jakejones said
 

mark says explicitly “except one loaf” 

marks portrayal of the disciples is even worse here. 1. they have very bad memory, but he has no problem telling his readers that they did bring one loaf. 

he never told his readers that peter received the message.

The point is that Mark makes changes to Matthew which unintentionally cause problems soon after. Eg “they only had one loaf … is it because we don’t have any bread?”

So we needn’t be surprised if his change of “the women told no-one” unintentionally causes a problem with a following verse of “they told Peter”.

what do you mean mark changes matthew? 

in matthews story witnesses are required for everything. for example, matthew requires that women come to the tomb, see the angel fly down, role away the stone, and then get an invitation to come into the tomb, then they go and report to others what they had witnessed. 

you have none of this in the gospel of mark. mark has the women come to a tomb where the stone is already rolled away and then the women run away , unlike the woman with the blood problem who was full of faith. 

neither john or luke follow this pattern. 

Yes but which witnesses do future christians base their belief in the empty tomb on. In Matthew it rests solely on the testimony of women. In Luke/John Peter’s testimony is added. Mark gives two indications that he’ll be editing in the same way.

so you telling me that thirty years after mark was just interested about what a liar and coward peter was? that makes no sense at all. mark explicitly says that when peter is safe and out of danger , he cries. mark has peter remember that he,  all words, no action. thats the LAST thing peter remembers in the gospel of mark. 

This is same as Matthew. Whatever Matthew is doing here Mark is doing also. But they’re not trying to present Peter as a coward, they’re trying to portray Jesus as an even greater hero. 

i dont see what you are trying to say. they thought that loaves were required, not a loaf. 

i dont see what the problem is 

The problem is that in both Matthew and Mark’s gospel the disciples ask each “Is it because we don’t have bread?” but this only works in Matthew’s gospel. In Mark’s gospel he explicitly states that they do have bread.

Robert said

So in your imaginary ending, Mark contradicts what he has just said in his actual text: They didn’t say anything to anybody. You create a ‘hideout’ for the disciples because you want to imagine that they are still in Jerusalem and also import the additional Lukan idea of Peter visiting the tomb as well as the Matthean idea of the soldiers at the tomb. What happened to your view that Mark was avoiding contradictions between Matthew and Luke? Instead you’re just creating a poor mixture of Matthew and Luke. We’ve already seen a much more ancient attempt to do this. Why should we accept your 2,000 year late version as any more authentic? It’s a very boring ending. The eleven then went to Galilee where they saw Jesus, just as he said they would. The End??? Don’t ever give up your day job and try your hand at writing anything people would want to read.

I don’t Mark would see it as a contradiction. I think he’d been comfortable writing “they fled from the tomb and said nothing to no-one … they went and found Peter and told him what had happened” a la “the had one loaf in the boat … is it because we have no bread”.

I think Mark’s motivation in writing his gospel was to take the focus away from controversies and contradictions of the christian communities around him, exemplified in Matthew/Luke. I don’t think every decision he made in writing the gospel can be understand by this. 

The 16:9-20 ending is indeed a mixture of Matthew/Luke – much as the rest of his gospel is. Which is why I think a good hypothetical explanation of 9-20 is that its an attempt to recreate a lost original from memory.

It was the text of Zechariah that said the sheep would be scattered. Mark merely says of the disciples that they left Jesus and fled. You think they need a special reason for them to go back to their homes in Galilee? Where else would they go

  

But Mark choses to put this text of Zechariah in his gospel which he claims gets fulfilled – ie that the sheep will be scattered. The Romans have crucified their leader, clearly they should be worried about their own lives (Peter certainly appears to have been). We can’t assume theyre just going to walk back to their old lives as if nothing happened. 

jakejones said

mate, i dont see the problem in mark. his use of exceptions seem consistent, u seem to have created inconsistency. we dont have any bread does not negate we dont have a loaf, he tells his readers that they do have a loaf “except one loaf”

Do you agree that in Mark 8:14 he tells us the disciples have brought one loaf?

and in Mark 8:16 the disciples say they don’t have any loaves?

clearly the readers reading mark would associate cowardice with peter. 

Weakness, not cowardice. Peter is handpicked and named “Rock” by Jesus. Mark can’t portray him as a coward.

Robert said

Of course it’s a contradiction. If they did not say anything to anyone, then they did not say anything to Peter.

It does not mean “for the rest of their time on earth they never spoke a word to anyone about anything ever again”.

It means they “fled from the tomb and said nothing to no-one”, they didn’t shout out to all that Jesus is risen.

“Some time later they met Peter and told him what happened …” would not be a contradiction.

As for Mk 8,14-17, you still seem to be misled by English translations that speak of bread absolutely even though Jake has already explained the Greek to you.

So in order to avoid any criticism of Mark’s writing abilities you’d like to translate Mark 8:16 as “they did not have a plurality of loaves”? 

Nonsense. The overwhelming majority of scholars are strongly opposed to your theory because it does not make good sense of the data. Read the commentaries I’ve suggested to you and you will see that it is Matthew and Luke who are constantly softening Mark’s more difficult text, more difficult for a many reasons.

“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

“I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”

“go not to any town of the Samaritans or among the gentiles”

The softening of the text making it more palatable to a growing gentile audience is going in the wrong direction for Markan priority.

Galilee would be a much safer place for them than Jerusalem if they were afraid of Roman soldiers catching them. You’re just inventing things to suit your own fancy. 

  

They know they’re from galilee. Staying in a safe house while things cool down might be better than heading back down the road to galilee. We can’t just assume Mark thinks they all head back to galilee, especially if he quotes Zechariah’s prophesy.