Kata Markon

["Ron Price" <ron.price AT virgin.net>]

Wieland Willker wrote:

>1. What is the current status of separating sources/editions in GMark?

Wieland,

  If we ignore three or four interpolations, there was only one edition
of Mark's gospel. It has a distinctive structure, which I've been able
to work out with the help of a page hypothesis and a little arithmetic,
but not yet been able to publish.
  Various people have argued for a proto-Mark or a deutero-Mark in order
to explain the 'minor agreements' of Matthew and Luke against Mark. But
these hypotheses are unconvincing, if only because there is no
satisfactory explanation as to why an editor would make the supposed
extensive alterations to proto-Mark or Mark respectively. All major
aspects of the Synoptic Problem are solved by the Three Source Theory,
as I've been arguing on Synoptic-L. There's just no need for proto-Mark,
deutero-Mark or stratification of the sayings source.

>2. What other explanations are there for Wrede's Messiah secret today?

  In my opinion, the author of Mark's gospel wanted to fog the issue of
Jesus' messiahship, for the same reason that he questioned Jesus'
descent from David (12:35-37). Writing in Rome, he needed to present
Jesus as acceptable in the Roman Empire, and that meant that he had to
try to dissociate Jesus from the claim to be Messiah, with its known
nationalistic implications. The 'messianic secret' ploy was brilliantly
successful. So much so that even today some scholars think Jesus did not
claim to be the Messiah.

>3. Does final Q knows GMark?

  The concept of "final Q" depends on the inadequate 2ST.
  But as the sayings source (which on the 3ST is coherent, not needing a
multiple edition hypothesis) was written ca. 40-50 CE and Mark was
written ca. 70 CE, it is obvious that the sayings source cannot have
known the gospel of Mark. On the other hand it is clearly possible that
Mark knew the sayings source. But if he knew it, he seems not to have
used it, for it would be difficult to explain his selection. Thus Mark
probably obtained the Mark/Q overlap material from oral tradition. (Mark
could hardly have been ignorant of the existence of the sayings source
but, to use Goulder's terminology, as a dedicated 'Pauline' he was
probably reluctant to be dependent on a 'Petrine' document, just as Paul
himself had denied dependence on James, Peter and John: Gal 2:6,9.)

Ron Price

Weston-on-Trent, Derby, UK

e-mail:  ron.price AT virgin.net

Web site:  http://homepage.virgin.net/ron.price/index.htm