Robert: As your humble moderator, I think this question really deserves a thread of its own so I’m moving some posts here from ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
Porphyry said
At the risk of derailing this productive exchange, I would pipe in to add that one of my biggest questions is how the Jewish Jesus movement broke out of Judaism and spread among gentiles. I’m less concerned with how Jewish Christians came to accept gentile converts and more perplexed by why gentiles were motivated to join at all. What message they were given? What background did they have that made them receptive to that message? How did they fit the new religion into their own antecedent world-view?To be even more specific, I really want to figure out the author of Mark.
Mark and Paul are the two big enigmas for me. If one could really explain them, understand what made them tick, then one would have gone a long way to explaining the phenomenon of Christianity.
Welcome to my world. I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to figure out Mark, mostly in my spare time. A very worthy topic! Perhaps I can be forgiven for believing I may have succeeded somewhat in understanding his perspective, but I would be the very first to admit that my ideas may completely miss the mark.
Mark and Paul are the two big enigmas for me. If one could really explain them, understand what made them tick, then one would have gone a long way to explaining the phenomenon of Christianity.
“Someone, I forget who for the moment, catalogued every statement about Jews in ancient texts. About half were negative, as are many statements about any foreigners. But the other half were positive, extolling the virtues of the Jews and their worldview. I think there was much about Judaism that was very attractive to pagan intellectuals in the ancient world. The Jewish tendency toward monotheism corresponded well to the philosophical monotheism of Plato and Aristotle. So very preferrable to the pagan polytheism of the masses.”
That’s interesting. We know the Romans had some respect for Judaism, in part because of the antiquity of their religion. We also know that eastern mystery cults had a certain cache’. Maybe there was something fashionable in Christianity–perhaps it was exotic and taboo in just the right ways to be alluring.
Your last point occasions a question: Were the earliest converts mainly typical gullible religious fanatics or were they somewhat sophisticated and educated? Hand in hand with that question is what message they were being given: A generic monotheism with strong ethical ideas fits well with pagan philosophy. Jewish apocalypticism with a god who is quite active in history fits rather less well.
Now Mark is certainly literate and shows some real sophistication. But at the same time, his gospel doesn’t seem to reflect a minimal monotheism with ethical insight. If that is all that was going on we’d expect the sort of Christianity we find in the Letter of Mathetes to Diognetus: highly philosophical with outright scorn for, what he calls, Jewish superstition.
Another possibility is that the earliest gentile converts were actually “God-fearers,” theosebeis: They already believe in Judaism–not just a single god, but a god who was active in history in particular ways and who could be expected to continue to be active in history by fulfilling his past prophecies–took it seriously, studied its scriptures, attended synagogue, but observed only the noahide law. That would answer a lot of questions.
Audience is the keyword. Who was the direct recipient of the gospel – the people in charge of the congregations. Well, I guess that explains who Mark wrote for. These were his first reviewers. They chose the pericopes and quotes to be presented to the faithful. They do it to this day. When they wanted to show their intellectual superiority over the audience, they reached for big words that perhaps they did not understand themselves. Written a way before by a completely different people for a completely different purpose.
Robert, at some point in his current series of posts about gospel authorship I’m going to ask BE this question. I understand why he thinks “Mark” is a gentile but I’m not sure if he would completely exclude the possibility of a Hellenized Diaspora Jew.
The question of Mark’s audience is tied to the area where he was writing. The consensus used to be from Rome but my impression is that the idea of a Syrian provenance has gained a certain amount of traction. Joel Marcus’ viewpoint. Maybe I’ll ask BE where he comes down.
The facts make a formidable weapon.
Well I asked in today’s post. I don’t remember the previous discussion at all. One of the advantages to NOT being a specialist is that you are not required to even have an opinion. In a lot of cases I am simply content to try to understand the arguments. The problem for a lot of scholarship is that for many of these vexing questions the real answer is, WE”LL NEVER KNOW. Of course there are those who take any hint of uncertainty as an invitation to unload their own pet hypotheses.
Someday my arguments for Johannine priority will dazzle the world!
“Pierson Parker (“Luke and the Fourth Evangelist”) explains the parallels as the result of Luke and John (Mark) working together in evangelistic ministry. C.H. Dodd, Frederick Grant, and John Amedee Bailey (The Traditions Common to the Gospels of Luke and John) chalk it all up to fortuitous use of common oral traditions. F. Lamar Cribbs (A Study of the Contacts That Exist Between St. Luke and St. John) argues for Luke’s use of John or of the pre-Johannine Signs Gospel. Note that wherever Luke has a parallel to Matthew/Mark, he follows it, but where there is a Johannine version as well as a Matthean/Markan version, Luke skips Matt/Mk and parallels John instead (or opts for a version like none of the other evangelists). “
Robert: “I think Bart would be the first to admit that he is not the authority on this and many other questions.”
Robert, you are right as he does admit quite often that he is not the authority on various specificities in spite of being acclaimed as one of the top New Testament scholars in the world. I thank you for getting that straight.
When reading the numerous comments made after that post – Don’t Trust What You Read!- Professor Ehrman’s reply to Z8000783 on February 11,2020, is confusing, I think: “The reason I said mark was almost certainly Jewish is that he gives information about Jews that is patently incorrect, and he would have known that.”
My understanding of that would be mark is NOT Jewish. If Jewish, he would not give incorrect information about the Jews.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert