In the last post, I argued that a date for Mark in the first century as the most plausible option can be reasonably established just from a consideration of the external evidence. Before I go on to look at the internal evidence in the Gospel of Mark itself, I want to consider two other external arguments for an earlier dating of Mark that are misguided in my opinion. The first argument by José O’Callaghan, ‘New Testament Papyri in Qumran Cave 7? JBLSup 91.2 (1972): 1-14 and Carsten Peter Thiede The Earliest Gospel Manuscript?: the Qumran Papyrus 7Q5 and its Significance for New Testament Studies. Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1992; The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (New York: Palgrave, 2000) (cf. his argument summarized here, critical review of latter book here) is that a fragment of Mark has been found at Qumran and so Mark should be dated before 50 CE. However, after the strong debunking of this claim below from conservative or liberal quarters alike (see links below), virtually nothing remains of this alleged parallel except for the very common Greek particle kai. This is familiar to first year undergraduates who have taken an introductory course on the NT, but as the internet is prone to conspiracies it cannot be said strongly enough that there are no references to Jesus or early “Christianity” whatsoever in the Dead Sea Scrolls (note scholarly bloggers with expertise in the scrolls like Jim Davila or Robert Cargill).
The second argument is based on the earlier dating of the book of Acts before 62 CE and, by implication, Mark must be dated even earlier. The early dating of Luke-Acts has some strong supporters (J.A.T. Robinson, Colin Hemer, Craig Blomberg, some commentaries on Luke or Acts), but Luke 19:33-34 and 21:24 seem to me to reflect the Jewish War and destruction of the Temple. It can be protested that Luke’s imagery could be derived from scripture and from commonplaces of war, but that Luke alters the “abomination of desolation” standing in the temple (Mk 13:14; Matt 24:15) suggests to me that the author is reinterpreting a more ambiguous oracle about some antichrist figure defiling the temple in light of the events of 70 CE. I am part of the panel at San Francisco SBL where we will discuss the possibility of an early second century dating based on the arguments of Richard Pervo et al (his case is that Acts is familiar with a corpus of Pauline letters, Josephus’ Antiquities, and shares terminology/themes with the apostolic fathers and other 2nd cent texts, my contribution will be to look at a possible relationship with Papias and the depiction of John Mark in light of our various traditions of a Mark in Paul’s letters, 1 Peter and Papias), but even on the more conventional dating places Luke-Acts in the late first century (80-100 CE). Thus, while I do not think these two arguments are strong for dating Mark earlier than conventional (late 60s – early 70s), in the next post I will turn to the internal evidence to see whether the consensus dating is secure or if Mark can be dated much earlier.
For articles responding to the claim about the Dead Sea Scrolls:
Robert H. Gundry, “No NU in Line 2 of 7Q5: A Final Disidentification of 7Q5 With Mark 6:52-53“. JBL 118 (1999): 698–707.
Hans Förster, “7Q5 = Mark 6:52-53 A Challenge for Textual Criticism?“ JGRChJ 2 (2001–2005) 27-35.
Gordon Fee, “Some Dissenting Notes on 7Q5=Mark 6:52-53.” JBL 92:1 (1973) 109-112.
Graham Stanton, “A Gospel Among the Scrolls?” BAR online
Daniel Wallace, “7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus?” at the blog http://bible.org/article/7q5-earliest-nt-papyrus
See also http://www.textexcavation.com/qumran7q5.html and the Wikipedia entry has a short summary of the debate.
A question I’ve been pondering is why “God” did not leave behind the kind of evidence that one imagines an all powerful Being could have left behind concerning such stories as the Exodus, and stories related to Jesus and his miracles. Why not have the earliest Hebrews carve their story in stone, or on clay tablets buried in the desert during their trek, or around Jerusalem?
Why not have the earliest Christians in Galilee and Jerusalem store some early writings in caves? Why not writings from Jesus himself? Why not writings from a host of witnesses including people who witnessed various miracles told in the Gospels but who were not part of the early Jesus movement?
Instead we’re left with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that have merely added fuel to the fire that the times were filled with apocalyptic madness.
God could have also inspired the inclusion of key passages inside the Gospel documents as to help determine their dates with greater accuracy and general acceptance. And could have made it clearer who wrote what, including what their written sources were. And also preserved the sources.
Lastly, Jesus’ ministry doesn’t seem to have taken him to any of the larger cities except Jerusalem. He was always preaching in the smaller cities or in the wilderness. And even his resurrection story in the earliest two Gospels, Mark and Matthew, leads us back immediately to Galilee “He has gone before you to Galilee, there ye shall see him,” back to the countryside in other words. While in the later two Gospels, Luke and John, Jesus rises and leaves town oh so quietly. Luke says Jesus led them to Bethany and rose into heaven from there. But in Acts Jesus sticks around and teaches and eats with the disciples for seven weeks, and then rose into heaven. In both cases only the apostles saw the risen Jesus. In other words, Jesus’ final exit was nothing like his entrance into Jerusalem, accompanied by a crowd shouting Hosanna, waving palms (if that story is even historical). And the raised Jesus never shows himself to the Jewish leaders or to crowds in Jerusalem. It just seems like a awful lot that God wants people to believe. The only doubter Jesus shows himself to is one apostle, Thomas. And that story is only found in the last Gospel.
I’ve often remarked that this is a sloppy way to go about things if God wants everyone to believe and be saved.
And why not send prophets to every civilization? One per generation? And have them all use the same name for “God?” And have them all perform miracles in public? And why not appear to honest doubters?
These are fair questions (I have them too) and get at the heart of faith, and not sure I can do justice to them in the comments section on a blog post. I don’t know why a deity would not just silence all the critics by some overwhelming display of power, but instead choose to accomplish the divine purposes through weak human agents situated in particular time and place (the flawed biblical characters and writers, Israel chosen not out of any great deed but because they were the smallest of the nations and grace to the patriarchs, divine power displayed best in weakness on a cross, etc). That the Bible is much more diverse and messier than it is often made out to me may also be inspiring, like we are joining in a dialogue that has been ongoing for centuries on what it means to love God and neighbour in changing historical and cultural circumstances.
Fair enough response, playing up the idea of divine weakness, but the Bible contains examples of both divine weakness and divine power, even horrendous power. Jesus meek and mild, the prince of peace, becomes Jesus the bloody judge in Revelation, the path to peace lay through a valley of God’s worldwide curses, an ocean of blood, Armageddon.
Also, truly momentous miracles are attributed to the Hebrew God in the distant past, from creation to the worldwide Flood, to the destruction of entire cities like Sodom and Gomorrah to the splitting of the Red Sea in view of about two million Hebrews and mixed multitude, and the drowning of the Egyptian army afterwards. That’s big strong stuff, as were the curses on all of Egypt. But then we come to Jesus a doer of miracles mainly in small towns and in the wilderness, he never splits the sea in sight of everyone, he walks on it in sight of only a boatload of apostles. His only big town venture is Jerusalem and when he dies there his resurrection is not even on display for all to see. It looks like a WEAKNESS that GROWS progressively weaker from OT to NT, with, of course, the promise of a terrifically strong ending, perhaps Rev. had to be written that way to try and remove growing doubts that the story isn’t really that strong.
I’d say it’s interesting that the Hebrews developed monotheism, but henotheism was already in vogue among Israel’s enemies– a high moral “god above the gods.” And the Hebrews were spared their exile by a culture that is about as close to monotheism as one can come, the Persians, Inter-testamental writings and even first century apocalyptic including Christianity resembles the Persian idea of a good God who wins in the end versus a god of this world and his demons, the sons of darkness.
Thanks again Ed for the valuable discussion. I am not a biblical literalist so some of these stories may have theological truth even if they did not literally happen and that part of the Christian engagement and dialogue with the Bible is admitting our historical distance from the biblical authors and where our religious understandings change and evolve over time. But I think the secular academic study of the biblical texts is a separate field of study from the (entirely legitimate in its own contexts) question of how to theologically appropriate these texts as scripture for the church or the synagagoue, so would it be okay if we shift this conversation back to the topic on the arguments for dating Mark?
I think it’s saner to admit one doesn’t know than to claim that stories have theological value, which is like claiming you DO know something for certain about such stories, something eternally true regardless of their questionable historicity. But do you really know such stories have “theological value” with any more certitude than one’s guesses concerning a story’s historicity? One could say the same about limitlness numbers of stories, that they have “theological value.” If Christians want to admit they are agnostic Christians, then admit it. Use the word, be brave, don’t hide behind “theological value” as if you’re any more certain of that than you are of a story’s historicity.
Biblical studies lay along a wide spectrum today and features many contrarian views, Was Mark the first Gospel or not? (A scholars specializing in synoptic studies Markan Priority still has the edge but not by much according to a lecture delivered at a recent conference). What degree of eyewitness versus oral tradition, versus literary sources were used in the composition of the Gospels? Did Q ever exist as a written document or not? How aware of the synoptics and influenced by their stories and names was the FG author? There is also a wide spectrum of opinion concerning the Gospels stories of Jesus that includes mythicists, miracle stories mostly tall tales/urban myths/hagiography/midrash, mostly history, or the most conservative view–that the Gospel stories and sayings of Jesus were inerrantly preserved or as close to inerrant as possible. So one can pick and choose from among whichever scholarly authorities one wishes. How does one choose? Via Pascal’s Biblical Studies Wager of course! That’s the game that Christian Excuse-ologists are playing, ye olde Pascal betting game.
Does God exist? Let’s wager. . . Do biblical studies prove the veracity of the Gospels? Another wager.
[...] of dating Mark shortly before or after 70 CE. He is not alone in this - in the last two posts we saw early daters for good and bad reasons (e.g., re-reading patristic evidence – J. [...]