This blog updates, supplements, and builds outward from my 2019 book, The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text.
Think-Blog
Why I think Mark wrote a play
Here I will defend my theory that Mark wrote a play that was performed on a stage, and a narrative text that condensed the play, a text we know as the Gospel of Mark. This post supplements the (referenced) discussion in my book, The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text. The genre of the…
Varieties of Jesus mythicism anthology is now published
Update November 19 2021: Available now in paperback and e-book: Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist? edited by John W. Loftus and Robert M. Price. At your favorite bookstore. Contents: Foreword by Richard C. Miller Preface “The Jesus of the Gospels Didn’t Exist” by John Loftus Introduction “New Testament Minimalism” by Robert M….
Flavia Domitilla donated the use of catacombs; Mark’s play enhanced the event
Executive Summary I begin in Flavia Domitilla’s world. I see the performance of Mark’s play from her point of view. In my book, The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text, I proposed that Flavia Domitilla produced a play that was privately performed for Mark’s Roman congregation. Flavia and her husband Titus Flavius Clemens were…
Origin of the Catacombs of Domitilla
Flavia Domitilla donated the use of her family catacombs on her suburban property. It already hosted an above-ground cemetery. (Two of her household staff were buried above-ground.*) Although Flavia Domitilla’s nuclear and extended family disappears from history after 95 CE, the Roman congregation continued to use the donated Catacombs of Domitilla for many centuries, evolving…
Comments on Creating Christ, by James S. Valliant and Warren Fahy
Summary If you haven’t read Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity, all you need to know is this: James S. Valliant and Warren Fahy correctly identify the Flavian court as an important locus of early Christianity. However, they incorrectly believe that a cabal of elite Judeans and sympathizers at the court wrote the four…
The Carmignac Challenge, Part III of III: Qumran Hebrew Letter Forms
Introduction In Part II, I reviewed Semitisms in the synoptic gospels that Jean Carmignac identified in his book, The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983). I focused on those Semitisms that involved the Gospel of Mark. In the process, I noticed a pattern in some of the “Semitisms of Transmission”: words…
The Carmignac Challenge, Part II of III: Semitisms in the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew
Summary In the Abbé Jean Carmignac’s short book, The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), he identifies and classifies Semitisms in the synoptic gospels. He evaluates the value of the listed Semitisms as supporting evidence for his theory that the synoptic gospels were originally written in a Semitic language (GMark and…
The Carmignac Challenge, Part I of III: Yes, a Hebrew Gospel of Mark
Executive Summary The Abbé Jean Carmignac was a learned translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls. When he translated the Gospel of Mark from Greek into Qumran Hebrew, Carmignac noticed that the translation was “extremely easy.” He also noticed many Semitisms—linguistic features of the Greek that seemed to have been translated from a Semitic language—in the…
Why I think Mark was an Alexandrian
I have previously posted on why I think Mark’s congregation in Rome had Alexandrian roots. Here I build on that post and discuss why I think Mark was an Alexandrian. Mark’s congregation/audience trusted him to conform to their doctrine I believe that the the audience at Mark’s play was the Roman congregation patronized by Flavia…
What is the meaning of “Boanerges”?
In Mk 3:17 Jesus gives two disciples the nickname “Boanerges”; the text explains that the meaning of “Boanerges” is “Sons of Thunder.” The problem is that “Boanerges” is not good Aramaic. As Wikipedia says, “Given the Greek translation that comes with it (‘Sons of Thunder’), it seems that the first element of the name is…