave (ἔδωκεν) it to those who were with him?”
Mark 6:41 The jewish feeding of the 5000
And taking the five loaves (ἄρτους) ... broke the loaves (ἄρτους) and gave (ἐδίδου) them to the disciples to set before the people
Mark 8:6 The pagan feeding of the 4000
And he took the seven loaves (ἄρτους) ... he broke them and gave (ἐδίδου) them to his disciples to set before the people ...)

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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by Stephan Huller »

Count me as one who doesn't think that David was a model for Jesus originally. Certainly Tertullian and probably Irenaeus before him tried to shape the narrative as such. But there is clear evidence that David and Solomon were anti-types. The Testimony of Truth from Nag Hammadi being only the most explicit testimony against the proposition. If Jesus was superior to Moses he was certainly superior to David. I bet I can cite more antitheses or argument against the proposition than for the proposition.

I'll start with the obvious theoretical difficulty. If the heretical tradition started with Simon Magus (Justin) or Dositheus (Hippolytus) and this relationship with Christianity is consistently argued to be 'right at the beginning' of the religion, it would be implausible to argue that a Samaritan would have written a gospel or joined a movement that extolled David. The Samaritans don't have kind things to say about David and Solomon. Moses yes, David no. And what is David anyway but a poor man's (and ultimately mythical) Moses.
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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by Stephan Huller »

The traditions which thought Jesus was an angel couldn't have equated him with David. King David was a lot of things, an angel wasn't one of them.
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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by Blood »

Stephan Huller wrote:Count me as one who doesn't think that David was a model for Jesus originally. Certainly Tertullian and probably Irenaeus before him tried to shape the narrative as such. But there is clear evidence that David and Solomon were anti-types. The Testimony of Truth from Nag Hammadi being only the most explicit testimony against the proposition. If Jesus was superior to Moses he was certainly superior to David. I bet I can cite more antitheses or argument against the proposition than for the proposition.

I'll start with the obvious theoretical difficulty. If the heretical tradition started with Simon Magus (Justin) or Dositheus (Hippolytus) and this relationship with Christianity is consistently argued to be 'right at the beginning' of the religion, it would be implausible to argue that a Samaritan would have written a gospel or joined a movement that extolled David. The Samaritans don't have kind things to say about David and Solomon. Moses yes, David no. And what is David anyway but a poor man's (and ultimately mythical) Moses.
You are thinking about this with far more logic than the ancient theologians did. King David appears to be an anti-type in Samuel/Kings, but then the writer of the much later Book of Chronicles does some serious bowdlerizing in order to make David into an unambivalently great hero. Very similar to the method used by Matthew & Luke vis-a-vis the much less heroic Jesus of Mark.

Questions like these underscore my thesis that Christianity was never actually a "Jewish" sect in any ethnic sense of that word. Jews understood that King David was a historical figure fixed in time. They were not waiting for David Redivivus. But to Christians, "Moses" and "David" are interchangeable demigods in a magic story book. It doesn't really matter when they lived or whether or not they were kings or any other kind of context. The Bible is merely a template upon which their imaginations could draw thousands of "connections" that aren't there.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by Stephan Huller »

Right but I don't think that Mark, Matthew and Luke represent the earliest development of the gospel. Neither is that the assumption of a major monograph by Matthias Klinghardt Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien http://www.amazon.de/%C3%A4lteste-Evang ... 3772085490. I have this pre-ordered on Amazon. I never pre-order books because they are all for the most part - shit. But this guy is the real deal. Almost anything worth reading in the study of early Christianity has been written in German and/or published in neighboring Holland.

Klinghardt's point is simply Marcion's gospel is the text behind every other gospel. This is the book which will finally transform scholarship in a new direction. It becomes available in four weeks.

Back to the discussion. I think the specifically Judean layer of the gospel (i.e. that which was layered on top of the original interest in the 'gladtidings' of the destruction of the Jewish religion, the end of the Law, the end of the worship of angels etc) was developed in the second century. It wasn't original. Jesus was an angel formerly worshipped by the ancestors of the Pharisees but ignored by the Pharisees. David has no part in the original myth.
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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by MrMacSon »

Stephan Huller wrote:Right but I don't think that Mark, Matthew and Luke represent the earliest development of the gospel.
"the gospel" - You mean the synoptic gospels, Stephan? or the NT-Jesus of Nazareth/Bethlehem narrative in toto?

Stephan Huller wrote: Neither is that the assumption of a major monograph by Matthias Klinghardt - Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien .
... <snip> ...
Klinghardt's point is simply Marcion's gospel is the text behind every other gospel. This is the book which will finally transform scholarship in a new direction. It becomes available in four weeks.
"Marcion's gospel" - the Pauline texts??

Stephan Huller wrote:Back to the discussion. I think the specifically Judean layer of the gospel (ie. that which was layered on top of the original interest in the 'gladtidings' of the destruction of the Jewish religion, the end of the Law, the end of the worship of angels etc) was developed in the second century. It wasn't original. Jesus was an angel formerly worshiped by the ancestors of the Pharisees but ignored by the Pharisees. David has no part in the original myth.
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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by Blood »

Germans have always been 100 years ahead of English-language scholarship. I shudder to think of all the great papers and books in German that have never been translated. Americans can't handle this stuff at all. The most they can take is milquetoast Ehrmanism, which is child's play to the Germans.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:
Stephen Ahearne-Kroll has written the related book (so to speak):

The Psalms of Lament in Mark's Passion: Jesus' Davidic Suffering (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series)

Amazon link

Image

which can be purchased for your PC for $ 13 (cheap).

The strength of the book is the objective determination of parallels between "Mark's" (author) Jesus' Passion and the Psalms. The weakness is that the book carries all the (mis)assumptions of C-BS (Christian Bible Scholarship) concerning the significance of the parallels.

For starters Kroll assumes the Passion is 14.1 to 16:8. As a side note, regarding 16:8 as the original ending, note that it supports the Tragedy of the entire Passion, while the forged ending completely undoes the Tragedy.

From the start of "Mark's" Passion Kroll notes the first quality parallel to a Psalm in 14:10-21:

Mark 14
10 And Judas Iscariot, he that was one of the twelve, went away unto the chief priests, that he might deliver him unto them.

11 And they, when they heard it, were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently deliver him [unto them].

12 And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the passover, his disciples say unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and make ready that thou mayest eat the passover?

13 And he sendeth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him;

14 and wheresoever he shall enter in, say to the master of the house, The Teacher saith, Where is my guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?

15 And he will himself show you a large upper room furnished [and] ready: and there make ready for us.

16 And the disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.

17 And when it was evening he cometh with the twelve.

18 And as they sat and were eating, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you shall betray me, [even] he that eateth with me.

19 They began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I?

20 And he said unto them, [It is] one of the twelve, he that dippeth with me in the dish.

21 For the Son of man goeth, even as it is written of him: but woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had not been born.
Kroll's Kriteria emphasize theme. He identifies the following major themes above:
  • 1) Meal with associates.

    2) Handing over by a close associate.

    3) Deliverance to enemies
He notes that all three figure prominently in Psalm 41:

Psalm 41
  • 1 Blessed is he that considereth the poor: Jehovah will deliver him in the day of evil.

    2 Jehovah will preserve him, and keep him alive, And he shall be blessed upon the earth; And deliver not thou him unto the will of his enemies.

    3 Jehovah will support him upon the couch of languishing: Thou makest all his bed in his sickness.

    4 I said, O Jehovah, have mercy upon me: Heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee.

    5 Mine enemies speak evil against me, [saying], When will he die, and his name perish?

    6 And if he come to see [me], he speaketh falsehood; His heart gathereth iniquity to itself: When he goeth abroad, he telleth it.

    7 All that hate me whisper together against me; Against me do they devise my hurt.

    8 An evil disease, [say they], cleaveth fast unto him; And now that he lieth he shall rise up no more.

    9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, Who did eat of my bread, Hath lifted up his heel against me.

    10 But thou, O Jehovah, have mercy upon me, and raise me up, That I may requite them.

    11 By this I know that thou delightest in me, Because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.

    12 And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, And settest me before thy face for ever.

    13 Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, From everlasting and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen. Book II Psalm 42 For the Chief Musician. Maschil of the sons of Korah.
Kroll's book lacks a quantitative analysis of the % of parallels to potential parallels but the matching of themes above seems solid as it would be somewhat difficult to find a significant theme in 14:10-21 not found in Psalm 41. Note especially how important the 3 are to the plot of that area of GMark.

Also note that 14:1-9 has parallels to the Psalm with the enemies plotting and invocation of "sickness" and "poor". Kroll Karries the C-BS assumption that "Mark's" (author) entire Passion is based on prior stories but fails to notice that there are no such extant stories. He also fails to point out that what is extant support for a source is Paul:

1 Corinthians 11
23 For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread;

24 and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me.
All three parallels above are explicit or implied. As Kroll notes, "Mark" is kind enough to finish the offending section with:

For the Son of man goeth, even as it is written of him

Explicitly iding the source as Scripture. Thus all known evidence supports Paul as providing the key assertions here and "Mark" using those assertions for his theme and than using the Jewish Bible to create a related narrative for at least part of his Passion narrative. The remaining question is, to what extent?


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Re: The Lord Sent to my lord jUPSalms. David as Model for Je

Post by Stephan Huller »

There are all arguments of the kind Irenaeus makes at the end of the second century. The problem is he clearly makes them against a tradition that denied the proposition. In twentieth century scholarship the assumption was always that the heretics were just stupid, because it is 'obvious' from the text that was shared by both tradition that Irenaeus was right, Jesus was like David. Nevertheless, in more recent scholarship it is being acknowledged that Irenaeus and men like him (perhaps his teacher Polycarp) altered the gospel and the Pauline letters to allow for the identification of Jesus with David. The point again is that all you are doing is commenting on the alterations to the Christian New Testament to make Jesus like David. This was not the original proposition. The original proposition was that Jesus was the angel denied by contemporary Jewry (and whose existence was continued to be denied by the rabbinic tradition in its war with the two powers tradition and to this very day by Joe's peers).

If Joe's point throughout his numerous posts that the orthodox New Testament was altered to (falsely) make Jesus appear to be like David or a son of David. I would certainly grant him that. But it is clear from his repeated anti-Christian polemic that is attached to these posts that he doesn't stop there. Christians as such, it is usually implied are a group are wicked, evil, false men and apparently always were. I am not so convinced by this secondary - and ultimately distracting - polemic on his part which is the real purpose for his posting in this and other forums.

In its beginning Christianity argued that it - with its heavenly angel - was 'truer' and closer to the original beliefs of the men of Ezra's generation the man who (falsely) re-wrote the Torah after it was destroyed along with the first temple. As a side note I always find it odd that Joe ignores the falseness of this 'rescue' of the Torah of Moses instead concentrating his efforts denigrating the beliefs and practices of his neighbors (at this forum but also in the world at large). There is more than enough room for him to apply himself 'discovering' the contradictions of his own religion. Often times I find it in bad taste to criticize the faith of one's neighbors (which is why I generally avoid doing so here at the forum).

So to get back to the main point. When the Torah of Moses disappeared Ezra was visited by (or was claimed to be visited by) an angel, that angel was clearly understood by his contemporaries (i.e. the Jews of the first generation of the Second Commonwealth) to be the same angel described as conversing with the Patriarchs including Moses. It was because this angel was present during the visit with the Patriarchs that Ezra's Torah was generally accepted (i.e. since he was 'there' and saw what happened the angel would certainly have been an authority to help someone like Ezra 'rewrite' the same document).

In due course the Israelite religion continued to venerate this angel, first at the place of the original covenant (Bethel Gerizim) but later among the Jewish leadership among the Sadducees. They also originally maintained another belief which became exclusively associated with the Christians - namely that only the ten commandments were from God, the other 603 commandments were not from God but established only by the authority of Moses - in other words they were man-made.

'Jesus' as I have argued many times at this forum should be regarded as an attempt by some later Christians to deal with the inherited nomen sacrum ΙΣ which was properly understood originally as a transliteration of the Hebrew name of the angel = 'man.' This is the name of the angel when he visited with Abraham, Jacob, Joshua and Moses in the Torah of Ezra. In due course however, under pressure undoubtedly from pagan philosophers Judaism and owing to the political ascent of the Pharisees the original beliefs of early Jews gave way to a kind of absurd 'absolute' monotheism where - as the rabbis acknowledged - God now stood with Moses in the fire (ishu = his fire) and spoke in heaven at the same time. On the page (and according to the original belief of Jews of Ezra's generation and thereafter) the narrative demonstrates clearly the 'two powers' in heaven - i.e. one in the fire (= Jesus) and the other speaking in heaven to Moses and those around him.

For whatever reason as Judaism changed and so did Christianity. By Irenaeus's time - and undoubtedly because of Irenaeus - the gospel and the writings of Paul and their portrait of Jesus was systematically altered to make him appear as the paradigmatic Jewish hero. But this was complete bullshit. This was never a part of the original author of the gospel's vision of the angel that visited him and 'explained' to him what happened in 20 - 21 CE. Attacking later Christianity for these lies is easy because it was fraudulent but such attacks - especially when they are relentless and consistently (and so obviously) motivated by a hatred for Christianity on the part of a cultural outsider (and one whose very nation depends on the goodwill of such stupid Christians in the United States).

The facts are that the portrait of Jesus being likened to David is a falsehood. It is fair to point that out. But unless Joe demonstrates that he is equally willing to acknowledge similar falsehoods in his own religion it all seems in rather bad taste. The reality is that elements in early Christianity demonstrate that they are likely a truer representation of the beliefs and practices of the Jewish religion at the time of Ezra the real author of the Torah than contemporary Judaism. When the gospel for instance says that Moses had allowed for divorce but God did not, Heschel rightly notes this is an acknowledged halakhic position in the rabbinic literature (albeit identified as heretical). The idea that God Almighty appeared in the bush or wrestled is equally absurd. Justin Martyr and his early contemporaries identified that 'man' with Jesus and they were right - the angel who appeared in the bush continually interacted with Jews throughout the ages, helping write the Torah again and - at the time of the destruction of the temple helping authoring the gospel or so it was claimed.

I have consistently avoided passing judgment on the two surviving belief systems that developed out of this encounter - i.e. Judaism and Christianity. But the reality is that David has no part in this development. It is a red herring.
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