Kata Markon

["Kym Smith" <khs AT picknowl.com.au>]

Dear Jeffrey,

You wrote:

<<<As I noted before, tell that to Daniel. And that an expectation of having 
"much of a readership" is a condition for writing begs the question, doesn't 
it? Excuse the unintended innuendo, but does size matter? Would Mark not have 
written if his congregation was 20 instead of 30 (or 500)?>>>

I am not sure how Daniel relates here. Though he certainly lived through
the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Persian conquest of the
Babylonians, it is not necessary to see that he wrote in the midst of a
battle or siege. Rather, especially because of the status he achieved, he
would have had much opportunity to write at leisure. The fact that he
writes about a succession of kingdoms, i.e. prophetically, does not mean
that he was caught up in the conflicts that brought about the changes.

If I am correct about the Gospel of Mark, then Peter intended it for rapid
distribution to all churches around the Mediterranean prior to the
(expected) onset of Nero’s violence. It was a significant readership.

I wrote: <This is particularly so if Mark was written primarily for 
Christians, most of whom had deserted the city back in 66.>

You responded:
<<<What is your evidence that this is the year in which they fled?>>>

I m sorry but I was responding to Susan’s post. Nevertheless, in answer to
yours, I may have been at fault to nominate 66, and I did not have my book
(Redating the Revelation and…) with me at the time to see what resources I
used. Having now checked it I see that I wrote ‘some time between James’
death (in 62) and the revolts of 66’. If I had said ‘by the end of 66’ it
would have been better. Other sources (if you need them) that I have been
able to lay my hands on quickly are: Bo Reicke, The New testament Era,
Fortress, p. 216‘…in the yeas before the war…’; Eduard Lohse, The New
Testament Environment, SCM, p. 49, ‘about this time’ i.e. of the 66
uprisings; F.F. Bruce, New Testament History, Doubleday / Galilee, p. 375,
‘At some point between James’ death and the outbreak of the revolt in AD
66…’
I was sure I would not have been so bold as to declare the year 66 myself.
The quote below from Eusebius sees the believers leaving Jerusalem prior
to ‘the judgment of God’. It may be a reasonable assumption that they left
before the Jewish war which commenced in September of 66.

“But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a
revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the
city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. And when those
that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the
royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute
of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had
committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally
destroyed that generation of impious men.”  (E.H. 3.5.3).

Incidentally, I suspect that the ‘revelation’ by which, as Eusebius notes,
the ‘church in Jerusalem had been commanded…to leave the city’, was the
Revelation/Apocalypse of John given, as I argue, in 62.

<<<And in any case, my suggestion about when Mark was written does not depend 
upon Mark's group being **in** Jerusalem. They only have to be strongly drawn 
towards going there in response to what I have noted, with Josephus backing 
me up, was what finally convinced many Jews, originally in the anti war 
party, to go over to the war party's cause, namely, the "Senacherib like" 
deliverances of the Temple from Roman armies that confirmed the Zealots 
claims about divine sanction of the holy war that they were carrying out in 
consonance with their understanding of Daniel 11 (an understanding which Mark 
himself acknowledges is working on his readers but which he is striving to 
correct).>>>

You may be right about this attraction to Jerusalem. I suspect, however,
that the desertion of Jerusalem (encouraged in Rev 12:4-6 and Mk13:14f)
means that few Christians would have continued in that course. I date Mark
in 64. Any understanding of Dan 11 would have been enlightened by these
two texts at least. We must also question to what extent the early church
understood the OT prophetic references to war in Jerusalem / Israel as
references to the New Israel / Jerusalem, i.e. the Church, rather than the
geographical locations that bore those names.

Just a few thoughts, I’m probably getting way out of my depth.

Sincerely,

Kym Smith
Adelaide
South Australia
khs AT picknowl.com.au