Was Mark's Passion Story based on Genesis account, also?

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Giuseppe
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Was Mark's Passion Story based on Genesis account, also?

Post by Giuseppe »

I raise this possibility only as a my mere suspicion, and I will try to prove it based on the evidence.

In particular, the thesis is the following: ''Mark'' wrote his story not only as theodicy to justify the absence of God (YHWH) in the terrible Jewish defeat of 70 CE, but also to justify the presence of haters of the same Creator God.

According to Robert M. Price in the his review of RG Price's books, that was to be expected, since he has written:
The note of impending divine judgment on the Jewish people for rejecting Jesus, the point of so many of the literary references, is no side issue, according to Price. On reflection, mustn’t the prominence of the theme at least suggest that it is actually the main reason for the writing of Mark? The whole of the Deuteronomic theology of the Old Testament was designed to get God off the hook for the defeats and subjugations of Israel and Judah by heathen empires. Wasn’t Yahweh obliged to safeguard his people? Well, he conspicuously didn’t, so Jews were faced with two options: either the covenant with God was, in the words of Woody Allen, “just so much chin music,” or God threw his covenant people to the wolves because
they reneged on the covenant, not him. Jewish thinkers chose the second option. It would have been even worse to say, “Okay, we were barking up the wrong terebinth, I guess. We’re on our own.” (Richard L. Rubenstein had the courage to draw just that conclusion in his book After Auschwitz.)


(my bold)

In order to realize the latter point, 'Mark' posed his Jesus, during the Jewish and Roman trial and execution, as the Serpent of Genesis, but not in order to identify the Jesus with the Serpent. Rather, to show how the maximum of abomination was to see that the high priest usurped the role of YHWH to a such degree, that Jesus was judged by him as if Jesus was the Serpent, the direct rival of YHWH!

So who effectively adored Jesus as the Serpent in the real History:

This Serpent, he says, is he who appeared in the last days, in form of a man, in the times of Herod, being born after the likeness of Joseph, who was sold by the hand of his brethren, to whom alone belonged the coat of many colour

http://gnosis.org/library/hyp_refut5.htm

...was a sinner just as the high priest who treated Jesus as the Serpent.


Genesis 2Parallels in the Gospel of Mark
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Jesus was arrested in the garden of olives.Judas was necessary to know where he was. The disciples flee and in particular the young naked flees also.
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

In both the cases the judge needs witnesses to condemn the victim.
53 They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law came together. 54 Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. There he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire.
55 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. 56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.
57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’” 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree.
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
The victim is condemned and punished:
60 Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”
62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
63 The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. 64 “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”
They all condemned him as worthy of death. 65 Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, “Prophesy!” And the guards took him and beat him.
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return
.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
Just as Adam was betrayed by Eve, so Peter is betrayed by a woman. Just as Adam is condemned to became again dust, so Peter was connected with the his land of origin: the Galilee. Note also the function of the rooster: an animal signs the sin of Peter, just as an animal (the Serpent) signs the sin of Adam.
6 While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. 67 When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him.
“You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said.
68 But he denied it. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway. 69 When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.” 70 Again he denied it.
After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.”
71 He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.”
72 Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.
The purple robe allegorizes the human flesh assumed by Jesus to know the sufferings. Just as the Serpent can't more walk on his legs, so Jesus can't carry the cross alone.
The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.
He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Here the story diverges from Genesis: while in Genesis the fallen Adam can't return to the tree of live, Jesus can gain the resurrection just by passing for the “tree” of the crucifixion. And while in Genesis the cherubim (victorious) are placed near the tree as warning, the two rebels (losers) are placed near the cross/“tree” as warning.
They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left.


While we ignore the fate of the serpent in Genesis 2, the story continues in Mark.

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”


Here is where I are moved to think that 'Mark' is based on a previous gospel, since just in the fact that the risen Jesus is preaching in Galilee again - as if the crucifixion had had no effect on the order of the things - is a strong pointer to the fact that Jesus is not came to redeem, but to reveal. Since a revelation was what he was doing and was going again to do in Galilee, as opposed to an expiation and a sacrifice in Jerusalem.

And we already know who was the Revealer of the Gnosis par excellence:

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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