split from: Jesus is not the Christ: A Reading of Mark

[Peter Kirby]

Or, following similar logic and applying it to the text of Mark:

(a) Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) Someone would have misinterpreted any parts of Mark that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(d) Because someone would have misinterpreted Mark as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

the subset of Mark of the point (b) is enough extended that it may even point to an original proto-Mark that was anti-messianic in the more anti-demiurgist sense one may use the term.

So you're saying that there was a proto-Mark between *Ev and Mark, which was more anti-demiurgist and/or anti-messianic than both? (If not, what are you saying?)

no, I introduce proto-Mark only to save the Markan priority under the recognition that only the anti-messianic parts of Mark (aa signalled in the OP) are found in a such proto-Mark.

Under the *Ev priority, the anti-messianic part of Mark is inherited in Mark from *Ev where it is not really anti-messianic, but misinterpreted by Marcion as being anti-messianic. Mark is anti-messianic but in a different sense from how *Ev is anti-messianic. *Ev is anti-messianic in an innocent way: it was Marcion who read *Ev anti-messianically. Mark is anti-messianic in a not-innocent i.e. tendentious way: because "Mark" was fully aware that Marcion was using *Ev as an anti-messianic gospel.

IF you're trying to save the priority of Mark,
WHY would you not interpret Mark,
THE PRIOR GOSPEL,
as being "anti-messianic in an innocent way"?
(i.e., having no such intention but being read that way later, against its true sense)

Or, to make a statement:

IF this content can be "innocently anti-messianic" in *Ev, it can also be so ... in any other gospel which introduced these passages.

[Giuseppe]

IF you're trying to save the priority of Mark,
WHY would you not interpret Mark,
THE PRIOR GOSPEL,
as being "anti-messianic in an innocent way"?
(i.e., having no such intention but being read that way later, against its true sense)

Under the Markan priority, proto-Mark, i.e. the first gospel, would be without the Passion story. It would be anti-messianic as by you described in the op.

IF this content can be "innocently anti-messianic" in *Ev, it can also be so ... in any other gospel which introduced these passages.

obviously no. After Marcion, none is innocent. After Marcion, all are thieves and liars. After Marcion, any passage, even the more innocent (if ever there was one!), is interpreted tendentiously as anti-messianic or pro-messianic. Welcome to my macabre view of the Origins!

Hence the only way to recover the lost pre-Marcionite innocence is following Klinghardt's next book about *Ev.

[Peter Kirby]

IF you're trying to save the priority of Mark,
WHY would you not interpret Mark,
THE PRIOR GOSPEL,
as being "anti-messianic in an innocent way"?
(i.e., having no such intention but being read that way later, against its true sense)

Under the Markan priority, proto-Mark, i.e. the first gospel, would be without the Passion story. It would be anti-messianic as by you described in the op.

IF this content can be "innocently anti-messianic" in *Ev, it can also be so ... in any other gospel which introduced these passages.

obviously no. After Marcion, none is innocent. After Marcion, all are thieves and liars. After Marcion, any passage, even the more innocent (if ever there was one!), is interpreted tendentiously as anti-messianic or pro-messianic. Welcome to my macabre view of the Origins!

Hence the only way to recover the lost pre-Marcionite innocence is following Klinghardt's next book about *Ev.

Your own argument (mutatis mutandis) is that, on the priority of Mark, then Mark is similarly "innocently anti-messianic".

You seem to have a problem articulating this because:

(A) ..... no passion story (??????) in Mark ......

(B) IF MARK CAME FIRST IT WAS STILL AFTER (?????) so it cannot have been "innocent" because it knew about * Ev so it was not first because even if it was first, it wasn't, because it was after *Ev, so it could not have been first, only *Ev can be first, so only Ev can be innocent, all else are guilty etc etc

[Giuseppe]

IF you're trying to save the priority of Mark,
WHY would you not interpret Mark,
THE PRIOR GOSPEL,
as being "anti-messianic in an innocent way"?
(i.e., having no such intention but being read that way later, against its true sense)

Under the Markan priority, proto-Mark, i.e. the first gospel, would be without the Passion story. It would be anti-messianic as by you described in the op.

IF this content can be "innocently anti-messianic" in *Ev, it can also be so ... in any other gospel which introduced these passages.

obviously no. After Marcion, none is innocent. After Marcion, all are thieves and liars. After Marcion, any passage, even the more innocent (if ever there was one!), is interpreted tendentiously as anti-messianic or pro-messianic. Welcome to my macabre view of the Origins!

Hence the only way to recover the lost pre-Marcionite innocence is following Klinghardt's next book about *Ev.

Your own argument (mutatis mutandis) is that, on the priority of Mark, then Mark is similarly "innocently anti-messianic".

You seem to have a problem articulating this because:

(A) ..... no passion story (??????) in Mark ......

(B) IF MARK CAME FIRST IT WAS STILL AFTER (?????) so it cannot have been "innocent" because it knew about * Ev so it was not first because even if it was first, it wasn't, because it was after *Ev, so it could not have been first, only *Ev can be first, so only Ev can be innocent, all else are guilty etc etc

[Peter Kirby]

Somehow you can't help but import the assumption of the priority of *Ev in a discussion of what the priority of Mark would mean.

[Giuseppe]

Surely so. I am satisfied that someway you have understood the my point, afterall:

Both of these arguments fall under the heading of subtle readings of the text.

that Mark 1-13 (minus the incipit and the stupid Parable of the Vineyard) denies the messianic status is not a subtle reading. It is simply the obvious reading. It doesn't require a great subtlety.

I don't even understand what you're saying here (honestly), so yeah, what you're saying is subtle enough.

I now see what you were saying here. The only reason that I had difficulty understanding it was that I found it hard to process; because it read as a much stronger endorsement of the OP's idea (within the confines of the parts of Mark you outline) than I could have imagined from you or anyone, the plain sense eluded me. That is my fault.

[Peter Kirby]

One more time...

Or, following similar logic and applying it to the text of Mark:

(a) Mark is not anti-messianic.
(b) The OP is persuasive in highlighting several features of a subset of Mark that can be read in an anti-messianic way.
(c) Someone would have misinterpreted any parts of Mark that would otherwise lead him to know it isn't anti-messianic.
(d) Because someone would have misinterpreted Mark as being anti-messianic, others developed texts to counter that reading.

the subset of Mark of the point (b) is enough extended that it may even point to an original proto-Mark that was anti-messianic in the more anti-demiurgist sense one may use the term.

So you're saying that there was a proto-Mark between *Ev and Mark, which was more anti-demiurgist and/or anti-messianic than both? (If not, what are you saying?)

no, I introduce proto-Mark only to save the Markan priority under the recognition that only the anti-messianic parts of Mark (aa signalled in the OP) are found in a such proto-Mark.

Under the *Ev priority, the anti-messianic part of Mark is inherited in Mark from *Ev where it is not really anti-messianic, but misinterpreted by Marcion as being anti-messianic. Mark is anti-messianic but in a different sense from how *Ev is anti-messianic. *Ev is anti-messianic in an innocent way: it was Marcion who read *Ev anti-messianically. Mark is anti-messianic in a not-innocent i.e. tendentious way: because "Mark" was fully aware that Marcion was using *Ev as an anti-messianic gospel.

IF you're trying to save the priority of Mark,
WHY would you not interpret Mark,
THE PRIOR GOSPEL,
as being "anti-messianic in an innocent way"?
(i.e., having no such intention but being read that way later, against its true sense)

Or, to make a statement:

IF this content can be "innocently anti-messianic" in *Ev, it can also be so ... IF the *Ev is not first ... in any other gospel which FIRST introduced these passages.

[Peter Kirby]

IF you're trying to save the priority of Mark,
WHY would you not interpret Mark,
THE PRIOR GOSPEL,
as being "anti-messianic in an innocent way"?
(i.e., having no such intention but being read that way later, against its true sense)

Under the Markan priority, proto-Mark, i.e. the first gospel, would be without the Passion story. It would be anti-messianic as by you described in the op.

Mark has a passion story.

[Giuseppe]

IF you're trying to save the priority of Mark,
WHY would you not interpret Mark,
THE PRIOR GOSPEL,
as being "anti-messianic in an innocent way"?
(i.e., having no such intention but being read that way later, against its true sense)

Under the Markan priority, proto-Mark, i.e. the first gospel, would be without the Passion story. It would be anti-messianic as by you described in the op.

Mark has a passion story.

Trocmé denies it. According to him, Mark 1-13 has Jesus denying he is the Christ, while the Passion story is all devoted to prove that Jesus is the Christ (therefore it is a late addition).

Obviously, the evidence that persuades Trocmé to believe this, is used by me to prove that Mark is reacting against *Ev.

[Giuseppe]

It is very rare, by a Christian apologist (as Trocmé was), to concede a similar confession of an important difference between Mark 1-13 and Mark 14-16:

La réserve christologique de Marc 1 à 13 n'a pas son équivalent en Marc 14 à 16. Retouchée ou pas, la réponse de Jésus au grand prêtre (14/62) est dans le Marc canonique une acceptation des titres de Christ et de «Fils du Béni» (39), même si cette acceptation est un peu nuancée par la référence au «Fils de l'Homme» qui suit immédiatement. La confession du centurion (15/39), si bien mise en valeur et si chargée de signification; le beau geste de la femme qui oint la tête de Jésus (14/3 ss.); l'approbation au moins partielle par le Maître du titre de «roi des Juifs» que lui lançait Pilate (15/2): autant de passages où le caractère surnaturel et messianique de la personne de Jésus est fortement souligné dans les chapitres 14 à 15 et où l'on ne perçoit aucune réticence au sujet de l'utilisation des titres christologiques les plus élevés. L'écrivain qui glorifie si volontiers la personne de Jésus est-il le même que celui qui a mutilé la tradition rapportant la confession messianique de Pierre (8/27 ss.) pour substituer à sa conclusion naturelle un cinglant appel à l'heroisme missionnaire (40) et réservé à Dieu seul le droit de parler du Nazaréen comme de Son Fils (41)?
Nous avons quelque peine à l'admettre.

(p.185, my bold)