Mark 14:62

peacefulpete

Did Mark intend his Jesus to openly declare that he was the Messiah? It seems not. Through out the text we find Mark hinting about the identity and even having his hero forbid others to declare their conviction that he was the Messiah. Yet in Mark 14:62 most bibles have Jesus openly declaring himself to the High Priest be the Coming one, saying ?I am?. In the later discussion (15) with Pilate Jesus uses the ambiguous expression ?you say? when asked to speak frankly about his Messiahship, leading to Pilate not having grounds to declare him a seditionist. Matt at 26:64 in his rewrite of Mark 14:62 retains ambiguity by reading, ?you say? in the discourse with the High Priest as well. Interestingly a few surviving manuscripts read at 14:62 ?you say?. It seems that later editors of Mark disliked the ambiguous answer and insisted that Jesus be made to declare unequivocally that he is the Messiah.

Narkissos

That's Price's take (The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, p. 281f). But the main textual variant actually is "You said that I am" (su eipas hoti egô eimi). Moreover, Matthew changes the connection to the next sentence ("you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,' and 'coming with the clouds of heaven'") from "and" (kai) to "but" (plèn), indicating that he deliberately alters the meaning of the previous sentence. And the "you say" (su legeis) to Pilate is the answer to a different question, "are you the king of the Jews?"

peacefulpete

Narkissos, what do you use to find the variant readings in Mark 14:62? The few works I have did not show me much.

I have been tossing out stuff from Price's book for the last few threads. He sadly does not have adaquate footnotes. Waht do feel was Matt's intent in saying "you say" BUT......

The question by Pilate and that by the High Priest are the same in that the Messiah was the King of the Jews. No? In Mark 15 Jesus' answer must have been intended to be ambigous for Pilate is left with the impression that he has not answered him.

Narkissos

Narkissos, what do you use to find the variant readings in Mark 14:62? The few works I have did not show me much.

Just the critical apparatus of Nestle-Aland (27th edition).

Waht do feel was Matt's intent in saying "you say" BUT......

I think we have to start with the original meaning of the "coming Son of Man" as an eschatological figure along the line of Daniel and 1 Enoch, which was not identified with Jesus. In Matthew's text as it stands Jesus avoids saying he is the Messiah/Christ or the Son of God (of course the reader is supposed to know better), BUT tacitly identifies his post mortem future with the coming Son of Man. I guess the "AND" in Mark is better in line with a previous positive statement.

The question by Pilate and that by the High Priest are the same in that the Messiah was the King of the Jews. No? In Mark 15 Jesus' answer must have been intended to be ambigous for Pilate is left with the impression that he has not answered him.

Maybe Mark wants to avoid a political implication (which is also the goal of the general portrait of Pilate, who does not want to crucify Jesus -- how likely when you read about the guy!). To a Greek or Roman reader the question by the high priest sounds "religious", not political. Mark wants to portray a religious, politically harmless Jesus, and the "mean Jews" falsely depicting him as politically dangerous to have him crucified. The four Gospels basically follow the same line.

peacefulpete

What is the ISBN for that edition? There are so many editions, I want the one with the extensive note.

Narkissos

3-438-05100-1

peacefulpete

thanks again

euripides

One of the interesting issues surrounding why Jesus' identity is such a secret in Mark ("the master of mystery") is that presumably it helps a later generation understand why Jesus was not so readily recognized. The disciples in Mark are consistently portrayed as absolutely baffled. But, in keeping with Mark 10:45 and 4 Maccabees, the Markan audience understood the concept of Vicarious Expiatory Sacrifice, and were willing to associate Jesus with that concept, if not Messiah figure. Mark's shroud of mystery servies to heighten the tension within the text behind what Jesus was and what the world of the immedaite aftermath of destruction of Jerusalem could make of the man from 40 years earlier who really was not much of a phenom at the time but his legacy had since exploded throughout small churches (=people) in and out of Judea. So when we look at the exchange in 14:62, we do well to ask ourselves, who would have heard this exchange in the first place (so it is fabricated) and even if Jesus was more clear to non-Jews typically, and in this case the author has Jesus citing the prophets and writings before the council, Jesus own disciples were almost completely without a clue.

peacefulpete

Euripides, ya, the disciple's thickheadedness serves a literary purpose. Often the questioning disciple is a simple foil for the subsequent speech. Other times the ignorance serves some sectarian agenda (Peter vs, James eg.). However the secretive theme seems to hearken to Christian origins from Mystery cult wherein there was a public message and the real esoteric one. The fully intitiated not neeeding explicit announcements and declarations. Ironically this secret element served the later literalizing movement well, as it offered reason the world had never heard of this Jesus of Nazareth and his feats of wonder.

More and more I find myself drawn to the Jesus Myth camp. I've learned much from posters here like Leolaia that have colored in the picture with Judaisms, explaining the ease with which this melding of purely mythic and Jewish history took place. I'm convinced that there was no first century Jesus figure in history that provided the impetus to this movement, only mythemes and Jewish apocalyptism mixed with a little recent memory of Zealot rebellion and Cynic elitism.

euripides

Hi pete, yes Leolaia and I are on the same page in a lot of this materialEveryone keeps referring to L. as female, (as if it matters, right?) and if L. is, why haven't people like me been breaking down her door for a date? I, on the other hand, often get, "if only you were a chick...."

I can recommend Burton Mack's recent work, The Jesus Myth, which takes the issue of the quest for the historical Jesus and says, that is not a provable issue, and so let's analyze the cultural and religious history and it becomes evident that the elaborate mythology of the Jesus figure becomes necessary to the continued reinvention or application of the core central myth of dying and resurrected godman. More and more this is where much of the aggressive scholarship is heading, even as much as we have the benefit of decades of strong scholarship to dissect important issues.

BTW, I really enjoy hanging out with you all and chiming in now and again. It's gratifying to find so many dedicated and talented WTBTS survivors who haven't lost all interest in the academic side of these things.

Mark 14:62

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