Who is John Mark?

[perseusomega9]

Noice xpost with davidm

[John2]

i tend to see John the presbyter as a leader at the time of a merging of Pauline, 'Ebionite', and other churches under a more central structure in the late 1st century. I don't see it as a direct continuation of some more original, first church but a later in-gathering under different leaders. I think Papias is reliable to this time.

Fair enough, though Papias calls John the presbyter a disciple of Jesus, just like he does for Andrew and Peter and others who followed Jesus when he was alive.

I think there was always a 'Peter' faction, some joined in with the above merger which gave the gospel of Matthew, others refused and became the Ebionites and went more normative Judaism.

I was just reading up on the Papias' Mark = John Mark = the author of the gospel of Mark idea and Hengel notes some interesting things about Mark on pg. 50-51 of Studies in the Gospel of Mark:

... the Gospel of Mark mentions Simon Peter more frequently than the other Synoptic Gospels and also more frequently than John, if we leave out the chapter which is critical of Peter in the supplement, John 21. Simon Peter is mentioned 25 times in all. Simon is the first disciple to be mentioned, in 1:16, directly after the propositio in 1:14, 15, and quite unusually his brother Andrew is described as 'the brother of Simon' (on this cf. 15:21). At the beginning of Jesus' ministry ... Jesus visits ... and heals Simon's mother-in-law (1:29) .. he stands at the head of all the lists of the disciples, the Twelve, and also the three and the four ... He is the last disciple whom Jesus addresses personally in Gethsemane (14:37), the last who accompanies Jesus as far as the courtyard of the high priest's palace (14:37), indeed, even more, the last to be mentioned in the Gospel ... it can hardly be doubted that Mark is stressing the unique significance of Peter ...


https://books.google.com/books?id=jeVKA ... el&f=false

I suppose it could be argued that it is because of all these references to Peter that the author of Mark was thought to have been a follower of Peter, but Papias' reference to John the presbyter being a disciple of Jesus (like Peter) makes me think his information could have come from someone who was alive during Jesus' time (like Peter was) rather than from someone's deduction about the gospel of Mark.

[Ben C. Smith]

i tend to see John the presbyter as a leader at the time of a merging of Pauline, 'Ebionite', and other churches under a more central structure in the late 1st century. I don't see it as a direct continuation of some more original, first church but a later in-gathering under different leaders. I think Papias is reliable to this time.

Fair enough, though Papias calls John the presbyter a disciple of Jesus, just like he does for Andrew and Peter and others who followed Jesus when he was alive.

I have tentatively argued, inspired by Bacon, that the second "disciples of the Lord" is an interpolation, and the more I consider the case the better it looks to me. The Syriac lacks it entirely, and its presence seems awkward and contrived.

[John2]

He's a cipher for a 'major pivotal' character that joined johannine christianity with markionite christianity and ultimately subsumed under Peter's authority. Give it up about acts, its mid 2nd century

I've got my reasons for thinking Acts is no later than c. 95 CE, but I'm curious to know what makes you think it is from the mid-second century CE (and for the record, I used to think that too).

[John2]

i tend to see John the presbyter as a leader at the time of a merging of Pauline, 'Ebionite', and other churches under a more central structure in the late 1st century. I don't see it as a direct continuation of some more original, first church but a later in-gathering under different leaders. I think Papias is reliable to this time.

Fair enough, though Papias calls John the presbyter a disciple of Jesus, just like he does for Andrew and Peter and others who followed Jesus when he was alive.

I have tentatively argued, inspired by Bacon, that the second "disciples of the Lord" is an interpolation, and the more I consider the case the better it looks to me. The Syriac lacks it entirely, and its presence seems awkward and contrived.

I've been keeping that in mind and will take another look at it.

[John2]

Ben asks on the thread he links to above:

The phrase is awkwardly repetitious. If Aristion and the elder John were disciples of the Lord, as well, why not write the sentence in such a way that a single phrase would cover all nine names?

Because in John the presbyter's case he was still alive, unlike the other disciples. For the others, Papias heard what they had "said," whereas he heard what John the presbyter "says."

[Ben C. Smith]

Ben asks on the thread he links to above:

The phrase is awkwardly repetitious. If Aristion and the elder John were disciples of the Lord, as well, why not write the sentence in such a way that a single phrase would cover all nine names?

Because in John the presbyter's case he was still alive, unlike the other disciples. For the others, Papias heard what they had "said," whereas he heard what John the presbyter "says."

Well, that explains the two different verbs. What explains the two identical (and repeated) "disciples of the Lord" phrases?

[Ben C. Smith]

Papias could have very easily written: "I inquired as to the words of the elders, the disciples of the Lord — what Andrew or Peter or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew had said, or what Aristion and the Elder John are still saying." This sentence is actually less cumbersome than what he really wrote. But in my view he had a very good reason for not writing it in this way. This version of the sentence implies that he was asking about the words of all nine men. What did Matthew say? What did Aristion say? And all the rest. In the version which we actually find in Eusebius the interrogative pronouns apply only to the first seven, with the last two men saying what (ἅ, "the things which") the first seven had said. This scenario seems weird if both Aristion and the second John were also "disciples of the Lord," in which case why not ask what they said, too? And Eusebius calls these latter two men followers of the apostles, as if he did not even notice that Papias had called them disciples in the same way that the first seven were disciples. My view is that he did not notice this, because the phrase was added only later, during the century after Eusebius wrote, in order to vouchsafe Papias as a hearer of the one and only Apostle John, the Theologian and Evangelist.

[John2]

Ben asks on the thread he links to above:

The phrase is awkwardly repetitious. If Aristion and the elder John were disciples of the Lord, as well, why not write the sentence in such a way that a single phrase would cover all nine names?

Because in John the presbyter's case he was still alive, unlike the other disciples. For the others, Papias heard what they had "said," whereas he heard what John the presbyter "says."

Well, that explains the two different verbs. What explains the two identical (and repeated) "disciples of the Lord" phrases?

I don't know if this answers your question, but Holding (who I came across recently and had to track down again) puts it this way:

When Papias writes that those who had been in attendance on the elders provided him with what Andrew [etc.] "had said," he clearly implies that these disciples were no longer saying these things at the time Papias spoke with those who had been in attendance on the elders. Hence .. these disciples were already dead, allowing Papias only to know what they "had said." However, in the case of the other two disciples (John and Aristion), Papias was able to find out what they "were saying." That is, at the time Papias spoke with the attendees of the elders, these two disciples were still alive. Hence, the two groups of disciples are distinguished by the fact that the seven were dead when Papias was collecting information, whereas John and Aristion were still alive.


https://books.google.com/books?id=2XHys ... ys&f=false

This appears to pertain to the second question you ask in the link you gave above:

Papias says he is inquiring as to the words of "the elders" before going on to list the men whose words he is interested in. The easiest way to read the grammar is to take the series of accusative interrogative pronouns (τί) as standing in apposition with "words" (λόγους, also an accusative). This means that the "elders" in question are (at least) the disciples from that first list of seven (Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, and Matthew), a very normal usage of the term "elders" to mean any and all predecessors. The interrogative pronouns imply the corresponding questions: "What did Andrew say? What did Peter say?" (And so on.)

Yet, when we get to Aristion and the elder John, the interrogative pronouns disappear, and what Papias gives us is the generic neuter plural relative pronoun (ἅ, "which" or "which things"). The sense is that "what Andrew said" and "what Peter said" (and the rest) are the things which Aristion and the elder John are saying; Papias is asking what those men said, and Aristion and the elder John are telling him what those men said (albeit indirectly, on my reading). This implies that Papias is asking only about what Andrew and company said; he is not asking about what Aristion and the elder John are saying (though they are indeed sources for what Andrew and company said). But, if Aristion and the elder John are both disciples of the Lord, why does the series of interrogative pronouns stop before reaching them? Why not ask about what they said, if they too were disciples of the Lord? This suggests to me that they were not, in fact, disciples of the Lord, and the second instance of that phrase is not original.

For my reference here is the translation you give of the passage in question:

And if anyone should chance to come along who had followed the elders, I was inquiring as to the words of the elders, what Andrew or what Peter, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord said, which things both Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord, say.

I don't know Greek so I have to take your word regarding the meaning of "which things," but just out of curiosity, is it possible this statement could have the sense of and "which things"?

[John2]

Ben,

In your fourth question in the link you gave above you ask;

The addition of the phrase (at least to the History of the Church and possibly also to copies of Papias) is easy to explain once one realizes that eventually Papias was viewed in the church as having personally heard and seen the apostle John. Since these lines seem to imply that he heard only the elder John (at one remove, at least, in my judgment, but the Christian fathers like Eusebius had a way of cutting out middlemen), it was useful to insert the second "disciples of the Lord" phrase as a way of emphasizing either that both Johns were disciples anyway or (more likely) that both Johns were the same John.

This would make sense, but if this was the case then why doesn't the phrase appear in the other versions you mention? But in any event, since Papias wrote in Greek, shouldn't the Greek version of this passage take precedence over the other versions? And don't most of the Greek versions have the second "disciples of the Lord" phrase?