Gospel of Mark Archives

2026-07-03

Is Papias a Reliable Witness to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew?

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by Tim Widowfield

In a recent comment on an old post of mine concerning the overblown claims about the attestation of NT works, Robyn Goss wrote (among other things):

There is an ignored massive network of early non-biblical writings (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatious [sic] of Antioch, Papias), translations (Vetus Latina, Syriac Peshitta, Coptic Bohariic [sic], Codex Sinaiticus), and historical catalogs that document (Muratorian Fragment), and quote from the New Testament texts.

First off, I’m not sure why she listed the Codex Sinaiticus as part of the “ignored massive network,” since I mentioned it in the post and since it isn’t a translation. Perhaps we should chalk it up to the thrill of sprinting through a Gish Gallop. In fact, the translations listed do indeed “witness” to the Greek manuscripts they were translated from. But again, we know precious little about how they came to be. The who, the when, the where, and the why are all inferred.

Second, I will remind readers that my post compared the quality of attestation versus the quantity of attestation. Given a choice between the two, I’ll choose quality over quantity every time. To argue against my thesis by re-asserting the quantity of NT attestation misses the point entirely, I would think. I’ll admit that I have sometimes argued, in the Marxian tradition, that quantity can be a quality of its own, but not here.

While we’re on the subject of good, reliable attestation, let’s talk about Papias. He can hardly be part of the “ignored massive network,” since every commentary of Mark I’ve ever read (and that’s a lot) mentions him. Those writers who lean toward the apologetic (possible, ergo must be true) side of the spectrum tell us that Mark was Peter’s translator, and that he wrote down what he remembered, but not necessarily in the right order. More skeptical commentators have written similar things, but with all sorts of caveats. They acknowledge we have many unanswered questions about what Papias actually meant. Continue reading “Is Papias a Reliable Witness to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew?”

2026-03-23

Once more on Alexander and Rufus, the sons of Simon of Cyrene

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by Neil Godfrey

We are familiar enough with the claims that the mention of the sons of Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross of Jesus indicates that they were real people: the first audience of the Gospel of Mark must have known them personally because there is no other mention of them in the other gospels.

Well, I just came across the following while reading for another project . . . . .

Similarly with a certain Simon of Cyrene, a passerby coming in from the country, who is compelled to carry Jesus’s cross. Despite the fact that he is given an identification by place of origin, he is also identified through his sons, Alexander and Rufus (15:21), who are not further described. Mentioning them here in this way implies that they must be well known. But to whom? To Mark’s readers? But I would point out that it is not necessary to assume that Alexander and Rufus were in fact well known to Mark’s readers, because naming them in this way still performs the literary function of assuring the reader that the scene with Simon of Cyrene is attested by his better known sons. If Alexander and Rufus as the sons of this Simon were in fact so well known to Mark’s readers, he would not have had to mention them at all. (Miller 2017, 395)

Miller, Merrill P. 2017. “The Social Logic of the Gospel of Mark: Cultural Persistence and Social Escape in a Postwar Time.” In Redescribing the Gospel of Mark, edited by Barry S. Crawford and Merrill P. Miller. Society of Biblical Literature.

2026-02-16

The Gospel of Mark as a Dark, Honest Beginning for Confused and Disoriented Jesus Followers?

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by Neil Godfrey

If we read the Gospel of Mark as one of the foundational documents of what became “orthodox Christianity” — it is, after all, widely acknowledged to be the earliest of our canonical gospels — we might do well to read it “on its own terms”, and not through the perspectives of Matthew, Luke and John. In 2023 I attempted to explain what happens when we do this: Reading the Gospel of Mark Alone — Imagine No Other Gospels. Read alone, in isolation from the other gospels, it is most emphatically “a dark gospel” that leaves the modern reader in some despair, horror and fear:

— Jesus appears from nowhere, witnesses the rupture of the cosmos, is driven by an unexplained power, utters a call that compels hearers to drop all their livelihoods and instantly follow him, hides the meaning of his words from his audiences, rebukes both spirit and human powers who claim to know him, even tormenting those with such spirits by convulsions and screams, terrifies his followers when he displays unnatural powers as when he walks on water and stills a storm, then finally abandons his fearfully mute devotees to a messenger who tells them he’s left for Galilee.

Modern readers, however, prefer to “study” Mark’s gospel: as a gateway to historical data about Jesus, as a theological narrative that fleshed out the writings of Paul, as an attack on The Twelve, and so forth.

Let’s step back a moment. Imagine you are in an audience who had never heard a reading of a written narrative about Jesus before. Maybe, if you want to imagine Mark as a second century gospel, you can imagine, instead, that you have only previously heard Marcion’s gospel about a Jesus who was a son of a higher Good God. How are you going to react to your first hearing of the narrative about Jesus as per the Gospel of Mark?

I suggest you will hear it as a story. You will not hear it as a theological puzzle to be deciphered by a theologian, or as a stunning literary irony to be analyzed by a literary critic, or as the earliest attempt to document the life of a person of special interest to a historian.

You are going to hear a story of a Jesus no-one can quite grasp or comprehend, a Jesus who leaves his followers confused, a story of disciples whose earlier confidence had been shattered and who ended up fearful and speechless. No-one even saw the resurrected Jesus. Yet in all their confusion and disillusionment they still had faith.

Imagine if the Gospel of Mark had been written for survivors of the direst of calamities — in the wake of the events of 70 CE perhaps, but possibly even in the wake of repeated messianic failures and dashed hopes of the rebellions under Trajan, and then the final cruel desolation left by Hadrian in 135 CE. The hope many had found in John’s Apocalypse had been dashed, the earlier promise that Jesus would come had been found to be another mysterious figure of speech like all those other words of his that seemed so clear but only to “the blind”.

Can we imagine the Gospel of Mark being written for those who remained faithful despite all their failed hopes, despite the collapse of all they thought they had understood about Jesus and their own destiny as his followers?

If Marcion had responded by turning his back on the Jewish Scriptures, did “Mark” respond by inverting the supremacist promises of the Jewish scriptures, finding fulfilled victory ironically in the crucifixion?

If that was the origin of the Gospel of Mark it becomes obvious why it could not be allowed to stand as the last word. Clarity and reassuring signs of faith are necessary for a stable and enduring religion. Enter Matthew and Luke for that purpose. John got rid of apocalyptic hopes entirely and offered a faith where fulfillment was found in the here and now.

2026-02-13

Wrede Club: Some Recent Examples of “Wredegeheimnis” (1)

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by Tim Widowfield

Why is this important?

If we want an honest discussion about what Wrede got wrong or right, we need to know what he really said. Scholars often make two variations on the same mistake.

1. Claiming Wrede said something he actually never said.

2. Claiming Wrede failed to say something that he actually did say.

An honest discussion cannot arise from incorrect baseline data.

This post isn’t part of the series, “Reading Wrede Again for the First Time,” but is more or less an excursus on the state of deficient scholarship surrounding William Wrede and the Messianic Secret (das Messiasgeheimnis). I’m trying out the term Wredegeheimnis to describe the hidden or “Secret Wrede” in modern NT studies.

We’ll take a closer look at some recent examples. By the way, I don’t expect things to improve in Wrede Club. I’m not a scholar, just a guy who reads.

Reigning Champion: Wikipedia

Yes, I fully support the concept of Wikipedia, but I recognize that its execution often falls short of its potential. Wikimedia is part of the overall universe of free and open discourse, which is important now more than ever. However, the article on the Messianic Secret is a complete dog’s breakfast. I will highlight some of the more egregious mistakes below.

♦ How Did the Secrecy Motif Originate?

Wrede suggested that this theme was not historical but was an addition by the author of Mark. [Main topic, para. 2]

No. Wrede held that the author of Mark is not responsible for the theme. It was present in the sources that he had at his disposal. I must point out here that the German Wikipedia page on the Gospel of Mark gets it right.

Das Messiasgeheimnis ist eine von William Wrede erstmals als dogmatisches Konstrukt erkannte Theorie des Markusevangeliums. Er schrieb dieses jedoch der vormarkinischen Tradition zu und benannte drei Elemente dieser Theorie: Schweigegebote an Dämonen, Geheilte und Jünger, Unverständnis und Unglaube der Jünger und die Parabelbelehrung.

The Messianic Secret is a theory of the Gospel of Mark first recognized as a dogmatic construct by William Wrede. However, he attributed it to the pre-Markan tradition. He named three elements of this theory: commands of silence to demons, healed people, and disciples; the disciples’ lack of understanding and their unbelief; and his teaching in parables. (My translation, emphasis mine)

As an aside, the Encyclopaedia Britannica also gets it wrong.

According to Wrede, Mark’s solution was: Jesus always knew it but kept it a secret for the inner group. (emphasis mine)

That’s incorrect. It was never “Mark’s solution.” According to Wrede, there were at least two strands of tradition available to the author of Mark: one in which Jesus keeps his Messiahship a secret, and another in which everyone knows he’s the anointed Son of God. (Wrede also points to another source of tension against the Messianic Secret tradition, namely the fact that the author’s purpose for writing the Gospel is to prove Jesus was the Messiah! We’ll look at this point more closely in a future post.)

♦ Did Wrede Renounce Markan Priority?

…Mark was the source for Luke and Matthew. There are indeed very strong reasons for this. I will mention a few. [Wrede 1907]

The Wikipedia authors declare:

Wrede’s theory had an inherent inter-relationship with the hypothesis of Markan priority, which Wrede eventually abandoned, but some of his followers accepted. [Main topic, para. 3]

Wrede never abandoned the concept of Markan priority. The authors of this paragraph on Wikipedia have misread and cited Christology and the Synoptic Problem by Peter M. Head. They may have been confused by this sentence: Continue reading “Wrede Club: Some Recent Examples of “Wredegeheimnis” (1)”

2026-01-22

Why Jesus Was Made a Personification of Israel and the Church

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by Neil Godfrey

I have been intrigued by the idea that the Gospel of Mark narrates Jesus as a personification of the ideal Israel. What prompted the author to write about Jesus this way?

The answer to that question is found in the documents of the second century. (Bear with me: I am of the view that the Gospel of Mark was most likely written in the middle of the second century, post the Bar Kochba war, post Marcion — and in response to both.)

Justin Martyr, writing around the same time, wrote that the Jewish Bible declared the Messiah was to bear the name of “Israel”. He was referring to a prophecy in Isaiah about the Suffering Servant. A little later Heracleon, a student of Valentinus, made a similar point on the Gospel of John, that Jesus was understood to be a symbol, this time of the church.

Justin in Dialogue with Trypho, 123:9

I continued: “Again in Isaiah, if you have ears to hear it, God, speaking of Christ in parable, calls Him Jacob and Israel. He speaks thus: ‘Jacob is my servant, I will uphold Him; Israel is mine elect, I will put my Spirit upon Him, and He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry, neither shall any one hear His voice in the street: a bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench; but He shall bring forth judgment to truth: He shall shine, and shall not be broken till He have set judgment on the earth. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust.’

Heracleon (170s CE) is cited by the third century Origen as declaring that Jesus’ resurrection is the foreshadowing of the Church and its resurrection. Origen agrees, but this is a much easier link to make since it is based on the clearly symbolic motifs in the Gospel of John.

As for the Gospel of Mark, what interests me is that the idea of the messiah embodying the suffering servant of Israel was part of the discussion around the time of Marcion.

Now Marcion’s messiah or christ was not a “type” of Israel but an antithesis of everything to be found in the Jewish bible. If one had in mind to counter Marcion’s gospel, one could not do better than portray a christ who was embedded in a prophecy in Isaiah.

Hence the Gospel of Mark’s Jesus, like Israel in symbolic form, experiences

an exodus through the waters
40 days in the wilderness, tempted
giving life and healing, including to nearby gentiles
the proclaiming of the divine message
is conquered by enemies — crucified — destroyed (the rock-hewn tomb of Jesus recalls another Isaianic text about the destruction of the temple)

Many studies demonstrate this Gospel’s comprehensive intertextuality with Isaiah.

One might even think of the author quilting a life of Jesus from themes and images in Isaiah (and other OT books). Why? As a rebuttal to Marcion? As an attempt to find a new meaning in the wake of the wars against the Judeans climaxing in the years of Bar Kochba? I suspect so. Marcion’s efforts have been interpreted as inspired by the same motivation, but he went too far in opposition to the OT for some.

It is surely clear that interpreting the Gospel of Mark’s Jesus this way is not a modern concoction. It surely emerged in a time when that notion of Christ was part of the broader discussion.

2023-10-24

The Gospel of Mark’s Jesus as a Fearful – yet Merciful – God

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by Neil Godfrey

In the previous post I tried to explain my startled response when, many years ago, I first read the Gospel of Mark in a translation that muffled familiar associations with the other gospels. I recall being left with a feeling of some horror, of a Jesus who was certainly not a human-loveable Lukan figure welcoming home a prodigal son, nor a Johannine “good shepherd” nor a Matthean Jesus who promised to be with his disciples at all times.

* p. 2. Also: Hellenistic Jews and early Christians also engage with the tragedy in various and interesting ways (p.2) . . . . Dionysiac mysteries became particularly popular during the Hellenistic and Roman periods (p.31) . . . . Among ancient poets, Euripides’ popularity in antiquity was second only to that of Homer. (p.41) . . . . performances of his plays became widely accessible, including, as we shall see, to both Jews and Christians (p. 42) . . . . In addition to Euripides’ general status in antiquity, the Bacchae’s popularity in particular is also well attested. (p. 45) . . . . Given the pervasive influence and popularity of tragedy in the Greco-Roman world it is likely that the Gospel’s author knew Greek tragedy. (p. 216) — (Friesen)

** Bilby, MacDonald, Moles, Wick (see bibliography below)

My impression as an outsider reading much of the relevant scholarly literature is that most scholars seem to accept that Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is the “most human” Jesus when compared with his portrayal in the other gospels. But the more I read of Greco-Roman literature that is known to have been the literary matrix from which the gospels were composed, the harder it is for me to accept Mark’s Jesus as even the least bit genuinely “human”. The Jesus in the Gospel of Mark comes across to me very much the way a certain Greek god is depicted in literature “widely popular throughout antiquity”*.

Now I do not want to say that the author of the gospel was intentionally step-by-step modeling Jesus on Dionysus. I mean no more than that he appears to have deemed appropriate for his Jesus various Dionysian tropes that were no doubt familiar in the “wider cultural air”. Others** have written about Dionysian themes in the Gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles. But in the light of my previous post, consider:

I concluded earlier that the Gospel of Mark’s Jesus is a “terrifying figure” but I should have added that he is also a deliverer from suffering. He heals people of their diseases and their demonic torments. Dionysus is likewise a terrifying figure, one who leaves his enemies mystified and fearful over his mysterious origin and fearful powers. But he is also a comforter of those who suffer:

“For he is great in many ways, but above all it was he,
or so they say, who gave to mortal men
the gift of lovely wine by which our suffering
is stopped. And if there is no god of wine,
there is no love, no Aphrodite either,
nor other pleasure left to men.”

and

“Dionysus, son of Zeus, consummate god,
most terrible, and yet most gentle, to humankind.”

finally,

“filled with juice from vines,
suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it
comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles
of the day. There is no other medicine
for misery. And when we pour libations
to the gods, we pour the god of wine himself
that through his intercession man may win
the good things of life.”

Jesus comes as a man, a “son of man”, as does Dionysus:

“And here I stand, a god incognito,
disguised as man, beside the stream of Dirce
and the waters of Ismenus”

and having emptied himself of divinity ….

“To these ends I have laid divinity aside
and go disguised as man.”

Mark’s Jesus speaks in parables and in his last days he confounds his critics who try to trap him in his words. The god Dionysus speaks in riddles and confounds his enemies with wit. Thus :

“Your answers are designed to make me curious.” . . . “You shall regret these clever answers. . . . You wrestle well—when it comes to words” . . . “The things you say are always strange.” (Pentheus, the enemy of Dionysus, speaking to the god disguised as a man)

“The others are all blind. Only we can see.” (Tieresias, a physically blind follower of Dionysus)

On another occasion the blind prophet Tieresias explains the “true meaning” of a popular myth:

“You sneer, do you, at that story
that Dionysus was sewn into the thigh of Zeus?
Let me teach you what that really means . . . . ”

Jesus is the miracle worker above all else. So is Dionysus:

“Sir, this stranger who has come to Thebes is full
of many miracles. ”

and

“We cowherds and shepherds
gathered together, wondering and arguing
among ourselves at these fantastic things,
the awesome miracles those women [followers of Dionysus] did.”

and

“I am also told a foreigner [sc. Dionysus] has come to Thebes
from Lydia, one of those charlatan magicians”

and

“I wanted to report
to you and Thebes what strange fantastic things,
what miracles and more than miracles,
these women [worshipers of Dionysus] do.”

Jesus was mocked and humiliated. As was Dionysus. (I know of no classicist who applies the “criterion of embarrassment” to the story of Dionysus to claim that D’s story could not have been “made up” — “who would make up a story about a humiliated god?” — but must have a “historical core”.)

“For I have come
to refute that slander spoken by my mother’s sisters—
those who least had right to slander her.
They said that Dionysus was no son of Zeus,
but Semele had slept beside a man in love
and foisted off her shame on Zeus—a fraud, they sneered,
contrived by Cadmus to protect his daughter’s name.
They said she lied,”

and

“I tell you,
this god whom you ridicule shall someday have
enormous power and prestige throughout Hellas”

and

“We captured the quarry [sc. Dionysus] you sent us out to catch.
Our prey here was quite tame: refused to run,
but just held out his hands as willing as you please”

and once captured, the enemy of Dionysus announces a series of humiliating treatments, beginning with…

PENTHEUS First of all,
I shall cut off your girlish curls.

DIONYSUS My hair is holy.
My curls belong to god.

(Pentheus shears away some of the god’s curls.)”

One reason scholars claim Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is “more human than divine” is his loss of temper when confronting the hard-hearted Pharisees. Of Dionysus it is also complained that

“CADMUS Gods should be exempt from human passions.”

Those who know their Euripides will recognize the irony in this line. See https://vridar.org/2015/07/10/understanding-the-emotional-jesus-temple-tantrums-name-calling-and-grieving/ (also https://vridar.org/2020/08/04/jesus-the-logos-in-roman-stoic-philosophers-eyes/ and https://vridar.org/2019/05/04/once-more-we-rub-our-eyes-the-gospel-of-marks-jesus-is-no-human-character/ )

- Another aspect used to assert the humanity, even human sinfulness, of Jesus, is the Gospel of Mark’s straightforward introduction depicting Jesus going to John to undergo a “baptism of repentance”.

No-one should respond to this point until they have read:

Jaccottet, Anne-Françoise. “A.-F. Jaccottet, « Du Baptême de Dionysos à l’initiation Du Christ : Langage Iconographique et Identité Religieuse », in N. Belayche, J.-D. Dubois (Éd.), L’oiseau et Le Poisson. Cohabitations Religieuses Dans Les Mondes Grec et Romain, PUPS, Paris 2011, 203-225.”

As Dionysus enters into his own mysteries as a neophyte Dionysiac, so Jesus identifies with those who enter his cult through baptism. As all who follow him must take up his cross, so all who are baptized will enter into baptism with him…. But that’s another post for a later time.

My point here is that Jesus in the Gospel of Mark can, with ease, be slotted into a template that was pioneered by another god who came to the Greek world from “Asia”. It may not be irrelevant to further note that even the Jewish god Yahweh has been identified with Dionysus:

Amzallag, Nissim. “Were YHWH and Dionysus Once the Same God?” The Ancient Near East Today: Current News About the Ancient Past, August 2017. http://asorblog.org/2017/08/15/yhwh-dionysus-god/.
Escarmant, Christine. “Dionysos dieu des Juifs : la mesure du mélange,” n.d. http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marincazaou/rabelais/dionyses.html.

–0–

I have only scratched the surface of the questions arising here. Dionysus come to bring about the fall of the royal house of Thebes as Jesus might be said to presage the fall of Jerusalem and its Temple. Dionysus introduces horror — the divine power leaves his enemies confused and terrified. But one step at a time.

All of the above arose in my mind as I contemplated the question of the origins of Christianity itself. It is so easy to think that the gospel narrative originated with a miracle-working teacher who attracted followers, came to be very highly esteemed, so much so that after his death he was believed to have risen to heaven and to have been the messiah. That might make some sense if the Gospel of Luke was the earliest narrative evidence we have for Jesus. But unfortunately Luke’s gospel is not witnessed by any source until the latter half of the second century. Most scholars have concluded that the Gospel of Mark is the earliest narrative about Jesus. If so, and if the original reading of Mark that makes Jesus a fearful divinity is valid, then it’s back to the drawing board to try to figure out Christian origins. The above concept of the worship of Jesus (or Dionysus) can only make sense if there was already in existence a cult of Jesus (or Dionysus). It cannot explain the origin of that cult.

Friesen, Courtney J. P. Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians. Tü̈bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015.

Other:

Bilby, Mark G. “The First Dionysian Gospel:: Imitational and Redactional Layers in Luke and John.” In Classical Greek Models of the Gospels and Acts, edited by Mark G. Bilby, Michael Kochenash, and Margaret Froelich, 3:49–68. Studies in Mimesis Criticism. Claremont Press, 2018.
MacDonald, Dennis. The Dionysian Gospel: The Fourth Gospel and Euripides. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. https://www.scribd.com/book/344902292/The-Dionysian-Gospel-The-Fourth-Gospel-and-Euripides.
Moles, John. “Jesus and Dionysus in ‘The Acts Of The Apostles’ and Early Christianity.” Hermathena, no. 180 (2006): 65–104.
Wick, Peter. “Jesus Gegen Dionysos? Ein Beitrag Zur Kontextualisierung Des Johannesevangeliums.” Biblica 85 (2004): 179–98.

All quotes from Euripides’ Bacchae are from:

Griffith, Mark, Glenn W. Most, David Grene, and Richmond Lattimore, eds. “The Bacchae.” In Greek Tragedies 3: Aeschylus: The Eumenides; Sophocles: Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus; Euripides: The Bacchae, Alcestis, Third edition., 278–374. Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

2023-10-22

Reading the Gospel of Mark Alone — Imagine No Other Gospels

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by Neil Godfrey

The Gospel of Mark is a thoroughly dark gospel when Mark 16:8 [And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid] is read as the original conclusion of the gospel. Reasons for accepting this verse as the original ending have been addressed in other posts. See Ending of the Gospel of Mark (16:8) — ANNOTATED INDEX

* On the one place in the Gospel of Mark where Nazareth is mentioned, see https://vridar.org/2012/12/05/bart-ehrmans-unture-claims-about-the-nazareth-arguments-2/#nazareth

I can never forget the first time I read the Gospel of Mark in a modern translation — thus removed from familiar semantic reminders of the other gospels, or at best only muted echoes — and being deeply disturbed by its portrayal of Jesus.

Here was a Jesus alien to this world, at home in the world of heavenly voices and demonic spirits, not only incomprehensible to humans but deliberately speaking in mysteries to leave them blindly uncomprehending. Even his followers had no knowledge of who he was — except for a partial and dim glimpse towards the end — and deserted him in his climactic hour. Mark’s Jesus had some foreboding power over them: they unnaturally dropped all to follow him, a mysterious stranger, who simply “came to Galilee”* without explanation about his identity or origins. The only direct introduction the reader is given is a voice from heaven after his baptism. He does not “go” into the wilderness but is “driven” by a spirit into the wilderness where he associates with wild beasts, Satan and angels. When he calls his first disciples, as though hypnotised, they instantly drop all and follow him. When he commands the storm to cease and drives out a legion of demons from a wild man among rocky tombs his disciples and the people of the region stand back in fear of him, the latter even imploring him to go away. The people react the same way as the demons — begging him to leave them alone. Multitudes flock to him from afar to have demons cast out and to be healed. But how they know about this mysterious figure is not explained. The narrative follows the tropes of Israel and the Exodus in the Pentateuch and Isaiah. He is said to teach with authority but the crowds are not permitted to understand his parables and his message is never divulged to the reader. When he appears in his “real glory” on the mountain his closest disciples are totally confused. They remain blind to what his mission is all about. That mission is not to “save” and “enlighten” in any narrative sense but to die under the darkened sky in the middle of the day, deserted even by God, while the temple veil is mysteriously torn apart just as the sky had been torn apart at his baptism. Yet there is another kind of murky darkness even at the moment of his death since read strictly grammatically it is Simon of Cyrene — another mysterious stranger who appears out of nowhere — who is crucified. Simon appears to be introduced as a cipher for Jesus — another mystery. Ciphers for Jesus are found elsewhere in this gospel. Jesus is buried in a tomb “hewn from rock” (recalling Isaiah’s depiction of the fallen temple as a grave hewn from rock), and we recall the way the companions of the paralyzed man “hewed” a hole in the roof to allow their friend to be lowered into the house to be raised up. The paralyzed man is healed and walks out despite the earlier image of the door to the house being totally blocked. If a mature man of the wilderness and in wild clothing opened the gospel, it is closed by a youth in fine clothing within the tomb announcing that the mysterious figure of Jesus has again disappeared and returned to Galilee. Just as persons who had once been commanded to be silent felt compelled to speak out about what Jesus had done, so now those commanded to speak out are silenced by their own terror.

This is a dark gospel. Its Jesus is a terrifying and unnatural figure who does not belong to this world. His presence leaves others blinded and fearful. That includes his closest followers.

As a naturalistic narrative it makes no sense. Read in the context of the other gospels, however, the reader resolves all of the cognitive dissonances with injected explanations. The disciples had heard Jesus speak before and knew of him before he called them. The disciples struggle to understand but in the end they do grasp what it was all about, especially when Jesus clarifies it all after his resurrection. Even before then, we imagine Jesus teaching plainly about high spiritual values. And so on. But that narrative is not found in Mark. It is read into Mark from the perspective of the later gospels.

Mark’s Jesus is a terrifying and incomprehensible figure of unknown origin and clearly one who is a stranger in this world. His narrative evokes the images and tropes, artificially juxtaposed, of the Israel and prophets of the Jewish Scriptures.

I have lately imagined Jesus here as a personification of an idealized Israel but reflecting again on Mark’s presentation I have to think that that view does not fully explain this Jesus. — Unless, perhaps, we have in Mark an attempted personification of Daniel’s heavenly “son of man” figure (who first appeared as a metaphorical figure alongside the metaphors of wild beasts, the beasts representing gentiles and the son of man Israel).

2023-09-28

Updated file

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Since uploading the translated file of Gustav Volkmar’s Mark and the Synopsis of the Gospels I have made a few additions, corrections and clearer translations to it. I will be regularly updating this file over the next however long so check regularly for the latest version if you are reading or consulting it. The latest version is updated today, 28th September. There will be more updated versions. You may need to clear your cache each time to be sure you open or download the most recent version.

http://vridar.info/xorigins/Volkmar/Volkmar-Mark1876.pdf

2023-09-25

Gustav Volkmar — a second translated work

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by Neil Godfrey

volkmar 218x300 — Gustav Volkmar (wikidata)

Two weeks ago I posted my notice of a translation of Gustav Volkmar’s 1857 study of the Gospel of Mark that had been written for a general audience. This post is to notify interested readers of the availability of a translation of his far more academic 1876 work, Mark and the Synopsis of the Gospels according to the Documentary Text and the History of the Life of Jesus. Volkmar was clearly devoted to Jesus as the historical figure who changed the world but his study of the gospel narratives is intriguing for its scholarly and pioneering approach to identifying the sources of the Gospel of Mark, including his view that it was in part a reaction against the Book of Revelation. See the extract below of an essay by Anne Vig Skoven for further details.

Below is a copy of the static page that is now available in the right hand margin of this blog.

I have now translated two of Gustav Volkmar’s works:

The Religion of Jesus (1857);
Mark and the Synopsis of the Gospels (1876).

Gustav Volkmar (1809-1893) has been referenced a few times in this blog but the most detailed synopsis of his views on the Gospel of Mark came from a post by Roger Parvus: A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 16: Mark as Allegory

The following notes are taken from

Skoven, Anne Vig. “Mark as Allegorical Rewriting of Paul: Gustav Volkmar’s Understanding of the Gospel of Mark.” In Mark and Paul. Part II, For and against Pauline Influence on Mark: Comparative Essays, edited by Eve-Marie Becker, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and Mogens Müller, 13–27. Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Für Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Und Die Kunde Der Älteren Kirche; Volume 199. Berlin, Germany ; Boston, Massachusetts: De Gruyter, 2014. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110314694.13/html?lang=en
.
[Anne Vig Skoven who wrote this essay was a PhD student at the University of Copenhagen until her tragic, premature death in 2013]

Unlike exegetes of the patristic tradition and also unlike most of 20th century scholarship, biblical scholars of the 19th century were not foreign to the idea that Paulinism was to be found in the Gospel of Mark. The founder of the so-called Tubingen School, Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), for instance, regarded the Gospel of Mark as a synthesis of Petrine and Pauline traditions. . . .

In 1857, the German exegete Gustav Hermann Joseph Philipp Volkmar (1809-93) characterized the Gospel of Mark as a Pauline gospel. Although Mark’s story was concerned with Jesus’ life and death, it was also, so Volkmar argued, permeated by Pauline theology. During his lifetime, Volkmar remained a solitary figure, and David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) once considered him a “närriger Kauz” [= a ludicrous little owl]. Nevertheless, at the end of the 19th century knowledge of Volkmar’s thesis and writings was widespread among German speaking scholars. His thesis drove a wedge into German biblical scholarship; Adolf Jülicher (1857-1938) and William Wrede (1859-1906) both appreciated Volkmar’s work, Albert Schweizer (1875-1965) and his student Martin Werner (1887-1964) did not. . . .

. . . . From 1833 to 1852, he taught in various Gymnasien, in which he primarily worked within the field of philology and classical studies. In 1850 he published a book on Marcion and the Gospel of Luke, in which he claimed against Baur and Albrecht Ritschl (1822- 1889) that Marcion’s gospel was a rewriting of Luke.’ According to Adolf Jülicher, Volkmar had deserved a chair for this – today widely accepted – thesis. However, a series of dramatic events prevented that. Due to church political controversies, Volkmar was arrested in the classroom in 1852 and charged with lese majesty and dismissed from his job. In 1853, he was called lo Zürich where he was finally appointed professor of New Testament studies in 1863. In Zürich he published the works which are of special relevance to the present study:

Die Religion Jesu und ihre erste Entwickelung nach dem gegenwärtigen Stande der Wissenschaft (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1857); a popular work, which introduced Volkmar’s thesis of Mark as a Pauline gospel.

Die Evangelien, oder Marcus und die Synopsis der kanonischen und ausserkanonischen Evangelien nach dem ältesten Text mit historisch-exegetischem Commentar (Leipzig: Ludw. Fr. Fues Verlag, 1870); a scholarly commentary on the Gospel of Mark, in which Volkmar, against Baur, forwarded his thesis that Mark was the first gospel, Luke the second and Matthew only the third. The commentary was republished in a slightly edited second edition with a new title in:

Marcus und die Synopse der Evangelien nach dem urkundlichen Text und das Geschichtliche vom Leben Jesu (Zürich: Verlag von Caesar Schmidt, 1876).

In addition to Volkmar’s traditional commentaries on the Markan text, the books from 1870/76 offer an early reception history of the Markan narratives. . . . .

In his biographical sketch of Gustav Volkmar from 1908, Adolf Jülicher characterizes Volkmar as an exegete whose work was framed to the one side by Baur’s Tendenztheorie and to the other side by Strauss’ scepticism (772 f). Yet, he differs from both schools on two important issues: historicity and Markan priority. With regard to Strauss, Volkmar welcomes his critique of the rationalistic and harmonizing exegesis of early 19th century scholarship. But he is also critical of Strauss’ concept of the gospel narratives as mythoi, instead he prefers the term “Poësie”. Unlike Strauss Volkmar emphasizes the historicity of the gospel narratives.Yet, his understanding of historicity, as well as his method are closer to those of 20th century redaction criticism than to the Leben Jesu Forschung of his own century. With regard to the Tübingen School, Volkmar treats the early Christian literature as Tendenzschriften. His overall project was to reconstruct the history of the gospel traditions as a reflection of the developments in early Christianity. But unlike the Tübingen exegetes, he accepted, as already mentioned, the thesis of Markan priority. Consequently, he rejected the idea of an “Ur-Evangelium” which was needed for the Tübingen explanation of the gospel relations. Likewise he rejected the idea of a Spruchbuch or Schriftquelle (1870, vili-xi; 1876, 646) – later identified as Q. According to Volkmar, Mark’s only sources were: the Old Testament writings, four Pauline letters (Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians), the oral tradition of early Christian communities – and, surprisingly, Revelation.

(pp 13-16)

The works I have translated and made available here are Volkmar’s 1857 Die Religion Jesu and Marcus und die Synopse der Evangelien (1876)

The Religion of Jesus
and its first development according to
the current state of scholarly knowledge

Mark and the Synopsis of the Gospels
according to the Documentary Text
and the History of the Life of Jesus

2023-09-08

Finding Paul in the Gospel of Mark — Volkmar translation

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Here is a copy of what I have posted as a standalone page — see the right side margin under Pages and scroll down to Gustav Volkmar.

. . . .

The following notes are taken from

Skoven, Anne Vig. “Mark as Allegorical Rewriting of Paul: Gustav Volkmar’s Understanding of the Gospel of Mark.” In Mark and Paul. Part II, For and against Pauline Influence on Mark: Comparative Essays, edited by Eve-Marie Becker, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and Mogens Müller, 13–27. Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Für Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Und Die Kunde Der Älteren Kirche; Volume 199. Berlin, Germany ; Boston, Massachusetts: De Gruyter, 2014. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110314694.13/html?lang=en
.
[Anne Vig Skoven who wrote this essay was a PhD student at the University of Copenhagen until her tragic, premature death in 2013]

Unlike exegetes of the patristic tradition and also unlike most of 20th century scholarship, biblical scholars of the 19th century were not foreign to the idea that Paulinism was to be found in the Gospel of Mark. The founder of the so-called Tubingen School, Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), for instance, regarded the Gospel of Mark as a synthesis of Petrine and Pauline traditions. . . .

In 1857, the German exegete Gustav Hermann Joseph Philipp Volkmar (1809-93) characterized the Gospel of Mark as a Pauline gospel. Although Mark’s story was concerned with Jesus’ life and death, it was also, so Volkmar argued, permeated by Pauline theology. During his lifetime, Volkmar remained a solitary figure, and David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) once considered him a “närriger Kauz” [= a ludicrous little owl]. Nevertheless, at the end of the 19th century knowledge of Volkmar’s thesis and writings was widespread among German speaking scholars. His thesis drove a wedge into German biblical scholarship; Adolf Jülicher (1857-1938) and William Wrede (1859-1906) both appreciated Volkmar’s work, Albert Schweizer (1875-1965) and his student Martin Werner (1887-1964) did not. . . .

. . . . From 1833 to 1852, he taught in various Gymnasien, in which he primarily worked within the field of philology and classical studies. In 1850 he published a book on Marcion and the Gospel of Luke, in which he claimed against Baur and Albrecht Ritschl (1822- 1889) that Marcion’s gospel was a rewriting of Luke.’ According to Adolf Jülicher, Volkmar had deserved a chair for this – today widely accepted – thesis. However, a series of dramatic events prevented that. Due to church political controversies, Volkmar was arrested in the classroom in 1852 and charged with lese majesty and dismissed from his job. In 1853, he was called lo Zürich where he was finally appointed professor of New Testament studies in 1863. In Zürich he published the works which are of special relevance to the present study:

Die Religion Jesu und ihre erste Entwickelung nach dem gegenwärtigen Stande der Wissenschaft (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1857); a popular work, which introduced Volkmar’s thesis of Mark as a Pauline gospel.

Die Evangelien, oder Marcus und die Synopsis der kanonischen und ausserkanonischen Evangelien nach dem ältesten Text mit historisch-exegetischem Commentar (Leipzig: Ludw. Fr. Fues Verlag, 1870); a scholarly commentary on the Gospel of Mark, in which Volkmar, against Baur, forwarded his thesis that Mark was the first gospel, Luke the second and Matthew only the third. The commentary was republished in a slightly edited second edition with a new title in:

Marcus und die Synopse der Evangelien nach dem urkundlichen Text und das Geschichtliche vom Leben Jesu (Zürich: Verlag von Caesar Schmidt, 1876).

In addition to Volkmar’s traditional commentaries on the Markan text, the books from 1870/76 offer an early reception history of the Markan narratives. . . . .

In his biographical sketch of Gustav Volkmar from 1908, Adolf Jülicher characterizes Volkmar as an exegete whose work was framed to the one side by Baur’s Tendenztheorie and to the other side by Strauss’ scepticism (772 f). Yet, he differs from both schools on two important issues: historicity and Markan priority. With regard to Strauss, Volkmar welcomes his critique of the rationalistic and harmonizing exegesis of early 19th century scholarship. But he is also critical of Strauss’ concept of the gospel narratives as mythoi, instead he prefers the term “Poësie”. Unlike Strauss Volkmar emphasizes the historicity of the gospel narratives.Yet, his understanding of historicity, as well as his method are closer to those of 20th century redaction criticism than to the Leben Jesu Forschung of his own century. With regard to the Tübingen School, Volkmar treats the early Christian literature as Tendenzschriften. His overall project was to reconstruct the history of the gospel traditions as a reflection of the developments in early Christianity. But unlike the Tübingen exegetes, he accepted, as already mentioned, the thesis of Markan priority. Consequently, he rejected the idea of an “Ur-Evangelium” which was needed for the Tübingen explanation of the gospel relations. Likewise he rejected the idea of a Spruchbuch or Schriftquelle (1870, vili-xi; 1876, 646) – later identified as Q. According to Volkmar, Mark’s only sources were: the Old Testament writings, four Pauline letters (Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians), the oral tradition of early Christian communities – and, surprisingly, Revelation.

(pp 13-16)

The work I have translated and made available here is Volkmar’s 1857 Die Religion Jesu. Perhaps I will also be able to make either his 1870 or 1876 work available in time.

The Religion of Jesus
and its first development according to
the current state of scholarly knowledge

2023-08-28

Another Pioneering Work for Markan Priority / Gospel History Now Translated into English

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

I have uploaded new files containing an English translation of Christian Hermann Weisse‘s Gospel History (Die evangelische geschichte, kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitet) on Vridar.info. Weisse published his case for the priority of the Gospel of Mark at the same time as, but independently of, Christian Gottlob Wilke.

I have added a static page link to these files — alongside the pages for translations of the works of Christian Gottlob Wilke and Bruno Bauer.

Thanks to Paul Trejo for prompting me to undertake this most enjoyable and profitable task.

Christian Hermann WEISSE — Translated into English

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Christian Hemann Weisse’s two-volume work pioneering the case for the priority of the Gospel of Mark — Die evangelische geschichte=Gospel History — is now translated into English. See vridar.info for details.

The source texts that I used for the translation are on archive.org: Volume 1 and Volume 2.

The English translation PDF file, volume 1 is no more than 7 MB — download here.

Volume 2 is no more than 6 MB — download here.

For the sake of completeness I have added a translation of Weisse’s corrections to his volumes, although I also applied the corrections to the main files. This page should be consulted when comparing the source text in archive.org with the English translation I have supplied: Weisse – Errata and CC Licence.

2023-07-17

One more scene to delete from the original Gospel narrative?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Correggio,_giovane_che_fugge_dalla_cattura_di_Cristo — Antonio da Correggio, The Betrayal of Christ, with a soldier in pursuit of Mark the Evangelist, c. 1522 (Wikimedia)

How much has been written about that young man fleeing naked from those who came to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane — how many literary analyses, how many theological interpretations. . . . But what if. . . .

Here is the passage — in Mark 14

43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.

44 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.”50Then everyone deserted him and fled.

51 A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, 52 he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.

Strange details stimulate creative imaginations and I once wrote of a view known to many — that the youth was to be identified with the young man in the tomb after Jesus’ resurrection: That Mysterious Young Man in the Gospel of Mark.

Renowned literary critic Frank Kermode wrote about this young fellow in The Genesis of Secrecy and compared his strange intrusion into the narrative to the stranger in the Macintosh in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Kermode begins with Joyce:

Let me remind you about the Man in the Macintosh. He first turns up at Paddy Dignam’s funeral, in the Hades chapter. Bloom wonders who he is. “Now who is that lanky looking galoot over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I’d like to know?” And Bloom reflects that the presence of this stranger increases the number of mourners to thirteen, “Death’s number.” “Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn’t in the chapel, that I’ll swear.” . . . (p. 50)

After some discussion K comes to the next instance of a cryptic character appearing suddenly out of nowhere….

“And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.” And that is all Mark has to say about this young man.

Kermode continues:

The difficulty is to explain where the deuce he popped up from. One way of solving it is to eliminate him, to argue that he has no business in the text at all. Perhaps Mark was blindly following some source that gave an inconsistent account of these events, simply copying it without thought. Perhaps somebody, for reasons irrecoverably lost, and quite extraneous to the original account, inserted the young man later. Perhaps Matthew and Luke omitted him [if they had him in their copies of Mark] because the incident followed so awkwardly upon the statement that all had fled. [It is also conjectured that the Greek verb translated as “followed,” sunekolouthei, might have the force of “continued to follow,” though all the rest had fled.*] Anyway, why is the youth naked? Some ancient texts omit the phrase epi gumnou, which is not the usual way of saying “about his body” and is sometimes called a scribal corruption; but that he ran away naked [gumnos] when his cloak was removed is not in doubt. So we have to deal with a young man who was out on a chilly spring night (fires were lit in the high priest’s courtyard) wearing nothing but an expensive, though not a warm, shirt. “Why,” asks one commentator, “should Mark insert such a trivial detail in so solemn a narrative?” ** And, if the episode of the youth had some significance, why did Matthew and Luke omit it? We can without difficulty find meanings for other episodes in the tale (for instance, the kiss of Judas, or the forbidding of violent resistance, which makes the point that Jesus was not a militant revolutionist) but there is nothing clearly indicated by this one. . . . (pp 55f)

* Kermode cites Taylor’s commentary, but compare also one of the points I copied recently from Wilke
** cites Cranfield’s commentary

Kermode lists common explanations and one of his own (my formatting):

If the episode is not rejected altogether, it is usually explained in one of three ways.

First, it refers to Mark’s own presence at the arrest he is describing. Thus it is a sort of reticent signature, like Alfred Hitchcock’s appearances in his own films, or Joyce’s as Macintosh. This is not widely believed, nor is it really credible.

Secondly, it is meant to lend the whole story verisimilitude, an odd incident that looks as if it belongs to history-like fortuity rather than to a story coherently invented – the sort of confirmatory detail that only an eyewitness could have provided – a contribution to what is now sometimes called l’effet du réel. We may note in passing that such registrations of reality are a commonplace of fiction; in their most highly developed forms we call them realism.

Thirdly, it is a piece of narrative developed (in a manner not unusual, of which I shall have something to say later) from Old Testament texts, notably Genesis 39:12 and Amos 2:16. Taylor, with Cranfield concurring, calls this proposition “desperate in the extreme.”

And his own “incorrect” option?

I suppose one should add a fourth option, which is, as with Macintosh, to give up the whole thing as a pseudoproblem, or anyway insoluble; but although commentators sometimes mention this as a way out they are usually prevented by self-respect and professional commitment from taking it.

That one hurts. A problem without a solution and thus not a real problem?

But what if….?

But Christian Gottlob Wilke whose searching in the early nineteenth century for the original gospel led to the now widely accepted view that the Gospel of Mark was the first written of our canonical gospels believed that someone for reasons unknown, or maybe for the sake of one of the options above, set forth reasons he believed the episode could not have been penned by the original author.

Wilke’s reasons for proposing to cut the scenario out of the original account:

1. the larger passage is about the fleeing of the disciples when the authorities come to arrest Jesus — the flight of the young man is an irrelevant intrusion

2. the account of the flight of the young man is out of place in the way the story is worded: it suggests the authorities were attempting to arrest the followers of Jesus before the arrest of Jesus

3. the point of the story is to tell us that only one person followed Jesus, viz Peter.

4. the story begins with the express statement that Jesus went with the twelve disciples only, and then says that it was those twelve who fled — leaving the introduction of the young man out of context.

Bruno Bauer drew attention to Wilke‘s conclusion and added that no other evangelist thought it fit to repeat the episode — suggesting it was not there to begin with.

I would add that Matthew loved to bring in as many explicit prophecy fulfillments as he could and even he passed up this opportunity to refer to the Amos prophecy of the flight of the youth naked.

It would follow, then, if we accept the above factors, that it was never part of the original gospel after all.

Of course, even if it were not part of the original narrative, we have no way of knowing if early Christians who liked Mark’s gospel thought the addition to be an improvement. Maybe even the author himself was persuaded to add it at some later point? We simply don’t know.

Wilke, Christian Gottlob. Der Urevangelist oder exegetisch kritische Untersuchung über das Verwandtschaftsverhältniss der drei ersten Evangelien. Dresden ; Leipzig : Gerhard Fleischer, 1838. http://archive.org/details/derurevangelisto0000wilk.

2023-07-16

God reflects: “Oh dear, I didn’t mean for that bit to go into the Bible”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

⁴⁴Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” ⁴⁵Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. ⁴⁶The men seized Jesus and arrested him. ⁴⁷Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. — Mark 14

The capture of Christ mg 1674 1024x701 — A depiction of Peter striking Malchus (c. 1520, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon)

I came across a thought-provoking questioning of the authenticity of that Gospel detail describing the disciples carrying swords as they accompanied Jesus into Gethsemane while translating a famous nineteenth century work by Christian Gottlob Wilke. (“Famous” because it was in Der Urevangelist that Wilke established the case for the priority of the Gospel of Mark.) Wilke was unable to accept this scene of the sword wielding disciple (the Gospel of John attributes the action to the typically impulsive Peter) formed part of the original narrative. Here are his reasons:

Jesus expected that night, as the common account of Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27 tells us, only acts of cowardice from the disciples, and the same account follows through on this explicit expectation when it depicts all the disciples fleeing (Matt 26:56, Mark 14:50.) – evidence that the narrator had only planned to carry out the word of the prediction, and that therefore there was no question of an attempted resistance.

The sword is introduced to portray the disciples as resisting the arrest of Jesus — a detail that stands at odds with the theme of prophetic fulfilment that the author has been establishing.

Notice, too, how more naturally the narrative flows once this detail is removed. We begin with Jesus returning from his prayer and speaking to his disciples:

42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.

44 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” 50 Then everyone deserted him and fled.

Is it not strange that the author has Jesus addressing those who have arrested him while making no mention at all of the act that actually belies his words. Jesus implies that his own followers have not come “with swords and clubs” and have not performed any act of rebellion. So how could the author have managed to introduce this episode without any rebuke or explanation from Jesus?

The Jesus we find in the Gospel of Mark, Wilke points out, otherwise consistently addresses any specific act of his disciples. But here he seems not to have noticed what they have just done. Rather, his words indicate that his disciples have fearfully stood by before running to avoid the same fate as Jesus.

If a subsequent curator of the Gospel did add such a detail, one does wonder about the circumstances of their time. Were some Christians justifying armed resistance?

(Wilke makes his case with somewhat more technical detail by pointing to various emphases in the Greek words relating to the disciples fleeing and a more detailed discussion of the sequence of the phrases.)

2023-07-14

More Ambiguities in the Gospel of Mark – and How to Account for Them

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

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.

⁵and having entered into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting . . . .
⁶And he saith to them, `Be not amazed, ye seek Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified: he did rise — he is not here; . . . .
⁷and go, say to his disciples, and Peter, that he doth go before you to Galilee; . . . .’
⁸And, 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:

⁸I 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?

³⁸and 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?’
³⁹And 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, . . . .
³⁰Verily 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

⁹He parted the heavens and came down;
    dark clouds were under his feet.
¹⁰He mounted the cherubim and flew;
    he soared on the wings of the wind.
¹¹He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—
    the dark rain clouds of the sky.
¹²Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
    with hailstones and bolts of lightning. . . .

⁴³You 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.
²The 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.

Brooklyn_Museum_-_Christ_Appears_on_the_Shore_of_Lake_Tiberias_(Apparition_du_Christ_sur_les_bords_du_lac_de_Tibériade)_-_James_Tissot — Jesus appears on shore of “sea” of Galilee

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.

A “Playful” Ambiguity in the Gospel of Mark

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

The Gospel of Mark is often ambiguous and disconcerting, but whether the intention of its author was “play” I doubt. Recently I was pulled up while reading an article about an ancient heresy that asserted Jesus was not real flesh but spirit in the guise of flesh, and that the one who was crucified was Simon of Cyrene, the one said in the synoptic gospels to have carried the cross of Jesus to Golgotha. — But none of that startled me because it is all well known. Rather, what pulled me up was the author’s reference to the Gospel of Mark 15:21f as an

overall playful discourse of the multiple and mistaken identities on stage during the Passion. (Hoklotubbe p. 57)

Ambiguity in the Gospel of Mark was not a new insight but what was new-ish for me was reading this notion in the context of a discussion about Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross of Jesus.

Before explaining why, let’s get orientated. Here is the passage in the Gospel of Mark from Young’s Literal Translation:

²⁰and when they [had] mocked him, they took the purple from off him, and clothed him in his own garments, and they led him forth, that they may crucify him.

²¹And they impress a certain one passing by — Simon, a Cyrenian, coming from the field . . . . — that he may bear his cross,

²²and they bring him to the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, `Place of a skull;’

²³and they were giving him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, and he did not receive.

²⁴And having crucified him . . . .

Read the above carefully and ask yourself: whom do these verses say is being crucified?

Let’s backtrack a little. The quote I cited spoke of multiple mistaken identities during the Passion. Indeed, many of us know of Pilate asking the mob if he should release to them Barabbas instead of Jesus — the name Barabbas meaning “son of the father”. Jesus, of course, is known as the Son of the Father (God) among the mainstream faithful. The mob chose the wrong “son of the father”.

During the first trial of Jesus before the high priest he was asked if he were the Messiah. Mark 14:61-64

⁶¹Again the chief priest was questioning him, and saith to him, `Art thou the Christ — the Son of the Blessed?’

⁶²and Jesus said, `I am; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power, and coming with the clouds, of the heaven.’

⁶³And the chief priest, having rent his garments, saith, `What need have we yet of witnesses?

⁶⁴Ye heard the evil speaking, what appeareth to you?’ and they all condemned him to be worthy of death

Jesus is asked if he is the Messiah but his audience understands his answer to be a lie.

Then at the opening of the trial before Pilate, Jesus was asked if he was the king of the Jews but Jesus curiousily replied, “You say it”. Then in the subsequent mocking of Jesus the soldiers pretend that he is the king — all highly ironical for the faithful reader of the gospel.

So yes, there is ambiguity aplenty over the identity of Jesus in Mark’s Passion narrative.

Surely, though, there can be no doubt that the gospel intended the readers to understand it was Jesus, and not Simon, who was crucified. Of that I can have no doubt at all since it was the clear intent of the gospel narrative from the opening verse of the opening chapter.

But we know that earlier in the narrative Jesus had spoken of the necessity for his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him. Recall the time Jesus elicited multiple confusions over his identity before instructing Peter (originally named Simon) to take up his cross and follow Jesus with it. Mark 8…

²⁷And Jesus went out with His disciples into the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He asked His disciples, saying unto them, “Who do men say that I am?”

²⁸And they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets.”

²⁹And He said unto them, “But whom say ye that I am?” And Peter answered and said unto Him, “Thou art the Christ.”

³⁰And He charged them that they should tell no man of Him.

³¹And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and by the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

³²And He spoke that saying openly. And Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him.

³³But when He had turned about and looked on His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get thee behind Me, Satan; for thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.”

³⁴And when He had called the people unto Him with His disciples also, He said unto them, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

Was the author of the Gospel of Mark being careless or subtle when he left the identity of the one being nailed to the cross open to ambiguity?

²⁰. . . . and they led him [sc. Jesus] forth, that they may crucify him.

²¹And they impress a certain one passing by — Simon, a Cyrenian, coming from the field . . . . — that he may bear his cross,

²²and they bring him to the place Golgotha . . . .

²⁴And having crucified him . . . .

On the face of it, the immediate literal meaning is that they crucified Simon, but we know, of course, that it was really Jesus who was crucified.

Compare other ambiguities in this gospel:

Was the daughter of Jairus really dead or only in a deep sleep? It’s in Mark chapter 5:

²²Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. ²³He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” ²⁴So Jesus went with him. . . .

³⁵. . . . some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

³⁶. . . . Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” . . . .

³⁸When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. ³⁹He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” ⁴⁰But they laughed at him. . . . .

⁴¹He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” . . . . ⁴²Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around . . . .

Is the girl asleep or dead? Or is the author telling us through the ambiguity that there is no substantial difference between sleep and death?

Does the intended reader imbibe a similar message when they read about Simon taking the cross of Jesus … “and they crucified him”? The author could have easily and quite naturally have said, “And they bring Jesus to the place Golgotha….” instead of leaving the reader to do a mental double-flip to assume that he is no longer talking about Simon of Cyrene.

Confession time. I am attracted to the hypothesis of Andreas Bedenbender that the Gospel of Mark in many respects draws the inspiration for its narrative from the Jewish War of 66-70 CE. See The Crucifixion of Jesus as Implicit History of the Jewish War.

Many exegetes have further argued that this gospel draws heavily upon the letters of the apostle Paul. If so, we have good reason to believe that our author is deliberately telling readers that the crucifixion of Jesus has meaning only insofar as it means the crucifixion — the putting to “death” of the flesh — of all his followers.

Hoklotubbe, Chris. “What Is Docetism?” Re-Making the World: Christianity and Categories. Essays in Honor of Karen L. King, January 1, 2019. https://www.academia.edu/55282211/What_is_Docetism.

This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

-- Paul Trejo, M.A., - November 2022
Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
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"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

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-- Timothy Bagley, - November 2024
"Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

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It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

-- Peter Kirby, - May 2023

Neil Godfrey on “Other criteria are required to determine historicity”: “Here’s another set of observations that may help us distinguish “fact from fiction”. The context is different, but perhaps the…” Oct 4, 22:20
Neil Godfrey on Do Mark’s Primitive Language, Aramaicisms and Theology Really Argue for Markan Priority?: “Here: https://vridar.org/bruno-bauer-six-works-translated-into-english/bruno-bauer-criticism-of-the-gospels-and-history-of-their-origin-in-english/ …. More specifically, the seventh chapter of the seventh book listed on that page where I link translations…” Oct 4, 21:50
Neil Godfrey on “Other criteria are required to determine historicity”: “What the point of the post demonstrates for me is that the Gospel of Mark’s John the Baptist is yet…” Oct 4, 21:32
Neil Godfrey on “Other criteria are required to determine historicity”: “I never thought it through like that. Thanks!” Oct 4, 21:23
Neil Godfrey on “Other criteria are required to determine historicity”: “Tertullian argues that John the Baptist was “of the creator” and stood in an anti-Marcionite role — given the context…” Oct 4, 21:19
Don Camp on “Other criteria are required to determine historicity”: “There may have been an attempt to identify John as fitting the Elijah type. Or he may actually have fit…” Oct 4, 19:43
Andrew J Dabrowski on Do Mark’s Primitive Language, Aramaicisms and Theology Really Argue for Markan Priority?: “Where does Bauer argue that?” Oct 4, 17:20
RParvus on Do Mark’s Primitive Language, Aramaicisms and Theology Really Argue for Markan Priority?: “Yes, Bauer did hold that the author of GMark knew and used GMatthew. And so at least to that extent…” Oct 4, 13:25

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Reigning Champion: Wikipedia

♦ How Did the Secrecy Motif Originate?

♦ Did Wrede Renounce Markan Priority?

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The Religion of Jesus and its first development according to the current state of scholarly knowledge

Mark and the Synopsis of the Gospels according to the Documentary Text and the History of the Life of Jesus

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The Religion of Jesus and its first development according to the current state of scholarly knowledge

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But what if….?

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Curiosity One:

Curiosity Two:

Curiosity Three:

Solutions to the Riddles

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The Religion of Jesus
and its first development according to
the current state of scholarly knowledge

Mark and the Synopsis of the Gospels
according to the Documentary Text
and the History of the Life of Jesus

The Religion of Jesus
and its first development according to
the current state of scholarly knowledge