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Mark's Contribution to the Quest of the Historical Jesus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Extract

When Mark wrote his gospel, the kerygma had long since conquered the world. Paul had overcome a religion of the law limited to Israel and to a few proselytes who were courageous enough to pledge themselves to a total obedience to the law. Colossians, Ephesians, the hymn in I Tim. iii. 16 and the post-Pauline doxology Rom. xvi. 25–7 show how enthusiastically the triumphal journey of Christ through the world was praised. A most imposing ‘theology of the kerygma’ was arising. However, what had all this to do with Jesus? Was not the theology of grace, the emphasis on justification without the works of law all that was needed? Palestine was far away, and very few would have known about that remote corner of the earth with its strange population and its superstitious habits. Thus, Jesus was a mere name without much meaning, a symbol, maybe, for the kerygma, but not more. Why, therefore, not connect the kerygma with Hermes or Attis or any other saviour? The Gnostics were about to draw this consequence

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

page 421 note 1 Cf. my articles ‘Die theologische Leistung des Markus’, and ‘Die Frage nach dem historischen Jesus’, in Evangelische Theologie (July and August 1964).Google Scholar

page 421 note 2 Cf. my essay in Theol. Literaturzeitung, LXXXVI (1961), 246–51Google Scholar (also in Schweizer, E., Neotestamentica [1963], pp. 300–8)Google Scholar and Hahn, F., Das Verständnis der Mission im Neuen Testament (1963), PP. 126–34.Google Scholar

page 421 note 3 Cf. Davies, W. D., The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (1964), pp. 366 ff.Google Scholar

page 422 note 1 Cf. my notes in ‘Anmerkungen zur Theologie des Markus’, in Neotestamentica et Patristica, Freundesgabe für Cullmann, O. (1962), pp. 3542 (also inGoogle ScholarSchweizer, E., Neotestamentica, pp. 93100).Google Scholar

page 422 note 2 Even there the verb appears in a different form (aorist instead of imperfect) and only linked with the (first mentioned!) mighty acts of the disciples (vi. 30).

page 422 note 3 Neither δıδάσκαλος nor δıδασκαλία is used by Mark (Professor S. McLean Gilmour, orally).

page 423 note 1 In i. 41 όργıσθεις is probably the correct reading.

page 423 note 2 Even ιδıος does not appear outside of this phrase (for iv. 34 cf. codices A, D).

page 423 note 3 That this is not possible even with ‘honey’ in its figurative sense, is proved by a German translation of one of Th. Wolfe's books where this expression is rendered literally, which in German is as idiotic as if an Englishman would say: ‘Jam, let us go out for dinner…How sweet of you, jam…’. For a discussion of the whole problem cf. Jüngel, E., Paulus und Jesus (1962), pp. 135–9.Google Scholar

page 424 note 1 For Qumran cf. Kuhn, K. G., N.T.S. VII (1960/1961), 336.Google Scholar

page 424 note 2 Cf. Anmerkungen, (mentioned p. 422 n. I) p. 37Google Scholar, footnote 2 (p. 94, footnote 10).

page 425 note 1 Here it is certainly Mark's redaction; it may be that he changed also in v. 7 an original title like ‘the Holy One’ to ‘Son of God’ (cf. i. 24 and John vi. 69, b, syc).

page 425 note 2 For Mark's habit of inserting material between two connected pericopes or two parts of the same pericope cf. v. 25–34; vi. 14–29; xi. 15–19.

page 425 note 3 The actual parallel to Luke xi. 14 f. is Matt. ix. 32–4. Matthew anticipated this story because of xi. 5 (cf. also ix. 27–30 parallel to xx. 29–34). The miracles mentioned to the disciples of the Baptist must, for Matthew, have happened before this discussion. I do not suggest that Mark knew a written source Q, but that Q still shows more or less what the original (oral?) tradition looked like.

page 426 note 1 Also the άλλα πλοία which are mentioned in this verse, but play no role in Mark's account, prove this verse to be an old stratum of Mark's tradition.

page 426 note 2 Cf. note 2, p. 425 above.

page 429 note 1 I consider a brief form like ‘The son of man is to suffer and to be rejected’ (cf. ix. 12, etc.) as authentic.

page 429 note 2 Rev. U., Luz, Zürich (orally).

page 429 note 3 On this and other hints in Mark to an acceptance of the gentiles cf. Hahn, , op. cit. pp. 98 ff.Google Scholar

page 430 note 1 Cf. Hahn, , op. cit. pp. 58 ff.Google Scholar

page 430 note 2 Rev. vi shows a traditional pattern: civil wars (Mark xiii. 7)-world-wide wars (xiii. 8)-famine (xiii. 8)-plague (only in Luke xxi. II, parallel to Mark xiii. 8)-persecution (xiii. 9, 11–13) -earthquakes (xiii. 8)-cosmic catastrophe (xiii. 24 ff.). Cf. Schweizer, E., Neotestamentica, p. 59, note 12.Google Scholar

page 430 note 3 Not ‘a son of God’, cf. my article on υιός to be published in Kittel, G., Theologisches Wörterbuch.Google Scholar

page 430 note 4 Cf. Winter, P., On the Trial of Jesus (1961), pp. 20 ff.Google Scholar

page 430 note 5 For the discussion with Marxsen, W. cf. Conzelmann, H., Z.N. W. L (1959), 215 f.Google Scholar A church which certainly knew of the Easter appearances of the risen Lord would never have connected this verse with an imminent parousia in Galilee, as Marxsen thinks. For the discussion with Lightfoot, R. H. cf. Davies, , op. cit. p. 360.Google Scholar

page 431 note 1 Barth, K., Kirchliche Dogmatik 11/1 (1940), 205Google Scholar, also quoted by von Rad, G., Theologie des Alten Testaments, 11 (1960), 391.Google Scholar