Kata Markon

[James Crossley <crossleyjames AT hotmail.com>]

While I wouldn't dream of offering advice on a sermon on the torn veil, I would add a few critical comments on comments here and critical scholarship in general. The idea that there is some kind of replacement Temple and/or High Priest or related issues  suffers a major problem: Mark mentions nothing of the sort. In fact, Mark says very little in terms of interpretation. Much of the idea of a replacement Temple/High Priest often fills the gaps through the idea of (supposed) superiority over Judaism. This becomes even more problematic given that Roger Aus has given plenty of evidence from early Judaism sarguing that it is entirely plausible to interpret the Markan passage as God tearing his garment for the loss of his son. Now that may be right or wrong but it has the advantage of being paralleled in early Judaism. At the very least Aus' work needs to be discussed before the constant idea that we are delaing with a new replacement Temple or the like.

Ref: R. D. Aus, Samuel, Saul and Jesus. Three Early Palestinian Jewish Christian Gospel Haggadoth,  1994 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994) (somewhere around pp. 147-57)

And the Pauline authorship of Hebrews would need some defending! ;-)

James Crossley,
Dept of Biblical Studies,
University of Sheffield, UK

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