Earlier this month I posted notes from the Acts of Mark that René Salm had shared.
Since then René Salm has posted the first ever English translation of the Acts of Mark on his website. Translator is Dr Mark A. House.
See The Acts of Mark: Translation.
This is “a fairly literal translation, and so it may sound a bit rough – it is a provisional translation.
René has another page of notes discussion the background to his own interest in the Acts and comments on the translation itself.
See The Acts of Mark: Notes and Bibliography
Of particular interest is René’s discussion of the date of the text. What relevance could an ostensibly 5th century text have for mythicists or anyone interested in the origins of Christianity?
See The Acts of Mark: “What is the date of this text?”
The main gateway to these links is Rene’s Mythicist Papers: Resources for the Study of Christian Origins page which also leads to a summary of the Acts.
The same page contains a translation of part of a work by Ditlef Nielsen’s (1904 ) titled The Natsarene and Hidden Gnosis.
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Thank you for these links, Neil. I find Mark to be an enigma, and I hope René Salm and others continue the analysis of separate elements in the text in determining what “riders” originally accompanied Mark on the “bus”.
The translation has moved and is now here:
http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2012/10/02/translation/
Herod is assigned the attribute ‘thrice-accursed’. I tried to search for this term in the Old Testament, and so far only found the Second Book of the Maccabees, where this title is assigned to Nicanor, the leading enemy of the Maccabees. This would, if a deliberate parallel, compare Herod to Nicanor. Maybe the followers of the fourth way considered themselves as heirs of the Maccabean movement? The great Herod was indeed supposed by Flavius Josephus to have disposed with John the second of Hyrcan, who belonged to the greater family of the Maccabees and was considered a great teacher of righteousness, at least according to some modern scholars.
Of course, I may have overlooked loads of other usages of ‘thrice-accursed’ in the septuagint, which would make the obvservation pointless.
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