Kata Markon

["K. Hanhart" <K.Hanhart AT net.HCC.nl>]

Kata Markon digest wrote:
> 
> Kata Markon Digest for Tuesday, January 18, 2000.
> 
> 1. Markan midrash
> 2. Re: Markan midrash
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject: Markan midrash
> From: "K. Hanhart" <K.Hanhart AT net.HCC.nl>
> Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 16:21:46 +0100
> X-Message-Number: 1
> 
> I reiterate my thesis that the expression "a tomb hewn from the rock"
> refers to LXX Isa 22,16 as Montefiore suggested in his commentary as
> early as 1927.
> 
> I have become convinced that the burial story should be interpreted in
> terms of a midrash on LXX Isa 22, 16 and LXX Isa 33,16 as Montefiore
> intimated. 1) The expression in LXX Isa 22,16 is a hapax in the Hebrew
> Bible and in the Septuagint.  2) Scholars have ackowledged Mark's method
> of referring with one, two or three characteristic words to a passage in
> the Septuagint. Witness the bold face type used to identify direct
> quotations from Mark in the Greek New Testament. Mark used this method
> because he didnot have modern facilities of lengthy footnotes or notes
> in the margin to indicate that a particular part of his story should be
> read in the light of that unique passage of Scripture. Now if it is
> agreed f.i. that the sour wine 'oxous...epotizen' in 15,36 is a
> reference to Ps 69,21 and 'to bdelugma tes eremoseos' refers to Dan 9,27
> etc. an exegete would be hard put to deny that mnemeioi... lelatomemenon
> ek petras' is a reference to LXX Isa 22, 16. 4) This is all the more
> true, since the passage in Isaiah is written in the context of Jerusalem
> beleaguered by a foreign army and hence was under threat and since Mark
> was written just before or during or after the war with Rome when
> Jerusalem was under threat or had fallen.
> 
> This seems to me a good start for testing the theory that Matthew
> reponded to Mark's open tomb story in Mt 16,17 - 19, as he referred to
> Isa 22  as well in vs 19 (kleidas).
> 
> I would be happy to receive some comment on this hypothesis.
> 
> Karel Hanhart
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>> From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <hurtadol AT div.ed.ac.uk>
> Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 17:21:57 +000
>> Personally, I am not (yet?) able to see a direct *allusion* to the Isa
> 22:16 passage and the themes/events there in Mark's description
> of the tomb "cut from rock"; but I could easily imagine that a
> regular reader of the Greek Bible for whom the Greek Bible
> supplied the most prized (only??) example of proper/sacred writing
> style might well use phrasing derived from biblical texts.  That is,
> the use of phrasing from literary sources is not necessarily the
> same thing as an intentional *allusion*.
> 
> L. W. Hurtado
> University of Edinburgh,
> New College
> Mound Place
> Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
> Phone: 0131-650-8920
> Fax: 0131-650-6579
> E-mail:  L.Hurtado AT ed.ac.uk
 
Dear L.W.

Thank you for your comment. I would answer you with a question. How
would you define a midrash? It is certainly more than merely an
allusion. Your remark would carry weight if Mark was not a Jerusalemite
by birth as tradition would have it. I find the arguments against him
being the John Mark of Acts 12 not very convincing.
 
your Karel Hanhart