Kata Markon

["Phil Campbell" <philcam AT tpg.com.au>]

Title: Re: [gmark] The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark

re Isa 7 comments, Rikki has made a good point. Isa 7 is about - I think - virgin daughter JERUSALEM/ISRAEl no longer enjoying "people of God" status, due to the failure of King Ahaz to trust God. "GOD WITH US" refers now to the faithful remnant. So Matthew is announcing the birth of Jesus in these terms - the TRUE ISRAEL, true remnant etc. Matthew sets the verse in a context where Jesus is recapitulating the history of Israel - out of Egypt, through wilderness testing etc...

 

Phil Campbell

Queensland Australia

----- Original Message -----

From: Rikki E. Watts

To: Kata Markon

Sent: Tuesday, 23 January 2001 12:04 am

Subject: [gmark] Re: The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark

Dear Joseph,

I missed Prof. McDonald’s presentation at SBL.  But I do have a question, and would love to know if anyone asked it and what answer they received.  When his volume first came out, I ran a quick check of my church fathers, I found over 200 explicit references to Homer; as McDonald says, these people knew him well.  I also found over 400 references to Mark, whom apparently they knew even better.  But not once was there any reference suggesting or noting any parallels between Mark and Homer.  It seems to me that this leaves two options: either Mark did a very poor job of his parallels, or he never intended his readers to make such a connection and they, obligingly, didn’t.  Any responses?

PS I notice on your web-page you comment on Isa 7.14 as a false prophecy.  You might be interested in a paper I wrote for SBL on Matthew’s intention here. I agree that this is not a “prophecy” in the sense most use the term—and I think Matthew would too.  We have our own ideas of what fulfillment means.  On the other hand, it’s possible that Matthew doesn’t use “fulfillment” the way we do and means something different.  I think the latter makes the best sense of the data, not only here, but in several other places as well.

Rikk


on 20/1/01 8:12 pm, JFAlward AT aol.com at JFAlward AT aol.com wrote:

Prof. Dennis R. MacDonald, Claremont School of Theology, argues in his book,
__The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark__, that Mark based some of his
stories about Jesus in part on tales in Homer's epics.

I've published ten short articles which analyze separate parallels alleged by
MacDonald.  They may be found at

http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

I'd greatly value any comments or criticisms any members may have.



Joseph F. Alward, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of the Pacific
Stockton CA 95211 ---
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