Kata Markon

["Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT comcast.net>]

Steve Black wrote:

> I have two questions for the group.
>
> 1. I suspect Mk of having what is essentially an "adoptionist" 
> christology. Is there is evidence against this that can be found in 
> the second gospel? 

One of the difficulties of answering this question is that it is stated 
in terms of Christological categories and arguments that come from the 
second and third centuries and which were grounded in ideas about the 
nature of God that might not have been  - and most likely were not  - 
shared by Mark and those to whom he wrote.  Indeed, I would even say 
this for the author of GJohn, whose theology of incarnation was in my 
view not what it later came to be thought of as indicating about 
Israel's God and Jesus.   It does not take into account the functional 
and polemical aspects of proclaiming that someone was "son of God" in 
the first century, or more specifically the context for any and all of 
Mark's Christological statements provided by his heading up all that he 
says about Jesus as something that is in polemical dialogue with the 
EUAGGELION of the imperial cult.

> 2. Mk describes John baptism as being for repentance and then without 
> qualification has Jesus being baptized. Is there any reason to think 
> that Mk did not intend for the reader to understand that Jesus was 
> repenting? 

No.  But what needs to be unpacked here is what it is, according to 
Mark, that the call to repentance that Jesus heeds is all about. Is it 
about individual sins or something wider?

Have you read Tom Wright's discussion in his NTPG of what "forgiveness 
of sins" would have meant within Judaism in the first century?

Yours,

Jeffrey

--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
Chicago, Illinois
e-mail jgibson000 AT comcast.net