Kata Markon

["Mark Goodacre" <M.S.Goodacre AT bham.ac.uk>]

On 11 Mar 00, at 14:09, Ron Price wrote:

> Mark,
>  I think you're on thin ice here in quoting Luke 22:62 (or mis-quoting
> as it's really ....... EXELQWN EXW ....... ;-) perhaps you wrote late at
> night, or you were just testing us?! ). 

Apologies on X and C -- I type word-processed Greek in SPIonic 
and that has the Xi and the Chi that way round, which is against 
the b-greek system stipulted for Email.  

>   There were several early interpolations into the text of the last
> chapters of Luke. (I have additional unpublished evidence that makes
> this virtually certain.) This verse was probably another, even though in
> this case only a few minor MSS do not include it. On Luke 22:62 as a
> probable interpolation I think your colleague D.C.Parker is right (_The
> living text of the Gospels_, CUP, 1997, p.160).

David Parker is right about most things, but on this I prefer one of 
my other colleagues here, Michael Goulder, who points out that 
(among other things) the absence of Luke 22.62 would leave the 
denial story in Luke without any mark of penitence / remorse on 
Peter's part, odd in the light of the way the story ends in both Mark 
and Matthew.

>   Where does that leave Peter's denial?
>   It leaves Mark as the only independent witness.
>   My conclusion based on redaction criticism is that the story was
> created by Au_Mark to denigrate Peter.

What of my more major point in the Email that we simply cannot 
expect Q or Thomas to feature the Denial, something that had 
loomed large in Ted Weeden's post?  Because of their genre, real 
and supposed, it will not do to point to the absence of the Denial 
from texts liked this.  And of course the Denial is present in the 
one other potentially independent potentially reliable narrative 
Gospel, John (Our fragment of the Gospel of Peter starts too late 
for us to know whether it had it).  So I don't find a case based on 
Mark as "the only independent witness" strong:  we simply do not 
have enough independent, early narrative acounts of the Passion to 
make anything special out of its occurrence in Mark.

Mark
---------------------------
Dr Mark Goodacre          mailto:M.S.Goodacre AT bham.ac.uk
Dept of Theology
University of Birmingham    Fax.: +44 (0)121 414 6866 
Birmingham   B15 2TT       Tel.: +44 (0)121 414 7512  

http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre
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