The Best Markan Ending That "Mark" Never Wrote. An Inventory

[Ulan]

Hi Ulan.
This is my general theory about what is really happening with the skepticism. Calvin would never say "I am a skeptic about the supernatural, so the Bible can't teach supernatural things like the real presence in bread". But that was basically what he did. He made that same kind of argument on numerous issues, as some Calvinists started to in his wake. One famous 18th c. Calvinist said that in the Bible when it talks about people being demon possessed, it really just means lunatics and crazy people.

The thing is, I think that actually when the Bible talked about demons, it really did mean supernatural beings that could go into people.People in those days really believed in that stuff.

You conflate several issues here. Pointing out that supernatural beings don't exist is something most people only do in debates whether a religion is true (which has nothing to with biblical scholarship) or when it comes to investigating historicity issues (which is just a tiny subset of biblical scholarship). On the other hand, the existence or non-existence of supernatural beings has no bearing on judging whether a passage of a text is original or not. That is, indeed, no valid argument, but I don't see any of the good scholars do any such thing. Calvin was dealing in matters of faith, which have no bearing here. Scholars generally know that they are dealing with a religious text and treat it accordingly. In other words, this a strawman argument.

For example, when Mark describes the dealings with the man with an unclean spirit in the first chapter, he uses the image of driving out a possessing spirit from that man. However, the choice of words given by the spectators “What is this? A new teaching" makes the situation clear: the teacher sets the mind of the man straight by convincing the man of his version of whatever was spoken of. This is not the invention of modern scholars, it's what the text spells out in clear words. Whether Mark believed in possessing spirits or not doesn't even factor into this judgment, even if I see it as highly likely that Mark actually believed in spirits. Nevertheless, the text makes clear what we are looking at, even if you, the listener, don't believe in spirits.

Likewise, nowadays, people are even more skeptical about virgin birth stories, and I believe it's a major unspoken factor why some people think it's not something the original Christians believed in. Modern skeptics aren't going to announce: "I think Virgin births are fake, therefore Peter, Paul, and James, etc. never believed that stuff". But it's actually the same kind of bias just like what Calvin had.

I'm not aware of any scholar arguing this way. That's something you read on messageboards, which doesn't really matter.

Here's the thing. If the gospels started with Jesus sitting as a kid in Nazareth's synagogue and learning Torah and Tanakh from the rabbis, the modern skeptics wouldn't have much problem with it. You start throwing in stuff like a star going to Bethlehem and magi visiting a cave, and it becomes "Whoa whoa whoa, the Christians definitely never taught any stuff like that".

You completely disregard my actual argument. I think you are dead wrong here. You start from your pet theory of which gospels were first and then accuse those people who consider gMark to be the first gospel (or a version thereof) for having reasons for their judgment which they don't need and don't employ. gMark doesn't need any birth story, because his Christ is created during baptism (as Irenaeus put it, gMark is the gospel of the docetists). The reason why the star of Bethlehem and the visit of the magi is disputed lies in the simple fact that we have two different childhood stories that don't match in most of their details. This gets especially egregious when part of the story gets lifted verbatim from the OT. And Matthew generally has the bad habit of quote-mining the OT completely out of context (gMark is much better in this regard, because there the context usually fits).

And the cave? That's from Justin Martyr and the Protoevangelium of James.

Take for example Bruce Mack's comment on the Didache:

We thus have to imagine a highly self-conscious network of congregations that thought of themselves as Christians, had developed a full complement of rituals, had much in common with other Christian groups of centrist persuasions, but continued to cultivate their roots in a Jesus movement where enlightenment ethics made much more sense than the worship of Jesus as the crucified Christ and risen son of God.

He totally does not get it and is imposing his own worldview about non-supernatural non-apocalyptic philosophy back onto people 1900 years ago who had a totally different mindset, speaking in tongues and listening to charismatic "prophets".

Where's the crucified and risen Christ in the Didache? The Didache doesn't show any knowledge of this. I think you misunderstand (Burton?) Mack's intent. He is just describing the contents of the text.

[JoeWallack]

JW:

Date	Apologist	Source	Apology	Commentary
1968	Raymond Brown	The New Jerome Biblical Commentary	629 Mark probably assumed some familiarity among his readers with the appearance traditions, and so he chose to end the Gospel subtly and dramatically by leaving the readers acknowledging the resurrection and looking forward to the parousia.	"subtly and dramatically"? A hopelax legoame. Brown did not write this but he was an editor of the book so presumably he agreed. Here we have the traditional related Christian apology, "Mark" (author) did not provide supposed known witness to a resurrected Jesus because his readers already knew who they were. This is of course ridiculous/comical or as Brown would say, "fantastic", because: 1. As far as we know GMark is the original Gospel narrative that all others were based on. 2. Most of GMark's hearers probably had never heard of Jesus. 3. Orthodox Christianity has always claimed that the most important assertion of Christianity is that there was known historical witness to a resurrected Jesus. Strange/bizarre/macabre that the original Gospel would not only not show this but put a lot of effort into denying it. Brown was the outstanding CBS scholar of his time writing the classics Birth and Death. He always said he also wanted to write Resurrection but never got around to it. Presumably because he would have to deal in detail with the lack of detail in GMark. For example, showing that GMatthew copied GMark to 16:8 and than the only significant edit was changing the women not telling anyone to the women telling everyone, how do you spin that?
2011	James McGrath	Mark’s Missing Ending: Clues from the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Peter	This lack of closure may perhaps have seemed less problematic in the context of early Christian communities in which visions of the risen Christ were part of their religious experience. It also needs to be placed in the context of a vibrant oral tradition that was both the author’s and the readers' primary mode of contact with stories about Jesus. There can be no doubt that, even if the written Gospel of Mark ended at 16:8, the story known to the author and his readers did not.	In plain English, McGrath's apology is that the ending of GMark is not a significant problem for Christian assertian because its lack of post resurrection reunion is not important. But as my five year old son used to retort, "Yes, important." McGrath ignores/denies/exorcises the most important related issue as far as Christianity is concerned, what is GMark's evidence as far as Christianity's most important assertian that there was known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus? All subsequent Gospels use GMark as a base and the only significant story added is known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus. Instead of dealing with the larger and more objective issue of the significance of no known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus McGrath throws darts against the bored hitting not just the why but why the why is not a problem scoring not QP but PC (polemically correct) points and can only doublespeak out. The more important observations/issues of 16:8 that McGrath fails to deal with are: 1) The only related certainty we have is that there was no historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus. If you are afraid and can not speak this than you are not a Bible scholar indeed. All related scientific reasoning must start with this observation. 2) The extant evidence indicates that GMark is the original Gospel narrative. Most hearers would never have previously heard of a Jesus narrative. Based just on GMark they would have no reason to believe there was known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus. 3) 2) is consistent with 1). Since historically there was no known historical witness, it's logical that the original narrative would make a lesser conclusion, Jesus was physically resurrected but no claim of known historical witness. 4) The cruncher as the Brits would say, as Christianity turns orthodox (so to speak) all subsequent Gospels want known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus, but they still use as a base up to that point a Gospel which doesn't have any. Evidence that there was no such narrative at the time. 5) Thematically, the first two significant Christian authors, Paul/"Mark", want belief based on faith. So they want belief in Jesus' supposed resurrection based on faith. Consistent with 1-4). 6) After looking at Paul/"Mark" (and Q if you like) for evidence of known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus it's like the classic Adam Family episode where they give Cousin It a haircut and when they finish there is nothing left. The best explanation for the lack of a presentation of known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus in GMark is not only because "Mark" (author) did not believe there was but was unaware of any such claim. There can be no doubt then that instead of teaching history classes at a University McGrath should be teaching Sunday School.
2014	Mark Goodacre	NT Pod 71: Was the ending of Mark's Gospel lost?	12:32 of podcast He just never finished it	First of all, I would rate Goodacre probably among the best Internet CBS (Christian Bible Scolars). His 15 minute podcast is worth it just for the Kronenberg joke. He asks a lot of questions for someone from the Original Jersey. He accepts that 16:8 is likely the original finish but finishes his pod by questioning if "Mark" (author) left his Gospel unfinished. This is a lesser apology but still an apology, asking the wrong related questions. The better question is why "Mark" intentionally finished with 16:8 and what this means for the most important Christian assertian, that there was supposed known historical witness to Jesus' supposed resurrection. For those who need points sharply explained, like Rakovsky, we need to consider and interpret lone wolfs in sheep's clothing lines like 1 Corinthians 15 against the body of GMark and the rest of Paul, rather than vice-verses.
2016	Larry Hurtado	Jesus, the Cross, the Women, and Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark	Part of my argument was that Mark 16:8 does not depict the women as disobeying and failing to do what they were told to do–to go to Peter and the Twelve with news of Jesus’ resurrection. Instead, “they said nothing to anyone” should be read as meaning that they said nothing to anyone else.	Standard apologetic technique of ignoring/denying clear, explicit and absolute meaning in favor of unclear, supposed implied and relative meaning. Not to mention that his supposed implication is contradicted by all Internal evidence such as theme, context and style. Note that in the Comments section he further devolves into standard Apologetic defense of moving basis of related discussion to any dissent being based on not reading/understanding/agreeing with his argument rather than the basic issue itself.

Joseph

You Might Be An Antisemite

[rakovsky]

You conflate several issues here. Pointing out that supernatural beings don't exist is something most people only do in debates whether a religion is true (which has nothing to with biblical scholarship) or when it comes to investigating historicity issues (which is just a tiny subset of biblical scholarship). On the other hand, the existence or non-existence of supernatural beings has no bearing on judging whether a passage of a text is original or not.

Hello, Ulan.

Can you tell me some basics about yourself, like if you are male or female, Polish, Hungarian or Jewish?
Not that it matters totally, but it would help me to better see where you are coming from.
I am a U.S. male.

I agree with everything you said in the paragraph above, except ... Well, many skeptical scholars would totally claim and believe that they are not conflating historicity with issues of text criticism and exegesis.

My personal sense though is that this is actually what is happening under the surface.

So when they read something that sounds like fantasy, it will strike them as wrong, and by extension they get suspicious of it, thinking "hmmmm.... that doesn't sound right..... interpolation maybe.... yes....."

And then they find various evidences that they see as confirming their suspicions.

But actually the underlying unrecognized source of the text skepticism is that the text sounds like fantasy.

They may never admit to themselves even that this is happening.

That is, indeed, no valid argument, but I don't see any of the good scholars do any such thing. Calvin was dealing in matters of faith, which have no bearing here. Scholars generally know that they are dealing with a religious text and treat it accordingly. In other words, this a strawman argument.

that is what should happen, but I think underneath it biases them.

Calvin himself began as a humanist school Bible scholar btw, along with Erasmus and luther. It was about isolating the text out of tradition, and then deciding on the true original "inherent" meaning. Same kind of thing in a way going on today actually 500 years later even though ideologies differ.

For example, when Mark describes the dealings with the man with an unclean spirit in the first chapter, he uses the image of driving out a possessing spirit from that man. However, the choice of words given by the spectators “What is this? A new teaching" makes the situation clear: the teacher sets the mind of the man straight by convincing the man of his version of whatever was spoken of. This is not the invention of modern scholars, it's what the text spells out in clear words. Whether Mark believed in possessing spirits or not doesn't even factor into this judgment, even if I see it as highly likely that Mark actually believed in spirits. Nevertheless, the text makes clear what we are looking at, even if you, the listener, don't believe in spirits.

OK. If someone today is going to claim that Mark disbelieved in spirits, it would be the kind of issue I am raising, but I don't see you as trying to make that an issue.

You completely disregard my actual argument. I think you are dead wrong here. You start from your pet theory of which gospels were first and then accuse those people who consider gMark to be the first gospel (or a version thereof) for having reasons for their judgment which they don't need and don't employ. gMark doesn't need any birth story, because his Christ is created during baptism (as Irenaeus put it, gMark is the gospel of the docetists).

1. Docetism taught Jesus only seemed to suffer. He was God not man, or otherwise didn't undergo suffering at crucifixion. Mark is different than that. Also if you say there is no virgin birth, it looks like you are teaching something different, Adoptionism.

2. If you follow the chiastic structure of mark, it looks like mark is making the same inferences about the virgin birth as he does about the resurrection appearances to the women by the angel.

The women led by a Mary were scared by the young supernatural man or by threats from Jesus' opponents and didn't tell anyone.

When you line that up via the chiasms, Mary and other women, eg maybe her cousin, john's mother, didn't tell anyone about the virgin birth because they were scared. That is the inference I see mark making. Supernatural unannounced birth known only to Mary and maybe the women, and then supernatural resurrection appearance that was hidden due to fear. May Magdalene was not an apostle, nor was Mary herself.

Jesus shows up publicly first at Johns baptism of him and disappears at the burial. Those are also two chiastic mirror points.

It doesn't mean Mark doesn't believe Jesus didn't exist before or after those points though.
There is more chiastic mirroring going on, but it's hidden and implied.

[Ulan]

Hello, Ulan.

Can you tell me some basics about yourself, like if you are male or female, Polish, Hungarian or Jewish?
Not that it matters totally, but it would help me to better see where you are coming from.
I am a U.S. male.

Not sure why this matters, but I'm a German male. I had been living in the U.S. (in the SW) though for more than a decade, which means that I'm well aware of some facets of American religiosity.

I agree with everything you said in the paragraph above, except ... Well, many skeptical scholars would totally claim and believe that they are not conflating historicity with issues of text criticism and exegesis.

My personal sense though is that this is actually what is happening under the surface.

So when they read something that sounds like fantasy, it will strike them as wrong, and by extension they get suspicious of it, thinking "hmmmm.... that doesn't sound right..... interpolation maybe.... yes....."

As I said, I don't think that that many scholars conflate these aspects. They tend to do that only when they write stuff like "the life of Jesus". These books are only useful to find out what the author believes though. The Jesus Seminar did something similar with their votes. That doesn't mean those votes have any influence on what is considered an interpolation or what not. They only voted on what they think what "really happened", not whether anything is interpolated. If the original author added invented stuff into his own text that is presumably based on real events, it's not an interpolation.

And then they find various evidences that they see as confirming their suspicions.

But actually the underlying unrecognized source of the text skepticism is that the text sounds like fantasy.

They may never admit to themselves even that this is happening.

Accusations like these are best left to individual instances, where we can look at the evidence. Generalizations like these sound more or less like sour grapes to me.

OK. If someone today is going to claim that Mark disbelieved in spirits, it would be the kind of issue I am raising, but I don't see you as trying to make that an issue.

Indeed. I don't think "Mark" sat down and wrote his text without being a believer himself. Whether he believed everything he wrote is anyone's speculation (when I look at modern starters of religions, there's some reason for doubt), but it's also useless speculation and has no place in the text interpretation.

1. Docetism taught Jesus only seemed to suffer. He was God not man, or otherwise didn't undergo suffering at crucifixion. Mark is different than that.

Both. It doesn't matter whether you or I agree with Irenaeus' statement about gMark being the gospel of the docetists, it's what he thought, and I assume he had his reasons. Adoptionism describes that Christ became Christ and adopted as son of God at the moment he was baptized. However, the docetic view reflects that gMark is more a story about the spirit of God than about the man Jesus.
1. At the start of the story, the spirit of God descends on the man Jesus in an act of possession (gMark's wording is here very different from Matthew or Luke).
2. The spirit is now the driving force for Jesus' actions ("12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.")
3. The spirit leaves Jesus again when he dies.
4. The man Jesus seems to be of no real concern for Mark. There's just a short sentence of when Jesus appeared and later when the body disappeared.

You and I may agree or disagree with this specific summary (which doesn't really matter), but this is what Irenaeus' docetists probably clamped on. The spirit of God didn't die, he just left, and whether he was born was also a non-issue, as he descended from heaven into Jesus during baptism. Without the spirit of God, Jesus was not "anointed", or in other words, not the Christ.

Also if you say there is no virgin birth, it looks like you are teaching something different, Adoptionism.

2. If you follow the chiastic structure of mark, it looks like mark is making the same inferences about the virgin birth as he does about the resurrection appearances to the women by the angel.

I'm not sure why I have to defend a simple factual statement. There is no virigin birth in gMark because there is no birth story in gMark. Everything else is eisegesis.

The women led by a Mary were scared by the young supernatural man or by threats from Jesus' opponents and didn't tell anyone.

When you line that up via the chiasms, Mary and other women, eg maybe her cousin, john's mother, didn't tell anyone about the virgin birth because they were scared. That is the inference I see mark making. Supernatural unannounced birth known only to Mary and maybe the women, and then supernatural resurrection appearance that was hidden due to fear. May Magdalene was not an apostle, nor was Mary herself.

Jesus shows up publicly first at Johns baptism of him and disappears at the burial. Those are also two chiastic mirror points.

It doesn't mean Mark doesn't believe Jesus didn't exist before or after those points though.
There is more chiastic mirroring going on, but it's hidden and implied.

Well, you can of course suggest whatever hidden meaning you have in mind, but the most simple explanation is that gMark is not really interested in Jesus the man. Jesus is just the vessel for God's spirit.

[JoeWallack]

JW:

Date	Apologist	Source	Apology	Commentary
1968	Raymond Brown	The New Jerome Biblical Commentary	629 Mark probably assumed some familiarity among his readers with the appearance traditions, and so he chose to end the Gospel subtly and dramatically by leaving the readers acknowledging the resurrection and looking forward to the parousia.	"subtly and dramatically"? A hopelax legoame. Brown did not write this but he was an editor of the book so presumably he agreed. Here we have the traditional related Christian apology, "Mark" (author) did not provide supposed known witness to a resurrected Jesus because his readers already knew who they were. This is of course ridiculous/comical or as Brown would say, "fantastic", because: 1. As far as we know GMark is the original Gospel narrative that all others were based on. 2. Most of GMark's hearers probably had never heard of Jesus. 3. Orthodox Christianity has always claimed that the most important assertion of Christianity is that there was known historical witness to a resurrected Jesus. Strange/bizarre/macabre that the original Gospel would not only not show this but put a lot of effort into denying it. Brown was the outstanding CBS scholar of his time writing the classics Birth and Death. He always said he also wanted to write Resurrection but never got around to it. Presumably because he would have to deal in detail with the lack of detail in GMark. For example, showing that GMatthew copied GMark to 16:8 and than the only significant edit was changing the women not telling anyone to the women telling everyone, how do you spin that?
2009	Stephen Carlson	The Function of Mark 16:8	The dominant theme of 16:8 is not the women’s disobedience but their fright. The women were seized with terror and bewilderment (τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις). They were scared (ἐφοβοῦντο). Their actions, too, display their fright. They fled the tomb (ἔφυγον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου), and they did tell anyone. Whatever the function of 16:8 is, it must involve fright. I propose that this theme of fright was meant to enhance, not undercut, the authority of the young man in white.	Carlson wins a pair of Freudian Slippers by mistakenly letting out the conclusion he starts with that he and his co-conspirators try so hard to conceal "and they did tell anyone". His apology tries to use misdirection, switching the point from not following instructions to being afraid. With his (mis)emphasis on emotion he then concludes that the fear of the women was intended to show that, as he wrote, "they did tell anyone", rather then what the author wrote, "they did not tell anyone". In Carlson's blog, the fear of the man/angel/Stranger Thing, made the women afraid of disobeying him. So the not telling anyone was connected to their reaction to that Thing and not to their not telling anyone. That goes beyond naughty. I think Rakovsky should go Judas on Carlson and make him do Russian twists until he confesses that he is an Apologist and not a Bible Scholar. Note also the cumulative discrediting of each individual Apology. For all of the contributors here to each make up their own God-awful apology, how bad must they think the other apologies are, not to use them instead.
2011	James McGrath	Mark’s Missing Ending: Clues from the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Peter	This lack of closure may perhaps have seemed less problematic in the context of early Christian communities in which visions of the risen Christ were part of their religious experience. It also needs to be placed in the context of a vibrant oral tradition that was both the author’s and the readers' primary mode of contact with stories about Jesus. There can be no doubt that, even if the written Gospel of Mark ended at 16:8, the story known to the author and his readers did not.	In plain English, McGrath's apology is that the ending of GMark is not a significant problem for Christian assertian because its lack of post resurrection reunion is not important. But as my five year old son used to retort, "Yes, important." McGrath ignores/denies/exorcises the most important related issue as far as Christianity is concerned, what is GMark's evidence as far as Christianity's most important assertian that there was known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus? All subsequent Gospels use GMark as a base and the only significant story added is known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus. Instead of dealing with the larger and more objective issue of the significance of no known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus McGrath throws darts against the bored hitting not just the why but why the why is not a problem scoring not QP but PC (polemically correct) points and can only doublespeak out. The more important observations/issues of 16:8 that McGrath fails to deal with are: 1) The only related certainty we have is that there was no historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus. If you are afraid and can not speak this than you are not a Bible scholar indeed. All related scientific reasoning must start with this observation. 2) The extant evidence indicates that GMark is the original Gospel narrative. Most hearers would never have previously heard of a Jesus narrative. Based just on GMark they would have no reason to believe there was known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus. 3) 2) is consistent with 1). Since historically there was no known historical witness, it's logical that the original narrative would make a lesser conclusion, Jesus was physically resurrected but no claim of known historical witness. 4) The cruncher as the Brits would say, as Christianity turns orthodox (so to speak) all subsequent Gospels want known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus, but they still use as a base up to that point a Gospel which doesn't have any. Evidence that there was no such narrative at the time. 5) Thematically, the first two significant Christian authors, Paul/"Mark", want belief based on faith. So they want belief in Jesus' supposed resurrection based on faith. Consistent with 1-4). 6) After looking at Paul/"Mark" (and Q if you like) for evidence of known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus it's like the classic Adam Family episode where they give Cousin It a haircut and when they finish there is nothing left. The best explanation for the lack of a presentation of known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus in GMark is not only because "Mark" (author) did not believe there was but was unaware of any such claim. There can be no doubt then that instead of teaching history classes at a University McGrath should be teaching Sunday School.
2014	Mark Goodacre	NT Pod 71: Was the ending of Mark's Gospel lost?	12:32 of podcast He just never finished it	First of all, I would rate Goodacre probably among the best Internet CBS (Christian Bible Scolars). His 15 minute podcast is worth it just for the Kronenberg joke. He asks a lot of questions for someone from the Original Jersey. He accepts that 16:8 is likely the original finish but finishes his pod by questioning if "Mark" (author) left his Gospel unfinished. This is a lesser apology but still an apology, asking the wrong related questions. The better question is why "Mark" intentionally finished with 16:8 and what this means for the most important Christian assertian, that there was supposed known historical witness to Jesus' supposed resurrection. For those who need points sharply explained, like Rakovsky, we need to consider and interpret lone wolfs in sheep's clothing lines like 1 Corinthians 15 against the body of GMark and the rest of Paul, rather than vice-verses.
2016	Larry Hurtado	Jesus, the Cross, the Women, and Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark	Part of my argument was that Mark 16:8 does not depict the women as disobeying and failing to do what they were told to do–to go to Peter and the Twelve with news of Jesus’ resurrection. Instead, “they said nothing to anyone” should be read as meaning that they said nothing to anyone else.	Standard apologetic technique of ignoring/denying clear, explicit and absolute meaning in favor of unclear, supposed implied and relative meaning. Not to mention that his supposed implication is contradicted by all Internal evidence such as theme, context and style. Note that in the Comments section he further devolves into standard Apologetic defense of moving basis of related discussion to any dissent being based on not reading/understanding/agreeing with his argument rather than the basic issue itself.

Joseph

You Might Be An Antisemite

[Ben C. Smith]

Carlson wins a pair of Freudian Slippers by mistakenly letting out the conclusion he starts with that he and his co-conspirators try so hard to conceal "and they did tell anyone". His apology tries to use misdirection, switching the point from not following instructions to being afraid. With his (mis)emphasis on emotion he then concludes that the fear of the women was intended to show that, as he wrote, "they did tell anyone", rather then what the author wrote, "they did not tell anyone". In Carlson's blog, the fear of the man/angel/Stranger Thing, made the women afraid of disobeying him. So the not telling anyone was connected to their reaction to that Thing and not to their not telling anyone. That goes beyond naughty. I think Rakovsky should go Judas on Carlson and make him do Russian twists until he confesses that he is an Apologist and not a Bible Scholar.

Note also the cumulative discrediting of each individual Apology. For all of the contributors here to each make up their own God-awful apology, how bad must they think the other apologies are, not to use them instead.

I would love it if someone could explain to me both, on the "traditional" side, the urge to make sure the women obey the young man's command and, on the "skeptical" side, the urge to draw from the women's disobedience the conclusion that Jesus did not appear to his disciples as promised. The two are in no way correlated. The women disobeying the command, even in an absolute sense (that is, in the sense that they never break their silence), has nothing to do with whether Jesus will decide to visit his disciples or not. If the disciples are not apprised in advance (by the women), then the visit will come as a huge surprise; that is the only necessary difference between the women telling and the women not telling.

Whether Mark meant for Jesus to appear to his disciples is a great question, but it ought not to depend on the women's silence or obedience. It is its own thing.

[andrewcriddle]

Carlson wins a pair of Freudian Slippers by mistakenly letting out the conclusion he starts with that he and his co-conspirators try so hard to conceal "and they did tell anyone". His apology tries to use misdirection, switching the point from not following instructions to being afraid. With his (mis)emphasis on emotion he then concludes that the fear of the women was intended to show that, as he wrote, "they did tell anyone", rather then what the author wrote, "they did not tell anyone". In Carlson's blog, the fear of the man/angel/Stranger Thing, made the women afraid of disobeying him. So the not telling anyone was connected to their reaction to that Thing and not to their not telling anyone. That goes beyond naughty. I think Rakovsky should go Judas on Carlson and make him do Russian twists until he confesses that he is an Apologist and not a Bible Scholar.

Note also the cumulative discrediting of each individual Apology. For all of the contributors here to each make up their own God-awful apology, how bad must they think the other apologies are, not to use them instead.

I would love it if someone could explain to me both, on the "traditional" side, the urge to make sure the women obey the young man's command and, on the "skeptical" side, the urge to draw from the women's disobedience the conclusion that Jesus did not appear to his disciples as promised. The two are in no way correlated. The women disobeying the command, even in an absolute sense (that is, in the sense that they never break their silence), has nothing to do with whether Jesus will decide to visit his disciples or not. If the disciples are not apprised in advance (by the women), then the visit will come as a huge surprise; that is the only necessary difference between the women telling and the women not telling.

Whether Mark meant for Jesus to appear to his disciples is a great question, but it ought not to depend on the women's silence or obedience. It is its own thing.

If all the women kept absolute silence till their deaths then there is a problems about Mark's implied source for chapter 16. Whether or not what Mark says is actually historical one can generally find a plausible answer as to how Mark got to know about this.

Andrew Criddle

[rakovsky]

If all the women kept absolute silence till their deaths then there is a problems about Mark's implied source for chapter 16. Whether or not what Mark says is actually historical one can generally find a plausible answer as to how Mark got to know about this.

Andrew Criddle

yes.

[rakovsky]

I would love it if someone could explain to me both, on the "traditional" side, the urge to make sure the women obey the young man's command
...
If the disciples are not apprised in advance (by the women), then the visit will come as a huge surprise; that is the only necessary difference between the women telling and the women not telling.

Whether Mark meant for Jesus to appear to his disciples is a great question, but it ought not to depend on the women's silence or obedience. It is its own thing.

1. Traditional answer: Look at Mark as a chiastic gospel.
The Magdalene "Mary's" silence after leaving the tomb with the angelic youth in it matches up with
the mother "Mary's" silence before the baptism or before her giving birth to Jesus, a divine infant in her womb.

Why was Mary the mother scared to tell people about the divine birth with Jesus inside her and it was only at the betrothal Joseph found out? She would be scared of reprisal from Torah-strict Judaists (as if she was a breaker of the Torah by adultery, who secretly got the baby in her womb). The Mary Magdalene would be scared of reprisal from the same people as an adherent of Jesus (who they saw as Torah breaking), as someone secretly getting the divine Jesus out of the tomb.

That makes sense to me. You don't have to believe the two miracles actually happened for the author's logic to work.

2. I sympathize here: If the disciples are not apprised in advance (by the women), then the visit will come as a huge surprise
I think this helps explain why IMO the appearance by Jesus at the Sea of Galilee was a surprise. Some think John 21 is the :lost" ending. I would say that this ending in John 21 fits into Mark 16 as the lost one.... But.... I think Mark never wrote an ending beyond v. 8 like I said.

[Ben C. Smith]

If all the women kept absolute silence till their deaths then there is a problems about Mark's implied source for chapter 16. Whether or not what Mark says is actually historical one can generally find a plausible answer as to how Mark got to know about this.

The prayer in Gethsemane seems to be an incident which Mark did not bother to make certain was plausibly sourced, particularly if he narrated no resurrection appearances where Christ might reveal what he prayed all alone in the dark of night. Even if he did intend us to understand that there were resurrection appearances, or he wrote about them and the ending was lost, the risen Lord revealing what he prayed in Gethsemane would be little different than the risen Lord revealing what the messenger said to the women, unless I am missing something.