A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

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Giuseppe
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A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

Post by Giuseppe »

Someone had already suggested that the young rich, in Mark, is the same young naked fleeing in Getsemani, and the same young at the tomb, urging the women to reveal the news to Peter et co.
Someone had even argued that Secret Mark - not being a forgery - is evidence of the initiation of this young rich (but this is not necessary for my hypothesis).

I am intrigued by the following remark:
Very probably, as W. B. Smith has suggested, the statement that the man was young and that Jesus loved him is an echo of Hosea ii, 1 : “ When Israel was young I loved him.”
(Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, p. 197, my bold )


MY SUGGESTION:

If the young is allegory of Israel, but only of the Israel loved by the Lord - i.e., only when Jesus has not still been ''delivered'' to the gentiles (but he is still for the Jews), then the surprising fact that the instructions by this young are not obeyed by the women at the tomb may mean that Israel ceases, in that precise moment, to be loved by the Lord.

After all, if the women would love this young, then they would have informed Peter and co.

The disobedience of the women is therefore the allegory of the abandon, by God, of the young Israel and by implication of Peter and co.

That young is not more loved by God insofar his command is disobeyed by the women, who therefore represent the Church more faithfully than Peter and co.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote:Someone had already suggested that the young rich, in Mark, is the same young naked fleeing in Getsemani, and the same young at the tomb, urging the women to reveal the news to Peter et co.
Someone had even argued that Secret Mark - not being a forgery - is evidence of the initiation of this young rich (but this is not necessary for my hypothesis).

I am intrigued by the following remark:
Very probably, as W. B. Smith has suggested, the statement that the man was young and that Jesus loved him is an echo of Hosea ii, 1 : “ When Israel was young I loved him.”
(Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, p. 197, my bold )
Mark 14.51-52 is sometimes thought to derive from Amos 2.16, as well.
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Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Giuseppe wrote:Someone had already suggested that the young rich, in Mark, is the same young naked fleeing in Getsemani, and the same young at the tomb, urging the women to reveal the news to Peter et co.
Just for the record. In GMark the rich man is not a "young man". Mark says only that "there came one running and kneeled to him".

In Matthew's version the rich is a "young man", but at the tomb there is an "angel".
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rakovsky
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Re: A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

Post by rakovsky »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 10:51 am
Giuseppe wrote:Someone had already suggested that the young rich, in Mark, is the same young naked fleeing in Getsemani, and the same young at the tomb, urging the women to reveal the news to Peter et co.
Just for the record. In GMark the rich man is not a "young man". Mark says only that "there came one running and kneeled to him".

In Matthew's version the rich is a "young man", but at the tomb there is an "angel".
Right.
Matthew makes the rich man who won't give up his riches to follow Jesus in Mark a young man, and he seems to make the youth in the tomb into the angel that descended from heaven, because the figures say the same thing to the women.

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rakovsky
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Re: A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

Post by rakovsky »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 9:28 am
Mark 14.51-52 is sometimes thought to derive from Amos 2.16, as well.
Amos 2:16 goes:
and those who are stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, says the Lord.

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rakovsky
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Re: A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

Post by rakovsky »

Giuseppe wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 9:15 am Someone had already suggested that the young rich, in Mark, is the same young naked fleeing in Getsemani, and the same young at the tomb, urging the women to reveal the news to Peter et co.
Someone had even argued that Secret Mark - not being a forgery - is evidence of the initiation of this young rich (but this is not necessary for my hypothesis).

I am intrigued by the following remark:
Very probably, as W. B. Smith has suggested, the statement that the man was young and that Jesus loved him is an echo of Hosea ii, 1 : “ When Israel was young I loved him.”
(Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, p. 197, my bold )


MY SUGGESTION:

If the young is allegory of Israel, but only of the Israel loved by the Lord - i.e., only when Jesus has not still been ''delivered'' to the gentiles (but he is still for the Jews), then the surprising fact that the instructions by this young are not obeyed by the women at the tomb may mean that Israel ceases, in that precise moment, to be loved by the Lord.

After all, if the women would love this young, then they would have informed Peter and co.

The disobedience of the women is therefore the allegory of the abandon, by God, of the young Israel and by implication of Peter and co.

That young is not more loved by God insofar his command is disobeyed by the women, who therefore represent the Church more faithfully than Peter and co.
I think that Secret Mark is a forgery, but if one took it seriously, Yes, the young man could be initiated in Secret Mark and then show up later at Gethsemane. But actually, this would seem less likely. If he got initiated into Christianity in Mark 10(Secret Mark) and put on a robe for his initiation there, then what is he doing later in Mark 14 wearing an initiation robe again? It seems a bit of a contradiction, so some apologists for secret Mark proposed that he underwent two initiations, the second one being the more secret initiation. But this also sounds wrong, because why would (if one accepts Morton Smith's Mar Saba letter) St. Clement have suppressed the first initiation story in Mark 10 and yet allowed the story of the initiated youth at Gethsemane to remain in canonical Mark (Mark 14)? So the whole story of Secret Mark doesn't really fit with the idea that the youth raised in Secret Mark is the same as the robed youth in Gethsemane and at the tomb.

The statement in Hosea 2 about loving Israel as a youth could be related to loving a youth in Mark's gospel, but where in Mark's gospel does it say that Mark loved the youth? It only says that in Secret Mark, which is likely a modern forgery (IMO) and it says that about the rich man, who Matthew (not Mark) portrays as a young man. So it seems that the verse in Hosea 2 isn't related to the story of either the robed youth at the tomb in Mark or the rich man in Mark.

Anyway, the women don't disobey the youth because God doesn't love him, but because they are scared of the anti-Christian rabbis according to the NT. The NT has the idea of a division between unfaithful pharisees and the Christian community, which included Jews like both the women and the youth. So it's hard to say that the youth symbolizes rejected, unfaithful Israel.

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Re: A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

The terminology in the wrestling narrative is ambiguous. May contain references to love and desire between angel and Jacob
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Re: A suggestion regarding the young naked in Mark

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Secret Alias wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 9:42 am The terminology in the wrestling narrative is ambiguous. May contain references to love and desire between angel and Jacob
The Secret Mark passage is explicit in discussing the youth having just a robe and having mutual love with Jesus, but it is not explicitly sexual.

Peter Jeffrey in his book The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled notes that the sexual suggestion is stronger when it comes to the Letter's reference to the Carpocratians:
Unfortunately, Clement did not quote any of the Carpocratian variants, except one. He simply referred back to ‘‘the other things about which you wrote’’ in Theodore’s original letter, which we don’t have. The one exception is highly provocative, however: the two Greek adjectives gymnos gymn ̄o, which Smith translates as ‘‘naked [man] with naked [man].’’ The word ‘‘man’’is not given in the Greek but implied by the masculine singular endings. Much the same is true of the preposition ‘‘with’’; it is not explicitly stated, but only implied by the dative ending of gymn ̄o.

A translator who supplied a different preposition, such as ‘‘to,’’ ‘‘on,’’ or ‘‘in,’’ would not be wrong grammatically. It all depends on what we imagine those two naked [men] were doing. Since the Carpocratians, whose gospel contains this wording, are said to have had a
reputation for ‘‘carnal and bodily sins,’’ one infers that Jesus and the young man were up to no good, hence Theodore’s consternation and Clement’s out- rage. Or perhaps the whole thing is an adventure in reader-response criticism. Are we reading more into the text than is really there?

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
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