Robert said
Don’t be a fool. Read Mk 1310. The gospel must first be preached to all the nations.
Yes there’s lots of things that must happen before the end-times – one of them is the gospel being preached to all nations. But these having been accomplished is when the son of man comes with the angels. At that time there are no more messages to be sent. Its the time for reaping.
Matthew’s angels gather the elect, Mark’s angels do nothing.
Then stop saying that the virgin birth was a Jewish a messianic expectation. And then you have a chance of realizing that it clearly represents a later, higher christology than what is found in Mark.
But being born of a virgin doesn’t make you divine – being the son of god does. Matthew and Mark both have Jesus as the son of god so there’s no higher christology.
The question is, if you’re writing a story about a man who is actually the divine son of god, how do you account for the man’s physical birth. Matthew chooses a virgin birth, Mark chooses to never make mention of an earthly father.
Even the gospel of John mentions Joseph as Jesus’s father.
John 6:42 “They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?”
Matthew 13:55 “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?”
Mark 6:3 “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?”
In Mark’s version Jesus’s earthly father is conspicuous by his absence. It should be seen as a conscious effort by Mark to remove him from the story.
godspell said
There is nothing in Mark to indicate Jesus was chosen before his baptism, bren. That’s where the story begins. Yes, he’s the one prophesied by The Baptist (as Mark sees it), but that’s a prophetic vision. He’s still chosen at that moment in time, not before.
Its not just a prophetic vision, its a vision about the Lord. Mark is saying Jesus is this Lord.
And there is no attempt to make The Baptist see him as the Chosen One–why? Because the real John never acclaimed him as such, and Mark knew that from his sources. That fits Mark’s theme that nobody understands who Jesus is–not even the one who proclaimed his coming, and baptized him, making him fit for the Holy Spirit to enter him–meaning he wasn’t before, for all his faith. He didn’t get baptized, as Matthew says, to follow protocol–he couldn’t become the Messiah without being purified of his sins. Before that moment, even Jesus didn’t know his destiny. So that’s the beginning of the story in Mark. A lower Christology–and an earlier one.
The john the baptist cult and christianity would have been of comparable sizes in the early years and we should expect early christian writers to want to defend against claims of jesus of nazareth being a disciple of john. As christianity began to outgrow the john the baptist cult this would have been less a problem for christians.
If this is the case Mark’s lack an apology for the baptism of jesus, as opposed to Mattew, would indicate him being a later christian writer.
Also if Marks theme is that no one knows who Jesus is – why at the end does the centurion know he’s the son of god? Mark shouldnt be seen as a sophisticated writer – giving us a narrowly focused and consistent account of a secret messianic ministry. He should be seen as an editor who occasionally misunderstands his sources and who’s editorial choices often bring up inconsistencies in the text.
John says in Mark that there is one coming after him.
God obviously came long before John. Jesus, the younger man of the two, came after. Mark does not believe the Messiah is a divine pre-existent being. We’ve had the ‘Lord’ discussion, and it didn’t go well for you. 🙂
Obviously the real John wouldn’t have thought Jesus was anything more than his disciple. But in Mark’s view, John predicts there is a man coming after him who will be the true Messiah, and he just fails to recognize Jesus is that man. However, in all three subsequent gospels, they go out of their way to make John acknowledge Jesus as his superior, and that is self-evidently a higher Christology.
Robert said
In Mark’s view it is already beginning to happen. Jesus is warning his followers to flee from Jerusalem prior to the destruction of the Temple and it is they who are in the process of preaching the gospel to all the nations. The Son of Man coming in Jerusalem is already happening with the destruction of the Temple, and those left behind will see it there (13,26), especially the Temple authorities responsible for crucifying Jesus (14,62). His messengers have already left Jerusalem and are preaching the gospel to all the nations, where they have been sent by the Son of Man (13,10.27).
No these are the times of distress, the “beginning of the birth pains” and “the end is still to come” 13:7,8.
Then the gospel will be preached to all nations and the abomination will stand where it does not belong. At that time if anyone says “Look, here is the Messiah! or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it.” 13:21.
These days will be cut short for the sake of the elect, but following all this “following that distress” 13:24 the son of man will come. ie after the gospel has been preached to all nations. The son of man will gather his elect and send his angels to apparently do nothing.
Being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin is certainly a much higher christology than in adulthood being baptized with a baptism for the forgiveness of sins and then seeing an image of the Holy Spirit descend upon you as an adult. Because Matthew has this much earlier and higher christology, he has John the Baptist object to Jesus coming to be baptized, instead saying that it is John who should be baptized by Jesus. If you cannot see that, there is no hope for you ever making sense of Markan priority.
This would all be true if Mark didnt consider Jesus to be both Lord and the son of god.
Being either Lord or the son of god is a higher christology than being born a virgin or conceived via the holy spirit. Genesis 18:10 suggests Isaac was miraculously conceived “And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son”.
None of the gospel writers want Jesus to have been baptised by John but there forced to by historical necessity (gospel of John has John baptising and “sees Jesus coming to him” 1:29.
The baptism is not an invention of Mark – he hasnt included it as indicating the moment of Jesus’s being chosen by god. For Mark Jesus is the eternal Lord.
For all we know, Mark did not even know the name of Jesus’ father. To claim that he knew of Joseph and consciously removed him from the story is completely unfounded. You can make up whatever you want to try and prove or convince yourself that Mark knew Matthew and removed Joseph from the story, but no scholars of any note take this view seriously. There’s a reason for that.
I’m making no argument based on Mark knowing Joseph’s name or not (although it would be odd that he knows the name of his mother and brothers but not the father) but that unless Mark believed in the virgin he would have known that Jesus has an earthly father.
It would then also seem odd that Mark has the people in nazareth say we know his mother brothers and sisters but make no mention of knowing the father. And this should be seen significant given that we know the author of Mark believes Jesus’s father is God. Is Mark (the christian who believes Jesus’s father is god) subtly given us a hint that Jesus has no earthly father? I think so.
godspell said
John says in Mark that there is one coming after him.God obviously came long before John. Jesus, the younger man of the two, came after. Mark does not believe the Messiah is a divine pre-existent being. We’ve had the ‘Lord’ discussion, and it didn’t go well for you. 🙂
Obviously the real John wouldn’t have thought Jesus was anything more than his disciple. But in Mark’s view, John predicts there is a man coming after him who will be the true Messiah, and he just fails to recognize Jesus is that man. However, in all three subsequent gospels, they go out of their way to make John acknowledge Jesus as his superior, and that is self-evidently a higher Christology.
Mark believes the messiah is Lord – and by Lord he means the OT Lord of which there is no other.
A higher christology than what? Marks christology is Lord and Son of God. In order for Matthew/Luke/John to have a higher christology than mark they must go higher than Lord and Son of God.
Which of Matthew/Luke or John goes higher than that?
Also only John goes out of his way to John acknowledge Jesus as his superior. In Matthew and Luke both have John not knowing if Jesus is the Messiah, John sends his disciples to ask “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” which Mark doesnt have.
Luke doesnt have Matthew’s words of John to Jesus at the baptism so the only author who positively and consistently has John not knowing is Luke – which tells us this isn’t a good indicator of priority.
Bren, Mark doesn’t mean by ‘Lord’ what you want him to mean by ‘Lord’. You can’t prove that he does. No serious scholar believes he does. You just keep falling back on that, because you want to prove Matthew came first. It’s mindnumbingly predictable, and not the least bit convincing. Kyrios could mean ‘teacher’. It could mean the head of the household. It could also mean a holy man, chosen by God, which is what Mark means by it.
If Mark believes Jesus is God, then why does his Jesus fail to do any serious miracles in Nazareth? God doesn’t need people to believe in Him to work wonders–the OT God created the world and its creatures when there were no people around at all.
In Mark, Jesus only has power because of his faith. Meaning that he has no power of his own. Meaning that he is simply a mortal vessel for God’s power. Which is probably more or less what the real Jesus believed. Though not in the same precise way Mark does.
Robert said
I know of only one critical scholar who defends such an early dating of Mark. And he too is completely convince of Markan priority. You still have not presented any reason for denying the obvious, that those sent are gathering the elect only under the authority of the one who sent them, thus its is also true to say that he is gathering the elect through sending his messengers. That you argue otherwise and claim to see here an argument for Matthean priority is absurd.
Well I dont think its a particularly strong argument in favor of Matthew but i think his version is more likely to be the original one.
For why doesn’t mark use an infinitive? – “he will send the angels to gather his elect”.
He uses two 3rd person singular future verbs – “he will send” and “he will gather”. It reads like two separate and independent actions. ie less likely to be original than matthews “he will send his angels and they will gather … “
You’ve completely avoided the obviously secondary character of of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism, where John protests that it is he who should be baptized by Jesus.
John and Jesus’s exchange in Matthew is obviously secondary to the pure historical account of the baptism.
But not obviously a secondary to Mark’s version. Because there’s no to add it to Mark. The lead up to the Mark’s baptism has John say I baptize with water but he will baptize with the holy spirit. And following the baptism heaven opens and god says this is my son whom I love.
Furthermore being baptized by someone does not necessarily make you lesser – a priest is not above the king he’s anointing.
So in Mark’s version there’s nothing which puts John obviously above Jesus.
But in Matthew’s version there is! Both John and Jesus agree in Matthew’s version that there’s something wrong with Jesus being baptized by John. Jesus says “let it be so for now” so there’s an explicit statement in Matthew that John is temporarily above Jesus.
We therefore have a motive for Mark removing this passage if he’s editing Matthew.
godspell said
Bren, Mark doesn’t mean by ‘Lord’ what you want him to mean by ‘Lord’. You can’t prove that he does. No serious scholar believes he does. You just keep falling back on that, because you want to prove Matthew came first. It’s mindnumbingly predictable, and not the least bit convincing. Kyrios could mean ‘teacher’. It could mean the head of the household. It could also mean a holy man, chosen by God, which is what Mark means by it.If Mark believes Jesus is God, then why does his Jesus fail to do any serious miracles in Nazareth? God doesn’t need people to believe in Him to work wonders–the OT God created the world and its creatures when there were no people around at all.
In Mark, Jesus only has power because of his faith. Meaning that he has no power of his own. Meaning that he is simply a mortal vessel for God’s power. Which is probably more or less what the real Jesus believed. Though not in the same precise way Mark does.
Yes ‘Lord’ can mean teacher or master or head of the household or hold man etc. What matters is context. If Mark had said the disciples chose Jesus as their lord, this wouldn’t mean god or would just mean leader.
So in what context does Mark first use ‘Lord’ as a reference to Jesus? The context is a quote from the Old Testament where Isaiah prophesies the Lord coming to Zion bringing good news to jerusalem, tending to his flock like a shepherd.
Jesus is ‘Lord’ to Mark and Jesus fulfills this prophesy for Mark.
Mark’s Jesus is the lord who comes to Jerusalem “in the name of the LORD”.
Mark’s Jesus denies being David’s son because he is in fact the one David called ‘Lord’. This immediately after telling the teacher of the law that the ‘the Lord our God is one Lord’.
What else can Mark’s Jesus be but the Lord of the OT?
In 5:19 Mark’s Jesus tells the man he has just cured to “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you”.
Is he referring to himself here or is he saying God has cured the man? Or does it not matter because they’re both the one Lord?
Yes, Jesus comes to Jerusalem in the name of God, meaning that he’s not God himself.
The David quote does not say Jesus is the one David called Lord. It says the Messiah doesn’t have to be a descendant of David. Mark was very aware that most Jews denied Jesus could be Messiah, in part, because he wasn’t of David’s line. Hence Matthew and Luke later trying to prove (by very different fictional genealogies) that he was. It has nothing to do with Jesus being God. It has to do with Mark having a lower Christology, where Jesus is not the divinely begotten son of a virgin, and not descended from David, and really just a man God has chosen, and that is what matters.
Mark’s Jesus doesn’t believe he’s healed anyone. Their own faith allows the power of God to heal them. He doesn’t take credit, and this is a consistent pattern with Mark’s Jesus. He who exalts himself shall be humbled. And don’t think I didn’t notice you ducked my question about why Mark’s Jesus is seemingly disempowered when surrounded by people who knew him as a boy, and don’t believe in him. If by ‘Lord’ Mark means God, then why is God dependent on a handful of Galillean yokels to work miracles?
Answer the question, Bren. If Mark thinks Jesus is God, why does he tell a story in which Jesus is depicted as just a guy suffering from performance anxiety? Why does he need people to believe in him? God existed before there were any people to believe in Him.
godspell said
Answer the question, Bren. If Mark thinks Jesus is God, why does he tell a story in which Jesus is depicted as just a guy suffering from performance anxiety? Why does he need people to believe in him? God existed before there were any people to believe in Him.
Jesus isn’t god because he can do miracles – lots of others in the OT and NT performed miracles.
But its a theme in all the gospels that its the faith of the person that allows them to be healed. Even John 6:65 has “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” And John certainly thinks Jesus is god.
Matthew says Jesus did not do any miracles because of their lack of faith. Which implies Jesus punishing the people.
Mark changes it to ‘could not do’, which implies the fault is with people themselves. Jesus won’t convince people with miracles, they must have faith already.
Also Mark has the secondary edition “except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.” Well Mark gives us lots of these healing stories in other places so how is Nazareth any different? (Its another secondary edit causing problems in Mark’s account).
Robert said
It only functions as a weak argument for you because of your invalid assumptions that are in effect circular argumentation (Mark’s text does not make sense, therefore Matthew must be original, and Mark is mangling the sense of Matthew) for your position. Your assumptions make it impossible for you to understand both the text and the argumentation of scholars. Pointless to try and engage you in actual discussion. Those who understand the languages and Markan style know how to understand the text of Mark, merely seeing here potentially ambiguous or inadroit syntax of Mark, likely affected by a Semitic interference, which Matthew smooths over, a clear indication that he is secondary for all who are not ignorantly grasping at straws to try and find support for a theory abandoned by scholars over a century ago.
But there’s nothing ambiguous or inadroit in what Marks is saying here. There’s nothing wrong with his greek, nothing that that needs correcting. He clearly expresses that the son of man will send the angels and he will gather his elect.
Its only upon noticing that Matthew’s version makes more narrative sense and with the assumption of markan priority that anyone would want to think Marks text needs smoothing over.
This makes no sense whatsoever. Mark’s account of Jesus being baptized by John with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is obviously difficult for the readers of Mark, who also uses prophetic scripture to foreshadow the role of John as preparing the way for Jesus, the Lord in the cited scripture, also the Son of Man who himself has the authority to forgive sins. Matthew resolves this difficulty with his invented dialogue of John protesting that he should be baptized by Jesus. You desperately try to obfuscate these facts by falsely characterizing the text of Mark as a priest anointing a king, but that is just more of your inability or unwillingness to confront the text honestly and intelligently. John is not a priest anointing Jesus. Jesus comes to John to be baptized with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
There are two possible causes of embarrasment to christians – jesus taking a baptism for forgivenes of sins and jesus being placed lower than john the baptist.
Matthew’s words between John and Jesus dont address the forgiveness of sins issue – so Matthew cant be seen as secondary in this regard.
Matthew’s words only address John being seemingly placed above Jesus.
But Marks version needs to updating in this regard – Jesus is clearing above him the whole way through (baptizes with holy spirit, god says this is my son).
Its matthew’s version that explicitly puts John above Jesus (temporarily) and its this version that would need updating by later christians.
“Could not do” means Jesus didn’t have the power to do it. That is unequivocal. Mark isn’t editing Matthew, Matthew is changing Mark. Matthew’s Christology is higher, so his Jesus can do miracles whenever he wants to, and has chosen not to in Nazareth, because the people in Nazareth have proven themselves unworthy.
Matthew’s Jesus isn’t God (even John’s Jesus is merely manifestation of God’s power in human form), but he’s not dependent on the faith of others to work wonders. Mark’s Jesus can lose power to do anything when surrounded by unbelievers, and a prophet is not without honor except in his homeland–or hometown. Obviously this incident of Jesus returning to Nazareth and being unable to make anyone believe in his power is a real memory, that Mark interprets in his own way. But the way he interprets it is quite different from Matthew, and denotes a lower Christology–a fully human Jesus, who has no power other than what comes from his own faith and that of those around him.
Nobody actually does miracles in Jewish scripture. You should know this. Not Moses, not Elijah, not Elisha. Samson has no strength unless God gives it to him. God is the prime mover behind all miracles, and Jesus is merely a conduit for God’s power. Truthfully, Matthew and Luke believe the same thing, more or less, but they can’t imagine Jesus’ faith ever failing him, because their Jesus isn’t fully human, is partly divine, due to his divine conception. That’s why Matthew’s Jesus isn’t baptized for the forgiveness of sins, because he was born without sin. Mark’s Jesus was born the way all of us are born, and was unable to hear God’s voice, accept his mission as Messiah, until he was cleansed by baptism. But he is still capable of doubting, of sinning, and of failing. He’s still just a man, however special.
Which when you think about it, helps explain why he could be taken and crucified, and why he cries out to God in anguish. Even his faith can fail at times. He prays to let the cup pass his lips–God woudln’t do that. He’s just a mortal man, with mortal fears, mortal weaknesses, mortal doubts. But when he has faith, the power of God flows through him, and he tells people they can have the same power flowing through them–in the Kingdom, all will have this power.
This is so obvious. Why do you refuse to see it?
Later, when Jesus is accused of working wonders through the devil, and he gives his House Divided speech, it’s interesting to see how he says that those who say his power is demonic are slandering the Holy Spirit. Meaning that his power comes not from himself, but from the Holy Spirit, that entered him when he was baptized. They are right to say he has no power himself, to harm or cure, but they are mistaken as to the source. Mark did think this out in some detail (working from earlier sources we don’t have), and it’s slandering him to say he just copied and edited Matthew. (And in worse Greek than Matthew, which is truly weird–unless Matthew was copying and rewriting Mark, in better Greek).
Matthew didn’t just copy Mark either, of course. He had sources Mark didn’t have. He tells this story in less detail–he does not have Jesus say that people are slandering the Holy Spirit by accusing him of having a demon. He also says, please note, that Jesus is working his wonders through the power of God (a little higher Christology than saying it’s the Holy Spirit, a proxy of God’s).
Matthew doesn’t believe Jesus is God either. None of the gospel authors went that far. John came the closest. Yes, he is Lord to all of them, but Lord in the same sense that Pilate had the power of life and death over Jesus, and yet was not the Emperor. There is a recurring theme of deputized power in the gospels. But as the story gets retold, Jesus becomes a bit less human and a bit more divine, every time. No doubt Mark’s Jesus is more divine than he was in the sources Mark used.
This is a fruitful discussion, and I thank you for making it possible. Your errors have been most helpful. 🙂
godspell,
Your comments mean a great deal to me and are appreciated!
Please explain what you mean by “Nobody actually does miracles in Jewish scripture.” All that Moses did to have the pharaoh let the people leave would seem miraculous to me. If miracle can be defined: “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency”, then changing water into blood would seem miraculous to me.
What I mean is that Moses does nothing himself. God does the miracles. That’s made very clear in Exodus–it is universally agreed that Moses has no power of his own whatsoever. His power comes from his faith in God. Now that is a very sacred thing to Jews, Christians, and Muslims–to be a conduit for God’s power. It’s not something to be taken lightly, and most people can never do it. (Because most people have weak faith, or none.)
But it’s not like Superman having the power to leap tall buildings and change the course of mighty rivers because he’s under a yellow sun instead of a red one. Superman has inherent power. If he were to lose his memory and forget he’s Superman, he’d still have the same abilities, unless they were somehow removed through one of the various gimmicks the writers came up with over the years.
Moses and Jesus have only the power God gives them, which they can only wield through faith. This is not an idea that began with the Jews, obviously. Most religions have this basic idea that mystic power derives from outside the person–shamans, witches, etc–all doing what they do by invoking supernatural agencies. Practitioners of magic often believe they can command demons or gods to do their bidding, but in the biblical tradition, God is using Moses and Jesus as his catspaws. He commands, they obey.
The question that Jesus is asked is not “How do you have the power to do this?” but rather “By whose authority are you doing this?” And his answer is that he is doing this by the authority of God, and God’s subordinates, the Son of Man and the Holy Spirit (though Mark seems to think Jesus is the Son of Man, which I think is misunderstanding what Jesus means by that term–I agree with Bart that Jesus is speaking of an angel God will send to inaugurate the Kingdom).
Therefore, Moses is not himself the source of any of the ten plagues visited upon Egypt. That was God’s doing. Moses didn’t part the waters, God did.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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