Bernard's website: my answer to comments

[Ben C. Smith]

to Ben,

It is often simply a matter of each of us seeing very different things as most or least likely.

You see Paul as alluding to Elijah in Galatians as likely. That's say a lot about your methodology.

I hold out the distinct possibility, yes, and find it to be the most persuasive explanation of the passage I have seen so far, yes; I am not locked in to it; I did say "your mileage may vary," implying that the Galatians reference is not as clear an allusion to Elijah as the Romans reference is.

But tell me: what does that connection say about my methodology? And what does literally abhorring the proposed connections of the NT feedings to the OT feedings say about yours? I imagine to you my way of doing things must seem random and forced, like picking parallels from a list of word search results by throwing dice. Yet surely you can see that your way of doing things looks to me like blindfolding your eyes to the obvious. (To be clear, only a few of the parallels that have been discussed so far would qualify as "obvious" to me, with the rest being merely possible or probable, but you have already dismissed one of the obvious ones, the feedings, as farfetched, so....)

[Ben C. Smith]

There is a tension between two posts here that puzzles me:

I read your Vridar article on the feeding of the 5000, and I found it not convincing at all. And "Vridar" used the trick of paraphrasing the two passages side by side rather than quoting them, where the differences would be very obvious.

I have my own take on this story of the feeding of the 5000 in gMark:
http://historical-jesus.info/88.html
I even acknowledge that "Mark" knew about the 2 Kings story (& probably other Elijah-multiplying-food stories) and used some of it. But also "Mark" wrote the disciples did not notice any miraculous feeding, just that they collected leftovers from a crowd eating outside. My overall conclusion (after a thorough analysis): the miraculous feeding did not happen but the collection of leftovers did.

But I think your parallelomania is more acute on this Elisha/Elijah spirit stuff.

So here, granted that my parallelomania is "more acute" with respect to the baptism, I must still be suffering some degree of parallelomania with respect to the feeding of the 5000, right? I mean, if that Vridar was not convincing at all, then clearly I must be picking up on parallels that do not really exist, right?

Yet later you write this:

Also, in this case, the parallels in view stand up under closer inspection, as well. I think one has to shut one's eyes pretty hard not to see them. They are pretty obvious.

Actually I agree with that. I wrote in my blog post http://historical-jesus.info/88.html
>> "Mark" had evidently read:
2 Ki 4:42-44 "A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said. "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked. But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: `They will eat and have some left over.' "Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, [no mention the left over were picked up by anyone. They are just proof the men had enough to eat] according to the word of the LORD." <<

On a previous posting on this thread (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2197&start=20#p48977), I wrote:
"I even acknowledge that "Mark" knew about the 2 Kings story (& probably other Elijah-multiplying-food stories) and used some of it."

So here, apparently, the parallels do hold up to close scrutiny. So which of the parallels were "not convincing at all" originally? Where did paraphrasing them lead Neil Godfrey into error?

Also, I have read and reread your page on the multiplication miracle, and I do not understand your conclusion. You spend time shearing off parts of the story as unrealistic and even "totally absurd", but then I am not sure why you treat what is left the way you do. After doing nothing but getting rid of the implausible parts, you come to the following:

So what happened?
A plausible and logical explanation is as follows:
a) Villagers would meet outside their dirty and cramped villages.
But why?
b) The occasion was probably a festival, like the eight days autumnal one of the tabernacles & its associated feasts. But few Galilean peasants could afford to go to Jerusalem (3-4 days walk away) to celebrate it. Instead, they would go to a near ground outside their village/town.
c) These folks would bring with them more food than they could eat (as for any feast!). However it seems the occasion of the gatherings and the provenance of the food (naturally from the people there!) were never mentioned by the teller(s)!
d) Jesus' disciples picked up the scraps not eaten by the feasters, filling up baskets. And they were telling about it later, probably presenting these collections as a gift from God.

Okay. Plausible and logical or not, why is this more likely than the alternative(s)? Instead of explaining why, you immediately turn around qualify some of the few elements even of this reconstruction:

a) No confirmation can be found about this practice (i.e. collective villagers' feast in the outdoors). But very little has been written about Judean and Galilean peasants (and more generally about lower class people, in the whole ancient literature). However, Philo of Alexandria wrote that during the festival of the tabernacles:
"the people are commanded to pass the whole period of the feast [festival] under tents [outside their home!] ... They honor God in songs and words ... [the eighth day] a kind of crowning feast, not only as it would seem to this festival, but also to all the feasts of the year ..." (The special laws, II, ch.XXXIII)
b) The five/four thousand men are mentioned at the end of each one of the two "miraculous feeding" stories, consequently appearing to be just addendum from "Mark", not an integral part of the main account. The number of gathered people was probably not estimated by the eyewitness(es).

Point a mitigates your hypothesis that these peasants were gathering for some public feast, and point b shears off yet another part of the story. Nothing so far explaining why your reconstruction should be regarded as probable.

c) The disciples picking up scraps from the meals of others would suggest they were (hungry) poor. And Jesus or disciples helping themselves on available food is not unique:
- The fig tree (Mk 11:12-13)
- Heads of grain (Mk 2:23)
Furthermore, the gathering of this left over food is very much in line with:
Lk 11:9a "So I [Jesus] say to you: ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you..."
and
Lk 11:3 "[God] Give us each day our daily bread"

Yes, there are parallels, you mad parallelomaniac, to this treatment of food in other parts of the gospel, as well as in parts of related gospels. Still nothing on why your reconstruction should be regarded as probable.

"Mark" had evidently read:
2 Ki 4:42-44 "A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said. "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked. But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: `They will eat and have some left over.' "Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, [no mention the left over were picked up by anyone. They are just proof the men had enough to eat] according to the word of the LORD."

However, let's consider the following points:
a) "Mark" put a lot of importance on the fragments (bread, NOT specified from barley, and fish) that were picked up by the basketful (Mk 6:43, 8:8,19-20). This is emphatically acknowledged by the disciples (Mk 6:19-20).
b) In contrast, "Mark" conceded the disciples never "understood" or "saw" the "miraculous feedings" (Mk 6:52, 8:4,17-18). And the reaction by the crowds is non-existent!
c) The gatherings of left over food fit well within the pattern of anecdotal material included (for credibility purpose) by "Mark" in the narration of alleged supernatural events (see for confirmation my next post #89 here and other Markan Jesus' extraordinary miracles here).
d) "Mark" related two different gatherings of left over. Only one would have been enough to "prove" Jesus' food multiplication ability.

Points a, c, and d do nothing to explain why you think your reconstruction is probable; point b, however, looks like it may be trying to be one of those "against the grain" arguments: since the miracle is not explicitly recounted as a visual experience, and since the crowd is not recorded as having reacted, you seem to think that Mark has taken a decidedly nonmiraculous story and spun it into a miracle. But look at 2 Kings 4.42-44 again, which you explicitly acknowledge Mark read and mimicked, at least to some extent. There is no crowd reaction from the 100 there, either; nor is the miracle recounted as a visual experience, with people actually watching one loaf turn into two like stage magic. The two miracles stories share those elements. So what significance can these elements have? Did the author of 2 Kings take an originally nonmiraculous story, too, and turn it into a miracle, like Mark? Does this mean that the empty tomb narrative probably happened, too, since the resurrection itself is not recounted (unlike in the gospel of Peter), just the results, like the leftover fragments?

You continue immediately:

Therefore, it is highly likely that collections by the basketful of "broken pieces" did occur indeed during two peasants' outdoor feasts. And "Mark" used 2 Ki 4:42-44 "set it before them", as also the custom of Jesus about breaking the bread (as practiced later by "Nazarenes" --Ac 2:42-- and early Christians --1 Cor 10:16, Ac 20:7).

You deem it highly likely that something happened and Mark turned an ordinary event into a miracle; you must, then, deem it highly unlikely that nothing happened and Mark (or some tradent) modeled the entire event after Elisha, including the nonvisual nature of the multiplication. But why? No explanation is given. And I think I know why you do not bother to explain; in your own words:

I am not the one to propose alternatives....

Your modus operandi, then, is apparently to read the pericope, cut out the obviously impossible or implausible parts, and then propose a reconstruction out of thin air. There is no need to offer actual evidence for this reconstruction, so long as it does not violate the laws of physics, because there is literally no other option up for consideration, no rival viewpoint to counter point by point on the merits, no competition. Once proposed, your reconstruction becomes the default. My method is a bit different. Hence many of our disagreements, I think.

Ben.

[Ulan]

Your modus operandi, then, is apparently to read the pericope, cut out the obviously impossible or implausible parts, and then propose a reconstruction out of thin air. There is no need to offer actual evidence for this reconstruction, so long as it does not violate the laws of physics, because there is literally no other option up for consideration, no rival viewpoint to counter point by point on the merits, no competition.

Many scholars have followed this approach for a very long time, and like many others here, I think it's an approach that is doomed to failure. Cutting out the supernatural out of these NT stories doesn't make the remaining remnant history, it just robs the story of its meaning. It's even more astounding that this is tried when we see that gMark gives some kind of "instruction for use" for the miracle stories.

[Ben C. Smith]

Your modus operandi, then, is apparently to read the pericope, cut out the obviously impossible or implausible parts, and then propose a reconstruction out of thin air. There is no need to offer actual evidence for this reconstruction, so long as it does not violate the laws of physics, because there is literally no other option up for consideration, no rival viewpoint to counter point by point on the merits, no competition.

Many scholars have followed this approach for a very long time, and like many others here, I think it's an approach that is doomed to failure. Cutting out the supernatural out of these NT stories doesn't make the remaining remnant history, it just robs the story of its meaning. It's even more astounding that this is tried when we see that gMark gives some kind of "instruction for use" for the miracle stories.

Agreed, so far as I understand you. Can you expand on the "instructions for use"?

[Ben C. Smith]

Your modus operandi, then, is apparently to read the pericope, cut out the obviously impossible or implausible parts, and then propose a reconstruction out of thin air. There is no need to offer actual evidence for this reconstruction, so long as it does not violate the laws of physics, because there is literally no other option up for consideration, no rival viewpoint to counter point by point on the merits, no competition. Once proposed, your reconstruction becomes the default. My method is a bit different. Hence many of our disagreements, I think.

I will add here, Bernard, that I think your treatment of my suggestion regarding Elijah and Galatians included a cheap shot, to wit, making sure to characterize Wright as an apologist. He is definitely that, but it was not in his capacity as an apologist that I was referring to him; apologists can also be scholars, and Wright is definitely that, as well; and I sometimes agree with him (and with other apologists) on particular points... as do you. Your approach to the feeding of the 5000, interestingly, is basically a rehash of those old romantically rationalistic notions about Jesus that characterized the period between Reimarus and Strauss; I believe one of the rationalists even suggested the same thing you did about the leftovers (namely, that the peasants had all brought extra). I am sure I could come up with my own cheap shot at your expense based on those theories that Strauss so successfully punctured, but what would that prove? I prefer to stick to the facts of the case, unless the apologetics part of the equation is actively hindering the investigation (and I do not think Wright's idea does that).

[Ulan]

Agreed, so far as I understand you. Can you expand on the "instructions for use"?

I refer to the specific wording that describes the reaction to the expulsion of the unclean spirit in Mark 1 (the first miracle):
"27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He[m] commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

The word "teaching" is peculiar in this context if this is supposed to be a miracle story. I take this as a hint that that's exactly what this is supposed to mean: a very convincing teaching session that removes wrong understanding. The rest is just color that carries the idea of wrong thoughts = unclean spirits and avoids a boring, long-winded description of what the session was about.

I take this as a general invitation to look behind the stories and try to find out their actual meaning.

[John2]

I need to catch up on the thread but I noticed this morning that Paul mentions Hosea by name in Rom. 9:5 ("As he says in Hosea: 'I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one"), and I doubled checked page 146 in the book I linked to and it still looks like they are saying that Paul only mentions Moses, Isaiah and Elijah by name in his letters. Oh, well. In any event, Elijah was important enough to mention by name and use as an example in early Christianity, which makes sense to me given Elijah's association with the last days in Mal. 4:5.

[outhouse]

Your modus operandi, then, is apparently to read the pericope, cut out the obviously impossible or implausible parts, and then propose a reconstruction out of thin air. There is no need to offer actual evidence for this reconstruction, so long as it does not violate the laws of physics, because there is literally no other option up for consideration, no rival viewpoint to counter point by point on the merits, no competition. Once proposed, your reconstruction becomes the default. My method is a bit different. Hence many of our disagreements, I think.

I will add here, Bernard, that I think your treatment of my suggestion regarding Elijah and Galatians included a cheap shot, to wit, making sure to characterize Wright as an apologist. He is definitely that, but it was not in his capacity as an apologist that I was referring to him; apologists can also be scholars, and Wright is definitely that, as well; and I sometimes agree with him (and with other apologists) on particular points... as do you. Your approach to the feeding of the 5000, interestingly, is basically a rehash of those old romantically rationalistic notions about Jesus that characterized the period between Reimarus and Strauss; I believe one of the rationalists even suggested the same thing you did about the leftovers (namely, that the peasants had all brought extra). I am sure I could come up with my own cheap shot at your expense based on those theories that Strauss so successfully punctured, but what would that prove? I prefer to stick to the facts of the case, unless the apologetics part of the equation is actively hindering the investigation (and I do not think Wright's idea does that).

Ben a little allegory for the morning.

IMHO your a fine body mechanic and can straighten dents and paint with the best of them.

But fixing small dents in a car that has hit the wall is in vain when there is structural damage to the frame.


I like Bernard a lot. But any attempt to keep the car in its lane will be met with resistance.

[Bernard Muller]

to Ben,

I hold out the distinct possibility, yes, and find it to be the most persuasive explanation of the passage I have seen so far, yes; I am not locked in to it; I did say "your mileage may vary," implying that the Galatians reference is not as clear an allusion to Elijah as the Romans reference is.

But tell me: what does that connection say about my methodology?

If, from what Wright wrote, you then deduct that Paul alluded to Elijah in Galatians, and, because of two mentions of Elijah in early epistles (Romans & James) then Elijah was so important in early Christianity that "Mark" had to have a (fictional) Jesus following some Elijah circle; and because of some similarities between Elijah's story (in 2 Kings) and Jesus in the gospel (ch. 6), you deduct that the whole pericope of the feeding of the 5000 is all invented & cannot incorporate some true facts (involving Jesus), then I think your methodology is wrong. Your methodology is just here to convince you into believing "Mark" was writing complete fiction with the desire to imitate and copy from the old Jewish scriptures. From that, the faintest & highly questionable evidence from Wright's writing is used in order to buttress your assumptions.

I also think you missed my post viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2197&start=30#p49009 and you did not read http://historical-jesus.info/88.html
You'll find out I am not disputing "Mark" knew and used parts of the 2 Ki 4:42-44, but I went farther than that.

Cordially, Bernard

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Thanks for the good discussion.

I think it’s typical of the historical-critical method or from a mythicist standpoint to speak in terms of “modeling” or “copying”.

Maybe we should give room to the thought that the OT-allusions have a literary function and that they are meaningful parts of Mark’s story.