godspell said
If Luke thinks it needs correcting, so does Matthew, and that means they both read Mark.
No. Whether Luke is editing Matthew (removing the walkin dead) or Mark he is faced with the centurion saying “son of god” but with no reason for him to do so. So we know Luke sees a problem which needs correcting. Confirming claims the Mark’s version looks strange.
This isnt the case with Matthew – he has a reason for a terrified centurion exclaiming “surely this was the son of god!”
Mark’s gospel is about the ADOPTED son of god. The centurion would understand adoption too, since that’s how the Emperors picked their heirs. But let’s assume for a moment that Mark copied Matthew–then why would he say the centurion said what he did, while implying it’s just because Jesus died well on the cross?
We’re trying to decide which author is copying from the other author. One of the ways to find out is to look for tell-tale errors in a text which give away the secondary nature of the text.
This is one such example. Its Matthew who has the centurion saying “son of god” because in Matthew’s version the events have terrified the centurion into saying it.
Mark removes these events (for whatever reason) but fails to alter what the centurion says (unlike Luke). This single observation of an error in Mark, in favor of Matthean priority, gets supported twice over – Luke makes a change and Mark adds in a clarification to Matthew.
Matthew says it’s because they saw the earthquake. You realize nobody reading this is going to know if there was an earthquake or not. Most of the readers were never in Jerusalem, then or ever. They can’t consult seismological records. There’s no record of any pagan ever debunking Matthew’s account of events. Roman pagans also would use such dramatic symbolism to denote a major event. This is not about what really happened. Other than the crucifixion and maybe a few other things, NONE OF IT HAPPENED.
The earthquake is not the problem – its the walking dead. But its the earthquake that opens the graves to let the dead out, so they both get removed in Mark/Luke.
The christian evangelists are trying to convert the greeks – the son of god rising and appearing to a select few is what they’re staking their faith on but the dead arising and walking around Jerusalem would get ridiculed by the greeks/jews in the big cities.
And Mark, of course, never believed in the virgin birth at all.
Yes agreed. Which is why he removed it when editing Matthew/Luke.
Mark is widely believed by scholars to have based God’s words to Jesus at the baptism on a psalm–obviously Matthew wouldn’t have agreed with this interpretation, since in his gospel, Jesus was ‘begotten’ before his birth, not on the day of his baptism. I seem to recall some copies of Mark actually use this language. The relationship between the psalm and the baptism story was recognized–and you know full well the gospel authors did this.
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Yes its possible Mark has based the baptism words on psalm 2:7
Ps 2:7 “You are my son; today I have become your father”
but if he has then he has also consciously decided to edit the words – removing the part indicating adoption.
Mk 1.11 “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased”
Which would make perfect sense for a writer who believes the son is actually the Lord of Isaiah 40:3
Iskander Robertson said
how do you use soul as an ASHAM? WHAT HAS this got to do with the asham in leviticus 5?
Its variously translated as soul/life/himself/breath. It means a person’s life is being used as a guilt offering.
The asham of Lev 5 is the offering of ram to the lord for the atonement of sins, and they will be forgiven. Lev 7 tells us that this guilt offering is to be slaughtered.
Isaiah 53 must be taken as a whole, we can’t just look at one line and say there’s no bearing of sins here or no death there.
The language can be interpreted any way you want but whats the natural interpretation?
“he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed”
“he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished”
“he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
This is sacrificial language – atonement for sins. There’s no reason to interpret it in any other way. I don’t see why you’d want to?
for arguments sake, lets assume luke tells his readers to go back to isaiah 53, luke uses isaiah 53 to to show not that jesus was a human sacrifice for sins, but that jesus got unjustly executed (“He was pained because of our rebellious sins and oppressed through our (because of our) iniquities; the chastisement upon him was for our benefit, and through his wounds we were healed.”) and now one should
Ok – so why does the punishment that was on him bring us peace? why are we healed by his wounds? why is he making intercession for the trangressors? why is his life made a guilt offering? why after he’s suffered and seen the light of life will he justify many and continue to bear their iniquities?
The more embellished version is Matthew’s–you don’t mind using embellishment as a criteria when it backs you up (which it almost never does). Mark editing Matthew makes no sense on any level. Matthew adding to Mark does.
Luke has chosen to embellish less in this instance (why does his account resemble Mark’s more than Matthew’s?) But he’s still added a lot to Mark’s overall account of the crucifixion (Jesus says more in both Matthew and Luke–why did Mark want him to say less?)
Why do you think Mark, who has Jesus controlling the elements, walking on the water, debating Satan, meeting Moses and Elijah, and performing many other supernatural feats, was concerned with people not believing in an earthquake (an event that happens in real life) and risen dead people (which happens in all four gospels)?
Matthew felt the need to add more miraculous material to the story, thought Mark’s story was too subtle, too restrained, for his tastes. He felt his audience would want more, so he provided more. He probably felt that the centurion’s astonishment wasn’t adequately explained, and he wanted more Roman soldiers standing in for converted gentiles. But no version of this story really makes sense, since the only witnesses who could have passed the story on are standing far away, and wouldn’t have heard the centurion’s words. It’s something Mark got from an earlier Passion story, and Matthew felt it needed jazzing up.
I think your point is that too many people would know there was no earthquake, no risen dead showing themselves to people–so? Most people reading Matthew wouldn’t know that never happened. Most people reading Mark wouldn’t either. It’s many years later, and most gospel readers aren’t Jews, and aren’t living in Jerusalem. Marks’ point in including the centurion’s words is that here’s someone who kind of half-gets who Jesus really is–but that point isn’t negated by the earthquake or the zombies. Mark isn’t concerned with credibility–he’s got a theme, and he’s using stories that accentuate that theme. Matthew’s concern is to accentuate the divine side of Jesus more. He adds story after story that Mark doesn’t have–stories Mark never had.
The earliest version will usually be the simplest, and that is Mark’s. And Mark’s Jesus is a human man chosen by God, not a god-man born of a virgin. He became the son of god at his baptism. (Another story that shows more and more embellishment in each subsequent version–why did Mark edit out Jesus’ explaining to John why he wants to be baptized?).
You have, for reasons you will not disclose, decided Matthew was first, and you adjust all the facts to try and prove that.
But you can’t.
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What you see reading this part of the three synoptics is that Matthew and Luke both read Mark, and chose to change Mark’s version of the story in different ways–in this case, Matthew’s changes are more extreme, because Matthew himself was more extreme by temperament. More bloody-minded, one might say.
godspell said
Why do you think Mark, who has Jesus controlling the elements, walking on the water, debating Satan, meeting Moses and Elijah, and performing many other supernatural feats, was concerned with people not believing in an earthquake (an event that happens in real life) and risen dead people (which happens in all four gospels)?
Controlling the elements, walking on water, debating Satan, meeting Moses and Elijah, are all events occurring outside Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where, according to the gospels Jesus met the most resistance, and it is here where you’d find the most witnesses willing to say this didnt happen.
From Acts we get the impression of discussions in the big cities between christians, jews and greeks, and the dead walking into Jerusalem may simply have found the most resistance in would-be converts.
But again the actual reason for Mark/Luke removing this account isn’t important. Mark having the centurion say “son of god” with no motivation is enough to point towards Matthew being the original version.
Matthew felt the need to add more miraculous material to the story, thought Mark’s story was too subtle, too restrained, for his tastes. He felt his audience would want more, so he provided more. He probably felt that the centurion’s astonishment wasn’t adequately explained, and he wanted more Roman soldiers standing in for converted gentiles. But no version of this story really makes sense, since the only witnesses who could have passed the story on are standing far away, and wouldn’t have heard the centurion’s words. It’s something Mark got from an earlier Passion story, and Matthew felt it needed jazzing up.
But in Mark the centurion isn’t astonished at all! He has no reason to be – he has just crucified a false Messiah who asks god why he forsook him and then dies.
Only Matthew provides motivation for centurion. Matthew’s version may not be believable, but it makes sense.
Mark’s version is neither believable nor does it make sense. That’s what points to Matthew being first.
So your argument is that the author of Mark, writing for the Greek-speaking Christian world (or a very small segment of it), feared the testimony of witnesses in Aramaic-speaking Jerusalem, decades after the events in question?
And you don’t believe Mark was written before the Jewish uprising beginning in 66 CE, right? So four or five decades after the events depicted, whoever has survived the Romans sacking Jerusalem, destroying the temple, and putting a good part of the populace to the sword, is going to post on Reddit and tell everybody it’s a hoax. Mark wasn’t writing for a large audience, and he wasn’t writing for Jews, or he wouldn’t be writing in Greek.
Acts is packed with equally unbelievable events, so I don’t know why you’d even bring that up.
Your comment about ‘no motivation’ is a problem for you, not me. Mark doesn’t disregard motivation. I’ve explained what he thinks the motivation might be (a single man finding something remarkable about Jesus meeting death with relative resignation and dignity), and why Matthew might not think it was enough, but Mark wouldn’t EDIT OUT the explanation. He’d either leave out that story entirely, or he’d report it as he knows it. Anyone can see miraculous events happen and say “Wow, that’s really something!” What the centurion in Mark sees is a man with a remarkable soul. To Mark, that matters more. Doesn’t mean any such man existed, but dammit man, are you really going to nitpick the Passion? Then nitpick ALL OF IT. You’re selectively nitpicking to try and prove something scholars have long since dismissed–the priority of Matthew.
Obviously Mark got that story from an earlier source, and that source didn’t have earthquakes and zombies, because that source was an Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jewish Christian Mark is translating. Somebody who would know very well that didn’t happen, and would actually have reason to fear people in his audience saying “That never happened.”
Again, you refuse to admit there were accounts of Jesus’ life before the four gospels we have were written. We have no reason to think all of the first accounts were in Greek. Nor do we have any reason to think that Greek-speaking audiences would be going to Jerusalem and asking survivors of the Jewish-Roman war if they remembered any earthquakes or walking dead people. Frankly, after what people in Jerusalem had been through, they might not think that sounded so bad.
Mark faithfully reported what he’d gotten from an earlier source in Aramaic (hence Jesus speaking in Aramaic from the cross, and Mark translating for his Greek audiences).
Matthew looked at it, and like you, decided that doesn’t make sense (but even more importantly, doesn’t have enough pizzazz), and added a lot of special effects, and had a lot of Roman soldiers saying “This man was the son of God!” which makes LESS sense than Mark’s account (Roman pagans didn’t believe in one God whose name you couldn’t say out loud, but more to the point, they wouldn’t be able to see what was happening elsewhere from the area of crucifixion–Matthew hasn’t fixed the problem, he’s added to it, and he doesn’t CARE, because plausibility is not the point when you’re writing a story about man who rises from the dead).
And of course, Matthew has now created a problem far worse than anything in Mark, since people would ask “Then why didn’t everyone in Jerusalem become a follower of Jesus?”
Luke never read Matthew. John went a different way. Not hard to figure out.
You don’t have an argument. You have an idee fixe. There’s a difference.
godspell said
And you don’t believe Mark was written before the Jewish uprising beginning in 66 CE, right?
I’d think around 60CE
Your comment about ‘no motivation’ is a problem for you, not me. Mark doesn’t disregard motivation. I’ve explained what he thinks the motivation might be (a single man finding something remarkable about Jesus meeting death with relative resignation and dignity),
This isn’t in the text – and shouldn’t lead to the centurion who has just executed declaring him to be the son of god.
and why Matthew might not think it was enough, but Mark wouldn’t EDIT OUT the explanation. He’d either leave out that story entirely, or he’d report it as he knows it. Anyone can see miraculous events happen and say “Wow, that’s really something!” What the centurion in Mark sees is a man with a remarkable soul. To Mark, that matters more.
When we looking for evidence of one gospel editing another one thing to look out for is errors in the secondary text. Mark edits out the explanation but erroneously leaves in the outcome.
Mark’s error makes sense in light of him editing Matthew. It’s supported by Luke and further supported by the “right in front of him line”. Perfect example of objective evidence for Matthean priority.
When taken in isolation the account of the centurion saying “son of god” is easily best explained by Matthean priority.
Matthew looked at it, and like you, decided that doesn’t make sense (but even more importantly, doesn’t have enough pizzazz), and added a lot of special effects, and had a lot of Roman soldiers saying “This man was the son of God!” which makes LESS sense than Mark’s account (Roman pagans didn’t believe in one God whose name you couldn’t say out loud, but more to the point, they wouldn’t be able to see what was happening elsewhere from the area of crucifixion–Matthew hasn’t fixed the problem, he’s added to it, and he doesn’t CARE, because plausibility is not the point when you’re writing a story about man who rises from the dead).
Luke also, like me, decided it doesn’t make. Because … it doesn’t make sense. The centurion is not going to call a man he’s just executed “son of god”.
You’re also missing the important point about Matthew’s account – it’s doesnt happen at the crucifixion. The dead walking into Jerusalem happens after the resurrection. The centurion and the guards were ordered to guard the tomb – that’s where they saw the dead walking out.
Mark adds the line “the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus”
Compare Matthew and Luke and it should be clear Luke is editing Matthew
Matthew: “the centurion … saw … all that had happened … exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
Luke: “The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”
And of course, Matthew has now created a problem far worse than anything in Mark, since people would ask “Then why didn’t everyone in Jerusalem become a follower of Jesus?”
Indeed – so if someone was editing Matthew they would most likely take out the nonsense about the dead walking into Jerusalem (like Luke and Mark did).
The dead walking into Jerusalem is supposed to signal the end times having arrived (its probably a very early myth – removed on later re-tellings)
Compare 2 Timothy 2:17 “Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.”
ie – stop telling people the resurrection of the dead has already occurred. Remove the account of the dead rising and walking into Jerusalem from your gospels, and also remember to alter the account of the centurion saying “son of god” because it will no longer make sense.
Neither Mark nor Matthew’s story is plausible, and neither Mark nor Matthew cares that much about plausibility (or nonexistent witnesses who don’t read Greek stepping forth to refute them).
The motivation is there in Mark, because the centurion sees Jesus die–very direct.
It’s not there in Matthew, because the centurion and his men aren’t seeing the dead walking around, and it’s debatable whether they’d know about the oddly localized and entirely symbolic earthquake. Are they saying this hours later, when they return to town? Mark editing would mean editing out the entire story. Matthew is embellishing Mark’s story. But both stories are ultimately commentaries on how gentiles came to be the majority of Christians. Meaning that neither story has to be ‘real’.
It’s not about motivation for Matthew. It’s about symbolism, as you admit–so why not pile on the symbolism, abandon all restraint, as Matthew tends to do? If people will believe everything else in any gospel, why draw the line at earthquakes and zombies?
Why does Matthew have Herod massacring the infants? Because he wants to keep making Jesus’ supreme importance clear at every moment–because he wants to overdramatize every event. Mark is too tame, so he jazzes it up with other elements. Mark can’t edit out what he never read, never heard of.
Why would Mark make it one centurion saying this, instead of the entire detachment there at the cross, as in Matthew? There’s nothing supernatural about saying a bunch of people were impressed by Jesus. You say he’s editing, but that’s REWRITING. It’s not the same story, even if you leave out the earthquake and the dead rising. Mark’s story is the original, and Matthew changed it, because he didn’t think it was enough.
What is YOUR motivation? You think it’s so important, provide your own. Why are you obsessed with winning an argument you can never win, on a forum hardly anyone reads?
If you don’t answer that question, you’re conceding the argument, and I shall depart the thread triumphant.
🙂
It belatedly occurs to me that Matthew mentions a centurion earlier in his gospel.
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So going by your theory, Mark read Matthew and edited things out that he felt were going to be implausible to his Greek-speaking audience of converted gentiles.
Why’d he edit this centurion story out, and keep the later one, albeit redacted and somewhat altered?
Mark includes the story of the centurion at the cross because he wants to foreshadow the conversion of pagan gentiles–to say that they came to understand who Jesus was better than most Jews (Mark is less obnoxious about the anti-Jewish stuff than the others–which is more evidence he came first–but he’s still very much writing to pagan converts, not Jews, nor is he likely to be Jewish himself). But that same exact point is made in the earlier story. Matthew has both. Why does Mark have just the latter?
You say it’s not credible that the centurion at the cross would call Jesus the Son of God without seeing miracles. (At the same time you say he’s changing the story in Matthew because it’s not credible to his readers who obviously all believe Jesus did miracles).
Well, if he’d kept the earlier story in Matthew, wouldn’t that strengthen the later story? A centurion came to Jesus to heal his servant, showed great faith, and Jesus did him a solid. Thus making it easier to believe a different centurion (conceivably the same one) would later say something nice about Jesus.
What possible reason could Mark have for leaving that earlier story out? It’s actually one of the most popular stories in Matthew and Luke–so much so that the centurion’s famous plea to Jesus, “Lord I am not worthy to receive you” is part of the Catholic liturgy to this day.
The exclusion of that story in Mark (when it is found in Matthew and Luke) clearly proves the earlier centurion story came from some other source–possibly Q. (Personally I think Matthew and Luke had sources besides Q that Mark didn’t have, and Mark had sources they didn’t have, but not Q.)
There is no reason for Mark to have left it out. There is, in fact, every reason to think he’d have included it if he’d ever had it. But he didn’t. Because he never read Matthew. Matthew read him.
And referring back to an earlier discussion we had, why does the centurion in the earlier story refer to Jesus as ‘Lord’? He can’t possibly believe Jesus is God. He just believes this is a holy man with great healing powers (something pagans and Jews both believed in), who he treats with respect.
Clearly ‘Lord’ is being used in the context of Jesus being a man of special gifts and authority–not a god. The centurion (who has actual authority, worldly authority) is deferring to an itinerant rabbi, a man he’d normally treat with light regard, and Jesus is moved by his deference, his faith that Jesus can do this thing. I’d say that the thing that signifies most for Jesus is that this high-ranking soldier is lowering himself before a Jew because he’s concerned for a mere servant.
That is the kind of faith Jesus respected. And that is what the story is really about. And that is why I would call Jesus Lord, if I ever met him in the flesh. Not because his mom didn’t have sex. Not because he did magic tricks. Not because he was some aspect of an omniscient all-powerful cosmic entity. But because he knew what really mattered. Kindness to others.
And I suppose I have not been very kind to you. 🙁
godspell “What possible reason could Mark have for leaving that earlier story out? It’s actually one of the most popular stories in Matthew and Luke”
It wasn’t intentional – it got missed when Mark was skipping between Luke and Matthew
- Jesus Heals a man with Leprosy
- Faith of the Centurion
- Jesus Heals Many
- Jesus Calms the Storm
- Jesus Heals Demon Possessed Men
- Forgives Paralyzed Man
- Calling of Matthew
- Questioned About Fasting
- Raises Dead Girl
- Jesus Sends Out the Twelve
Above are the stories immediately after the sermon on the mount for Matthew. Luke in his gospel moves 1. and 3. to the beginning of Jesus’s ministry when he starts his healing miracles (incidentally this move causes some problems which Mark tries to fix). Luke also moves the 7. The Calling of Matthew and the two connected stories either side 6. and 8. to before the sermon on the mount (for Luke all the disciples are there before the big sermon).
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Having finished the sermon Luke then continues on with whats left (2. some additional stories, 4. 5. some parables and then 9.)
The meets up again with Matthew when the twelve are sent out.
Mark follows Luke’s re-ordering up to the sermon on the mount/plain. At that point he’s just told the Lord of the Sabbath story and so skips to this same point in Matthew. Then has the section on parables. He is then almost ready to follow Matthew for the rest of the gospel but needs to add in the all the stories he thinks he skipped over – 4. 5. 9.
He has missed 2. however.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
And so Mark’s gospel is missing the account of the Faith of the centurion.
godspell “And referring back to an earlier discussion we had, why does the centurion in the earlier story refer to Jesus as ‘Lord’? He can’t possibly believe Jesus is God. He just believes this is a holy man with great healing powers (something pagans and Jews both believed in), who he treats with respect. “
Yes Matthew uses “Lord” in a non-divine sense far more than Mark. As the term “Lord Jesus” becomes more ubiquitous for christians we would expect later gospel editions to reduce the use of “lord” with non-divine meanings.
“Lord” must reserved only for Jesus and be seen to mean “Lord of lords” or “the one Lord”.
Hence Mark’s editing of Matthew’s “Lord of the sabbath” to “Lord even of the Sabbath”.
The SON OF MAN is Lord even of the Sabbath (and still not God, but an angel).
Jesus is not the Son of Man, he is merely his herald–he, like John, is predicting someone greater than him is yet to come. Mark may not necessarily believe this, but he’s close enough to Jesus’ original utterances for that to be clear. Jesus never refers to himself in the third person in any other context, and I don’t think he did in that case either. We can agree to disagree, but I see too much evidence to the contrary.
You have not answered my question about why Mark left out the story of the centurion with the servant who needed healing. Your answer that Mark ‘missed it’ while skipping between Matthew and Luke is not to be taken seriously. I won’t even bother to rebut it.
When you have to come up with something that baroque to justify your argument, you don’t have one.
When you read Mark’s gospel, lousy Greek and all (that wouldn’t be lousy if he’d copied from Matthew and Mark’s much better Greek), you see such narrative unity–it’s a small masterwork, by someone who knows precisely what he wants to say. Much more coherent and balanced than Matthew and Luke. The notion that he arrived at this by skipping mindlessly from one to the other, creating some kind of mish-mosh of the two–beggars belief.
They used him as a source. He had other sources (probably fewer). But his gospel is still his own, and has a power that can scarcely be rivaled. For all the scattered brilliance of the other two synoptics, they show the telltale marks of having copied from many mismatching sources–they are the ones skipping back and forth, trying to make Jesus into something he wasn’t. Trying to answer questions the real answers to which they can’t accept.
Not to say Mark is ‘The Truth’–but he understands Jesus much better. If only because he knows Jesus was a human being, with flaws and fears, like the rest of us.
nafso means hIMSELF i.e his person.
god punishes the PERSON, then the person GIVES “asham” i.e his guilt ,acknowledging his sins in the past.
“The asham of Lev 5 is the offering of ram to the lord for the atonement of sins, and they will be forgiven. Lev 7
tells us that this guilt offering is to be slaughtered.”
and in what way has lev 5 got anything to do with isaiah 53:10?
he is NOT making himself a guilt offering, he is not identical to it, he is GIVING his guilt for his past sins.
so he tells himself, “these people are punishing me for no reason, but god is punishing me for the sins i did in the past(asham is FOR unintentional sins, thanks for lev 5 because it proves what i am saying, he made a REALIZATION) ”
so he is being humble .
“Isaiah 53 must be taken as a whole, we can’t just look at one line and say there’s no bearing of sins here or no death there.”
there isn’t. the PEOPLE who persecute the person later on ACKNOWLEDGE their mistake, but gods perspective is completely different. in the book of job, god punishes job for no reason, in the book of isaiah, god punishes the servant and the servant , from isaiah perspective is doing asham i.e giving his guilt.
your christian translations try to make the person INTO an asham doing INJUSTICE to the text . I am sure even Bart Ehrman does not think that ISAIAH envisioned a human sacrifice.
“The language can be interpreted any way you want but whats the natural interpretation?”
the way me and luke interpreted it.
look man, luke has people hanging around with the post ressurected jesus for HOURS and yet non of them were able to see HOLES in jesus’ hands, this REINFORCES my point that jesus was not pierced and that maybe “cable ties” were used to TIE jesus.
“our transgressions” is FROM THE PERSPECTIVE of the people, but gods perspective is completely different
the guy is being punished so people feel guilty for what they did to it.
god punishes the individual because he was NOT free from guilt. the people punish the servant because they enjoyed punishing him while he did not do any wrong to them (isaiahs perspective )
“he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished”
“he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
“This is sacrificial language – atonement for sins. There’s no reason to interpret it in any other way. I don’t see why you’d want to?”
there is NO ATONEMENT for sins lol.
that things is not an ANIMAL offering!
it doesn’t even say that it is making it self into a SACRIFICE for sins.
for argument
s sake, lets assume luke tells his readers to go back to isaiah 53, luke uses isaiah 53 to to show not that jesus was a human sacrifice for sins, but that jesus got unjustly executed (“He was pained because of our rebellious sins and oppressed through our (because of our) iniquities; the chastisement upon him was for our benefit, and through his wounds we were healed.”) and now one should “
“Ok – so why does the punishment that was on him bring us peace?”
after you feel guilty for the wrongs you did, i.e use “cable ties” /punch/kick/ slap/spit /, you realise this was wrong and this SHOULD not have been done, then it would trigger guilt and this guilt would trigger peace in the heart.
“sorry for tying you jesus”
my question to you, would you have enjoyed shouting for jesus’ crucifixion ? “crucify him, or else we gonna burn in hell” or would you, after you shouted for his crucifixion, realise that this was ALL wrong, this should not have happened, this was a good guy, you realsie this and you say “i feel guilty for this crime”
“why are we healed by his wounds?”
r we talking about lukes perspective or isiaahs perspective?
this is metaphorical langauge. the wounds heal, not the DEATH of the person atones.
there is no sacrificial language in this man, there is also no “willing went to die for sins”
when you see children suffer , or an wounded old man suffer, that does not bring “healing” to your heart?
“why is he making intercession for the trangressors?”
why do suffering people pray for their persecutors? why does jeremeaih tell the persecuted to pray for their persecutors?
“why is his life made a guilt offering? ”
it isn’t. it never is “MADE” a guilt offering.
“why after he’s suffered and seen the light of life will he justify many and continue to bear their iniquities?”
which verse is that?
godspell said
The SON OF MAN is Lord even of the Sabbath (and still not God, but an angel).
Lev 19:31 “Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord”
There is only one Lord of the sabbath (The Lord of lords) – Mark is just making this extra clear in his version.
Mark’s Jesus is not just a man he’s the Lord in the Law and the Prophets.
Jesus never refers to himself in the third person in any other context, and I don’t think he did in that case either. We can agree to disagree, but I see too much evidence to the contrary.
Mk 8:31 “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
Mk 8:38 “… the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels”
Mk 10:45 “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
You have not answered my question about why Mark left out the story of the centurion with the servant who needed healing. Your answer that Mark ‘missed it’ while skipping between Matthew and Luke is not to be taken seriously. I won’t even bother to rebut it.
When you have to come up with something that baroque to justify your argument, you don’t have one.
Its not so much the explanation of Mark missing the centurion that’s convincing but rather when you attempt to explain how Mark could write first and this explanation simply appears by the chance that you realize the impossibility of Markan priority.
When you read Mark’s gospel, lousy Greek and all (that wouldn’t be lousy if he’d copied from Matthew and Mark’s much better Greek), you see such narrative unity–it’s a small masterwork, by someone who knows precisely what he wants to say. Much more coherent and balanced than Matthew and Luke. The notion that he arrived at this by skipping mindlessly from one to the other, creating some kind of mish-mosh of the two–beggars belief.
If Mark decides to do a re-write of Matthew/Luke he simply has no choice but to occasionally use his own colloquial greek. There is just no argument around a comparison of greek writing ability of the three authors.
He’s not skipping around mindlessly. He essentially follows Luke up the sermon on the mount and then switches to Matthew for the rest of the gospel.
They used him as a source. He had other sources (probably fewer). But his gospel is still his own, and has a power that can scarcely be rivaled. For all the scattered brilliance of the other two synoptics, they show the telltale marks of having copied from many mismatching sources–they are the ones skipping back and forth, trying to make Jesus into something he wasn’t. Trying to answer questions the real answers to which they can’t accept.
Not to say Mark is ‘The Truth’–but he understands Jesus much better. If only because he knows Jesus was a human being, with flaws and fears, like the rest of us.
A gospel that only knows Jesus as a human being with flaws and fears like the rest of us doesn’t exist.
The gospel of Mark knows Jesus as the Lord of the OT, lord of the sabbath, son of god, and lord of the end-times who’s words will outlast heaven and earth.
They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hourmight pass from him. “Abba,[** you do not have permission to see this link **] Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
You will post more selectively repurposed quotes from the OT, but isn’t it self-evident from the context of ALL the gospels that Jesus disagreed with the conventional Jewish interpretations of scripture in many cases? He had his own ideas of what the passages you quote mean, and it’s hard for us to say what precisely they were, but when he says “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” that is not proof that he believed he was the Son of Man or that the Son of Man was God. He was a dissident Jew, with dissident interpretations of scripture, and you falling back on your own interpretations of a text you can’t even read in the original isn’t the least bit convincing.
You keep saying Mark disagrees with Mark and Luke, but then you say he doesn’t. Your real enemy here–the one you can never defeat, because it’s the truth–is the ever-ascending Christology that runs from Mark to Matthew and Luke, and culminates in John. But of course the original Christians saw Jesus as a man, because they knew him as a man. You would have to argue that the people who actually traveled with him saw him as God, and even the gospels make it very clear that was never true. Or he wouldn’t have to keep chiding them for their lack of faith in him. Their faith in him is lacking because much as they love him, much as they know he’s a remarkable man, they still see him as a man, because he IS one. He squats behind a bush to crap, just like everybody else. His feet get sore. His skin gets burned by the sun. He gets angry when a fig tree doesn’t have anything for him to eat on it. The All Powerful Lord of Creation doesn’t get mad at a tree–he’d have known the tree was barren before he ever got near it.
Jesus tells people that they can perform the same wonders he does if they have faith–so is EVERYONE God?
Mark’s Jesus was born a human being, and became empowered by God after his baptism, through his deep faith. That is the story being told. Like it or not. But you don’t. And yet you claim you’re not a believer. So what’s the deal?
You’re afraid to answer that question. So you’ll post more obfuscation. Do us both a favor, and skip that exercise in futility. You’ve lost the argument. And I will just keep asking you more inconvenient questions.
Iskander Robertson said
he is NOT making himself a guilt offering, he is not identical to it, he is GIVING his guilt for his past sins. so he tells himself, “these people are punishing me for no reason, but god is punishing me for the sins i did in the past(asham is FOR unintentional sins, thanks for lev 5 because it proves what i am saying, he made a REALIZATION) ” so he is being humble .
there isn’t. the PEOPLE who persecute the person later on ACKNOWLEDGE their mistake, but gods perspective is completely different. in the book of job, god punishes job for no reason, in the book of isaiah, god punishes the servant and the servant , from isaiah perspective is doing asham i.e giving his guilt.
Also “makes intercession for the transgessors” does not mean he prayed for them. It means to be placed between the punisher and the one being punished.
The answer to both has to be yes.
Isa 53:11 – seen the light of life is only dead sea scrolls/septuagaint
godspell said
You will post more selectively repurposed quotes from the OT, but isn’t it self-evident from the context of ALL the gospels that Jesus disagreed with the conventional Jewish interpretations of scripture in many cases? He had his own ideas of what the passages you quote mean, and it’s hard for us to say what precisely they were, but when he says “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” that is not proof that he believed he was the Son of Man or that the Son of Man was God. He was a dissident Jew, with dissident interpretations of scripture, and you falling back on your own interpretations of a text you can’t even read in the original isn’t the least bit convincing.
The sabbaths were rest days consecrated to the Lord, Ex 20:10 “But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God”.
They belong to the Lord.
To claim as Matthew’s Jesus did that he was “Lord of the sabbath” might at stretch mean Lord of just the sabbath, but Mark’s “Lord of even the Sabbath” makes it clear that he is Lord of everything up to and including the the day consecrated to the lord of the universe.
Mk 8:31 “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” is undeniably a claim by Mark’s Jesus to be the son of man.
The son of man is not necessarily god and neither is the messiah. But the Lord is God and as Mark tells us there is only one Lord and one God. And Mark’s Jesus, and Mark himself, claims Jesus to be that one Lord.
You keep saying Mark disagrees with Mark and Luke, but then you say he doesn’t. Your real enemy here–the one you can never defeat, because it’s the truth–is the ever-ascending Christology that runs from Mark to Matthew and Luke, and culminates in John.
But that’s easily defeated because there is zero christological progression.
John’s Jesus is messiah, son of man, son of god and the one Lord, and makes “I am/ego eimi” claims for himself
and Mark’s Jesus is messiah, son of man, son of god and the one Lord, and makes “I am/ego eimi” claims for himself.
Same of course for Matthew/Luke.
Therefore zero ascension in christology.
But of course the original Christians saw Jesus as a man, because they knew him as a man. You would have to argue that the people who actually traveled with him saw him as God, and even the gospels make it very clear that was never true. Or he wouldn’t have to keep chiding them for their lack of faith in him. Their faith in him is lacking because much as they love him, much as they know he’s a remarkable man, they still see him as a man, because he IS one. He squats behind a bush to crap, just like everybody else. His feet get sore. His skin gets burned by the sun. He gets angry when a fig tree doesn’t have anything for him to eat on it. The All Powerful Lord of Creation doesn’t get mad at a tree–he’d have known the tree was barren before he ever got near it.
But there are people even today who worship men they know as gods. Despite seeing their feet get sore and their skin get burned in the sun.
The disciples seeing Jesus as Lord, or the son of god, should not be seen as surprising.
Also Jesus does not get mad at the tree, either in Mark or Matthew. He just makes a theological point about readiness for the coming of the son of man.
Jesus tells people that they can perform the same wonders he does if they have faith–so is EVERYONE God?
If they ask they will receive. But Jesus is not god because he can do miracles, he’s god, according to Mark, because he is the messiah, who is Lord (according to David), who is god (according to Deuteronomy 6:5).
Mark’s Jesus was born a human being, and became empowered by God after his baptism, through his deep faith. That is the story being told. Like it or not. But you don’t. And yet you claim you’re not a believer. So what’s the deal?
In all four gospels he is born a human being and in none of the gospels is he empowered by god only after his baptism (deep faith or otherwise).
I believe in truth. Truth is that Matthew wrote first and that the popularity of Markan Priority is one of the greatest insults to the dignity of human intellect in history. It is so obviously false.
Honestly, I can’t even bother to read through all you typed. Same old boilerplate, tiresomely formatted to obfuscate and deny and avoid. But a quick scan makes clear you didn’t answer a single question I asked, and that’s what I expected.
God doesn’t ask God to let him off the hook. Mark’s Jesus is entirely human, and not in any sense divine, except to the extent God empowers him through faith. His Jesus says anyone can work miracles with sufficient faith–that the people he heals have really healed themselves. Meaning that it didn’t have to be Jesus God chose. Meaning he was just a man God chose. No more divine than Moses or Elijah. More important, perhaps–because his prophetic mission was the last (only, of course, it wasn’t).
Yes, we may idealize other humans (much more when we don’t know them personally), but that doesn’t make them gods–there’s no church of Elvis. Though I’m sure it’s been contemplated. You’re avoiding the issue again, which is that however deeply they loved and admired Jesus, those who traveled with him didn’t think of him as God. Even Paul didn’t think of him that way, but he deemphasized the human Jesus, made him into an angel, because he never knew the man. And neither did any of the gospel authors, but Mark came along soon enough to absorb the lower Christology of very early Christianity.
Look how little work I put into this–more than it merited.
Type whatever you want in response, but don’t expect me to read it.
godspell said
Mark’s Jesus is entirely human, and not in any sense divine, except to the extent God empowers him through faith.
Mark’s Jesus cuts short the days of the end-times for the sake of the elect whom he has chosen. He will come on clouds with great power and glory. He will he send his angels and gather his elect … from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will never pass away.
These are divine qualities – these passages can’t just be ignored.
Unless of course Bart is correct, and Jesus never meant that he himself was the Son of Man, who he keeps referring to in the third person. Why would he use the third person in this specific case, and the first person in all others?
His words haven’t passed away. Neither have Shakespeare’s. What’s your point? Mine, I suppose, would be “Thanks for keeping it short.” Appreciated.
🙂
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