Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

to spin,

Oh, so now we're reifying the Papias nonsense, are we? Mark is a text. You know next to nothing about its writing, nothing about the reality of its content. Given its strong Latin content, vocabulary, idioms and perspective, it almost certainly has no direct connection with Judea and any "testimonies" were from the tradents whose sources cannot and could not be fathomed. Stick with texts and not hypothesized "writers".

I did not rely on Papias. 1 Corinthians says that Peter/Cephas had followers in Corinth, and the only way that would happen is that Peter went to Corinth. Corinth was then a Roman colony and Latin was still spoken here by many around 55 AD.
There is a significant Latin content in gMark but there are also Aramaisms.

BTW, how do you explain why the Markan author "discredited" people he presented as eyewitnesses of Jesus in his gospel?

Cordially, Bernard

Given its strong Latin content, vocabulary, idioms and perspective, it almost certainly has no direct connection with Judea

We have discussed this over and over again. The idea that Mark is the foundation of Matthew and Luke is hard to contest. Nevertheless there is an inherent laziness to assume that the collection of gospels graciously preserved for us by Irenaeus and company is as a result of 'accidental' or dictated by accidental circumstance. The Latin content is also there. But if the collection was 'accidental' - if we have proof or even reason to believe that some innocent party just 'discovered' or 'collected' Mark, Matthew and Luke through innocent happenstance we'd have reason to naively accept that Mark (man or gospel) was Latin. But there is enough IMHO to make us suspicious of this scenario, most notable Secret Mark.

In the Letter to Theodore there is an allusion to the Carpocratian influence on the gospel of Mark as received outside of Alexandria. The only historical Carpocratian we know of was Marcellina. Evidence of her presence in Rome comes from an early enough period that it would be reasonable to accept that our variant 'canonical' gospel of Mark was written by that circle. I don't know why the group was associated with 'Carpocrates' or 'Harpocrates' but the evidence is also attested by our earliest pagan observer Celsus who likely lived in Rome.

The bottom line is that Latin content goes beyond the gospel of Mark. The same 'Latinized Greek' defines the very Christian identity (= Christianus'). This (according to the typical naive i.e. 'history innocently handed us these fucking texts' POV) has no direct relation with Mark (man or gospel). This seems to suggest to me at least that the culture of orthodox/Catholic Christianity was associated with Rome and this unusual Latinized Greek. Similarly the formation of many of the appellations which define 'wrong Christianity' (= the heresies) also exhibit Latinized Greek stems. Is it coincidence that both 'orthodoxy' and 'heresy' exhibit the same association with Mark's Latin content? I think it is naive to think so.

Irenaeus also speaks of coming to the 'brothers' in Rome from formerly association with another group outside the Roman fraternity. Polycarp's run in with Anicetus also speaks of a firm and early fraternity of Roman Christianity. The controversy over the calculation of Passover further emphasizes this.

If Mark's text 'just so happens' to reflect this Roman association odd that Mark should so intimately be associated with another local - Alexandria. The Romanness of Mark helps the process of undermining Alexandrian association which clearly would display better Greek, erudition, education etc. Clement does make mention of an association between Mark and Rome but even that description doesn't go so far as to suggest Mark's association with and of the text's 'Latin content.' Mark just happened to be at Rome when Peter was there.

The Alexandrian church clearly thought it knew a longer ur-Mark text and that a variant shorter text of Mark was associated with Rome. This Roman Church not only defined orthodoxy and heresy with its 'Latinized-Greek' but also the gospel of Mark. Not surprisingly there was a great deal of controversy over the proper form of the gospel of Mark as well as the gospel of Mark itself to such an extent that it is the least cited gospel text, almost never forms the basis for a Commentary. It would seem to me that a more reasonable reconstruction of Patristic sources would argue for:

1. rival claims of 'first gospel' between an Alexandrian Mark group and a Semitic gospel (Hebrew or Aramaic)
2. the job of Irenaeus was somehow to find an ecumenical 'solution' to the dilemma
3. the Latinized-Greek was deliberate inserted into the text to define both the text and Mark in a certain light (away from the traditional model).

If you are going to argue that Mark's 'Latin content' is natural, odd that the Jewish gospel in the canon (Matthew) doesn't exhibit any overt 'Jewish content.' If anything Mark is more connected with Semiticisms than even Matthew. I don't say this to argue that Mark is connected with Judaism but rather just to note that it is a 'happy coincidence' that Irenaeus defines the Church in terms of Rome. He cites a Roman succession and only a Roman succession list. His shorter version of Mark has Latinisms. His Jewish gospel (= Matthew) isn't Jewish and 'agrees' with Mark. Luke is only defined in terms of his relationship with Paul, helping define Paul away from his traditional identity (= Marcionism) and 'agrees with Mark. John is a wandering witness to Jesus (he deliberately confuses the apostle John with his John) and John's theology doesn't conflict with the synoptics (and thus again agrees with Mark).

While Mark can't be said to be the original gospel of the canon (at least explicitly) his brief chronology (based on the same tradition as Clement) makes clear that Mark was written at Rome. The name 'Christian' and 'Christianity' is Roman (so it's identity is Roman). Heresy is defined in Roman terms. The rest of the gospels agree with the message conflrmed at Rome. While Irenaeus intimates that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew he is throwing a bone to the group that said that Hebrew was the language of the first gospel. But the important thing was that the Roman Church was based on Mark. This is almost explicit from the pattern of things Irenaeus says. You can't be this naive to turn a blind eye to the planting of evidence here. Irenaeus wants to make Rome the center of Christianity rather than Alexandria or some other place.

In summa: Irenaeus wants to justify Rome as the new center of Christianity so he constructs an elaborate chronology cherry picking from things said by other people (Papias, Clement) to further that goal and so plants 'Latinisms' in canonical Mark. You can't be this naive to think that this scenario isn't at least a plausible counter-thesis to your open acceptance of inherited evidence. Spin you are so critical of evidence in other respects even accepting an outlandish thesis that the Pentateuch might have been written in the Greek period. But when it comes to Christianity you have a retarded naive simplicity when it comes to the evidence. My suggestion is that you are hamstrung by your religious background. Hard to get over sexual abuse at a young age. Same with overcoming mental abuse in childhood.

And speaking of your acceptance of the authorship of the Pentateuch in the Greek period - why don't you accept the Persianisms in the Pentateuch as dictating a Persian context for the Pentateuch? There you seem to imply that a Greek author just added anachronisms to the text. But the Persian garden, eshdat lamo and many others should be enough for you? But it's not. You 'dig deeper' to accept the Greek hypothesis. With Christianity the Latinisms (= surface features) are the determining factors. Odd.

Bernard Muller wrote:to spin,

Oh, so now we're reifying the Papias nonsense, are we? Mark is a text. You know next to nothing about its writing, nothing about the reality of its content. Given its strong Latin content, vocabulary, idioms and perspective, it almost certainly has no direct connection with Judea and any "testimonies" were from the tradents whose sources cannot and could not be fathomed. Stick with texts and not hypothesized "writers".

I did not rely on Papias. 1 Corinthians says that Peter/Cephas had followers in Corinth, and the only way that would happen is that Peter went to Corinth.

(1 Cor talks of a certain Cephas. No mention of a Peter. For all we know you are only rehearsing a syncretism.)

Bernard Muller wrote:Corinth was then a Roman colony and Latin was still spoken here by many around 55 AD.

That does not explain why Mark was written in Greek with a strong Latin influence.

Bernard Muller wrote:There is a significant Latin content in gMark but there are also Aramaisms.

Beside the hoo-haa, there really isn't that much Aramaic influence. What there is I've pointed out has problems and errors. Consider "Boanerges": the diphthong "oa" simply can't represent the schwa in b'nai (sons). "Talitha Koum" gets translated "little girl, I say to you, arise" though there is no equivalent to "I say to you" in the source. A writer with knowledge of Aramaic would know that. And why is it "ephphatha" ("be opened") and not ethphatha, which would represent the imperative ("ethpaal") form of the verb? I'd say the tendentious desire to reify the content of the text spurs commentators to find Aramaisms, given the fact that the narrative has a Judean context and a strong Jewish religious influence. Is the Aramaic content in Mark much more than abracadabara for magicians?

Bernard Muller wrote:BTW, how do you explain why the Markan author "discredited" people he presented as eyewitnesses of Jesus in his gospel?

I don't have a viable explanation and neither do you. I don't know if we see "discrediting", just contextualizing Jesus among the dolts, or some other manifestation.

Basically what you are saying (implicitly at least) is that Irenaeus's interest in Rome and the Roman apostolic succession is well founded as Mark is a living testament to the early Christian presence there. Irenaeus's efforts to argue that Christianity, while starting in Judea became transplanted and eventually took root in the capitol of the Empire, are basically accurate. Irenaeus is simply a servant of the truth reporting the facts of Christian origins. Again odd how your understanding of the origins of Judaism can embrace radical theories but it's not case with the origins of Christianity.

to spin,

1 Cor talks of a certain Cephas. No mention of a Peter. For all we know you are only rehearsing a syncretism.

That would be too much of a coincidence that both "Cephas" (in Aramaic) and "Peter" (in Greek) mean "Stone" for not referring to the same person, more so when "Cephas" and "Peter" were not common names before Christianity.

I'd say the tendentious desire to reify the content of the text spurs commentators to find Aramaisms, given the fact that the narrative has a Judean context and a strong Jewish religious influence. Is the Aramaic content in Mark much more than abracadabara for magicians?

But Aramaisms exist in gMark. I do not use that to say "Mark" knew Aramaic, just that he picked up phonetically some Aramaic words heard from somebody else, such as Peter.

I don't have a viable explanation and neither do you. I don't know if we see "discrediting", just contextualizing Jesus among the dolts, or some other manifestation.

But yes, I have a viable explanation on what is perceived as "Mark" discrediting the apostles, as I explained in viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2682#p59705
mostly in http://historical-jesus.info/28.html

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:to spin,

1 Cor talks of a certain Cephas. No mention of a Peter. For all we know you are only rehearsing a syncretism.

That would be too much of a coincidence that both "Cephas" (in Aramaic) and "Peter" (in Greek) mean "Stone" for not referring to the same person, more so when "Cephas" and "Peter" were not common names before Christianity.

Rubbish. You are rehearsing a post hoc syncretism. Elsewhere I mentioned the affrication of Semitic consonants, which would suggest if Cephas were derived from a Semitic source it should start with a "ch", whereas if it were from the Aramaic name QYFA (= "Caiaphas", starting with a QOF) it would naturally be transliterated into Greek with a kappa, as per Cephas.

Bernard Muller wrote:

I'd say the tendentious desire to reify the content of the text spurs commentators to find Aramaisms, given the fact that the narrative has a Judean context and a strong Jewish religious influence. Is the Aramaic content in Mark much more than abracadabara for magicians?

But Aramaisms exist in gMark. I do not use that to say "Mark" knew Aramaic, just that he picked up phonetically some Aramaic words heard from somebody else, such as Peter.

So what probative value do these Aramaisms have??

Bernard Muller wrote:

I don't have a viable explanation and neither do you. I don't know if we see "discrediting", just contextualizing Jesus among the dolts, or some other manifestation.

But yes, I have a viable explanation on what is perceived as "Mark" discrediting the apostles, as I explained in viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2682#p59705
mostly in http://historical-jesus.info/28.html
Cordially, Bernard

You transform wholesale the contents of text into real life, then make assertions.

Secret Alias wrote:

Given its strong Latin content, vocabulary, idioms and perspective, it almost certainly has no direct connection with Judea

We have discussed this over and over again. The idea that Mark is the foundation of Matthew and Luke is hard to contest. Nevertheless there is an inherent laziness to assume that the collection of gospels graciously preserved for us by Irenaeus and company is as a result of 'accidental' or dictated by accidental circumstance. The Latin content is also there. But if the collection was 'accidental' - if we have proof or even reason to believe that some innocent party just 'discovered' or 'collected' Mark, Matthew and Luke through innocent happenstance we'd have reason to naively accept that Mark (man or gospel) was Latin. But there is enough IMHO to make us suspicious of this scenario, most notable Secret Mark.

In the Letter to Theodore there is an allusion to the Carpocratian influence on the gospel of Mark as received outside of Alexandria. The only historical Carpocratian we know of was Marcellina. Evidence of her presence in Rome comes from an early enough period that it would be reasonable to accept that our variant 'canonical' gospel of Mark was written by that circle. I don't know why the group was associated with 'Carpocrates' or 'Harpocrates' but the evidence is also attested by our earliest pagan observer Celsus who likely lived in Rome.

I don't know why you are citing the letter of Theodore as a tenable source. You could just as easily cite the Necronomicon.

Secret Alias wrote:The bottom line is that Latin content goes beyond the gospel of Mark.

If that were true you'd see a lot more Latinized Greek, but in fact, both Matt & Luke cut it back from their source.

Secret Alias wrote:If Mark's text 'just so happens' to reflect this Roman association odd that Mark should so intimately be associated with another local - Alexandria.

Sounds like you are attempting to pull the same wool used with Bethsaida. Nothing in Mark associates itself with Alexandria.

Secret Alias wrote:The Romanness of Mark helps the process of undermining Alexandrian association which clearly would display better Greek, erudition, education etc.

This is an assertion based on accepting a prior assertion, each of which has no substantive foundation.

Secret Alias wrote:Clement does make mention of an association between Mark and Rome but even that description doesn't go so far as to suggest Mark's association with and of the text's 'Latin content.' Mark just happened to be at Rome when Peter was there.

Interesting that the content of Mark at least evinces the Latin influence, so you have to propose a conspiracy theory, ie that the earlier gospel has been reduced and then deliberately splattered with Latinisms, of the kind one might expect a 20th century linguist to be aware of, loan translations and Latin idiomatic structures in translation. It's not a serious argument, requiring modern knowledge in ancient times.