Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

gmark - Platter or Tablet?

gmark AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Kata Markon

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: JFAlward AT aol.com
  • To: gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Platter or Tablet?
  • Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 02:36:25 EDT


In a message dated 10/5/01 5:51:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time, dgeyer AT aol.com
writes:

<< if I may suggest it:
John the Baptist's head is not asked for and put on a "platter" for a
banquet, but on a "tablet" (pinax) that emulates a "tablet" of the OT
stories about the 10 commandments. The story has John's prophetic voice
silenced, his bloody head that once spoke on behalf of what is fitting and
proper now sitting silently on a symbol of the law that guided him when he
spoke.

>>
=================
This is far too speculative for me, and without any supportive evidence, in
my opinion. If Mark had wished for his readers to know he had such a tablet
in mind, wouldn't he have used the same word--"plax"--found in 2 Cor 3:3 and
Heb 9:4, where in the latter the reference is to a tablet of the covenant?
It's just too much to believe that Mark expected his readers to think "pinax"
referred to a flat stone tablet when a serving platter not only seems more
appropriate because the head was brought into a dining hall, but also because
a platter or dish, by its nature, could better contain the head as it was
carried, whether to a dining all, or any other place.


Joe Alward
"A Skeptical View of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html



  • Platter or Tablet?, JFAlward, 10/06/2001

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page