Kata Markon

[Hudson Barton <hhbv AT highwinds.com>]

> My question is why.
> Why does "mark" use Homer. He is very intentional when he uses the 
> OT. It seems that Mark doesn't use narrative parallels from The OT, 
> but rather literary ("midrashic" - so to speak) quotes, as in the 
> opening passage of the gospel. That perhaps is something worth 
> discussing in itself in this context - but even so, these OT 
> passages are dripping with significance. So that seems clearly to be 
> mark's style. So what is the "significance" of his use of Homer?

Isn't it true that Mark spent a good part of his life in the tutelage 
of educated people (Paul), and traveled widely throughout Asia Minor? 
If so, then even if his Greek is raw, he probably knew the classics.

To me, the scene in Herod's court appears scripted.  The story 
suggests that Herod's court was the scene of a play, as it were, and 
the early readers of Mark's gospel might well have recognized its 
classical source.  I don't have a problem with searching for 
parallels.  The text almost begs for it.

So let's say that the parallels with the Agamemnon story are no 
accident.  Then the question becomes whether Mark is writing history 
or fiction or something in between. I believe that Mark 6 is both 
historical, AND patterned after Homer's Agamemnon. Why should there 
be a conflict between the literary and the historical?

In fact, Herod and his household almost surely were familiar with the 
classics (as much or more than Mark).  Where's the harm in claiming 
that the rudiments of the Agamemnon story were played out in Herod's 
court with John the Baptist as a leading actor... ultimately 
resulting in John's head on a platter?  That's pretty gripping stuff. 
I find the parallels add significantly to the Baptist murder story.


H.