tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2828101829504518203.post1961972153088628401..comments2024-03-22T06:31:42.929-05:00Comments on Wry Thoughts About Religion: The Gospel of Mark is Wrong—and other Quibbles!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2828101829504518203.post-9690489411568524562013-10-21T14:12:32.087-05:002013-10-21T14:12:32.087-05:00Good rainy afternoon Jim,
I am more convinced by t...Good rainy afternoon Jim,<br />I am more convinced by the argument of Keith F. Nickle, "The Synoptic Gospels. An Introduction" (John Knox, 1980), 80-82. Nickle specifically uses this story about the death of Herod, which is shared by Mark and Matthew, in an argument for the priority of Mark. What you observed: that in Matthew Herod was sorry to kill John in Nickle's argument becomes an obvious instance Markan priority. Check out his rationale and let's discuss it off the blog line.<br />Cordially,<br />CharlieCharles Hedrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285420936166236724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2828101829504518203.post-80586014838643919472013-10-20T19:06:10.484-05:002013-10-20T19:06:10.484-05:00Hi Charlie,
Regarding the Gospel priority problem,...Hi Charlie,<br />Regarding the Gospel priority problem, I’ll have to be very brief here, there’s so much to it. You did mention one aspect that supports Matthean priority: in material common to both Mark and Matthew, Mark’s text is usually somewhat longer. This is typical of the redactor who is improving upon or correcting or for other reasons altering the text of his source. However, that Mark is much shorter than Matthew requires only that the writer of Mark had a few reasons why he preferred to dispense with large chunks of Matthew. Well, these are easy to come by, and I’ll just refer you to:<br /><br />http://www.tjresearch.info/MAH.htm<br /><br />where MAH stands for modified Augustinian hypothesis. The <br />sorriest of these reasons is that the writer of Mark, in Rome, was anti-Jewish (rather like Marcion later). Consistent with this, is his tendency to abbreviate out Judaistic sections disproportionately. (He didn’t even want to emphasize Jesus’ Jewish heritage or mention Joseph.) By placing Mark ahead of (a Hebraic) Matthew, it is much less clear that the writer of Mark was anti-Jewish. Therefore, NT scholarship much prefers to say that the early church fathers were somehow wrong in the order of appearance of the Gospels. (One can see that the need to uphold orthodoxy can account for their belief that the Gospels were written by their namesakes.) Even before the Holocaust, this unspoken preference for placing Mark first is understandable.<br />Even consensual scholarship places Luke after Mark, with which I concur, and if correct, Mark being a shorter Gospel than Luke says nothing about the editorial behavior of the writer of Mark. <br /><br />I had hoped that I could get you to see that (IF Mark came after Matthew) , Matthew’s incongruity of having Herod be sorry to execute John could explain the writer of Mark’s redactive “improvement” over Matthew of supplying reasons why Herod was sorry. I did not succeed!.<br />Jim Deardorffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04517653430586348063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2828101829504518203.post-19749210050374440582013-10-19T11:19:44.239-05:002013-10-19T11:19:44.239-05:00Good Morning Jim!
You have redirected the discuss...Good Morning Jim!<br />You have redirected the discussion from the issue: is Mark history or fiction, to the issue of which gospel was written first--Matthew or Mark? If you will take your gospel synopsis (everyone should have a gospel synopsis) and scan through it noting the lengths of the narratives in the material common to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you will be struck by the fact that in almost every instance Mark is longer than the other two gospels--Matthew and Luke are usually shorter. On the usual theory of gospel origins Matthew and Luke abbreviate Mark's gospel, and correct Mark, while adding material Mark does not have (such as birth narratives, more parables, resurrection appearances, etc.). Under your theory of Matthew's priority, however, you will have to argue that Mark expands the material it shares with a shorter Matthew and Luke, while ignoring birth narratives, parables, and resurrection appearances, among other things. In fact under your theory Mark only adds about 40 verses or so to his gospel that the other two gospels do not have, prompting the question why did Mark even bother to write? The priority of Matthew solution to gospel relationships is simply unconvincing to most NT scholars who worry with the problem. In fact in your explanation you conclude that "Mark only made the episode even more inconsistent than Matthew." You have noted one reason (but stated differently) that most people prefer Mark's priority: it is easier to imagine Matthew eliminating confusion from Mark's narrative by abbreviating and correcting it than trying to conceive of Mark deliberately introducing confusion into Matthew's narrative by lengthening it. Readers interested in this issue can find a discussion of Matthean and Markan priority in Hedrick, "When History and Faith Collide," 76-92. And for a demonstration of the editing of Mark by Matthew and Luke see John C. Hawkins, "Horae Synopticae. Contributions to the Study of the Synoptic Problem" (Oxford,1909, reprint 1968), particularly pp. 114-53.<br />Cordially,<br />CharlieCharles Hedrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285420936166236724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2828101829504518203.post-45276732937154485642013-10-19T10:18:11.373-05:002013-10-19T10:18:11.373-05:00Aargh! You are right of course. The change is ma...Aargh! You are right of course. The change is made. I am directionally challenged and always got lost on the Army's compass course!<br />Thanks Bob!<br />CharlieCharles Hedrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285420936166236724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2828101829504518203.post-45924876415919967732013-10-18T13:26:15.681-05:002013-10-18T13:26:15.681-05:00"it has all the earmarks of historical fictio..."it has all the earmarks of historical fiction—that is to say, much of the gospel is due to Mark's imagination and inventive recreation." Absolutely. I try to get students to imagine Mark as a play written to be staged or a movie script intended to be filmed for the silver screen. There are surely whispers of historical reality here and there, but mostly it's imaginative, artistic storytelling, told with great poetic license, intended primarily to provoke the imagination of the audience.<br /><br />BTW, I think you'll want to locate Machaerus east of the Dead Sea, not west.<br /><br />Bob Fowlerbobinbereahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00501253521947132870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2828101829504518203.post-49218272044810066432013-10-17T13:49:59.272-05:002013-10-17T13:49:59.272-05:00The Matthean account of the beheading-of-John epis...The Matthean account of the beheading-of-John episode (Mt 14:3-12), is more consistent than that of Mark. However, in Matthew both Herod and his wife, Herodias, wished to have John the Baptist done away with. But after she had prompted her daughter to ask Herod for John's head at the banquet, Herod is said to have been sorry but went ahead and ordered the execution anyway. Mark makes it seem more plausible that Herod would be sorry, in that Mark portrays Herod as believing that John was a righteous and holy man whom he would gladly hear speak (Mk 6:20). <br />However, a person does not, realistically speaking, go and listen to a man talk if he fears him and if his preaching seems perplexing, and do it gladly. And it is totally illogical that Herod would have John beheaded, vow or no vow, if he himself believed the man to be righteous and holy, was keeping him safe, and gladly heard him speak (Mk 6:20). If he had felt that way about John, he certainly would not have had him beheaded, or even jailed in the first place! This has got to be called a gross inconsistency on the part of the writer of Mark. But if this writer were following Matthew (as the early church fathers claimed), and noticed that Herod was supposedly sorry, then it can make some sense that he was trying to improve upon Matthew and insert some reasons why Herod was sorry. However, by these redactions the writer of Mark only made the episode even more inconsistent than in Matthew. <br /> <br />. By this reckoning, the “compression” error in Mark followed from the same error in Matthew, which its writer incurred while redacting his source.<br /><br />Jim Deardorffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04517653430586348063noreply@blogger.com