Kata Markon

[Eszter <ESZTER.ANDORKA AT student.kuleuven.ac.be>]

Dear Karel,

thanks a lot for your mail. sorry for not answering up to now.

I know about your book, but as it was not on the shelf of the library of
our university, I did not read it up to now. In the last two weeks I made
several attempts to get it, like fishing around the desks of other PhD
students and asking professors working on related issues. I did not
succeed: the book is stolen. It is to be taken as a praise of your book on
the one hand (Book-thieves have a good taste.), as my apology and exuse
for not knowing it on the other. (But I am intended to talk the
librarians about the possibility of ordering it again.)

In the past 5 years my opinion on the location and function of the GMark
remained the same, while that on the date changed every year. I wonder
with which position I will side on the day when I finish my PhD. :-) 

Why the sixties? I think most scholars would date Mk to the the sixties or
the seventies. You seem to agree that the political tensions reflected in
the text does not fit to the relative peacefull early sixties. So let me
narrow the question like this: Why before 69-70?

For me the two (interconnected) decisive arguments are: 

1. Immeadiately after the trauma of the war this topic should be more
central in the presentation of the Gospel. I think the NT scholarship do
not take seriously enough, what a strong impact the word 'Jerusalem' could
have right after 70. (I will collect quotations from contemporary authors
to demonstrate it.)

2. The fall of Jerusalem had have its effect on the dynamic of the
Christian community as well. The tragedy had different importance for
those who were closer to James then for others. I am unable to see the
trails of it in the Markan text. 

To the possibility of an earlier edition of Mk: I doubt it. I am an
admirer of the marcan structure, of its tautness and logic. Although 
the defenders of such a theory are really numerous, I find that they do
not even agree in the very basic questions about the supposed "Urmarkus".
Ican be wrong, the text could exist. But the whole idea is too dubious,
too uncertain - I do not think that we could use it in the dating of Mk. 

Yours

Eszter


On Fri, 7 Apr 2000, Karel Hanhart wrote:
> 
> Dear Eszter,
> 
> As you may know, I have argued rather extensively for a 'revision' by Mark 
> of an
> older pre-70 Passover Haggadah. Perhaps this older Haggadah was also 
> written by
> Mark; but unfortunately we  do not have such a document. It is acknowledged 
> by
> many that an editorial hand is visible in Mark's Gospel.  If indeed Mark
> revisied it in the light of the traumatic experience of the Fall of 
> Jerusalem
> and the destruction of the temple, we have a solid reason why the pre-70
> document no longer had sufficient 'authority'  in the ecclesia to warrant
> including it as a document in the canon.
> What makes you stick to the date "in the sixties" besides 13,14? The 
> reference
> to the "bdelugma" could have been in that older version (Caligula!).. Mark
> retained it in view of the even greater catastrophe of 70 (Titus).
> 
> your Karel
> 
> 
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