From: "Stevan Davies" <miser17@epix.net>
To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Date:          Thu, 27 Feb 1997 16:29:26 +0000
Subject:       Re: temple stuff
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> So I have said that I agree with Bill about the Markan narrative, but
> whether or not we are right, there is an incompatibility, is there not,
> with your view?  If we are right, you would have to change your notion of
> how Mark used Thomas and it would no longer be so straightforward. It
> might still be possible, but it would now entail Mark jumping from the
> merchant theme, which now becomes secondary, to a narrative that insteads
> makes its primary point a symbolic judgment on the temple itself.
> Andrew

Yeah. I guess that's right, there is an interpretive incompatibility.
But suppose I  allow the 
assumption that Mark's Jesus is anti-Temple to stand without
argument (a thomas/mark essay is no place to get into the matter).
As it stands, the Mark passage is about merchants,
and then is taken to spread out from there to include the temple
as a whole. I don't see where the source-critical question is 
incompatible with the anti-temple interpretation of Mark. 
It means Mark is doing more complicated things than he would
be doing otherwise, yet he's still building some of that on 64b.

David Seeley wrote about
"a scene in which Jesus appears to
throw out low-lifes whose presence sullies the mighty and beloved temple
offers an ideal way for Mark to introduce the theme of opposition between
Jesus and the temple.  In fact, Jesus can be regarded as defending the
temple's true meaning, until the scene is considered more carefully and in
the context of the remainder of Mark.  Then, it will become clear that it is
really a symbol for the cessation of the temple service."

If so, then the question of where Mark got started so as to
introduce the theme in this way is Thomas 64b. That would
answer the question of why it is that Mark preceeds as he does,
producing a narrative that seems to be defensive of the Temple
but then going on to embed it in a context where it can be seen
to be an attack on the Temple. Sounds good to me, if only
for the purpose of argument. I think I'll quote Seeley too.

I do note though that your side is based on a variety of 
exegetical If's.  IF the "containers" are Temple vessels, IF
the fig tree symbolizes the Temple, and not things in general
(cf. 13:5ff)  IF "this mountain" means Temple mount in 11:23,
IF the false witnesses were actually 
true witnesses, IF (for the only time in NT?) readers were
supposed to use the actual context of a prophetic passage to
interpret that passage and not the NT author's context... 

Anyhow, 11:23 is // to Thomas in two places! What I am
going to do about that I don't know yet, but you'll hear from
me on the subject in the near future.

Steve