I like a lot to read Ben, but only to disagree continually with him in advance, again and again.
A strong example is the following:
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:09 pm
There are several junctures in the gospel of Mark at which the author/editor seems to presume previous knowledge, on the part of the reader, of significant parts of the overall storyline.
1. The imprisonment of John.
Mark 1.14-15: 14 Now after John had been delivered over [μετὰ δὲ τὸ παραδοθῆναι τὸν Ἰωάννην], Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."
While John himself has been introduced (in 1.2-6),
nothing has been said which would imply that he was going to be imprisoned. Therefore, this notice seems to presume readers will already know about John's imprisonment
The imprisonment of John would require, per Ben, an explanation. But he seems to require as previous presumed explanation, something of the kind:
John did something on earth to be punished by someone, put in prison and killed.
I mean: what escapes to Ben is that any possible explanation of that kind is an euhemerizing explanation, i.e. an INVENTED explanation, quasi a mere apology to eclipse the real ignorance of the WHY "John was arrested".
My reason to think Mark put
bluntly the arrest of John, without a minimal bit of a minimal explanation, is that the explanation was found in a disturbing myth, for "Mark":
Jesus descended to Sheol, he was risen by baptism of John, he started to preach a new gospel in Sheol about a new god, and John the Baptist (as all the OT prophets), rejected him.
IPSO FACTO, the creator punished John: he was
left in the Sheol.
When "Mark" (or a guy similar to him) euhemerized this myth by transposing it on the earth,
he couldn't give the pure and simple truth:
I am going to invent an enigmatic earthly arrest of John, because I want to eclipse the "real" arrest of John in Sheol, after he rejected Jesus.
But
that is what he did. Take or leave.
I may be wrong, but absolutely not for objections of the kind possibly raised by Ben: John could be existed and done something that required an arrest,
et similia.
That means still: ehuemerization.
ADDENDA:
Surely an objection I don't like is: were the readers of Mark
so idiots that they "drank" a so enigmatic story of the arrest of John, without asking in advance WHY ?
Well,
yes. They
were so IDIOTS.
Which means: Mark could have invented the enigmatic arrest of John entirely
ex nihilo,
pace Ben.