Kata Markon

["Rikki E. Watts" <rwatts AT interchange.ubc.ca>]

Joe,

1. Re the first question, I was just asking for clarification.  You stated
that Mark removed "Homeric vocabulary, characterizations, motifs, and
episodes."  I was wondering what might be left with which one could draw
parallels?  What should I be looking for, besides Homeric vocabulary,
characterizations, motifs, and episodes?  (I'm not sure looking at MacDonald
will help me here since I might be looking for the wrong thing).

2. Re the second question: I think I must have missed your post, but I must
confess that it does matter to me whether the ancients saw the parallels or
not largely because I know I have my own ideological blind spots and it's
nice to have some controls other than those of my limited cultural enclave.
MacDonald is making claims about something that happened in the first
century Graeco-roman milieu.  Surely first century Graeco-roman readers
ought be the first litmus test.  So, I wonder if you could explain what you
mean when you say all things aren't equal?  What specifically renders the
situation imbalanced?

Thanks
Rikk

I looked at the book some months ago--just before SBL--and came to the
conclusion that MacDonald had e.g. mistaken cultural norms for parallels
(the burial) while others seemed more related to the nature of story (if
Jesus was a brilliant teacher it is probably not surprising that his
followers appear rather less so; perhaps we could find this in Socrates too;
or if one is rocking the boat then one might have enemies) and others yet
seem better explained on the basis of Mark's explicit OT references (the
so-called secrecy motif).  I found myself agreeing with the review by Robert
J. Rabel Professor of Classics University of Kentucky: there is much less
here than meets the eye.

 
on 26/1/01 1:57 pm, JFAlward AT aol.com at JFAlward AT aol.com wrote:

> 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 ""?  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.
> 
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to gmark as: rwatts AT interchange.ubc.ca
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to $subst('Email.Unsub')