Bernard Muller wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 7:56 am
If you had read my webpage on the matter, you would know that the Greek word translated as "on" can also mean "by".
As for "Matthew" reaction to the story of gMark, I wrote in http://historical-jesus.info/hjes2.html:
It suffices to read the Bible, where Matthew is a verbatim Greek copy of Mark:
So how ever you want to translate ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης, the exact same phrase is shared by the both of them.
You should be less focused on dragging people into your website, and spend more attention to what is written here
I know that. "Matthew" used the same verbatim than gMark, but then make sure that Jesus is walking on (not "by") the water by having Peter sinking in the lake and with Jesus (then besides Peter) catching him.
I understand these are versions of stories. Stories almost certainly without a historical core.
And how do you know that? Why stories cannot be an embellished version of true facts? See http://historical-jesus.info/75.html which shows "Luke" in Acts greatly embellishing Paul's accounts, especially the one about the council of Jerusalem.
My own theory, or rather an idea that I had that I can't claim to back up: the sea was thought of as one of the locations of the dead, from which people will be resurrected (as per Revelation 20:13). So Jesus walking on water prefigures his resurrection and ascension. Peter sinking into the water when he doubts symbolises descent into eternal death in the absence of belief.
Source of Mark taken from the Odes? 39 - Translation oddities not noted (I can note these from the Lattke commentary)
"Raging rivers are the power of the Lord ... And those who walk on them faultlessly shall not be shaken
... and you shall cross without danger; because rivers shall be obedient to you
The Lord has bridged them by His Word, and He walked and crossed them on foot.
And His footsteps stand firm upon the waters, and were not destroyed; but they are like a beam of wood that is constructed on truth
On this side and on that the waves were lifted up, but the footsteps of our Lord Messiah stand firm"
If the Odes are the source (a poetic meditation turned turned into a miracle)
Then Mark drew from them first but only the part where Jesus is walking on the water
Matthew drew from them second with Peter joining him as the Odes state anyone who follows him may
Both accounts agree with the Odes but not with each other
Strangely a paradox emerges. Anyone in those days claiming the gospel accounts were based on an Ode and doubting the miracle would resemble the attitude of the disciples portrayed in the gospels, yet if the Odes were indeed the source, the Odes are more likely to have been more closely connected with the disciples than the gospels were and it doesn't claim a literal, physical miracle took place
If this were so it would mean the Odes were at one time heavily mined and commented upon resulting in all sorts of stories, yet that mining abruptly ceased and all traces of it disappeared before the mid 2nd century, so much so that few today consider them a likely source of the gospels
