Faking Mark - the most honest attempt ever made

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Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: Faking Mark - the most honest attempt ever made

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 5:07 am However, I think there are some things in making a Markan fake that are easier to accomplish and some that are harder to decide and create. It seems best to me to start with a rough definition of form, length and some abstract content.
imho the following points are the basic requirements for faking a Markan pericope to get a "recognition“ effect. Further details depend on the place where the pericope is to be inserted in GMark.

1. The pericope consists of 5-8 verses.

2. The pericope does form a loose chiasm which must not be perfect or clearly defined.

3. Clauses and sentences are almost exclusively linked by "καί" ("and"), not by more specific conjunctions.

4. The first verse describes a change of place, uses a verb of motion and is "setting the scene" of the pericope.

5. The pericope contains a short dialogue or at least a saying.

6. The pericope contains a literary allusion to the Hebrew Bible (LXX).

7. The content must not be self-explanatory but must raise some problems of understanding that require an interpretative effort on the part of the reader (parabolic writing).

Comments?
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: Faking Mark - the most honest attempt ever made

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

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Some remarks on interpolation techniques

I found it interesting to look at how passages of text were interpolated, namely the longer ending of GMark, the pericope adulterae and Secret Mark.

imho the longer ending and the pericope adulterae were written independently of the text into which they were later interpolated. In contrast, I think that Secret Mark was intended from the start as an interpolation.

1)
It is well known that the longer ending is a poor interpolation. The transition from Mark 16:8 to Pseudo-Mark 16:9 is clumsy, and the longer ending is just tacked on to the gospel.

Carrier wrote
In the LE (longer ending) the transition from verse 8 to 9 is ungrammatical and thus cannot have been composed by the same author. In fact, this oddity suggests the LE actually derives from another text (possibly a 2nd century commentary on the Gospels) and was only appended to Mark by a third party. There is more evidence for this hypothesis in the manuscripts (which will be discussed later) and in every other element of this illogical transition (to be explored shortly). For the present point, it is enough to note the internal evidence. First, the grammatical subject in verse 8 is "they" (the women), but in verse 9 it is "he" (Jesus). But the word "he" is not present in verse 9. Thus we have the strange transition, "For they were afraid and having risen on the first day of the week appeared first to Mary," which makes no sense. The pronoun "he" is expected (or the name "Jesus") but it is absent, creating a strange grammatical confusion. The oddity is clearer in the Greek than in English translation. In the Greek, verse 9 begins abruptly with a nominative participle with no stated subject, a strange thing to do when transitioning from a sentence about a wholly different subject.
The transition is not only ungrammatical, it is narratively illogical. Verse 9 reintroduces Mary Magdalene with information we would have expected to learn much earlier (the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her). Instead it is suddenly added in the LE, completely out of the blue without any explanation, suggesting the author of the LE was trying to improve on the OE (original ending) or wasn't even writing an ending to Mark but a separate narrative altogether (in which this is the first time Mary Magdalene appears in this scene or in which the story of her exorcism appeared many scenes earlier). Either entails that the same author did not write the OE. Indeed, it makes no sense to add this detail in the LE, as it serves no narrative function, adds nothing relevant to the story, and alludes to an event that Mark never relates. If the author of the LE were Mark, he would have added this exorcism story into the narrative of Jesus' ministry, and then alluded to it (if at all) when Mary Magdalene was first introduced in verse 15:40, or when she first appears in the concluding narrative (verse 16:1). Furthermore, not only does the subject inexplicably change from the women to Jesus, but suddenly Mary Magdalene is alone, without explanation of why, or to where the other two women have gone.


2)
At first glance, Secret Mark seems to be a better interpolation because, among other things, it made use of the alleged gap between Mark 10:46a and 10:46b, where nothing happens in Jericho. Long before Morton Smith, some form critics put forward the claim that there is supposedly a gap and that originally a scene played in Jericho, which was later extrapolated. Our Ben also shared this opinion. So it looks like a smart idea to use this alleged gap to interpolate a part of Secret Mark there. (Actually, it’s an inner-Markan reference to GMark 11:11b,12, which is disrupted by Secret Mark: “… he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. The next day as they were leaving Bethany ...” - to guide the reader to the interpretation that Bartimaeus became an early fig (of Hosea 9:10) with the "healing" by his own faith).

Michael Haag, The Quest For Mary Magdalene: History & Legend
Gap10.46.jpg
Gap10.46.jpg (165.27 KiB) Viewed 295 times

3)
However, the pericope adulterae seems to be the most interesting interpolation because, in addition to the actual story, it also interpolates an introductory text that makes the transition from GJohn to the interpolated story more harmonious.

GJohn 7 Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
interpolated intro 53 They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
interpolated pericope 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
GJohn 8 12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Faking Mark - the most honest attempt ever made

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

It is well known that the longer ending is a poor interpolation.

Agreed for 16:15-20. I respectfully dissent regarding 16:9-14...
The transition from Mark 16:8 to Pseudo-Mark 16:9 is clumsy, and the longer ending is just tacked on to the gospel.
... especially regarding verse 16:9.

Now when he had risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.

Now when he had risen early on the first day of the week provides the audience critical information not previously disclosed. That is, that Jesus's repeated forecast of when he would rise (the third day) also came to pass in the story universe.

Moreover, the clause resolves whether any of the out-of-place, strangely attired, and altogether ex machina "young man's" recitation is supposed to be taken as factual. Recall that Mark's first audience couldn't possibly know that they are hearing what centuries later would become the canonized word of God, or that in the meantime other writers would morph the young man into two men with cool special effects, or even two angels. Which alteration, BTW, shows that the later writers noticed that there is no earthly reason to credit the young man's testimony, not for the audience and not for the often-maligned women characters in the story.

he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. similarly provides the audience new critical information, but prospectively rather than retrospectively. That is, assuming that the male disciples' disbelieve her testimony (as we receive at 16:11), this requires explanation.

Mary is about to tell the Eleven the best news they will ever hear, something that Jesus has repeatedly told them was going to happen, and sure enough look what's happened. Why would any person so situated flatly reject Mary's report? Go look (as Luke and John will later imagine, and consistent with the "seeing is believing" heuristic which Mark has presented as recently as verse 15:32)? Sure.

But Mary is seeing things again, now that her exorcist has died? Yes, maybe that's reason enough for the emotionally exhausted survivors to write off her strange report, which presumably would include a mention of the anomalous young man at the tomb, without the benefit of an ominscient narrator's assurances of reliability, or even corroboration from the other women who were there.

Taken as a whole verse 16:9 sets up verse 10's completion of the two-part figure of speech begun in 16:8, where an initial emphatic categorical negation (these women said nothing) is "walked back" to disclose an exception (well, not all the women, ...). Mark's most famous use of the same figure is probably at verse 6:5, where the hometown hero categorically failed to do anything miraculous there,... well, except for those healing miracles he did manage. Other examples in Mark and elsewhere in ancient Greek on request.
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