Following on from the “playful discourse” around the Gospel of Mark’s confusion of identities in the Passion narrative —
Curiosity One:
Mark 1:1 A beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God. — Good news? Yet the gospel concludes with the women who hear from a young man in the tomb that Jesus has disappeared and gone to Galilee are too frightened to pass on that message to anyone.
5 and having entered into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting . . . .
6 And he saith to them, `Be not amazed, ye seek Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified: he did rise — he is not here; . . . .
7 and go, say to his disciples, and Peter, that he doth go before you to Galilee; . . . .’
8 And, having come forth quickly, they fled from the sepulchre, and trembling and amazement had seized them, and to no one said they anything, for they were afraid.
(The verses in many Bibles following verse 8 are later additions to the gospel.)
Curiosity Two:
Also in Mark 1 John the Baptist announces that Jesus will baptize with the holy spirit:
8 I indeed did baptize you with water, but he [Jesus] shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’
But Jesus baptizes no-one and there is no further mention of “baptism in the holy spirit”. We do later (Mark 10:39) find Jesus describing his coming death as a baptism and asking his disciples if they also can share in that baptism. Is that a clue to the meaning of Jesus baptizing his followers with the holy spirit?
38 and Jesus said to them, `. . . . are ye able to drink of the cup that I drink of, and with the baptism that I am baptized with — to be baptized?’
39 And they [James and John] said to him, `We are able;’ and Jesus said to them, `. . . . with the baptism that I am baptized with, ye shall be baptized . . . ‘
Curiosity Three:
Jesus tells his disciples that their generation will be alive to see the “Son of Man coming in clouds”: Mark 13
26 `And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in clouds with much power and glory, . . . .
30 Verily I say to you, that this generation may not pass away till all these things may come to pass
We generally read that as Jesus speaking of his return at the last days. But that generation did pass away and he did not come. So why was this passage preserved by the early church without any attempt to rewrite those words.
A few chapters earlier we read Jesus telling his disciples that some of them would be alive to see God’s kingdom set up on earth. Since what follows is the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, it is natural to assume that Mark 9:1 means that this also refers to the “second coming”:
And he said to them, `Verily I say to you, That there are certain of those standing here, who may not taste of death till they see the reign of God having come in power.’
Solutions to the Riddles
I think Curiosity Three is the easiest to resolve. Despite the common view that Jesus was speaking of his bodily return from heaven, the Scriptures from which the author of this gospel was drawing say something else. Our author made abundant use of the Book of Daniel (see The Little Apocalypse for details). There in chapter 7 we read of gentile kingdoms being compared to wild beasts — a lion with eagle’s wings, a bear, a four-winged leopard and a ten-horned monster — followed by God’s kingdom represented by a “son of man”. The original application of that fifth kingdom was to the Maccabean kingdom that had, through war, been freed from gentile rule.
A Psalm of David (Psalm 18 and repeated in 2 Samuel 22) describes God “coming down” to the earth in clouds not only to rescue David but to set him up as king over gentiles
9 He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.
10 He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—
the dark rain clouds of the sky.
12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
with hailstones and bolts of lightning. . . .43 You have delivered me from the attacks of the people;
you have made me the head of nations.
People I did not know now serve me.
I discussed this particular interpretation in more detail in When They Saw the Son of Man Coming in Clouds. Sometimes I learn more and reject what I once believed. In this case the more I have read the more convinced I have become that the Gospel of Mark, the first of the canonical gospels to be written, thought of Jesus as a literary figure, a personification of Israel, of both the physical nation of Israel and the resurrected spiritual or new Israel. Not long ago I discussed in depth a book by Nanine Charbonnel (emeritus professor of philosophy) making that same argument. I have since read Bruno Bauer’s studies which led him to the same conclusion.
That reading of the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark makes sense of some of that gospel’s ambiguities and apparent failures.
Jesus is the “son of man” who is the personification of the people of God or the “church”.
The destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 CE and the thousands of crucifixions of Judeans as part of that war were the kinds of events that Old Testament passages described in terms of God visiting nations on earth in clouds, with stars falling, all to be followed by the establishment or rescue of his nation.
If this interpretation of the Gospel of Mark is valid, it places (in the author’s mind) the replacement of the old kingdom and its temple cult of Moses with the new spiritual temple of God embodied in Joshua/Jesus.
And Curiosity One?
As for Jesus not being found in Jerusalem but in Galilee, as explained by the young man in the tomb, we know that our author drew upon major themes in the Book of Isaiah (see Mark As a Fulfilment of Isaiah’s New Exodus) so it is reasonable to think that he understood Galilee to represent “the nations”, the gentiles as per chapter 9
. . . . So the latter [time] hath honoured the way of the sea, Beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who are walking in darkness Have seen a great light, Dwellers in a land of death-shade, Light hath shone upon them.
If Mark was inspired by Isaiah’s New Exodus theme we may wonder if the inspiration for his setting of the activity of Jesus around the “sea of Galilee” was this particular passage. Whoever wrote the Gospel of Matthew certainly knew both the Gospel of Mark and that Isaiah prophecy about Galilee (Matthew 4:13ff). The church, the metaphorical body of Jesus, was no longer to be found in Jerusalem but among the gentiles, or more specifically in the land where Judeans and gentiles lived together.
Mark’s ambiguities can thus be explained when we view Jesus as a personification of the old and new idealized Israel.
Further, I cannot help but notice that such a reading is more easily found among scholars of literature and hermeneutics than it is among Christian theologians.
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Re, “Further, I cannot help but notice that such a reading is more easily found among scholars of literature and hermeneutics than it is among Christian theologians.”
Well, duh . . . what churchman would want their savior to be an allegory?
“Despite the common view that Jesus was speaking of his bodily return from heaven, the Scriptures from which the author of this gospel was drawing say something else…”
I wonder whether 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 should be taken as a vaticinium ex eventu. Is it really possible that the author writing in Paul’s name was thinking about the events of the year 70?
I haven’t thought through Paul’s take on it in the context of the possible interpretation in the Gospel of Mark that I mentioned in the post. So my first thoughts are that Paul did have a more literal or personal return of the person of the Saviour in mind. However, I have no idea at this point if Paul was writing in the 50s or someone closer to the 150s used his name or if the name represents a school of theologians.
Further — I am continuing to read the never ending supply of studies on messianism before and into the present era and do not want to suggest that a personal messiah was an idea alien to the author of Mark’s gospel. What that writer did was recast that idea of a personal Son of Man into a personification of the church, which was probably closer to the original idea of Daniel’s Son of Man (a personification of the Maccabean kingdom) but that did not preclude other beliefs in a literal pesonal messiah to come.
Thank you for sharing this. It has been an eye-opening experience to read the two blog posts (2008-10-19 and 2023-07-14). Key pieces of the puzzle seem to be falling into place.
By pure coincidence, I read today about an American theologian, Max R. King (1930-2023), who would undoubtedly have nodded his head.
According to Wikipedia, “King pioneered a field of theology that he termed ‘covenant eschatology’ which most call full preterism. Within fundamentalist and conservative Evangelical contexts, he contended that Biblical eschatology was not related to the end of the space-time universe, but to the transition of the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. King offered a unique interpretation concerning the millennium as found in Revelation 20 as pertaining to the forty-year period from 30-70 AD. He called this time ‘the transition period’ from Old Covenant to New Covenant. In King’s view, this transition opened the way for the full presence of God to dwell with all of humanity.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_King_(theologian)
King’s magnus opus is his “The Cross and the Parousia of Christ” (1987). King is mentioned here:
https://www.timberlandchurch.org/articles/was-a-d-70-the-end
Josephus must have been an important source of inspiration for the early Christians, and it seems logical that the events of the year 70 were given great importance.
I do wonder how people that write such things explain to themselves why their god needed to “open the way” to allow the god to “dwell with all of humanity”. There seems to be a constant tension between an all-powerful deity and one which requires all sorts of coy and tangential methods of approaching its worshippers despite protestations that there are none but it. What is there to be scared of, to cause such tentativeness?
From the timberland link: “Realized eschatologists do not understand the proper tension between the “now” and the “not yet” because they do not fully grasp the principle of time-compression in prophecy.”
“I shall roll a 6 on this dice.”
“That’s a 3.”
“I didn’t say I would roll a 6 immediately! My prophecy was time-compressed, you see. I will roll a 6 *eventually*.”
A stage magician would be embarrassed to produce such “prophecies”.
Thanks for the reference. I see The Cross and the Parousia of Christ is publicly available at https://archive.org/details/crossparousiaofc0000maxr
Some of Mark’s ambiguities may be caused by his use of Matthew and the cuts he made to it. That may be the case with the second curiosity mentioned in the post.
That is, Mark may have taken his “but he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit” from Matthew (Mt 3:11). But in Matthew there is not the same ambiguity because he ends his gospel with Jesus commissioning the Twelve to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). In Matthew the Twelve are extensions of Jesus (“he who receives you, receives me”) so, in effect, Jesus baptizes through them.
Mark, on the other hand, is no fan of the Twelve and cuts out their final great commission. By doing so it looks like he left hanging his earlier reference to baptism by Jesus. But did he? I’m not sure, because he replaces Matthw’s angel at the tomb with a young man wearing a white robe. That may be a baptismal motif. Perhaps the idea is that Jesus, after rising from the dead, baptized the young man. After all, there could be no baptism with the Holy Spirit until Jesus died and rose from the dead.
In any case, Mark’s strange ending may be his way of getting around dependence on the Twelve. They are bumblers and are not needed as witnesses to the Risen Jesus. Anyone who has seen the risen Jesus can be a witness, and I suspect Mark would put more stock in the witness of the young man at the tomb than in the Twelve. (I wonder whatever became of that young man)
Has the case for Matthean priority been rehabilitated?
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve always pretty much assumed the Two-Document (Mk and Q) hypothesis was correct. But Goodacre put serious doubts in my mind about Q, and recently I have begun questioning the priority of Mark. (I was reading Morna Hooker’s commentary on Mark. Hooker subscribes to the Two-Document hypothesis, but in her commentary she mentioned in a footnote that BC Butler had “ably defended” Matthean priority in his 1951 book “The Originality of St Matthew”. Anyone interested can read Basil Christopher Butler’s book online at archive.org).
ChatGPT on reception of Butler’s 1951 book: https://chatgpt.com/share/69fd2dfe-7034-83ec-b67d-b15ec596cd7f
Yet does not the silence of the women at the end appear to be more than a simple device to imply that Peter and his colleagues did not get the message? (For a start, Peter had already been told by Jesus that he would go before them to Galilee after his resurrection.) But Mark is doing something (“ambiguous”?) with his motifs of responses to commands to be silent/speak. Earlier in the gospel when Jesus commanded someone to be silent, to tell no one what they had witnessed, the response was for the person to go out and declare everything. But at the end of the gospel the opposite happens: same motif reversed — command to speak followed by refusal to obey command.
That sort of thing suggests to me that Mark is doing more than simply putting down the Twelve as authorities.
Is it really so clear that the disciples did not somehow learn of the message? Was there any tradition in the church that Peter never saw the resurrected Jesus? Again, I still cannot get out of my head that Jesus and the young man indicated to Peter that he would see Jesus in Galilee — is that really an message to readers that Peter was rejected? With Matthew, Peter was already a known central witness to Jesus. But even in Galatians we read that Peter was a pillar of the church.
What effect did Mark’s gospel have anywhere if its intention was to discredit Peter?
Sorry. I guess I haven’t been clear. I don’t think Mark is denying that the Twelve ever received the message. He is just leaving that fuzzy, perhaps to ruffle some feathers. And I think his point is that even if they did eventually get the message, the Twelve are unnecessary. We have access to Jesus in lots of ways that do not require bowing to the supposed authority of the Twelve (e.g. the young man at the tomb; and the cured demoniac whom Jesus sent to the Decapolis; and the exorcist about whom Jesus commanded “Do not stop him”; and the many other people in the gospel whose faith comes off much better than that of the Twelve).
Regarding the effect Mark would have had: I think it may have been written to serve as a declaration of independence for the Pauline communities. Paul pays lip service to the Twelve but it is clear that he wants to be left alone by them. He is no less an apostle than they. He too has seen the Lord. They should stop interfering. Mark’s gospel supports his stance.
As for why the proto-orthodox ended up accepting Mark: My guess is that it gave them an additional witness/gospel and they saw that –- as long as it was lumped together with Matthew, Luke and John –- it was harmless. They would never have accepted Mark as the sole canonical gospel, because it undermines the authority of Peter and the Twelve. But when you sit it alongside the other three gospels and say that the Holy Spirit inspired all four, any danger in Mark is removed by forcing its interpretation to harmonize with the others. The Holy Spirit cannot contradict himself.
If Marcion were prior would it matter if Mark copied Matthew or the other way around or both fed off each other a bit?
I have a hard time seeing Marcion/Cerdo as earlier than Matthew or Mark. To give one example, if Mark had known Marcion/Cerdo I think he would have used the Sending out of the Seventy Disciples in his own gospel. In a sense it takes the Twelve down a notch. It dilutes their prerogative of being the only disciples Jesus sends out to the lost sheep of Israel. Mark would have loved that.
As I see it Marcion/Cerdo’s gospel tries to be conciliatory but it definitely comes down on Mark’s side. It is conciliatory in that it tones down some of Mark’s disparagement of the Twelve. And it does rectify Mark’s fuzzy ending both by having the women deliver the news of the Resurrection to the Eleven, and by having Jesus pray for Peter “that your faith fail not, and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:32). And it is willing to let the Twelve retain their thrones as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Lk 22:30)
But ultimately Marcion/Cerdo is in Mark’s corner. It does not restore the keys of the kingdom to Peter, or his power to loose and bind. It does not restore to the Twelve the prerogatives of Matthew’s great commission. It downgrades the blessing of the Twelve by Jesus, so that they have to share the blessing with everyone else who sees and hears him. (Lk 10-23-24) And, as already mentioned, they have to share the missionary spotlight with the Seventy.
From my perch the sequence that makes best sense is Matthew, Mark, and then Marcion/Cerdo (later turned into Luke).
Does not that assume that Mark’s sole interest was the Twelve. Are there not other themes in the gospel as well? An idea I am working with is that Mark was rewriting Marcion’s narrative as Jewish Scripture. It reads as a series of haggadic-type ‘midrash’ on the narratives, prophecies and psalms of the Jewish Scriptures (unlike Marcion’s narrative). I don’t know where the 70/72 would fit there.
What prompted Matthew to write his gospel, do you think?
I don’t think Mark’s sole interest is the Twelve; that just seems to be its most consistent theme, noticed not just by Weeden but by other scholars too. It stands out even more clearly when you compare Mark to Matthew.
Another Markan theme seems to be secrecy. There is secrecy in Matthew, especially concerning the identity of Jesus, but Mark takes it to another level. That secrecy is clear, for example, in the only two healings that are specific (no parallels) to Mark: The healing of the deaf and dumb man (Mk 7:31-37) and the healing of the blind man (Mk 8:22-26). In both cases Jesus takes the person aside, apart from the crowd. And in both cases there is a command from Jesus to tell no one. And there is another commonality between the two healings that probably has some significance but I’m not sure what it is: in both cases Jesus uses spittle.
Some other curious aspects: in the healing of the deaf and dumb man Mark gives the very word Jesus used: “Ephphatha” (just as earlier in his gospel Mark was the only evangelist to give us “Talitha cum”). In the healing of the blind man the cure is done in two stages and Jesus asks: “Can you see anything?” It’s the only occasion in the gospels where Jesus has to ask to see if his power was effective. And the man answers: “I see men – they look like trees”.
These two specifically Markan healings come across as magical and make me think of Morton Smith’s book “Jesus the Magician”. And in line with my suspicions about Simonian authorship of Mark, I think too of how Justin reproached Menander for his “magical art” (1st Apol. 26). But am I confident that something Simonian is going on in these two incidents? No.
As for what prompted “Matthew” to write his gospel: I would say that, assuming there was a historical Jesus, Matthew may have been prompted by his honest belief. He knew his Old Testament, but many scholars think he gets too much wrong about Judaism to have been a born Jew. If so, my guess is that he was a proselyte, a Gentile who converted to a type of Judaism that believed Jesus had died and risen. (He does mention proselytes in his gospel). And if he wrote at Antioch, it is not out of the question that he could even have been the proselyte Nicolas of Antioch.
But if there was no historical Jesus, then again I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he wrote his fiction to encourage his community in their difficult circumstances.
Forgive me if I’m overlooking at the moment something you’ve long made clear, but “what difficult circumstances” are you thinking of here? (And “what community?)
Here are some difficulties I have.
If there were a historical Jesus, why does Matthew not identify himself as an author, along with his sources, and the sorts of thing we tend to expect even ancient biographers and historians to mention? Why are other gospels written so much at odds with Matthew? Why do we not hear of a pillar rock Peter and fellow disciples until Justin — ditto for the letter of Galatians, unknown until the mid/later second century?
I’ve been thinking some more about what Neil asked me above: “What prompted Matthew to write his gospel, do you think?” My answer was that he may have written it to encourage his community in their difficult circumstances. But I’ve thought of a better answer and would like a do-over.
Matthew was prompted to write his gospel by his desire for the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. That is, Matthew believed that the reason the kingdom of heaven had not yet come was because there had not yet been sufficient holiness/ righteousness on the part of those who believed in Jesus. What was needed was an outburst of holiness to trigger the coming of God’s kingdom. That is why, for example, the Sermon on the Mount repeatedly demands that those who believe in Christ go beyond the letter of the Law, and perfect their intentions, motivations, feelings etc. And it is why the Lord’s prayer in that Sermon is an eschatological prayer, praying “Thy Kingdom come” and that the way God’s will be done on earth match the way it is done in heaven. It is why one should no longer follow what Moses allowed due to the hardness of hearts (Mt 19:8). One must go beyond that and fulfill what God originally intended. It is why too there is a need even for eunuchs, those who make themselves such on account of the kingdom of heaven (Mt 19:12). And it is why when Jesus finally enters Jerusalem he insists on the power of faith and prayer: “Everything that you ask in prayer with faith you will receive”, including moving mountains and making fig trees wither (Mt 21:22). The kingdom of heaven is at hand, but it will not arrive unless there is sufficient degree of holiness/righteousness, one that exceeds that of the leaders of the Jews (Mt 5:20). Thus the reason one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven without that degree of holiness is that the kingdom itself will not arrive without it.
The new explanation occurred to me today while I was reading what Hyam Maccoby wrote about Jesus and his disciples in Gethsamane. The rest of this comment is a quote from page 148 of his “Revolution in Judaea”:
Does this suggestion fit in with the parables in Matthew that warn against sleeping in case the Lord comes when they are not ready? Or warning that he comes like a thief in the night — with the threat that many, even half, will be caught unprepared? What are we to make of the declaration that “only the Father” knew the hour — was this meant as some code for saying he had not made up his mind yet about the hour, that it depended on how ready the church was? I also wonder if Maccoby is saying that ideally Jesus did not have to die but that if the disciples only kept awake in Gethsemane then all sin would have been dealt with by some great intervention of God — and it was only the failure of the disciples that led to plan B, the need to have Jesus crucified. But what would happen then to the template of Jesus’ death being modeled on the sacrifice of Isaac?
I have tended to think, rather, that the emphasis on perfection in Jesus’ teaching is Matthew’s way of demonstrating Christianity’s equality if not superiority to Stoic and other philosophies of the day.
Does not the Gospel of Matthew demonstrate the superiority of Christianity to both Jewish and Greek/pagan ideals and heritage? Even regarding the ideal of perfection, impossible in reality, and loving enemies…. Jesus is in same playing field here with contemporary philosophies but he “commands” what the philosophers said we should “strive for”.
Discussed a while back…..
Riley, Gregory J. “Mimesis of Classical Ideals in the Second Christian Century.” In Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity, edited by Dennis Ronald MacDonald. Trinity Press International, 2001.
Maccoby thinks there was a historical Jesus and that he did indeed expect, through the power of faith and prayer in Gethsamane, to force the coming of the kingdom. But I am thinking the Matthean Jesus may be a figure Matthew created to represent the string of those who from the time of John the Baptizer tried to bring in some kind of reign of God (e.g. Theudas, the Egyptian prophet, the son of Ananias). He may be a stand-in composite figure intended to represent them. In this scenario Matthew is answering (around CE 135?) the question: Why, despite the attempts of these heroes over the past 100 years, has the reign of God not yet come?
One or more of the historical figures may indeed have expected to force God’s hand, but Matthew has provided excuses for them through his composite. First, the previous failures were foreseen (Jesus predicts his death), and the way that he bore his foreseen sufferings actually added to his holiness/righteousness and set the example for his followers. And second, the apparent failures, however, were actually due to the insufficient faith and holiness of the followers. The followers failed to measure up to the high standard set forth by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount and exemplified by his own life, passion and death.
Thus ultimately Matthew is issuing a call to put in practice the righteousness required to bring in the kingdom of God. But since God alone knows what that required degree of righteousness is, we must “watch and pray” while we strive to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).
[I am not familiar with Gregory Riley’s article. I will try to obtain it and give it a look.]
So the parables about the Lord coming before half of the church is ready spiritually suggests that Matthew thinks one half of them being “perfect” is all that is necessary? I’ve always taken those parables as meaning “coming, ready or not”.
Meantime … 3 posts referencing Riley’s chapter: https://vridar.org/?s=Mimesis+of+Classical+Ideals+in+the+Second+Christian+Century
Others with related ideas:
Thorsteinsson, Runar M. Jesus as Philosopher: The Moral Sage in the Synoptic Gospels. Oxford University Press, 2018.
There are several more (including several by Malherbe, also Robyn Walsh’s recent Origins of Early Christian Literature), but for the notion of being perfect and loving one’s enemies, Betz listed many philosophical sources in his commentary: Betz, Hans Dieter. The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3-7:27 and Luke 6:20-49). Fortress Press, 1995.
One correction: I wrote that, according Maccoby, Jesus expected to “force” the coming of the kingdom of God. “Force” was my “shorthand”, and not a word that Maccoby used. I should have just provided a longer excerpt to let him explain in his own words. What follows is a quote from page 147 of his book:
“What was Jesus praying for so earnestly at this time? Why did he instruct his disciples to ‘watch and pray,’ an injunction he had used previously to those waiting for the coming of the kingdom of God? [Mt 13:33: Take ye heed, watch and pray: for you know not when the time is.] Why did he warn them against entering into temptation? If he was resigned to the Crucifixion and was spending the night in Gethsamane waiting for Judas to arrive with the troops to arrest him, there was no particular reason to pray or even to stay awake. And there was no particular temptation which was likely to assail the disciples while they were waiting.
On the theory outlined here, however, there was great reason to pray and to stay awake, and there was great reason to avoid temptation. For Jesus was not waiting passively in the Vale of Gethsamane for his arrest. He was expecting an awesome miracle and the appearance of the glory of God: but he must have felt that this manifestation would depend, to some extent, on his own worthiness and that of his disciples.
Jesus had not merely prophesied the coming of the kingdom of God, he had also prepared for it. He had campaigned among ‘the lost sheep of Israel,’ calling them to repentance, because he felt that the coming of God’s kingdom was being held back by Israel’s sins. Pharisee writings often stress that God’s promises to Israel are not automatically fulfilled; they depend on Israel’s worthiness and co-operation. Consequently, even though Jesus felt that the time was propitious for the coming of ‘the day of the Lord,’ he could not be quite sure. What was needed now was a last great effort of prayer.”
I’ve read the three posts referencing Riley and can readily accept that Christianity, from the time of Justin Martyr, wanted to portray Jesus as an ideal that surpassed what the pagan world had on offer. But I am not persuaded that the Jesus figure itself was created by such mimesis, especially if Matthew was the first synoptic and Baur is right about dating it to 130-134. Its author would have had bigger issues on his mind, e.g. the false Christs, the abomination of desolation, and the persecution faced by believers in Jesus who were not going along with the violence being pushed in the Bar Kochba uprising. Matthew’s solution was to push for the kind of righteousness that his Jesus commands in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus had done his part; what was lacking from Gethsamane on was sufficient righteousness on the part of his followers. It is through such righteousness, not violence, that God’s kingdom will come.
I can’t see Jesus having been created de novo to typify Hellenistic/Roman values. There was certainly “Christ worship” before the 130s.
As part of the Worldwide Church of God cult, we had it drummed into us often enough that any delay in Christ’s coming was our fault. We were not zealous, prayerful, loyal, righteous enough (yet). I still see that as an abominable mind-control weapon. At the same time we were taught to fear that Christ might come before we were ready and catch us sleeping. A perfect double-bind.
Thinking more about your argument for Matthean priority — it becomes easy to think of Mark’s ending (fleeing in fear, and silence) as a joke. Could Mark be read as a comedy?
I would not be surprised if the ending of Mark was written as a parting joke at the expense of the Twelve, but I would be surprised if the whole of Mark was intended as comedy.
But that said, — and I’m really getting speculative here -– I have at times wondered whether the Simonian Menander might have been the author of Mark. Antioch is often proposed as the provenance of Matthew and dated to around 85 CE. Justin puts Menander at Antioch but gives no indication of time. Late first century CE is often proposed. I am now thinking that if Mark is a response to Matthew, it may be that the authors of both lived in the same city at about the same time.
And the reason I bring this up is because the most famous Menander in ancient history was the comic poet of Athens who lived late fourth century BCE. That Menander is the one who is quoted in the Pauline letters at 1 Cor 15:32 (“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”) The Simonian Menander must have known about the illustrious one but, of course, that doesn’t mean he had any desire to emulate him. But while we do not know if the Simonian Menander had a sense of humor, the early heresy hunters say that his pupil, Basilides of Alexandria, definitely did. It was Basilides who gave us the laughing Jesus.
So, while I very much doubt that Mark was intended as comedy, there may be elements of humor in it, especially if it was written by a Simonian.
Don’t forget the possibilities that Mark left his gospel unfinished; or that his own ending was lost.
There are so many Ifs in these theories that none will ever be widely agreed on. No two scholars quite agree.
I think Markus Vinzent brought home to me the idea that the influence of the gospels on each other don’t form a tree, but a connective tissue. Every scribe contributed his own “corrections”. We have no idea what the “original” form of these writings looked like.
The Synoptic problem is probably hopeless.
There is a difference, in my book, between speculations about possibilities on the one hand, and serious evidence-based argument on the other. Sure there are many speculations about Mark, but a genuine argument appeals to evidence to explain other data. So if one wanted to argue seriously that the original ending of Mark was lost, one would do things like examine possible literary structures of Mark, patterns of themes etc, and if they made sense of the ending as it is or cried out for something else; another type of evidence would be to appeal to other ancient texts for something similar known to have happened; and yet another would be to explain the methods of writing and publishing books in the ancient world and explaining how an ending could be lost.
That means a serious argument will take us beyond mere “what if” or “maybe” to explain a source.
Markus Vinzent does more than propose “connective tissue” — he presents an evidence-based case for the four gospels being first and foremost responses to Marcion’s gospel. And yes, the four evangelists probably knew each other (he gives an evidence based argument, not mere speculation, for that idea) and thus probably influenced one another, but the beginning of their works is a response to Marcion’s gospel.
[Note: this comment is in reply to Neil’s question above about what I mean by “to encourage his community in their difficult circumstances.” My screen is not giving me a place at that point to “Reply”]
I’m referring to the usual scenario for Matthew which is that his community may have still considered themselves Jews but were being persecuted by the leaders of the Jews for holding beliefs beyond what was acceptable. Matthew is not really writing history. He is using his version of Jesus to defend the existence of his type of fringe Judaism. Did the Pharisees really go after a historical Jesus more than fifty years earlier the way Matthew portrays it? Who knows. But it may be Matthew just portrays it that way because he is saying to the Jewish leaders of his own day: “You hypocrites are persecuting us just the way your predecessors persecuted our Jesus.”
The usual proposed time of composition is around 85 CE, but the only thing that stands in the way of pushing that into the second century is the saying “This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled” (Mt 24:34). If that means something other than it appears to mean, then I see no problem with making that push.
As for Galatians and the Paulines: As I argued in my Simonian series of posts, I think those are mostly Simonian materials that have been manipulated in various ways to serve a new purpose. I suspect Marcion learned of them from Cerdo who had some connection to the community of the Simonian Saturnilus of Antioch. It is those Paulines more than anything else that turned a Jewish Christ into a Simonian type of Christ.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I want to be sure I am not overlooking anything from where you are coming.
Right or wrong, I am trying to approach, say, the Gospel of Matthew (or any of the gospels) from the same approach normally followed by historians who are well outside any biblical or New Testament studies. What I liked at first about Vinzent’s and Livesey’s works is that they seem to take the same approach to greater or lesser extents. (Perhaps not entirely consistently, but in the main.)
What I am trying to do is to start with where we first know about the Gospel of Matthew according to independent attestation in the historical record. That means it is first emerging in the surviving historical record around the middle of the second century.
Of course that does not mean it was only composed at that time. But it is where I prefer to start a study of the gospel. Now the story itself is set a century earlier. And of course that does not mean it was based on real events at that time, but it could have been. The only first century source that would offer independent confirmation of those narrative events is Josephus, but we know that there are problems there. So right or wrong I set Josephus aside for now. (There are other hints of “Christians” in early second century writings but they do not witness to the narrative of the gospel itself.)
To investigate the source of the narrative of Matthew’s gospel, I compare it with other literature and I see that there are numerous sections of intertextuality or mimesis with both Greco-Roman and Jewish writings. There is no hint in the narrative itself that it is derived from any eyewitnesses or community influenced by tradents. Nothing. It is simply a story in the raw, with not even a hint as to its author. It contains a lot of clearly unhistorical details, including non-human characters speaking. Its portrayal of Pilate defies all that we know about the historical Pilate. In many other ancient biographies the author offers reader some hint of where the information comes from, but here there is nothing at all.
At the same time it appears in the historical record it is evidently involved in some debate among “theologians” as to its “truth” or correctness of portrayal. It is part of a wider partisan debate.
So that’s where I begin to try to understand the gospel and its origin.
As for whether it comes from “a community”, I have no idea — although one does have to wonder if the idea of a community producing a gospel is itself part of a larger Christian myth of origins that, again, is unknown in the historical record until the mid second century. (I’m thinking of the “communities” indicated in Acts and epistles. I am also recalling a bit of what Robyn Walsh has written more recently about the gospels — though I have reservations about aspects of her argument, she does seem to hit the nail on the head when she points out that New Testament scholars picked up the “community origin” idea from nineteenth century German Romantics and the high value they placed on the “natural voices of the Volk”.)
The Gospel of Matthew does read as far more literary-sophisticated than if it derived from “a community” perspective. Often we can identify its sources in other literature (Greek, Jewish) but we have no evidence or reason to assume any of it comes from a particular theological community oral tradition. There are none of the “human” and “natural” real-world details about its Jesus that we encounter when reading about other known historical persons. It is all shaped by structures from Jewish Scriptures and other writings.
So I am not sure about how to justify setting its time of origin in the first century. There is of course the prophetic discourse of Matthew 24. We can say it was a false or failed prophecy — Jesus did not come within the generation of 70 or 30 CE. But if that prophecy were a defect that no-one would write in the middle of the second century, then how are we to explain why anyone would even preserve that prophecy into the second century and beyond? Surely if it was an embarrassment to anyone it would have been “redacted”, as they say. (Compare the different levels of embarrassments and re-writes of the baptism of Jesus across the gospels.)
I see history as pretty much just writing a story that one hopes can be justified on certain grounds. We look for plausible explanations within the constraints of the evidence. I am very open to Marcion being influenced by Cerdo or similar “Simonian/Saturnialian”. I see hints of evidence throughout. I am still trying to piece it all together — but trying to avoid any of the traditional assumptions in which NT studies are embedded, as you are, too, but from a different starting point.
Thank you for this, Neil. That does indeed seem to be the extent of our knowledge of Matthew at the moment. And it’s hard to see a way forward.
I do want to add one idea that comes to me from my new perspective on the relationship between Matthew and Mark. I now see Mark as a perhaps early 2nd century response to Matthew and with its most prominent theme being a downgrading of the authority of the Twelve and of the family of Jesus. But that clash over authority is presented in the Paulines as having occurred at Antioch at a much earlier date (in the 40s). So I am now wondering if there really was a clash earlier between the pillars and Paul. The clash may have been at Antioch in the early 2nd century between those who appealed to Peter and James (based on GMatthew) and Simonians who changed GMatthew (producing GMark) to justify their position. Sometime afterward Simonians changed Paul’s letters too, so they could appeal to him. Ultimately the proto-orthodox smoothed out everything in their own way with their Acts of the Apostles, which included a resolution in the 40s of the problems at Antioch.
Speculative I know, but something I’m mulling over.
from the other side of the room ……
Is Galatians a genuine letter or another fiction? I recall my earlier post: https://vridar.org/2012/12/01/sowing-doubt-that-an-emotional-paul-authored-galatians/
Again, we have no hint of its existence until the mid second century. And whence the Twelve anyway? And Peter? They all appear for the first time in the mid second century, iirc, with names that recall rebels in Josephus, with Peter being an obvious pun on a particular role (rock or rocky soil), twelve representing a new Israel, Paul the oddly named Saul who stood against the Twelve with his heavenly vision; . . . .
How do we determine if there is a historical background to any of this rather than myth in the making?
I don’t know the answer to your last question, but I do have an opinion about your first one. I think there are parts of Galatians that are authentic but that most of the first two chapters are not. The Paul of the first two chapters is a Simonian version of Paul who declares his independence of those “reputed to be pillars” (James, Cephas, and John) based on his having his own gospel, one that was revealed to him. “We did not yield to them even for an instant through a spirit of obedience that the liberty of the gospel might be maintained among you” (Gal. 2:5) Thus the freedom is not just from the requirement of becoming Jews in order to benefit from Christ belief, but also freedom from those claiming some kind of authority over Christ believers.
My new perspective on Mark leads me to think that gospel was the original Simonian assertion of independence. But then later someone (Cerdo?) came up with another idea: “Let’s manipulate Paul’s letters so that we can, among other things, appeal to him as a champion of our liberty.”
From another tangent, though I am sure you have well addressed this before….
Do we have reiterations of the same “myth” or scenario?
1. Simon Peter rebukes Jesus over the meaning of Christ/authority — a falling out of sorts but they are still together;
2. Simon rebukes Peter over attaining authority/power of church — a falling out though with a prayer not to be condemned;
3. Paul rebukes Peter over authority to preach gospel — a falling out but still apparently together in some way;
4. And of course the infamous Clementine myth of Peter and Simon in Rome.
Hmmmm. No, I don’t remember having addressed this before. But it did send me looking through some older Vridar posts, and I will be sending a follow-up comment today.
//They all appear for the first time in the mid second century//
Neil,but the Ignatian letter including Peter was written before this date!
You’ve missed my point. Τhere is no independent/external evidence to date them before the second century. The gospels are also dated on internal grounds to the first century. But internal grounds alone gives us possibilities only — possibilities need to be confirmed by more than circular reasoning/question beggging. SOME scholars date the Ignatians and 1 Clement et al earlier. But the external, independent evidence is where historians must always begin. New Testament methods have standards of their own.
Serious objections to the naive dating by mainliners have already been provided by Joseph Turmel long ago. Some of the works of Turmel alias Delafosse have been provided by Neil and linked here . One of the most important discoveries is the connection with heresies known only during and after Hadrian’s rule, especially the Marcionist one.
Vinzent, M. Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (Studia Patristica Supplements): 2. Peeters, 2014. 84
Just stumbled across this passage:
Eshleman, Kendra. The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Having just read a translation of . . .
. . . I have to say that the Ignatian letters were almost certainly late second century written as anti-Valentinian works to defend an ‘all encompassing/catholic church” (contra the gnostics who disqualified hylics from salvation) through a monarch-bishop — the matyrdom fiction was the guarantee of the letters being read as works of absolute divine authority.
“… the ma[r]tyrdom fiction was the guarantee of the letters being read as works of absolute divine authority.”
This is a widespread problem, no?
Did you have to pay for the Hübner article?
Here’s a translation of the relevant section (p. 68):
All of which raises an interesting question of motivation to create or fabricate martyrdoms by the later second century.
Accessed it through interlibrary loan. I could share a one off copy if requested by email.
Thanks, I managed to find the German original.
My German isn’t great, but I can see this is a sterling example of what happens when a real historian meets a century of “biblical studies”.
I googled for Bart Ehrman’s take on Hübner’s work, but it seems neither he nor his students have published one. According to Gemini, Bart assigned Hübner’s paper to grad students to review. Apparently he used it as a cautionary example of what a Respectable Biblical Scholar does _not_ do. I’m afraid Bart is just a better educated Tim O’Neill.