Kata Markon

[Hudson Barton <hhbv AT highwinds.com>]

> Professor L.W. Hurtado" wrote:
>
> >  Well, it does seem likely that the author of Mark expected/hoped
> >  for the coming of the Son of Man sooner than has proven to be the
> >  case!!  But, on the other hand, the dominant thrust of chap 13 is to
> >  REFUTE and DISCOURAGE any notion that the end is immediate
> >  (13:5-8, 10, 13b, 21-23), but must be preceded by (1) all sorts of
> >  traumas that are merely what characterizes an indefinite time
> >  period (the single most repeated theme is warning against being
>  > led astray and alarmed at the disasters)

Yes.  The passage warns of predictions which move the date of this 
"end"  either forward or backward..."Take heed, watch, for you do not 
know when..."  The point Jesus is making is to recommend that his 
disciples interpret clues about the "end" with faith and not by 
sight.  Jesus here is engaged in his well understood habit of 
obscuring facts for exactly the purpose of teaching his disciples how 
to walk by faith.  It may be reasonable to conclude that Jesus 
himself felt unsure of the end's details in his early ministry, but 
this would merely point to the fact that he himself was attempting to 
"walk by faith."

Mark 13 also presents a simile of a man leaving his servants in 
charge of his affairs as he departs on a journey... "It is like a man 
going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in 
charge..."  The man provides no prediction of when he will return. 
Indeed, even he may not know the hour when...  If this "master" dies 
while he is away and his heir returns to claim the inheritance, the 
law is clear that the servants (and/or their heirs) have a duty to 
turn over the property to the rightful owner.

Therefore, I see no problem with Mark 13 being about the final "end", 
even an immanent one.  At the very least it is a layer of meaning 
that cannot be avoided.  To make sense of it, the word "generation" 
should be taken in its broadest sense to include all servants (and 
heirs of servants) who have been entrusted with the Master's property.

Finally, this obsession with marking time, to know the exact hour of 
everything, is even more an issue with modern man than it was with 
those whom Jesus warned.... but I digress.


Hudson Barton