An Interesting Quote from Tom Dykstra (from a blog comment)

[Stephan Huller]

 if the Gospel of Mark, being proto-orthodox (in your view), is anti-Marcionite, then why Mark is so pro-Paul just as I would expect instead from the Gospel of Marcion? Why does Mark look so marcionite in his denigration of 12 disciples & Peter? For example, Tom Dykstra says that the author of that Gospel“deliberately created a literary Jesus whose words and actions parallel the words and actions of Paul” (“Mark, Canonizer of Paul,” p. 149).

[Stephan Huller]

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OCABS Press Releases New Title: Mark, Canonizer of Paul

The Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical Studies (OCABS) Press has released a new book titled Mark, Canonizer of Paul. The book, authored by Tom Dykstra of the University of Washington, "draws connections between Paul and the Gospel of Mark that are stunning, surprising, and original, and leave readers with a sense that the evidence deserves a better interpretation than traditional Synoptic models can offer," noted David Trobisch, author of The First Edition of the New Testament.

 Other reviewers have commented:

"For over 150 years the idea that Mark used the Pauline epistles has been recurring in New Testament research. Now in the work of Tom Dykstra, wide-ranging work and thoughtful, the truth of that idea emerges with a clarity it never had before. The result is to give a fresh sense of the origin and nature of Mark, of all the New Testament books, and of the quest for history.” – Thomas Brodie, Director, Dominican Biblical Institute, author ofThe Birthing of the New Testament

“In addition to its main focus on Mark, this book is a lucid introduction to early church history, oral tradition, the gospels’ genre, and how to understand scripture in general.” – The Very Rev. Dr. Paul Nadim Tarazi, Adjunct Professor of Old Testament, St. Vladimir's Seminary 


http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Canonizer-Pa ... 1601910207

[Stephan Huller]

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Monday, August 26, 2013

Book review: Mark, Canonizer of Paul: Tom Dykstra, Part 1.

I have decided to review this book in many parts as since it's close to my own doctoral research area I want to give this book the treatment I feel it deserves. I met Tom as SBL in Chicago and he gave me a copy of this book which I am now sitting down and reading through. I think this is an important work, hence the multi-part review. In this first part I review the preface, introduction and chapter 1. 


Preface


The preface lets us know who Tom Dykstra is. He is somewhat an outsider to biblical studies and likens himself to Frank Kermode who wrote from the outside. 


“...Kermode correctly saw the field’s tendency to get stuck in groupthink.” [ix]


This is exactly what I have been talking about in regards to parallelomania and the tendency for scholars to reaffirm the historicity of the gospels. Groupthink is exactly the word I have been looking for. As Dykstra points out, this is not exclusive to biblical studies but remains a problem. Like Kermode, Dykstra is somewhat on the outside coming from a PhD in Russian history. 


“The present book offers a view of Mark that many may find goes in an undesirable or uncomfortable direction.” [xi]


To some, yes, this book may be uncomfortable and pushes the boundaries of what we know about Mark and the possibilities for future research areas. For me this book is extremely welcome as I have done many years of research on Mark’s connections to 1 Corinthians which will hopefully be leaving publishing limbo soon. 


So, Dykstra is on the outside looking in and this can be very refreshing as he is not bound by the inherent groupthink of biblical studies.


Introduction


“One of the most striking features of the second gospel is that it promises to present a “gospel” that consists of what Jesus taught, but it never delivers on the promise.” [13]


This is the starting point for Dykstra’s study. After providing many examples from Mark where Jesus is shown to be teaching something that amazes people, the teaching is never revealed to the reader/hearer. Dykstra then raises many of the questions that this raises.


“Were Jesus’ teachings absent from the all of the sources available to Mark? If so, why? If traditions about what Jesus taught were available, why did Mark ignore them? And why, then, did Mark write his Gospel? Maybe he saw the crucifixion and resurrection as most important, but then why did he emphasize the importance of Jesus’ teaching, and why did he leave out an account of the resurrected Christ?” [20]


Chapter 1 reveals where Dykstra believes the answer to these questions to be hidden.


Part 1: Background.


Chapter 1: Mark’s Sources and Purpose.


Dykstra rejects the traditional view of Mark’s sources that Mark was made up of assorted eye witness accounts and oral tradition and posits that Mark is actually made up from parts of the Old Testament, the Homeric Epics and the Pauline Epistles. 


Dykstra then goes back to the beginning and to Volkmar who unsuccessfully proposed something similar in the 19th century. Dykstra remarks:


“At that time, questioning the historicity of the gospels was the avant-garde, or “cutting  edge” of scholarship. Members of the Tubingen School were openly reviled by many if not most Christians at the time, with much the same vehemence that people who reject the historicity of the Holocaust are reviled today.” [24]


Such was the distaste for Volkmar’s work. It is no wonder his name is now one of obscurity. A small point; I would say the Holocaust analogy is the wrong one here to illustrate this point. On my first reading of this chapter I misread it to mean that the Holocaust deniers are “cutting edge.” Rather it is the level of revulsion to which he refers. 


Martin Werner’s work sealed Volkmar’s fate by becoming the groupthink of the 20th century; a groupthink that was opposite to Volkmar’s. Dykstra is seeking to reopen this debate.


“My goal in this book is mainly to present the evidence of a literary relationship between Mark and Paul’s epistles.” [27]


While chapter 1 sets out Dykstra’s purpose and view it does feel like it should be part of the introduction as opposed to being a chapter in its own right. However, this is a criticism of style, not content.

[Stephan Huller]

If Trobisch recommends it's going to be good

[neilgodfrey]

 if the Gospel of Mark, being proto-orthodox (in your view), is anti-Marcionite, then why Mark is so pro-Paul just as I would expect instead from the Gospel of Marcion? Why does Mark look so marcionite in his denigration of 12 disciples & Peter? For example, Tom Dykstra says that the author of that Gospel“deliberately created a literary Jesus whose words and actions parallel the words and actions of Paul” (“Mark, Canonizer of Paul,” p. 149).

Mark/Paul overlap with Marcionism but they are not "Marcionite" -- witness their liberal use of the "OT". Marcionites and "Proto-Orthodox" were not the only two players on the block.

[Stephan Huller]

Well first of all, the blog comments weren't mine. That's why I entitled the thread the way I did (from my smart phone which is difficult). But now that you brought it up, Tertullian EXPLICITLY says that Marcion did not 'delete' ALL the OT references (translation = the Marcionite collection of Pauline letters COULDN'T have reflected a doctrine which 'hated' the OT or its tradition).

Indeed the same thing can be said about the Marcionite gospel. There are countless examples of Jesus necessarily debating and commenting upon the Ten Commandments and the scriptures. That's why I have consistently argued for a more sophisticated (i.e. not 'white man's' understanding) of what it means to be Jewish and how Marcion related to that (rather than the typical imbecile assumptions that (a) Jews believed in one god and (b) if you hated that god you hated Jews - fucking imbecilic but almost universal in scholarship).

A Samaritan for instance would 'hate' the prophetic writings of the Jews (to use the overblown loaded terminology of the Church Fathers). The Jewish 'two power' sectarians argued that there was a distinction in holiness between the Ten Commandments (which came from God) and the rest of the Torah (which came from Moses).

Benny Tsedaka and I discussed this (i.e. the heretical distinction between 'Torah' and 'heavenly Torah') recently over lunch near my house and he agreed that the 'heretical' position of the two powers people is shared by the Samaritans. The Jews for instance identify the entire five books of the Torah as being given by God to Moses. This is senseless when the Torah itself makes reference to a 'torah' (= the ten commandments) in this way. I asked him whether the Samaritans shared this view. 'Of course not' he said. 'The Torah describes the reception of the ten commandments here.'

So beyond the notion of 'monotheism' there is a kind of spiritual monarchianism which seeks to equate the holiness of the ten commandments with the Torah with the rest of the Jewish scriptures which is simply banal and stupid. Could the Marcionites have distinguished between one and the other and the other again and this offended Irenaeus's radical 'monarchian' sensibilities? I suspect so.

[Stephan Huller]

Indeed DCH was starting to make reference to this in another thread. When you really go through the comments about Marcion, Tertullian really says that Marcion 'loves' or borrows the Jewish interpretation of the Bible but 'hates' the Jewish god. Are there any people in history otherwise who love the Jews but hate their god? Usually it is the other way around. As such something other than 'anti-Semitism' at work here. The Marcionite preference for another god above the 'Jewish God' (= the Demiurge) accounts for the accusation that they 'hated' the Jewish god. But Tertullian is unreliable. Eznik says that they prefer the Hebrew text of the Bible over their Greek translation used by the true Church (indeed this is supposed to be a slight on Eznik's part). Again what anti-Semites in history preferred the Hebrew over Greek? Indeed when you go through the anti-Jewish legislation of the decrees of the Roman and Byzantine governments you see a legal imperative to use the Greek text and against the Hebrew. It's all not what it seems.

Indeed their interchangeability with 'Jews' is seen by the repurposing of 'Against the Jews' for 'Against Marcion Book Three.' What other example has there ever been like that? That would be like substituting a book called 'Why I hate Tom Cruise' with 'Why I Hate Gay Actors.'

[perseusomega9]

This was a really good book and one I'm going to back and do a slow read through. I really like when he dismisses several paradigms on first principles that are popular schools of thought among current scholars.

He makes a good case for Mark being pro-Pauline at the expense of Peter and the Twelve, which is ironic because Mark, the canonizer of Paul, is Peter's secretary in tradition.

[Stephan Huller]

But was "Paul" just a myth and Mark wrote the letters (and Luke and Paul's relation a double of the original attested Peter and Mark)

[Sheshbazzar]

(a)

But was "Paul" just a myth and Mark wrote the letters

interrogative sentence.

(b) But was "Mark" just a myth and Paul wrote (the) letters?

(c) But were "Paul" and "Mark" both actual authors of (some) letters and texts attributed to them?

(d) But were "Paul" and "Mark" both just myths, and unknown writers wrote 'their' letters and texts ?

Logic dictates only one of the above, to the exclusion of the others.
The problems with (c)and (d) are well known. Whom it was that really wrote what, or what parts is what is unknown, and perhaps unknowable.

Just pointing out the full set of possibilities.