Robert said
Wow, you really don’t understand, do you. Please go back to the thread where we already discussed this in detail. Or go back and read my posts in this thread. See if you can better understand. I’m tired of repeating myself for you in multiple threads.
Yes I don’t understand. You say in reference to “his elect” in post 149 that “Matthew might have wanted to make that explicit”. You are saying Matthew chose to alter Mark to make explicit that Jesus did the selecting. And that he achieved this by changing to the words “his elect”.
Which is why I keep asking – do you think the words “his elect” make it explicit that Jesus is doing the selecting?
It’s not unfortunate for a reader who is not obsessed with only one possible pre-conceived idea. You really don’t think Mark can use kurios for both God and his son in the same chapter? How about in the same verse? Cf Mk 12,36. I’ve already illustrated for you in the previous thread how ridiculous it is to consider Jesus referring to himself in Mk 13,20.
Yes but your explanation wasn’t a very good one. Mark says the Lord chose the elect. That the son of man will return to gather his elect. And that the disciples won’t know the hour when the Lord of the house will return.
Matthew says “keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come”. Why would he feel the need to change “If the Lord had not cut them short for the sake of his elect whom he chose”?
You’re reading the wrong verse in Matthew. I already directed you to Mt 24,22, not Mt 24,42.
Yes in 24:42 he is happy to use “Lord” in the third person for Jesus – why then would he fell the need to change it when writing 24:22?
As you should know, it all depends on the nature of the omissions and additions. I’ve previously demonstrated for you several instances where we see Matthew’s (and Luke’s) tendency to abbreviate Mark’s pleonastic, verbose, or somewhat sloppy style. Even apart from Mark’s style, it is a common tendency of later authors using source material to exclude details that are not germane to their use of a story. At one time, you actually admitted this to be the case and claimed that Mark actually did this to Matthew sometimes. I asked you to show me one counter example of Mark abbreviating a story in Matthew. To this date, you have not been able to do so. So now you try to argue the opposite?
You’ll have to send me a link for that I don’t recall the details. But Mark abbreviates the preaching of John the baptist, he abbreviates the actual baptism of Jesus by John – etc.
One could say its about the implications of Jesus being the Son of God. But (almost) nothing about the nature of this “sonship”. It can mean lots of things to different people. What does it mean to Mark? His only indication is the parable of the vineyard.
Do you have a substantive point to make here?
Yes, the only instance where Mark gives us an idea of his understanding of the nature of the phrase “son of god” with respect to Jesus is in analogy with the son of the owner of the vineyard in chapter 12. And here this son is pre-existent to being sent into the vineyard to after the failure of previous servants sent to collect the harvest.
Why would anyone need any indication other than that? You’re position is essentially, “I’m right to interpret Mark as talking about Jesus’ eternal pre-existence prior to his being sent into the world and incarnated, even though Mark never says anything about Jesus’ eternal pre-existence prior to his being sent into the world and incarnated. Do you have any arguments against my interpretation other than the fact that Mark never says anything about Jesus’ eternal pre-existence prior to his being sent into the world and incarnated?”
Mark gives plenty of statements which can be interpreted as implying pre-existence and as above in analogy with the son in the parable of the vineyard.
But this parable says nothing whatsoever about how long the son existed, certainly nothing about the son pre-existing eternally before being sent into the world and incarnated as mortal human after the previous slaves had been harassed and killed long ago. Nothing. The Lord had a beloved son before he sent him to the vineyard. It’s impossible to send a son to the vineyard that did not yet exist. He can’t send a non-existent son. Saying that the son existed before the Lord sent his son means nothing more than that. Actually you would have a stronger argument if Mark’s text actually did say that the Lord of the vineyard sent his not yet existing son into the world where he was incarnated and began to exist as a man. Why don’t you argue that it is really Jesus (ὁ κύριος Mk 12,9.11) who sent his beloved son, God’s grandson to the vineyard?
Because Jesus is the one who is going to be killed – not the one who sent the one to be killed.
The point of the vineyard story is that the son is only sent after the failure of the servants. Collecting the fruit at harvest time is supposed to be the servants role, not the son’s. As they all fail in succession he is left with just his beloved Son. Only then does he decide to send him.
The natural reading of this is that Mark believes God did not send his beloved Son until all the previous prophets had failed. He was left with no choice but to then send the Son.
Robert said
No, that’s not true. You claimed that both Matthew and Luke included the undignified admission that the lord of heaven and earth used to be a baby. And that Luke and then Mark were following an increasing tendency to write Joseph out of the story. Thus you considered Mark to have a higher, more dignified presentation of Christ.
The “thus” part is wrong.
It should read “thus you considered that Mark (like John) avoided mention of the topic.
No, you were not only claiming that Matthew did not invent the story. And you only backed down somewhat on your claim that the virgin birth was a pre-existing Jewish belief about the Messiah, that it was not a universally held Jewish belief, when I pointed out to you that such can not be found anywhere in the entire corpus of Jewish literature. At that point you even tried to support your unjustified claim by citing the gospel of Matthew as an expression of this belief in Jewish literature.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here – are you agreeing with me that I did not claim it was a universally held jewish belief?
And if I was not only claiming Matthew did not invent the story what else was I claiming?
If I remember correctly I said it was likely Matthew would invent a prophecy to back up a historic fact or invent a historical claim to go along with a prophecy but that it was unlikely he would invent a prophecy to back up an invented historical claim.
brenmcg said
Stephen said
brenmcg wrote
The better reading of Mark’s text is that he held to same christology as his contemporaries, Matthew Paul, Luke and John.
So you’re actually claiming that all these writers have the same Christology?
Yes
Well then there’s really no need to continue this discussion.
There’s no substitute for a close reading.
Robert said
Same thing. Omitting an undignified element in a story creates a more dignified story.
Right – a more dignified story – not a higher christology.
If I remember correctly I said it was likely Matthew would invent a prophecy to back up a historic fact or invent a historical claim to go along with a prophecy but that it was unlikely he would invent a prophecy to back up an invented historical claim.
Evidently you do not remember correctly:
brenmcg said
With the virgin birth there are three possibilities
1) the virgin birth of the messiah was a traditional Jewish belief and Matthew invented the story of Jesus’s virgin birth …
I think 1) is the most likely. …
… Of the three possibilities my personal opinion in this case is that the first possibility is most likely – Matthew invented the story of the virgin birth to fit an ancient prophesy.
Right, what were the other 2 possibilities?
1) Matthew invented the story to match a preexisting prophecy
2) Matthew invented the prophecy to match a historical fact of a virgin birth
3) Matthew invented both the prophecy and the historical claim
Is that right?
Robert said
I don’t care what you think the other possibilities were; I was merely disagreeing with your view, the one you think is likely. You thought your claim that the Jews believed the messiah would be born of a virgin was an earlier, Jewish belief, undignified, and that Mark had a higher, more evolved, more dignified view, which discarded with the undignified christology evident in Matthew and Luke.
But I wouldn’t argue that Mark has a higher more evolved view of christ than Matthew/Luke. I argue they all have the same view of christ.
Mark just avoids mention of the lord of the universe being a baby or child and that that’s the reason he left out the nativity accounts of Matthew/Luke.
brenmcg said
Robert said
I don’t care what you think the other possibilities were; I was merely disagreeing with your view, the one you think is likely. You thought your claim that the Jews believed the messiah would be born of a virgin was an earlier, Jewish belief, undignified, and that Mark had a higher, more evolved, more dignified view, which discarded with the undignified christology evident in Matthew and Luke.
But I wouldn’t argue that Mark has a higher more evolved view of christ than Matthew/Luke. I argue they all have the same view of christ.
Mark just avoids mention of the lord of the universe being a baby or child and that that’s the reason he left out the nativity accounts of Matthew/Luke.
And you see that view as saying that Jesus was pre-existent in some undefined form? Prior to being born as a person? I am just trying to clarify your position, which is difficult to extract from the long sequence of arguing back and forth.
Robert said
You are selectively quoting me and ignoring the most important part. Matthew may have wanted to make it clear that it was Son of Man who selected the elect. This would be in accord with his own theology found in this same context of the sheep & goats parable. But he did not do this merely by ‘adding’ his to Mk 13,27. More importantly he did so by deleting the Mark’s express statement that it was the Lord who had chosen the select. It was clear to Matthew and most everyone else that the Lord in Mk 13,20 is not Jesus.
So Matthew may have wanted to make it clear that it was the Son of Man who selected the elect, and he did this by first removing “Lord” from Mark’s version and then adding “his elect”.
So by ending up with just the phrase “they will gather his elect from the four winds” Matthew has now made it explicitly clear that the son of man does the selecting. Is that what you’re claiming?
The point is that Matthew did change Mk 13,20 and rewrote it as Mt 24,22. He removed Mark’s clear reference to the Lord (ie, God) shortening the days and selecting the elect because of his theology that it was the Son of Man that separated the sheep and the goats in his own unique parable that he places in this very discourse.
Mt 24,42 is completely irrelevant to this discussion of Mark understanding of identify of the Lord in Mk 13,20. It is nonetheless interesting when trying to understand Matthew to note that Matthew will use ὁ κύριος ὑμῶν in the third person to refer to the Son of Man only after changing Mark’s ὁ κύριος τῆς οἰκίας to οἰκοδεσπότης. Thus he understands and respects Mark’s use of ὁ κύριος τῆς οἰκίας as a character in the parable.
Mark makes a clear reference to the Lord, but it is not clearly God if he has used ‘God’ in the previous verse.
Luke also uses οἰκοδεσπότης in his version (Luke 12:39) so this would likely be the original version. And therefore Mark would be changing it to make sure the “Lord” of the end-times is referring to Jesus.
‘God’ is God in Mark and ‘Lord’ is mostly Jesus.
“Prepare the way for the Lord”
JAS said
And you see that view as saying that Jesus was pre-existent in some undefined form? Prior to being born as a person? I am just trying to clarify your position, which is difficult to extract from the long sequence of arguing back and forth.
And as I was just adding, when Robert posted, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that Mark may not cover Jesus’ birth because that isn’t a particularly important element to him, focusing instead on Jesus’ ministry as an adult.
I don’t say Mark leaves out the nativity therefore he has a higher christology. I counter the argument that Mark’s lack of a nativity indicates a lower christology.
I think the assumption should be that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John agree unless a positive statement can be found indicating they don’t. You won’t find anything in Mark which says Jesus was just an ordinary man until God decided to adopt him as his son. The only positive indication of what Mark means by “Son” is the parable of the vineyard – which is certainly not adoptionist.
Robert said
And yet you claim that the things Mark avoids are “quite undignified.” You don’t understand that dignified is higher than undignified? And you explicitly claimed that this was an evolution. Don’t you understand that ‘more evolved’ is higher than ‘less evolved’?
No its just avoidance of an embarrassing topic. If Mark said Jesus came to earth as a full fledged adult human being this would be a higher christology. But avoidance of discussing Jesus being carried around as a baby is not. (Mark and John the two later gospels avoid it, Matthew and Luke the two earlier gospels talk about it).
And, as must be obvious enough, none of the people writing these accounts are eye witnesses of Jesus’ birth or childhood. The idea of these events seem important to us because they are now part of the story, but would they necessarily have seemed important to all of the apostles? Would they have seemed important enough to try to get testimony from Mary? It is certainly possible that the whole nativity aspect of the story was an afterthought, a sense that there needed to be a miraculous beginning as a back story. Indeed, given that Mathew and Luke provide such a story, it seems more reasonable that they are adding to Mark than that Mark suddenly leaves it out. That supposition, of course, is merely my own impression.
brenmcg said
Stephen said
Well then there’s really no need to continue this discussion.
There’s no substitute for a close reading.
Why? all 5 of Matthew, Paul, Luke, Mark and John believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the son of god, Lord, and possessed the name of god.
Why indeed?
Look Robert seems to enjoy this circular back and forth. I do not. To me it’s pointless. I prefer to post about things that interest me. The funny part is that i consider Markan priority one of the few settled critical issues in NT scholarship. And only someone with blinders on cannot see how these authors differ one from another. Sorry but I suspect you won’t miss me.
Robert said
No. For some strange reason, you’re still minimizing the extent of Matthew’s changes, even continuing to avoid mention of the two most explicit changes that Matthew made. He does not simply remove the word ‘Lord’, he removes the whole phrase specifically denoting that the Lord selected the elect. He also adds to this context his own unique parable that specifically says it is the Son of Man (not the Lord or God or the Father in heaven) who separates the sheep from the goats. Only with these two major changes, which you have bizarrely continued to avoid, can we suspect that his later addition of “his” elect might be a purposeful intent to indicate that it is exclusively the role of the Son of Man to select the elect.
So without these two changes you would be unsuspecting that “his elect” might be a purposeful intent to indicate that it is exclusively the role of the son of man selecting the elect?
If reading in isolation the verses “And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other” you would be unsuspecting that Matthew understands that it is the Son of Man doing the selecting?
What about Mark’s phrase in 13:20 “but for the sake of the elect whom he chose“? What’s your explanation for Mark having the part in the bold?
Mk 13,19 requires ‘God’ because it is a reference to the creation account in Genesis 1. It’s proximity to Mk 13,20 is not really an issue since, as we’ve already seen, Mark can even use two different senses of ‘Lord’ within a few words of each other. Surely he can use one sense of the word in the same sense of the meaning of the preceding verse.
He could do but he could also use the two different words intentionally. If he’s talking about God he normally sticks with “God”
Mark 12:24-27 “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? … have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
If he’s talking about the beginning and end why not stick with God – God creates and God elects the righteous.
Why not 13:19-20 – why is it not an intentional change?
Finally, you’re still neglecting the text critical arguments against ‘his’ being part of the original text of Mk 13,27.
I didn’t know there were any.
Still in the present context there’s no point discussing it unless we can first agree that “his elect” makes explicit who is doing the selecting.
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