Just a note… I am simply live blogging, sorta. I am writing my responses or thoughts which pop into my head. My spelling will be worse than usual.
Dr. Adam Winn will be presiding during this session. I am looking forward to paper by Dr. Hauge, and the more so given my conversation with my prof this morning.
Just a few minutes to go… And there are different faces from yesterday.
Okay… Shhh we are about to get started.
Hauge is going to speak about mythos. Storytelling tradition. Speaking about parables and the use of the Greek word. What do we do with genre then? Looking at final form of the Text. Authors use and disuse the word without consistency. A widely recognized problem. Refers to an older work which identifies the narrative parables as fables, but notes that these things aren’t for children. Looking at the literary criticism of narrative parables. Were they independent? No. Connected to Jewish storytelling. I wonder if this could be a form of Jewish rhetoric? Ezekiel has a form of this Jewish fable. So do the rabbis. Notes the use of the LXX. Notes parables in the ancient systems predate Jewish mirrors. Parables we used in educational formation. Contends that gospel writers were trained with the progynamasta but didn’t make it to “rhetoric proper.” Mentions mythos. Aristotle seems to see parable and myth as synonyms. Ummm…
Mark designates only two parables.
Fables have characteristics.
The point of the story is the moral of the story.
Mark 12 is used by Matthew and Luke to expand the notion of parable. (Markan priority for the win!)
Geez, he talks fast. I want to read this paper.
First question deals with I implied audience. Would they have recognized Mark’s use of parables/fables/myths if they were primarily Jewish? Hauge says that he operates under the assumption that the author wanted to communicate clearly. I think that Mark 11 much some into play here when speaking about the implied audience. “Throughly Hellenized.” Agreed. This is the combination of the Hellenization and Israel’s narrative. We see this developed in Philo especially, I think.
By the way, they knew my name! Woot!
One respondent speaks about Mark 4 and a passage in Judges. Very similar structure. 3 and the 4th. Agriculture.
Find an article by Maryanne Beavis on fables. Hauge calls this a small portion of the conversation. Notes that current scholarship looks to the Jewish Tradition but suggests we should look to Greek literature.
Got to compare the structure of the episodic Aesop’s fables to the parabolic structure.
Respondent says that the parables of Jesus, unlike Aesop, is directing his parables to a political purpose. He validates Hauge’s previous statement that fables is a word which childhood connotations.
The point of the stories is to make a point. “An ethical vehicle.”
Could it be that Mark is allegoricalizing Jesus uses a wide range and use of mythos and fables? Being metaphorical. I gotta read Paul Ricoeur.
Winn asks if we can draw upon fables/mythos to find a source for Mark. Hauge doesn’t want to open the door to that just yet but states that Matthew and Luke obviously think that Mark is using parables in such a way. That’s why, maybe, we see an explosion of parables in the the knock-offs…. I mean Matthew and Luke.
Respondent says that the source may not be borrowing but providing an intellectual background.
Hauge calls MaRk well educated. He is a master storyteller.
Peabody doesn’t like people saying that Mark’s Greek was clumsy.
Next paper is Kenneth Cardwell. He was trained as a rhetorician. Notes Homer… And MacDonald… he is a MacDonaldite. Didn’t expect this! His paper tries to discuss the paralytic. He is into Mark’s numbers. Note the number of four men in the story. Notes the silence of the story, which he will argue from. The man is the fourth man healed in Mark. Notes the power of a single word to push an audience to a certain mindset. I agree with him here, but I know where he is going. I’m not sure I agree with him. If Mark was trained with Homer, then why wouldn’t he use the same words without using Homer as a structure? We are taught by Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean we write our papers according to Much Ado About Nothing. His paper notes that the exact word wasn’t used… Very much relying on an implied audience which would have to be educated, at least as educated as Mark and paying detailed attention to the story. I disagree. As a self-proclaimed Winnite(?), there is a much more plausible explanation I’m sure. Cardwell suggests that this is a baptismal narrative…Jesus is in a house of the dead… I’m not convinced. He says he is not either. I love honest scholars.
Notes that children in this time would learn Homeric esoteric before the easy stuff. Whew… Let’s do that.
Notes that the word appears in the Septuagint and in Galatians… So only a Markan hapex legomenon. The word is used, in an uncompounded formed, in Matthew and Luke, Peabody notes. What does this do to the argument over all? I tend to think that Cardwell should look to the LXX* for a better connection.
Context/Structure outweighs the need to have the same words.
Winn presents another model… 2 Kings 1.1-17. Bam! Hence the reason I am a Winnite! I know that this isn’t a competition…. But Tom Verenna is going down….
I wonder if a Jewish War text would almost exclude a Homeric structure? Hauge brought up the Jewish War text.
I still think that Mark tells two feeding stories because there are essentially two sources. Q and Mark.
The audience member thinks he has it all figured out. Very allegorical. Oh dear… He said honey. Not good. Not good. Plus, he isn’t letting anyone else speak.
I need to add something to myers. It is the gospel that does these things.
Papers done. Business meeting.
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
Connect
Thanks for the report Joel – One question for you based on your statement above:
“I still think that Mark tells two feeding stories because there are essentially two sources. Q and Mark.”
I don’t see this reasoning, since Luke leaves out the second feeding story (and the Q hypothesis means nothing if Luke doesn’t use Q). Am I missing something?
I haven’t fully digested what Q is – I think Luke is a really great editor and picked up a few things which Matthew didn’t – which is why we have a longer version of the demoniac story in Luke than we do in Matthew.
I think that in using a preexistant literary tradition, one doesn’t have to use all of it. I think that Mark is appending his version to a preexistent version, which I call, maybe erroneously, Q.
Maybe you are using the “Q” designator to refer to any pre-70AD source that is not Mark? I do admit to the likelihood of such early sources.
My current understanding of the second feeding story in Mark is that it represents the core of one of these early sources (the bulk of Mark 6:53-8:26).
A feeding at which several thousands are present is simply asking for variations of reportage – There might easily have been a version containing a head-count which was more conservative or which counted adult males only.
I think it is significant that the two latest-appearing gospels (Luke and John) report only one feeding. My thinking is that Mark (earliest) reported two feedings because he wanted to honor his special source (for its unique material fore and aft if nothing else). If only one feeding in fact took place, it would be difficult to confirm if Mark is in Rome rather than Palestine at the time of his writing.
That the author of ‘Matthew’ follows Mark here is at least in keeping with his usual editorial policy.
But, if we can trust that Luke ‘asked around’ a bit before coming forward with his gospel, and that John’s community had access to a late eyewitness (my view in both cases), we can expect these two later gospels to confirm the singular nature of the marvelous feeding.
That’s, actually, pretty much how I see it as well.
[...] Joel Watts (Unsettled Christianity) on New Testament rhetoric, Matthew, Mark, and John – but no Luke (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) [...]