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gmark - Caesarea Philippi vs. Judean Provenance

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  • From: "Ted Weeden" <weedent AT atw.earthreach.com>
  • To: "Kata Markon" <gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Caesarea Philippi vs. Judean Provenance
  • Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 16:50:05 -0600

To Kata Markon participants:

On February 29 I proposed in a post on Kata Markon and Xtalk a methodological approach, "Guidelines for Locating Mark’s Community," for locating Mark’s community through clues Mark gives us within in the text. After presenting my seven guidelines to achieve this objective, I then cited the results of applying those guidelines to all the various Markan geographical sites. Limitation of space did not permit me to show how these different sites met or did not meet the criteria of these guidelines. So I just presented what I found was the one site that, after applying all the guidelines, emerged as the most likely site for the Markan community. That was Caesarea Philippi.

My post evoked a lively debate, not only about the merit of the individual guidelines, but also, more important (on Xtalk), about the role and credibility of external evidence vis-a-vis internal evidence for determining the provenance of Mark. Three of us on Xtalk have been most "vocal" about the advocacy of our individual positions and have engaged in friendly "sparing" in defense of our own particular provenance for Mark against the critical rejoinders of others. Stephen Carlson has been a worthy, stalwart and indefatigable "defense attorney" for the authority and credibility of the traditional external evidence, namely, that the Markan provenance must be western, and likely Rome, where patristic tradition claims Mark served as an interpreter of Peter and reduced to writing what Peter preached and taught. Mahlon Smith and I have sought by "cross examination" to refute the credibility of Stephen’s traditional witnesses for a western provenance. Each of us, Mahlon and myself, in turn have introduced into the record comprehensive briefs for arguing that the internal witness of the Markan text places the Markan provenance in the general region of southern Syria and Palestine.

However, when it comes to pinpointing where in southern Syria and Palestine, Mahlon, in a post response on March 1, argued for Judea against my proposal for Caesarea Philippi. In that post Mahlon cited Mk. 13 as telling evidence that Mark and his community resided somewhere in Judea (but not Jerusalem) or Mark was writing from outside of Judea to his community situated in Judea (but not Jerusalem). That has caused me to present a more comprehensive statement of my position in response to Mahlon’s advocacy of Judea and "challenge" to my candidate for the provenance, Caesarea Philippi. I wish to present here my response (somewhat edited and revised) of March 17 to Mahlon in the interest of inviting any feedback those of you participating in Kata Markon (but not having access to Xtalk) might have to my position. I would appreciate any critical feedback you might wish to offer. Herein follows my reply post (Mato Mahlon:

Dear Mahlon,

Finally, I will attempt to respond to your probing questions provoked by my "Guidelines for Locating the Markan Community" sent over two weeks ago. It has taken me a long time to put my argument together because I think it needs to be seen more comprehensively and your raising the question about Mk. 13 and Judea as the site for the Markan community gives me the opportunity to do so. I apologize to you and to others for the length. But it is the only way for me to present my view as whole cloth and not in patches

You stated in your post:

"As I read Mark, chapter 13 is the most blatant & most urgent message that the author directs to his readers. This is evident not only from his aside in 13:14 ("let the reader understand") but from J's peroration in 13:37 ("What I say to you I say to all: Watch!"). So my first question to you is: why do you concentrate on topical guidelines for locating Mark almost to the exclusion of  these temporal markers? If the Markan author took the trouble to alert readers J's words in this chapter more than any other, shouldn't we assume that J's explicit instructions in this passage were also selected or designed to apply to the situation of his original readers? " 

My response:

I do not want to exclude temporal markers. I take them seriously. But I start with topical guidelines related to geography because, in the interest of locating the Markan community, that is the best way I know to ferret out methodologically where in the narrative Mark is referring or alluding to the geographical location of his own community— if in fact he alludes or refers to his community at all in the narrative. Since I no longer can accept the traditional, external evidence for the location of Markan community, at Rome or wherever, as being credible, for the reasons I have cited in the various posts [on Xtalk] and the compelling reasons you have cited [on Xtalk], we have virtually nothing left but the internal clues within the text to make plausible, informed guesses as to where the gospel originated.

Let me state why knowing where the gospel originated is so important to me. My need to know where the gospel originated is not motivated by a trivial pursuit to know certain historical facts about the gospel, nor am I suggesting that yours is either. But let me state the hermeneutical presupposition with which I now begin my approach to understanding the gospel. I do not think I can fully understand the gospel as it was originally intended unless I can reconstruct, in at least a general sense, the probable Sitz im Leben of the community from which it emerged. Maybe that finally can’t be done. But I do not want to concede that until I at least try— and, in trying, always testing any hypothetical Sitz im Leben with the emergence of new compelling insights and the correction of misguided old ones.

This historical pursuit is frowned upon as ill-conceived by some Markan scholars who follow the path of reader-response criticism and other literary critical approaches. They are for the most part unconcerned about historical questions and find them unimportant, distracting and misguided in their hermeneutical enterprise. While I understand their position and am appreciative of the many insights that these scholars have contributed to the understanding of Mark, my problem with their methodology is that by ruling out historical questions about the nature of the original Markan audience, the medium by which the gospel may have originally been communicated and the historical Sitz im Leben of the actual Markan community, their interpretation runs the risk of eschewing what the text originally was really all about. Many scholars indebted to the canons of literary criticism, but not to the historical-critical quest, would probably respond, "So what! The text has its own life separate from its origin. What matters is how the text reads the reader and the reader responds."

My brief with most literary-critical approaches to Mark, aside from their dismissal of historical questions, is that they apply post-modern individualistic, sophisticated readings to the text, which presuppose the first receivers of the text were readers possessing trained rhetorical skills and acumen to recognize all the "ins and outs" of rhetorical conventions, originality and nuances the author incorporated in the text. The first receivers of the text could not have been readers, or a very few of them could have been readers. Assuming a Palestinian/Syrian locale for the text only about 2%-3% in that region of the world were literate. It was no better than 15% for Rome (see Richard Horsley and Jonathan, -_Whoever Hear You Hears Me_, 124, citing William Harris, _Ancient Literarcy_,259-267) if some insist on Rome for Mark’s home.

Thus the caveat of reader-response criticism is the assumption that the first receivers of the text were readers and that the text was written for them all individually to read. Werner Kelber (_The Oral and Written Gospel_) has made a case, supported now by Horsley/Draper (_Whoever Hears You_), for the text, even though written, originally being just an oral "text" presented in oral performance and aurally received within community gatherings. Consequently, unlike readers in the privacy of their reading who can page back to re-read what they have missed or can stop to ruminate for a moment to allow to soak in what they have read and reflect upon nuances, etc., hearers must receive and process immediately without the luxury of reflection. Hearers are thus carried along by the aural experience; and, if the oral "text" is dramatically compelling and its oral performance effective, they will likely be caught up, and perhaps even prejudiced in the moment, by the creator’s spin on the events. As a result the hearers, if the creator is skillful, are in effect seduced into being won over to the ideology the creator is promulgating in his/her oral or written creation– in much the same way that negative political commercials achieve their intended purpose of shaping the opinion of their hearers today. It stands to reason that the more likely the hearers share the same Sitz im Leben with the creator the more likely they will get her/his point and recognize or be drawn perhaps to his/her ideology. Or to frame it in terms of contemporary political ads, the more the hearer of an ad holds the same political view as the political spokesperson in the ad, the more the hearer is likely to accept uncritically the message of the ad, however misrepresenting or outright falsifying the truth.

I am told that Jorge Borges wrote a short story years ago in which, as I recall, a reader read the Gospel of Mark to a native tribe. In response to hearing the Markan drama the tribe rose up and crucified the reader. That story suggests to me two things. First, the immediate response to hearing lacks reflective processing for the receivers to consider whether the creator had intended other conclusions to be drawn than the immediate impression following the hearing. Second, when the Sitz im Leben of the creator matches the Sitz im Leben of his/her hearers, it is more likely that the hearers will get the point the creator intended them to get. Conversely, when the Sitz im Leben of the creator is quite different from the hearers, the more likely it is that the message which the hearers receive may be a different message than the one the creator originally intended to be heard.

What I am proposing is this: to understand fully the gospel as it was originally intended by its creator, what we need is not reader-response criticism but hearers-response criticism. And the basic requirement for developing such a hearers-response criticism is locating where and when the text was first heard and who the hearers were for which it was first intended. Joanna Dewey is a Markan scholar who has developed an appreciation for Mark as an oral text and has moved from a reader-response criticism toward a hearers-response criticism. But in my opinion, while seeing the text as orality and not in the narrow sense of textuality, as reader-response has done, Dewey is still not free of reader-response criticism’s blind spot with respect to the importance of knowing as much as you can about the Sitz Leben of Mark and his hearers in order to understand fully the intention of the oral composition.

In my judgment Dewey stops short of taking seriously the historical context which evoked and gave urgency for the creation of Mark’s orality. Likewise she does not take seriously how the historical context of the hearers played a role in the way they aurally received and understood the purpose of Mark’s orality. Horsley/Draper put it this way (158), "Dewey...[seems] to discount and downplay the political conflict and struggle in the social context of oral composition. The conflict between Jesus and the Jerusalem rulers and the scribal-Pharisaic representatives cannot be explained simply as part of the agonistic tone of oral narrative.... If, as Dewey [suggests], oral composition was done for hearing not by an individual but by a group in a particular historical context, then Jesus’ conflict with the disciples, particularly Peter, James, and John, dramatized in Mark may have had reference to that historical context beyond the impact on individual hearers’ ‘discipleship.’"

From my perspective it is important to pursue a hearers-response criticism that seeks to reconstruct by every means possible (traditional historical criticism, orality criticism, social scientific criticism, cultural anthropology, archaeology, etc.) the Sitz im Leben of the creator of Markan orality and the Sitz im Leben of the hearers for which the oral composition was intended. Only then do I think we can more accurately understand why the Markan orality was created in the first place and how its first hearers may likely have understood its message. Thus, for example, I would argue that it makes a big difference whether the first hearers were in 60's or 70's, for example, in Rome, Alexander, southern Syria, northern Palestine or Judea, with respect to what we can postulate as to their possible response to the oral text, given their immediate Sitz im Leben, as well as what the creator may have intended for them to hear, given his own immediate Sitz in Leben and his compelling need to have an oral performance of his ideologically focused creation.

That brings me to the importance of geography in Mark and your suggestion, Mahlon, that Mark 13 is a key chapter for understanding where the gospel is located. You are right, "chapter 13 is the most blatant & most urgent message that the author directs to his readers." Chapter 13 has always been a crucial chapter for my understanding of the Markan Sitz im Leben, as is demonstrated in my _Mark–Tradions in Conflict_ (70-100). But, and this is methodologically very important to me, the first hearing of Mark (and for us the "first" reading), whether then or now does not get us to chapter 13 until we have made it through the first twelve chapters. And in the first twelve chapters the gospel provides some rather pronounced perspectives on how we are to understand the meaning of geographical references, specifically with respect to two of the provinces which play a major role in the gospel drama. I have in mind, of course, Galilee and Judea.

What do the first twelve chapters tell us about Galilee? It is clear to me that it is the focal point of Jesus’ ministry, with the Sea of Galilee serving as a nexus for linking communities together. Galilee, I submit, is Mark’s eschatological Mecca, where the kingdom of God dawns into reality. In fact I think a good case can be made for Mark seeing Galilee as the new promise land, and I think that Mark at least nuances that by the use of the exodus motif at the very outset. His use of the Isaiah 40:3 passage in 1:2 serves as an allusion to the new exodus event imagined by II Isaiah (40:1-5). Moreover, Mark’s choreography of Jesus’ movements is guided by the exodus motif. Note that Jesus comes to the Jordan to be baptized and when he comes up out of the waters the heavens "split open" or divide (SCIZOMENOUS) the same verb used by the LXX in the Ex. 14:21 description of the division of the waters (ESCISQH TO HUDWR). Then the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove, symbolizing the presence of God, which is analogous, I think, to the symbolic presence of God in the Exodus pillar of cloud /fire (Ex. 14:19, 20, 24). Then Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, which is analogous to the way the Hebrews were led by the pillar of cloud/fire in the wilderness (Ex. 13:21; Dt. 1:32f.). Jesus is tempted like the Hebrews were tempted during their wilderness journey to return to Egypt and create another God ( Aaron’s calf). (Perhaps even Mark’s depiction of Jesus being ministered unto by the angels (1:13) is an allusion to God ministering onto the needs of the Hebrews by providing water and manna in the wilderness.) Then Jesus, following, the temptation enters into the new promise land, Galilee, where the kingdom of God is breaking in/ has broken in, just as in the exodus story Canaan is the promise land for the creation of a new Israelite communal entity under God. My conclusion is that Mark is profoundly pro-Galilean.

Then what about Judea? I, along with others, find Mark throughout his narrative to be demonstratively anti-Judean, in particular, anti-Judean establishment. His anti-Judean polemic emerges full blown in Mk 1:4-5, where he tells us that the people who responded to John the Baptist’s preaching and confessed their sins were all (PASA) the country of Judea and all (PANTES) the people of Jerusalem. Notice Mark uses the comprehensively inclusive "all" in both cases. Notice that there is no mention of people from any other region. The "sinners" are limited to all the people of Jerusalem and Judea. In particular no Galileans are mentioned. Both Matthew and John widen the circle of "sinners" to include "all the region about the Jordan" (Mt. 3:5; Lk. 3:3), which would include Samaria, Perea and Decapolis, and possibly Galilee. Among those who came to John, according to Luke, were tax collectors (who could be Judean or Galilean) and soldiers (3:12-14), presumably Roman soldiers. But in Mark the respondents to John’s preaching of repentance and the confessing of sins are limited to the Judeans.

Then, inexplicably a Galilean, Jesus, does show up to be baptized. But he does not seem to be in the same class of people as the others. For Mark has already prepared us for Jesus’ coming to be baptized by having John introduce him with these words, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (1:7-8). That does not sound like someone who is a repentant sinner. He is greater than even the righteous John who calls sinners to repentance. My guess is this is the way Mark tried to get around the embarrassment of Jesus coming for baptism, a baptism which Mark has just informed us is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Mark appears to need John the Baptist in this scenario to get Jesus in the Jordan to have the new "exodus" waters (?) of heaven parted, for the heavenly epiphany of divine approbation of Jesus and for the entrance of spirit of God. Once Jesus moves from the desert to the new promise land of Galilee, Mark is basically through with his need for John on stage until Mk. 6:14-29. John exits as an arrested man (1:13-14), having served his narrative purpose, at least for a while.

Mark’s anti-Judean polemic continues and surfaces time and again in the narrative. For example, notice in 1:22 the crowd recognizes that Jesus teaches with authority and not as the [Judean] scribes. The [Judean] scribes in 2:6 challenge Jesus for forgiving sins, what only God can do through the priestly cult in Jerusalem. To the horror of the [Judean] Pharisees, Jesus takes unto himself, a Galilean, the right to abrogate Sabbath observance in response to human need (2:28). Note also in 3:7f. how Mark distinquishes between the multitude of Galileans and the great multitude of Judeans and others who come to Jesus. The multitude from Galilee "follow" (Mark's term for discipleship) Jesus, but the other multitude, including the Judeans, come to him because they heard what he did.

Then in 3:20-31 Mark’s anti-Judean polemic surfaces again. This time it includes both the Judean temple-establishment and the Jerusalem [Judean] Church. It is obvious to me that within 3:20-31 there is evidence of Markan intercalation, a defining compositional sign of Markan "orality/textuality,:" what John Dominic Crossan calls the Markan theological DNA (_Birth of Christianity_, 105). In 3:20-31, a conflict story involving Jesus and the [Judean] Pharisees is sandwiched in between two halves of another story. The first half of the other story, a story about the response of Jesus’s family to his ministry, depicts Jesus’ family trying to seize him because it thinks he has "gone mad." The second half of that story depicts Jesus’ subsequent rejection of his family (3:20-21, 31-35). Sandwiched between the two halves, as I have stated, is the story of the Jerusalem [Judean] Pharisees, who accuse Jesus of being demon possessed via the prince of demons Beelzebul. It is a charge which Jesus refutes as unfounded (3:22-27). As that conflict story concludes Jesus makes a declaration about the forgiveness of all sins except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (29). And then Mark brings final closure to this particular conflict between Jesus and the Judean Pharisees with this wrap-up statement, "for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit""(30). I think through this intercalation, Mark is linking the family of Jesus, which seizes him because he is beside himself, with the Judean Pharisees who support that assumption with the claim that Jesus is possessed. The Markan Jesus rejects the accusations of the Judean Pharisees. Then rejects his own family and adopts as his new family, the Galilean bystanders (3:32-35).

Jesus’s rejection of his family can hardly be historical. My interpretation is that this story is really about the Markan repudiation of the Jerusalem community led by the family of Jesus and headed by James. The family of Jesus, by virtue of its conservative Judean orientation reflected in James as its leader, is aligned by Mark in this passage with the Judean establishment, represented by the Pharisees, in its opposition to the Markan Jesus and his Galilean anti-Judean posture.

One other curious fact needs to be noted here. The whole passage follows immediately upon the call of the disciples, headed by Peter (3:13-19). Thus in contiguous passages we have stories about two major leadership groups in the early Jesus movement. Moreover, it is interesting (I think not accidental) that the last disciple mentioned in the list just prior to the introduction of the story of Jesus’ family and the Pharisees is Judas, "who betrayed him" (3:19). I have indicated before that I think Judas is a Markan construct and serves as a collective surrogate for Judea. Thus to have the story of the family tied to the betrayer Judas, as a narrative surrogate for "Judea," and then to have the family linked to the Judean Pharisees in 3:20-35 certainly seems to suggest by association that here Mark intentionally aligns the Jerusalem/Judean church with Jesus’ Judean adversaries who rejected his Galilean ministry and are responsible for his death (3:6; 8:31; 9:31; 10:32; 12:12). Mark’s polemic against the church at Jerusalem, represented by the family of Jesus and head by James, is that, by its Judean orientation (as we learn from Paul) and its opposition to Jesus’ Galilean orientation, the church at Jerusalem, composed of Judean Christians, has in effect put itself in league with the Judean temple establishment. Finally, a striking narrative phenomenon: there in 3:13-35 you have all the Markan narrative opponents of Jesus, with the possible exception of the shadowy Herodians (3:6; 12:13; cf. also 8:15), lined up together, namely: the disciples, Jesus’ family and the Judean establishment.

This brings me to Mk. 7:3-4. My read of Mk 7:3-4, contrary to your own, Mahlon, has this anti-Judean bias behind it. In this regard I see it as original to Mark and not as a scribal gloss, as you interpret it. I interpret all Markan references to IOUDAIOI in his drama as not a general reference to all Jews (Galilee and Judean) but as a narrow reference to Judean Jews. Horsley has helped me to see this. Horsley (_Galilee_, 45 and _Archaeology, History and Society in Galiee_, 9, 25-28), drawing upon clues from Josephus, contends that Mark means "Judeans" when he speaks of IOUDAIOI. In this light Horsley interprets Mark’s reference to the "traditions of the elders" in Mk. 7:3 (along with "many other traditions" in 7:4) as an explicit reference to the "laws of the Judeans," laws formulated by the Jerusalem temple establishment for the social-economic-religious ordering of Judean life. The "laws of the Judeans," were the laws which the Jerusalem establishment tried to impose upon outlying Jewish populations beyond Judea, such as Galilee, in order to bring them in line with the temple establishment's "great tradition" through their retainers such as the scribes and Pharisees. The Galilieans were particularly resistant to Judean intrusion in their lives and organized themselves according to their own 'liitle tradition," vestiges of which may well go back to the northern kingdom (so Horsley).

One might ask then, why would Mark even have to inform his hearers about the "laws of the Judeans?" He would not if he were situated in Judea. The Judean laws would be well-known there. That is one of the reasons I do not think that Mark could be writing to a Judean community, if he writes from outside Judea. And I cannot see how he could possibly be writing as a Judean Christian from inside Judea with his almost virulent anti-Judean bias. His sympathies are clearly with Galilee, historically, existentially and eschatologically. I think he is a Galilean based upon his pro-Galilee/Anti-Judean bias.

Rather than continue to point to Mark’s anti-Judean bias, underscored in his anti-temple establishment polemic, let me fast forward to chapter 13 and to your second point. As you put it: 

"The statement immediately following Mark's first explicit heads up to the reader in 13:14 gives explicit marching orders to those who have been so alerted: WHEN the desolating sacrilege happens, THEN "let those who are in JUDEA flee to the mountains." Granted, the author of such an instruction does not have to be himself located in Judea. But since Mark  lacks any preface comparable to Luke's or other epistolary markers, I think it is rather safe to assume that he was in rather close proximity  to his intended readers."

My response:

As you are aware Mk. 13 poses a bundle of hermeneutical knots. First, does the reference to a desolating sacrilege come from a pre-Markan source which Mark has appropriated for his own use or is that reference something Mark created? Scholars for the most part have seen the reference as having been part of a pre-Markan source which was created to give guidance to the Christian community in Jerusalem as a result of the Caligula-statue incident. Gerd Theissen (_The Gospels in Context_) is among the most recent to argue for Mark using a source that goes back to the Caligula decree to have his statue place in the Temple precincts. I think Theissen has made the best case for this by trying to square the references to events in the text with the actual events of the time period of the Caligula incident. Theissen argues, much as others, that the pre-Markan apocalyptically oriented source can be found at least in 13:7-8, 14-20 and 24-27. I agree with him with respect to 13:7-8 and 14-20 but not 24-27, as I shall address later.

Theissen (137f., 153f.) argues that where the pre-Markan text (13:7-8) speaks about hearing of "wars and rumors of wars" and nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, those are allusions to the war climate of 35-37 (C. E), specifically Roman wars with the Parthians and the Nabatean defeat of Herod Antipas (36 C. E.), along with the threatening advance of the army of Vitellius, the Roman legate of Syria, through Judean to pursue war with the Nabateans (37 C. E.). The reference to "earthquakes in various places," Theissen suggests (155), is based upon the "news of an earthquake that shook Antioch and parts of Syria on 9 April 37, which is reported by Antiochene chronicler Malalas." And reference to famines, according to Theissen (155), is probably an allusion to the shortage of food caused by the war period and the extra Palestinian burden of having to support the warring Roman legions with food. The year 40 C. E. is the critical year, Theissen posits, when the Caligula statue was to be placed in the temple. The desolating sacrilege referred to in 13:14 is the anticipation of the movement of the statue into the temple. And the call to flee to the mountains, so Theissen (161), is an urgent admonition in anticipation of the arrival of the statue and the consequent conflagration between Jews and Romans which would follow. With respect to the apocalypse’s plea to pray that it happens before winter, Theissen posits (161) that the plea "is understandable because it is especially difficult to secure food at that time of year." On the basis of this matching of references in the apocalyptic source with events in the years 35-40 C. E., Theissen (161f.) dates the apocalypse in 40 C. E. and locates its place of composition as Jerusalem, since the recipients of the apocalypse must have been in a place where they could "see" the desolating sacrilege (13:14).

I think Theissen has made as good a case as anyone for Mk. !3:7-8 and 14-20 being an attempt of by a previous Judean (Christian?) to give counsel, consolation and apocalyptic hope to his community. The question remains then: What meaning does this earlier apocalyptic work have for Mark and why did he include it in chapter 13? To answer that we need to look at how Mark has composed the chapter. The key for understanding how he composed it, I submit, lies in Mark’s use of certain repeated imperatives in the chapter. You have already drawn attention to GRHGOREIETE in 13:37, which appears earlier in 13:35 and is preceded by its cousin AGRUPNEITE in 13:33. The other imperative that is repeated throughout chapter 13 is BLEPETE.

In 1963, when I first came unto my thesis about Mark in a graduate school paper which was focused on Mark 13, I was immediately struck by Mark’s use of imperatives in Jesus’ speech, by the way, the longest speech of Jesus in the whole gospel. The two imperatives that leaped off the page were (1) BLEPETE (13:5, 9, 23, 33) and (2) AGRUPNEITE/GRHGOREITE (13:33,35, 37). It struck me that Mark’s use of these imperatives might contain the clue to unraveling the message Mark is proclaiming in the chapter, as well as providing an entry way into understanding the Markan Sitz im Leben, and even providing guidance for finding out why Mark wrote his gospel. Because BLEPETE crops up throughout the chapter, I reasoned that in each occurrence it was used to get the attention of his community and to underscore and vouchsafe his own theological perspective through the authority of the words of the historical Jesus.

Thus, I concluded BLEPETE in 13:5f. is used to warn the community against pneumatic Christians, probably prophets, who believe they speak for Jesus ("coming in his name, proclaiming ‘EGW EIMI.’"). The community in Mark’s judgment, as I saw it, was being led astray by these prophets. I concluded that BLEPETE in 13:23 is used to warn against Christians who falsely present themselves or represent Christ through signs and wonders (13:21-22), what I understood was a Markan reference to THEIOS ANHR activity and a THEIOS ANHR christology. In the article I wrote for ZNW in 1968 and my book _Mark–Traditions in Conflict in 1971/78, a revision of my dissertation, I linked the references to the impostors in 13:5f. and the miracle working false christs and prophets together and came up with the thesis that Mark is alluding to persons who have come into his community with a THEIOS ANHR christology, along with a realized eschatology– all of which is challenging Mark’s christology (suffering servant christology) and his, as yet, unfulfilled eschatology. Mark held that the risen Jesus is absent and, as yet, unexalted and, furthemore, will not appear again until the final eschatological moment, when, with the defeat of the heavenly forces, he will ascend (a la Daniel 13:7) in triumph, be enthroned in power and fully vindicated for his earthly role as the suffering servant (13:26).

I now am giving thought to uncoupling 13:5f. and 13:21-22 . While Dieter Georgi’s profile of the THEIOI ANDRES in II Corinthians, upon which I constructed my own profile of Mark’s enemies, is of a religious orientation that not only practices miracle working but also evidences pneumatic characteristics, I now am leaning toward the position that the "enemies" in 13:5f. and those in 13:21-22 are actually two different opponents of Mark, each with different axes to grind. I still hold to the position that the opponents Mark refers to in 13:21-22 have a triumphalist christology focused in their miracle working activity and their belief that Jesus was primarily a great miracle worker. Whether that particular orientation is called a THEIOS ANHR orientation or whatever is not a critical matter for me (as I noted in the preface to the 1978 paperback edition of my book). Increasingly these days we are discovering that our essentialist approach to defining certain religious perspective, such as apocalypticism, gnosticism, Hellenistic Judaism, etc. fails to take into the account the fluidity of religious perspective. It is very difficult to come up with a definition that fits all manifestations or apparent manifestations of a particular religious orientation.

With regard to 13:5f., I think Mark may be dealing with a Christian perspective of a different stripe from the so-called THEIOI ANDRES. Theissen speculates (152) that the reference to false teachers of 13:6 3:5f. "could refer to early Christian prophets who uttered ‘I sayings’ of Jesus in the belief that the exalted Lord was speaking through them." All of that, but for the "exalted," part fits perfectly Horsley/Drapers profile of the Q community prophets. According to Horsley/Draper’s profile of the community’s christology (if that term can be properly used with respect to the community), a community that Horsley/Draper contends is based in Galilee, the community believed that when its prophets recited in oral performance the speeches of its founding prophet, Jesus, they became the mouthpieces of the Jesus who in that moment of oral performance became present in a real way to the community. The key theologoumenon of the community is found, according to Horsley/Draper, encapsulated in the Q saying: "Whoever hears you hears me" (Q 10:16). Now that Q conviction that the risen Lord became present through its prophets serving as mouthpieces for Jesus would have been an impossible christological/theological and eschatological position for Mark to hold. For Mark, the risen Jesus is absent and cannot be present again until the end-time event of his exaltation. Thus Mark would be opposed to any suggestion that Jesus could be present in any speech of a Christian prophet.

As you know by now I, think Mark knew Q. And in his BLEPETE-admonition in 13:9ff., Mark’s dependence on Q can be shown. Specifically Mark drew upon Q 12:11-12 in composing the text of 13:9-11. I base this on the text of the International Q Project of Q 12:11-12 provided in English translation by HorsleyDraper, WHOEVER HEARS YOU HEARS ME , who have access to the International Q Project. That English translation of Q 12:11-12 reads:

Q: 12:11– {When} you are delivered up do not be anxious about what to say

Q 12:12 – for {it will be given to you} in that hour what to say."

That is from my perspective an interesting, distilled reconstruction from Matthew 10:9 and Luke 12:11-12. If that is IQP’s reconstruction faithfully translated into English by Horsley and Draper, then there is an amazing correspondence between the Q passage and Mark; and one can see how Mark has used Q by employing his intercalation technique. Thus:

Mk. 13:9b/11a ("for when they deliver you up"/"and when they bring you to trial and deliver you up") sounds a lot like Q 12:11 ("when you are delivered up"). Mk. 13:10, with the Markan theme of preaching the gospel, seems to have been intercalated between 13:9 and 11. It is apparent that the end of 13:9 ("bear testimony before them") is thematically and causally linked to 13:11 ("do not be anxious...what you are to say). Then, as Mark is in the midst of composing, he returns, as is his custom in intercalation, to the original statement at the outset (13:9b, "they will deliver you up") and repeats it with some variation in 13:11a ("and when they bring you to trial and deliver you up), as he returns to the issue of bearing witness in times of persecution. And then he continues with the admonition, "do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say," which is borrowed again from Q12:11b ("do not be anxious about what you will say"). The assurance which follows in 13:11c ("but say whatever is given you in that hour") is borrowed from Q 12:12 ("for it will be given you in that hour what you will say"). Now then, if that is the extent of Q 12:11-12, what is missing is the Markan reference to the Holy Spirit providing the script for the believer’s confession. Consequently, Mark, in adopting Q 12:11-12 as a word of admonition and assurance for his own community members, must clearly make it know that it is not Jesus himself, contra the Q prophets, who is present and speaking in their confession. Rather, it is the Holy Spirit. The Q pneumatic theology is anathema to Mark. Jesus is absent, EGW EIMI’s to the contrary, and will not be present until the end time.

My suspicion is that there may be people who have come into Mark’s community, perhaps from the Q community, or converts to the Q community who are upsetting Mark’s community with their Q theological position. The close proximity of the villages of Caesarea Philippi to the Q community in Galilee (I think either in the region of Bethsaida, Capernaum and Chorazin, or perhaps north of it) and Caesarea Philippi (my location for Mark’s community) makes such an interface between the Markan community and the Q itinerants very plausible. If this were to be the case, then the fact that the villages of Caesarea Philippi are closer to the Q community and its itinerant mission than is Judea, would be support, a long with other evidence I shall provide, for arguing the Markan community is in the Caesarea-Philippi region rather than Judea.

By the way without going extensively into it, I think a case could be made for Mark penning 13:12-13 by weaving back to his source’s material in 13:14-20 with his source’s previous material in 13:7 and 8. Thus, he reverses the sequence of the motifs of "the end" and conflictual uprisings (international) in 13:7b-8 and finishes his creation of 13:9-11 with the motif of conflictual uprisings (familial) followed by "the end" motif in 13:12-13. Thus you have an A-B/B’-A’ syntactical structure. Having picked up the threads of his source in 13:12-13, Mark now returns to it in 13:14-20, and appends to it his BLEPETE warning in 13:21-23. Notice also, interestingly enough, unlike in the cases of 13:5 and 13:9 where BLEPETE is used to introduce a warning or admonition, its occurrence in 13:23 follows the warning about false Christs and prophets in 13:21-23. Why did Mark depart from the practice he followed in 13:5 and 13:9 when he came to the warning about the imposters in 13:21-23? It looks to me like Mark departed from his practice because he also used BLEPETE in this section of his Jesus speech as a terminological framing device to introduce and conclude the recitation of the past events (from the point of view of Mark’s present). Thus with the bracketing use of BLEPTE from 13:5 through 13:23 Mark has had Jesus predict the past of Mark’s community.

Furthermore with respect to 13:21-23, particularly 21-22, I think Mark has once again drawn upon Q in the composition of these verses, as well as drawing upon Q for his transitional movement to the future eschatological scene of Mk. 13:24-27. The Q passage which I believed drew upon for these compositional purposes is Q 17:23-24. Notice the similarity in syntax and motifs between Q 17:23 and Mk. 13:21 when the verses are paralleled thus:

Q 17:23– They will say to you, 'Look there!' or 'Look here!' Do not go, do not set off  in pursuit.

Mk. 13:21– if anyone says to you at that time, 'Look! Here is the Christ!' or 'Look! There he is!'-- do not believe it.

It is obvious that the Q 17:23 warning is for those who are or may be misled about the manifestation of the future eschatological appearance of the Son of man. For the warning of Q 17:23 is followed by Q 17:24 in which the true sign of the manifestation of the eschatological appearance of the Son of man is proclaimed, namely: "For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of man be in his day." As I see it, Mark basically adopts the warning of Q 17:23 and adapts that warning to the service of his own warning addressed to his own community against "false Christs and false apostles," who with their "signs and wonders," are misleading the faithful (13:22) into thinking that they, the christological impostors, are a manifestation of the re-appearance of Christ in his role as the future, end-time Son of man (13:26 and a la Q17:24). Mark follows his warning with the BLEPETE admonition, as I have stated.

Then when Mark turns to composing his future eschatological scene of 13:24-27, I submit that Q17:24 is again in his thinking as he creates his introductory verse (13:24) leading into the eschatological drama about the future appearance of the Son of Man (13:26). This Markan compositional indebtedness to Q 17:24 can be seen in the following parallel comparison of Q 17:24 and Mark 13:24.

Q 17:24– For as the lightning flashes and lights (or "shines,"i. e., LAMPEI) up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

Mk.13:24- "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light (FEGGOS), the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken and then they will see the Son of man..

Notice, if you will, the common use of the "shine/light" motif in both passages as a motif in the service of introducing the main theme in both passages, namely, the future eschatological appearance of the Son of man. Of course Mark uses the motif of light in a diametrically opposite way to Q’s usage. In Q the "shine" motif serves to dramatize what the appearance of the Son of man will be like, whereas in Mark the motif of light, in Mark’s case the absence of light, serves to describe the diminished state of the heavenly bodies in contrast to the brilliant "glory" of the Son of man in his end-time re-appearance (13:26). Mark, of course, is directly dependent upon Isaiah 13:10 (LXX) and Joel 2:10 (LXX) for his description in 17:24 and the contrast he wanted to make between the darkened "glory" of the heavenly bodies and the brilliant appearance of the Son of man in glory. But it was Q17:24, the continuation of the saying begun in Q 17:23, and which Mark has just drawn upon in 13:21, that ideationally led him to borrow the imagery of Isaiah 13:10 and Joel 2:10 for setting forth the glorious state of the future eschatological appearance of the Son of man in contrast to the darkened "glory" of the heavenly bodies..

Before proceeding further with a detailed examination of 13:24-27 in support of my thesis, contrary to Theissen’s view, that Mark created 13:24-27, I need to advance another a corollary thesis, with respect to Markan dependency on Q. It is a corollary thesis which is directly germane to my contention that Mark created 13:24-27. That corollary thesis has two component parts: (1) the Q community, and the Q community alone, first introduced the "Son of man" (or as I prefer, "the Son of humanity") nomenclature into Christian discourse and (2) Mark adopted and adapted that Q "Son of humanity" nomenclature in the service of his own apologetic and polemical purposes. Let me explain:

First with respect to the Q community having been the first of the Jesus movements to formulate the Christian use of the term "Son of humanity:" I do not think the historical Jesus ever used the term "Son of humanity" (SOH) self-referentially or otherwise. I am struck by the fact that, for example, in John Dominic Crossan's inventory of actual sayings of the historical Jesus in his _The Historical Jesus_ (xiii-xvii ), there are 16 sayings in which Jesus uses a self-designation. In 15 of those sayings Jesus refers to himself using first person pronouns ("I," " me," " my"). In only one of those sayings does Jesus self-designate himself as the SOH. That particular saying is about having no place to lay his head, a saying which is doubly attested (Q 9:58/GT 86). It is the only SOH saying that the Jesus Seminar concluded ("pink") goes back to the historical Jesus (_The Five Gospels_, 316). Aside from the use of SOH as a self-referential term for Jesus in Q, the term appears nowhere else in the traditions prior to Mark. Paul never uses it. It is not found in the Signs Source, nor the pre-Markan miracle catenae, nor the pre-Markan apophthegms, nor Crossan’s Cross Gospel. Its occurrence in the Markan apophthems 2:1-12 and 2:23-28 is due to Markan redaction (sandwiching in 2:10 and anti-Judean -Torah polemic in 2:28). The one exception, Gospel of Thomas 86, I would attribute to either GT’s direct or indirect dependency upon Q 9:58. The term SOH must have first been used by the Q prophets. If Q9:58 is not authentic to Jesus and SOH in that saying refers to human beings generally, and Galilean peasants in particularly, then it may have served as the seed from which ideationally grew the Q prophet’s development of SOH for their own theological purposes and usage.

Why would these prophets have developed such a usage. Horsley/Darper provide the clues for me. The term SOH in Q, as Horsley/Draper (71f.; 239, 274) have argued, is intended neither as a title, nor is it intended to have a christological orientation nor is it intended to have an apocalyptic focus, even in its eschatological future usage. The use of SOH by Jesus in Q, according to Horsley/Draper, is an idiom that can be both individually and collectively nuanced. That is it can be nuanced either as a circumlocution for Jesus or as general reference to human beings. When used in an earthly setting, as in Q 9:58, SOH can embrace both the connotation of Jesus himself, as well as humanity, or better still the members of the Q community, collectively. This double-nuanced meaning of SOH also applies with respect to its occurrence in the heavenly setting of a future eschatological court of judgment, as is the case in Q12:8f., 40; 17: 24, 26 and 30. In these references to the future eschatological role of the SOH it is not clear that SOH is being used in reference to an individual, in particularly, Jesus. And if Jesus is in mind, he is likely perceived as an accuser or defender, perhaps judge, but certainly not as the exalted Lord appearing in his parousia (Q has no such concept) as the agent of eschatological judgment. It is possible that SOH and the reference to the day(s) of the SOH (17: 24, 26, 30) could refer to humanity (i. e., the holy ones in the Q community a la Dan. 7:18, 25-27; see Horsley/Draper, 71, 239, 274 n.13).

My thesis is that the prophets of the Q community adopted and adapted the term SOH from the OT (e. g. Psalm 8 and Ezekiel) as a social-class term and for a specific psychological reason. These prophets knew that it was important to the community for their founder-prophet, Jesus, to be the champion of their cause. Q community members took strength, solace and hope from the words of their founder-prophet, who through his discourses clearly identified with their plight and provided a vision for the successful and salvific transformation of their existential predicament. But they needed more than that. It was not enough for their founder-prophet to understand their plight, feel their pain and provide a way out through the intervention of the God on behalf of the ancient tribes of Israel. They also needed to know that Jesus not only has taken up their cause and is one with them, but, most important, is *one of them.* They need to known and be repeatedly reminded that Jesus was/is himself an impoverished Galilean peasant bound in kindred solidarity with them by virtue of the fact that he shares the same social origin, station, and status as they do.

To assure their community of this, the prophets created SOH as an self-appellation for Jesus– in effect an "oral signature" which communicates his social-class and existential solidarity with the members of the community. Through "SOH," as a designation "labeling" himself according to social class , the Q Jesus identifies himself in effect as "the son of commoners." As the son of commoners, he links himself in social-class and existential solidarity with the Q community members through proclaiming that he, like them, was/is homeless (Q 9:58); he, like them, as the son of commoners, was/is also disdained and condemned by the Judean Establishment as a sinner for making friends of sinners and eating with sinners, his fellow commoners (Q 7:34). As the son of commoners, he was/is hated, reviled and condemned, a condition which he shares with his fellow commoners of the Q community who have been and are hated, excluded, reviled and defamed because of their witness of and identity with him (Q 6:22). In adapting the term "SOH" from its OT roots as Jesus’ self-referential term, the prophets of the Q community attached the definite article to the term and created "the" SOH as a way of specifying Jesus as prototypically representative of them, as well as a way of collectively including him and them in social-class and existential solidarity.

My thesis goes on: Mark had direct access to Q in either oral or textual form. Horsley/ Draper, as I stated, locate the Q community in Galilee. Thus the Q community and the Markan community in the region of Caesarea Philippi, as I see it, are in fairly close proximity to each other and share, as theological descendants of northern Israel, a deep bitterness toward the Judean temple establishment’s oppression. Mark found in the Q community’s use of SOH, as a self-referential term for Jesus, a convenient way to express his own christological interpretation of Jesus as the Christ and Son of God in opposition to the christological position of his opponents. With the use of the Jesus’ self-referential term Q, Mark created, via this Q social-class idiom of identity for Jesus, the two distinct but separate phases of Mark’s own christology: the suffering-servant earthly phase (8:31 et al) and the future, eschatological vindication-exaltation phase (13:26). These two phases are separated by the interim period of Jesus absence–– in contrast and in opposition to Jesus’ perennial presence in the Q community’s oral performances–– as he awaits vindication and exaltation. In his appropriation of the term from Q, Mark removed any inference that the term could be applied in any other way but in a circumlocutionary way to Jesus himself. SOH in Mark’s mind could not serve, as in Q, as a collective reference to humanity. But in concert with Q, SOH remains for Mark a social-class term to link Jesus in social-class/existential solidarity with the common people of Mark’s community. SOH in Mark is never a christological title but always serves as a social-class term of personal identity to present and define what for the Markan Jesus is the authentic christological content of the christological titles "Christ" and "Son of God."

All SOH references in Mark are his own creation, except for 8:38. There he appropriates Q 12:8f., transforms it into a negative sanction, which is directed against Peter (8:32f.) and those like him who are ashamed of Jesus’ christological path. Mark also draws upon two other SOH sayings from Q but has removed the term "SOH" from each of them. In 3:28 he transforms the Q 12:10 reference to the forgiveness for speaking a word against the SOH to sins against "sons of men," a rare phrase found only one other time in the NT (Eph.3:5). Mark had a problem with the meaning of SOH as it stands in Q 12:10. Its meaning there is ambiguous. It could refer to Jesus and/or human beings generally, as Horsley/Draper have pointed out. Mark, unlike Q, could not tolerate any possible inferences that might suggest that speaking a word against the SOH (Jesus) could be forgiven (as I just noted with respect to 8:38 and Peter being ashamed of "my words"). Thus, I the following evolution of this saying, contrary to Crossan (BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY, 257f.). Q 12:10, as found in canonical Luke, was first then Mk 3:28f. Mark also appropriates Q 17:23f. in 13:21-23 (I would add to the above) and substitutes "Christ" for Q’s SOH and reshapes the point of Q statement into a warning against those in Mark’s community who advocate a false christology, as I have stated..

I would also include in this thesis a corollary theory on the relationship of Q and Mark. Werner Kelber and Horsley/Draper, as I said, have convinced me that Q was created originally as oral "text" to be orally performed. The difference between Q and Mark obviously is that one is a collection of speeches (Q) and the other narrative or drama (Mk). I think it may well be that, in reaction to Q and Q's theology of the continuous real presence of Jesus in each oral performance, Mark intentionally created a narrative as a way to defend his theology of the absence of the risen Lord in the interim time between the crucifixion and the eschatogical even of his final and complete vindication and exaltation.

What I am proposing is that Mark was opposed to Q's continuous presence of Jesus in oral performance. In a sense Q's theology might be a paraphrase of the Hebrews 13:8 declaration, namely, Jesus is the same "present one," yesterday, today and forever. Not so christologically for Mark. The Jesus of the public ministry is different in essence and kind from the Jesus who appears after prolonged absence in the end-time exaltation event (13:26). For Mark, unlike Q, there is a qualitative and quantitative/temporal difference in Mark's christological perspective between Jesus as the suffering one and Jesus as the future triumphant one. They are two different states of christological being separated temporally by the interim between Jesus death as the suffering one and his return as the triumphant one.

To counteract this Q christology and in support of his own, Mark had to find a way to break the continuity and disjoint the coherence of the past, present and future reality of the same Jesus, referentially identified as the Son of humanity, as the Q community averred. Mark achieved his own apologia and his polemic against Q by moving from speech performance to drama performance and from orality to textuality. By doing so Mark effectively removed Jesus as a present reality in any possible oral performance, Q or otherwise. That is, by encapsulating Jesus in the narrative world, Mark removes Jesus from Mark’s actual world. It is in the narrative world and only in the narrative world that Jesus is real and present and only to those who share the narrative world with him. Bound to the world of the narrative, Jesus can no longer be present in the Markan community's world, the here and now– or for that matter, the Q community.

Moreover, the "laws" of the Markan narrative, as well as the authority of Jesus’ own words of predictive prophesy (14:28; see below), prescribe and dictate that at the end of the drama in the narrative world this narratively encapsulated Jesus must exit from the narrative world. Further, according to the proscription of the narrative world and in conformity with the proclamation of the narrative Jesus, Jesus is bound to remain absent from the real world of the hearers of the narrative– even in oral performance. Only at the end-time event in the real world is Jesus permitted by the narrative Jesus to reemerge and be present once again in the actual world of the Markan community. In effect the narrative Jesus controls (Mk 13:24-27; 14:28, 62) the absence and presence of the real world Jesus. That is why Mark’s treats as anathema anyone who comes in Jesus' name declaring "EGW EIMI" (13:6). The Markan Jesus thus attacks the prophetic leadership of the Q community as deceivers who lead the faithful astray (13:5f.).

I return now to 13:24-27 and why I think Mark created 13:24-27 using the SOH saying as the seed concept for his creation. I have already addressed how I think Mark was guided into his creation of 13:24-27 with the ideational stimulus of Q 17:24 and the imagery of Isaiah 13:10 and Joel 2:10. In similar way to his use of the Isaiah and Joel imagery of 13:24, Mark fleshed out his unfolding eschatological drama with the defeat of the heavenly powers by borrowing some imagery from Is. 34:4. It was in penning 13:26 that he turned once again to Q, specifically 12:8-9. Horsley/Draper argue (273f.) that Q 12:8-9 "imagines a heavenly judgment scene that mirrors a human judgment scene. Such scenes had developed out of the Israelite prophetic visionary experience in which political interactions in history were seen to be mirrored and anticipated or determined by deliberations in the heavenly court of God (e. g., I Kings 22; Isaiah 40). Judean scribes/sages involved in resisting either their own rulers or repressive imperial rulers drew upon this tradition in resolving the problem of what would happen to those who steadfastly resisted even to the point of being martyred— before the time of God’s resolution to the historical crisis in judgment of the oppressive rulers and restoration of the people. The solution was the vindication in the heavenly court, possibly simultaneously with or immediately after their martyrdom. The scene portrayed in Q 12:8-9 drew upon and referred to this tradition, although not in its more elaborate scribal form (e. g., Dan. 7:9-14, 26-27; 11-12)...."

That is precisely the scene of vindication I think Mark envisioned when he penned 13:26. Q 12:8-9 gave him the seed idea and Dan. 7:13f. provided the material content. As I noted years ago in my MARK (124-131), Mk 13:26 is not the parousia as traditionally imaged. In 13:26, Jesus is portrayed as ascending as, was the case of the figure in Dan 7, after the defeat of the powers in heaven (13:24f.), which is analogous to the defeat of the beasts in Daniel (7:11-12). Mark portrays Jesus’ exaltation and final vindication before those who turned against him, namely Peter and the disciples. Mk.14:28 is, as I have argued in my _Mark_ (111-115), a reference to that future exaltation in the final end-time event, what has been traditionally called the parousia. The passage is not a prediction of a resurrection appearance but a vindication appearance. And Mark in 13:24-27 portrays Jesus’ exaltation and final vindication before those who oppressed and put him to death, namely, the Judean temple establishment. Mk. 14:62 is the prediction of that. It was Matthew who transformed the Markan ascent to exaltation in 13:26 to a descent of the already exalted Lord (exalted since his resurrection), in a similar way Paul did in his narration of the parousia in I Thess. 4:13ff. With respect to Mark’s treatment of Jesus’ resurrection, the empty-tomb story was created by Mark to proclaim the resurrection. Mark created the story in opposition to the appearance tradition, which Mark opposes because it makes Jesus present in the actual world after his crucifixion and before the final moment eschatological event of 13:24-27.

Thus Mark knew and used Q. That is strikingly evident, for instance and as I have noted, in the way he has used so of one Q Jesus speech, Q 12:8-12, in composing 13:9-11, 21-22 and 26. But most important Mark used Q to serve his own theological interest and to polemicize against Q's theology in his use of Q sayings. This also explains why Mark did not use more of Q. Had he used the full speeches, he might have played into the hands of Q "christology." The hearers would have possibly been led to think that they were hearing the oral performance of the real presence of Jesus as was heard in the Q community. If that had happened, then it would have sabotaged Mark's theology of the absence of the risen Jesus.

To return to my interpretation of Mark 13, following Mark’s dramatic presentation of the future in 13:24-27, he returns to the present of his community and concludes chapter 13 in the present. It is in that section of the Jesus speech that BLEPETE again is used by Mark and linked with the other imperatives AGRUPNEITE/GRHGOREITE, to which you draw attention. All the imperatives are used at this point to admonish the community not to wain in their eschatological belief and expectancy that the final moment of exalted triumph for Jesus and for them is imminent. The parables in 13:28-29 and 34-36 are dramatic metaphors that carry the same existential punch and message.

I now return to the provenance issue. I do not think Mark or his community is located in or near Judea. His pro-Galilee and anti-Judean bias weighs strongly against that. With Theissen, I see Mark using his apocalyptic source to narrate the past. The desolating sacrilege is past history. That is what the aside to the reader is all about ("Let the reader understand", 13:14). The flight of the Judeans has occurred both in 40 C. E. and, I think likely, as a result of the Roman-Jewish war, 66-70 C. E. We are not told which mountains the Judeans fled to, but in Mark’s time, during the Roman-Jewish war, it could have been to the mountainous region of Caesarea Philippi, as I shall suggest again shortly when I turn for external evidence to support my contention that Mark’s community is located at Caesarea Philippi.. It is not impossible that the flight could have been to Pella, but the tradition for Pella being the place to which the Judeans fled has been challenged.

Furthermore, Mark’s use of his source’s reference to hearing of wars and rumors of wars is unusual if he or his community is in Judea. It is strange that Mark, if he were located in Judea or if his community were, that he would have referred to "hearing" as though the wars are at some distance (as they were for his apocalyptic source). It would seem more likely that he would have changed the wording of his source at that point to read, "when you see" or "when wars come" or "occur." Also weighing against a Judean provenance, is the fact that Mark makes a glaring error in his mapping of Judean geography. Mark inexplicably has Jesus travel in Judea from Bethphage southeast to Bethany in order to reach Jerusalem which is northwest of Bethphage (11:1). Now if he were a Judean, why would he make such an error? Finally, during the Roman-Judean war, much less afterwards in 70's, is there any likelihood that there would still be a Christian community in Jerusalem or Judea, particularly after the death of James– brother of Jesus and dominate force and shaper of Judean Christianity– in 62 C. E. I would think that the Christians in Judea would have long since fled the area.

In addition, the disadvantage of your Judean thesis, as others have pointed out, is that it works only if you explain the texts that would challenge it as emendations or glosses, such as Mk. 7:3-4. I think any theory for the location of Mark’s community must accept the canonical text as the authentic text according to the best manuscript evidence. Otherwise, to disqualify certain passages on the view that they must be later glosses to the original text can be interpreted as special pleading, the very thing that you and I have challenged those who hold to the external traditions do when they make qualifying proposals to make their evidence conform to their theory.

Now what is my support for Caesarea Philippi, aside from the internal support which I gave at the close of my "Guidelines," I offer up the following external support. I think it coheres with the internal evidence I have cited above with respect to chapter 13 and the internal evidence with respect to 8:27-9:9 which I cited as "results" at the end of my "Guidelines’ post on Xtalk (2/29) and Kata Markon (2/29).

John Wilson, NT scholar and archaeologist, has been a part of the dig at Banias (formerly Caesarea Philippi). I quote here what he stated to me in a e-mail post over a year ago (11/23/98) in response to my query as to what evidence he and others have amassed archaeologically and otherwise about the character of Caesarea Philipi or Banias in the first century C. E.

"Banias itself was the center of a small Iturean principality which was turned over to Herod by Augustus (thus Luke calls Philip the ’tetrarch of Iturea.’). We don't know whether large numbers of Itureans in this area, if it can be distinguished from northern Galilee, were adherents of Judaism in the First Century. We do know that the "region of Caesarea Philippi" had a strong Iturean presence among the population. I have never seen the implications of this worked out by Synoptics scholars...."

Wilson goes on in his description of the heterogeneous Jewish population in Caesarea Philippi, thus: " Then we have the strong community of "Babylonian Jews" in Herodian territories east of Banias. This community is real, not theoretical, and yet I've seen almost nothing about the kind of Judaism it represented nor its relationships with other Jewish communities. I do know that it sent troops, under its leader Philip, son of Jacinus, who was also Agrippa's senior general, to rescue the "Jews of Caesarea" when they were threatened by the "Syrians of Caesarea" during the Revolt. They seem to have been pro-Roman at first, but later apparently many of them joined the rebellion and were killed at Gamla....

I'm not sure why Horsley thinks that the Jewish community in Banias were Judeans. They were a real factor in the city. Agrippa, who strongly supported them, allowed them to have their own quasi-independent government, with their own (apparently defensible) quarter in the city. Josephus says they numbered in the "thousands." This is another very real group and deserves more study. They seem to be quite particular in the matter of ceremonial purity (at least where olive oil is concerned), but they were definitely pro-Roman, pro-Agrippa, and, I would tend to think--"northerners" ("Galileans"?).... I agree [with reference to my e-mail comment] that there were villages in the mountains west of Banias (sometimes called "upper Galilee") where people were relatively isolated. I have never been convinced that these people had much to do with the origins of the Jesus Movement, which belonged rather to the shores of Lake Tiberias (and, quite possibly, to a stretch of territory reaching from Tyre,

And in a previous e-mail (10/23/98): "I believe there is a strong possibility that people from the villages of this area [Capernaum, Bethsaida, etc.] (who were, I presume, the original "Jesus people") did in fact flee to the north, including Banias. By the mid-60's this would have involved no more than going from one part of Agrippa's kingdom to another. To complicate matters, I think there is also evidence that "Jesus people" from Judea came into the Banias area (as well as several places in Transjordan) at the same time. These were the precursors of such Jewish-Christian sects as the Ossaeans, Nazoraeans, Ebionites, etc., which survived up to the 4th Century. (Documentation for this comes from the Panarion of Epiphanias of Salamis [c. 315-403] who places these groups in Coele Syria, Damascus, Iturea [i.e. the Banias area], etc. Of the Ebionites, he specifically says, "the roots of their thorny shoots are situated in Nabatea and PANEAS for the most part" [30,2,7-8]).

Returning to his e-mail of 11/223/98: "As I mentioned in my last note [10/23/98], I think a case can be made that it was Jews of this area (the lakeside towns) who fled the Romans and moved toward Syria where they certainly came in contact with others of similar convictions. Just how they related to the "Jews of Caesarea"--with whom they surely came in contact, is a matter for further study--and an interesting question.... If Luke can be believed, there was also a "Jerusalem" or "Judean" church (I think Paul also testifies to this one), which scattered during the reign of Agrippa I, and certainly at the time of the Revolt. I think it is likely that this group came to the general region of "Galilee/Banias/Southern Syria" as well as into Decapolis cities in the area. Despite their coming from Jerusalem, they were what we would probably call "Hellenistic Jews"--and I suspect that all the groups I have mentioned would more or less fall into that category as well. As you know, "Hellenistic" is a notoriously slippery term. As I mentioned in my last note, I think there was a strong Hellenistic-Apocalyptic kind of Judaism in the Banias/Dan area dating from at least the 2nd or 3rd Cent.BCE. "

Then he addresses some specific questions which I raised with him. His answers to my third question on evidence of Galilean interest in the sacred sites in Caesarea-Philippi and my fourth question with respect to Galilean boundaries are germane here to my thesis. Thus Wilson: "Which leads me to a couple of your specific questions. (3) Evidence of Galilean interest in the sacred sites in Caesarea-Philippi. My colleague, Vassilios Tzaferis, and other Israeli-based scholars, tend to think that the old northern cult associated with Dan entirely died during Persian times and that a new cultus developed not based upon it later. I lean toward the belief that the sacred associations did continue, somewhat transformed of course, but that by the First Century these sites had followed a trajectory from Ba'al to various Hellenistic syncretistic deities and the old Israelite tradition was maintained only in very veiled forms among those Hellenistic Apolcalypic Jewish groups I mentioned above. It is interesting, however, that in the Rabbinic literature Banias is mentioned often, and sometimes in the context of discussions about ritual purity, without ever mentioning the presence of a pagan cult there. The silence is deafening. In other words, they seem to consider the site to belong to them in some way, and it is not an "abomination" even though it was covered with pagan shrines (many of which are now excavated). I don't entirely know what to do with that. . . But it is certain that Jews and "Jesus People" of all stripes knew these sites, particularly Banias, very well. (By the way, I have been discussing a newly discovered inscription with Israeli scholars which may relate to this issue. It has a soldier with a Jewish name, leaving a votive offering at the Pan sanctuary, and dedicating it to the "god of his fathers." I know that in Egypt Pan and Yahweh were sometimes identified with each other--so this one could use some more investigation.)

4. Finally, as to the borders of Galilee, I agree completely that the region was much more nebulous than our modern taste would require. As I have thought more about it, I realize that not only in Agrippa II's time, but actually from Maccabean times, northern Galilee was under the same political control as was Banias/Huleh. People could and did move back and forth with little sense of boundaries (as did Jesus, according to the Synoptics). As far as I can tell, the lakeside region, which I understand as the "birthplace" of the Jesus Movement, was in the same political entity as Banias until at least 100 AD. In general, it is important to realize that the places mentioned in the Gospels are VERY close to each other and only those who have never walked around in the area could develop theories of extreme isolation, firm boundaries between one area and the other, etc. "

I think John Wilson has supplied a great deal of evidence that the region of Caesarea Philippi comports well with my theory that the Gospel of Mark was composed in one of the villages of Caesarea-Philippi sometime in the early 70's C. E. following the Roman-Jewish War. Caesarea-Philippi was certainly a heterogeneous Jewish community, which would explain why Mark had to explain Judean customs to non-Judean Jews in his community, as well as to non-Jews who had become converted to Mark’s Jesus movement. Caesarea Philippi’s proximity to the Q community accounts for Markan awareness of Q.

Wilson’s hypothesis that the Judeans may have fled (whether in 40 C. E. or at the outbreak of the Roman-Jewish war) to Caesarea-Philippi, a la 13:14, comports well with the mandate to flee to a mountainous place. The mountainous region of Caesarea Philippi was certainly a place where the fleeing Jews could join already established Jewish communities. Such fleeing observant Judeans, during early years (66-67 C. E.) of the war and the Roman advance on Galilee, could have taxed the Caesarea Philippi Judean "ghetto’s" resources, such as the need for oil. Those resources likely were already severely limited by the Judeans being confided "to quarters" by Modius, the king’s viceroy. Such a confinement may have resulted from shifting allegiance from Rome to Judea. In any event that confinement necessitated the urgent appeal to John of Giscala to supply them oil, as Josephus reports: "the Judeans living in Caesarea Philippi, having been shut up, as at the king’s order, by his viceroy Modius, had requested John to supply them with pure oil for personal use...and John sent off all the oil in the place [Gischala]" (Vita, 73-74). We know that John made his supply of oil available at the outset of the Roman-Jewish war, 66-67 C. E. and apparently, the purchase of oil from John was a one-time purchase by the needy observant Judeans. Is it possible that the resident observant Judeans in Caesarea-Philippi found that their scarce resource of oil was being depleted because their numbers had swelled due to the arrival Judeans fleeing from Judea? I think that is possible.

Finally, what has not been well explained by those who, unlike you, argue for a provenance outside Judea, is this. If they think Mark used an apocalyptic source (13:7-8, 14-20, as I view it), how, then, do they explain Mark gaining access to that source, given the fact that the source does seem to be addressed to Judeans. Of course, it could be argued that one or more of the Judeans fled to Rome and showed a copy to Mark, or to some place in Syria, etc. and showed it to Mark, depending upon the provenance of choice. Wilson’s suggestion that people in Judea fled to Caesarea Philippi offers a site that nicely ties this loose end together with plausible explanation. The fleeing Judeans, or some fleeing Judeans, brought it to the Caesarea Philippi and Mark gained access to it there, sometime between 40 C. E and the time he writes, post 70's.

I look forward to your helpful feedback, as well as others, to my response to your own Judean theory for the provenance of Mark and to my comprehensive essay in support of my own theory that Caesarea Philippi is the most likely Markan provenance.

Ted



  • Caesarea Philippi vs. Judean Provenance, Ted Weeden, 03/23/2000

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