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gmark - Re: Guidelines for Locating the Markan Community

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Subject: Kata Markon

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  • From: "Ted Weeden" <weedent AT atw.earthreach.com>
  • To: "Kata Markon" <gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Guidelines for Locating the Markan Community
  • Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 09:52:00 -0600

Dear Patrick,
 
Thank you for your response to my post, " Guidelines for Locating the Markan Community."  Some reflections on your response.
 
First, you state:
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 3:35 PM
Subject: [gmark] Re: Guidelines for Locating the Markan Community

> would appreciate any suggestions or critical feed back  > Ted Weeden
> (Papias,  etc., now discounted) for information> about Mark's community,
 
Thanks for your most interesting & detailed suggested criteria for finding the community's location within the Gospel text.  But I wonder can we be quite so dismissive of the witness of Papias, Irenaeus etc. whose ideas about the Gospels' origins may be based on something more than wishful thinking, or mere speculation.  Certainly, their "traditional" views need to be corroborated in some ways from the actual text. But to offload them as utterly unfounded may turn out to be a regrettable hubris, for which another generation of Bible scholars will smile at us.
IMHO, there is little worth in citing that "the tide of scholarly opinion has begun to shift" in one direction or another. This is more difficult to measure than sea-tides, and perhaps no more durable. 
 
My response: Perhaps my language was too strong in saying that the Papias tradition, etc. is "discounted."   I do, however, find it difficult to credit the Papias tradition as being an accurate reporting of the origin of the Markan gospel when he makes Mark essentially a scribe of Peter's memories.   Given the Markan extremely negative, if not excoriating, portrait of Peter (see my MARK--TRADITIONS IN CONFLICT), I find it hard to believe that Peter could have ever picked a scribe like Peter, much less trusted him with his memoirs.
 
Second, you state:
 
In light of the wide diversity of views on the subject, the late Ray Brown opined just four years ago that as we "cannot know precisely the locale addressed by Mark" we had better focus on what can be deduced about the addressees:  These consisted - at least in part - in part of Greek speakers who did not know Aramaic, and lived in an area where Latin had influenced Greek vocabulary; they needed at least some Jewish customs to be explained to them (NT Intro, 163).  If all of this fits with the area around Caesarea Philippi, then maybe.
 
My response:  I think the Latinisms could well have been common in Caesarea Philippi.   With respect to explaining Jewish customs,  what Mark is explaining is "the Judean laws," formulated by the Judean temple establishment for Judea and then imposed, or at least attempted, upon Jewish communities outside of Judea by the establishment's retainers (the scribes and the Pharisees).  See Horsley (GALILEE) and my most recent post via Kata Markon to Stefan   
 
Third, you ask:
 
BTW, have you documentation for placing Bethsaida "east of the Jordan"?  Its ruins as now located are surely well to the west of where river meets lake.
 
My response:  Bethsaida-Julias was located. at the time of Philip's tetrarchy, in the province of Gaulantis (so Josephus) whose borders stretched from the Jordan River eastward.  All the maps I know of locate Bethsaida north of the Sea of Galilee and east of the Jordan River.  Have I missed something?  Who has located the ruins well west of where the river meets the lake?
 
Ted



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