Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Bernard Muller wrote:First, let's consider this: "Mark" considerably borrowed from Jnh1:4-12: in it, Jonah is also sleeping during the storm, then also awakened and then also accused of indifference.

The connection to Jonah is obvious. The connection to Psalm 107 is every bit as obvious, and explains the multiple boats.

I didn't consider the similarity to Jonah, especially with regards to sleeping. It makes me wonder if what a reviewer of MacDonald I linked to says about Mark applies equally to Jonah:

"Julius Pollux, who for his patron Commodius produced his Onomasticon ... mentions numerous matters of seamanship, winds, and sailing conditions, and in Book 1.103-106 reviews various kinds of sea voyages ... It doesn't take long to see that Mark's nautical terms - anemos, prumnê, kuma, galênê, thalassa, gemizw, but not lailaps - appear in Pollux, and are fairly representative of what could be considered standard and common Greek usage at that time. Furthermore, Mark's unique description of the sleeping Jesus (Jesus sleeps on a proskephalion, a hapax legomenon in the New Testament) uses a term that Pollux identifies as common Greek for sleeping accouterment (6.9). With this general lexical base in the Greek language, it would be difficult from these terms alone to argue for a literary line a descent from one story in the Odyssey to the story here in Mark."

He then mentions an interesting detail about the LXX Jonah:

"I would point out that apollumi is especially related to ocean disasters, as it is in LXX Jonah 1:6b, opws diaswsê ho theos êmas kai mê apolwmetha (so that God may save and not destroy us). With its lexically paired term , it appears in a variety of similar contexts, even into metaphorical use. One epithet reads: 'Cypris, you save them in the open sea, would that you save me now, dear friend; I'm shipwrecked on the land. Save that which is being destroyed!' ... We can begin to see that themes of ocean voyages, storms, ocean danger, and nautical safety all have similar lexical stock."

And I notice that Jonah and Odyssey 10 mention the detail of being thrown overboard and a fearful crew:

Odyssey 10: "Then I awoke, and knew not whether to throw myself into the sea or to live on and make the best of it; but I bore it, covered myself up, and lay down in the ship, while the men lamented bitterly as the fierce winds bore our fleet back to the Aeolian island."

Jonah 1:11-16: "The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, 'What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?' 'Pick me up and throw me into the sea,' he replied, 'and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you' ... Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.”

So maybe Mark (like Jonah) was using nautical terms and themes that were common to Hellenistic or ancient culture in general and not just Homer, but to me it amounts to the same thing, that Gentile believers, especially imperial freedmen like Epaphroditus, would have naturally brought this culture with them when they were grafted onto Paul's olive tree. Maybe they noticed these kinds of similarities between the OT and Greek writings themselves and Mark is the result of this cultural synthesis.

As for why no one else noticed the Homer in Mark and why Mark doesn't mention him if he was a source, Luke appears to have used Josephus and doesn't mention him and no one noticed that.

John2 wrote:So maybe Mark (like Jonah) was using nautical terms and themes that were common to Hellenistic or ancient culture in general and not just Homer....

That is often my reaction to the Homeric parallels. They strike me as more general reactions to Hellenistic and/or Roman culture than as callbacks to specific passages in the Iliad or the Odyssey. I think I see reactions to the culture at large all over the place in the NT texts (the beginning of Mark can be read, for example, as specifically targeting imperial propaganda that had been in place since Augustus).

...but to me it amounts to the same thing, that Gentile believers, especially imperial freedmen like Epaphroditus, would have naturally brought this culture with them when they were grafted onto Paul's olive tree. Maybe they noticed these kinds of similarities between the OT and Greek writings themselves and Mark is the result of this cultural synthesis.

For me, it makes me imagine a somewhat different compositional process and even set of goals than the one I would associate with Mark more specifically and consciously modeling events after Homer.

Ben wrote:

"I think I see reactions to the culture at large all over the place in the NT texts (the beginning of Mark can be read, for example, as specifically targeting imperial propaganda that had been in place since Augustus)."

I was going to mention the beginning of Mark as another possible sign of it being created by people associated with the imperial household. And I think we are saying the same thing ultimately (if not about the same people), that the Greco-Roman "culture at large" is reflected and grafted onto Judaism in the NT (regardless of whether or not MacDoanld is right), and I think imperial freedmen like Epaphroditus are good candidates for doing that.

For the record, I'm not married to MacDonald's theory and see that I need to re-examine it. At the same time Homer had a huge impact on Greco-Roman culture and I would expect this would have been the case with the author of Mark as well rather than from reading someone like Julius Pollux.

As MacDonald points out, "access to Homer was not restricted to elites; even hoi polloi soaked up narrative poetry. Prose imitations of classical poetry appear in Tobit and the Acts of Andrew ... According to one of Mark's contemporaries [pseudo-Heraclitus], 'From the earliest age, children beginning their studies are nursed on Homer's teaching. One might say that while we were still in swathing bands we sucked from his epics as from fresh milk. He assists the beginner and later the adult in his prime. At no stage of life, from boyhood to old age, do we ever cease to drink from him.' A few students memorized all of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but anyone who knew how to write Greek had been exposed to Homeric epic. One catalogue of manuscripts from Greco-Roman Egypt lists over six hundred for Homer. After Homer the next best preserved authors were Demosthenes with eighty-three, Euripides with seventy-seven, and Hesiod with seventy-two."

https://books.google.com/books?id=8amDB ... rk&f=false

But again, I want to re-examine MacDonald with an open mind.

John2 wrote:I'm at work right now and it will take me awhile to re-read MacDonald, but in the meantime this site discusses his theory in general:

http://vridar.info/xorigins/homermark/m ... /index.htm

MacDonald's three-way comparison of the parallels between Mark-Jonah-Odyssey is set out at http://vridar.info/xorigins/homermark/m ... hmrpt1.htm. Scroll down to "Sleeping heroes and the storms at sea".

to Ben,

The connection to Jonah is obvious. The connection to Psalm 107 is every bit as obvious, and explains the multiple boats

The mention of other boats in Mk 4:36b is not even a part of the pericope of "calming the sea". In that pericope, "Mark" made no mention about any other boats which may be sunk because of the squall.
In Psalm 107, the author addressed generally ships going through stormy seas, and after cries to the Lord to calm the waves, God is credited just doing that.
There are some parallels here, but much less strong than with Jonah (because of linguistic analogy: Jonah <-> gMark) .
Did "Mark" copy on Jonah story? Definitively.
Did "Mark" copy on Psalm 107 story? Just a possibility (Jesus is not crying (or praying) to God to calm the squall).

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:to Ben,

The connection to Jonah is obvious. The connection to Psalm 107 is every bit as obvious, and explains the multiple boats

The mention of other boats in Mk 4:36b is not even a part of the pericope of "calming the sea".

Nonsense. Mark 4.35-41:

to Ben,

Bernard Muller wrote:
to Ben,
The connection to Jonah is obvious. The connection to Psalm 107 is every bit as obvious, and explains the multiple boats

The mention of other boats in Mk 4:36b is not even a part of the pericope of "calming the sea".

Nonsense. Mark 4.35-41:

35 On that day, when evening came, He says to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd, they take Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. 37 And there arises a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. 38 Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they wake Him and say to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” 39 And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. 40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

Bernard wrote: the mention of other boats in Mk 4:36b is not even a part of the pericope of "calming the sea". In that pericope, "Mark" made no mention about any other boats which may be sunk because of the squall.

But where are the other boats during the squall? Nowhere to be seen: that's was my point.
Did "Mark" mention the other boats when Jesus departs by boat to other shores to be part of his pericope about 'calming the sea'? I see no evidence for that.

Cordially, Bernard

Ben C. Smith wrote:

Bernard Muller wrote:to Ben,

The connection to Jonah is obvious. The connection to Psalm 107 is every bit as obvious, and explains the multiple boats

The mention of other boats in Mk 4:36b is not even a part of the pericope of "calming the sea".

Nonsense. Mark 4.35-41:

35 On that day, when evening came, He says to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd, they take Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. 37 And there arises a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. 38 Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they wake Him and say to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” 39 And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. 40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

If we add 5:1a to the pericope then we also match another line to Psalm 107:

4:35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” . . .

5:1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.

And Psalm 107:30

Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.