Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Galilee is allegory of all the known world, in Mark.

Judea and Jerusalem is allegory of Judea and Jerusalem (!). Specific territory in opposition to generic territory ("Galilee").

The same dichotomy between named people in Mark and not-named people in Mark.

Galilea is anonymous land insofar it is allegory of the Roman Empire.

Now, if Mark is based on Paul, where did Mark take the idea that Jesus had to appear the first time in Galilee?

Best answer: in Galatians 1:15

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

The first place, the more pure and spiritual place where Jesus appeared ON THIS EARTH was INSIDE Paul.

How could the Galilee be allegory of what is IN the man called Paul?

The best answer is that this allegory (Galilee=what is IN Paul) may work only if we identify the free spirituality (of the mystical people who "saw" Jesus, like Paul) with the territory not circumscribed by the specific features of the traditional places of meeting of the deity. Galilee is all and nothing, from this prospective. Jesus is everywhere in the Roman Empire and nowhere in the Roman Empire (because he is hidden in Paul).

But then Mark is proclaiming a God who did sanctify not more a mere temple, but the entire world.

The force of this argument may move me to doubt about the originality of the our canonical incipit of Mark.

It is so simple: Jesus HAD to appear ex nihilo in Galilee the first time. Marcion was extremely right in this sense and so proto-Mark has to be "marcionite" in this sense. Ignore JtB, the baptism, the temptations.... It is all later addition.

Viceversa, the Judea and Jerusalem are not symbols of high spirituality and mysticism in Mark. It is the place where Jesus is NOT really, where he has "to empty" himself in order to enter in it.

Jesus is recognizable in Jerusalem by the servant of the high priest only as "the Galilean" and Peter denies the knowledge of him as "Galilean". Jesus was rejected by Jerusalem even before that the interpolator inserted in proto-Mark a Jesus rejected from Nazaret IN GALILEE.

Therefore any reference to Nazaret has to be absent in proto-Mark.

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Unfortunately the things are the other way around. In GMark is no rejection in Nazareth of Galilee. The story in Mark 6:1ff takes place in his "father's (town)". But in GMarcion (according to Tertullian and Jerome) is a rejection in "Nazareth". It seems that Galilee isn't a "world of the freed spirituality" in GMarcion.

Do not mix the gospel according to Giuseppe and GMarcion

What about Jesus being accused in John of being a Samaritan and having a demon, yet he only denies having a demon and lets the Samaritan charge stand. It would seem to support the idea of appearing first in Galilee. Also Paul as a Benjaminite is essentially a Galilean/Samaritan, right, in some sense. And following your theory of Jesus being in Paul, he would be a spirit within the Benjamite (Samaritan/Galilean) Paul, a spirit that some might term a 'demon'.

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So,

Galilee was kind of like the 1969 Woodstock music festival? Or more like the worldwide New Age movement (here it is almost totally confined to southern California, mainly around Los Angeles because it was latched onto by a number of film actors of the 60s & 70s).

DCH

In a marcionite universe, there is no way to save Galilee in comparison to Jerusalem: any place of this world is damned as created by the demiurge. No allegory, here.

If Galilee is allegoric of something in Mark, then there I see a strong evidence of the Markan priority over GMarcion.

It is interesting that Acts puts the Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Between Galilee and Syria.

According to Galatians 1, Paul saw Jesus before that he stayed in Damascus.
And according to Gal 1, Paul went to Damascus from south, from Arabia.

Jerusalem was not touched by Paul but Galilee was an obligatory passage to go from Arabia to Damascus.

Therefore Galilee is symbol of spiritual independence from Jerusalem according to the same mention of the places visited by Paul before that he went to meet the Pillars in Jerusalem for the first time. A visit that was seen as an act of submission by his enemies.

Giuseppe wrote:Jerusalem was not touched by Paul but Galilee was an obligatory passage to go from Arabia to Damascus.

Actually it is very possible to travel from Arabia to Damascus and never touch foot in Galilee.



Whether you consider Arabia to be Arabia proper (capital Petra) or Nabatea (although commonly called Arabs by contemporary writers, they weren't really Arabs but Arameans), the "Kings Highway" takes one there.

DCH