Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

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Secret Alias
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by Secret Alias »

Robert

But clearly the gospel editors were aware of Deut 21:23 being about hanging through to the new day. That's why the Jews are scrambling to take down the body in John and potentially that is why there is the explicit statement all this took place before the Sabbath in the rest. The Marcionites knew Paul to have been the author of the first written gospel. Do the math. Paul's knowledge of Christ being the curse for fulfilling Deut 21:23 likely was understood to derive from his gospel - a gospel the Marcionites knew they had. Ipso facto the emphasis in the canonical gospels that Jesus was buried before the Sabbath was a reaction against whatever theological import was derived from the Marcionite gospel
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by robert j »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:47 pm Robert

But clearly the gospel editors were aware of Deut 21:23 being about hanging through to the new day. That's why the Jews are scrambling to take down the body in John and potentially that is why there is the explicit statement all this took place before the Sabbath in the rest.
OK
Secret Alias wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:47 pm Ipso facto the emphasis in the canonical gospels that Jesus was buried before the Sabbath was a reaction against whatever theological import was derived from the Marcionite gospel
Not necessarily. The emphasis in the Synoptics of entombing Jesus the same day may have just been a reaction to Deut 21:22-23 and prohibitions from certain activities on the Sabbath.
Secret Alias wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:47 pm The Marcionites knew Paul to have been the author of the first written gospel. Do the math. Paul's knowledge of Christ being the curse for fulfilling Deut 21:23 likely was understood to derive from his gospel - a gospel the Marcionites knew they had.
This is where our basic assumptions differ very significantly. Regardless of what the Patristics might have claimed, or what the Marcionites might have believed (known only from the claims of the Patristics) --- I don’t think for a second that Paul had a written “gospel” --- that is, a story about Jesus Christ in any way similar to the Synoptics or GJohn. Paul’s “gospel”, the good news, was simply the sum of his salvific doctrines found in his (generally accepted) letters.

I don’t have the time or interest now to get involved in a further discussion on this --- maybe another time. For now, I’ll leave you to your thread.
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Yes, Deuteronomy 21.22-23 is about removing the corpse before the next day. But that does not mean that it cannot be read (and quite naturally) as the hanged person being a curse whether s/he was removed or not, right?

Deuteronomy 21.22-23: 22 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

This can easily be read as a command to remove the body before sundown because the body is already a curse, and one day is enough. It does not have to be read as suggesting that the body becomes a curse only if it stays up past sundown. Right?
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by robert j »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 1:41 pm Yes, Deuteronomy 21.22-23 is about removing the corpse before the next day. But that does not mean that it cannot be read (and quite naturally) as the hanged person being a curse whether s/he was removed or not, right?

Deuteronomy 21.22-23: 22 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

This can easily be read as a command to remove the body before sundown because the body is already a curse, and one day is enough. It does not have to be read as suggesting that the body becomes a curse only if it stays up past sundown. Right?
Agreed, two aspects here, the victim is accursed by being hung on wood, and if the body is left hanging beyond the same day, the cursed one defiles the land given by God.
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by Secret Alias »

Ben

Robert is correct. A hanged man is accursed of God. But the implication of Deuteronomy seems to be that if the Jews don't take down the hanged man before the start of the day the land and Israel itself will be accursed not just the individual (= becoming a curse for us). The early Christian exegesis of this strange curse was that it was in reality a prediction of the Passion and the destruction of the temple. That can't allow us to simply equate Christ being crucified with the subject of the prophesy. There were lots of crucified victims. The idea - at least as I see it - was that because this particular man was crucified at the behest of 'the Jews' and left hanging until it got dark it was a kind of 'divine prophesy' relating to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:07 pm Ben

Robert is correct. A hanged man is accursed of God. But the implication of Deuteronomy seems to be that if the Jews don't take down the hanged man before the start of the day the land and Israel itself will be accursed not just the individual (= becoming a curse for us).
Agreed. But Paul seems to be calling Jesus a curse; he does not seem to be talking about Jesus remaining until the next day and cursing the land.
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Secret Alias
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by Secret Alias »

Well not as we have Paul right now - sure. But Paul can't have argued that God predicted a man would be crucified and as a result the Jews were cursed. It has to be - a man was crucified and left hanging past the darkness of night and as a result the Jews were cursed and we the Christians redeemed. It doesn't work with merely Christ crucified. It has to be Christ left crucified past the darkness of night = curse for Jews, redemption for Christians. Why redemption for Christians I have no idea to be honest.
“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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Secret Alias
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by Secret Alias »

BTW I suspect that this debate we were having was held between Marcionites and the orthodox in the second century.
“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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Secret Alias
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by Secret Alias »

What makes this prophesy so interesting too as Blackman notes is that it is one of two explicit testimonies of the Jewish scriptures in which Marcionites acknowledge a prediction of Christ. https://books.google.com/books?id=luPYA ... on&f=false This adds another layer of complexity to the discussion. I suspect Daniel 9:26 was another. But look where we stand anyway. What was it the Marcionites found attractive about this 'prophesy' i.e. Deut 21:23? Was it that it labeled Christ a 'curse' or 'cursed'? No certainly not. It must have been the associated idea of the Jews sabotaging and polluting their land and ultimately themselves. In other words, the 'boomerang effect' of harming Christ but ultimately destroying themselves. This requires the whole citation of Deut 21:23 not just 'cursed is everyone who hangs from a tree.' That would apply only to crucified people.
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Re: Was the Sixth Hour = 6 pm? Was Mark's 'Third Hour' an Attempt at Harmonizing the Greek and Roman Time Calculations?

Post by iskander »

It is not a prophecy.
Deuteronomy does not predict the existence and death of anyone not yet born, what it does is nothing more than any other penal legislation anytime and anywhere; if one living individual is convicted of breaking certain laws then specified consequences will follow.
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