Kata Markon

["Rikki E. Watts" <rwatts AT interchange.ubc.ca>]

Thanks 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.
I agree in that as David Instone-Brewer argued the rabbis used scripture to
understand their present situation.  I am not sure what you mean by
contemporizing exegesis but the rabbis were apparently concerned with legal
precedent in terms of helping Israel to deal with a new situation.  And yes
they would "preach" from the scriptures to make a point.  But, is that what
the gospel writers are doing?  I can't see it.  When the rabbis do talk
about "fulfillment", in terms of anticipating prophetic promises, they don't
seem to have a forthcoming "novel" or a new sermon, or some embellished and
heavily worked over narrative, in mind.  "When Messiah comes" seems to be
referring to a genuine historical moment (and given Tanakh's view of
creation how else would it be?).  Given that kind of framework doesn't it
make more sense simply to assume that the gospel writers operated within the
same framework: they too were looking for an historical moment, the only
difference being that they claimed it has happened?  I.e. there is a very
real difference between aggadic midrash and the gospels.

My feeling here is that there is already a prior belief among some on this
list that these things could not have happened as related (the less likely
the more creativity) and that it is this prior conclusion that is driving
the creation of strange and wonderful hybrid genres.  Why not start with the
genres that we have?  If we don't want to believe what the gospel writers
appear to be saying in those terms, then we can always dismiss them as
fabricators and spinners of fairy tales as did many of their detractors in
the first century.  What I don't see anybody doing back then is reading the
gospels in the way that some of us moderns do.  Now that's peculiar; so why
is it?  Celcus doesn't say (does he?) Mark is merely a novel and shouldn't
be taken seriously?  Who in the first or second century, and presumably they
knew their genres even better than we do, ever makes that claim?  If they
don't, and I know it's an argument from silence, then it might mean that
"novel" for Mark just doesn't fly.

>> 
>> 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.
- I'm not sure I understood all that you were trying to say here, but that
which I did: yes they are indeed hybrids.  But hybrids of what?  An oral
tradition that prized accuracy a la Bailey, and a written tradition that in
terms of Israel's prophetic hope was concerned with real events, not
sermonizing as per aggadic midrash.
>> 
>> 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.
- wot?  I have no idea what these means or how you know it to be true.
>> 
>> 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.
Quilled (:-)).  Yes, Bailey would agree that this Palestinian tradition
would probably have suffered during the first revolt.  But wouldn't the 7th
decade have been too late to really have a major effect?  Paul's letters are
already out there, and the followers of Jesus must surely have been passing
on stories of Jesus' word and deeds with some intensity between the 30s and
the 70s.  I don't think Mark was a theological supernova taking everyone
completely by surprise.  Rather I suspect that many people were reading it
making sure he had the details right as much as picking up new things.  So,
I'm not sure how what happened in the 7th decade changes things.

Regards
Rikk

> JK
> 
> 
> 
> 
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