Kata Markon

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

Joe,

I couldn't sympathize more on the time issue (I'm still looking for a moment
to get back to the threat on creation of stories and Bailey's work on oral
tradition [vis-à-vis Crossan's views on memory] and to the implications of
this for the Synoptic problem; I'm also writing a book on Jesus' Mighty
Deeds and would love to engage the miracle stories thread but at present am
just listening..very helpful)!  So thanks for the exchange, and I'll try to
keep this brief.  

On the first point, you're partly right.  But I'm not asking for other
explanations plural, just a response to the regnant hypothesis: Mark is
describing what he believes to be an historical encounter.  What is there in
the story that makes it improbable?

On the ranking of parallels.  It need not be subjective; there's already a
good tradition in NT studies on how to do this.  Check out: Kee, H. C., ŒThe
Function of Scriptural Quotations and Allusions in Mark 11-16¹ in Jesus und
Paulus eds. E. Earle Ellis and E. Grässer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1975) 165-85; and then Thompson, M. B., Clothed with Christ: The
Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1-15.13 JSNTSupp 59 (Sheffield:
JSOT, 1991) 28-36.  I'm sure there are lots of others.

Sorry to be insistent, but can I ask again: if we can see how Mark operates
when he is invoking an interpretive grid, i.e. he explicitly cites materials
and quotes snatches of phrases, why not with something so fundamental to his
story as Homer?  I'm not sure I saw your explanation of this.

Re what I see as the real Achilles heel of this proposal, i.e. that not one
of Mark's target audience, undoubtedly familiar with Homer as they were,
ever caught on.  You seem to assume that for the Fathers to observe
parallels between Jesus and Homer would imply to them that Mark's Jesus was
a mythical figure.  But why?  Why not, perhaps analogously with Philo,
simply see here divine intervention/patterning such that yes indeed Jesus is
both superior to Odysseus and moreover, far far superior, even the son of
God?  However, if you are right and the Fathers did not want to recognize
the otherwise obvious parallels, what about the opponents of the church?
Surely they wouldn't have been bound by such constraints and this would have
been a gift to them, especially if the Fathers felt so threatened by it?
But as far as I can not one ever suggests that this Jesus story is based on
Homer.  

To sum up, it's all beginning to look a little curious: A. Mark is happy to
cite explicitly and to quote directly from the other works (scrolls) that
have influenced him, Isaiah, Psalms, Jeremiah, etc. but not a sausage of
Homer, his most important source.  B. his target audience, au fait with
their Homer, are completely silent on the parallels (a universal conspiracy
of silence so unified that not one lone voice breaks it--remarkable not
least because the early church seemed hardly to agree on anything, but they
do here with unique unanimity); C. the opponents of the church, who likewise
know their Homer backwards, are also silent, passing up what would have to
be a gift to their anti-Christian attacks.  Not even the great Celcus notes
it.  Doesn't it strike you as extraordinary that everyone involved, without
one solitary exception, is utterly silent on the matter?  I think at one
point you invoked Occam's razor.  I wonder what Occam would regard as the
simplest explanation?

Rikk (I know you're busy so don't feel any great urgency to reply
immediately..)

> 
> MacDonald's inerrancy argument stands up, I think.  I believe that when the
> church fathers found that their evangelizing among the Hebrews wasn't
> producing as many converts as they liked, they turned to the Gentiles, who
> had a long tradition of belief in the gods of mythology.  The last thing the
> fathers needed was for them to suspect that their candidate for son of God
> was based on mythology, too.  He, then, would be just one more god among
> many.  So, even if the church father's faith was unshakable (and I doubt 
> that
> it was), and could still accept Mark as largely myth, they would keep silent
> as a stone about Homer if they had any sense:  Their livelihood and power
> depended on Jesus being thought of as the son of God, not a new and better
> Odysseus.
> ===========
> <Snip some of Rikk's comments.  I don't have time to respond now.>.
> 
> Rikk:
> 
> If there is a Homeric influence here, it seems, at least on the surface of
> things, to be very secondary indeed.  Maybe that's why many of his earliest
> readers missed it (and then utterly; not one lone voice breaks the silence;
> that the Fathers miss some of his OT allusions is not surprising since it is
> not their story; Homer however was their book).  In other words perhaps this
> has become something of a storm in a teacup.  But I guess what I find
> curious is why we would want to walk past the obvious for what seems to me
> highly allusive at best.
> ==============
> Joe:
> 
> I absolute agree that the Homeric connection is extremely tenuous in every
> single example MacDonald provides; in some cases, I believe contact with
> Homer is virtually nonexistent.  By Monday I hope to have up on the web a
> revised version of my "Loaves and Fishes" article.  The current one at
> http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/john_baptist.html does a fairly good job, I
> imagine, of refuting most of MacDonald's claims of parallels between Mark 
> and
> Homer in the two miraculous feeding stories; the new article will show 
> almost
> conclusively--I think--that MacDonald must have imagined that the epic
> influenced Mark, or else it will show that I'm the only one imagining 
> things.
> Now, If I could also show that Dennis was wrong in the Herod John Baptist
> story, I certainly would try to do it; at present, though, I can't think of 
> a
> way to do it.  
> 
> I apologize for not responding to all of your comments, but I've run out of
> time.  
> 
> Thanks for the interesting post.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Joe
> =============
> Joseph F. Alward, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Physics
> University of the Pacific
> Stockton California 95211
> e-mail:  JFAlward AT aol.com
> 
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