Kata Markon

["J. Ted Blakley" <jtedblakley AT gmail.com>]

Sorry about the previous truncated message. I accidentally sent it while I was composing. Here is the completed message.

Kenneth,
    I am not familiar with this theory of the editing of Mark at the
hand of Luke, and I get the impression from your post that there are
probably a number of features of Mark, besides those you cite, that
are used in support of the theory. So my comments below would likely
not challenge the theory but only some of the evidence used in
support. Specifically, I was struck by the argument regarding the
presence of Peter's name in 16:7.

You write:
>          
Another possible indicator of editing is the curious mention of 
> "Peter" in 16:7, in which the young man in the tomb says, "But go say to his
> disciples and to Peter that . . ."  Since the disciples include Peter, it is
> superfluous to mention him.  But to conjecture that some other name has been
> replaced by "Peter" is reasonable. 

First
of all, I am wary of the logic of an argument that identifies an
element in a writing, esp. an ancient writing, as superfluous and upon
that basis proceeds to amend the text. I don't see how a redundant or
superfluous element warrants emendation. I imagine that when people
speak and write that they are "guilty" of superfluousness quite a bit
of the time and for a variety of reasons. Consequently, if one wishes
to take a text like Mark and argue for an emendation (let alone one
without any manuscript support as far as I can see) then one would have
at least to address other possible causes of such superfluousness and
either rule them out or demonstrate why an emendation makes more sense
of the data.

And this leads to my second point, namely, that
Mark is filled with so-called redundant, superflous elements from
beginning to end. In fact, Markan redundancies have been recognized for
a long time as a characteristic feature of Markan style. Some attribute
such repetitiveness to Mark's oral/aural qualities (Dewey, Malbon),
which I think is part of the explanation. I refer to these repetitive
elements as so-called redundancies because in Mark these repetitive
elements have been studied and in the work of someone like Frans
Neirynck (Duality in Mark) have been shown to be more than mere
repetition, but in fact are two-step progressions where the second
element specifies something in the first element and often highlights
something important to the story. One of the classic examples is Mark
1:32 which begins, "When it became evening, when the sun had set, they
brought to him all those who were sick and demon possessed." The
dual-time _expression_ at one time was thought to be redundant (read
unnecessary). Neirynck points out, however, that the second element
doesn't simply repeat the first, it is in fact more precise, and there
seems to be a point to this precision. "When the sun had set" points to
the fact that the sabbath is over, which then allows people to travel
to where Jesus is staying. There are many, many more examples of this
that one could point to in Mark.
     So now
when I come across Mark 16:7, I don't see a redundancy. I see a
repetitive element that suggests the possibility of a two-step
progresssion, and I now ask why is Peter being singled out?
(Incidentally, I think that this two-step progression is one of the
ways Mark guides the reader. You as a reader, for example, see that the
naming of Peter is unnecessary given that he is one of the disciples.
So we both see the same thing and see a need to explain it.) Anyway, I
ask, why is Peter being singled out? And suddenly a number of
attractive possibilities come to mind. Most recently Peter was the main
character of an episode in which he denied Jesus even though he had
declared he never would. Midway through the gospel, when Jesus asks the
disciples who they think he is, Peter declares him the Christ and then
quickly proceeds to rebuke him when Jesus speaks about his humiliation,
death, and resurrection. Peter is also singled out during the
transfiguration, and of course, he is the first disciple to ever to be
called by Jesus and so this reference to Peter here at the end makes a
nice inclusio of sorts. (And all of this is not to mention the times in
which Peter heads lists of disciples be they lists of 12, 4, or 3). 

    
So it seems to me that this mention of Peter not only fits Mark's style
of employing dual expressions but also fits a narrative in which Peter
plays a significant role. And so there seems to be no warrant
whatsoever even to suggest the need to emend the narrative at this
point, let alone with names of figures who did not figure in the
narrative at all (Cephas) or who were only mentioned in passing and
were not one of the disciples (James, Symeon).

Sincerely,
Ted

=================================================
J. Ted Blakley
Ph.D. Candidate • Biblical Studies (The Gospel of Mark)
University of St Andrews, Scotland
jtb1 AT st-andrews.ac.uk
Online CV: www.blakleycreative.com/jtb
Hebrew 2 Hub:  www.blakleycreative.com/jtb/Hebrew.htm
=================================================

On 9/10/05, Khbonnell AT aol.com <Khbonnell AT aol.com> wrote:
>  
>   
>   
> Re: Editing of Mark, the hand of Luke? 
>   
>          One of the indicators of editing of Mark is the line is found at
> the end of  9:2 : anateilantos tou heliou, "the sun having risen."  If Mark
> is the source for the other three gospels, why is this line in gross
> disagreement with them as to the time of the women's going to the tomb? 
> Matthew 28:1 has time time "late on the sabbath as the first of the week was
> coming of;" Luke has "at deep dawn;" and John 20:1 has "it still being early
> dark."  These indicate that "the sun having risen" was not in the copies of
> Mark that the writers of these gospels used.
>          
The placement of this phrase at the end of the verse, rather than
> earlier where it would be more appropriate, tends to confirm that it was
> added, perhaps as a marginal note carried over into the text.
>          
Another possible indicator of editing is the curious mention of 
> "Peter" in 16:7, in which the young man in the tomb says, "But go say to his
> disciples and to Peter that . . ."  Since the disciples include Peter, it is
> superfluous to mention him.  But to conjecture that some other name has been
> replaced by "Peter" is reasonable.  There were other personages present in
> the company, that Luke (10:1 and 17) calls "the seventy." Others of
> importance who must have been there are James, "the brother of the Lord,"
> and Symeon son of Cleopas, both of whom headed the Jerusalem group.  The
> writer of Luke and Acts complete overlooks the important roles those two men
> in the early "church."  Another "no mention" is the name of Cephas, whom
> Paul found in Jerusalem along with James (Galatians 1:18, RSV).  Paul's not
> mentioning of  Symeon, despite the prominence attributed to him by Eusebius
> (Eccl. Hist., III, XI), means that Paul probably knew him as "Cephas." 
> Luke's distortion of  "history" in Acts (see A. F. Loisy, "The Origins of
> the New Testament," University Books, 1962, ch. 6) omits these important
> figures.  So if either of the names of James or Cephas stood in Mark 16:7,
> the Lukan editor of Mark replaced it with "Peter." 
>   
> Kenneth H. Bonnell 
> Los Angeles 
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> 
> 


-- 
J. Ted Blakley
PhD Candidate — University of St. Andrews, Scotland
Biblical Studies (Gospel of Mark)
www.blakleycreative.com/jtb