Friday 21 September 2012

Priority

On this Saint Matthew's Day, consider not only that that erstwhile tax-collector is the Patron Saint of Bankers, but also that that strange and increasingly unfashionable thing, Biblical criticism, purports to read the Bible "as if it were any other ancient text", yet in fact subjects it to a series of methods that would be laughed out in any other literary of historical discipline. Those methods are carefully constructed to "prove" the presuppositions of that strange and increasingly unfashionable thing, liberal theology.

Thus, if two Biblical books are word for word alike, as Matthew, Mark and Luke certainly are in parts, then they must have been copied from each other, since there is no way that God could have inspired them all and, funnily enough, done so in such a way that they confirmed each other's accounts. Hence the theory of Markan Priority, that Saint Mark's Gospel was the first to be written, and that Saint Matthew and Saint Luke copied out great chunks of it word for word. And hence the theory of Q, the compendium of the material found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark; no copy of Q exists anywhere.

Jesus simply did not claim divinity for Himself, so that rules out John at a stroke. Miracles simply do not happen, a position not even compatible with agnosticism. Style simply does not develop (seriously), so Saint Paul cannot have written several of the Epistles beginning with the words "From Paul". And so on, and on, and on. Academia is at last moving away from this sort of thing. When will the Church in practice, since of course She has never adopted it, and cannot do so, in principle?

3 comments:

  1. There's now a current of scholarship that's starting to take seriously the idea that, even if Mark has priority chronologically (which I don't accept myself, instead personally favouring the Church's historical position that Matthew's is the earliest gospel), then it is still John that has 'primacy' as regards the recounting of the most authentic tradition of, particularly, the passion narrative.

    As evidence of this, there's a lot of material in John's gospel that's not found in Mark, but which offers an alternative, or even contradictory, view of the Last Days of Jesus.

    Some examples:

    1. Mark knows that Jesus headquarters his movements during his last week at Bethany (11:1, 11-12; 14:3), but John provides the connection with the sisters Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, who lived there (John 11:1; 12:1). In the gospel of John the raising of Lazarus from the dead is a critical point in the story and it not only accounts for the huge crowds that flocked around Jesus, having heard of the miracle, but also the sharp opposition of the Temple establishment (see John 12:9-11, 17-19). Mark knows nothing of this event or this family.

    2. John says that the woman who anointed Jesus with a costly perfume was indeed Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, and that she wiped his feet with her hair, a decidedly shocking and intimate act in that hair was considered part of “nakedness” (John 12:1-8). He explicitly says this took place six days before Passover. John adds other details, not in Mark, of how the house was filled with the scent of the fragrance, and that Judas, who objected to the “waste,” served as treasurer for the group and used to pilfer funds. Mark has an anonymous woman; he puts the scene two days before Passover, in Bethany, but at another house, of one “Simon the Leper,” and has only the anointing of the head and nothing about wiping the feet with her hair (Mark 14:3-9).

    Also, in John there is a critical difference regarding the meaning of the anointing itself. In Mark, Jesus says that the unnamed woman has “anointed my body before hand for burying,” but in John he says she should keep the costly ointment to use for his body on the day of his burial, which is quite a different idea (John 12:7).

    3. John's placing of the Last Supper as not being the same as the Jewish Passover Seder is likely the correct chronological interpretation, and indeed Pope Benedict covers this fully in his book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection, coming also to the same conclusion too.

    It is worth noting that in our earliest written record of this “last supper,” found in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we are told that it took place “on the night he was betrayed,” with no explicit mention of Passover per se (1 Corinthians 11:23). Paul understands Jesus to be slain as a Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7), which means his chronology fits more with John’s, who has the crucifixion on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, with the Passover lamb eaten as part of the Seder meal that evening. It is common for scholars to discount the Passover week chronology of John as part of his theological agenda to portray Jesus as a slain Passover lamb, but in fact, there are enormous historical problems with imagining Mark’s scenario. It is quite inconceivable that Jesus’ Jewish enemies left their Passover Seders and their family gatherings the night of Passover in order to arrest Jesus after midnight, try him before the High Priest and Pilate, and crucify him the next morning, which would be a holy annual Sabbath Day, the 1st Day of Unleavened Bread, the 15th of Nisan, when nothing of the sort could possibly be done (Exodus 12).

    Continued.....

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  2. Cont.


    4. John’s account of the arrest and trial of Jesus supplies details that demonstrate that he is drawing upon an alternative tradition, not just pulling things from Mark and embellishing them:

    a. The garden where Jesus is arrested is across the ravine called Kidron;

    b. A cohort of Roman troops is involved in the arrest, including the chiliarch, who was their commander;

    c. The name of the servant of the High Priest whose ear was cut off was Malchus;

    d. Jesus was taken first to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas the High Priest. John alone reports this detail but it fits the historical situation based on what Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us. It was Annas who really ran things behind the scenes and Caiaphas clearly was under his bidding. Mark knows nothing of Annas and never even mentions him. It was in the courtyard of the house of Annas that Peter got in through the gate because the “other disciple,” elsewhere called “the beloved disciple,” was known to the servants of the High Priest. This indicates that whoever this mysterious “Beloved Disciple” was, he had Jerusalem priestly connections;

    e. Jesus is brought before Pilate at the praetorium, which was part of Herod’s palace on the western side of the city. The Jewish crowd stands outside, on the steps that are still visible today. They are not willing to come inside because they have already completed the ritual requirements for eating the Passover Seder that evening. Pilate questions Jesus inside, has him scourged, and allows the soldiers to mock him with the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate would have stood at his canopy-covered Bema on the bedrock platform above the crowd that was called in Aramaic, Gabbatha, or the pavement. Jesus had been taken inside the palace grounds, then back outside. John’s description reflects someone who knows the place and the scene, while Mark simply says “they delivered him up to Pilate” (Mark 15:1). John also notes that it was the “day of the preparation for the Passover,” at “the sixth hour,” (perhaps as late as noon), by the time Jesus was delivered over, not the day after as in Mark (John 19:14).

    Continued.....

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  3. Cont.

    5. John provides several interesting and important details regarding the crucifixion and burial of Jesus that are unlikely to be merely embellishments of Mark. Once again, John’s Passion Narrative seems to be drawn from an alternative source:

    a. The place of crucifixion was “near the city” and nearby was a garden (John 19:20, 41);

    b. Jesus’ mother was present at the execution scene, and also the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” otherwise unmentioned in Mark who says that all the disciples “forsook him and fled” (John 19: 25-27; Mark 14:50);

    c. The Sabbath that was arriving was a “high day,” or Nisan 15th, the 1st day of Unleavened Bread, that introduced the Passover (John 19:31);

    d. Jesus’ side was thrust through with a Roman spear to assure he was dead and not just passed out or in a coma (John 19:34);

    e. The tomb into which Joseph of Arimathea hastily put Jesus’ corpse was one that just happened to be in the garden near the place of crucifixion. It was a new tomb, not belonging to Joseph, but used temporarily by him in an emergency situation with the Passover Seder hours away, simple because it was “nearby” (John 19:41-42). One would expect, accordingly, that the body would be moved the next evening, just as soon as the Sabbath was over, so that the burial rites could be properly completed. Mark knows none of these details;

    f. Mary Magdalene came alone to the tomb early Sunday morning, while it was dark. There is no indication that any of the other women were with her, as Mark has it, grouping them together for a single visit, after sunrise. When she arrived she saw that the golal, or blocking stone, had been removed from the entrance. She sees no one in the tomb, neither a young man (Mark), nor angels ascending from heaven (Matthew & Luke). She ran to Peter and the beloved disciple and told them the obvious: “They have taken away the Master out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” The “they” in this case clearly refers to Joseph of Arimathea and those who had taken charge of the burial.

    Based on this material, it appears that the authors of John are drawing upon a source independent from Mark, and that this source should be carefully considered for its historical value.

    There are many other reasons not to ignore John's gospel when searching for the 'historical' accounts of Jesus' life. The fact that John's narrative is the only one in which the physical travels of Christ - covering not just one but a three year ministry - can be traced as a continuous, geographically, and temporally plausible journey is but more evidence.

    There's not enough people hammering home that message, and it's refreshing to see that you're one of the very few who do. Good work.

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