Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

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JoeWallack
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Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by JoeWallack »

Wrestling With Greco Tragedy. Reversal From Behind. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?


JW:
This Thread is uninspired by a recent article by Bart Ehrman concluding that the genre of the Gospels is Greco-Roman Biography:

The (Ancient) Genre of the Gospels

I think that Ehrman is the foremost Textual Criticism authority that the world has ever known. Based on that authority, personally I think he must also be an authority on Christian history (he concludes many times that he is and no one has directly disputed that on his site). This Thread though, disagrees.

CBS (Christian Bible Scholarship) including Ehrman generally claims that the genre of the Christian Bible is Greco-Roman Biography. This claim is often made in the context of historical witness for the Gospel Jesus. The argument is that the genre of biography is evidence of intent on the part of the authors to present some historical witness and expectation on the part of the audience to expect that some historical witness is being presented.

Ehrman's summary of his reason for a GRB (Greco-Roman Biography) conclusion is here:
If we were to attempt a definition, then, of the Greco-Roman biography, it might be something like this: ancient biography was a prose narrative recounting an individual’s life, often within a chronological framework, employing numerous subgenres (such as sayings, speeches, anecdotes, and conflict stories) so as to reflect important aspects of his or her character, principally for purposes of instruction (to inform about what kind of person he or she was), exhortation (to urge others to act similarly), and / or propaganda (to show his or her superiority to rivals).
Allowing Ehrman Christian grace for not formally presenting criteria for determination of genre in a short article probably written in a day I get the following major criteria from it:
  • 1) Summary of an individual's life

    2) Illustration of the subject's character

    3) Presentation of the subject's character as model for others

    4) Demonstration of the superiority of subject to rivals
My first complaint here is that the above CBS argument is typically presented for the Gospels in total (just as Ehrman has done). But we would all agree the the Gospels were originally written with the intent to be read by the individual Gospel. With a context of possible historical witness, the most relevant analysis than would be of the likely original Gospel "Mark". How good than are the parallels between the criteria above and GMark?:

1) Summary of an individual's life
  • GMark gives something less than a year in the life of its Jesus so there is no parallel here unless possibly Jesus had that rare aging disease which made him look like 50 when he actually was much younger (which potentially could explain a lot). GMark looks like a presentation of Jesus' mission (so to speak) rather than his life. Maybe a mission could be a "sub-genre" of GRB. It just doesn't parallel the criterion Ehrman picked here. The subsequent Gospels do try to e-x-p-a-n-d the Jesus presentation in the direction of from his mission to his life. But not to apply the criteria to individual Gospels like CBS/Ehrman have done is, as spin would say, naughty.
2) Illustration of the subject's character
  • A good match here. A few significant complications here though, as usual/always especially in GMark:

    1 - Jesus' character is completely changed by receiving the spirit of God at the beginning of the mission and there is an implication that it is likewise changed at the end when Jesus loses the spirit of God.

    2 - The first half of the Gospel presents Jesus as a man of action. The second half presents Jesus as a man of inaction.

    Again, overall a righteous match. But if there are significant complications (especially if they are rarer than Gordon Gecko's interest in Annacott Steel for the claimed genre or even otherwise unknown) they should be noted.
3) Presentation of the subject's character as model for others
  • Another good match but more pesky complications:

    1 - Jesus is presented as a role model but there is also a significant theme that Jesus is in a category by himself.

    2 - The emphasis of GMark is more about modeling behavior after disciples rather than Jesus. Additionally, most of the examples are of negative disciple behavior.
4) Demonstration of the superiority of subject to rivals

Also a match. One group of Jesus' rivals are shown as the Jewish leaders. More complication though:
  • 1 - Jesus is shown as superior to everyone. Not really much of a neutral audience to Jesus. Multiple groups are shown as rivals.

    2 - Strangely Jesus is shown as superior primarily compared to his own disciples rather than the Jewish leaders. That GMark's main rival to Jesus is shown as his own disciples seems to be a major overall theme.


CBS/Ehrman's out card for complications like this is generally that the Gospels are a "sub-genre" of GRB. Based on the above though, all they have done is proof-text for evidence of GRB genre. Select characteristics of GRB, compare to characteristics of the Gospels, claim parallels and conclude GRB. What is missing is an attempt to develop characteristics of other genres and than develop criteria which help distinguish between genres.

The purpose of this Thread will be to consider the parallels between GMark and the genre of Greek Tragedy.


Joseph

GRAMMAR, n.
A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

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Ulan
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by Ulan »

I cannot find it, but I think I read on Neil's blog something about a book that claims that Mark was written to be performed. All scenes are static, movement happens between scenes and the "immediately"'s may have been stage instructions.
Clive
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by Clive »

Umm, as there are arguments that Jesus spoke aramaic, otherwise known as the official language of that other lot who actually had a bigger empire, has anyone asked if a certain "oriental cult" might actually be Persian?
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Clive
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by Clive »

Ulan wrote:I cannot find it, but I think I read on Neil's blog something about a book that claims that Mark was written to be performed. All scenes are static, movement happens between scenes and the "immediately"'s may have been stage instructions.
http://www.nazarenus.com

Intro here lists who had argued that.
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ulan wrote:I cannot find it, but I think I read on Neil's blog something about a book that claims that Mark was written to be performed. All scenes are static, movement happens between scenes and the "immediately"'s may have been stage instructions.
I think a parallel could be the story of David in 1 Sam 19:18 onwards. David goes (flees) from one place to another.
Charles Wilson
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by Charles Wilson »

Ulan wrote:I cannot find it, but I think I read on Neil's blog something about a book that claims that Mark was written to be performed. All scenes are static, movement happens between scenes and the "immediately"'s may have been stage instructions.
http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark09.html#9X

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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by g_n_o_s_i_s »

Clive wrote:Umm, as there are arguments that Jesus spoke aramaic, otherwise known as the official language of that other lot who actually had a bigger empire, has anyone asked if a certain "oriental cult" might actually be Persian?
Are you suggesting Christianity to be Zoroastrian?
Clive
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by Clive »

Yes, or have very strong relationships.

Are they not obvious? Gnostic themes via Plato, Judaism via Cyrus, the mystical magical elements, this is my body, the priesthood?

I think what happens is that Protestant tinted glasses do not like looking at the reality of christianity - a full singing and dancing mystical priestly ritualistic religion that loves its smells and bells and chanting and magical phrases.
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
ficino
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by ficino »

Genre arguments can become immensely complicated fast. The Gospel of Mark is like biography, and it's like tragedy. My first reaction is that it would be a mistake to classify it in either genre, because there are important formal differences.

Yes, it's mimetic, or representational: it portrays characters doing things and, as Aristotle says, it displays moral choice/decision, προαίρεσις, which in the Rhetoric he says is a feature of genres like tragedy. But formally, it is not a tragedy because it is not written in meter. There are scenes where members of a crowd speak, but there is no chorus, no choral odes. The notion of "tragedy" as a story where the hero suffers because of some steps he/she takes is probably more a modern one than ancient.

I agree, Joe, with your doubts that gMark should be classified as biography. I think the high percentage of speeches and dialogue in the gospels, i.e. direct discourse, is an important difference from what we have of biography. Nepos or Plutarch have direct discourse but, I think, not anywhere near as high a percentage of text devoted to it. As you say, gMark's silence about Jesus' origins is anomalous for biography. But I haven't read Ehrman's piece on this, so I don't know how he confronts these differences, or how explicitly he wants to locate gMark in the category of biography.
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Blood
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Re: Wrestling With Greco-Roman Bio. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?

Post by Blood »

JoeWallack wrote:Wrestling With Greco Tragedy. Reversal From Behind. Is GMark Greek Tragedy?
This Thread is uninspired by a recent article by Bart Ehrman concluding that the genre of the Gospels is Greco-Roman Biography:
Uh-oh. Does that mean the gospel writers were not simply pious Jewish "oral historians" whose only exposure to literature was the Bible, as everything else was sinful and of the devil in their eyes? That's certainly what the theologians used to tell us about the gospellers. Martin Hengel said they were so pure and uncontaminated by paganism that there was no Greek influence at all on the NT.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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