Jesus: Messianic Pretender as Arisotlean Tragic Hero

[patrick457]

This is a good point at which to note that there is increasing doubt about Markan priority among biblical scholars.

Just to sift things properly. Are we talking about Markan priority per se, or the two-source hypothesis? A number of people use the two terms interchangeably, but they are in reality two separate theories in their own right.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Just to sift things properly. Are we talking about Markan priority per se, or the two-source hypothesis? A number of people use the two terms interchangeably, but they are in reality two separate theories in their own right.

Really, though I only referenced Markan priority (in the proper sense), the implications call the two-source hypothesis (and thus “proto-Mark”) into question as well.

catholic.com/magazine/articles/where-the-evangelists-got-their-information

 

[prodigalson2011]

prodigalson2011;10119373:

a) you don’t have the real “gMark” to go by; you provide nothing but conjecture, and you provide no reasonable criteria by which to suppose that your selected portions of the gospel are contextually incompatible additions.

I think you are under characterizing my exegesis as “conjecture.” It is widely recognized in scholars of both Testaments the many works have undergone editorial expansion. Not only the gospels but also Paul’s authentic letters. The Pentateuch is certainly not a unified composition. Do you hold that it is?

I am not disputing that there was any modification done to the gospels or other books of the canon. I am disputing that any identifiable expansions/modifications give any indication that they changed the theological implications of the narrative.

That does not demonstrate that Mark is of composite authorship. It only shows that Matthew and Luke knew Mark and not gMark.

I’m not sure how this relates to my comment, because it had nothing to do with the authorship of Mark. Furthermore, as I noted earlier, that Mark was the first synoptic gospel, and thus the source of the other 2, is not a closed case and is in fact highly disputed.

No, I demarcate gMark and Mark by pericopae which include obvious Markan and highly repeated themes such as the use of the adverb, immediately" and the words that express “amazement” at Jesus. I also argue that Mark 15:39 is likely regarded as the conclusion of gMark and that the following two episodes are a block united by the theme of the activity of certain women. These woman are immediately introduced following the alleged conclusion of gMark, which resolves the dramatic themes introduced in the passion narrative.

But this becomes meaningless if gMark is actually Matthew.

I do not presume anything. I argue on the basis of style and content that certainly gMark predates Mark (c. 70 CE) and that its message is one that makes an argument that offers a Aristotlean explanation of Jesus as a tragic hero. You seem to simply ignore the argument that indeed Jesus is portrayed as a classic Tragic Hero.

He is only portrayed as a tragic hero if one accepts the massive editorial work and eisegesis that you have performed.

I do not think that Paul predates gMark. gMark is addressing a concern that would spring up quite soon after Jesus’ crucifixion. What was Jesus–a classic tragic hero, and what was Jesus not–the apocalyptic, Jewish Messiah.

Conjecture. Until you turn up the actual document, this is pure sophistry. Not to mention that it is, prima facie, ludicrous. How, then, do you account for the persistence of Jesus’ apostles, who ultimately faced death for proclaiming the resurrected Christ?

gMark predates John, It is commonly thought that the “Passion Narrative” is quite early, extending back to the 30’s.

Obviously, all of the gospel narratives extend back, through oral tradition, to the time of Christ himself.

Yes it does, due to the sheer amount of the use of these motisf. * Euthus*

occurs I 42 times in Mark as compared to the other 7 other occurrences of the adverb in the other gospels. You do not recognizing that I am using a valid means of isolating a redactional layer in a composite composition. Such is used in both Old Testament source and redaction criticism and also in Pauline literarure. It’s just silly to you.

It’s silly to think it’s evidence of some massive theological reorientation. All it proves, if anything, is that more than one person was involved in compiling the gospel.

Why is that?

You are citing all this evidence of dual authorship as evidence that the gospel was originally completely counter-Christian. The fact that someone who liked to use these 2 words goes nowhere towards showing that this “ghost writer” had some kind of agenda to completely alter the message of the gospel.

 

[prodigalson2011]

The source of his citation is not the crucial issue. Why did he cite this verse?

The obvious answer, given the context of the cited Psalm, was that his crucifixion was the fulfillment of that Psalm, which pretty blatantly depicts a crucifixion.

You subscribe to the notion that prophecies are real, most likely informed a Christian fideism. Indeed, this is likely the basic reason that you resist my interpretation. Such would be entirely predictable.

You subscribe to the notion that prophecies aren’t real, most likely informed by your pantheistic fideism. Indeed, this is likely the basic reason that you reject the Christian interpretation. Such would be entirely predictable.

See, I can make ad hominem arguments, too.

Many critical scholars hold that these motif were injected into the account and are non-historical and seen as an attempt to show that Jesus “fulfilled” these prophesies. I share that view.

Well, that’s good for you and the critical scholars. However, there is very little disagreement that a) Jesus was crucified and b) Psalm 22 makes a pretty clear allusion to crucifixion, having been written in a time and place where crucifixion wasn’t even practiced.

I do not ignore the cultural and historical context. Indeed, I show how my interpretation of gMark is quite stoic in the major role that Fate plays in the story. I show its literary context from the perspective of contemporary Roman culture. I argue that the classic description of a tragic hero is entirely contemporary and that the author was someone like Seneca who was about as old as Jesus.

Why would you couch a Jewish movement in the perspective of Roman culture? This is exactly what I’m talking about. The early Christians were Jews and the gospels themselves are filled with uniquely Jewish ideas, idioms, references, etc. Your “Seneca theory” is incredibly lacking.

Only by performing the kind of massive surgery that you have upon the gospel can one create such a Frankenstein’s monster of revisionism.

I offer my assessment because I think it appropriate. Trajedy is simply a more profound and more siblime than is comedy. Do you perfer comedies? Fine. I do not.

Your repeated references to “preferences” raise huge red flags.

Your criticisms remain hovered above the specific exegetical claims I make. In effect, they do not meet and evade the specifics of my argument. For example, what is the probable interpretation of Jesus announcement that the high priest “will see?” At the Great Judgment? “When he is older?” Indeed, it is something that everyone hearing him will see while they are at least alive.

Actually, that has always been understood as a reference to the second coming/resurrection/final judgment, when indeed the high priest will see him. Nice try, though.

Does the portayal of Jesus conform to the character and fate Aristotle’s tragic history or not? Does a plot development from an attiude of supreme confidence to abject dispair not resolve the dramatic question and so end with an epiphany as do tragedies in general?

No, it doesn’t, unless we accept your excisions and revisions. Christ, as presented in the gospels themselves, is lacking the moral flaw of a tragic hero, to begin with; and, further, what you are calling his “tragedy” was, according to the gospels, his mission.

Whether or not your proposed interpretation can be fit into the literary framework of a tragedy is irrelevant because the gospels are not literature. So, yes, the crucifixion did seem quite tragic; even his closest followers thought so. And the “abject despair” of Christ has been understood, since the earliest days of Christianity, to be a necessary part of the redemptive act in which Christ undertook the greatest sufferings of man, including despair–indeed, bearing all the consequences of sin and evil without having committed any himself.

I submit that your criticisms miss the mark as they oftenf ail to meet my arguments. I think you simply ignore crucial details and your arguments are evasive by being generalizations. You allege a bias to me and yet think that your fideism is not informing to criticisms. You are a Christian, are you not? You believe in supernatural prophecy, do you not? You believe that Jesus rose from the dead, do you not? You believe that you are eternally saved, do you not? You are affiliated with some Christian group, are not? Your beliefs are informing your interpretations, are they not?

Whom do you think you are fooling to accuse me of tendentious thinking? Sir, please, I implore you. I am not convinced that your intellectual allegience is to an objective interpretation of this literature. It is limited and directed by your fideism as is any strong ideology, religious or otherwise.

Let me also say that I am in no means a religious person. I have no idealogical commitments

To be honest, I have, for most of my life, been an atheist and it was through my study of Scripture, theology, history, etc. that I became convinced of Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, so I think it would be fair to say that it was my interpretations that informed my beliefs first. Of course, even after becoming a believer, I continue to study and learn more–I would hardly claim to be a biblical scholar–but I do try to retain an objective frame of mind about it. I simply don’t see where any of your meaningful criticisms hold any weight.

The few legitimate points you make give no credence to your central thesis and the rest is pure eisegesis, as far as I can see.

 

[Qoeleth]

Thank you for your pertinent suggestions. Two nights ago I read the Poetics. I am convinced that Aristotle would have very much appreciated and approved of pMark’s work. I went into more detal here if you are interested:

freewebs.com/lmbarre/jesusastragichero.htm

Now I need funding to properly execute my research!

Regards,

LMB

I think that what a thorough study will show is this- that there is an overlap in spirit, philosophy, theology (to some extent) and ethics (to some extent) between Greek tragedy and the Gospels.

“Seek and you shall find”- Jesus quoting Sophocles?

“It was not easy, my children, but, one word can transform all the pain and bitterness of life. And the word is LOVE- and love you’ve had from me, more than any mortal man can give. Now I must leave, that you may live on”. Sophocles- but almost foreshadowing the speech of Jesus in John’s Gospel.

You might also like to think about Oedipus ‘Assumption’ into Heaven, as the redemption from his sufferings (which, like Christ, arise from a ‘question of identity’)

I severely must question the proposal that Seneca could have contributed to the Gospels. I mean Seneca wrote in Latin, and is not really showing the same spirituality as the Greek tragedies, or the Gospels.

 

[Qoeleth]

The obvious answer, given the context of the cited Psalm, was that his crucifixion was the fulfillment of that Psalm, which pretty blatantly depicts a crucifixion.

You subscribe to the notion that prophecies aren’t real, most likely informed by your pantheistic fideism. Indeed, this is likely the basic reason that you reject the Christian interpretation. Such would be entirely predictable.

See, I can make ad hominem arguments, too.

Well, that’s good for you and the critical scholars. However, there is very little disagreement that a) Jesus was crucified and b) Psalm 22 makes a pretty clear allusion to crucifixion, having been written in a time and place where crucifixion wasn’t even practiced.

Why would you couch a Jewish movement in the perspective of Roman culture? This is exactly what I’m talking about. The early Christians were Jews and the gospels themselves are filled with uniquely Jewish ideas, idioms, references, etc. Your “Seneca theory” is incredibly lacking.

Only by performing the kind of massive surgery that you have upon the gospel can one create such a Frankenstein’s monster of revisionism.

Your repeated references to “preferences” raise huge red flags.

Actually, that has always been understood as a reference to the second coming/resurrection/final judgment, when indeed the high priest will see him. Nice try, though.

No, it doesn’t, unless we accept your excisions and revisions. Christ, as presented in the gospels themselves, is lacking the moral flaw of a tragic hero, to begin with; and, further, what you are calling his “tragedy” was, according to the gospels, his mission.

Whether or not your proposed interpretation can be fit into the literary framework of a tragedy is irrelevant because the gospels are not literature. So, yes, the crucifixion did seem quite tragic; even his closest followers thought so. And the “abject despair” of Christ has been understood, since the earliest days of Christianity, to be a necessary part of the redemptive act in which Christ undertook the greatest sufferings of man, including despair–indeed, bearing all the consequences of sin and evil without having committed any himself.

To be honest, I have, for most of my life, been an atheist and it was through my study of Scripture, theology, history, etc. that I became convinced of Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, so I think it would be fair to say that it was my interpretations that informed my beliefs first. Of course, even after becoming a believer, I continue to study and learn more–I would hardly claim to be a biblical scholar–but I do try to retain an objective frame of mind about it. I simply don’t see where any of your meaningful criticisms hold any weight.

The few legitimate points you make give no credence to your central thesis and the rest is pure eisegesis, as far as I can see.

I agree with you overall, but will disagree on a couple of points.

1. The tragic ‘character flaw’ can actually be a moral virtue. For example, in Aeschylus ‘Prometheus’ it is love of mankind. In Sophocles’ Antigone’, it is committment to following divine law. Jesus compassion and committment to the truth could serve as ‘tragic flaws’ (althoug, of course, they are virtues). Arguably, for all ‘heros’, tragedy is their mission- even Jesus. The idea of fate as ‘mission’, so prominent in the Gospels (@It was for this hour that I came into the world…) is incredibly important for the Greek tragedians.
2. In Greek tragedy, suffering is also redemptive. Take the case of Oedipus in Sophocles Theban tragedy. Or Ajax, through his suffering redeeming his sin.
3. I would say that the Gospels are at least as Greek in though as Jewish, even more so. I mean, they’re written in Greek. Presumably, therefore, the authors had read the Greek canon.

Just a few ideas. I agree, though, the theory, as presented in the essay, doesn’t really stand up.

 

[patrick457]

Whether or not your proposed interpretation can be fit into the literary framework of a tragedy is irrelevant because the gospels are not literature.

This is where I disagree with you. Personally, I think that analyzing the gospels and the New Testament as a whole as literature - not just as holy writ or historical records, as is often done by many people - although this is admittedly an underdeveloped field of study historically, could provide us with new perspectives. The content may be important, but that does not mean that we should discard the words.

 

[patrick457]

I think we have more than enough evidence to ascribe to the theory of pMark. It is also common knowledge that Mark is “a passion narrative with an introduction.” I trace pMark backward from 15:39 to Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. We also can accept with some measure of certainty that the texts that encompass the three examples I cited are pMark material and that the passion narrative was never independent of prior “events.” The statement that “he delivered others but cannot deliver himself,” makes reference to a ministry prior to his arrival at Jerusalem.

In the three Markan expansion is presented, the first is the most obvious. This alone is enough to conclude that an underlying narrative has been supplemented by a later hand. I submit that there is also compelling evidence that pMark ended at 15:39 and that the following two episodes of the burial and empty tomb are indeed Markan expansions as well.

Based on your descriptions, I assume that by ‘proto-Mark’ you actually mean what is sometimes called the ‘Cross Gospel’? Where I disagree with you is whether we can really ‘recover’ this pre-Markan material and reconstruct it in its original form, if it really existed: as it stands today, the passion narrative in Mark is connected with the rest of the gospel and is an theologically integral part of it. All the motifs found in the gospel at the whole literally converge at the crucifixion (this is where I believe you got something right). This is why I hesitate talking about pMark and take into consideration just the present form of the gospel.

 

[patrick457]

Just to summarize a number of the themes found in Mark (the canonical one):

1.) The fast-paced colloquial gospel. Mark is a very short, rapid and terse gospel. It begins simply with a very brief introduction (“The beginning of the euangelion of Jesus Christ, son of God”) and most likely ends in an ambiguous cliffhanger at 16:8 (“They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”) In between the narrative pace is very fast: Mark has a rather quick montage of a series of episodes from Jesus’ life, but slows down a bit in order to tell the story of Jesus’ final week. His constant use of the words euthys (“immediately”) and kai (“and”) to connect pericopes and sentences together all contribute to this feel.

2.) Jesus as “son of God.” The very first thing that Mark tells us is that Jesus is “son of God,” although he does not elaborate further on the status of His sonship. After a brief introduction involving John the Baptizer, Jesus then appears abruptly into the scene as an adult - Mark eschews any discussion of Jesus’ birth or boyhood and by means of this succinctly presents Jesus as a sort of mysterious, divine figure distinct from your average 1st century Galilean peasant. Whereas a modern biographer would trace patterns of interaction between the subject and his environment in highlight the subject’s distinctive features, Mark simply proclaims Jesus’ uniqueness but not gives us the reason why. This segues into:

3.) Jesus the enigma. Mark is so keen to emphasize Jesus being a unique person that in the very first healing in the gospel (the demoniac at Capharnaum; 1:21-28), we are at once told that:

And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. …] And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

As the gospel progresses, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to know as to just what sort of person Jesus wants to present to the world. He performs miracles but warns people to not tell everyone about it (more on this theme later). He draws crowds to Himself because of His words and actions, but then withdraws away from the people attracted to Him. In fact, He even disassociates Himself from His blood relations:

That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”

Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” …] And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

To say that Mark’s Jesus is lonely is somewhat of an overstatement, since the author very rarely comment on Jesus’ thoughts, but He is certainly alone. This loneliness will eventually reach a climax at His death, where none of His acquaintances provide any moral support.

And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.” And they all left him and fled. And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” …] There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.

 

[patrick457]

4.) Fear and astonishment. The theme of “wonder” in the form of either fear, terror, astonishment, or awe is another running theme of the gospel. Of the thirty-two references to wonder in Mark, eight involve miracles or exorcisms (2:12; 4:41; 5:15, 33, 42; 6:50, 51; 7:37), eight occur in teaching or passion predictions (1:22, 27; 6:2; 9:32; 10:24, 26; 11:18; 12:17), three appear in the empty tomb narrative (16:5, 6, 8), five relate to the fear of Jewish or gentile leaders (6:20; 11:32; 12:12; 15:5, 44), and eight are difficult to categorize (3:21; 5:20; 6:6; 9:6, 15; 10:32; 12:11; 14:33).

The thing about the act of wondering in Greco-Roman literature is that there it appears mainly in reference to signs, portents, dreams or divine intervention in general. In early Jewish Jewish writings meanwhile wonder is a common reaction to God or divine actions, and appears frequently in eschatological, messianic, and/or propagandistic contexts. In early Christian texts, it may be a response to experiences that move one beyond that which is normal or natural into the realm of the supernatural. It can have either a positive or negative connotation, and be followed by either faith or deception. This segues into:

5.) Apocalyptic imagery. Mark’s gospel does not belong to the apocalyptic genre per se, but it does contain its “little apocalypse” in chapter 13. As with most apocalypses, it begins with a narrative and then moves on to prediction, in this case Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem and cosmic catastrophe, which is then followed by divine rescue by the “Son of Man” coming on the clouds of heaven. Mark’s use of apocalyptic imagery, however, is not restricted to this chapter: it pervades the entire narrative that we could consider it an apocalyptic drama in the form of a realistic narrative. Mark’s writing style may also be related with this theme: the fast breathless pace leading up to the end of this world.

Mark’s Jesus is thoroughly apocalyptic. At the beginning of the gospel, the mysterious Jesus - already an adult - suddenly appears out of nowhere without fanfare to be baptized by John (who is himself an apocalyptic figure) and after the descent of the Spirit and a sojourn in the wilderness (1:9-12), He conquers the cosmic forces (the ‘unclean spirits’) that have oppressed humans (1:21-28) to demonstrate that “the kingdom of God” is breaking into the world through His deeds and words (1:14-15).

The thing about Mark is that He emphasizes Jesus’ actions more than His words. Although everyone calls Him a teacher and His stance towards His followers is that of a teacher, Mark does not report too many of Jesus’ sayings: he limits himself to a handful of parables (4:1-32), some aphorisms (6:4; 7:15), prophetic warnings (13:5-23) and instructions to the disciples on the cost of their commitment to God’s rule (8:34-38).

Jesus’ “new teaching” is a matter of power. He heals (1:29-34), drives out demons (5:1-20), stills a storm-driven sea (4:35-40), feeds a multitude (6:34-44). and walks on the water (6:45-52). All of this causes both followers and opponents to ask, “Who is this?”

This is where we go back to number 4. In the first half of the gospel, wonders follows the acts of God in the breaking-in of God’s rule in and through Jesus, “son of God.” Many who experience those divine interventions react with wonder, but not all proceed to repentance and faith (cf. 1:14). In the second half, the saving intervention of God takes on the form of the “son of Man” giving His life as a ransom for many, and this too elicits reactions of amazement.

This segues into:

6.) Insiders vs. outsiders. Mark maintains the insider/outsider irony inherent in the genre: his readers have the ‘necessary knowledge’ from the start (“the gospel of Jesus Christ, son of God”), but this truth eludes most of the human characters in the narrative, who should most have had such ‘insider’ knowledge, namely, the disciples. This is where we go to:

 

[patrick457]

7.) The messianic secret. Again and again in the gospel, when Jesus performs something miraculous He rather oddly tells the witnesses to keep quiet about it. The very first time Jesus tries to silence someone is in Mark 1:25, when He rebukes the unclean spirit possessing a man in Capharnaum in response to its claim to know who Jesus is: “Be muzzled shut, and come out of him.”

A little later Mark tells us: “And many demons he drove out, and was not permitting the demons to speak because they knew him.” (1:34) Jesus does not silence them because they were saying false things about Him; on the contrary, He did so “because they knew him.” We often get this pattern in Mark where Jesus heals or exorcises someone, or when someone reveals His true identity, Jesus tells them all to shut up about what just happened, but very often the people can’t seem to restrain themselves from blabbering about it for some reason and so fame about Jesus and His abilities spreads anyway. This also applies for Peter’s confession and the Transfiguration:

And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

The first person to notice and identify this theme was a man called William Wrede, who also applied the title of “messianic secret” to this phenomenon. Now Wrede advanced the theory that Jesus did not really proclaim Himself as the Messiah during His lifetime nor was He identified as one by anyone. It was only after Jesus’ death that the disciples eventually came to believe that He was indeed the Christ. Now what happened, according to Wrede, was that the early Christians then invented the literary motif of having Jesus keep His true identity secret throughout His ministry when they retold the story of His life, in effect (anachronistically) transposing their understanding of who Jesus is back to an earlier time. Wrede thought that the clue to this lies in Jesus’ admonition to the disciples after the Transfiguration, where the disciples are told to keep everything a secret “except when the son of man should rise from the dead.”

The problem with Wrede’s theory, however, is that first of all, while he argued that the messianic elements in the Jesus story were later insertions by the early Christians some of the ‘Jesus tradition’ do look rather messianic in nature (the entry to Jerusalem, for instance - which evokes the prophecy from Zechariah). Secondly, while Jesus does command silence, the people proclaim the news anyway - hence the theory doesn’t really make sense of the messianic-secret motif and its function in Mark’s gospel. Thirdly, there is one instance (5:19-20) where Jesus actually commands a healed person to tell the news.

8.) Misunderstanding/blindness. As mentioned earlier in number 6, the greatest irony in Mark’s gospel is that almost know one knows who Jesus is. Mark partly privileges the audience by saying right at the very beginning that Jesus is “son of God,” although he leaves it at that with no clarification. Time and again, supernatural entities appear in the course of the story revealing His true identity (usually using that key phrase “son of God”), sometimes in the ostensive hearing of everyone, but most of the time, either Jesus orders them to shut up, or the people around Him are just too blind and deaf.

And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”

And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”

And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

The disciples, of all people, prove to be the most dimwitted and ‘blind’ within the narrative. To his credit, heactually starts off his portrayal of the disciples pretty well: for instance, when Jesus calls His disciples, they obediently follow, leaving behind everything to follow Him (1:16-20; 2:13-17; 3:13-18). However, aside from a handful of places where the disciples shine, everything goes downhill from there, as we will soon see.

 

[patrick457]

The gospel pays particular attention to the alienation that Jesus feels from His disciples. When Jesus articulates His first parable in the gospel (that of the sower), He concludes it with an exhortation: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, “You’d better use your ears and listen well!” Mark does not relate the crowd’s reaction, but he does tell the disciples’, and they pointedly lack “ears to hear.” Jesus responds to their request for an explanation of the parable by pointing their privileged position of having “the mystery of the kingdom of God” plainly revealed to them, while to those outside everything is said in parables. In other words, Jesus does not explain Himself immediately, but provides a justification for His parables, and this justification divides insiders from outsiders. In the hyperbole of this explanation, everything sounds parabolic to outsiders in order that they will remain outside. Mark’s Jesus, according to His own admission, intentionally confounds His listeners to push them away: He slams and locks the door on their faces, so to speak.

The disciples would seem to play the role of insiders, in contrast to the scribes and other opponents, but this is not exactly right. Their position only allows them exposure to the “mystery,” but not necessarily understanding. This gift would prove to be a mixed blessing. In 4:13 Jesus asks them a pair of questions: “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?” The implied answer for the first question being “no,” and to the second, that they won’t. Hence, the insiders have no more luck than the outsiders in comprehending Jesus’ riddles. After more parables (mostly involving more seeds), Mark closes this section of the gospel with the words:

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

The parable of the sower epitomizes Jesus’ teaching to the disciples. He presents them something which confounds them, and when they ask for an explanation, they become more confused. Returning to Jesus’ question, we see that if the disciples do not understand one parable, then they necessarily cannot understand all or any of the parables.

Perhaps to drive home the point that the disciples are faithless dullards, Mark in the following pericope (the calming of the storm; 4:35-41) has the disciples tell Jesus rather bluntly: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” and Jesus retorting back: “Have you still no faith?” When Jesus finally orders the storm to die down, the disciples could only remark: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” thereby bringing us back to Mark’s emphasis on Jesus being a mysteriously unique figure, as well as further hammering the point of the disciples’ blindness.

Another scene proves this same point even further. Mark is one of the two gospels which includes two feeding stories. The first (6:30-44) has 5,000 men (plus uncounted numbers of women and children) being fed with only five loaves and two fish, while the second (8:1-10) involved 4,000 people, seven loaves and “a few” small fish. At first, the two stories seem to be so similar as to be repetitive (Luke and John do not include the latter feeding), but it serves the purpose of showing the readers, or rather the hearers of the gospel the disciples’ comprehension skills (or lack thereof). Three times in the first story, the place where the crowd gathers is described as deserted or desolate:

The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. …] And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

 

[patrick457]

In the second story, Jesus subtly attempts to provide His disciples a cue for recalling the previous feeding:

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.”

One would expect the disciples to say, “Why not feed them the same way you did that other crowd.” Instead, however, we get this gem of a question:

And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”

The disciples are either so thick, or have collective amnesia: I mean, they were right there in the previous feeding in the other “desolate place”!

Mark, however, does not let the disciples off the hook yet. After the feeding, Jesus has a dispute with “the Pharisees” concerning signs, after which:

And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side. Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

Which brings us back to chapter 4:

And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that

“they may indeed see but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

The disciples, therefore, are acting like “those outside:” seeing but not seeing, hearing but not hearing. There is again the trademark Markan irony at play here: immediately after Jesus talks about signs, His disciples mistake a metaphorical statement for literal truth. After just having seen Jesus feed crowds, they worry that one loaf will not be enough for all of them. The disciples could get their numbers right, but their interpretive skills are zero. In fact, Mark closes the pericope following that of the miracle of multiplication of food (that of the walking on water; 6:45-51) with the words:

And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

It is not just the disciples who misunderstand. The theme continues right up to the end of the narrative:

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.”

 

[patrick457]

As said earlier, it is no mystery to us readers who Jesus is, but most of the people around Him seem not to “get” who He is and repeatedly fail to understand His true identity (and He is not helping). The greatest irony of Mark - you could say that this is the core of the gospel - is that the very first human being in the narrative who confesses Jesus as “son of God” is His own executioner, and he does so not after seeing signs and wonders, but after seeing a broken man die in agony. It is probably no surprise then that the women run away in fear away from the tomb. They understand so little about Jesus that they fail to pass along to the disciples what the “young man” had just told them.

Jesus’ almost constant frustration with His disciples and their amazing ability to misunderstand pulls the reader in two directions. In one sense, the author encourages admiration of Jesus. Rarely do narratives spotlight one particular character – as Mark’s gospel does – without portraying the antagonist sympathetically. Because Jesus has many attractive qualities, readers do tend to take his side and thus share in his frustration over the stupidity of the disciples. Yet on the other the reader might also side with the disciples. This would especially be true within a religious community that already adhered to Christianity. In this second sense of sympathetic reading, the audience would share in the disciples’ bafflement. Readers who do not claim any religious connection with Mark can be as easily confounded by Jesus as the disciples in the narrative are. By pushing the reader both toward the uncomprehending disciples and the enigmatic Jesus, the Gospel of Mark tends to destabilize the reader and to make the narrative just as challenging as its protagonist.

9.) The Cross. Nowhere is the paradoxical nature of Mark’s gospel more apparent than in the events that lead up to Jesus’ death. A little later after the talk about leaven (8:14-21), we finally get to the story of Peter confessing Jesus in Caesarea Philippi. Mark’s version of the story has Peter proclaims Jesus as “the Christ,” but not the “son of God,” a title no human character in the narrative would ever use for Jesus up until the very end of Jesus’ life. As I’ve noted a number of times already, Mark has already set the stage for both titles at the very beginning: this is, after all, “the euangelion of Jesus Christ, son of God.” Mark then closes this brief episode with yet another warning of secrecy from Jesus: here we have Peter getting it (halfway) right, but Jesus shuts him up all the same, just like the demons who call Him by His real identity: the “Holy One of God,” the “son of God.” The messianic secret all over again. Apparently, Mark’s Jesus is not a very good evangelist.

Almost immediately after the discourse with the disciples on Caesarea Philippi, Jesus begins to be fixated upon his impending doom. It is due to this that one could say that Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah is really the bridge between the first and the second half of the gospel. And it is in the second half of the gospel that we begin to see the exact nature of Jesus’ being Christ. Mark opens the following section with the words: “And he began to teach them.” It’s a bit of an odd narration, since Jesus has been teaching ever since the beginning of the story. It is better to take this as a cue from the narrator that we are now at a turning point.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly.

No more time for parables here: now Jesus is being painfully open and frank. Twice more, with slight variations (9:31 and 10:33), He predicts His doom. This triad, often called Mark’s “triple passion prediction,” is one of the most obvious literary markers of the gospel. Mark’s triple statement highlights the most important characterization of Jesus in this gospel: He is the suffering Son of Man.

Mark also uses these predictions to further characterize the disciples. After the first one, Mark adds the editorial comment, “And he spoke to them plainly.” Yet they continue to misapprehend him. Their three reactions to Jesus’ distressed predictions are: to rebuke him (8:32), to argue among themselves about who was greatest (9:34), and to ask for privileges once Jesus receives his glory (10:37-40). The rebuke of Jesus by Simon Peter in 8:32 expresses confusion, but the other two border on callousness. In the face of the imminent death of their teacher, all they concern themselves with are their own rewards and security.

 

[patrick457]

While Christians often expect that part of what it meant for Jesus to be “the Christ” was to suffer and die for the sins of the world, there was no such concept in the ancient world. In other words, the Jews did not have any idea of God’s anointed dying an ignoble death. Now it is a bit inaccurate to speak of the ‘messianic expectation’ in a 1st century context since different people had different ideas about what the Messiah would be like. The messiah was expected a royal figure, others a priest, still others a prophet or some combination of the three. Some thought that he would be a normal human being born from the common population, while others expected a superhuman, angelic (dare I say semi-divine) figure to come down from heaven. Still others seem to have not expected any messianic figure at all but just something like grand, cataclysmic signs of deliverance or mundane, divinely-inspired courage to fight against the authorities. There wasn’t even an agreement as to how many messiahs there would be. But the one thing that the messianic figure is not supposed to do is to die in a manner as humiliating and servile as a Roman crucifixion. He is the “anointed one,” for pete’s sake (no pun intended); not a slave or a manual laborer or a criminal.

So the Christian idea of looking at various bits and pieces of the Old Testament concerning a suffering figure (Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, etc.) and intepreting them in a messianic light is really a radical ‘innovation’, and a very odd one at that: it is unthinkable, ridiculous, even offensive to Jew and gentile alike (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:23). Messiahs don’t suffer, nor do they get beaten or crucified. There’s no way that they could ever be. This is exactly the “foolishness” and the “stumbling-block” Mark’s gospel is designed to overcome.

The disciples in the narrative act as stand-ins for the original audiences, who would have also struggled with the idea of Jesus the Christ dying an ignoble death. Like Peter, they would have taken offense at the whole prospect. The interesting thing here is, while Peter “takes [Jesus] aside” in private, Jesus turns around and scathingly rebukes Peter (and perhaps by implication, the others as well) in the open, even calling him “Satan.”

And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

A suffering messiah was not common sense at the time. It was not a “thing of man.” All of which shows that God does not believe in ‘common sense’. To drive the point home further, Jesus then addresses “the crowd” which somehow appeared:

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

This is more in line with what a messiah is supposed to do: come in glory with the angels. We see here the full pattern which informs parts of Mark, as well as the entire gospel: a correct identification of Jesus; a charge of secrecy; a correction of a misunderstanding about the necessity of suffering; and a promise of future, eschatological glory and reward. The promise of future glory is further emphasized by the pericope immediately following it:

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.
And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

The episode functions as a proleptic portrait of the way Jesus will be transformed after His death into glory in the resurrection. But since that hasn’t happened yet, Mark recalls the messianic secret motif. “He charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” There would be no crown without a cross, so Mark returns the emphasis to the upcoming death of Jesus and the need for secrecy in the meantime, almost as if Jesus must teach people a new, different notion of the relation between the Messiah and glory. While everyone thinks that the Messiah will simply be all triumph and glory as he gains dominion over the earth, what Jesus has to teach them is that the anointed one must first experience suffering before he could enjoy the rewards of glory. We now have one answer for why Jesus is so big on silence in Mark’s gospel: so that He can teach everyone a new notion of what the Messiah will be and do.

 

[patrick457]

There is a clear break in the gospel after 8:26. In the first half of Mark, the action is largely set in the Galilee (as well as nearby regions), and we have a Jesus who publicly preaches about the kingdom of God in parables. Despite Mark’s introduction of Jesus as “Christ” and “son of God,” He never claims these titles for Himself, and silences everyone who proclaims Him to be such. And as said earlier, this Jesus is for some reason a loner, who disengages Himself from the crowds who follow Him by deliberate withdrawal. By the second half, however, the setting moves southwards to Judaea and Jerusalem. In contrast to the plethora of miracles Mark shows us in the first half, hardly any miracles are recorded; Jesus’ performance of miracles gradually decrease as the story hastens to its conclusion, so that when we get to the cross, Jesus refuses to miraculously come down off it. Instead of publicly teaching the crowds in parables, Jesus becomes occupied with privately teaching His disciples more “open,” but equally cryptic themes like His impending death or eschatological prophecies.

All the previous themes: the blindness of the disciples, the messianic secret, the suffering Messiah, and the pervading dramatic irony show up in their fullest form and converge during the last twenty-four hours of Jesus in Mark’s gospel.

After the Last Supper, we are treated to the following scene:

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, (skandalisthēsesthe) for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, (skandalisthēsontai) I will not.” And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.

Remember the parable of the sower earlier in Mark’s gospel? “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away (skandalizontai).” It is the same verb in Greek: skandalizomai, ‘to be scandalized’, ‘to stumble’, ‘to trip up’. Mark does not hesitate to make one more jab at the disciples.

Despite their promises however, everything is messed up and messes up even further. Judas collaborates in the plot to have Jesus arrested (14:10-11). Peter, James and John fall asleep rather than watch during Jesus’ time of emotional turmoil (14:32-42); everyone flees the scene during Jesus’ arrest, even a young man who leaves his garment behind to escape (14:51-52); Peter denies Jesus publicly (14:66-72). The male disciples, like the seed which fell on rocky ground, were all ‘scandalized’ at the end, either having betrayed or abandoned Him.

During the trial of Jesus by the high priest, we finally see the conclusion of the messianic secret. Jesus, under interrogation, finally admits to being “the Christ” and “the son of the Blessed.” (Notice that the high priest does not use the term “son of God”.) Here we see that these titles are inextricably bound up with Jesus’ fate: as soon as the Markan Jesus finally confesses to being what the narrator, God and the demons have proclaimed Him to be all along since the beginning of the gospel, His fate is sealed.

Afterwards, “some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards received him with blows.” Herein is another irony. What the people in the narrative who mock Him do not know (but what the readers do know) is that they are at that very moment fulfilling an earlier prediction by Jesus about how “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed.” (8:31) In addition, the following episode (14:66-72) recounts Peter’s denial, again in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy.

 

[patrick457]

The same goes during the trial before Pilate. Pilate and the soldiers mock and torture Jesus for being ‘King of the Judaeans’ (traditionally ‘King of the Jews’), but the audience at this point has been conditioned to think that yes, Jesus is really a king, and His mock coronation serves as an unwitting proclamation of His true identity. Finally, Jesus is crucified between two robbers:

And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

Which brings us back to an earlier episode:

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

In other words, for Mark, Jesus the King has finally come “in [His] glory” by being hung on a cross. The narrator again goes into how alone Jesus is: virtually everyone - from the passersby to the chief priests to the robbers - insults Him (with words that drip further dramatic irony), and even God seems to have forsaken Jesus. As if to add further insult to injury, the bystanders even misinterpret Jesus’ penultimate cry. Now for the greatest irony of all:

And Jesus, uttering a loud cry, expired. And the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he expired, he said, “Truly this man was son of God.”

Here is a paradox: the person who had conquered demons submits to the tyranny of His human opponents, which represent in the human realm the cosmic forces against which He struggles (3:20-30). And He does not die in a serene, happy sort of way: He dies unceremoniously with a scream. And that gritty manner of death causes the man who had just executed Him to use the title no human in the story had ever used before.

Mark then devotes some space to mention the women looking on from afar off. The funny thing is that it is only here at the end of the gospel does he ever introduce them, when he himself states that they had been with Jesus ever since He was still in the Galilee. In-narrative, their presence is somewhat both positive and negative: the author seems to commend them for their fidelity to Jesus even after all the male disciples have fled, but he also at the same time casts a dark shadow over it by noting that they were watching “from a distance,” like Peter in 14:54 (apo makrothen; cf. Psalm 38:11 LXX). Ultimately, we revert to the negative portrayal of the disciples.

Although Mark’s Jesus explains very clearly that He is going to die, He never spells out why His sufferings must occur. While other books in the New Testament fill in this gap, in Mark the actual purpose of Jesus’ passion remain opaque. It is not surprising, therefore, that the disciples, who are perhaps not the brightest students to begin with, recoil at His strange insistence on His death. The crucifixion itself becomes one more parable that they do not understand.

 

[patrick457]

In the final pericope, the women visit Jesus’ tomb only to find a young man dressed in white claiming that “Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified…has been raised,” adding that “the disciples and Peter” will “see” (one of those words in Mark’s gospel which is pregnant in meaning; cf. 13:26) Jesus again in the Galilee. The followers of Jesus who have repeatedly failed to understand anything throughout the course of the story, the disciples who ran away at Gethsemane and the Peter who disowned Jesus in the high priest’s courtyard (note the order the young man names them) are now to be given a fresh start: they will meet Jesus again in the place where it all began (1:16-20).

Once again, however, a dark cloud seems to loom over this great promise: the women are so struck with “fear” that they run away and fail to relay the young man’s words. And the irony goes two ways, which harkens back to two overall themes of the gospel. Whereas back when Jesus forbade people to proclaim who He was or what He did they did so anyway, now when the young man explicitly orders the women to tell the male disciples news of Jesus’ resurrection, they could not even say a word. Also, Jesus never appears in person to confirm what the young man has claimed. We are told that He was raised, but Jesus has disappeared from the narrative, seemingly for good. Just as there was no introduction or background to Jesus’ arrival, there is none for His departure: no one knows where Mark’s Jesus came from, no one knows where He went, not many understood Him when He was here. Mark’s gospel then ends in enigma and confusion: it does not end in abject despair, but it is not a happy ending either.

Sorry for the long series of posts. Please continue the discussion.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I agree with you overall, but will disagree on a couple of points.

1. The tragic ‘character flaw’ can actually be a moral virtue. For example, in Aeschylus ‘Prometheus’ it is love of mankind. In Sophocles’ Antigone’, it is committment to following divine law. Jesus compassion and committment to the truth could serve as ‘tragic flaws’ (althoug, of course, they are virtues). Arguably, for all ‘heros’, tragedy is their mission- even Jesus. The idea of fate as ‘mission’, so prominent in the Gospels (@It was for this hour that I came into the world…) is incredibly important for the Greek tragedians.

Meh, not quite, I don’t think. Prometheus’ case, for instance, had other drivingfactors: “Interestingly, Prometheus accepts that he has tragic flaws, such as hubris and lack of self-discipline. But instead of attempting to do away with these flaws, he dismisses them with sarcasm in several witty exchanges. When Hermes accuses him of being mad, Prometheus replies that he really is mad if madness means hating one’s enemies. He easily turns his hubris against Hermes, who accuses him of having too much hubris, when he states that it is fitting to have hubris when speaking to those who already have too much hubris.” (from the SparkNotes: Prometheus Bound)

1. In Greek tragedy, suffering is also redemptive. Take the case of Oedipus in Sophocles Theban tragedy. Or Ajax, through his suffering redeeming his sin.

When I spoke of the redemptive suffering of Christ, I wasn’t attempting to differentiate it from all Greek literature, but rather responding to lmbarre’s questioning of why a Messiah would suffer despair if he weren’t a false messiah, after all.

Even still, there is no true parallel in the cases you present. The sufferings in the aforementioned cases were redemptive for the characters who underwent them. Christ needed no redeeming; his suffering was uniquely vicariously redemptive for all mankind.

1. I would say that the Gospels are at least as Greek in though as Jewish, even more so. I mean, they’re written in Greek. Presumably, therefore, the authors had read the Greek canon.

Whether or no they had read the Greek canon is a speculative and, in this case, unimportant question. The Gospels are decidedly Jewish in nature; indeed, the life of Christ reads like the Old Testament scriptures condensed into a human life–which is exactly what it is: “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” - Luke 24:27

Any parallels between the Gospels and Greek mythology or literature can undoubtedly be found in every culture, being simply products of the human condition and those psychological “archetypes” common to us all. But the entire underlying theology of the Gospels is unmistakably Jewish and entirely opposed to Paganism.

 

[prodigalson2011]

This is where I disagree with you. Personally, I think that analyzing the gospels and the New Testament as a whole as literature - not just as holy writ or historical records, as is often done by many people - although this is admittedly an underdeveloped field of study historically, could provide us with new perspectives. The content may be important, but that does not mean that we should discard the words.

Sure, we can analyze them as literature, but any insights that might yield would be superfluous–more of a matter of personal interest or pastime than theological importance–in the sense that it would not alter the fundamental and indispensable message they convey. Such analysis is a luxury–not a necessity–and the fact remains that they were never intended as artistic endeavors, but as historical accounts: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” - Luke 1:1-2