FJVermeiren wrote:Giuseppe wrote:To Lena and Frans:
I have no problems about the shift time hypothesis. But I see that both you seem to think that not only "Mark" (author) but also Matthew and Luke KNEW the truth about the true identity of the Gospel Jesus (the Egyptian or the Jesus of Josephus). This is a problem for me insofar I see ONLY Mark, as an allegory clearly meant to hide something (or someone), differently from the obtusely theological and literalist Matthew, Luke and John (for not say about the ridiculous author of Acts). I consider the author of Matthew a proto-catholic (by definition, someone unaware of the real intent of "Mark"). Same problem about the real author of Luke: the literalist Marcion.
In my view, Matthew and Luke were " mortal" enemies of Mark on a theological level: how could they share the same secret knowledge of Mark about HIS Jesus?
Under the shift time hypothesis, I am inclined to think that Matthew and Luke were interested only to coopt the literary production of Mark, not the historical figure behind Mark. This is why I am reluctant to consider the mention of Egypt in Matthew as an Egyptian's clue, or to consider the Lord's Prayer in Matthew as an anti-Roman prayer.
Thanks in advance for four replies.
I would have to study Matthew again to give my opinion on this Gospel, but I can give my view on Luke and John. As I accept the priority of Mark, I see Mark (author) as the inventor of the forged chronology of the Gospels. But both Luke and John show to be well informed about what Mark had fabricated.
I believe Luke knew the real course of events as well as Mark did, because he adds historical information on liberation and war to Marks writing. Luke wrote his Gospel in an environment (time and/or space) where hiding the true course of events was less dangerous than in Marks, in other words, Luke in some places (not too many) unveils Marks story (a little bit). If Luke hadn’t known the real course of events and only further elaborated Mark without knowing about Marks chronological intervention (your opinion if I understand you well), this would have been impossible.
Two examples:
• If in the synoptic Apocalypse Mark says ‘But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be’ and Luke changes this sentence into ‘But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by legions, then know that its desolation has come near’, how could Luke change this veiled sentence into more concrete information if he wasn’t aware of what Mark was alluding to?
• Luke gives an important place to Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the Zacchaeus story in Jericho is part of it. It is not difficult to see in the Zacchaeus fragment a story of revolutionary taxing (during the great rebellion). How could Luke add this little piece of historical information to Marks story if he was not informed about the real course of events?
Broadly John follows Marks forgery just like Luke does, but he also gives historical information that doesn’t occur in the Synoptics. If he totally depended on Mark, why would he describe a long stay of Jesus in Judea (around 3 years, because 3 Passovers are described) while the Synoptics compress Jesus' Judean period into a highly unrealistic one week? John knew exactly how long Jesus had stayed in Judea, so here he independently provides historical information.
If Luke knew the secret behind Mark then we should assume that the conspirators were two different communities. Even if these two communities had very different theological views (probably in conflict between them).
The history teaches that in each conspiracy the probability of success is inversely proportional to the number of conspirators involved. More people know the secret, more there is the risk that the secret becomes public.
I think that your case may be more strong if you assume only the allegorical Mark as the anti-Roman conspirator, with the late Gospels only interested to expand the original story by use of midrash from Septuaginta and Josephus, following purely their theological goals.
John, for example, invented the 3 Passover story to claim that the Jesus mission was longer than what was stated by heretic Gnostics (who did insist that Jesus was only few days on this earth).
The fact that Luke makes more explicit Mark 13 shows only that Luke was against the (for him enigmatic) secrecy of Mark and was content to co-opt a gospel that allegorized the general theme of the death and resurrection of Israel in 70 CE (of which the gospel Jesus had become a symbol for the outsiders unaware of the secret).
Mark made an allegorical mask for the Jesus of Josephus (only for insiders) but so doing, as collateral effect, he made his Gospel Jesus the symbol (for the outsiders) of the destruction of Israel in 70 CE and his re-birth in the gentile world. At that point, all the Jewish messianists ("Luke", "Matthew", " John", etc) and even gentile Gnostics (Marcion, Simon Magus, etc) were interested to co-opt that symbol of a nascent new Israel: the Christianity.