Kata Markon

[JFAlward AT aol.com]

In a message dated 3/14/01 10:50:12 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
larry.swain AT wmich.edu writes:

<< Not everything in the gospels must be found
 to have Hebrew scripture antecedents, and in the context, a soldier
 grabbing a young man's white tunic so that the young man runs away
 naked---I just don't see the internal clues of the scene pointing to the
 Jerusalem establishment, there isn't anything narratively to hang my hat
 on for this one either.
 
 Larry Swain >>
===========
I don't believe everything has to have a scriptural antecedent, but if one 
exists and it provides a simpler explanation than others offered, it should 
be paramount.

Now, as for the young man:  How else could Mark have symbolically shamed 
Jerusalem, if that was his intent?  Isaiah and Lamentations provide a 
perfectly simple way to do it:  Create a naked person.  How could that be 
plausibly done?  No one would believe a person stripping naked of his own 
accord would symbolize the shame, so Mark had to have someone else rip his 
clothes from him.  But, why would they do that?  By grabbing at him to arrest 
him, catching his cloak instead, and he twists out of it.  The person has to 
be cowardly, as Jerusalem was, and shamed, and Mark gets two for one by 
having the man try to flee, then lose his clothes.  The narrative logic seems 
to be there to me.

Joe Alward