----- 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
