Presumptions of reader knowledge in Mark.

[Giuseppe]

Of particular interest about Martin's hypothesis:

This confession or plea of guilty the Pontifex
Maximus deemed sufficient for both identification and condemnation, but he evidently felt the capital sentence should be endorsed by the secular
authority, hence, the Son of Man was sent to the Praelatus.

The Praelatus who presided at the secular trial, appears in the common text as the Peilatos, an
expression which is made to pass for " Pilatus," a person who had died thirty years before. It
is worthy of note that the word " Pontius " does not occur at all in the Mark, the oldest of the
Gospels, nor in any other Gospel except in the Luke (3:1) where it is found in part of the infancy story, a later accretion of the myth- makers.

https://archive.org/stream/simonsonofma ... p_djvu.txt

[Ben C. Smith]

For what we know and don't of hellinist titles, a p(e)ilatos could be a generic title for a prosecutor or judge in some eastern parts of the empire.

Whence does this notion arise? What makes it viable?

[Martin Klatt]

[Ben C. Smith]

For what we know and don't of hellinist titles, a p(e)ilatos could be a generic title for a prosecutor or judge in some eastern parts of the empire.

Whence does this notion arise? What makes it viable?

The lack of foreknowledge makes it viable. In this thread foreknowledge is assumed in this case. I assume lack of it. I assume a lack of a lot of knowledge of this age. Therefore I doubt, or call me a sceptic.

I think, rather, that the author of Mark (or this part of Mark, at any rate) is simply assuming that his readers already know who Pilate is; same goes for Simon (= Peter) and for God himself, as well as for Satan. That pilatus should be an otherwise unknown title for some minor official seems extremely less likely than that, given the number of prosopographical sources (especially inscriptions) we have for the East.

[Martin Klatt]

[Giuseppe]

praelatus: from prac, before, and latus, part. of feror, to be borne.

Pronunce: Prylatus.

Pilate would be "he who sets Jesus before the Jews".

[Ben C. Smith]

praelatus: from prac, before, and latus, part. of feror, to be borne.

Pronunce: Prylatus.

Pilate would be "he who sets Jesus before the Jews".

Pilate derives from the Latin pilatus, which means "armed with a javelin."

For what we know and don't of hellinist titles, a p(e)ilatos could be a generic title for a prosecutor or judge in some eastern parts of the empire.

Whence does this notion arise? What makes it viable?

The lack of foreknowledge makes it viable. In this thread foreknowledge is assumed in this case. I assume lack of it. I assume a lack of a lot of knowledge of this age. Therefore I doubt, or call me a sceptic.

I think, rather, that the author of Mark (or this part of Mark, at any rate) is simply assuming that his readers already know who Pilate is; same goes for Simon (= Peter) and for God himself, as well as for Satan. That pilatus should be an otherwise unknown title for some minor official seems extremely less likely than that, given the number of prosopographical sources (especially inscriptions) we have for the East.

I hear you, but I think it is curious that Mark does not identify this p(e)ilatos with some other title, though he identifies Herod as a king, Jairus as a synagogue ruler. It is just not consistent and the argument of foreknowledge is then a rather weak solution for this riddle.

Jairus is not a good comparison, partly because he may be completely fictional (unlike Pilate and Herod) but mainly because, even if he is not, a synagogue ruler is hardly on the same level of public notice as a governor (whether prefect or procurator). Herod is a much better comparison, but he was a tetrarch, not a king (pace Mark), and Mark may have had an ulterior motive to call him a king for the sake of the story about the death of John, by way of comparison between the death of John and the banquet of Ahasuerus, the king in the book of Esther.

At any rate, it is telling to me that the name of Pilate found its way into the creeds ("he suffered under Pontius Pilate"), whereas the name of Herod did not. I suspect on completely separate grounds that the passion narrative was originally based upon Christian liturgy (drawn mainly from the Hebrew scriptures but also from historical and/or pseudo-historical data); therefore, Mark would have expected his readers to know the name of Pilate from the earliest Christian liturgy, whereas the name of Herod would carry no such expectation.

Also, we know that Pilate existed; for Mark to be referring to this historical figure has to be by far the strongest presumption, rather than to some title unknown to us from the thousands of governmental inscriptions available to us.

[Giuseppe]

praelatus: from prac, before, and latus, part. of feror, to be borne.

Pronunce: Prylatus.

Pilate would be "he who sets Jesus before the Jews".

Pilate derives from the Latin pilatus, which means "armed with a javelin."

I hope that you are not insulting me by pointing out a my presumed ignorance of the true ethymology of Pilate.

But the similarity between the judge title Praelatus and the name P(e)ilatus surprises me, given also the Martin's observations.

[Ben C. Smith]

praelatus: from prac, before, and latus, part. of feror, to be borne.

Pronunce: Prylatus.

Pilate would be "he who sets Jesus before the Jews".

Pilate derives from the Latin pilatus, which means "armed with a javelin."

I hope that you are not insulting me by pointing out a my presumed ignorance of the true ethymology of Pilate.

But the similarity between the judge title Praelatus and the name P(e)ilatus surprises me, given also the Martin's observations.

If you already knew the etymology of Pilate, why did you introduce such an obviously unrelated term? As far as I can tell, praelatus was not even a title until the Middle Ages.

[Martin Klatt]