How could "Josephus" learn about John's death, or "Mark" about Jesus's?

[mlinssen]

Berean Interlinear

Mark 15:21 Καὶ (And) ἀγγαρεύουσιν (they compel), παράγοντά (passing by) τινα (one), Σίμωνα (Simon) Κυρηναῖον (of Cyrene), ἐρχόμενον (coming) ἀπ’ (from) ἀγροῦ (the country), τὸν (the) πατέρα (father) Ἀλεξάνδρου (of Alexander) καὶ (and) Ῥούφου (Rufus), ἵνα (that) ἄρῃ (he might carry) τὸν (the) σταυρὸν (cross) αὐτοῦ (of Him).

Bezae

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-NN-00002-00041/669

21και ανγαρευουσιν τον σιμωνα
παραγοντα τον κυρηνεον
ερχομενον απο αγρου
τον πατερα αλεξανδρου και ρουφου
ϊνα αρη τον σταυρον αυτου

https://biblehub.com/greek/29.htm

ἀγγαρεύω; future ἀγγαρεύσω; 1 aorist ἠγγάρευσα; to employ a courier, despatch a mounted messenger. A word of Persian origin (used by Menander, Sicyon. 4), but adopted also into Latin (Vulg.angariare). Ἄγγαροι were public couriers (tabellarii), stationed by appointment of the king of Persia at fixed localities, with horses ready for use, in order to transmit royal messages from one to another and so convey them the more speedily to their destination.

I think this says something really, really different. Κυρηναῖον versus κυρηνεον, and the word order is radically different

"They dispatched-as-messenger the Simon
Leading-aside the lord-new
Having-come from field
The father of-Alexander and of-Roufous
So-that he-carry the cross of-him"

It's a first that I look at Bezae for this, and this is a first translation of that - certainly not well thought out

κυρη-νεον seems to be a word for lord-new but is not directly in the dictionary as such, I'm fishing there.
παραγοντα is pivotal, it is used in the sense of strolling in the translations of the NT, but means something completely different

Ah well. Any thoughts? This is fresh and speculative, yes

[Paul the Uncertain]

@Kunigunde Kreuzerin

imho it's a place name that Mark also used as a play on words related to Mark 11:9.

Even if word play is granted, it underconstrains the direction of causal "arrow." That direction (which is the cause and which is the effect?) doesn't much matter if Simon is purely fictive. Suppose however that there were a real Simon of Cyrene whom Mark thinks he knows of and chooses to mention. Then might not a lover of word-play decide to beef up his 11:9-10 to quote slightly more extensively from Psalm 117(118) than just the Hosanna, to inject the LORD there in order to make the play?

Not all competent craftwork is found in fiction, IMO.

@mlinssen

ἀγγαρεύω; future ἀγγαρεύσω; 1 aorist ἠγγάρευσα; to employ a courier, despatch a mounted messenger. A word of Persian origin (used by Menander, Sicyon. 4), but adopted also into Latin (Vulg.angariare). Ἄγγαροι were public couriers (tabellarii), stationed by appointment of the king of Persia at fixed localities, with horses ready for use, in order to transmit royal messages from one to another and so convey them the more speedily to their destination.

The entry goes on, however

See Herodotus 8, 98 (and Rawlinson's note); Xenophon, Cyril 8, 6, 17 (9); cf. Gesenius, Thesaurus under the word אִגֶרֶת; (B. D. under the word ; Vanicek, Fremdwörter under the word ἄγγαρος). These couriers had authority to press into their service, in case of need, horses, vessels, even men they met (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 13, 2, 3). Hence, ἀγγαρεύειν τινα denotes to compel one to go a journey, to hear a burden, or to perform any other service: Matthew 5:41 (ὅστις σε ἀγγαρεύσει μίλιον ἕν i. e. whoever shall compel thee to go one mile); Matthew 27:32 (ἠγγάρευσαν ἵνα ἄρῃ i. e. they forced him to carry), so Mark 15:21.

So, the word can mean either. In context, it is clear how "compel" fits into Simon's situation, and unclear how "sending a courier" gets Jesus's stauros carried anywhere. Such considerations are the usual guides for the translator. I think the usual translation has merit.

[neilgodfrey]

@Kunigunde Kreuzerin

imho it's a place name that Mark also used as a play on words related to Mark 11:9.

Even if word play is granted, it underconstrains the direction of causal "arrow." That direction (which is the cause and which is the effect?) doesn't much matter if Simon is purely fictive. Suppose however that there were a real Simon of Cyrene whom Mark thinks he knows of and chooses to mention. Then might not a lover of word-play decide to beef up his 11:9-10 to quote slightly more extensively from Psalm 117(118) than just the Hosanna, to inject the LORD there in order to make the play?

Not all competent craftwork is found in fiction, IMO.t.

Here's how the options work:

If Simon is purely fictive:

1. author sees two words that can be played off each other and creates the fiction to illustrate the pun

2. author hears about a real person who had just the right name and came from just the right place at just the right time and witnesses knew all of these details about said person and it just so happened that our author coudn't believe his luck in having a real person from the right place at the right time giving him all that he needed to create this delicious pun!

Which one would Mr Occam choosse?

[MrMacSon]

1. Are you saying "Κυρηναῖον" means "after the Lord"?
   or that it's just a kind of word-play on the reference to 'Κυρίου' in Mark 11:9?

FWIW, from Luke 2:2 there's Κυρηνίου - Quirinius/Cyrenius - the governor of Syria (wrt the census)

• eta: Peter K picked up this a few yrs ago viewtopic.php?p=30308#p30308

( I think Κυρήνη and Κυρήνην can also be versions of the place name, at least )

The Temple and Bethany vs Golgotha contrast, between Mark 11.11 and Mark 15:22, is interesting, too ...

As are the references to coming ...

imho it's a place name that Mark also used as a play on words related to Mark 11:9.

Because of the ambiguity ?

Do you think Κυρηνίου - Quirinius/Cyrenius - in Luke 2:2 might also be implicated ?

fwiw, Kunigunde's post,

... and a potted version of it -

imho the verses 15:16-22 are to be read primarily against the background of the royal entry. It is, so to speak, the royal exit.

I believe that the most relevant verses of the entry to interpret the figure of Simon are Mark 11:9-10.

Mark 11:9-11	Mark 15:21-22
9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Κυρίου)! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” 11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.	21 And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene (Κυρηναῖον), who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. 22 And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull).

It seems to me that Simon is an ironic incarnation of the blessed one mentioned in 11:9. He does not come in the name of the Lord ("Κυρίου"), but is named after the Lord ("Κυρηναῖον")1. His family point of reference is no longer "our father David" but his two sons. (In a certain sense he takes on the role of the required colt and is commandeered by the Romans.) I find that funny and great.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Like many elite writers, Mark is entirely capable of achieving two distinct effects with a single narrative element. Consider 6:29, a tag appended to the John the Baptist execution story:

When his [John's] disciples heard this, they came and took up his corpse and laid it in a tomb.

At one level, these Jewish characters are clearly analogous to Josephus's or pseudo-Josephus's anonymous"Jews" who are appended to his John the Baptist story. In both works, these characters are superfluous to the abutting story, and yet provide a potential answer to the same question that might occur to a curious reader: "How could the narrator possibly have learned the circumstances of John's death?"

At the same time, in Mark's larger story, there is an obvious contrast with Jesus's entombment, 15:46

He [Joseph of Arimathea, father? unknown, children? unknown] bought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb which had been cut out of a rock. He rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.

Jesus's disciples are missing in action, unlike John's. Joseph is portrayed as if acting alone, the disciples act as a group. Both corpses end up in a tomb; same word in Greek (mnemeion).

(I leave as an exercise to catalog the parallels between the actions that immediate precede each verse, climaxing as an executioner and two others dicker over possession of the corpse or part thereof. Under the circumstances, I believe there is little or no rationally founded doubt that Mark was aware that his reader might see some parallelism between the two verses.)

In both works, if John the Baptist was a complete fiction, then that would definitely give both authors a free hand to craft whatever ornamentation they'd like to adorn their respective stories. But even so, in order to achieve the effect of verisimilitude within a shared "knowing narrator" design, the authors would do well to anticipate reader questions as to how that narrator could know at least the core quasi-facts being presented.

In both cases, a possible answer would be Jewish survivors of John who are mentioned in each text, and are conspicuous in both texts for playing no role in the action of the principal narrative.

Focusing on Mark, then:

If something like the entombment of Jesus really did occur, then that still leaves the exact disposition of John's corpse unconstrained. OK, we'll put him in a tomb in order to use the same word in both verses. (OK, we'll have the crowd refer to David as "our father," and we'll say Simon of Cyrene is the father of Alexander and Rufus instead of saying whose sons are ..)

[neilgodfrey]

At one level, these Jewish characters are clearly analogous to Josephus's or pseudo-Josephus's anonymous"Jews" who are appended to his John the Baptist story. In both works, these characters are superfluous to the abutting story, and yet provide a potential answer to the same question that might occur to a curious reader: "How could the narrator possibly have learned the circumstances of John's death?"

This is the very same type of argument Richard Bauckham uses in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. It may be a question-begging fallacy and have no known established precedents in ancient historical or biographical works but you are in good company.

But as for the disciples of John being merely "superfluous to the abutting story", that's not what many critical commentators of the narrative have discerned. Mark, the analysis goes, was drawing attention to the failure of Jesus' disciples by contrast. Jesus' disciples, unlike John's, ran for the hills.

[Paul the Uncertain]

A further note is that 14:50-16:14, the section of gMark which concerns us in this thread, shows remarkable interest in epistemological issues about reliance on the testimony of witnesses. This is in addition to the question which inheres to the "knowing narrator" framework, what are the narrator's warrants for what they assert?

"Belief" in various forms has been a concern throughout the gospel. Verse 14:50 marks the abandonment of Jesus by his male disciples (except, as it turns out, Peter). Up to this point, the boys have been the all-purpose answer to the audience's inevitable uncertainty about how the "knowing narrator" could be so knowing.

(That is, at least about Jesus. GMark's treatment of Herod's family drama leading to John's death is another situation, as are some isolated questions such as the narrator's source for a successful resolution of the Syrophoenician woman's daughter's demonic possession.)

Peter can serve as a source that Jesus ended up at the high priest's quarters. For the trial inside, however, the issue of the narrator's witness is either postponed or left unanswered. This is so despite the overt enactment of false witness reported at trial. Conviction ensues with the high priest's explicit statement that what the court has witnessed for itself suffices. Meanwhile, Peter successfully offers false testimony against factually correct eyewitness positive identification of him.

Thus, by the end of chapter 14, the audience has been prepared for the pursuit of a witness motif which will climax with Jesus's speech in 16:14*.

When Mark lays something on, he lays it on thick.

Perhaps more later, if interest in these issues persists.

-
* It is at best sparingly relevant to the concern of the thread whether 16:9-14 was written by Mark or pseudo-Mark, just as it is largely irrelevant whether the Antiquities treatment of John was written by Josephus or pseudo-Josephus. All the writings discussed here are ancient, and all can be discussed on a black-letter basis. (It is further reasonable to suppose that both pseudo-'s, if pseudo- either one was, wished to "blend in" with authentic material adjacent to their contributions to the received work.)

That doesn't mean that authorship, historicity of the people mentioned, and (in)fidelity of the narrative to actual events are uninteresting. It means that the introduction of witness characters, comments or silences about characters' witness status, and observations about potential and actual witnesses' qualifications are the current topic.