Mark's Sources -- a question

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neilgodfrey
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Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by neilgodfrey »

If the author "Mark" used a range of sources that he stitched together somewhat clumsily and so leaving tell-tale "seams" and various infelicities in his efforts to join them into a single narrative, would we not expect that such an author would also fail to totally assimilate his diverse sources so that each of his pericopes or anecdotal units maintained its original style or christological fingerprints?

In other words, a fairly untalented author attempting to (slightly awkwardly) link different sources together (a tradition from here, a narrative from there, a saying from over here....) would also be expected to preserve tell-tale signs of the different styles, vocabulary, ideology, of his different sources in each pericope.

Now I think with the story of John the Baptist's death we certainly do find a very distinctive narrative unlike anything else in the gospel. But that little story stands out as exceptional, does it not, in the pre-Passion "half" of the gospel. So yes, we would expect various studies to suggest that that particular detail was a subsequent addition to that gospel.

But what of the other little stories. Don't they all (or most of them, let's say) bear the same sort of style, vocabulary, ideology that we would expect to find from a single author?

If so, how do we explain a work (of a range of different oral and other traditional sources) that is supposedly strung together by a rather unsophisticated author that at the same time produces an apparently harmonious vocabulary, style, ideology throughout all of the little anecdotes that he has put together?

Would we not, rather, expect a real smorgasbord of styles, vocabularies and ideologies throughout such a gospel produced by such an author?
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

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neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am
Would we not, rather, expect a real smorgasbord of styles, vocabularies and ideologies throughout such a gospel produced by such an author?
It would depend on their ability to edit or gloss or both (?) And, on how much editing & redacting was subsequently done (?)
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by neilgodfrey »

MrMacSon wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:23 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am
Would we not, rather, expect a real smorgasbord of styles, vocabularies and ideologies throughout such a gospel produced by such an author?
It would depend on their ability to edit or gloss or both (?) And, on how much editing & redacting was subsequently done (?)
Have we not seen evidence of that (limited) ability in the supposedly infelicitous "joins", "seams" etc between or linking these little stories?
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am But what of the other little stories. Don't they all (or most of them, let's say) bear the same sort of style, vocabulary, ideology that we would expect to find from a single author?
Agreed. That's the reason why I do not belive in "sources" (in the usual sense). There was a discussion with Michael BG on the "Pre-Marcan Passion Narrative" and I think it's easy to identify typical characteristics of Mark's style in all parts of the text.

imho the same applies to Bultmann's famous case on Mark 2:1-12
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 7:24 am This thematic duplication reminds me of another pericope I have argued to be a composite:

Mark 2.1-12: 1 When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home. 2 And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them. 3 And they come, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. 4 Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. 5a And Jesus seeing their faith says to the paralytic [λέγει τῶ παραλυτικῶ], 5b "Son, your sins are forgiven." 6 But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7 "Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?" 8 Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, says to them, "Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’? 10 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" — He says to the paralytic [λέγει τῶ παραλυτικῶ], 11 "I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home." 12 And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this."

It is a duplication ("says to the paralytic") that gets the pericope back to its original state, after the business about sin and blasphemy has been inserted, but the duplication makes mince of the grammar. We can tell that the use of sources is one very plausible way to account for this kind of grammatical stumble between narration and direct dialogue from how Luke treats Mark here:
I would claim that it would be easy for me to show that the story in Mark 2:5b-10 has the same typical characteristics of style as the story in Mark 2:1-5a+11-12 and in the rest of GMark.

On the contrary, imho in GLuke (partially also in GMatthew) one could observe on the one hand the typical enigmatic synoptical stories and on the other hand Luke's own stories, in which the logic of the action is well explained.
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by Ulan »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am If so, how do we explain a work (of a range of different oral and other traditional sources) that is supposedly strung together by a rather unsophisticated author that at the same time produces an apparently harmonious vocabulary, style, ideology throughout all of the little anecdotes that he has put together?

Would we not, rather, expect a real smorgasbord of styles, vocabularies and ideologies throughout such a gospel produced by such an author?
I'm not sure whether anyone assumes lots of different sources. A common candidate is the passion narrative, which is a bit different in style, too. A redactor usually imposes some of his unique style on a story. Just think of gLuke, which is generally supposed to be put together from different sources, but still shows a unique authorial style overall.

With the Bethsaida arc, a possible explanation would even assume some sort of duplication, which means derivation from an originally same source, living two separate lives for a while, until the differences became so large that the author of "our" gMark poured it once again into his final product. If I remember correctly, one perceived difference here would be the style of how the healing miracles were done (with or without physical touching).

That's all speculation of course, but I don't think that "using lots of different sources" necessarily implies "naive collection of those stories".
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

I think the OP is a nice example of the early stages of hypothesis development. Several dimensions of uncertainty are raised, each of which rewards attention.

But that would be a long post, and life is short. Is the terminal question the intended focus of the post? And since I have to ask, I trust I will not be mistaken as questioning the Godfresian spin on this topic. I really don't know what Neil is advocating, or that he is advocating. May those white knights who have ears, hear.
Would we not, rather, expect a real smorgasbord of styles, vocabularies and ideologies throughout such a gospel produced by such an author?
Maybe if the author was a seamstress making a quilt, or a freshman cranking out a term paper with copypasta from Wikiquotes.

Knowing nothing about Mark (really nothing: is Mark exactly one person?, is he a Christian?, is he taking "sides" in disputes, both temporal and eternal, that may not have interested any audience of his time and place - whatever time and place those were, which we also don't know with useful precision...) - nothing except the work in hand, which we have good reason to think has been tuned up on its long journey from Mark to us, it is difficult to say what a reader should expect instead of the work in hand.

Ordinarily, we rate an author who is widely read after his death and who influenced others in the same genre as an able writer, with extra credit for being a very early adopter of the genre in question. Mark is all that. The worst I've read about him is that his diction and sometimes his grammar suck. Oh, he writes the way some people talk.

What does a good writer do with antecedents? He makes them his own. An artist may also choose to preserve some of them as recognizable, if that fits the work.

Jewish Bible quotes, for example, are germane to establishing the characters. Jesus and some who engage with him are full-time, often professional, dispensers of Jewish Bible interpretations. What would the critic have them say if not biblical allusions? Even so, Mark often places his own stamp on what he plausibly wishes his audience to recognize as originally biblical, like the opening mash-up of Isaiah and Malachi.

And then there's Herod, quoting Esther. That is brilliant rapid-fire character sketching, plus a solution to the itchy plot problem of turning a drunken outburst into a binding oath, weighty enough to provoke credibly a fatal dramatic crisis - a man dies because of those few words.

There are about 100 distinguishable characters in Mark, which subtends only about 11,000 words. Herod, Herodias, her daughter, the soldier and John's disciples all come alive in the entr'acte. Yeah, it must have been added later by somebody else; somebody who knew how to write, 'cause its achievements are so different from what Malaprop Mark achieves throughout the rest of the work. Lol.
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by Charles Wilson »

Wonderful statements, Neil --
neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am If the author "Mark" used a range of sources that he stitched together somewhat clumsily and so leaving tell-tale "seams" and various infelicities in his efforts to join them into a single narrative, would we not expect that such an author would also fail to totally assimilate his diverse sources so that each of his pericopes or anecdotal units maintained its original style or christological fingerprints?
As is known, I agree with the "If" part, that Mark had Sources as described. I also agree with the assertion that Mark failed to "...totally assimilate his diverse sources so that each of his pericopes or anecdotal units maintained its original style...". THAT MAY BE THE POINT OF MARK. The original Mark *MAY* have been a Literary Device that was transformed into the Story of a "Jesus" character. Your comment here carries 2 ideas: Mark failed to assimilate Sources (Jewish Priestly Sources, Pre and Post Temple Destruction, f'rinstance). His failure to do so manifests itself in Sources which in fact DISPLAY the original style. The "Jesus" Stories (The Squall, "The Woman with the Twelve Year Issue of Blood", "Jairus' Daughter...) are rewrites of Stories which may be traced to the original events. The manner and style of the originals appear, incredibly, to be intact.

The last part of the argument here is "Christological fingerprints". The Sources were there for the taking and there do not appear to be "Christological". The christlogical fingerprints came later during the Roman Control of the material. Mark is obviously in this part of the world and writing as a part of that world. "From the fact that the "Jesus" Stories were written from Source Stories, it does not follow that the Source Stories were about "Jesus"."
In other words, a fairly untalented author attempting to (slightly awkwardly) link different sources together (a tradition from here, a narrative from there, a saying from over here....) would also be expected to preserve tell-tale signs of the different styles, vocabulary, ideology, of his different sources in each pericope.
YES! Welcome to my world, Neil. The Gospels show the advantage of theft over honest toil. It goes beyond vocabulary and style, however. If the events may be correctly found (The Temple Slaughter of 4 BCE, Alexander Jannaeus seen in Mark 13, the Mishmarot Priesthood, for example), then the Stories do leave their footprints in the Data. Was Mark aware of these tell-tales?
Now I think with the story of John the Baptist's death we certainly do find a very distinctive narrative unlike anything else in the gospel. But that little story stands out as exceptional, does it not, in the pre-Passion "half" of the gospel. So yes, we would expect various studies to suggest that that particular detail was a subsequent addition to that gospel.
Mebbe. If the Originals were taken by the Romans for dismemberment and rewrites, John appears - I believe - as a primary, in-the-Original character. He is of the Mishmarot Service Group Bilgah.
But what of the other little stories. Don't they all (or most of them, let's say) bear the same sort of style, vocabulary, ideology that we would expect to find from a single author?
Mostly. Mark has his segment of the Empty Tomb and it appears to have been written by that single author. However, it was not good enough for the New Religion which came very soon after. Material has been added that in no way approaches "Markan Style". Agreed?
If so, how do we explain a work (of a range of different oral and other traditional sources) that is supposedly strung together by a rather unsophisticated author that at the same time produces an apparently harmonious vocabulary, style, ideology throughout all of the little anecdotes that he has put together?

Would we not, rather, expect a real smorgasbord of styles, vocabularies and ideologies throughout such a gospel produced by such an author?
From the cheap seats where I sit, that appears to me to be exactly what we find.

Thank you, Neil,

CW
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Jax
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

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neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am
Now I think with the story of John the Baptist's death we certainly do find a very distinctive narrative unlike anything else in the gospel. But that little story stands out as exceptional, does it not, in the pre-Passion "half" of the gospel. So yes, we would expect various studies to suggest that that particular detail was a subsequent addition to that gospel.
Hi Neil,

I am very interested in this. Are there any links that discuss this at greater length that you could post here?

Thanks,

Jax
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by neilgodfrey »

Jax wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:18 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am
Now I think with the story of John the Baptist's death we certainly do find a very distinctive narrative unlike anything else in the gospel. But that little story stands out as exceptional, does it not, in the pre-Passion "half" of the gospel. So yes, we would expect various studies to suggest that that particular detail was a subsequent addition to that gospel.
Hi Neil,

I am very interested in this. Are there any links that discuss this at greater length that you could post here?

Thanks,

Jax
I don't recall, sorry. Was it in one of Crossan's earlier works, Mack's? But a quick search on Jstor turned up this little detail:
On literary-critical grounds the martyrdom of the Baptist (vv 14- 29) exhibits several unique features. It is the only narrative in the Gospel which is not about Jesus.34 It is narrated in the simple aorist instead of Mark’s preferred historical present (although the flashback may account for this). There are, as Lohmeyer noted,35 * several hapax legomena in the narrative, and its language is more cultivated than is characteristic of Mark. It is not improbable that Mark took over a preformed narrative of the Baptist’s death and used it for his purposes in chapter six.
Source: Edwards, J. R. (1989). Markan Sandwiches. The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives. Novum Testamentum, 31(3), 193. https://doi.org/10.2307/1560460

The essence of the argument I am recalling is that the scene of JB's death is very unlike the other anecdotes in the first part of the gospel. They are all very brief, bare-bones. It is unusual to find a very lengthy and colourful account, rich in detail, about JB in a story about Jesus. As the little note from Edwards above points out, it looks like something "alien" inserted into the gospel -- whether by "Mark" himself or someone else.
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Jax
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Re: Mark's Sources -- a question

Post by Jax »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 3:05 pm
Jax wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:18 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:57 am
Now I think with the story of John the Baptist's death we certainly do find a very distinctive narrative unlike anything else in the gospel. But that little story stands out as exceptional, does it not, in the pre-Passion "half" of the gospel. So yes, we would expect various studies to suggest that that particular detail was a subsequent addition to that gospel.
Hi Neil,

I am very interested in this. Are there any links that discuss this at greater length that you could post here?

Thanks,

Jax
I don't recall, sorry. Was it in one of Crossan's earlier works, Mack's? But a quick search on Jstor turned up this little detail:
On literary-critical grounds the martyrdom of the Baptist (vv 14- 29) exhibits several unique features. It is the only narrative in the Gospel which is not about Jesus.34 It is narrated in the simple aorist instead of Mark’s preferred historical present (although the flashback may account for this). There are, as Lohmeyer noted,35 * several hapax legomena in the narrative, and its language is more cultivated than is characteristic of Mark. It is not improbable that Mark took over a preformed narrative of the Baptist’s death and used it for his purposes in chapter six.
Source: Edwards, J. R. (1989). Markan Sandwiches. The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives. Novum Testamentum, 31(3), 193. https://doi.org/10.2307/1560460

The essence of the argument I am recalling is that the scene of JB's death is very unlike the other anecdotes in the first part of the gospel. They are all very brief, bare-bones. It is unusual to find a very lengthy and colourful account, rich in detail, about JB in a story about Jesus. As the little note from Edwards above points out, it looks like something "alien" inserted into the gospel -- whether by "Mark" himself or someone else.
Thank you, I will read that right now.

Jax
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