Kata Markon

[JFAlward AT aol.com]

In a message dated 1/26/01 9:26:48 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
rwatts AT interchange.ubc.ca writes:

<< What exactly are these flags if they cannot be "Homeric vocabulary,
 characterizations, motifs, and episodes"?  And one wonders what kind of
 flags these can be, if the very people, one presumes, for whom Mark was
 leaving these 'scores of flags' quite utterly failed to see them?  It raises
 another question for me: who provides the best data for determining what
 ancient readers would have seen: the good professor or the ancients
 themselves?
 
 Rikk >>
============
The first question doesn't have to be answered in the abstract; just observe 
the suggested parallels and decide whether they exist, or not.  There are 
nine articles which support MacDonald's analysis, and one which is virtually 
a 100% of all of his claims ("Loaves and Fishes") at 
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
It won't matter whether the ancients saw the parallels or not; if you can see 
them, that's all that should matter to you.

The second question has already been answered by me, I think, in a previous 
post.  All things being equal, however, it's obvious that the ancients would 
be in a better position to observe and interpret any possible parallel of 
Mark to Homer.  But, all things aren't equal.