Kata Markon

["Eric Eve" <eric.eve AT harris-manchester.oxford.ac.uk>]

Jeffrey Gibson wrote:

> You might wish to know that the reading you are suggesting was previously
> advanced by Loisy (_L'Évangile selon Marc_ [Paris: E. Nourry, 1912], p.
415) and
> was revived by J. Hering (`Zwei exegetische Probleme in der Perikope von
Jesus in
> Gethsemane" in _Neotestamentica and Patristica: Eine Freundesgabe, Hernn
> Professor Dr. Oscar Cullmann zu seinem 60. Geburtstag uberreicht_ [Leiden:
Brill,
> 1962], pp. 64-69, esp. pp. 64-65).

> Both think that  that originally Jesus told his disciples, "Pray that I do
not
> enter into peirasmos," and that the "I" was dropped because of scandal the
idea
> of Jesus asking for prayer for himself.

> Brown, in his DoM, rejects this by noting that "There is no textual
support for
> this theory; there is no other example of Jesus asking his disciples to
pray for
> him; and the whole idea is unnecessary" (p. 161, n. 17):

Thanks for that response, Jeffery, but is the reading advanced by Loisy and
Hering entirely the same as the suggestion I'm floating? From what you say
they take Mk 14:38 to mean that Jesus asked the disciples to pray that Jesus
should not enter into peirasmos (which would be a request for a prayer for
himself) while I was suggesting that it might be a prayer that the disciples
should not enter into testing Jesus (which would be a prayer for the
disciples). Again, nothing in my suggestion requires an "I" to have been
dropped from a putative original. Rather, the prayer would be that the
disciples avoid blundering yet again.

What sense do Loisy and Hering give to "enter into peirasmos"? If they take
it as a request by Jesus for a prayer that he be not tempted/tested, then
this would be excluded by your linguistic argument, whereas my suggestion
would not be, which would further distinguish my suggestion from theirs,
would it not?

Regards,

Eric
----------------------------------
Eric Eve
Harris Manchester College, Oxford