Kata Markon

["Ted Weeden" <weedent AT atw.earthreach.com>]

Kata Markan Listers:

What follows is an extremely long post.  It is a post in response to Joe
Alward's response to my post of 3/14.   The length of this post is
necessitated in order to address adequately the critical methodological
issues that lie at the core of Joe's disagreement with my hermeneutic of
Mark and mine with his.   This post is intended to engage Joe
methodologically.   But I also hope I may engage other listers on the issue
of methodology and thereby invite response from all who are interested in
the issue of Mark's methodology and methodological approach to Mark.   For
aid in reading I have divided the post into six sections with these
subheadings: I. Alward's Methodology; II. Methodological Questions and
Issues; III. The Judas Kiss and Alward's Methodology; IV. The Fallacy of
Misplaced Concreteness; V. The Judas Kiss and Weeden's Methodology; VI.
Conclusion.

Joe Alward wrote on Wednesday, March 14:

"Ted Weeden's 3700 word response to my comment about Absalom's kisses
illustrates a point I've tried to make before: The more complicated an
explanation, the less likely it is to be the correct one. Ted has to work
far too hard to make his case the Judas kiss was modeled after Absalom's
kisses."

My response:

It appears that the length of my 3/14 post ---3700 words, by your count
here, a count that then grows to 3717 words in a following post to Larry
Swain---was disconcerting to you.  I regret that such was the case.   Quite
frankly, it has never occurred to me to count the words of any post, much
less to dismiss an argument because of its length.  Nor I have ever thought
of the length of argumentation as a measure of complexity vs. simplicity.
Of course length could be an indication of complexity, but it also could
indicate thoroughness of presentation or, at worse, verbosity.   Brevity, on
the other hand, does not necessarily mean, in my judgment, evidence that an
argument so presented makes it more credible than a lengthy one because the
former is short and simple.   Brevity or simplicity could represent
superficiality, or even an instance of what Alfred North Whitehead calls
"the fallacy of misplaced concretion."   More on that later.   From my
perspective, it is neither the long or short of an argument that makes the
case for it, but rather whether the argumentation itself is able to account
for and provide a logically cohesive explanation for the interrelationship
of all the diverse factors in a coherent, cogent and, hopefully, persuasive
presentation.

My intent in my post to you was to be thorough in my argumentation, so that
you and others on the list could understand how I arrive at my thesis with
respect to the way the Markan Judas-kiss episode came about.   In the course
of my argumentation I hoped that my methodology might be apparent.   I had
hoped that you would have engaged me on the level of the cogency of my
argumentation and the plausibility of the conclusions, as well as the
soundness of my methodology.   In that way I could learn at what points my
arguments are either flawed or lack sufficient evidence to make them
persuasive.

This post is an endeavor once again to engage you and others with regard to
the cogency of our differing positions on the origin of the Judas kiss, and
this time I wish to engage you and others at the level of methodology.   For
it is at the level of methodology and its inherent presuppositions that the
differences in our positions lie.

I. Alward's Methodology as Understood by Weeden

I understand your methodology from two places in which you state your
methodological approach.  The first is on your web site in your article on
the parallels between David and Jesus in Mark.  You state there:
"To sell Jesus to the Hebrews as the rightful heir to the throne of the
house of David, Mark apparently decided to show them that events in the life
of David prefigured those in Jesus' life."

The second place is your Kata Markan posts.  You state in a 3/15 post to Ray
Pickett:
"My interpretation has been guided by a single theory: Mark went out of his
way to convince readers that Jesus was the one the Lord said would sit on
the throne of the house of David, and that he was as holy, or holier, than
other holy men in scripture, and almost as holy as the Lord. He scoured the
Old Testament for things the Lord did, and events in the lives of persons
that he
could have Jesus emulate."

You elaborate further in your post to Larry Swain on 3/15:
"When I spoke of  "scouring" the Old Testament, I wasn't referring to the
readers having to do
so to find the connection of Mark to scripture, but of Mark looking for
something to write about. He looked for connections that would seem obvious
to his readers, connections that would make it seem that Jesus was, indeed,
the son of God and the rightful heir to the throne of the house of David."

Then what I take to be a further defining of Mark's methodology, from your
point of view, you state in a post in response to me on 3/14 that you
believe that Mark's creation of the Judas kiss was occasioned in order for
Mark "to remind his readers of Proverbs [27:6] and Isaiah [29:13]."   Your
stated rationale: "These verses are short, and easy to remember, and they're
far more likely than Ted's 2 Samuel stories to be the ones Mark thought his
readers would recall."

So from these snippets, I take it that your position is (1) that Mark had
one primary purpose, to convince his readers that "Jesus was the one the
Lord said would sit on the throne of the house of David, and that he was as
holy, or holier, than other holy men in scripture, and almost as holy as the
Lord (2) that "he scoured the Old Testament for things the Lord did, and
events in the lives of persons that he could have Jesus emulate;" (3) that
Mark " looked for connections that would seem obvious to his readers,
connections that would make it seem that Jesus was, indeed, the son of God
and the rightful heir to the throne of the house of David; (4) that Mark
wrote to "sell Jesus to the Hebrews," (5) that Mark wrote for readers; and
(6) that Mark intentionally chose short and easily remembered verses to help
his readers' in their recall.

II. Methodological Questions and Issues

These six points which I have identified as your position raise significant
methodological questions in my mind.   With respect to (1), why do you think
your thesis better explains Mark's purpose than any previous theses?    If
Mark is interested in linking Jesus to David and Jesus' sitting on the
throne of the house of David, why does he virtually dismiss Son of David
christology (12:35-37) and debunk the office of the Twelve (presumably
representing the 12 tribes of the new Israel) by totally discrediting its
twelve office holders, the disciples.  I do not find Mark's methodological
use of his "identity motif" (see my Kata Markan [5/26/00] and XTalk
[5/25/00] posts: "Markan Fabrications-The Petrine Denial: III. Mark's
Leitmotiv and Human Lack of Awareness") supporting your argument that his
primary christological interest is pushing Davidic messianism.   With
respect to (2), where do you find support for Mark articulating as a
methodological objective the systematic scouring of the OT in search of  OT
parallels for Jesus?   Many of the OT allusions in his Gospel Mark
inherited from his sources, for example the miracle catenae, apophthegms,
etc. (see Paul Achtemeier [JBL articles, 1970/1972, on the Markan miracle
catenae, and Gerd Theissen, _ The Gospel in Social Context_).   For example,
attribution of the imprint of OT allusions in the stories of Jesus walking
on water, Jesus' feedings, and Jesus stilling of the storm, which you
feature on you web site, should be ascribed to the creators of the stories
prior to Mark, rather than Mark himself, as you propose.   How Mark
interprets such OT allusions in his inherited sources is another
methodological question.

With respect to (3) again, what evidence do you have for Mark equating Jesus
with the house of David?    With respect to (4), who are the "Hebrews?"  If
you are referring to Jews of Mark's time, which Jews: Galilean Jews?  Judean
Jews?  Diaspora Jews?  Hellenistic Jews?   As Horsley has pointed out
(_Galilee_ and _Archaelogy, History and Society in Galilee_), the old
constructs for identifying Jews in the late second temple period are not
only oversimplified but also wrong-headed.    Furthermore, Horsley has made
a convincing argument that in the late second temple period there was no
such thing as a homogenous Judaism practiced throughout Palestine.   After
the break up of the Solomonic kingdom, Galileans and Judeans, though
"cousins" who for the most part shared a common heritage, followed separate
historical, cultic and theological routes in fashioning their respective
identities.    Galilean Jews, following their northern Israelite traditions,
were fiercely independent and resented and opposed the attempts of Judea to
impose the hegemony of its "great tradition" upon their "little tradition."
In that respect, Galilean Jews would have strongly opposed  Judean Davidic
messianism.   I am convinced Mark was a Galilean Jewish Christian and have
addressed that elsewhere.  Finally with respect to (4), if Mark is writing
to "Hebrews," why does he find it necessary to explain the practice of  "the
Pharisees and all the Jews" (I think he means "Judeans") with respect to
washing hands and food before eating (7:3f.)?

With respect to (5) how do you hold that Mark writes for readers over
against the arguments of Howard Kee (_Community_),  Richard Rohrbaugh ("The
Social Location of Mark's Audience," INT, 1993) and Gerd Theissen (_The
Gospels in Social Context_) that the Markan community is situated in a rural
village, where illiteracy was probably as high as 97%?   How do you respond
to Werner Kelber (_The Oral and Written Gospel_) and others who contend that
the Gospel was written for oral performance, not for private reading, and
was scripted according to oral conventions?    With respect to (6) what is
your evidence that Mark's methodology was to chose short allusions or
references from scripture so that his readers (hearers in my view) could
easily recall them?

Finally, there are two key issues that affect one's interpretation of Mark
that need to addressed at this point.  They are the location of Mark's
community and the identity of his genre and why he chose that genre.   I do
not remember you addressing those issues anywhere.   I have presented my own
view of Mark's provenance-namely, that Mark's community is located in the
village region of Caesarea Philippi--- on Kata Markan (2/29/00) and XTalk
(2/29/00) in an article entitled, "Guidelines for Locating the Markan
Community."    With respect to genre, I am persuaded that Vernon Robbins
(_Jesus the Teacher_ ) has best identified Mark's genre as essentially the
genre of the teacher-disciple gather as represented by Xenophon's
_Memorabilia_, which Mark likely imitated.

It is obvious that we disagree widely on our understanding of Mark and Mark'
s methodology, though there are some things we do agree on, in particular
that Mark was a creative author, that Mark did draw upon the OT, and that
Judas is a fictional figure.  As I indicated in my previous post, I hold
Judas to be a creation of Mark.   I will give supportive arguments for that
shortly in a post in response to Steve Black's post (3/15) to me..

III.  The Judas Kiss and Alward's Methodology

Since these methodological issues are so immense, rather than asking you to
respond to each methodological question I have raised, I would rather engage
you methodologically on a specific issue, namely, the Judas kiss and how
Mark came up with that idea.    To treat that specific issue will underscore
the different methodological approaches we each take, why I have difficulty
with yours, and why I find mine to be more persuasive for detecting Mark's
reasons for creating the Judas kiss.

Let me begin where I understand we both agree with respect to Mark's
creation of his Gethsemane story.   We agree that Mark used Ahithophel as
his model for Judas and his conspiracy against and betrayal of Jesus.
However, as I see it, Mark could only use Ahithophel so far.  For one thing
his plan to get rid of David was rejected by Absalom, a rejection that
finally led Ahithophel to hang himself (2 Sam. 17:23).   So Ahithophel never
had the opportunity to execute his plan.   But the basic features of the
plan, the attack on a dispirited David at night with an armed force, a force
which Ahithophel envisioned as causing David's people to abandon him and
flee, were all features that Mark found easily adaptable to his own scenario
for the consummation of the conspiracy against Jesus.   Thus Mark
orchestrates the "attack" on Jesus at night, when Jesus is dispirited, and
has Judas lead an armed force against Jesus, much the same as Ahithophel had
planned to do against David (14:43ff.).   And true to form, Mark
choreographs a flight of the disciples similar to the flight of David's
people which Ahithophel had in mind (14:50).

But then Mark ran into a problem with his Ahithophel model.   Ahithophel had
planned to strike David, presumably with a sword, and kill him.   But Mark
could not imitate that act because Jesus did not die late at night in
secluded Gethsemane but in broad daylight on a cross and in full public
view.    Mark then was left to his own creative imagination to come up with
some act of Judas that would parallel in dramatic moment  the consummation
of the plot of Ahithophel to kill David.   Obviously, Mark could not use a
sword to strike Jesus.   Then what could he use?    What Mark decided to use
was a betrayal kiss.   But, and here is where I join the methodological
issue that divides us, what was the mental process, the mental steps, Mark
pursued that led him to decide upon a kiss as both the consummation of the
conspiracy against Jesus and a sign of betrayal?

Let us for the sake of argument assume with you that Mark's methodology was
to cast about for  OT texts to provide insights for the ending to the Judas
betrayal episode.   What then leads you to believe, according to your
theory, that Mark would naturally turn to Isa. 29:13 and Prov. 27:6 as the
texts to provide the dramatic moment to complete the conspiracy against
Jesus?   What would have led Mark to think that the best way to dramatically
conclude Judas' betrayal was with a betrayal kiss?    Since before he
scripted the ending Mark had no guidelines to follow except Ahithophel's
aborted plan which called for attacking David with a sword, why would Mark
have been led to substitute a kiss for a sword?   Why not just have Jesus
surrounded by the crowd bearing swords and clubs and force him without a
defense, to surrender, be arrested and ushered off to hearings and
ultimately his death?   Why a kiss?   It seems quite odd that he would have
come on to that idea just by thumbing through the scripture for ideas and
falling upon Isa. 29:13 and Prov. 27:6, and with a burst of inspiration
saying, "Aha, that's it, a kiss!"   For Mark to think of a kiss as a
parallel to Ahithophel's sword strikes me as ludicrous reasoning,
particularly since there appears to be no ideational prompt for him to do
so, except the fact that his mind strangely leaped immediately to those two
verses.  Where in the Markan text does Mark give us any hint that that was
the imaginative route his mind took to construct the betrayal of Judas?

Furthermore, with respect to each of the passages and the likelihood that
Mark's mind would have turned to them in search of answers for a closing act
of treachery to consummate Judas' betrayal of Jesus:  Isaiah Mark clearly
knew, and used often.  In fact Isaiah is the only OT source that Mark
specifically informs his hearers that he is quoting (1:2; 7:6).    But the
Isaiah text is your weakest mental link to a kiss motif.   The Isaiah texts
speaks of people honoring God "with their lips."   It is a parallel
expression to the people drawing "near with their months" in the previous
words of the verse.   What mental association would have caused Mark to turn
to that verse, when the idea of a kiss had not previously come to him and he
was still searching for a dramatic way to end his Judas episode?

With respect to the Proverbs text, your suggestion that Mark also thought of
Prov. 27:6 comes closer to a possibility, since kisses are mentioned there.
But where in the text of Mark is there any suggestion that Mark has an
interest in or even an awareness of Proverbs?   Moreover, Prov. 27:6 is an
interesting possibility for the kiss motif *only* once Mark has decided upon
the kiss and finished his story of Judas.   Then it becomes an imaginative
speculation *after*  the fact.   Any of us can search a concordance and come
up with passages in which a kiss plays a role and speculate *after*  the
fact as to whether that was the passage that inspired Mark to choose a kiss.
But the issue is what brought the idea of a kiss into Mark's consciousness
*before*  the fact.   And even if a Proverbs link is sought between Mark's
decision to use a kiss as the culminating perfidy of Judas, the reference to
enemy kisses in Prov. 27:6 does not necessarily imply that the text intended
those kisses to be understood as conspiratorial or betrayal kisses.
Friends do betray.   But enemies?   How do they betray since they are by
definition "out to get you."   The "enemy kisses" of Prov. 27:6 may refer to
no more than the protocol of pro formal exchange of greetings once
hostilities between combatants have ceased.

IV. The Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion

There is yet for me a more serious methodological issue with your argument
that Mark was inspired by scouring the OT and falling upon the answer to his
quest for an ending to Judas' perfidy by coming upon Isa. 29:13 and Prov.
27:6.   The issue is the methodological error which Alfred North Whitehead
called "the fallacy of misplaced concretion" (_Science and the Modern
World_, 50-60), a methodological error to which I alluded at the outset of
this post.   The fallacy of misplaced concretion is the methodological error
of arriving at a theory--- which by nature is an abstraction, having been
abstracted or deduced from the mind's imposing upon concrete factors an
envisioned mental construct in order to make the  interrelationship of the
factors coherently meaningful--- and then treating the theory as though it
were itself a concretion and not the abstraction it is.   Of course, we are
all given to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness whenever we  propose any
thesis to account for the assembled facts of the concrete and are tempted to
give the abstraction of the thesis a reality that makes the thesis more real
and concrete than the facts themselves.   This fallacy of misplaced
concretion is compounded when, as Whitehead (_Science_, 200) says,
"methodological procedure is exclusive and intolerant... [and] fixes
attention on a definite group of abstractions [propositions or theories],
neglects everything else, and elicits every scrap of information and theory
which is relevant to what it has retained [and is determined to maintain]."
This is an earlier formulation of the problem Thomas Kuhn popularized much
more recently with respect to paradigms in his _Scientific Revolution_.
Whitehead suggests that one way to minimize the fallacy of misplaced
concretion in the development and championing of a theory and the
formulation of argumentation is "by recurrence to the concrete in search of
inspiration" (_Science, 201).

It is precisely with respect to Whitehead's alerting us to the fallacy of
misplaced concretion that I raise two questions with you.   First,  I raise
the question as to whether tracing Mark's decision to use a kiss, as Judas'
way of doing way with Jesus, to the reference to the kisses of enemies in
Prov. 27:6 (or to Isaiah 29:13, for that matter) is not engaging in a high
level of abstraction.   Namely,  without the benefit of concrete signs that
would account for the mental route Mark took to your proposed texts, are we
not left with only the high abstraction of a speculative abstract leap from
concrete context to concrete context to account for how Mark's mental
processes enable his mind to move from the text of his narration to the text
of Proverbs?   It strikes me that the level of abstraction is less, and the
risk of the fallacy of misplaced concretion more minimized, with respect to
accounting for the Mark's kiss decision, if one can find concrete cause for
it within the immediate context in which Mark is already working, as I am
proposing with respect to 2 Samuel 14-20, rather than proposing a mental
leap from the immediate context to a more remote one, particularly if there
are not clearly manifested concrete factors to serve as discernible signs to
show how such a mental leap had in fact taken place?

The second question I raise with you is whether your argument for Mark
selecting Prov. 27:6 (or, for that matter, Isaiah 29:13) is not itself
already engaging in a high level of abstraction, removed from the concrete,
because of the high level of abstraction already inherent in the Proverbs
saying which you argue served as the inspiration for Judas to use a kiss
rather than a sword to "strike" Jesus.   Let me explain.

It is my contention that there is a high level of abstraction already
inherent in the Prov. 27:6 saying because it is a statement of general
principle.   "Well, meant are the wounds a friend inflicts, but profuse are
the kiss of an enemy," is a maxim, a declaration of general truth.  It has
been abstractly derived by someone as a way of aphoristically summing up
his/her specific and concrete human experiences and observations about the
way friends and enemies treat you.  To what does Proverbs attest as the
specific concrete situations to judge what was meant by the kisses of
enemies?   To what anecdotal instances of enemy kisses does the maxim point
that would suggest a pattern such that one could explain by references to
those concrete moments what the framer of the saying was trying to tell us
about enemy kisses?    The maxim does not give any anecdotal clues as to
what led to framing such a paradoxical maxim.   In its present level of
abstraction, it is removed from the concretion of particularized human
behavior.

The only way to say more about what particular concrete experiences with
enemies may have led to the formulation of this maxim is to see if anecdotal
stories from the framer's OT heritage can be found that could have served as
his basis for arriving at his paradoxical and general truth about enemies
and there kisses.   I turn to the framer's OT heritage and specifically to
references to kisses.

There are thirty-three reference to kisses in the OT.  There are kisses of
greeting (Gen. 29:11, 13; 31:26; Ex. 4:27; 18:7;), kisses of
reconciliation/union/reunion/warm affection (Gen. 33:34; 45:15; 48:1; 1 Sam.
20:41; Sam.14:33; Ps. 85:10, and kisses of farewell (Gen. 31:26; 33:35; 2
Sam. 19:39; 14:33;  I Kgs. 19:20; Ruth 1:9, 14).  There are erotic kisses
(Sol. 1:2; 7:9; 8:1; Prov. 7:13).   There are idolatrous kisses (I Kgs.
19:18; Hos. 13:1) and kisses of reverence (Ps. 2:12; Job 31:27).  There are
kisses attesting to honesty (Prov. 24:26).   There are kisses of enemies
(Prov. 27:6).   There is a kiss for identification (Gen. 27:26,27) and a
kiss at anointing (2 Sam. 10:1).   But the only anecdotal incidences of
treacherous or conspiratorial kisses in the OT  are the kisses of Absalom
used as a ploy in his conspiracy against David (2. Sam. 15:5), and the
treacherous kiss of Joab used to gain advantage of Amasa to kill him (2 Sam,
20:9).

Based upon that evidence the only texts that would suggest the basis for
abstracting a general principle about enemy kisses would be the very texts
in 2 Sam. (15:5; 20:9) which I have argued served as the inspiration of the
Markan kiss motif.   Is it possible that Prov. 27:6 is a commentary upon the
various kisses that played such a central part in the Davidic saga of 2
Samuel 14-20?   There is no way to tell.   But that seems to me as plausible
explanation of how the Proverbs text about how enemy kisses should generally
be viewed as to argue that Mark first turned to Proverbs and there got an
unusual insight, namely, to use a kiss rather than a sword for Judas'
"attack" on Jesus.   The problem, then, that I have with the argument that
Mark received his inspiration for the kiss from Prov. 27:6 is that the
saying is already at such a high level of abstraction that to argue that it
served in Mark's mind as an model for Judas' kiss ---  without supportive
anecdotal examples from within the OT, as for example 2 Sam. 20:9---  is a
case of the fallacy of misplaced concretion.   The abstraction of the maxim
has been concretized without warrant and, in my judgment, on the basis of
post facto and anachronistic speculation as a result of searching the OT to
find any reference to kisses to explain the origin of Judas' kiss, long
after Mark has rooted firmly in our minds the story of Judas' kiss.

V. The Judas Kiss and  Weeden's Methodology

I turn now to why I think my explanation of the origin of the Judas kiss is
methodologically less subject to the fallacy of misplaced concretion and
logically able to account for how Mark himself methodologically arrived at
the conclusion to end his story of Judas' betrayal with a kiss.  I
acknowledge that my argument is not free from the pitfall of the fallacy of
misplaced concretion.   And I hope you and others will point out "the errors
of my ways" so that I can self-critically address them.   Let me now explain
in ways that I have not done before my methodological approach for arriving
at the conclusion that Mark got his idea for the conspiratorial and betrayal
"kiss motif" from the David saga in 2 Samuel, specifically at least
from14:25-20:10.

Seeking to minimize my own lapse into the fallacy of misplaced conception, I
try to be guided by Whitehead's suggestion that to minimize the fallacy I
must again and again pursue "recurrence to the concrete in search of
inspiration."   One of the ways I see to recur to the concrete in search of
inspiration is to turn to the Markan text and see if Mark provides any clues
as to how he came upon this motif.   Are there clues that Mark himself gives
us to understand how he worked methodologically to select and fashion his
sources to compose his Gethsemane scene?   I find the following clues.

First,  it is clear that Mark methodologically followed a common practice of
authors in the Greco-Roman in creating his drama.   He imitated (mimesis)
other revered or highly respected sources, among which was the OT.  This is
clearly the case when it came to his composing his Gethsemane  story de
novo.  Those elements of that saga which Mark imitated through the moment of
Judas' arrival with the arresting party I have already articulated in my
earlier post of 2/22.   But what provides one of the most telling clues to
the way Mark employed his hermeneutical  methodology is his decision to link
another important source with his 2 Samuel source to create his Gethsemane
account.   The source I have in mind is Zech. 13:7, which Mark prefaces to
his Gethsemane episode as a prophetic frame for two key events that
transpire in Gethsemane.     Those events are Judas' delivering of Jesus
into the hands of his enemies and the subsequent flight of the disciples.
It is obvious that Mark saw in the Zechariah passage the prophetic
foreshadowing he felt he needed to provide divine authority and
authorization of what was soon to take place in the garden.  Quoting Zech.
13:7, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered" (Mk.
14:27), the Markan Jesus prophecies to his disciples his arrest leading to
his death (the striking of the shepherd) and their abandonment of him (the
scattering of the sheep).

That Mark felt he needed the unmistakable backing of scripture for Jesus'
arrest and abandonment by his disciples is evident methodologically in the
way Mark has Jesus introduce the quote from Zech. 13:7.   Jesus prefaces the
quote by declaring GREGRAPTAI ("it is written").   Why is this introduction
to the quote significant?   It is well known that Mark draws copiously upon
OT material to shape his narrative.   Howard Kee (_Community_, 45 ) speaks
of "hundreds of allusions to and quotations from scripture that this little
book contains."   He (45) counts "more than 57 quotations" from the OT just
in Mk. 11-16.    And you indicated in a post to Jeffrey Gibson (3/17) that
you have "been able to show...that about 25% of Mark has a scriptural
antecedent."

But while Mark borrows copiously from the OT, it is striking that he seldom
explicitly informs his hearers that an OT quote or reference which he
incorporates into his drama does in fact come from the OT.   On only seven
occasions (1:2; 7:6; 9:12, 13; 11:17; 14:21, 27) does he introduce OT quotes
or references with the introductory formula GEGRAPTAI .   It appears that on
those occasions, when he does introduce an OT citation with the formula
GEGRAPTAI, that he does so because it is important at those particular
points in his narrative to have the authority of scripture to support what
he has Jesus state (7:6; 9:12,13; 11:17; 12:10; 14:21, 27, 49) or what he
himself is about to dramatize (1:2).

So, I submit, when at the outset of the Gethsemane episode Mark has Jesus
introduce the quote from Zech. 13:7 with the formula GEGRAPTAI,  Mark
methodologically must have needed Jesus do so in order to give the authority
of scriptural prophecy for the divinely determined inevitability of the
events Mark was about to reveal to his hearers.    And the two Gethsemane
events, as I have stated, for which Mark needed the full authority of
scripture were (1) the actual act of Judas delivering Jesus into the hands
of his enemies (14:44-46) and (2) the subsequent flight of the disciples
(14:50).

But there is something rather strange about the way Mark renders Zech. 13:7,
something strange that provides yet an even deeper insight into Mark's
hermeneutical methodology.    Howard Kee declares (_Community_,46), that
"...it is evident that the LXX tradition is a fundamental pillar in the
thought of the evangelist, and that when he uses the phrase 'as it is
written', the writings are known to him in their LXX form."   And Kee lists
Mark's quote of Zech. 13:7 as one such instance in which Mark is directly
dependent upon the LXX.  But that simply cannot be the case.  The evidence
does not support such Markan dependency on the LXX form of Zech. 13:7.
Close scrutiny of the LXX version of 13:7 reveals that Mark was not in fact
copying directly from the LXX when he had Jesus quote Zech. 13:7.   The LXX
of Zech 13:7 reads: PATAXATE TOUS POIMENAS KAI EKSPASATE TA PROBATA ("Strike
the shepherds and draw out [or pluck out] the sheep").   But Mark renders
Zech. 13:7 as PATAXW TON POIMENA KAI TA PROBATA DIASKORPISQNSONTAI ("I will
strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered").

There is a radical difference between the form and even the content of Zech.
13:7 as it appears in the LXX and in Mark.   The LXX renders the verb
PATASSEIN in the imperative mood, namely PATAXATE, while Mark uses the verb
in the third person, future indicative tense, namely PATAXW.   In the LXX
version of Zech. 13:7 the "strike" is against more than one shepherd, namely
POIMENAS (shepherds).   But in Mark's version the "strike" is against a
singular shepherd, namely POIMENA (shepherd).   In the LXX, following the
striking of the shepherds, the sheep are drawn or plucked out.  But in Mark,
following the striking of the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered.   In
Mark the act of striking leads directly to the scattering of the sheep.

Nor is the Markan rendering of Zech 13:7, for that matter, an accurate Greek
translation of the Hebrew MT.   As Raymond Brown observes (_The Death of the
Messiah_, I:129), "This is a form [the Markan citation of Zechariah] that
...does not correspond to the MT or majority LXX reading of Zech 13:7."  If
Mark were dependent directly on the Hebrew (English translation: "Strike the
shepherd that the sheep may be scattered"), at least on the sense of the
Hebrew, he would more likely have translated the MT into Greek as: PATAXATE
TON POIMENA hINA TA PROBATA DIASKORIZWNTAI ("Strike the shepherd so that the
sheep may be scattered").  Thus if he had intended to render the sense of
the Hebrew he would have rendered the verb DIASKORIZW in the passive
subjunctive mood rather than in the passive future indicative tense, as he
did.

So what led Mark to quote the Zechariah passage as PATAXW TON POIMENAS KAI
TA PROBATA DIASKORPISQHSONTAI, ("I will strike the shepherd and the sheep
will be scattered") and thereby depart so from the original text whether in
Hebrew or in Greek?   I think the answer is found in Mark's hermeneutical
need to link his two sources, 2 Sam. 15-17 and Zech. 13:7, and his need to
have those two sources to work in harmonious, supportive concert with one
another  as he used them---  2 Samuel to pattern Judas' delivering Jesus up
to his enemies and the subsequent flight of the disciples, and Zechariah to
provide the authority of prophecy for the actualization of the two events---
to create his narrative events foreshadowed in scripture.

It is clear, as I have pointed out, that Ahithophel's betrayal is Mark's
model for Judas' betrayal.   More than that, Ahithophel's plan to do away
with David and force his people to flee from him were the elements Mark
imitated in depicting Judas' "doing away with" Jesus and the  disciples'
abandonment of Jesus which followed.    It is important to note in this
respect how directly Ahithophel's imagining of his attack on David
influenced Mark's own imagination in both creating Judas' betrayal and the
flight of the disciples, as well as his reformulation of Zech. 13:7 and
making it a prophetic foreshadowing of those events.   Let me explain.

According to 2 Sam. 17:2, Ahithophel's plan was to advance at night on David
with a force of 12,000 and catch David in a dispirited state.   Ahithophel
theorized that by such a surprise attack on David, "I will terrorize him
(EKSTHSW AUTON), and all the people with him will flee (KAI FEUXETAI PAS hO
LAOS hO MET' AUTOU, and [then] I will strike the king alone (KAI PATAXAW TON
BASILEA MONWTATON)."    Now Ahithophel's plan to do away with David, scatter
his people and force them into the "arms" of Absalom never materialized,
because it was finally rejected by Absalom on the advice of Hushai the
Archite.    But Mark, nevertheless, saw it as a plan he could use to model
Judas' conspiratorial betrayal of Jesus, a plan that would materialize
through Mark's creative imagination.   But to give that plan prophetic
authority Mark needed to bring plan and prophecy into close, harmonious
conformity to one another.  To do so, rather than shaping the plan to the
prophecy, he rewrote the prophecy of Zech. 13:7 to conform to the two motifs
of Ahithophel's plan important to Mark for his narrative.   Those two
motifs, again, were the striking of David and the flight of David's people.
As I have just shown, 2 Sam. 17:2 puts the two motifs in this order, namely
flight (FEUXETAI PAS hO LAOS hO MET' AUTOU) and striking ( KAI PATAXAW TON
BASILEA MONWTATON), the reverse order of the way the two motifs appear in
the Markan Gethsemane account and in the Zech. 13:7.

But what if the motifs of 2 Sam. were switched and put together in this way:
KAI PATAXAW TON BASILEA MONWTATON [KAI] FEUXETAI PAS hO LAOS hO MET' AUTOU.
Arranging the motifs in this way approximates quite closely Mark's rewording
of Zech. 13:7.   In the case of the striking motif of 2 Sam., if the term
MONWTATON is removed, then Mark's rendering of the striking motif of  Zech.
13:7 almost exactly imitates the wording of the motif in 2 Sam., namely
PATAXW TON BASILEA (2 Sam. 17:2) as compared to PATAXW TON POIMENA (Mk.).
The only difference lies in the use of the term BASILEA in 2 Sam. and
POIMENA in the Markan quote.   But that difference fades when it is
recognized that POIMENA when applied to David in the OT serves as a
metaphorical synonym for BASILEA.

In fact, Ezekiel offers a classic support for the point.   In the same
prophetic context Ezekiel can refer to David both as shepherd and as prince
or king.   Thus Ezek. 34:23f. : "I will set up over them one shepherd, my
servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their
shepherd.  And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be
prince among them."   And then again Ezek.  37:24: "My servant David shall
be king (LXX="ruler") over them; and they shall all have one shepherd."   In
fact in Ezek 34:24, in the sentence, "and my servant David shall be prince
among them," the Hebrew word translated into English as "prince" (or
 "leader" or "chieftain") is translated by the LXX in Greek as POIMHN
("shepherd').   So there is precedence for the terms BASILEA and POIMENA or
POIMHN to be interchangeable synonyms for each other.   And certainly the
shepherd in Zech. 13:7 was understood to be both shepherd and king.    Kee
(_Community_, 110f.) specifically makes the dual meaning of POIMENA in Zech.
13:7 explicit by referring to the figure in the passage with the hyphenated
term, "shepherd-king."

So it is not a logical stretch to argue that Mark viewed for his purpose the
prophecy of the striking of the shepherd in Zech. 13:7 as an synonymous
equivalent to Ahithophel's plan to strike David..   Thus PATAXW TON POIMENAS
and PATAXAW TON BASILEA are for Mark interchangeable statements referring to
the same person.    Prophecy and planned act, as he has shaped them, cohere
and conform to each other and are now raised to a new level in their
conjoining to propel with prophetic inevitability the consummation of the
conspiracy against  Jesus.    Ahithophel's unfulfilled plan is finally and
fully enacted, though in a different time, on a new stage, and with
different persons playing the parts of betrayer and betrayed.   But,
nevertheless, through the dramatic imagination of Mark, the plan is finally
executed to completion.


With respect to the second motif the fleeing of the people and the
scattering of the sheep.   Here, too, are two interchangeable ways of saying
the same thing.   One way states it metaphorically and the other in literal
reality.   And the action of the first motif (striking) propels the action
of the second (scatter).   I account for Mark's wording of second motif in
Zech. 13:7, the motif related to the sheep (TA PROBATA DIASKPORPISQNSONTAI,
"the sheep will be scattered"), and its departure from the LXX (EKSPASATE TA
PROBATA, "draw out the sheep"), as due to Mark's interest in making the
motif in Zechariah conform more with the sense of the same motif, the flight
of followers, in 2. Sam. 17:2 (FEUXETAI PAS hO LAOS hO MET' AUTOU, "all the
people with him will flee") and his need to depict the flight of the
disciples (AFENTES AUTON EFUGON PANTES, "leaving him they all fled") in
similar way to his model, the flight of the people from David in Ahithophel'
s plan.    Thus in the interest of bringing the Zechariah prophecy into
harmony and conformity with the motif as depicted in Ahithophel's plan, Mark
departed from the LXX and, perhaps under the influence of the MT,  crafted
the second motif along the lines of the motif in 2 Sam., namely, KAI
FEUXETAI PAS hO LAOS hO MET' AUTOU., "all the people with him will flee."
Thus was produced TA PROBATA DIASKPORPISQNSONTAI, "the sheep will be
scattered."

Furthermore, when it came to narrate the actual flight of the disciples,
Mark once again returned to his primary source and depicted the flight of
the disciples in words which bear a strong resemblance to the statement of
the motif in 2 Sam.   Thus 2 Sam. 17:2: FEUXETAI PAS hO LAOS hO MET' AUTOU
("All the people with him will flee").    And thus Mark in imitation
(14:50): KAI AFENTES AUTON EFUGON PANTES ("and leaving him they all fled").

Moreover, the fact that Mark has woven the two passages, the foreshadowed
action of 2 Sam. 17:2 and the foreshadowed prophecy of Zech. 13:7, together
with this intent, is suggested by the way in which Mark refers to the
scriptural authority for both the event of Judas' betrayal and the disciples
abandonment of Jesus.    For following the flight Mark states: All' hINA
PLHRWQWSIN AI GRAFAI ("But let the writings [scriptures] be fulfilled').
Notice that he uses the plural GRAFAI ("writings') rather than the singular
GRAFH ("writing").    In other contexts in his Gospel when he has used the
word GRAFH to refer to scripture (12:10, 24), he has used it in the singular
(GRAFH).   But here it is at the close the Gethsemane incident rendered in
the plural (GRAFAI).   Why?  My theory is that Mark uses GRAFH in the plural
here as a way of demonstrating that two writings have now been fulfilled,
"the writing" of II Sam. 15-17 and Ahithophel's plan against of David, now
rechoreographed to fit the needs of Jesus' time, and the prophecy of
Zechariah, now reformulated, to match the fulfillment needed for Jesus'
time.

VI. Conclusion

I derive three points from this analysis of Markan methodology in the
service of his hermeneutic.  First, for Mark the story of the conspiracy and
betrayal of David in the saga of 2 Samuel served as a template for the
Markan Gethsemane episode.   Second, when Mark needed to turn to prophecy to
give divine authority for what he was dramatizing, he changed his prophetic
source to fit the dramatic features of the story line which he drew from his
Samuel template, rather than force the story line he borrowed from 2 Samuel
to fit the prophecy, as for example Matthew did in his retelling of the
Markan entry of Jesus into Jerusalem (21:1-9).    Matthew in that case
turned to the prophet Zechariah (9:9) to find the authority of  prophetic
prediction for  the account, only, unlike Mark, Matthew changed the story
line to fit the prophecy and had Jesus ride into Jerusalem on two animals
(21:5) instead of Mark's one..

Third, since Mark appears intent on mining the quarry of his narrative
source from 2 Sam. for all the details he can find to compose his own
account of Judas' betrayal of Jesus, and prefers to value the integrity of
that source over faithfulness to his prophetic source of Zechariah, then
that suggests to me that Mark,  in favoritism toward the Davidic saga in 2
Samuel, scoured (to use your term, Joe) that saga for insight as to how he
should dramatize Judas "doing away" with Jesus, if he could not use
Ahithophel's sword.    I surmise that he fell upon the continued references
to "the kiss" and the role kisses played throughout the saga to signal and
underscore conspiracy and betrayal (15:5 vis-a-vis 14:23) and finally death
(20:9f.).   I surmise further that Mark blended these various dimensions of
the kiss in the saga into one final and treacherous act of the betrayer
Judas, his betrayal of Jesus with a conspiratorial kiss ("Now the betrayer
had given them a sign, saying, "The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him
and lead him away under guard" 14:44), which in turn foreshadowed Jesus
death.

Admittedly in merging the various dimensions of the kisses in the Davidic
saga into one, as an explanation of how Mark arrived at a kiss in place of a
sword to deliver Jesus up to death, is moving from the concrete into a
relatively high level of abstraction, and I could be charged with the
fallacy of misplaced concretion.    But the advantage of the abstraction of
my reconstruction of how Mark's mind worked to arrive at the kiss motif over
against the abstraction of your reconstruction, a la Isa. 29:13 and Prov.
27:6, is that my abstraction does have clearly discernible anecdotal
antecedents rooted in actual concrete actions, whereas yours, Joe, in my
judgment, does not.    Furthermore, the fact that my abstracted construct of
the kiss is derived within the immediate context of the known and privileged
source from which Mark drew most of his dramatic ideas for his Gethsemane
story, it is more rooted in the concrete and less subject to the fallacy of
misplaced concretion that becomes increasingly more problematic the more one
moves away from the immediate context of Mark's ideational mining and moves
to more remote contexts to scour for possibilities of what inspired Mark to
chose a kiss rather than a sword for Judas to deliver up Jesus to his
enemies.

Ted Weeden