This blog supplements and updates The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text. I assume that Mark wrote a performed play and a narrative text. I also assume that the reader has read the book.
Read MorePliny the Younger’s “Christians”
Writing c. 112 CE from Amisos, the capital of Bithynia-Pontus, the governor Pliny the Younger identified a group of people who worshiped “Christ” and did not worship the emperor (Letters 10:96). I suggest that Pliny’s “Christians” belonged to the local ethnos-based sect that used the …
Read MoreFlavia Domitilla’s children in Mark’s play
At the time of Mark’s play c. 95 CE, Flavia was in her late twenties or early thirties. She had borne seven children, with the maximum age of 16 (we don’t know if all survived infancy). Here, I identify the roles for children in Mark’s …
Read MoreFlavia Domitilla and Berenice: Another reason to connect them
In an earlier post, I identified the Judean princess Berenice as the original of Saint Veronica. “Veronica” was early and firmly identified with Roman Christianity, which means the Roman congregation of Mark and Flavia Domitilla. It is logical that Berenice, a Judean princess living in …
Read MoreThe Bethsaida section, Part III: The editing
Summary In my book, The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text, I discuss the current Bethsaida section in the Gospel of Mark (Mk 6:45-8:26). I review the staging of each scene, and explain why I think some scenes are original and some are by …
Read MoreThe Bethsaida section, Part II: The original sequence
Summary In Part I, I argued that the role of the blind man of Bethsaida was played by Titus Flavius Clemens. Clemens was honored in the scene, and Mark wrote the scene for that purpose. Here, I build on Part I. I discuss the second …
Read MoreThe Bethsaida section, Part I: The blind man of Bethsaida scene
Summary This post extrapolates from the discussion of the blind man of Bethsaida scene in my book, The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text. Here, I review elements of the scene (Mk 8:22-26). I imagine how the scene was staged. I conclude that the …
Read MoreThe Joseph of Arimathea scene in the Gospel of Mark, revisited
Summary When I wrote my book, The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text, I assumed that the received text of the Joseph of Arimathea scene in the Gospel of Mark (Mk 15:42-46) preserved the performance of Mark’s play. I assumed that the audience heard …
Read MoreDramatic enactment of the Gospel of Mark by actor Max McLean
A YouTube search yields several dramatic readings of the Gospel of Mark, including an excellent one by actor David Suchet. But the dramatic enactment of the Gospel of Mark by actor Max McLean is in a class by itself. McLean dramatizes the dialogue. He uses …
Read MoreThe fig tree episode in the Gospel of Mark is an editorial overwrite
Summary The episode of the cursing of the fig tree in the Gospel of Mark is not good theater. It follows the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and brackets the Temple Incident (TI). The fig-tree episode should have some relationship to either the triumph or to …
Read MoreReview of Caesar’s Messiah, by Joseph Atwill
Introduction Caesar’s Messiah presents a tissue of preposterous theories. Fortunately, Robert M. Price has detangled Joseph Atwill’s theories and addressed them one by one in a review of Caesar’s Messiah (the 2005 edition). Price uses the words “mad,” “ludicrous,” and “perverse and gratuitous interpretations of …
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