Wondering about Mark

 

 

The first proper historian who had looked at the story of Jesus without theological prejudice I am aware of was Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694 – 1768). Fragments of the manuscript were not published before 1774, six years after his death. It was received with an outcry among the bigots and entangled the publisher into four years of bitter polemics and libel. For the theologians the historical aspect opened a new battleground. Reimarus was a rationalist. He would not stand for nonsense and unexplained “miracles.” By analyzing the implausibility of the narratives and holding it against the most plausible turn of events, Raimarus proved to his own satisfaction that the records – for him just the four canonical gospels – were fundamentally flawed and unreliable. To regain lost ground theologians began a desperate campaign to salvage the historical validity of at least the Gospel according to Mark, the gospel, which Matthew and Luke have taken as their source. The entire school of “higher”- and “form criticism” is based on this premise.

So how do we establish historical validity for the Gospel according to Mark? What external evidence is there in support for the story the gospels and the New Testament are telling us?

The answer is, there is no evidence. None whatsoever! Pilate’s exact contemporary, Philo of Alexandria (BC 20 – 50 AD), a Jewish philosopher who was trying to be the intermediary between Judaism and Gentile Hellenism had a keen interest in Jewish sectarian life. He seemed to have known the Qumran community, if that is what it was – some archeologists consider the locality where the Qumran scrolls had been found as the site of an abandoned perfume factory – and he knew of Pilate and his crooked ways, but even Philo hadn’t noticed even the slightest trace for the existence of Christian sectarians before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

Then there is the Jewish historian Josephus (37 – 101 AD), according to his own testimony, a turncoat from the Jewish wars, who at night sneaked away from the Jewish fighters under his command, surrendered himself to the Romans and then led them back to his companions to take them prisoners. He continued to make himself useful to his captors and during the campaign became a valuable asset for the Romans. This earned him the patronage of the Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus (9 – 79 AD). Therefore Josephus’ notorious testimony about Jesus is called the “Flavian Testimony” (Josephus, Antiquities XVIII, 3: 3; see also XX, 9). Josephus, with the help of scribes versed in Greek, then settled in Italy as a pensioner of the Flavian dynasty and published voluminous works about the Roman campaigns in Judea and the traditions of Jewish history. A case reminding of the Greek historian Polybius (203 – 120 BC), who was detained in Italy by the Romans as a political hostage for seventeen years and through his connections with main political figures like Fabius and Scipio Aemilianus took an interest in the Romans and as an eyewitness even wrote their history. But that’s where all similarity ends. Polybius was a brilliant political mind, a true first hand researcher and traveler, trying to find the truth and unveil the calculus of destiny, although his kind nature would not always allow him to take the true measure of the not always virtuous protagonists in his story. When he returned to Greece as a Roman ambassador and mediator between the Greek polities and Rome, his compatriots gave him the highest recognition. He did not commit treason. The opportunistic Josephus on the other hand was a propagandist through and through; he had an apologetic agenda: for his imperial patron, for the traditions of the Jews and last but not least, for himself. Yet, leaving alone that Josephus was born in the year 37 AD, at least 5 years after the alleged execution of Jesus, and therefore doesn’t qualify as a witness to the event, there is no need to go into the details of the Flavian Testimony since the history of this text deserves short shrift.

 When the scholarly Origin (182 – 251 AD) investigated Josephus for any mention of Jesus and his companions he had access to a manuscript from the archives in Caesarea. Origen expressed his disappointment about Josephus “who ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ,” but apparently failed to do so: "Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews" in twenty books, wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God over the things they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus” (Origen, On The Gospel Of Matthew, 1: 15) "Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus” (a curiously qualifying statement about the apostle), “says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord" (Origen, Against Celsus, 1: 47). Enters Eusebius of Cæsarea (260 – 341 AD), a great admirer of Origin and Emperor Constantine’s hagiographer. He also was the ideological spin-doctor at the First Ecumenical Synod of Nicene.

Although Eusebius was personally associated with Presbyter Arius and his doctrine, he had the council condemn it as heresy, since this was the wish of his imperial master at the time. Later, perhaps under his own influence, Emperor Constantine changed his mind, had even a personal interview with the Presbyter Arius and in his last hours was baptized into the Arian faith. On more than one occasion Eusebius proved himself as an astute church politician with a very elastic spine. So when he perused the exact same copy of Josephus that Origen had used, he was the first to “quote” from it the Flavian Testimony (Eusebius, Ecclesiastic History IX: 7-8) without actually saying where exactly his quote is located in Josephus’ manuscript. Incidentally the alleged passage has been found in no other copy of Josephus antedating the fourth century, and since then the copyists interpolated the passage into the manuscripts from which modern scholarship has derived the “textus receptus.” We clearly look at a forgery and probably at the forger himself. "The Testimonium follows Eusebius' line of argument so closely that it is not only very unlikely that it could have been written by Josephus, but it is unlikely it could have been written by any other Christian, or even by Eusebius for another work. There is nothing in the language or content of the Testimonium, that suggests it is anything other than a completely Eusebian composition" (Olson, Ken, Eusebian Fabrication of the Testimonium).

There are other testimonies as well – but the testimony of Pliny the Younger (Pliny the Younger, Letters X: 25) only confirms that the author came in touch with a group of sectarians who informed him of their beliefs: “a most mischievous superstition.” It was probably the source for Tacitus as well (Tacitus, Annals XV: 44), who was in correspondence with Pliny. Furthermore, the quote in Tacitus’ comes from the Annals, a fact, which by itself does not inspire confidence in its authenticity. 

So, for us, there is only the New Testament and countless extra canonical homilies and “gospels” (some 54 last time I checked) from roughly the decades of the turn to the second century. Curiously, all this literature is supposed to testify to events that happened in Galilee and with protagonists speaking Aramaic as their first and only language. Yet the New Testament is composed entirely in Greek and as far as scholars in the last two centuries could unravel, neither the canonical literature nor the vast amount of non-canonical writings had ever been composed in any other language but Greek. Even the Aramaic fragment of Matthew is translated out of Greek, not the other way around.

The earliest texts are a number of pastoral exhortations to live the Christian life, of which the Epistle of James is presumed to be the earliest. Martin Luther (1483 ­– 1546) has dismissed James as “an epistle full of straw, because it contains nothing evangelical.” And this is true. The Epistle of James stands out as a beacon of sober exhortation to charity with not a word in it of walking corpses and resurrections. You want to live a Christian life, read James and leave the rest to the nutcases. James doesn’t make any reference to the gospels, in fact barely mentions Jesus Christ, which seems to support an early date, however, the author has a superior command of the Greek language, something, one wouldn’t expect from a half literate Jew in Jesus’ Galilean neighborhood. There even have been speculations that this James was actually Jesus own brother, the man whom the Jewish historian Josephus is introducing to us as “James the Just” (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XX: 9). An extremely dubious speculation; in Josephus’ account, the supporters of James the Just are the very same law-abiding Pharisees from Jerusalem’s establishment, which the gospels vilify as Jesus’ personal enemies.

Another collection of documents, widely considered to predate the fall of Jerusalem, is the letters of Paul. In their present form the collection of Paul’s epistles goes back to the Apostolicon by Bishop Marcion of Sinope (85 – 169 AD), before he was excommunicated. Yet his legacy became part of the Catholic canon and old editions of the Vulgate preserve Marcion’s introductory headings, although without mentioning the author’s name (Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance; Clarendon, 1987).

Edward Evanson (1731 – 1805), F.C. Baur (1792 – 1860), Bruno Bauer (1809 – 1882), Edwin Johnson (1842 – 1901), Allard Pierson (1831 – 1896), Samuel Adrianus Naber (1828 – 1913), Abraham Dirk Loman (1823 – 1897), Willem Christiaan van Manen (1842 – 1905), G.J.P.J. Bolland (1854 – 1922), Gustaaf Adolf Van den Bergh van Eysinga (1874 – 1957), and more recently Robert Price, Darrell J. Doughty and Hermann Detering have put the letters of Paul under tight scrutiny and concluded that even the epistles, which the theological profession by a consent of convenience considers as “genuine,” are nothing of the kind. The Paulines are a collection of composite documents from the hands of at least four different individuals, not counting the editorial infringements.

Even Paul’s Epistle to the Romans – the theological cornerstone for Lutheran Protestantism – is a composite document and not a genuine epistle by anybody that could individually be identified as “Paul.” These conclusions did never enjoy much popularity in the theological profession; people who make a living from biblical research found the ground was already shifty enough without shedding further doubt on the authenticity and provenance of Paul’s letters. But the critics have scored points not only on linguistic grounds. For instance some consider Galatians as the earliest authentic Christian document on record, even earlier than James, however that would not be very early: Chapter four (Gal. 4: 25) clearly is marking a date after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

Already before “Paul's” first arrival at Ephesus there was apparently a Christian community in existence (the "brethren" in Acts, 18: 27, and 1 Cor. 1: 1-2). We should keep in mind the ruling of the Didache on the conduct of mendicant missionaries. It must have affected the alleged activities of “Paul” as well. He was constantly on the road and Didache says: "Let every apostle who comes to you not remain more than one day; or two days, and if he remains three days, he is a false prophet” (Didache, 11). So it looks as if a certain “Sosthenes” was the superior over Paul (or one of “Paul's” alter egos), his controller perhaps, or his bishop. Scholarly consensus loves to apply early dating to the letter’s chronology so as to have it correlate with Acts, but if pressed for it, there is very little hard evidence that would support such conclusions, especially considering that a writer like the anonymous author of “Luke” and “Acts,” who obviously took pride in the research facilitating his writings, had completely ignored the Pauline epistles.

Ultimately it comes down to an inconsistency in the testimonies themselves. “Paul’s” claim to be a Roman citizen by birth (Acts 22: 24-29) positively contravened that he could have been an observing Jew. To exercise the "jus honorum" (the right to stand for office) and all his civil rights, "connubium, commercium, testamenti factio," Paul, like Tiberius Alexander, Emperor Vespesian’s chief of staff during the campaign in Judea, would have to abjure his national customs. This of course tallies perfectly with Montefiore’s observation:

“When reading the Epistles of Paul with the intention of comparing them with Jewish writings of the Pharisees and the Talmud, one is struck by the fact that Paul does not so much controvert Jewish teaching than ignores it, and that what he controverts is seriously different from Rabbinical Judaism. Of course many writers on Paul have surmounted this obvious difficulty by assuming that Paul was in controversy with the doctrine he had learned in Jerusalem at the feet of the Pharisee Rabbi Gamaliel, and then endeavor to reconstruct this Judaism by claiming for it everything that Paul denies.

“That is the origin of a great many Christian presentations of Rabbinical Judaism. Unfortunately, in the Jewish writings of that time, or of the periods succeeding, there is not a single trace of this reconstructed Judaism. That is a very curious result, and it was taken advantage of by van Manen to support his theory that the Pauline Epistles were not written by Paul. His position was that we know that Paul had originally been a Jew and was educated in the rabbinical doctrines of Jerusalem; if therefore he wrote theological treatises or letters attacking Judaism, he might be supposed to show accurate knowledge of that which he attacks. But he didn’t” (C. G. Montefiore).

As for the author of The Gospel according to Luke and of Acts he drew on a variety of references. In addition to a collection of apophthegms – Q – and large portions of Mark, he even used Josephus’ Antiquities and Wars. (Compare Lk. 3 with Josephus’ Wars 2: 117-8, and Antiquities 18: 1-8; or Acts 5: 37 with Josephus, Wars 2: 117-8, Josephus, Antiquities 18: 1-8; Acts 5: 36 with Josephus, Antiquities 20: 97; Acts 21: 38 with Josephus, Wars 2: 261-3, Josephus, Antiquities 20: 171; Acts 12: 21-3 with Josephus, Antiquities 19: 343-52; Acts 25: 13, 25: 23, 26: 30 with Josephus, Antiquities 20: 145; Lk. 3: 1 with Josephus, Wars 2: 215, 2: 247, Josephus, Antiquities 19: 275; Lk. 19: 43-4 with Josephus, Wars 6; Acts 11: 28-9 with Josephus, Antiquities 3: 320, 20: 51-3, 20: 101). Most telling is how Luke follows Josephus in addressing the Jewish sects as philosophical schools, “haireseis,” a term, which was still lacking its negative connotation of "heresy" (Acts 5: 17, 15: 5, 26: 5; on Christianity as a hairesis: 24: 5, 24: 14-5, 28: 22). No other author but Josephus employed the term in this way; it is characteristic for his own apologetic agenda. Luke also follows Josephus in calling the Pharisees the "most precise school" (Acts 26: 5), another term peculiar to Josephus (Josephus, Wars 1: 110, 2: 162; Josephus, Antiquities 17: 41; Life 189). So given Luke’s habitual use of secondary sources, it seems natural that he also made use of Mark, but it is adding to the mystery of the author’s disregard for Paul’s letters, and this roughly at the same time or even later, when Clement of Rome (c.95 AD) already made references to Paul.

The explanation could be that the works of Josephus, who enjoyed the privilege of patronage in high places and was widely disseminated, were easier to access than the scattered drafts, which contained the Pauline material, although some of it may already have existed. Which is placing the terminus post quem for the author of Acts somewhere between the publications of Josephus in 96 AD and Marcion’s Apostolicon in 132/36 AD. One should even consider the possibility that Luke’s story in Acts has created the foil for the manufacture of the Pauline material, as part of the dogmatic debate of the day. The other canonical gospel that draws on Mark, in fact is incorporating an almost complete version of Mark, is the Gospel according to Matthew. One could call it a second edition of Mark with the author’s additions and running commentary. For structural reasons we can be sure that the author of Matthew used Mark as his source and not the other way around. When composing on his own Matthew had a way of composing in triadic structures, but whenever he referenced Mark the triads disappear. For instance chapter five (Mt. 5: 21-44) divides itself into two groups of three members each. Chapter six (Mt. 6: 1-18) treats three subjects: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. The passage (Mt. 6: 19 – 7: 12) continues with two more triads, all in perfect parallelism. This makes it very difficult to uphold a primacy of Matthew over Mark. Which has created a conundrum.

If the author of Matthew, as tradition wants us to believe, really had composed the first gospel in Aramaic – for which there is no evidence whatsoever, just a tradition from the late second century – then how come he resorted as his main referent to a text written in Greek by an author who was neither a companion himself, nor even a Jew? It is simply inconceivable that a primary Semitic document such as tradition claims Matthew to be, would have incorporated a Greek document almost in its entirety. Which means Mark must predate Matthew and Luke, and perhaps even Q; the question is by how long? “Q” was a document collecting the sayings of Jesus similar to the Gospel of Thomas. The original is lost, what we believe to have is reconstructed from the quotes in the gospels according to Matthew and Luke. The resulting text did lead to the conclusion that it must have been an early manual of instruction for catechumens. No surprise here when latter-day theologians like to place the date of provenance some time in the late fifties of the first century, despite the fact that the letters of Paul reveal no familiarity with Q.

Even more ominous for an early provenance of Q, the Gospel according to John, which is generally conceded to be of a rather late date, also seems to ignore this collection entirely. In fact there is only one saying in John (Jn. 12: 25) that has a parallel in Q: “He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” The theologian Rudolf Bultmann (Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament) considers the version in John as more “authentic,” whatever this is supposed to mean, coming from a man who has denied Jesus’ historicity. But John is not the only gospel that ignores Q. The Gospel according to Mark is presumed to be the earliest of the lot, yet Mark as well ignores Q.

A careful and close reading of Q reveals not only the Greek provenance of the text – Q is not a translation out of Aramaic, supposedly the language of Jesus, whose “sayings” this collection professes to preserve – it carries numerous allusions to popular philosophies of the period, like of the Stoics and the Cynics, and the protagonist gives the impression of an allegorical impersonator, modeled on the impersonation of “Sophia” (Wisdom) in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

For instance the episode in which Jesus is depicted as destroying a fig tree because it refuses to supply the Son of God with fruit out of season is part of an intercultural dialogue. On the Christian side this is naively presented as an example of miracle working and where it can get you if you have faith (as if destroying a tree isn’t something everybody can do, making it bloom and yield, that would have been the miracle). The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (55 – 130 AD) had coined the proverb that “only a fool is looking for fruit on a fig tree out of season,” and the episode illustrates the rather clumsy Christian response. It is interesting to note that not a single word in Q is referring to the trial or even mentioning Jerusalem by name. According to Hartin, (Hartin, Patrick J., James and the "Q" Sayings of Jesus, 1989) this lodges the location of Q’s origin firmly in the Northern region towards the Syrian border. The picture emerging from this situation is a fledgling new religion without a cult and a cult hero.

So the Christian communities must have breathed a sigh of relief, when at long last a certain “Mark“ toured the marts of Syria and perhaps even Italy, and assisted and prompted by his notes, gave them something to sink their teeth in: a story of the life of Jesus. According to Tertullian (160 – 225 AD) the earliest evangelist was a Gentile (Tertullian, Adversus Marcion 4: 11). Sometimes I can’t help shaking my head that, despite all this erudition, “form criticism” never came to realize the true nature of the text of the Gospel according to Mark. It is a prompt book; an oral performer’s memory aid, an episodic collection of interchangeable anecdotes without a clear beginning; so that the narrator may not miss his punch lines or mess up the episodes leading to it. As a historical document it is fraught with curious shortcomings.

Mark (Mk. 10: 11-12) makes Jesus say: "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery," which implies, that in Judea women had the right to divorce their husbands. But Jewish Law has no such provision. Roman law on the other hand does.

The geography in Mark is all over the place. People go north taking non-existing roads to reach the Sea of Galilee, when they should go south (Mk. 7: 31). Apparently the translators of the King James had been aware of the blunder (which betrays a not to be despised scholarship on their part) and in their typical fashion translated it away: “And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.”

On the way from Capernaum to Judea Mark sends Jesus’ party across the river Jordan without indicating a detour (Mk. 10: 1), and Bethsaida is described as a desolate “village” (which it was after Emperor Vespasian was through with his campaign) when in fact it had been a thriving town under Emperor Tiberius, the time when Jesus was supposed to be around (Mk. 8: 22-26). In order to reach Bethphage, Mark sends the cast back and forth on a weird itinerary (Mk. 11: 1-11), and in Gerasa, the modern Jerash, he makes Jesus send a herd of pigs over a non-existing precipice into a “nearby” lake some thirty miles away (Mk. 5: 13) and this without a word of explanation, what pigs were doing in a kosher Jewish neighborhood? Archeologists could tell you. The garbage dumps of Jewish settlements contain no pig bones. So what are we supposed to believe? That Jesus toured the villages with a herd of pigs roughing up the animals as a sign for his miraculous powers?

The author of Mark loves to add little authenticating highlights; although he has never set foot on Palestine soil, he does have an artistic sense for the ephemeral detail. He gives us quotes from the Aramaic, little nuggets too brief to get it wrong, but the author was a little rusty on his Hebrew: At Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem the exclamation of the crowd is taken from the Book of Psalms: “Hosanna, O Lord... Blessed be he who enters in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!” Which should translate to: “save us, we implore you: … Blessed be etc.” But the author of Mark (Mk. 11: 9-10) took it to mean something like “Praise the Lord.” He misunderstood a cry for help as an expression of joy. The last of the Aramaic quotes is reflecting a piece of Gnostic doctrine – and whoever the author of Mark may have been, this was the tradition in which he grew up and to which he thought to contribute. For the Gnostics the kiss of Judas is of great significance; it marks the departure of the spiritual Christ from the carnal Jesus as an anticlimax to the scene of his baptism when “coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens open and the Spirit like a dove descend upon him” (Mk. 1: 10). We understand now the theological reason why Jesus’ last word on the cross is required to be “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”– My God, my God, why have you forsaken me – a quote from the Psalms (Ps. 21; Mk. 15: 34).

This of course does not explain why Mark as the chronologically earliest gospel is the last to be referred to in the patristic literature, in fact as late as 185 AD, Bishop Irenaeus (125 – 202 AD) still sniped at the three synoptic gospels – “they, who establish their false opinion that He preached for one year only, and then suffered in the twelfth month” – as a “heresy” (Irenaeus, Against All Heresies II, 22: 5). For Irenaeus John was the gospel, period. The tradition continued to freely temper with the text of Mark. The expression “Son of God” in the first sentence was recognized not to be of the original text from early on (Irenaeus, Against All Heresies 3: 5). In fact in early manuscripts those words appear in only two of three surviving Latin translations and do not exist in the one (sic!) surviving fragment of that passage in the original Greek.

Clement of Alexandria (150­ – 215 AD), Origen and Tertullian never quoted any verses from Mark after the eighth verse of chapter sixteen. In the fourth century the Christian historian, Eusebius (264 – 340 AD), in his work “Ad Marinum,” says, "in the accurate manuscripts Mark ended with the words 'for they were afraid’” (Mk. 16: 8). St. Jerome (340 – 420 AD), the translator of the Vulgate, was of the same opinion. In the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Syriacus, Mark always ends at verse eight. Matthew and Luke use Mark extensively yet stray off on their own ways on the appearances of the resurrected Jesus. This too suggests that the copy of Mark used by these evangelists ended at verse eight of chapter sixteen.

So when has Mark been published or at least when had the author finished his draft? Apologetic theologians are anxious to put the date close to the fall of Jerusalem, preferably short before, as if this could add authenticity to the story. Their only reason for this lies in the fact that Mark seems to keep quiet about the destruction of Jerusalem. Leaving alone that the fall of Jerusalem is not the story the author of Mark wishes to tell, I am rather concerned with the things Mark does tell us, despite the fact that it should not have a place in his story. In chapter thirteen (Mk. 13: 9) we realize that the author was already aware of Shmuel HaQatan’s "Birchat ha'minim," the anathema against the "Nazarenes and heretics: "And in the synagogues ye shall be beaten, says the author of Mark.”

Up until then, Acts alleges, that Christians, such as Paul (Acts 16: 3, 21: 26), used to observe Jewish law, paid temple tax, and yielded to the jurisdiction of the Synagogue (Acts 2: 46; Mt. 5: 23, 10: 17, 17: 24-27; Mk. 13: 9). Cerinthus’ book was drafted when those elected and marked by the angel are all circumcised, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes, and have precedence over “the great multitude of other righteous ones,” i.e. of Gentile proselytes, the Hagioi,” a Greek word meaning "saints," "holy ones," "believers," "loyal followers," or "God's people," terms usually used in reference to members of the early Christian communities. The “Hagoi” could expect admission to the synagogue even without being circumcised (Rev. 7 and 12: 1). Yet as early as 167 AD, the Apocalypse, mainly on linguistic grounds, was debunked as a forgery. In a piece of fine criticism the Corinthian Bishop Dionysus names as the author the Ebionite Cerinthus, “who under Emperor Domitian made himself a name by revelations written, as he would have us believe, by a great apostle,” because “it is Cerinthus’ way to say that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth, and that there is to be a period of a thousand years" (Eusebius 325 AD, Ecclesiastic History VII, 25: 5-27).

"Some before us,” said the good bishop in 257 AD, “have set aside and rejected “The Revelation of John” altogether, criticizing it chapter by chapter. They pronounce it without sense or argument, and maintain the title is fraudulent. For they say that it is not the work of John, and none of the apostles, none of the saints, neither anyone in the Church. Instead it was Cerinthus (sic!), desiring reputable authority for his fiction that prefixed the name. So I too cannot readily admit that the author was the apostle by whom the Gospel and the Catholic Epistle were written. For I judge from the character of both, and the forms of expression, and the entire execution of the book, that it is not his.

“John never speaks as if referring to himself, or as if referring to another person. But the author of the Apocalypse introduces himself at the very beginning: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which he sent and signified by his angel unto his servant John.” And not considering it sufficient to give his name once and to proceed, he takes it up again: "I, John, in the isle of Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus." John the evangelist discusses everything under the same heads and names.  Who examines carefully will find frequently occurring the phrases, "the life," "the light," "turning from darkness," "truth," "grace," "joy," "the flesh and blood of the Lord," "the judgment," "the forgiveness of sins," "the love of God toward us." In fact, it is plain to see by everyone who observes their character that the Gospel and the Epistles have one and the same complexion. But the Apocalypse is utterly different and foreign from these writings.

“Neither Epistle, nor Gospel, contain any intimation of the Apocalypse, nor does the Apocalypse of the Epistle. It also can be shown by their style, how Gospel and Epistles differ from that of the Apocalypse. For they are not only written in faultless Greek, but also show the greatest literary skill in their diction, their reasoning, and in their entire structure. There is a complete absence of any barbarous word, or solecism, or any vulgarism whatever. The other writer's Greek is faulty; he uses barbarous idioms, and solecisms. He speaks not unlike Cerinthus, by means of revelations, which he pretends were written by a great apostle, and brings before us marvelous things, which he falsely claims were shown him by angels" (Bishop Dionysius quoted by Eusebius, Ecclesiastic History VII, 25: 5-27).

There is enough internal evidence to establish an accurate terminus post quem for the composition of the Apocalypse. A certain Terentius Maximus of Parthia had gathered a following in the region of the Euphrates and presented himself to his followers as "Nero redivivus," the resurrected Nero (Sueton: Nero, Tacitus Histories I: 2). Accordingly of the seven heads of the Dragon in the Apocalypse (Rev. 17: 10), Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero and Vespasian are the first six, but only Nero is named (by his numerical expression) and receives the status of the anti-Messiah.

The seventh emperor remained unnamed, since the naming of a reigning emperor in a prophesy of his speedy departure had its risks, even under the liberal Titus. The man expected to replace him – Terentius Maximus – is “the beast which was, and is not, and is itself the eighth, but of the seven” i.e. the resurrected Nero. During the reign of Titus (79 – 81 AD), King Artabanus of Parthia prepared to “reinstate” this Nero in Rome by military force (Rev. 9: 14; 16: 12). Apparently the Apocalypse was published under emperor Titus, at least five years before the anathema. In 83 AD then, Emperor Domitian – always the micro-manager – brought forward new legislation against circumcision as an act of self-mutilation (Dio, Epitome LXVIII p.361).

Jews were exempt from the ruling, but it did put gentiles who considered joining the Jewish faith in a difficult position and it also directed unwanted attention to Jewish communities who continued to welcome them in the synagogue. This, and the outlandish rumors of the resurrection of a crucified man amongst the Gentile attendants to the service, gave cause to alarm and some time after 85 AD the Jewish communities responded with Shmuel HaQatan’s "Birchat ha'minim," and inserted in the congregational prayer (Shmoneh esri) the "test clause” (Brach 28b, J. Brach 4, 8a; T. Brach 3, 25), the anathema against the "Nazarenes and heretics." A Christian attending the service in the synagogue would immediately be detected by his silence at this point in the prayer, drawing on himself the unwanted attention of a burly synagogue elder. The author of the Gospel of John was fully aware of what happened: “His parents were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue” (Jn. 9: 19-22). The phrase "being put out of the synagogue" is repeated twice in John (Jn. 12: 42 and 16: 2) and clearly points to a composition after 90 AD. As we have seen it also had left an echo in Mark – especially if the passage is read in its full apocalyptic context (Mk. 13: 8-35). But this is not the only giveaway for a later than expected provenance of Mark.

In chapter seven (Mk. 7: 3-4) we read: “For the Pharisees and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of their elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.” This was unknown in the time of Jesus’ alleged activities. He therefore would have committed no violation when he went to table unwashed, as Mark wants us to believe. The custom was set down as a rule of law by El'azar ben Aralah in 80 AD, “ten years after the fall of the temple.” It remained controversial long after, whether its observance was a "mitzvah," a commandment: "As the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel, but now a man's table atones for him" (B.Yoma 79b, Brachot 14b-15a, 55a).

This again, places Mark firmly in the historical context well after the fall of Jerusalem, sometime in the mid-eighties. And if that is so, one has to wonder.

Because of the gap between Jesus’ alleged execution in 29 or 33 AD and the emergence of the first gospel at least by fifty years later, biblical scholars use to dub this gap in chronology as the “period of silence.” From the looks of it the embarrassment over the crucifixion of the cult leader may have been the cause for his people to go grass roots. After all a crucified cult leader is not something to write home about, especially in a Jewish setting where it was the ultimate ignominy and everyone was "cursed who hangs on a post" (Gal. 3: 13; Deut. 21: 22-23; Joshua 8: 29, 10: 26-27). It didn't make any difference whether the convicted had been executed by the Roman Governor or under the Jewish law. In either case, "even if he were a king of kings" (Sanhedrin 9: 8d), "those slain by a court of law are not buried in their fathers' sepulchers, but in a grave by themselves" (Numbers 23: 13). Only after a suitable period of penance in the penal bone-yard, "when the flesh has rotted," the family was finally permitted to "collect the bones and bury them in their appropriate place" (Sanhedrin 6: 6a; 9: 8c, etc.). Archaeological evidence testifies to the practice. So, why did Mark then break the silence (although he conveys his story still as something to be kept as a secret)? What were the circumstances?

Was it active suppression and persecution from the get go perhaps, as the author of “Acts” claims it to be, which left the author of Mark, so to speak as the last man standing and the first to tell the story? Yet, where is the evidence for such a prosecuted sect? Josephus should have witnessed it in his adolescence, and Philo, too, the contemporary observer, didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary going on in the Jewish mainstream.

That leaves “Paul” as our only “witness;” that is, of the various characters composing the epistles the one who organized a collection for the “poor” (the “Ebionim”) in Jerusalem. What could have been the reason for this collection and when did it happen? Up into the eighties, the followers of Jesus obviously lived a dormant existence. They carried barely any ideological baggage, except for the Epistle of James, a collection of apophthegms similar to the Gospel of Thomas, and the sudden outbursts in enthusiastic “revelations” by their wandering preachers. They would have continued in their sectarian ways and in our days be as forgotten as the people from Qumran were before 1948, had not political accident and inner animosity imposed a breach between the factions. The fall of Jerusalem had knocked off the kingpin in the tradition of both, Jews and Christians, and within the prevailing spectrum of Hellenized churches it marginalized the branches of Jewish Christians under the law, known as the "Ebionim." The term “Ebionim” for the congregation in Jerusalem under the trustees from Jesus’ own family, is used by James 2: 5 and in the beatitudes. Paul refers to them in Romans 15: 26. The "Ebionim" knew Jesus as "a plain man, who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary" and they refused to acknowledge, "that he preexisted, being God, Word, and Wisdom" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastic History III, 27: 3). For them, Jesus remained the "slain lamb," expected to return in the near future and on Judgment day open the gate to heaven for the chosen saints. A resurrected corpse was never a part in the Jewish scheme of things.

In the world of the Gentiles however, the story of a crucified and resurrected world savior was a familiar paradigm: "When we say that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven,” said Justin Martyr, “we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter" (Justin Martyr 100 – 167 AD, First Apology, 21).

After Emperor Domitian’s edict had forced the Jewish synagogues to close their doors to the Gentiles, “Paul’s” epistles were part of an exchange between various conventiclers and churches in order to find a common theological platform. The theology of the expelled Gentiles was by and large a belief in the spiritual Christ of the Gnostics. A process that could have gone on for quite a while before the upheavals of 117 AD radicalized the communities with stories of a real life local cult leader from the northern region towards Syria. The merger between these two factions would then have become the ideological furnace where the resurrection story was forged.

© – 04/20/2010 – by michael sympson, 6,700 words, all rights reserved