Mark has a common practice of employing the present tense. One need not draw special inferences from this like you are doing when you say that Mark had in mind a current action of Jesus, as if Jesus was in the middle of drinking a cup.Secret Alias wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:09 am Another overlooked fact is that In Mark the tenses of the significant verbs are probably sufficient alone to indicate that Mark did not understand Jesus' language to refer to martyrdom, for Jesus is made to speak of the cup which "I am drinking" and the baptism with which "I am being baptized," both verbs being presents and probably progressive presents. ... But doesn't this suggest the authenticity of Secret Mark? How else can all of this be explained?
Check the second underlined word in the first sentence above. When you read the sentence, I'm sure that you did not think I meant that Mark was in the middle of writing his gospel in 2019. Mark writes the same way with the present tense. (Many scholars can explain this, it's not just my own idea.)
I respect how much effort you put into studying Secret Mark and going through QQ's materials.
But this discussion on Irenaeus supposedly equating Mark 10's metaphorical baptism with the gnostics, the misunderstanding of the two baptisms (water and spiritual), and now Mark's use of the present tense comes across as really low grade. It makes me really hesitant to just follow along trustingly about the supposed surprising lost secrets revealed by so called "Secret Mark".