From: "Stevan Davies" To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 19:54:37 +0000 Subject: Re: How I Know Mark Used Thomas Bob Schacht wrote: >This is interesting, and I'd like to respond, but I can't quite follow your >categories as to what is a parallel of what. Could you outline these in more >specific detail, e.g., >Jesus speaking to or about Jewish leaders: In Mark only: 2:15-17 . [List of other examples] With parallels in Thomas: 3:22-23//GTh3:27 . [List of other examples] >Jesus speaking to People. I'm not sure yet what you need here but I've resorted things and put them at the bottom of this letter. I don't think the Mark numbering matters, except for the fact that some things occur in sequences. I'm also still waiting to see if people think I've left traditional "sayings of Jesus" out that I should have included (I'm leaving 8:22-10:54 aside for now, please recall). I should write a little defense of Mark 4:10-34 being PARABLES for People. The audience remains the same all the way through to the end. It is ("those about him with the 12." That assemblage is contrasted with "those outside." Presumably "those outside" are the large crowd mentioned in 4:1-9. That would mean that both the insiders and the outsiders get taught in parables. He teaches many things in parables to crowds, which are distinguished from "those about him with the 12." At the end we hear that (4:33-34) "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." And so here, at the end, the audience for the parables "those about him with the 12" are distinguished from "his own disciples." If the Mark 4:10-34 is an example of private teaching to disciples, it makes no sense to me that Mark should conclude by labeling it parables and then distinguish parables teaching from explaining-everything teaching. I guess I should check all of this out in some Mark commentaries as it seems almost nonsensical to me. Still and all, Jesus is speaking throughout chapter 4 to people who are not (only) his disciples and it seems to me that everything he says in chapter 4 is a parable (cf. 33-34). Nowhere in chapter 4 does Jesus speak to his disciples only, although he alludes to that possibility at the end. He does speak only to disciples (specifically not crowds) in 7:17ff. (a Q//GTh allusion) and 10:10ff (a Q passage). Does anyone on Crosstalk understand Mark 4's audiences? >Also, I might be compelled because of statistical necessities to ask about >the frequencies of unstated categories, e.g., are there any PARABLES in G >Th that are not in Mark? I am using PARABLES simply to mark off whatever sayings Mark says are PARABLES. Therefore the term is a specific technical term applicable only to Mark's gospel. There are no other PARABLES in that sense anywhere in the world. Just to make things more confusing I've added Q to passages that Frederick Grant thinks are clear Q/Mark overlaps due to doublets in Matthew and Luke. And added to his list QMatt 12:33-35//Mark 7:16-23 because I think it is an allusion. And I added Mark 4:22 because I overlooked it before. >In trying to do this myself, I ran into questions I couldn't resolve about >how you were designating parallels in your itemized list. I don't understand this problem. I'm just presuming a parallel is a parallel and that the Thomas or Mark numerical-citation is irrelevant. The sequential order of Thomas/Mark sayings is statistically meaningless, i.e. random. . . I did do that analysis myself awhile back!