Kata Markon

[George Young <webber_young AT yahoo.com>]

Dear Mr. Yoshida:

Truly Mark 4:12 is a tricky passage! It seems to me
that the difficulty in translating MHPOTE rests
primarily upon what follows in the clause.  In this
case, MHPOTE does not directly introduce a warning but
rather judgment ("lest").  As you surely know, it is
an abbreviated quotation from the prophet Isaiah
6:9-11.  Moreover, if I may jump back to the prophetic
text, Isaiah's word introduces two groups of people:
(1) Those who see the whole of human experience and
consciousness as an endless sequence of unsolved
riddles.  This first group has its back to the Deity
and truly believe that they can discover, or have
discovered, who they are through human reasoning and
human wisdom.  (2)  The second group of people
discover their self ignorance (they do not know who
they are, nor its meaning) and, hence, seek for a
worthy explanation and revelation.  Of course, in the
Gospel of Mark, these are those who are told "a
mystery."  They claim to have be blind to their own
nature and deaf to the sound of God, and caloused to
the point of condemnation.  Moreover, they seek the
Wisdom of the Kingdom, which is both hidden (God hides
it) and it makes no sense to the first group of
people.  Returning to the MHPOTE in Mark 4:12, the
difficulty in translation is that one says to himself,
"Surely God desires that none should perish and that
all should come to repentance."  Yet, here we rise and
see paradox in the eyes: humans have a free will, but
so does God.  What Isaiah preached was in fact both a
riddle and a paradox.  So the difficulty in
translation is not so much grammatical as theological;
still more, its not so much logical as paradoxical. 
And one may rightly end by asking, Is the prophetic
announcment the cause or result of the paradox. Does
this paradox exist because the prophetic WORD was
spoken some 2700 years ago?  Or does it describe an
existing human phenomenon?  Certainly Jesus indicates
that its on-going and endemic to His annoucment of the
Kingdom of God.  Finally, one might ask, What does it
mean "to hear" and "to see" and "to turn?"  These are
the "missing links" to the Isaianic quotation in Mark
4:12 (see Isaiah 6:11). I would be interested in
exploring this further with you and others on the
list.  In any case Mark 4:12 is a very interesting
passage.

Sincerely,

Webber Young.

--- "S.Yoshida" <faustus AT aurora.ocn.ne.jp> wrote:

> Dear Markan scholars,
> 
> How is mhpote in Mk 4:12 to be translated? The range
> of meaning is limited 
> to two; 'perhaps' and 'lest (in order not)'.
> In my wiew, the latter is correct, because (at least
> in my research) in LXX, 
> NT, Philo, Doidorus Siculus, Thucydedes, Polybius
> and Plato mhpote with aor. 
> subju. verb never introduces something surmised
> witout any thought of 
> averting it (in 2Tim 2:25 mhpote with aor. subju.
> verb after 
> imperative-clause is used to indicate warning or
> fear. cf. Proverbs 23:9; 
> 25:17; 30:10; Ecclesiastes 7:16; Sir 7:6; 8:1,2;
> 9:3-5,9; 11:33; 12:12; 
> 19:13f.; 23:14; 30:12; 37:8; 42:11 etc.).
> What do you think?
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Shinobu Yoshida
> Rikkyo-Univ., Tokio, Japan 
> > _______________________________________________
> GMark mailing list
> GMark AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gmark


  
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