Kata Markon

[JFAlward AT aol.com]

Alward wrote:

In this case, Mark seems to be using Ezekiel:

 "I will direct my jealous anger against you, and they will deal with you in
 fury. They will cut off your noses and your ears." (Ezekiel 23:25)
====== 
Gibson responds:

 Several  questions. First, on what grounds do you assume, as you seem to do,
 that anything and everything in GMark has an OT background? Second, is there 
any
 indication that Mark is at all inclined to use Ezekiel? Third, is there any
 indication that Matthew or Luke understood the Markan text to be based in, 
or an
 allusion to, Ezekiel? Fourth,  are you aware of just how much your guiding 
thesis
 smacks of the work of Rendle Harris and his assertions on Testimonia. Fifth, 
are
 you aquatinted with C.H. Dodd's and Barnabas Lindars' work in which Harris'
 thesis was shown to be less than compelling?
 
 Then, of course, there's the gnawing little fact that Mark does not mention
 noses, let alone "ears" and that the ears and noses cut off in Ezekiel 
belong to
 Jerusalem and Samaria  and are snipped off by a coterie of Gentile nations 
who
 are hardly acting to defend themselves or what they hold dear.  But for the 
sake
 of argument, let's assume that Mk. 14:47 is an allusion to Ezekiel 23:25. 
Where
 does that get us? How does that help us to understand what's going on in the
 story of which the allusion is reputedly a part?
 ==========
Alward:

I think you misunderstand my position.  I don't believe that everything in 
Mark has an Old Testament background.  I've only been able to show--to my 
satisfaction--that about 25% of Mark has a scriptural antecedent.


Additional evidence that Mark was "inclined to use Ezekiel" is shown, I 
believe, in the following parallels:

1.  Ezekiel speaks of the Lord having his sheep lie down on a rich pasture, 
so Mark has Jesus lay his sheep down on green grass:

There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a 
rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have 
them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. (Ezekiel 34:14-15)

Jesus directed them to have all the people sit (literally, recline; Greek: 
anaklino)  down in groups on the green grass (Mark 6:39)

2.   David is the shepherd of the Lord's people, so Mark has Jesus do the 
same:

I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; 
he will tend them and be their shepherd. (Ezekiel 34:23)

Mark 6:34 When Jesus landed (on the shore of the Sea of Galilee) and saw a 
large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without 
a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. (34)

3.  Ezekiel speaks of the Lord not being given any righteous men, so Mark has 
Jesus speak of not getting the fruit he wanted from his vineyard, which is 
Israel.

"I looked for a man among them who would…stand before me…on behalf of the 
land…but I found none…,” declares the Sovereign LORD."  
(Ezekiel 22:30-31)

At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of 
the fruit of the vineyard. But they…sent him away empty-handed. (Mark 12:2-3)


In regards to indications that Matthew or Luke thought that Mark was based on 
Ezekiel:  I haven't looked into this.  If you have an argument you'd like to 
advance along this line, I be happy to discuss it.  What did you have in mind?

I'm not familiar with the opinions of Dodd and Lindar; if their arguments are 
compelling, they're likely to be short and simple, as most good arguments 
are.  If anyone would care to summarize the argument against my position I 
would be happy to try to respond.  

I don't understand your objection to Mark's having referred to just one 
"ear," while Ezekiel referred to "ears."  Surely you don't mean that a proper 
parallel would require more than one ear to be cut off at the arrest?  I'm 
similarly surprised at your suggestion that "noses" would have to be cut off, 
too, to make the parallel believable. I don't think we have a right to insist 
that any parallel be a complete one, do we? 

Ezekiel says that Jerusalem's "noses and ears" are to be cut off by an angry 
Lord.  It doesn't matter who does the actual cutting; the important thing is 
that it is done because the angry Lord wants it to be done:  It's the Lord 
who is punishing Jerusalem.  The Lord causes these things to happen to the 
people who have let him down.  So it is with the servant of the priest:  he 
symbolizes, apparently, the people of Jerusalem who have not obeyed his law, 
and the Lord causes his ear to be cut off.

Now, for the sake of argument, assuming that Mark took the ear cutting from 
Ezekiel, you asked me to explain how this helps us understand the story. The 
answer, I believe, is simple:  Mark was less interested in our understanding 
his stories than he was in showing his readers that the events in the life of 
Jesus were prefigured by events or descriptions in the Old Testament.  He did 
this to prove to his readers that Jesus was, indeed, the son of God, the 
messiah the Hebrews had been waiting for, the rightful heir to the throne of 
the house of David.  The more parallels in Jesus' life to events in the Old 
Testament he could construct, the more likely it would be that Mark's readers 
would believe that Jesus was the son of God.  Thus, the ear cutting only 
helps Mark's readers understand--through Ezekiel--that the Lord was angry at 
what was happening, and at who caused it to happen, and that the reason the 
Lord was angry was that the people were attacking his son.

Thanks for the interesting questions.


Regards,

Joe Alward