Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

One question -- apols if it's already been covered and I've missed it -- concerning the view that Mark's gospel must be early because he evidently expected Jesus to return between the fall of Jerusalem and the time it took for the ink to dry on his last gar.

I can sort of understanding someone writing with that expectation -- though it does open up the question of why he would bother writing a gospel at all if he believed Jesus himself would return very, very soon.

What is harder to understand is why that saying would be preserved without any hint of a scribal gloss to explain the delay, and why Matthew would seem to repeat it with even more urgency. Does that mean Matthew also had to have been written perhaps only months or a year or so after Mark?

We are told that Matthew revised Mark's baptism episode to explain away a supposed embarrassment in the original account. What signs are there that Matthew did something similar with Mark's little apocalypse?

I think we can see some such rewrites with Luke. He seems to suggest an indeterminate "time of the gentiles" has to pass before the Son of Man comes.

One question -- apols if it's already been covered and I've missed it -- concerning the view that Mark's gospel must be early because he evidently expected Jesus to return between the fall of Jerusalem and the time it took for the ink to dry on his last gar.

I can sort of understanding someone writing with that expectation -- though it does open up the question of why he would bother writing a gospel at all if he believed Jesus himself would return very, very soon.

Well, I don't think "Mark" was so naive as to believe what he wrote. I always thought the authors of gospel were not honest people and they wrote (anonymously) mostly to keep their congregation under their spell, addressing concerns, disbelief, doubts, disagreements, all of threatening the existence of their community.
In the case of "Mark", what caused problems in his community was not much the fall of Jerusalem (of little consequence for gentile Christians away from Jerusalem) but the aftermath of it, that is false prophets and false Christs, attracting Christians towards them away from their congregation.
"Mark" is very plain about that:
... "Take heed that no one leads you astray.
Many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray.
(Mk 13:35b-36 RSV)
and
And then if any one says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it.
False Christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.
But take heed; I have told you all things beforehand.
(Mk 13:31-23 RSV)

So what to do to face the problem:
First, have Jesus predicting the fall of Jerusalem. That would make it part of a God's plan (as seen in the parable of the tenants). So nothing to worry about that , that was not an unforeseen disaster!
Actually more like the start of the long awaited apocalypse.
Second, have these Christians stay where they are by promising them, if they stay put, they will be the elects of the Kingdom to come very soon.
That would reassure the Christians of the community, who have been waiting for a long time, to stay in the flock.

Matthew would seem to repeat it with even more urgency. Does that mean Matthew also had to have been written perhaps only months or a year or so after Mark?

We are told that Matthew revised Mark's baptism episode to explain away a supposed embarrassment in the original account. What signs are there that Matthew did something similar with Mark's little apocalypse?

It is very subtle:
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days" (Mt 24:29a):
The great tribulation of the Jews (following the disastrous events of 70C.E.) is generally considered to have lasted up to around 85-90C.E. At that time, Judaism had been reorganized by well esteemed Pharisaic rabbis (Mt 5:20a,23:2-3a,7 <=> Josephus Ant., XVIII, I, 3).
Note: "Matthew" did not call Jerusalem siege & destruction in 70C.E. a time of tribulation, as "Mark" did.
"For then there will be [in the future] great tribulation, ... (Mt 24:21 RSV)
“"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, ... (Mt 24:29 RSV)
to be compared with:
For in those days there will be such tribulation ... (Mk 13:19 RSV) (those days are the one of the fall of Jerusalem & soon after)
"But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, ... (Mk 13:24 RSV).

It is not ultra-clear, but it is obvious "Matthew" took the trouble to revise gMark wording on a very critical point.

Also for consideration:
Mk13:10 "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations." (prior to Jerusalem destruction --13:14)
"Matthew" added on:
Mt24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."
Now the end is coming after the whole world has been exposed to the gospel, and not only subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem!

Cordially, Bernard

Irish1975 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2018 7:33 pm Longstanding consensus among NT scholars has it that Mark was written circa 70. Maybe 65-80 if you ask around. But although the Jewish-Roman war provides a clear basement for dating Mark,

Why is that a clear basement for dating Mark to after 65 AD?

Mark includes predictions about the destruction of the Temple, but so does the Book of Daniel, and probably even the book of Ezekiel, since that prophet speaks of a third temple. That doesn't mean that those books came after 65 AD. Likewise, Mark also predicts the destruction of the world, the general resurrection, and the Second Coming, but that doesn't mean that the book was written after those events occurred.

Bernard Muller wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:13 pm Well, I don't think "Mark" was so naive as to believe what he wrote. I always thought the authors of gospel were not honest people and they wrote (anonymously) mostly to keep their congregation under their spell, addressing concerns, disbelief, doubts, disagreements, all of threatening the existence of their community.

Wheh! And they say mythicists are the conspiracy theorists!!

Bernard Muller wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:13 pm
.. I always thought the authors of gospel were not honest people and they wrote (anonymously) mostly to keep their congregation under their spell, addressing concerns, disbelief, doubts, disagreements, all of threatening the existence of their community.

In the case of "Mark", what caused problems in his community was not much the fall of Jerusalem (of little consequence for gentile Christians away from Jerusalem) but the aftermath of it¹, that is false prophets and false Christs, attracting Christians towards them away from their congregation.

What congregation? What community? Where?

What evidence is there the gospel of Mark is addressed to a congregation or a community?

¹ Where is there evidence the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem caused problems in Mark's community?

Jax wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 3:54 pm

archibald wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 6:17 am I might say one general thing though. Imho, it might be easier, I'm thinking, to tie the NT to the 1st Jewish War than to the Bar Kokhba Revolt. But I haven't looked into the latter before now. I think it was Jax who recommended to me a book doing the former, and I haven't followed that up yet either. So many theories, so little time.

Nope. Not me.

Then I Misunderstood that the book you suggested (and which I have ordered), 'A Shift in Time' by Lena Einhorn, doesn't involve a shift in time forward to events closer to the 1st Jewish War.

Hi, Bernard

But "Mark" had Jesus make a forecast for the future in the mini apocalypse (Mk 13).

Other people in this thread have offered a variety of incompatible theories about which events Jesus' statements in chapter 13 might refer to. Nobody disputes that Mark portrays Jesus as speaking about the future, but the elements of a forecast are that it is:

- offered as a factual assertion about a future contingency
- situated at a specific time and place
- whose truth can be unambiguously verified afterwards

I will go to the post office tomorrow is a forecast.
Somebody will go somewhere sometime is not.

"Mark" had Jesus predicting the fall of Jerusalem and soon after, the advent of the Kingdom.

Mark's Jesus predicted that something really bad would happen in or around Jerusalem sometime, and that sometime after that, he would make an appearance.

The latest of the "matching" events proposed in this thread (unless I've missed one) for something really bad in the area was the collapse of the last Jewish revolt in the Second Century (the Temple was in ruins for decades by then). And soon? Two days could be soon, and we all know that a thousand years is like one day to God, so it's not even been two days yet.

If Jesus' fielding his disciples' direct question were a "forecast," then we can't say definitely yes or no about whether it's still open. We can each, however, say whether or not it has communicated useful information to anybody about their future; some say yes, others say no. With a forecast, you don't even have to ask.

On a point arising in a later post of yours,

Well, I don't think "Mark" was so naive as to believe what he wrote, ...

Yes. It is absurd to attribute to any storyteller agreement with something any of his characters say, based solely on a character saying it.

However,

the authors of gospel were not honest people

It is equally absurd to call a storyteller honest or dishonest based solely on the story (s)he tells. We have no evidence that Mark led any congregation, for example, to answer one of Mr MacSon's (possibly rhetorical) questions.

DCHindley wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:05 pm arch,

Just about every angle one can think of has been proposed here. Heck, we could even give R. Eisenman ideas that even he hasn't thought up yet (I'm kidding, R E would win this hands down, and I mean that in a positive way).

Regarding theories that posit "time shifting:" In an earlier thread I had dug up an interesting book by John I Riegel & John H Jordan, Simon Son of Man (1917), that claims that the Gospel Jesus and even the High Christology of the Pauline epistles was loosely based on the life and claims of the rebel leader Simon "bar Giora" in the revolt of 66-73 CE. They propose that Josephus called him "bar Giora" (which means "son of a proselyte") to denigrate him, and the fact was that Simon used a large number of nick names all revolving around the phrase "son of man."

While I am not buying into the time shift aspect of this theory, I was intrigued by some other aspects that quite accidentally correlated with other angles I had been pursuing:
1) Hegesippus' stories about James the Just seemed to be a retelling of the story of Idumean general James son of Sosas, who helped, you guessed it, Simon bar Giora during the final year in the capital as it faced and then withstood a Roman siege.
2) The persona of Josephus' Simon "bar Giora," especially as enhanced by Riegel & Jordan into a "common man" type nick-name, might explain the book called The Parables of Enoch preserved in Ethiopic but not anywhere so far identified among the DSS. In short, the PofE was not an early Christian production, nor was it influenced by early Christianity. It was a piece of propaganda written by Simon to champion his radical social message of common men turning on and utterly destroying the power structures that existed, in the hope that something good might rise up from the ashes. Simon was a, , Nihilist!

Strange things go bump in the night ...

DCH (just euthanized our 14 y/o dawg, and was fitted with partial dentures today - yes, I've had better holidays)

I confess I misread at first and thought the dentures had been fitted to your sadly deceased pet, but then I re-read. Sorry to hear about your dog...and your own dentures.

As to Simon bar Giora, nooooo, please, not yet another theory, at least not just yet. I am barely coping at the moment!

A.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:57 am I will go to the post office tomorrow is a forecast.
Somebody will go somewhere sometime is not.

But 'Some of you will see it happening before you die' is a testable forecast.

And some Thessalonians appeared to expect it, which is difficult, imo, to set aside, even if here we are not doing the epistles of Paul.

neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 7:47 pm I can sort of understanding someone writing with that expectation -- though it does open up the question of why he would bother writing a gospel at all if he believed Jesus himself would return very, very soon.

We could ask similar questions about Paul. Why worry about extracting financial contributions 'for the church' at such a time, etc.

To me, it is pretty clear that mark has Jesus predicting an imminent 'end times' event, including a 'son of man' arriving 'in power'. That some expected it seems to be borne out elsewhere. That it was later postponed also seems fairly clear.

Why someones said it was going to happen (and when they wrote or said this) and why a 'Mark someone' put it in the mouth of Jesus, might be a slightly separate issue.