Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.

[outhouse]

Fundamentally it's just a different perspective and perhaps occasionally a perspective that could throw up insights that are likely to be lost when reading it over and over with an eye to the fine details. (Just saying this, in passing, given the other comments that have been made in a general way. Some people here appear to have very seriously wrestled with the Gospel of Mark, while at least in the last couple years [not always] I've paid relatively little attention to Gospel studies because the arguments generally appear to be infuriatingly controvertible and also extraordinarily complicated, due to and starting from the very problem of the actual Gospel texts and relationships among texts.)

If what your saying in other words, is that some people are way to focused on the text, I agree. Its the foundation of how I study this. The author/s were to far removed from any event to be of any use in detail, OTHER then recognizing how the movement had evolved at time of compilation. And later dates as the text was interpolated for various theological reasons.

That's doesn't mean we throw this study out as there is value there. But without context its useless to attribute many things said.

Evidence without context is worthless.


This is not a reflection of this site, as much as it is a reflection of what I see as errors in most scholars which leads to over attributing historicity of textual events.

[Peter Kirby]

Has anyone enumerated some of the hypotheses that have been proposed? I have offered three, and there is also Carrier's stillborn attempt, but before we spend several more pages debating impressions and assumptions formed in the abstract, we could have several different particular ideas to consider and weigh as possible options.

I'd like to hear some of the possibilities that Joe, Neil, and Ben have considered as options that present themselves. I suggest that a consideration of particular interpretations can both be productive as a way to discover more facets of the subject and could perhaps aid our judicious evaluation of all the general questions that we have been asking so far and, finally, could help us stumble along better towards an understanding of the text.

Just saying this again. I'm genuinely curious here, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. While I'm currently trying to gather up some of the ideas that have been proposed in the past, I'm also sure that some of the people in our forum could help speed that along with what they have heard.

[outhouse]

Just saying this again. I'm genuinely curious here, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. While I'm currently trying to gather up some of the ideas that have been proposed in the past, I'm also sure that some of the people in our forum could help speed that along with what they have heard.

There may be plausibility but I doubt it, there are specifics in context that limit this from being anything other then perceived traditions. These specifics, are that the man is a possible Zealot. The Hellenistic authors of mark are writing to and for a Roman audience, and are not going to give anything past a geographic location of said man.

I don't think Cyrene has any significance other then a sect of Zealots that attended Passover. It makes sense that someone within a similar tradition would help a Galilean carry his cross, if one proposed a historical event.


Do you have a specific objective you would like to have addressed, or is this just curiosity of the general understanding of this tradition? Or just this below addressed?

(6) In the Gospel of Mark 15:21, the man named Simon of Cyrene is said to be "the father of Alexander and Rufus," an otherwise unexplained detail not picked up by the writers of Matthew and Luke. One very simple explanation for this is that Alexander and Rufus were known to the audience and that they were actual men who were the sons of Simon. This would then imply the existence of Simon as someone who was present during the crucifixion, and, thus, a historical crucifixion of Jesus.

I really don't like the logic used in determining this is even remotely helping to build a historical character.

[Ben C. Smith]

Has anyone enumerated some of the hypotheses that have been proposed? I have offered three, and there is also Carrier's stillborn attempt, but before we spend several more pages debating impressions and assumptions formed in the abstract, we could have several different particular ideas to consider and weigh as possible options.

I'd like to hear some of the possibilities that Joe, Neil, and Ben have considered as options that present themselves. I suggest that a consideration of particular interpretations can both be productive as a way to discover more facets of the subject and could perhaps aid our judicious evaluation of all the general questions that we have been asking so far and, finally, could help us stumble along better towards an understanding of the text.

Just saying this again. I'm genuinely curious here, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. While I'm currently trying to gather up some of the ideas that have been proposed in the past, I'm also sure that some of the people in our forum could help speed that along with what they have heard.

I have been thinking about this. I may have some thoughts next week; I will not be on much if at all this weekend. I also fear that my own half-baked hypotheses will fatally underwhelm you, my fellow exegetes, with their lack of sophistication.

Ben.

[outhouse]

This makes the most sense to me so far. .

http://atheism.about.com/od/biblegospel ... ark15d.htm

.The reference to “Alexander and Rufus” may have been an effort to name people known to Mark’s community and thereby vouchsafe the accuracy of Mark’s story. There is, however, no historical basis for bystanders carrying the cross-beam for a condemned prisoner like this, so today it’s actually an sign that Mark’s story isn’t historical. The actions of Simon the Cyrenian are clearly fiction. The words Mark uses here in Greek (are ton stauron autou) are same used earlier by Jesus when informing his disciples that they would have to carry their own crosses (arato ton stauron autou).
.Simon’s reason for being here is to depict what it is like to actually bear the cross for Jesus, a signal to Mark’s community that carrying the cross isn’t always to be taken in a figurative sense. For Christian communities being persecuted by the Romans, carrying a cross might be something they quite literally have to do. The irony here is that just before Jesus’ earlier words, Jesus was rebuked by Peter, the same disciple who goes on to deny Jesus rather than deny himself as Jesus instructed. Neither Peter nor any of the other disciples are here carrying Jesus cross for him — that task is left to a complete stranger

[toejam]

^I think it's entirely plausible that the story of Simon of Cyrene is there in Mark as a hint to fellow new converts that they too need to "bear the cross of Jesus" and to possibly further smear Simon Peter. The PROBLEM however is the seeming irrelevance of the reference to his sons, Alexander and Rufus. Why are they mentioned? What have they got to do with this hint? This article seems to be suggesting it's simply verisimilitude. And that's certainly an option - one that deserves serious consideration - perhaps the most likely of the alternatives to it being a historical nugget. But I don't think that it's "clear" that this is necessarily fictional verisimilitude. Just because we have no other story (from Josephus or the like) of someone else carrying the cross of a sentenced criminal doesn't mean it's "clearly" fiction. There is nothing inherently implausible about such a thing happening.

[neilgodfrey]

Random thought. What if Simon carrying the cross is not the focus of the narrative at all here? What if the focus is Jesus carrying his own cross only halfway, and Simon is there simply because the cross had to get to Golgotha somehow, and the soldiers certainly were not going to carry it? . . .

T. E. Schmidt listed many details of the Roman Triumph that opened up the possibility (even likelihood) that Mark was composing Jesus' crucifixion as a reverse Roman Triumph. One little detail not included by Schmidt is the description of Simon of Cyrene coming in out of the countryside. A third century c.e. Roman novel by Heliodorus describes a procession led (like the Triumph, iirc) with the sacrificial animals. Accompanying these animals were the men who were to carry out the slaughter carrying the instruments of sacrificial execution (a double-headed axe that quite irrelevantly I am sure looked something like a cross).

And like Simon of Cyrene these men came in from the countryside.

At the head of the procession came the sacrificial animals, led on the halter by the men who were to perform the holy rites, countryfolk, in country costume.. Each wore a white tunic, caught up to knee length by a belt. Their right arms were bare to the shoulder and breast, and in their right hands they each brandished a double-headed ax. From Book 3, Ethiopian Story.

I presume country-folk were chosen because they were the ones experienced in leading and butchering the large animals. (Maybe Alexander and Rufus were local butchers being given a free plug by Mark.)

Obviously one balks at the idea of using a third century source here but I might suggest that what we are reading is a description of a custom that surely had very aged roots.

If this information is relevant might it not support the interpretation of a negative role for Simon of Cyrene -- that he is participating in the execution of Jesus rather than "carrying his own cross"?

(But then I am still faced with the possibility of another Markan irony/ambiguity.)

Incidentally, I question whether we should ever think that Mark was constrained by tradition or the material at hand or the 'facts' as he knew them. If we know anything about ancient "historical" literature and the gospels themselves it is that their authors were quite prepared to change, drop and introduce details as served their instructional purposes.

[outhouse]

But I don't think that it's "clear" that this is necessarily fictional verisimilitude. Just because we have no other story (from Josephus or the like) of someone else carrying the cross of a sentenced criminal doesn't mean it's "clearly" fiction. There is nothing inherently implausible about such a thing happening.

Agreed. I think its the weak link in that hypothesis, but not a fatal one though.

[Peter Kirby]

Incidentally, Kunigunde has already performed us a service by collecting some of the speculation offered so far:

viewtopic.php?p=28903#p28970

[outhouse]

And like Simon of Cyrene these men came in from the countryside.

.

I think the position they are both known Zealot group locations has more relevance. Cyrene and Galilean then a possible countryside parallel.

If we know anything about ancient "historical" literature and the gospels themselves it is that their authors were quite prepared to change, drop and introduce details as served their instructional purposes.

Great point and agreed fully.

I question whether we should ever think that Mark was constrained by tradition or the material at hand or the 'facts' as he knew them

Is constrained or limited even the right word with a theological objective at hand ?

I don't know Neil, there two sides to that coin.

I think he had no constraint and used complete artistic freedom to rhetorically/fictionally build with the material and traditions and knowledge at hand.

And on the other side.

Maybe he could be considered constrained to Hellenistic Proselyte Judaism, and the written and oral traditions, that community had collected and found important enough to compile into a single narrative.