the Christian Church Fathers with texts to 155 AD/CE

[Ulan]

Mark doesn't explain many things. That's one of the reasons why there are suggestions that the text may have been the "open" part of a mystery religion.

That's interesting (to me, at least). Please elaborate.

I'm sorry that I don't remember whose suggestion this was, but the prerequisites are basically two: (i) take the "Messianic secret" more seriously than just as a rhetorical tool and (ii) accept 16:8 as intentional cliffhanger. It's also based on the point that we hear so little about early Christianity in Egypt, which is traditionally seen as Mark's major place of action.

This would mean that gMark is basically the part of the gospel that was preached openly. The text makes clear why nobody heard of this story and that much of the salvation message needed special understanding to be heard. Even the only witnesses of the story never told anyone. There are mysterious parts like that of the naked youth. A listener (no matter whether it was just a talk or a performance) would probably want to know more, if he got hooked. The public part may have been followed up by a "secret" part in some building. Here, the believers may have been initiated by a baptism ceremony (the naked youth may be a hint), where they leave their old life behind and hear the rest of the story. Whether that story was similar to "Secret Mark" or John 21 doesn't matter that much, but it certainly is one fit for the evidence.

This would explain why Mark explains so little. He's delivering the bait.

[andrewcriddle]

We know a few events form the First Jewish War, and a few events from the Bar Kochba period but, true, we don't seem to know much in between.

The Olivet discourse is widely believed to refer to the destruction of the Temple by Titus in 70 AD/CE, and this is why Mrk is dated to ~70 AD/CE, but there are also references in the Olivet discourse to events following this (see Ben Witherington The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary p. 340).

And there are valid arguments as to why the Olivet Discourse may be a reference to the Bar Kochba revolt.

In the Olivet discourse, Jesus' warns his followers that they will suffer 'tribulation' and persecution before the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God, but It is unclear whether the 'tribulation' Jesus describes is a past, present or future event.

And there are links to the OT books of Zechariah and Daniel.

Jesus warning the disciples about the Abomination of Desolation -"standing where it does not belong" - is generally considered to be a reference to two passages from the Book of Daniel.[9:27; 11:31] Modern scholars believe that Daniel was pseudepigraphically written in the mid-2nd century BC, and that, rather than being a genuine prophecy, the passage/s were a post-diction: written as a polemic against the shrine to Zeus set up in the temple in 168 BC by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, which had a pagan altar added onto the Altar of the Holocausts.

It's widely said that, similarly, the Olivet discourse is also post-event: that is why gMark is dated to the 70s AD/CE (ie. after the destruction of the Temple).

The setting on the Mount of Olives is thought by some scholars to be a quite deliberate echo of a passage in the Book of Zechariah which refers to the location as the place where a final battle would occur between the Jewish Messiah and his opponents.

There are various stories about Hadrian's actions before or at the start of the Bar Kochba revolt: some accounts say he was going to be magnanimous and rebuild the Jewish Temple, and announced that, but then got talked out of it. Under this account, it was Hadrian reneging on his promise that caused the Bar Kochba uprising.

It's said that after Bar Kochba rallied the people, and they massacred the famous 12th legion of the Roman army, Jerusalem was liberated for three years and Rabbi Akiva proclaimed Bar Kochba as the Messiah who was to deliver the Jewish people.

The Jews apparently set up an independent government. Coins were struck that commemorated the "First Year of the Deliverance of Israel." One coin showed the facade of the Temple, which suggests that Bar Kochba managed to partially rebuild the Temple.

The later historical work (Chronicon Paschale) describes Hadrian as the one who destroyed the Temple of the Jews. Some, therefore, assume that the Chronicon is not referring to completion of the destruction of what remained of the original Temple, but to Hadrian destroying a Temple that had been partially rebuilt by Bar Kochba. The Roman historian Dio Cassius said that Hadrian built his Temple to replace the one of the God of Israel, as if there had been a Temple to the God of Israel in Hadrian's time.

It's seems likely that Hadrian's final sacking of Jerusalem and Judea, and building his temple, was more the "abomination of desolation" than Titus's actions in 70 AD/CE.

The desolating sacrilege is best understood as a parallel to the erection of a statue of Zeus in the book of Daniel.

This makes it hard to imagine that the Synoptic Apocalypse Is referring to the initial destruction of the Temple: it seems to best fit either

• the Caligula Crisis (a proposal by Caligula to put a statue of himself or of Jupiter into the temple in AD 37–41: the reign of Gaius Caligula (37–41 AD) witnessed the first open break between the Jews and the Julio-Claudian empire); or

• the aftermath of the Bar Kochba Revolt: Hadrian erecting a statue of himself, Jupiter, and a Roman Temple where the Jewish temple once stood.

Many parts of the "Little Apocalypse" are less likely to have happened as early as to be reference to the Caligula Crisis (Messiah claimants, earthquakes, famine, significance of winter, etc.) -it more parallels things about and around the time of Bar Kochba.

From a previous thread

Attempts to relate Mark 13 to Bar Kochba generally hold that Bar Kochba's forces at one stage took Jerusalem from the Romans and were then driven out by Hadrian's forces. For which there is little evidence. Bar Kochba certainly aspired to regain Jerusalem but that is another matter. There is no clear evidence that Jerusalem itself was a battleground during the Bar Kochba rising.

Attempts to relate Mark 13 to Bar Kochba generally hold that Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple. This is probably a late Christian legend.

Andrew Criddle

[MrMacSon]

• From a previous thread

Attempts to relate Mark 13 to Bar Kochba generally hold that Bar Kochba's forces at one stage took Jerusalem from the Romans and were then driven out by Hadrian's forces. For which there is little evidence. Bar Kochba certainly aspired to regain Jerusalem but that is another matter. There is no clear evidence that Jerusalem itself was a battleground during the Bar Kochba rising.

Yes, my research, before writing what I did above, showed there is little consistency about what happened: further research is needed, and probably off-'net.

Attempts to relate Mark 13 to Bar Kochba generally hold that Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple. This is probably a late Christian legend.

While I did wonder about the Jupiter thing (it seems to align too much with what was supposed to have happened with Caligula); it should be noted that

• 1/ there apparently was, at that specific time, a syncretic cult of Jupiter Serapis -
  

  The Serapeum of Ostia Antica [Rome] was inaugurated in 127 CE and dedicated to the syncretic cult of Jupiter Serapis.
  
  It is a typical Roman sanctuary, on a raised platform and with a row of columns at the entrance, where a mosaic representing Apis in a typically Egyptian manner can still be seen. From this temple likely came the statue that Bryaxis copied for the Serapeum in Alexandria.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapeum#Ostia_antica

• 2/ Hadrian was closely aligned with the cult of Serapis -

• • a. Taylor, R (2004) Hadrian's Serapeum in Rome. American Journal of Archaeology, 108(2), 223-266.

  • b. Protected by a monumental dome, the sanctuary was composed of a public area and a more intimate subterranean part that was dedicated to the chthonic aspect of Serapis.
    
    To mark the inauguration of his temple, Hadrian struck coinage that carry his effigy accompanied by Serapis, upon a dais where two columns support a round canopy. In this manner, the emperor became synnaos, a companion of the god's arcane naos and equal beneficiary of the cult of Serapis at Canopus.
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapeum#Hadrian.27s_Villa

  • c. http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MEZ/MEZ_Sala03_01.html
    
    • http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/x-Sched ... l#page-top
      
      http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 975#p27975

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