I don't trust the instincts of religious scholars. That's the bottom line. I always get the feeling that they lack Fingerspitzengefühl or a critical sense from the 'real world.' I say often say to myself when I read their works - 'these guys just don't got no street smarts,' in my best Bronx accent Indeed here's something else that I always find. They just spend too much time dissecting and deconstructing the 'ideas' associated with a great thinker - whether it be St. Mark, Irenaeus or Athanasius - and too little time understanding the human beings behind those ideas and their ultimate motivations.
They tend to imagine the great ancient writers of the Church in familiar terms like 'theologian' or 'university professor' when I don't think that this is ever the right way to view the Fathers.
How do you get into Origen's head, or Melito of Sardis guys that are obvious very, very intelligent but who willingly castrated themselves 'for God'? Can anyone imagine having co-workers at the office like this? 'Oh, I ran into Bob the eunuch from accounting ...'
Yes I understand that sometimes we aren't given a lot of biographical information to work with. However I would counter that it is often the unsophistication of many of these scholars - people who generally haven't traveled much, who spent most of their times as impoverished students before landing a job at a faculty where they were underpaid before finally getting their life together - which often can't make sense of what we have available to us.
By this time these same people are making pronouncements on 'life' without ever having 'lived.'
In the very same way I find a familiar pattern in the writings of most scholars which stems from their years spend in a vulnerable, impoverished state - they are overly impressed with what 'the experts' think. They confound what opinions will help secure them a career with what opinions might actually be right.
So it is that because EVERYONE in their faculty and every faculty in the Western world has always developed their opinions from our culture's inherited canon of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Acts of the Apostles, and the letters of 'Paul' that these 'truths' can be taken for granted.
I could have - at least theoretically - become one of these guys but there were a number of factors which stood in the way, not the least of which was the fact that I am Jewish. There is no way that I am going to 'accept' Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of 'Paul' just because some mzungu Joe Dickhead from the University of Lackawanna and many mzungu Joe Dickheads before him all the way back to the early mzungu Church tell me these are the only Lego blocks I can play with.
To this end, when I look at the problem of Secret Mark the central question to me isn't whether Morton Smith forged the document - as Hershel Shanks noted in the latest BAR you can't start a trial when there is no proof of a crime - but what are the implications on our understanding of the Gospel of Mark.
It just so happens that I have always had a special attachment to St. Mark. It's not just that scholarship has almost universally acknowledged that he was the first gospel writer. No, to me at least, he seems to be the one apostolic figure who actually has some kind of 'historical reality' to him.
Just look at the Acts of the Apostle for one moment and strip it down to its most basic - John Mark is the one figure who is witness of both 'Petrine' and 'Pauline' communities. He is the glue that holds the Church together. This can't be accidental. I see it as proving that when the editor of the canon manufactured this false history (I don't believe a single word of the text) having John Mark as the witness for these truths would somehow make people believe that these lies were true.
You also have Hippolytus opening up his discussion of the Marcionites saying that people before him (the Marcionites?) got it wrong - the gospel of Marcion isn't 'the Gospel of Mark' (which confirms my suspicion that the very name 'Marcion' was just another name developed from a back formation of an Aramaic gentilic collective plural.
And then there is the Alexandrian devotion to St. Mark which goes well beyond the 'saints' associated with various places and people. The bottom line is that I think Mark is the rock on which the Church was built and so do the sons of the ancient Alexandrian church.
So when I learn from the Letter to Theodore that our gospel of Mark had a similar structure to an Alexandrian original copy of Mark's original autograph save for the fact that the Alexandrian copy had additional material, I am struck by the similarity with the situation with regards to the Book of Esther.
When comparing the Greek (or LXX) to the Hebrew version of Esther there are an additional 'six chapters' interspersed in Esther in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, which then was noted by Jerome in compiling the Latin Vulgate; additionally, the Greek text contains many small changes in the meaning of the main text. Western scholars are used to the Hebrew text of Esther and so think in terms of this 'extra material' as being 'additions' when I am not at all sure that that the reverse might have been true - i.e. that someone living in Palestine in the late first century might have REMOVED these six original references from the MS.
That Jerome regarded the extra material as 'additions' is not decisive as Jerome was undoubtedly in contact with contemporary Jewish opinion on the matter.
What seems to me to be decisive is the fact that Esther has not been found at Qumran. This suggests at least that the document as a whole was not considered canonical by Jews in Palestine in the early period. The Alexandrian text of Esther makes clear that the text was established there as early as the second century BCE.
Regardless what your opinion is, it is important to note that the 'additions' completely change the complexion of Esther. Scholars like to say that the text of Esther doesn't mention God. This helps them explain the material as being an expression of Jewish nationalism.
Yet the Alexandrian text with those six extra sections of material involving prayers to God and a whole complex theological system involving proselytes to Judaism which completely shatters those assumptions.
Let me give two examples of how the Alexandria 'additions' transform our whole understanding of what Esther is all about. The first of my citations comes from the 'addition' that immediately follows Esther 8:13. The evil Haman has just been hanged during Passover and Persian scribes gather on the twenty third of Nisan to write a decree sanctifying the pending slaughter of all enemies of Judaism the next year. So we read in both the Hebrew and the LXX basically share the same information at first:
So the scribes were called in the first month, which is Nisan, on the three and twentieth day of the same year; and orders were written to the Jews, whatever the king had commanded the local governors and chiefs of the satraps, from India even to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven satraps, according to the several provinces, according to their dialects.
And they were written by order of the kind, and sealed with his ring, and they sent the letter by the posts: wherein he charged them to use their own laws in every city, and to help each other, and to treat their adversaries, and those who attacked them, as they pleased, on one day in all the kingdom of Artaxerxes on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is Adar.
Only the Alexandrian text preserves the copy of the letter which gives the orders from the king authorizing the Jews to slaughter their enemies:
The great king Artaxerxes sends greeting to the rulers of the provinces in a hundred and twenty seven satrapies, from India to Ethiopia, even to those who are faithful to our interests. Many who have been frequently honoured by the most abundant kindness of their benefactors have conceived ambitious designs, and not only endeavour to hurt our subjects, but moreover, not being able to bear prosperity, they also endeavour to plot against their own benefactors. And they not only would utterly abolish gratitude from among men, but also, elated by the boastings of men who are strangers to all that is good, they suppose that they shall escape the sin-hating vengeance of the ever-seeing God. And oftentimes evil exhortation has made partakers of the guilt and shedding innocent blood, and has involved in irremediable calamities, many of those who were appointed to offices of authority, who had been entrusted with the management of their friends' affairs; while men, by these false sophistry of an evil disposition, have deceived the simple candour of these ruling powers. And it is possible to see this, not so much from more ancient traditionary accounts, as it is immediately in your power to see it by examining what things have been wickedly contrived by the baseness of men unworthily holding power. And it is right to take heed with regard to the future, that we may maintain the government in undisturbed peace for all men, adopting needful changes, and ever judging those cases which come under our notice, with truly equitable decision.
For whereas Aman (Haman), a Macedonian, the son of Amadathes, in reality an alien from the blood of the Persians, and differing widely from our mild course of government, having been hospitably entertained by us, obtained so large a share of our universal kindness, as to be called our father, and to continue the person next to the royal throne, reverenced by all; he however, overcome by pride of his station, endeavoured to deprive us of our dominion, and our life; having by various and subtle artifices demanded for destruction both Mardochaeus our deliverer and perpetual benefactor, and Esther the blameless consort of our kingdom, with their whole nation. For by these methods he thought, having surprised us in a defenseless state, to transfer the dominion of the Persians to the Macedonians.
But we find that the Jews, who have been consigned to destruction by the most abominable of men, are not malefactors, but living according to the justest laws, and being the sons of the living God, the most high and mighty, who maintains the kingdom to us as well as to our forefathers, in the most excellent order.
Ye will therefore do well in refusing to obey the letter sent by Aman the son of Amadathes because he that has done these things, has been hanged with his whole family at the gates of Susa. Almighty God having swiftly returned to him a worthy recompense [apodontos]. We enjoin you then, having openly published a copy of this letter in every place, to give the Jews permission to use their own law and customs, and to strengthen them, that on the thirteenth of the twelfth month Adar, on the self-same day, they may defend themselves against those who attacked them in a time of affliction. For in the place of destruction of the chosen race, Almighty God has granted them this time of gladness.
Do ye therefore also among your notable feasts, keep a distinct day with all festivity, that both now and hereafter it may be a day of deliverance [soteria] to us and those who are well disposed towards the Persians but to those that plotted against us a memorial of destruction. And every city and province shall be consumed with vengeance by spear and fire: it shall be made not only inaccessible to men, but also most hateful to wild beasts and birds forever.
And let the copies be posted in conspicuous places throughout the kingdom, and let all the Jews be ready against this day, to fight against their enemies.
What is so interesting about the theology of the Alexandrian Book of Esther isn't just that God is mentioned in the extra material but rather the identification of the fourteenth of Adar as 'the day of vengeance and recompense.' I can't believe that someone named 'Dositheus' just came along and added a few lines about God to the text because he found that they were lacking 'in the Hebrew original.' When you look carefully there is a much deeper and more complex theology at work which I suspect was removed by later Jewish editors in Palestine rather than added by Dositheus in Alexandria.
The last 'addition' to the Book of Esther takes this idea even further. After explaining that the name 'Purim' comes from the Hebrew word for 'lots' the original author goes on to say at the very conclusion of the Alexandrian text that:
Mardochaeus was viceroy to king Artaxerxes and was a great man in the kingdom, and honoured by the Jews and passed his life beloved by all his nation.
And Mardochaeus said, These things have been done of God. For I remember the dream I had concerning these matters: for not one particular of them has failed. There was the little fountain, which became a river, and there was light, and the sun, and much water. The river is Esther, whom the king married, and made queen. And the two serpents are I and Aman. And the nations are those nations which combined to destroy the name of the Jews. But as for my nation, this is Israel, even they that cried to God and were delivered; for the Lord delivered his people, and the Lord rescued us out of all these calamities; and God wrought such signs and great wonders as have not been done among the nations. Therefore did he ordain two lots, one for the people of God and one for all the other nations. And these two lots came for an appointed season, and for a day of judgment (hemeran kriseos), before God, and for all the nations. And God remembered his people and vindicated his inheritance. And they shall observe these days, in the month Adar on the fourteenth and on the fifteenth of the month, with an assembly (synagoges), and joy and gladness before God, throughout the generations for ever among his people Israel.
In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said that he was a priest and a Levite, and Ptolemy his son, brought in the published letter of Phrurae, which they said existed, and which Lysimachus the son of Ptolemy who was in Jerusalem, had interpreted.
The point is that when I read the additions to the Book of Esther I see the 'extra' material cited here as the very purpose behind the original composition of the text. The original understanding must have been that 'the day of vengeance and recompense' (Deut 32:35 Sam; cf Isa 61:2) had already come on that day in ancient Persia. I have suggested that the Marcosian interest in the number thirty in relation to Jesus' Passion suggest a thirty day fast in the lead up to Easter which was still preserved among the Marcionites, the Manichaeans and the Islamic fast of Ramadan.
I won't get into all the details of how I think the six extra sections of material in the Alexandrian version of Esther transform the identity of Esther. The point is that we can no longer say the nonsense scholars like Samuel Sandmel write based on the Hebrew text of Esther viz:
Major objections [to canonicity] can be cited from the religious standpoint of the Pentateuch. First, the story relates that Esther became a concubine to the King of Persia, before becoming the queen; and in becoming the queen, she was married to a Gentile. Secondly, the story contains incidents of bloodthirsty revenge, at variance with the Pentateuchal view that man must not be vengeful. Even more significant is the total absence of any mention of God. The modern commentators who stress this peculiarity are underlining a fact that also occurred to the ancient Greek translators. Esther in the Greek Bible has been expanded by the addition to the Scroll of some prayers which the Greek Jews felt Esther should have prayed." (The Hebrew Scriptures, p. 497 from Peter Kirby's site)
I think that when we actually look at Esther with an open mind we see that the original messianic revelation of the 'day of vengeance and recompense' was actually removed from the original manuscripts in order to make it fit with in a canon of the later Jewish orthodoxy. Much the same thing can be argued to have happened with Alexandrian Secret Mark which I also believe was developed in relation to the Alexandrian Book of Esther.
The point is that it drives me crazy when people on 'my side' of the debate regarding Secret Mark want to retain their inherited ideas about what the Gospel of Mark. Clement only slices off a small piece of this Alexandrian fruit and we find thirteen lines of additional verses inserted within a fourteen verse section of our familiar canonical gospel. As I noted earlier, if we extrapolate based on that ratio the amount of additions that we might expect to find over the course of the 609 verses of the canonical gospel as a whole we end up with at least 500 additional verses - maybe there's more, maybe there's less but it is very important to note that Clement never says 'these are the only additions to Secret Mark.'
My point simply is that Secret Mark is even less like our familiar gospel of Mark than Alexandrian Esther is like our familiar Book of Esther ...
However it is very late and I have to go to bed. Good night ...
