Kata Markon

["George Mallory Patton" <gpatton AT bayou.com>]

> I prefer what I think is the simpler interpretation:  Mark did all in his
> power to embed into his stories about Jesus as many events from the Old
> Testament as possible to convince his readers/listeners that Jesus' life was
> prefigured thousands of years earlier and that he was the messiah written
> about.  Check out the many parallels between the story of David and Jesus,
> and between Jesus and other heroic Old Testament figures, and you'll see why
> I believe Mark's Jesus stories are fictional.  I've catalogued these 
> parallels in the articles in the "Mark's Gospel" section of the website at
> 
> http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
> 
> The article that is relevant to the servant's ear is at
> 
> http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/David_and_Jesus.htm
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Joe Alward

I view the hundreds of allusions in Mark to the OT scriptures as midrash
and other aids to understanding Mark's gospel rather than to "convince his
readers/listeners that Jesus' life was prefigured thousands of years
earlier".  Though many Christians in my home state of Louisiana would
agree with you. I believe that there are many allusions to the OT
scriptures in the book of Revelation that have nothing to do with
prefiguring Jesus. And that the allusions are there to help understand the
book of Revelation. Though there are allusions in Mark that suggest Jesus
is like some OT character (example the way that Jesus is portraded as the
"lord" of the 23rd Psalm in Mark 6:32-44).
George Patton