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Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:50 pm
by John2
davidmartin wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:37 pm That Paul is battling 'Judaisers' lets call them Nazarenes suggests to me they had their own gospel with theological differences and they did!
Then that as far as we know Paul never provided a gospel to his churches, may indicate those he founded initially resisted gospels completely
Mark may even be the gospel made for those churches
The NT is full of reports of these factions some obvious some not so obvious

Well, alright, but in this context I don't think there were any written gospels, and in my view the only difference between Paul's (unwritten) gospel and let's definitely say the Nazarenes' (unwritten) gospel was that Paul taught that Jewish Torah observance was no longer necessary (at least for attaining salvation in the Messianic age) and the Nazarenes taught that it was.

That Matthew uses Mark could be explained by having Matthew itself be a combination of Mark and the Nazarene gospel, which I think was brought about by a merger of Pauline and Nazarene factions around that time.

Well, as Ben and I have been noting, while Mark does have Pauline elements, it is also pro-Torah, like the Nazarenes. So in my view Mark is as Nazarene as Matthew, and I would suppose that that was why they were combined in the NT version.

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:01 pm
by John2
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:40 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:34 pm
It is complicated. My best response so far is that it was a kind of proto-Luke.
Is this proto-Luke sans all traces of Mark in your estimation?
No. There are Marcan overlaps, at the very least. ETA: I do not have a firm answer to the question of whether it was this proto-Luke or whether it was Mark that came first. Also, I do not cleanly equate this proto-Luke with Marcion's gospel; I imagine Marcion made changes, too.

Based on the above and what I've gathered as a casual observer of Marcion over the years, I'm going to venture a huge (if perhaps worthless) guess that Marcion cherry-picked the parts he liked from various gospels (and perhaps mostly from Luke).

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:10 pm
by Ben C. Smith
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:01 pmBased on the above and what I've gathered as a casual observer of Marcion over the years, I'm going to venture a huge (if perhaps worthless) guess that Marcion cherry-picked the parts he liked from various gospels (and perhaps mostly from Luke).
Marcion sometimes preserves what appears to be a text more original or primitive than canonical Luke. For example, Luke 1-2 is almost certainly an addition to a text which originally began with Luke 3.1, and Marcion lacks Luke 1-2. And there is also the "miracles in Capernaum" business.

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:27 pm
by John2
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:10 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:01 pmBased on the above and what I've gathered as a casual observer of Marcion over the years, I'm going to venture a huge (if perhaps worthless) guess that Marcion cherry-picked the parts he liked from various gospels (and perhaps mostly from Luke).
Marcion sometimes preserves what appears to be a text more original or primitive than canonical Luke. For example, Luke 1-2 is almost certainly an addition to a text which originally began with Luke 3.1, and Marcion lacks Luke 1-2. And there is also the "miracles in Capernaum" business.

Would you be up for starting a new Marcion thread (or linking to a pertinent one)? I wouldn't mind taking a fresh look at the subject.

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:40 pm
by Ben C. Smith
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:27 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:10 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:01 pmBased on the above and what I've gathered as a casual observer of Marcion over the years, I'm going to venture a huge (if perhaps worthless) guess that Marcion cherry-picked the parts he liked from various gospels (and perhaps mostly from Luke).
Marcion sometimes preserves what appears to be a text more original or primitive than canonical Luke. For example, Luke 1-2 is almost certainly an addition to a text which originally began with Luke 3.1, and Marcion lacks Luke 1-2. And there is also the "miracles in Capernaum" business.
Would you be up for starting a new Marcion thread (or linking to a pertinent one)? I wouldn't mind taking a fresh look at the subject.
Here is one old thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1770.

Here is a relevant post from that same thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1770&p=39456#p39456.

And here is yet another from that same thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1770&p=39592#p39592.

There are others, but it all got pretty confusing/confused at times. And some of the arguments did not stand the test of time.

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:42 pm
by davidmartin
How do you reconstruct this primitive Nazarene gospel which predated Matthew? What are its indications?
i don't have much! one hope is trying to draw on the clementine literature. the church fathers from memory talk of Ebionite gospels without virgin birth and it's possible Jesus in them had a far lower Christology. Following of the Torah.. yes likely in some degree or another. It might not even be a 'gospel' just their set of writings of various kinds

The Clementines as i understand it say Jesus was another incarnation of the 'true prophet' with a big pile of pre-existing theology. Some of it sounds Samaritan like where it claims some parts of the Hebrew scriptures are true and others not and has Jesus teaching this himself. The leaders of this bunch never actually followed Jesus in my view. But if they thought he was another true prophet they had no problem with making him repeat their beliefs. They believed strongly in hell which is found in the Clementine's all the way through and other writings i think are associated with them, like the apocalypse of peter and revelation. Evidence for hell in Jewish context comes from DSS and it was talked about so was around in this kind of setting

By the time Matthew comes into being it's unacceptable to have Samaritan ideas (although remnants of them are found, eg Stephen's speech in Acts) so that has to go. Instead Matthew affirms the 'not one jot or tittle'. In comes the virgin birth and appropriate Christology, what's left is their version of Jesus sayings with hell in them because all the church had up to then was Paul and he was vague on this issue so they lapped it up and it sounded ok to them. But even the Gospel of Thomas undo this when it shows the original version of the sayings

But the Nazarenes were players and had their day of influence getting together with the Paul based church to create orthodoxy as we know it, adding a whole new layer around the original founder that wasn't there before. If you ask me all Marcionites are is those of Paul who wouldn't go along with this going off in their own direction

Jesus is essentially Jewish for sure, he believes in Sheol not hell and was probably typically vague about the afterlife except for it being like paradise, restoration of the fall not an even bigger fall into an even bigger hole is how i see it

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:52 pm
by John2
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:40 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:34 pm
But were they aware that the Diatessaron contained (most of?) Mark? If so, is that the same as discarding Mark (in their minds)?
Not sure, honestly.

But doesn't the name Diatessaron itself mean "made of four"? Wouldn't they know it was a combination of four gospels then
(and, via contact with other Christians, that those four gospels were Mark, Matthew, Luke and John)?

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:00 pm
by John2
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:40 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:27 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:10 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:01 pmBased on the above and what I've gathered as a casual observer of Marcion over the years, I'm going to venture a huge (if perhaps worthless) guess that Marcion cherry-picked the parts he liked from various gospels (and perhaps mostly from Luke).
Marcion sometimes preserves what appears to be a text more original or primitive than canonical Luke. For example, Luke 1-2 is almost certainly an addition to a text which originally began with Luke 3.1, and Marcion lacks Luke 1-2. And there is also the "miracles in Capernaum" business.
Would you be up for starting a new Marcion thread (or linking to a pertinent one)? I wouldn't mind taking a fresh look at the subject.
Here is one old thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1770.

Here is a relevant post from that same thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1770&p=39456#p39456.

And here is yet another from that same thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1770&p=39592#p39592.

There are others, but it all got pretty confusing/confused at times. And some of the arguments did not stand the test of time.

I will definitely take a look at those threads (and I'm already looking at the first one). Thanks. And I don't mind continuing the discussion here either, I just thought it'd be interesting if you started a new thread too (although nothing's stopping me from doing it, so maybe I will).

But just going by what you say above, couldn't Marcion have simply excised the first two chapters from a Luke that was more or less the one we know? Given what I understand about Marcion, wouldn't that make sense if he believed that Jesus was a phantom?

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2019 3:07 am
by davidmartin
Well, as Ben and I have been noting, while Mark does have Pauline elements, it is also pro-Torah, like the Nazarenes. So in my view Mark is as Nazarene as Matthew, and I would suppose that that was why they were combined in the NT version.
do you think Mark and Matthew are equally matched and comparable in that regard?
pretty much everything you read about Matthew says something like it's the more 'Jewish' - these terms are not good but you know what i mean
There is a difference in their perspectives for sure, and I think it comes from them originating among different groups

There's still to explain how come hell appears in Matthew when it is later than Mark which doesn't have it, because the Matthew community had different theological ideas is the most obvious reason

Re: Who is John Mark?

Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:32 am
by Ben C. Smith
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:52 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:40 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:34 pm
But were they aware that the Diatessaron contained (most of?) Mark? If so, is that the same as discarding Mark (in their minds)?
Not sure, honestly.
But doesn't the name Diatessaron itself mean "made of four"? Wouldn't they know it was a combination of four gospels then
(and, via contact with other Christians, that those four gospels were Mark, Matthew, Luke and John)?
I do not think they all called it the Diatessaron. That was some Christians' name for it, but not all.