Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The stilling of the storm scene is based on Psalm 107, not Jonah. The scene is literally constructed by rearranging verses of the psalm.

The storm calming scenario matches Psalm 107:23-30; Psalm 89:9 also shows storm calming as a divine attribute. That's fine. More relevant to the specific story point I mentioned, Jonah 1:5-6 portrays the prophet asleep during a storm, and called from sleep by crew members to pray for rescue.

I posted, and you quoted:

... Mark to show Jesus sleeping through the storm he eventually stilled, for example. It's a good story point in the New Testament, just as it was a good story point in Jonah, too.

In what respect do you claim that I erred?

Psalm 107 (NIV)

23 Some went out on the sea in ships;
they were merchants on the mighty waters.
24 They saw the works of the Lord,
his wonderful deeds in the deep.
25 For he spoke and stirred up a tempest
that lifted high the waves.
26 They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths;
in their peril their courage melted away.
27 They reeled and staggered like drunkards;
they were at their wits’ end.
28 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he brought them out of their distress.
29 He stilled the storm to a whisper;
the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 They were glad when it grew calm,
and he guided them to their desired haven.

These verses cannot be rearranged to describe a prophet asleep during a storm being awakened by ship's personnel. In contrast, we read about that very situation, with no need to rearrange the words at all in Jonah 1:5-6 (also NIV):

5 ...But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

We thus have a factual problem to resolve as a prerequisite to further theory evaluation. We can't very well discuss the relation between GMark and the Jewish Bible if we cannot agree about what parts of the Jewish Bible are relevant to what parts of GMark, or what that relationship is ("prompting," in this case placing Jesus in a situation parallel to a situation Jonah endured, versus literal rearrangement of verses).

@Paul the Uncertain

Really, regardless of whether the scene is based on Jonah or Psalm 107, the point is really the same. The scene is a literary invention modeled on scriptures. This isn't something that really happened.

In this case, I tend to think the writer had Psalm 107 in mind additionally because this writer models many scenes on Psalms (like the crucifixion), but there are no other references to Jonah.

But as I said, the point is the same regardless.

It's also possible, BTW that John is also based on Psalm 107.

rgprice wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 1:15 pm The scene is a literary invention modeled on scriptures. This isn't something that really happened.

[T]he Jews saw predictions every where in the writings of their prophets and poets, and discovered types of the Messiah in all the lives of holy men recorded in their Scriptures; when we find details in the life of Jesus evidently sketched after the pattern of these prophecies and prototypes, we cannot but suspect that they are rather mythical than historical.
(p. 73)

---

—Strauss, David Friedrich (1860) [1835]. The Life of Jesus: Critically Examined. 1. New York: Calvin Blanchard.

[A]lmost every story in the Gospels (and Acts) can be plausibly argued to be borrowed from the Greek Old Testament, Homer, or Euripides.
(p. 425)

---

—Price, Robert M. (2011). The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems. American Atheist Press. ISBN 978-1-57884-017-5.

This is true dbz, and recognition of this isn't really that novel. But, what I've put forward is more than simply correlations between various scenes and random Jewish scriptures. Its a framework for understanding the story. The scriptural references in Mark aren't just asthenic or attempts to show Jesus fulfilling prophecy, like the birth narrative in Matthew.

The references in Mark form a pattern, essentially a subtextual narrative. That subtextual narrative has its own very clear purpose and meaning.

For example, if we compare the scriptural references in Mark to Matthew 1-2, they are entirely different in nature. Matthew is clearly throwing together a bunch of supposed prophecies and trying to show that Jesus fulfilled them. OTOH Mark is not using prophecies at all, rather he is building scenes from narratives and passages that are about how the Israelites displeased God, leading God to reject or punish them by sending foreign armies against them to destroy their cities, hunt them down, and destroy their temple. That is a persistent theme in the scriptural references used by Mark, which is very different than what we see from Matthew when Matthew invents his own references.

So it is the recognition of the underlying symbolism conveyed in the references that is critical. For Mark this wasn't about "fulfilling prophecy". It was about that for Matthew, but not Mark. Matthew tried to twist Mark's references into being about "fulfilling prophecy", but clearly that was not Mark's agenda.

Mark was writing an allegory in which the scriptural references imparted another layer of meaning to the story. It's far more sophisticated than what Matthew did. And most scholars have viewed the scriptural references through the lens of Matthew, and think of them as attempts to show Jesus fulfilled prophecy, but that is clearly not what Mark was doing. Yes, that is how later Christians interpreted it, but that's because they misunderstood it.

OTOH Mark is not using prophecies at all, rather he is building scenes from narratives and passages that are about how the Israelites displeased God, leading God to reject or punish them by sending foreign armies against them to destroy their cities, hunt them down, and destroy their temple. That is a persistent theme in the scriptural references used by Mark, which is very different than what we see from Matthew when Matthew invents his own references.

I didn't introduce Jonah as a trap, on the contrary it seemed to me to be a friendly example of a story element which Mark clearly borrowed from the Jewish Bible, therefore "literary," and therefore suspect as possibly being invented (although there's nothing about the scene that couldn't happen naturally; it is not even especially unusual for a boater to be caught in a lake storm which suddenly abates, nor is it especially beyond Jesus's character to know that it would abate and when - nor much beyond the natural skills of some mortal mariners either).

What ensued was a display of you imposing the pattern in the quote box on your data.To make this story fit, you dismiss one of the OT elements that is in Mark's stilling of the wind and water story but isn't not in your "pattern." You had nothing at all to say about Psalm 89, where at verse 9 the same feat appears among other wonders in a hymn of praise of the Jewish God, but doesn't fit your "pattern."

Given that Mark borrows a great deal from the Jewish Bible and
Given that many passages in the Jewish Bible fit your pattern
and now we see
Given that you ignore at least some passages in the OT that match elements in GMark but don't fit your pattern

How surprised ought we to be that every scene in GMark might fit the pattern?

On a point arising

Nobody here has suggested that it's Psalm 107 "or" Psalm 89 "or" Jonah 1. Mark shows familiarity with a great deal of the Jewish Bible, and literally from the outset demonstrates that he can combine close paraphrases from different books into one single coherent passage. The conjunction Psalm 107 and Psalm 89 and Jonah 1 is altogether possible in the case before us.

The issue between us was whether Jonah 1 contains elements present in the stilling pericope which cannot be inferred from Psalm 107. It does. Your ability to craft an ad hoc explanation why Jesus would need to be asleep notwithstanding, Jonah 1 has the element in plain. No "just so story" (searchable) is needed.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 3:54 pm Mark shows familiarity with a great deal of the Jewish Bible, and literally from the outset demonstrates that he can combine close paraphrases from different books into one single coherent passage. The conjunction Psalm 107 and Psalm 89 and Jonah 1 is altogether possible in the case before us.

A possible conclusion about the use of the Old Testament in the Gospel is that Mark had no respect for the original context of the quotations and allusions to Old Testament writings in his text. This can be seen in the story of John the Baptist at the beginning of the Gospel.

The first quotation (Mk 1:2-3) does not come entirely from Isaiah the prophet, as Mark asserts. It is a composite reference to Exodus 23:20, Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 which he connects to Isaiah the prophet. The quotation is taken out of context and worked into his story of John and Jesus in order to show the relationship between the two. The beginning of the Gospel does not prove the fulfillment of the Old Testament, it characterizes John as the predecessor of Jesus. Only at a later stage does the reader realize the resemblance between the apocalyptic John and the apocalyptic Jesus.

John Dominic Crossan and Howard Clark Kee argue that Mark's citation of scripture is not representative of ignorance or editorial sloppiness, but rather represents combinations and alterations of scripture texts that cohere with Mark's intent to create a new story to communicate his own point of view.

---

"Intertextual production of the Gospel of Mark". Wikipedia. 10 August 2023.

rgprice wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:28 pm Mark . . . is building scenes from narratives and passages that are about how the Israelites displeased God, leading God to reject or punish them by sending foreign armies against them to destroy their cities, hunt them down, and destroy their temple. That is a persistent theme in the scriptural references used by Mark

Isaiah chapter : Intertextual interpretive usage by the Markan author
01 : God judges
05 : God's admonition and punishment
06 : God punishes
11 : ID servant
13 : God's admonition and punishment
14
19
29
40 : God judges
42
43 : ID saviour
49 : Jesus prophecy
50 : Suffering servant
53 : Suffering servant
56 : Suffering servant
64 : God punishes
65 : Ignorance of saviour's identity
66 : God's punishment explained

Cf. Price, R. G. (2018). Deciphering the Gospels: Proves Jesus Never Existed (2nd revised ed.). Lulu Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4834-8782-3.

rgprice wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:28 pm The scriptural references in Mark aren't just asthenic or attempts to show Jesus fulfilling prophecy, like the birth narrative in Matthew.

The references in Mark form a pattern, essentially a subtextual narrative. That subtextual narrative has its own very clear purpose and meaning.
[...]
Mark was writing an allegory in which the scriptural references imparted another layer of meaning to the story. It's far more sophisticated than what Matthew did.

Greetings, dbz

A possible conclusion about the use of the Old Testament in the Gospel is that Mark had no respect for the original context of the quotations and allusions to Old Testament writings in his text.

That might be a contentious way to phrase it (no respect for something holy - sacrilege? really?), but this is typical rhetorical practice. The Bible is a model of exalted, consciousness raising rhetoric. Of course it gets quoted in contexts other than the original. Lincoln could speak of a "house divided" in 1858 meaning a nation state in danger of falling apart, intending to recall Jesus's use of the same phrase but intending no reference at all to what Jesus was describing, a hypothetical relationship between demons and their prince. Obviously, Lincoln was not characterizing the antebellum United States as Hell on earth.

The first quotation (Mk 1:2-3) does not come entirely from Isaiah the prophet, as Mark asserts.

In some manuscripts, I am told, Mark doesn't assert any such thing. Even where he does, the scope of his fact claim is unclear (the end of the block is indeed from Isaiah). IMO, Exodus is echoed because of the intratextuality of the Jewish Bible. Mark may be on the hook for misattributing Malachi's contribution, but Mark has no reasonable obligation to explain Malachi's use of Torah.

The beginning of the Gospel does not prove the fulfillment of the Old Testament, it characterizes John as the predecessor of Jesus. Only at a later stage does the reader realize the resemblance between the apocalyptic John and the apocalyptic Jesus.

I am unsure what the point of this is. Mark makes no claim to have proven fulfillment of the Jewish Bible. And yes, the possible answers to the question of the relationship between Jesus and John are developed as the work progresses. What alternative does your wikicommentator have in mind?

John Dominic Crossan and Howard Clark Kee argue that Mark's citation of scripture is not representative of ignorance or editorial sloppiness, but rather represents combinations and alterations of scripture texts that cohere with Mark's intent to create a new story to communicate his own point of view.

Or in a word, prompting.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 3:54 pm

OTOH Mark is not using prophecies at all, rather he is building scenes from narratives and passages that are about how the Israelites displeased God, leading God to reject or punish them by sending foreign armies against them to destroy their cities, hunt them down, and destroy their temple. That is a persistent theme in the scriptural references used by Mark, which is very different than what we see from Matthew when Matthew invents his own references.

I didn't introduce Jonah as a trap, on the contrary it seemed to me to be a friendly example of a story element which Mark clearly borrowed from the Jewish Bible, therefore "literary," and therefore suspect as possibly being invented (although there's nothing about the scene that couldn't happen naturally; it is not even especially unusual for a boater to be caught in a lake storm which suddenly abates, nor is it especially beyond Jesus's character to know that it would abate and when - nor much beyond the natural skills of some mortal mariners either).

What ensued was a display of you imposing the pattern in the quote box on your data.To make this story fit, you dismiss one of the OT elements that is in Mark's stilling of the wind and water story but isn't not in your "pattern." You had nothing at all to say about Psalm 89, where at verse 9 the same feat appears among other wonders in a hymn of praise of the Jewish God, but doesn't fit your "pattern."

Given that Mark borrows a great deal from the Jewish Bible and
Given that many passages in the Jewish Bible fit your pattern
and now we see
Given that you ignore at least some passages in the OT that match elements in GMark but don't fit your pattern

How surprised ought we to be that every scene in GMark might fit the pattern?

On a point arising

Nobody here has suggested that it's Psalm 107 "or" Psalm 89 "or" Jonah 1. Mark shows familiarity with a great deal of the Jewish Bible, and literally from the outset demonstrates that he can combine close paraphrases from different books into one single coherent passage. The conjunction Psalm 107 and Psalm 89 and Jonah 1 is altogether possible in the case before us.

The issue between us was whether Jonah 1 contains elements present in the stilling pericope which cannot be inferred from Psalm 107. It does. Your ability to craft an ad hoc explanation why Jesus would need to be asleep notwithstanding, Jonah 1 has the element in plain. No "just so story" (searchable) is needed.

A couple things. One, I didn't skip stuff for any reason other than I was also working and didn't have time to address every little thing. Secondly, I was just trying to avoid quibbling over Jonah vs Psalm 107. Yes, there are points of similarity with both. I think a reference to Psalm 107 is more similar to other references used in Mark than a reference to Jonah. Yes, that is "fitting a pattern", but the patterns matter. Its like if there are two similar possible references, one being part of the story of Elijah and Elisha from Kings and the other being something from Genesis. Well, given that I know of no other references to Genesis in Mark but a dozen or more to the Elijah/Elisha narrative, I'd conclude that the writer was referencing Elijah/Elisha. Also, they didn't throw Jesus out of the boat like they do with Jonah...

As for...

A possible conclusion about the use of the Old Testament in the Gospel is that Mark had no respect for the original context of the quotations and allusions to Old Testament writings in his text. This can be seen in the story of John the Baptist at the beginning of the Gospel.

And this is my point. Why would we conclude simply that "Mark had no respect for the original context of the quotations" in relation to John the Baptist and Elijah? I reach the opposite conclusion.

Mark is structing his story around the narrative of Elijah and Elisha from Kings because Elijah and Elisha were persecuted and their ministries were a harbinger of the destruction of Israel that followed them. The writer of Mark is creating a story that shows the Jews prior to the First Jewish-Roman War following the same pattern as their forebearers in the Kings narrative. That's the point. Its not that, as so many people think, Mark was just randomly choosing passages. What many have tried to argue is that there was some real set of events, and that Mark then just looked for passages that he could relate to the real events.

But this is clearly nonsense. Mark isn't randomly picking scriptures, he's picking scriptures that, when looked at in the order he has arranged them, tell a specific story. The story those scriptures tell is of the Jews repeating the cycle of history, again displeasing their God, again not recognizing true prophets, and God again punishing them by sending foreign armies to destroy them and their temple. It's actually a very easy narrative to understand and fits perfectly in the context of the late first or early second century. It makes perfect sense that someone would write such a story at this time in light of the events that had just transpired.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Sat Sep 02, 2023 2:10 am Mark may be on the hook for misattributing Malachi's contribution, but Mark has no reasonable obligation to explain Malachi's use of Torah.
[...]
Or in a word, prompting.

R.G. Price holds the view that "(t)he references in Mark form a pattern, essentially a subtextual narrative. That subtextual narrative has its own very clear purpose and meaning." and "(t)hat is a persistent theme in the scriptural references used by Mark", viz. the Israelites displeased God, leading God to reject or punish them by sending foreign armies against them to destroy their cities, hunt them down, and destroy their temple.

• The Markan author may be using both prompting references and subtextual narrative references together

Whenever a composite reference is used with a subtextual narrative reference it should be itemized as such if it also contains additional prompting.

For example :

rgprice wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 1:15 pm I tend to think the writer had Psalm 107 in mind additionally because this writer models many scenes on Psalms (like the crucifixion), but there are no other references to Jonah.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 3:54 pm The conjunction Psalm 107 and Psalm 89 and Jonah 1 is altogether possible in the case before us.

Then the Markan author's intertextual interpretive usage by OT book/chapter could be itemized by: subtextual narrative or prompting or composite (i.e. both types together).