Kata Markon

["L. J. Swain" <larry.swain AT wmich.edu>]

JFAlward AT aol.com wrote:

> 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
>
> ---

The question is though Joe, was that his intent?  There must be clues in the 
text
to indicate his intent, what are those clues?  Frankly, I don't see them.

Larry Swain