Robert quoting Rabbi Jonathan Klawans
How then are we to understand the actions and words attributed to Jesus in the Last Supper traditions?
Jesus’ words can be best understood when we keep in mind much of what was said earlier (especially, in chapter 2) with regard to metaphor. … ancient Jews were certainly capable of understanding metaphors (both old and new), and they were even adept at creating new ones themselves. … Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of any understanding of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper that does not grant on some level (stated or not) that Jesus’ equation of wine with blood and bread with flesh is a metaphor of some sort.
Steve Campbell, author and publisher of Historical Accuracy
Or a direct reference to the cannibalism of the son of Mary in the works of Josephus.
Robert
There is nothing in the text of Paul that indicates any awareness whatsoever of the significantly later narrative of Josephus.
Steve Campbell, author and publisher of Historical Accuracy
1 Corinthians, Chapter 11 where Paul speaks of the Last Supper with exact words from the gospels or the gospels using the exact words of 1 Cor.
Paul also speaks (1 Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verse 5) of Jesus, after dying, appearing to the 12 Disciples instead of 11 Disciples because Judas would not be counted as a disciple who saw the risen Christ.
Your bringing up the text of Paul is rejected by me because the text of Paul is questionable.
Believe what you want, Robert. We agree to disagree.
What would you say the symbols alternatively represent? Metaphor for what, alternatively?
Metaphor for doing the will of God even in the face of physical harm, even the loss of body and blood. “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.”
Steefen
Jesus: This is my death, me giving my body and blood for the will of God.
I disagree with that idea of yours.
The will of God is expressly stated in Leviticus 17: 10.
Believe what you want, Robert. We agree to disagree.
Robert said
Steefen said
Your bringing up the text of Paul is rejected by me because the text of Paul is questionable.
The text of Paul is questionable in what way? Do you (still?) think that Josphus or his cohorts forged the letters of Paul? Or do you think that Paul’s account of the Lord’s supper is a later interpolation? Or do you think that the text of Paul is questionable in some other manner?
The reasons already given is all I have to say. I am not interested in discussing the matter with you.
1 Corinthians, Chapter 11 where Paul speaks of the Last Supper with exact words from the gospels or the gospels using the exact words of 1 Cor.
Paul also speaks (1 Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verse 5) of Jesus, after dying, appearing to the 12 Disciples instead of 11 Disciples because Judas would not be counted as a disciple who saw the risen Christ.
1 Corinthians is invalid because Paul was not at the Last Supper but uses the exact wording about the Last Supper as the gospels.
Believe what you want, Robert. We agree to disagree.
Robert said
Steefen said
What would you say the symbols alternatively represent? Metaphor for what, alternatively?
Metaphor for doing the will of God even in the face of physical harm, even the loss of body and blood. “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.”
Steefen
Jesus: This is my death, me giving my body and blood for the will of God.
I disagree with that idea of yours.
The will of God is expressly stated in Leviticus 17: 10.
Believe what you want, Robert. We agree to disagree.
It’s fine that you disagree, of course, but please do not overly simplify my views. I have taken no pposition whatsoever on what the will of God is with respect to Leviticus. Nor do I think Jesus necessarily considered it the will of God that he sacrifice himself. My view is a little more subtle than that. Just because Jesus may not have been willing to back down from his teaching and other potentially controversial activities even in the face of physical harm or death, that need not imply that he saw it as God’s will that he give his life as some kind of ssacrificial atonement for the sins of others. That’s later theological reflection, attempting to assign meaning to Jesus’ death.
You bring something up in discussion then say it is not your view. I asked what do you consider the metaphor and symbols were. If you responded with an answer that was not subtle, an answer that was not yours, that is your error.
Your Dishonest Tactic:
You are asked what you think.
You do not reply with what you think.
Someone repeats what you say.
You then deny you were sincerely answering the question and blame the person who correctly repeated what you said.
I look forward to when this site has a functional ignore capability. You waste people’s time with your various misdirections.
= = =
If you want to say you cannot accept and commit to the will of God being expressed in the Torah, in Leviticus, I am not persuaded.
Robert
…your reasons for finding the relevance of Paul’s text are insufficient unless you go further and make a convincing case that this text was not written when the overwhelming majority of scholars judge it to have been written.
Steve Campbell, Author and Publisher of Historical Accuracy
Because of your insincerity and more, I am not going further into the discussion with you.
Your Dishonest Tactic (violation of my discussion standards):
You are asked what you think.
You do not reply with what you think.
Someone repeats what you say.
You then deny you were sincerely answering the question and blame the person who correctly repeated what you said.
I look forward to when this site has a functional ignore capability. You waste people’s time with your various misdirections.
Robert
Again, you are under no obligation to discuss this matter further.
Steve Campbell, Author and Publisher of Historical Accuracy
Because of your insincerity and more, I am not going further into the discussion with you.
Stephen said
Is your understanding of Mark that it never occurred to him to ask why God is no longer the judge of who goes to heaven and hell but its now some random guy from Nazareth called Jesus?
Unlike you apparently I have no access to the thought processes of the author. I have to content myself with actually reading the gospel and letting the author have his say. Jesus is depicted as being adopted by God as his son at his baptism. Nowhere does the author speculate as to why Jesus was chosen in the first place.
If we can’t speculate on the thought processes of the writers there’s not much point in studying the gospels. The synoptic problem would become completely insoluble if we can’t ask why an author is making his editing decisions.
You feel free to speculate as to why Mark placed the baptism at the start of his gospel (you think its because that is when Mark’s Jesus becomes the son of god) – why then can’t you speculate on what Mark think’s was the reason Jesus gets chosen to be son of god? Was he just one of the random sinners that came to John to confess his sons? Or was he worthy of being made judge of the cosmos? Why doesn’t Mark tell us?
In what sense is Jesus exalted to divinity in Mark? How does it have any meaning if he is still a man, no change has occurred?
It is interesting to contrast the Jesus depicted at the Transfiguration and the Jesus being crucified. They hardly seem to be the same person. One obviously divine. The other obviously human. And yet for the author of Mark they are the same person. He never attempts to reconcile those two depictions. The writer doesn’t speculate about Jesus’ ontological status. As JAS pointed out it may simply be that these concerns weren’t of interest to him. These arguments really began in earnest in the second century and went from there, leading eventually to Nicaea.
He’s hardly obviously divine at the transfiguration. No more divine than Moses who had to cover his face after speaking to god because it was too radiant for the people.
So the question remains – in what sense was Jesus “exalted” to divinity at the baptism? It can only be in an honorific sense not a literal one.
In John the word is made human and remains mortal until he is executed after which he returns to divine realm. But what happens to the human Jesus in Mark’s baptism? What change occurs? He obviously remains mortal.
jakejones said
Brown sees these Sabbath violations as an example of Jesus’ repudiation of the Oral Law. Let us examine these texts more closely. Mark 2 and Matthew 12 record an instance where Jesus’ disciples plucked some grain as they walked through the fields. The Pharisees challenged Jesus: “why do they on the Sabbath that which is not lawful?” According to Brown’s hypothesis which has Jesus repudiating the Oral Law, Jesus should have told these Pharisees that this activity is NOT prohibited on the Sabbath under any circumstance. Would Brown hesitate to pluck something off a tree to eat on the Sabbath? But this is not what Jesus answered. Jesus launches into a speech about David’s eating from the show-bread which was forbidden to him and about the priests violating the Sabbath in the service in the Temple. These two are examples of an activity that violates the Law, but is permitted due to extenuating circumstances. By providing these comparisons, Jesus affirms his acceptance of the Pharisaic definition of prohibited activity on the Sabbath. His only difference with the Pharisees was whether the prohibition was relevant in that specific situation.
in other words “lord of sabbath in extenuating circumstances.”
What are the extenuating circumstances in Mark’s account? They were walking through grainfields?
So any time you’re walking through grainfields on the Sabbath you can pluck heads of grain and disobey the Sabbath injunction?
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because he can make up the laws of the Sabbath. Mark 1-22 “He taught as one who has authority not as a scribe”.
** you do not have permission to see this link ** “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.“”
how does being ashamed imply jesus was sinless?
** you do not have permission to see this link ** “Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.“”
this does not negate that jesus was a sinner. this is saying that jesus did not sin like those who delivered him and the situation which caused his deliverance was born out of sin. has nothing to do with “sinless” jesus.
These verses are placing the “Son of Man” and “sinners” or “sinful generation” in two separate categories.
Robert said
Note that at the transfiguration, Jesus is speaking not only with Moses but also with Elijah, who had been taken up to heaven. It’s possible that Mark is already aware of a (later attested) Jewish tradition that Moses too had been assumed into heaven after his death. As also Jesus would be resurrected to heaven after his death. Heavenly beings were divinized in a sense. Not equal to God, not divine in that unique sense, but in a very real sense of divinity that was common in the ancient world, including within ancient Jewish monotheism.
Great, if being divinized upon assumption to heaven is the sense Mark meant it then it didn’t occur at the baptism. Peter saw Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration so there’s nothing divine in Jesus seeing them.
Mark’s gospel is about the judge and chooser of the elect who get into heaven coming to give his life as a ransom for many.
The question is is this judge just some random person chosen by god or is there a reason that Jesus is that judge? Does Mark give a reason? Does he become the judge at the baptism? Does Mark care why Jesus of Nazareth is the elector of those who go to heaven?
Mark, it would seem, created what would later become known as the gospel genre by recounting events in the earthly life of Jesus from an enlightened perspective of post-Easter faith, from a divine perspective. This is most apparent in the story of the transfiguration, but it is strongly evident right from the beginning of his work in Mk 1,1-3 and the divine proclamation to Jesus at his baptism. Only Jesus and the reader share this divine perspective at the beginning. A little later we learn that demons too have this divine perspective on Jesus’ identity. And the whole text is dripping with irony whereby only the reader can recognize the true nature of the unfolding events.
Are you agreeing that Jesus and the reader are aware of Jesus’s divine nature from the beginning of the gospel and that he wasn’t exalted at his baptism?
I’m content to observe all of this as a very clever literary execution of post-Easter faith on the part of the author. I doubt he was trying to expound upon an explicit doctrine of ontological adoptionism, much, much less so your reading of the doctrines of pre-existence and incarnation into Mark. Later theologians would do this. The author did not write a theological treatise. If he personally held to something like the Carmen Christi hymn of Philippians, he certainly did not make it explicit in his narrative. The later theology of adoptionism is a much better reading of Mark’s actual text, but it is the imposition of a later theological dispute onto a literary text.
The later theology of adoptionism is a non-sensical reading of Mark’s actual text. The better reading of Mark’s text is that he held to same christology as his contemporaries, Matthew Paul, Luke and John.
“He had one left to send, a beloved son”
“the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many”
“I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way. Prepare the way for the Lord … “
All these are far more consistent with the theology of Mark’s christian contemporaries than the later theology of adoptionism. Adoptionism is a ridiculous reading of the text.
I see Mark as likely creating a narrative synthesis of something akin to Pauline theology about the significance of the death of Jesus with traditional stories about the life and death of Jesus, all within the context of an apocalyptic history that is being brought to the fore in the life of his readers. It’s a brilliant literary work, but it’s not a theological treatise.
Does Mark think Jesus is the final judge of humanity who came to give his life as a ransom for many?
Robert said :
Note, however, that Mark’s Jesus explicitly tells James and John that it is not his place to say who may sit at his right and left in his glory. As for ‘coming’ of the Son of Man in Mk 10,45, it does not denote pre-existence and incarnation. Since Mark views the roles of Jesus, John and others as already prophesied in scripture, surely they are not random people, but Mark does not discuss any theories of probability or statistics.
Andrew Periman said :
On the whole, it seems unlikely that Jesus would have spoken about himself as the “Lord” in the third person, whereas there are good literary-linguistic reasons for him to speak about himself as “the Son of Man” in the third person.
But if it is Jesus himself who cuts short the days of Jerusalem’s suffering, it is because as the Son of Man he has been given the authority to act on behalf of God for the sake of those whom he has chosen to proclaim his coming kingdom to Israel and the nations (cf. ** you do not have permission to see this link **). That’s a pretty high christological statement, but it doesn’t equate to a direct identification of Jesus with God.
So any time you’re walking through grainfields on the Sabbath you can pluck heads of grain and disobey the Sabbath injunction?
where did mark say “any time you’re walking through grainfields on sabbath you can pluck…..” ?
“Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food, 26 how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions?”
why did mark have to mention “he and his companions were hungry and in need of good” ?
was jesus commiting false equivallence fallacy according to mark?
Robert said
Mark is narrating Jesus’ baptism from the divine perspective of his being the Son of God in a very special and unique sense. This identity is revealed to Jesus and the reader at the time of this event. It’s a natural assumption that it occurred at this time, but Mark is not part of the later adoptionist debate so it’s silly to pretend that he was.
The only way this could be a natural assumption is if Mark had given some justification for Jesus being chosen or adopted. But this doesn’t exist in Mark.
The natural reading of John the Baptist statement that “after me comes the one more powerful than me the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie” is the Jesus is already the son of god before the baptism.
I don’t recall at the moment Mark mentioning let alone emphasizing Jesus’ role as judge. We’ve already discussed elsewhere who chooses the elect in Mark’s gospel. If you think you can change my mind about that, return to that discussion and try to answer my objections there. Note, however, that Mark’s Jesus explicitly tells James and John that it is not his place to say who may sit at his right and left in his glory. As for the ‘coming’ of the Son of Man in Mk 10,45, it does not denote pre-existence and incarnation. Since Mark views the roles of Jesus, John and others as already prophesied in scripture, surely they are not random people, but Mark does not discuss any theories of probability or statistics.
I think that discussion was whether the Lord in mark 13:20 was Jesus.
If you want to claim that Jesus is not the judge of humanity in Mark you will need to provide justification for understanding Mark 13:27 “he will gather his elect” as anything other than Jesus gathering those he himself has selected.
Mark’s Jesus will sit at the right hand of god in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus telling James and John he can’t grant them places at his right and left has nothing to do with electing who enters the kingdom.
You’ll need to justify your claim that Mark 10:45 does not denote pre-existence and incarnation. John the evangelist would certainly agree with Mark 10:45.
Yes correct Jesus is not randomly selected person. But does Mark explain how he is not random? How is he worthy? I say he does explain you say he doesn’t. I say the explanation is that Jesus is the beloved son of chapter 12 who was sent into the world to give his life as a ransom for many. What’s your explanation for why Mark never tells us why Jesus becomes the son of god?
Sic et non. Yes, the reader is made known of Jesus status as uniquely the son of God in Mk 1,1.11. It’s not known if Jesus is understood to already have this awareness and a natural reading of the baptismal narrative might assume he did not. The preceding scriptural citation can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Jesus was not exalted to heaven at his baptism but he sees the heavens rent asunder and the spirit descending into him and he is addressed as God’s son. While this is not exaltation to heaven, it is clearly the beginning of an exalted role that he is to play.
Yes its the beginning of his exalted role. The beginning of the story or the beginning of the gospel for Mark.
But when Mark has Jesus confess to be being the “the son of the Blessed One” at his trial did Jesus become this “son of the blessed one” at his baptism?
If not, when did he become this son of the blessed one? When did he become Lord? When was it decided that he should come not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many? When was it decided that Jesus should sit at the right hand of God, and come on the clouds of heaven sending the angels and gathering his elect?
Was it something Jesus did during his life that Mark doesn’t bother to tell us? Or is the answer found in Mark’s quotation from Isaiah? “Prepare the way for the Lord”?
Found in Mark’s parable of the tenants – “he had one left to send, a beloved son”?
I’ve already disagreed with this in my previous post. Paul was likely an earlier contemporary of Mark. Matthew is the first known reader of Mark’s gospel, but we see clearly how he disagreed with Mark on many points and is demonstrably later than Mark. (I already asked you at the beginning of this thread not to ruin it along with so many others with all your Matthean priority nonsense.) Luke was perhaps much later than Mark; John certainly was.
If you don’t want me bringing up Matthean priority you shouldn’t bring up Markan priority.
Regardless, they are his contemporaries and they believed Jesus being the divine son of god preceded his baptism. Jesus divine sonship preceding his baptism is a natural reading of Mark and puts him line with those other writers he shares so much else in common with.
Practically all critical scholars disagree with your reading of the text and your judgment. There are reasons for that.
There aren’t any good reasons for it.
Does Mark think Jesus is the final judge of humanity who came to give his life as a ransom for many?
Asked and answered.
How do you justify reading “will gather his elect from the four winds” as any other than Jesus gathering those he himself has elected?
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