Kata Markon

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

Stephen Carlson wrote on Thursday, March 29, 2001:

> Thank you, Ted, for your post on Judas' Kiss and Methodology.
>
> I believe that you have identified the problem in Alward's method,
> but I'm not sure that it really is an example of Whitehead's
> fallacy of misplaced concretion (or concreteness).  That fallacy,
> as I understand it, is to talk about an abstract concept as if
> it is real and has existence in reality.

My response (and my apologies for its delay):

You are right.  Technically, my argument, that Joe Alward's method for
arguing that Mark appropriated the Judas kiss from scouring the OT and, as a

consequence, alighted on Isa 29:13 and Prov. 27:6 as passages contributing
the inspiration for the kiss, is not an instance of what Whitehead had in
mind when he espoused his theory of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness
(_Science and the Modern World_, 50-55, 57-59).   Whitehead addressed the
issue of misplaced concreteness, he had only science in mind and not
history, hermeneutics or literary texts (which, of course, are themselves at
levels of abstractions removed from the experiences of concrete reality to
which they point).   I should have more properly stated that Joe's
methodological approach for arguing that Mark derived the  Judas kiss from
the aforementioned texts is, in the field of hermeneutics, analogous to the
fallacy of misplaced concreteness Whitehead attributed to propositions made
about empirical data and their myriad interrelationships in the field of
science.   Thus, Joe's recourse to a maxim (Prov. 27:6-"Well meant are the
wounds a friend inflicts, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy"), a
generalized proposition about the paradoxical experiences of contrast
between the "wounding" behavior of friends and the "kissing" behavior of
enemies, to account for how Mark derived the Judas kiss, is an argument
pursued at a higher level of abstraction then, in my judgment, the more
concrete anecdotal stories about the use of kisses to betray and do away
with another in the stories of the Davidic saga of 2 Sam. 15-17; 20:9-10.
And therefore, in my judgment, Joe's argument is subject to a greater degree
of misplaced concreteness then mine.   The principle upon which I make such
a judgment is that maxims by nature speak to general human experience, which
is far more removed from specific, concrete, discrete human experiences than
are anecdotal accounts.

Now that does not mean that my own argument is not subject to the fallacy of
misplaced concreteness.   There is an inherent fallacy of misplaced
concreteness in any theory that is adhered to so seriously that conflicting
evidence is ignored, dismissed, misconstrued or devalued in order to
maintain the credibility or "truthfulness" of the theory.    That is what
Whitehead was addressing when he spoke of the fallacy of misplaced
concreteness in the formulation of scientific propositions and what Thomas
Kuhn (_The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_) addressed a generation or
so later with respect to the formulation and tenacious adherence to
scientific paradigms despite conflicting evidence to the contrary..

Thus, to avoid as much as possible the fallacy of misplaced concreteness in
my own theory for the Markan origin of the Judas kiss, I must take seriously
Joe Alward's conflicting evidence for Mark deriving the Judas kiss from the
two OT passages he cites, Isa. 29:13 and Prov. 27:6.   How then do I take
Joe's "conflicting" evidence seriously and address the evidence as it weighs
against the cogency and persuasiveness of my counter theory?    The
adjudicating principle for the cogency and persuasiveness of either of our
theories must finally and largely rest upon what clues Mark gives us of how
his mind was working when the idea for the Judas kiss came to him.   In
other words, what were Mark's hermeneutical principles and methodology for
the use of the OT in the formulation of his narrative and in support of his
theological/christological purpose?

In my post of 3/27,  I argued, with respect to Mark's use of Zech. 13:7 as
scriptural authority and prooftext for the conspiratorial betrayal of Judas
and the flight of the disciples, that Mark forced Zech. 13:7 to conform to
certain elements in Ahithophel's plan to do away with David, which would
then cause David's followers to flee from David to Absalom, elements that
were then shaped to fit the needs of Mark's Gethsemane account of betrayal
and flight, for which the reformulated Zech. 13:7 became a convenient
prooftext.    Thus, at least in this one instance, Mark followed a
hermeneutical principle of reformulating OT prophecy to conform to his
primary OT source, the narrative account of Ahithophel's
conspiratorial/betrayal plan against David, rather than, on the other hand,
fashioning his OT narrative source and his own narration of the Judas
betrayal and disciple flight to conform verbatim to the OT prophecy he found
in Zech. 13:7.

Based upon the way Mark uses the prophecy of Zech. 13:7, in my judgment Mark
methodologically followed the practice of making the Davidic saga of 2
Samuel his primary and privilege source from which to mine ideas for his
betrayal and flight narrative.   And since he could not follow Ahithophel's
plan to the letter and have Judas slay Jesus with a sword----for Jesus died
by crucifixion-he arrived at the idea of "slaying" Jesus with a kiss, which
led ultimately to his death by crucifixion.   And the idea of "slaying"
Jesus with a kiss came from the use of kisses to betray and slay an
adversary from his primary and privileged source of 2 Samuel 15-17; 20:9-10,
from which he mined almost all of his other ideas for the creation of his
Gethsemane story.   Thus, I would argue, that while there is certainly a
significant level of abstraction in my argumentation which does flirt with
the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, it is less subject to that error than
is Joe's.   For my theory is founded upon what gives every appearance of
being Mark's own creative methodology with respect to the use of OT prophecy
to support his narrative, a narrative which he based upon his preference for
and indebtedness to the numerous elements of his primary and privileged
narrative model he found in 2 Samuel for his own innovative story telling..

On the other hand, I noted in my post, with respect to Joe's argument for
Mark making recourse to Isa. 29:13 and Prov. 27:6, that there is no evidence
anywhere in Mark to suggest that Mark ever has Prov. 27:6 in mind in other
contexts outside of the Judas kiss incident or that he is even aware of
Proverbs.    Absent any Markan interest in Proverbs elsewhere in his Gospel,
it strikes me as a venturesome abstraction and a glaring case of misplaced
abstraction to argue that Mark scoured the OT until he fell upon Prov. 27:6
to come up with the idea of a Judas kiss.

Moreover, and a point I did not address in my post of 3/27, there is every
indication to suggest that, with regard to Isa, 29:13, Mark's understanding
of that verse has nothing to do with the use of lips to plant a kiss of
betrayal upon an adversary.  Rather Mark clearly understands Isaiah's
reference to the use of lips as the case of people hypocritically speaking
honorific words to God, while their inner predisposition is just the
opposite.    That is precisely the meaning of  "lips" Mark has in mind when
he had Jesus quote Isa 29:13 in 7:6 ("Well did Isaiah prophesy of you
hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but
their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as
doctrines the precepts of men.'") as a retort to the complaint of Pharisees
and scribes that Jesus' disciples do not follow the tradition of the elders
when it comes to washing their hands before eating (7:1-5).

If Mark specifically understands the meaning of the Isaianic reference to
"lips" in Mk. 7:6 as hypocritically speaking words of honor, then to argue
that Mark also interpreted the use of lips in Isaiah to refer to using lips
to betray with a kiss is an unwarranted logical stretch for which there is
no supportive evidence that Mark saw in the passage such an inherent dual
interpretation of "lips" in Isa. 29:13.   In my judgment, to argue for such
a dual reading of "lips" in Isa. 29:23, as Joe does, is instance of
miscplaced concreteness in the field of hermeneutics analogous to the
fallacy of misplaced concreteness Whitehead pointed to the field of science.

Then Stephen Carlson observes:

> Turning now to the three kisses you've offered in comparison to
> Judas' kiss (2 Sam. 14:33, 15:5, and 20:9), only Joab's kiss works
> at a more concrete level.  Here, in both cases a kiss is used by
> a protagonists to betray the victim, to the victim's death.  There
> still are differences in the details, but this incident is a much
> better fit than either 14:33 or 15:5, were it is one who is king
> or pretends to be king kisses a subject.  It is only by reinterepting
> both the Absalom kiss and the Judas kiss at a very high level of
> abstraction "kissing involving a conspiracy" before any similarity
> between the two events can be seen.  This comparison just does not
> work at the concrete level of detail (i.e. Absalom does not kiss
> the victim of his conspiracy, but rather the opposite: David kisses
> Absalom), where it must work to be valid.

Again you are correct: extrapolating the motif of the Judas kiss of
conspiratorial betrayal  from the three references to the use of kisses
found in 2 Sam. 14:33; 15:5 and 20:9 is an exercise in abstraction, whether
that be on Mark's part or my part.   The closest concrete parallel in Mark's
primary and privileged source is Joab's kiss of Amasa (20:9-10).    But when
there is no concrete parallel for a kiss being used as conspiratorial
betrayal in the OT for which Mark to draw upon, I am arguing that he saw the
possibility of a such a kiss motif in his mind as he pondered what
equivalent act of betrayal to Ahithophel's planned act of doing away with
David he could use as Judas' act for doing away with Jesus.    Unable to
imitate Ahithophel by having Judas attack Jesus with a sword,  Mark was left
to coming up with a plausible alternative.   The concrete act of a kiss used
to do away with an adversary was there for Mark to draw upon in Joab's
treacherous kiss.   To be sure Joab was not involved in a conspiracy against
David, nor did Absalom kiss his father as an act of betrayal.   That I
readily acknowledge.

But Mark was forced beyond such one-to-one parallels to create Judas' kiss.
So Mark abstracted beyond the concrete data of his parallels to formulate
the idea of Judas' kiss.  When it came to narrate Judas' consummating,
treacherous act of betrayal, Mark made recourse to the practice of ancient
authors, namely mimesis---a practice I drew attention to in my post of 3.27
in my reference to Seneca and Dennis MacDonald's elucidation of this
practice of mimesis by ancient authors when they transvalued (abstracted
into other orientations) elements of their sources that they found necessary
or appropriate to transform for their own ideological purposes.
Consequently, I am acknowledging that Mark's transvaluation of the various
anectodal instances of kisses he found in 2 Samuel  into his kiss motif is a
clear case of abstraction.  But it is an abstraction drawn from the closest
and most pausible concrete roots, the references to kisses found in the very
narrative upon which Mark was so dependent for creating his Gethsemane
episode.    Thus to make that link between those concrete references in
Mark's primary and privileged source, while subject to the fallacy of
misplaced concreteness, is less subject to the excessive exercise of that
fallacy than any other perceived link between the ideation of a Judas kiss
and other texts of the OT, particularly and unless it can be shown that
conflicting evidence and argumentation can prove otherwise---which is what I
am suggesting Joe Alward's evidence and theory does not prove.    Thus, if
Mark created the Judas kiss, and I see no convincing historical evidence to
suggest otherwise, its ideational origin in the occurrence of kisses in the
execution of the conspiracy against and betrayal of David, and the related
kiss of Joab's commander, is the most plausible explanation, in my judgment.
for how Mark came up with the Judas kiss.

Thank you, Stephen, for your usual probing critique.   I would be interested
in any response you or others might have.

Ted Weeden