Kata Markon

["Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rikki E. Watts" <rwatts AT interchange.ubc.ca>
To: "Kata Markon" <gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 7:44 AM
Subject: [gmark] Re: Gospel Creation


> Jack,
>
> I'm not sure of the implications of your point, but given what quote of
me,
> it seems that you might be suggesting that these examples will help Joe's
> case.  If I've misunderstood, apologies.
>
> However, I think we've been around this one before, if not on this list,
at
> least on Xlist.  I'm not sure what you mean by aggadic midrash (I presume
as
> opposed to halakah), but even Michael Goulder has had to retract his claim
> that the gospels are midrash.  See e.g. Alexander, P. S., "Midrash and the
> Gospels" in C. M. Tuckett, ed., Synoptic Studies(Sheffield: JOST, 1984)
> 1-18. According to the specialists they are clearly not.

It is the *style* of which I speak. Aggadic midrash was not the only
literary or oral genre that used contemporizing exegesis by way of
expanding a theme in Tanakh to relate a theological point and I
think the DSS Pesharinm are good examples.  I don't think
Goulder would retract the style in early Xian literature.

>
> The TR is a good example, but are you suggesting that the events of his
life
> were created in order to show that scripture was fulfilled?  I can't see
any
> evidence of this. Rather they appear to be reflecting on the significance
of
> TR's history in the light of the scripture. I suggest that is probably
what
> the gospel writers are doing to.  Of course Qumran's pesherim, as found in
> the Habakkuk commentary, is without parallel in the NT, so one needs to be
> careful in applying this too closely.  Nevertheless, even here they are
> reflecting on a community and its history in the light of scripture.
There
> is, as far as I can see, no sign of them having creatively rewritten =
> invented events in order to demonstrate the fulfillment of scripture.
> Granted this idea has had free flow in biblical studies for over a
century,
> but the more I think about it the more bizarre the notion seems.

I don't think so myself.  You are looking for literary precedent for an
oral technique that is transmitted for the first time in early Christian
literature.  The Gospels have to be viewed from both a literary
and oral standpoint. They are "hybrids."  Unfortunately, we moderns
do not have a frame of reference for these oralic traditions which,
after finding written expression in the NT, were not again transmitted
from oralic to literary until the Mishnaic era.  Aggadic Midrash applies
more to this era and the matter of cultural exchange was also not a
problem.  It is in this context that I take Goulder's retraction of the
term.

>
> If it is so important to have history line up with scripture, that can
only
> be because scripture takes history seriously. But if scripture takes
history
> seriously then what's to be gained by inventing events?  This makes little
> sense to me.

Because the authors considered theologoumenon to be a valid faith tool.

>
> I think you are right however in seeing in Mark the migration of Jewish
oral
> tradition into a Hellenistic literary form.  But don't forget that Jesus,
> the oral tradition, and the worldview in which it is set is all Jewish.
And
> given Bailey's work on orality in that setting it seems even less likely
> that invention or creativity of the kind Joe hypothesizes would be
> tolerated.

Although Jesus of Nazareth may have been teaching from the very Jewish
Enochian/Daniel base, this oral tradition and context of which you speak is
limited in time.  The 7th decade and beyond brought an enormous amount
of changes in the worldview, even within Palestine where, it appears,
none of the NT works were penned.  The NT works were penned..er....
quilled..in a more Hellenistic context which was all too friendly to such
literary devices.

JK