Kata Markon

["Ted Weeden" <weedent AT atw.earthreach.com>]

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your kind words of appreciation for my previous work on Mark.
As I may have said in a previous post.  I have been away from serious
engagement with the scholarly discussion on Mark for many years and only
returned to it in earnest when I was asked by Chalice Press to produce a
commentary for the general audience.   This task has forced me back into the
dialogue and caused me to think and rethink my understanding of Mark based
upon excellent contributions from Markan scholars and related fields of
study.
Thus I am pondering new questions and probing new areas to get a better
understanding of Mark and what led him to write, the sources he used and how
he used them apologetically and polemically, and, as well, what all this may
tell us about the relationship of Mark to the other Jesus movements of his
time.

The floating of the "Guidelines" was a way to test some of my thinking and I
am very appreciative of the helpful critical feedback, such as yours, which
I have received.  And as I respond to the feedback I have received as well
as future feedback I hope to receive, I am enjoying the exchange and the
opportunity of learning from you and others.

In response to couple of points in your last post.
> I am looking forward to reading the new Horsley & Draper and have
> it on order.  I heard them both speak to the topic of the book at the
> SBL in Boston (Q section), with a response by Werner Kelber.  My
> concern with the oral performance by Draper was that he kept
> pressing the point that the IQP "keeps changing its mind" on the
> wording of Q, commenting that this was natural given the oral nature
> of Q, adding that the more one keeps looking at Q the more one will
> realise that one is looking into a "big fat nothing".  This seemed to me
> to show breathtaking ignorance of the Synoptic Problem & of the
> grounds on which one is reconstructing Q, but it may be that this was
> something limited to the oral performance, and which is not in the
> written word :-)

My response:  I am anxious to learn what you think of Horsley/Draper's view
on Q.   I agree that when you are dealing with orality and not the firm text
of textuality things can get slippery, particularly in reconstructing an
oral text as it might have been orally performed in community gatherings, as
Horsley/Draper argue.  But maybe we are too much the "essentialists" at this
point and needing clearly defined, unchanging textual content and syntax.  I
will have something more to say about our "essentialist" perspective, and
its inherent epistemology, in a lengthy post I am preparing as a reply to
Mahlon Smith's critique of my guidelines.

You also state in response to my argument that GT does not know he Petrine
denial:
> It is of course a matter of fact that the Gospel of Thomas shows
> ignorance of the Denial but what I was balking at was your statement
> that the traditions behind Thomas were ignorant of it -- I don't know
> how we can know that and thus how an argument can be built on it.

My response: You are right. I went to far in suggesting that the tradition
behind GT did not know the Petrine denial.  We have no way of knowing that.
I retract the statement as an unintended and unwarranted argument from
silence.
I stand by the argument that GT does not refer or allude to the denial,
recognizing that its genre does not lend itself to narrating it in the first
place, but also noting that GT does not allude to it within the context of
its genre.

You also state with respect to my astonishment that, if Peter did deny
Jesus, there is no evidence in the resurrection tradition of appearances to
Peter , he never offered a mea culpa and asked for forgiveness:
> I accept your comments on the absence of a mea culpa.  I wonder
> what you make of those like Luedemann and Goulder who have the
> appearance to Peter as emerging from his guilt over denying Jesus &
> fleeing from him?

My response:  I am sorry that I have missed Luedemann and Goulder's position
on the "guilt" factor.  Could you cite briefly their argument and give me
the bibliographical references that I might see the argument in detail.
Also if you or others know of works on Mark that I need to consider and have
not in my argumentation, please alert me to my need to consider them.

Thank you.

Ted