GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

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dbz
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by dbz »

  • "Mark 3:6". Daily Dose of Greek. 10 July 2015.
  • "Mark 12-13". Daily Dose of Greek. 10 February 2017.
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mlinssen
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by mlinssen »

rgprice wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 4:46 am I completely agree JW. To me it is just unfathomable that Mark could be the product of re-working an existing narrative.

I still don't think many people really grasp just how significant this is, but what you point out here is just one of really hundreds of examples of these types of aspects of Mark.

In order for Mark to be derivative we have to take the following position:

Some story was written down, in which the narrative was not a Pesher on the destruction of the First Temple, in which the actions of Jesus and John were not patterned on Elijah and Elisha, in which various scenes were not constructed from literary references to the Jewish scriptures, in which the order of scenes was not laid out in symbolic and chiastic patterns, and then someone else was able to come along and take that story and re-work it in such a way that introduced all of these patterns and references, while not changing the fundamental character of the story in any way.

It's like saying that I could have a biography of George Washington and re-write it in such a way as to build in word for word literary parallels to the Old Testament and make the whole biography chiastic, and and fit in numerous literary patterns and inside jokes and have his life look like it was patterned on the life of Moses, AND at the same time, make my version of the biography read essentially like the original!

It's absurd! That can't be done.
And that is exactly what Mark did indeed.
But indulge me please: let's suppose there was a previous story and that Mark redacted that into what we have - then what did he change, add, and so on?
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MrMacSon
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by MrMacSon »

rgprice wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 12:37 pm
So as much as people like the idea that Marcion's Gospel was first and it was about some Second God, the evidence just doesn't support it. You can't convince me that the first Gospel was about a Second God and that "Mark" was able to take a story about an alien god and turn it into a pesher on the destruction of the First Temple while retaining all of basically the same scenes. I mean just no way.

All of these other cool theories may be interesting, and I think the idea of Marcionite priority would be very interesting, but Mark is just so intricate a creation that it has to be the first.

The first appearances of Mark’s & Marcion’s gospels could have been concurrent or near concurrent
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MrMacSon
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by MrMacSon »

mlinssen wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 1:44 pm But indulge me please: let's suppose there was a previous story that Mark redacted into what we have - then what did he change, add, and so on?
Mark is likely unique and original.
The previous 'story' he most likely used was Paul's ie. Pauline epistles (& more of the LXX and accounts of the Roman-Jewish war/s)
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by dbz »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 2:05 pm Mark is likely unique and original.
The previous 'story' he most likely used was Paul's ie. Pauline epistles (& more of the LXX and accounts of the Roman-Jewish war/s)
Mark redacts Marcion’s Gospel and gets rid of the antithesis of Christianity and Judaism, although he still shows and maintains a number of other Marcionite features.
Vinzent (17 November 2014). “What is the relation between Mark, ‘canonizer of Paul’, and Marcion’s Gospel?”. Markus Vinzent’s Blog.
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The First Healing

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:

Description GMark GMatthew GLuke GJohn
The First Healing 1
23 And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,
24 saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus thou Nazarene? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.
26 And the unclean spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
27 And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this? a new teaching! with authority he commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.
28 And the report of him went out straightway everywhere into all the region of Galilee round about.
4
23 And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people.
24 And the report of him went forth into all Syria: and they brought unto him all that were sick, holden with divers diseases and torments, possessed with demons, and epileptic, and palsied; and he healed them.
4
33 And in the synagogue there was a man, that had a spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud voice,
34 Ah! what have we to do with thee, Jesus thou Nazarene? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
35 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him, having done him no hurt.
36 And amazement came upon all, and they spake together, one with another, saying, What is this word? for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.
37 And there went forth a rumor concerning him into every place of the region round about.
4
46 He came therefore again unto Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.
47 When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought [him] that he would come down, and heal his son; for he was at the point of death.
48 Jesus therefore said unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe.
49 The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.
50 Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto him, and he went his way.
51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, saying, that his son lived.
52 So he inquired of them the hour when he began to amend. They said therefore unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.
53 So the father knew that [it was] at that hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.
54 This is again the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judaea into Galilee.
Commentary Among the Gospels GMark has the largest theme of spirit possession. To emphasize this GMark's Jesus' first healing is exorcising a bad spirit. Also emphasizing this is that in this first healing the bad spirit recognizes the good spirit. Note that in GMatthew the first mention of exorcism is a general one. The type of thing you would write if there already was a Gospel written with specific exorcisms. The first mention here is also lumped together with other types of healings. Once again the type of thing you would write if there already was a Gospel written with specific other healings. In GLuke, the exorcism parallels very well to GMark. Sure looks like one of them used the other as a base. A thematic difference though is that "Mark's" Jesus is famous after the first teaching & exorcism while "Luke's" Jesus is famous after only the teaching. Not well known and I would guess that even most Skeptics would get this wrong, there are no exorcisms in GJohn. For a theme that is so important in the Synoptics, this suggests that GJohn is later rather than earlier. We see in the patristic writings, which are easier to date than the Gospels, that the theme most important to orthodox Christianity was evidencing and promoting belief in Jesus. Orthodox belief in exorcisms was secondary. This also suggests that GJohn is later rather than earlier since everyone agrees that the Gospels were before orthodox Christianity.

Joseph

For those who need points sharply explained, note that in GMark, Jesus' first significant action is to exorcise the evil spirt from the man. In Jesus' final (so to speak) action, Jesus has the holy spirit exorcised from him. All other Gospels are close to this stylish balanced contrasting irony. So which is more likely, other Gospels are exorcising the irony from GMark or GMark has added to someone elses?

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schillingklaus
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by schillingklaus »

The second "god" is much earlier than the first gospel, as the gospels are late Euhemerizations and Judaizations of pre-Christian Gnostic concepts. YHWH does not count as a god there but as an archon.

Neither Mk nor Marcion is early, as they depend on pre-synoptic gospel drafts.
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MrMacSon
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by MrMacSon »

schillingklaus wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 11:16 pm ... the gospels are...Euhemerizations and Judaizations of pre-Christian Gnostic concepts.
and by 'euhemerizations' you'll presumably mean anthropomorphisations or personifications [of pre-Christian [Docetic] concepts]
schillingklaus
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by schillingklaus »

Yeah, and Giuseppe has listed several example already why Pilate is such an euhemerized figure.
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Sinouhe
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Re: GMark's Stylish Balanced & Contrasting Irony as Evidence of Markan Priority

Post by Sinouhe »

rgprice wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 12:37 pm
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 11:49 am
rgprice wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 4:46 am It is far more likely that the original story contained all of these patterns and references and that as others copied the story and made derivative works they degraded the patterns and references that were part of the original. You can't take a story written without all of this symbolism and hidden meaning in mind and then introduce all of that to it. It has to be part of the foundation.
Yes, I think so, too. It also seems striking to me that there are several patterns on very different levels: the form and structure of the pericopes, a consistent and recurring use of words, recurring metaphors and motifs (as just demonstrated by Joe), references to the LXX, an enormous narrative speed, a pronounced schematism, small puzzling details, etc. These are all found intertwined in GMark from start to finish.

One can observe how these patterns appear in the other gospels when they contain or are based on Markan material. But in their own material all or at least some of these typical markers are always missing.
Exactly and they are often broken up or degraded. There are so many examples. The simple one: The Crucifixion. Only Mark's perfectly uses Psalm 22, all the rest degrade the references in minor or larger ways. More importantly, the Temple Cleansing scene.

Only Mark has it framed with the Fig Tree to make the reference to Hose 9 clear. Everyone else drops it or moves the fig tree around to degrade the reference. Can anyone really propose that the Temple Cleaning scene was not originally based on Hosea 9, but then Mark was able to take the scene that originally had no connection to Hosea 9 and make it perfectly fit? How and why would this be so? How could it be that someone else originated the scene without Hosea 9 in mind, and then Mark was able to tie it to Hosea 9? And he did this dozens of times. And not only was he able to find literary refences that fit the existing scenes, but those literary reference also all have a coherent theme of relating to the destruction of the First Temple.

Yeah, just no...
Exactly :cheers:
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