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gmark - Re: Flight of the Naked Young Man

gmark AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Kata Markon

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  • From: JFAlward AT aol.com
  • To: gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Flight of the Naked Young Man
  • Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 01:43:49 EST

In a message dated 3/14/01 10:27:31 PM Pacific Standard Time,
larry.swain AT wmich.edu writes:


In determining what an author is doing in a text we must deal with at least
four
areas: is here merely alluding to a previous text, is a previous text the
source
of the current text, is the author imitating (mimesis) a previous text, is
the
author reporting tradition, or is the author inventing.  I guess that makes
five.
Or some combination of the above processes.  I'm not convinced that Mark was
constructing scenes based on nebulous, distant allusions.  If we must scour
the
Hebrew Bible to find appropriate references, then it is likely that the
scene as
constructed at best alludes to, rather than is based on, the texts that we
find.
The purpose of a scene which is constructed to deliberately recall a
previous text
is that the text the author wishes the reader to recall should be a fairly
obvious
one, not one they have to scour the source text for.

Larry Swain


===========
Oh, you're absolutely right, Larry.  I made that same point this afternoon in
rebuttal of Ted Weeden's very lengthy argument that the Judas kiss was based
on Absalom's kisses; the average reader of Mark would not be able to make
such a connection if it takes Weeden 3717 words to do so.  It's just not at
all obvious.  I've always held that the parallels must be highly visible and
likely to have been well known to readers of Mark's time.  When I spoke of
"scouring" the Old Testament, I wasn't referring to the readers having to do
so to find the connection of Mark to scripture, but of Mark looking for
something to write about.  He looked for connections that would seem obvious
to his readers, connections that would make it seem that Jesus was, indeed,
the son of God and the rightful heir to the throne of the house of David.

Regards,

Joe Alward



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