Mark (3)—
Manuscripts of the Gods: The Bible and Ancient Cultural Thresholds
by James Whitlark, Ph.D.
It is written
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Thy son Horus is triumphant … [and] the whole world hath been given unto him…. established … by the title—deed (or will) in the House of Books, which hath been cut upon an iron tablet …. –The Book of the Dead |
Christian tradition mingled similar hopes with a salutary prayerfulness,
as in a ninth—century psalter:
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Mercy be to him who wrote, O Lord, wisdom to those who read, grace to those who hear, salvation to those who own [this codex]. Amen. (Metzger 20) |
In this Christian inscription, tentativeness undercuts pride and opens to many possibilities.
The Bible comes to Christians in “testaments”: contracts, title—deeds or wills–permanently
established words. Yet the existence of two of them implies that something seems
to have happened to the first. If so, how binding is the second? Today, answers to
this question take countless forms ranging from Seventh—Day Adventist scrupulous
observance of the “old” to some other Protestants who almost completely ignore it.
Similar differences divided Christians from the time of Paul onward, a seemingly
endless series of bifurcations within bifurcations, a common shape of chaos. The
tension appears also in the paradoxes of Mark:
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And they were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. (Mark 1.22) |
What He teaches, however, is almost always the interpretation of what is written,
but in an age when writing was misremembered, for instance:
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And they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that first Elijaj must come? And he said to them, “Elijah does come first to restore all things; and how is it written of the Son of man, that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt. But I tell you, that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him. (Mark 9.11—13) |
In the disciples’ question, what they denote as “scribes” actually is Malachi. Jesus
agrees with Malachi, but refrains from telling his followers that they are talking
about an inspired prophet, not “scribes.” Furthermore, “[t]he Old Testament contains
no suggestion that Elijah when he returned would be rejected. Either, therefore,
the reference is to some apocryphal writing then regarded as authoritative but now
lost … or else the idea is that if the Old Testament was properly understood such
a passage as 1 Kings 19. [2—20] would show that Elijah would have to suffer in his
second coming as in his first…” (Nineham 1969, 241). What has Elijah restored? When
did he return? Was he John? If so, does this (as some have assumed) teach reincarnation?
Or is Jesus simply referring to the momentary appearance of Elijah during the transfiguration?
If so, where is Elijah’s restoring and suffering? Meaning depends on something lost,
hidden, misremembered, forgotten, or never in existence. By such incoherences, the
text maintains its position at the “edge of chaos.”
Typical of his self—reflexive attitude toward scripture (himself
its embodiment yet commentator), Mark’s Jesus says to those arresting him:
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Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled. (14.49) |
He must die to match an already written story, which only resembles the events of
his life when decoded through divine inspiration. He has become one of his own parables
about sacrifice, a midrashic narrative in a scripture elucidating other scriptures.
As embodied sacred story, Christ ends division between the sacrifice and the language
that consecrates it. He is a discourse that in stretching to the Infinite, becomes
fractal, folded, with a mysterious slip between life and death. He is the text, dying
and being reborn in self—hermeneutic, crucified on the “edge of chaos.” If initiation
is the opening of conceiled or repressed cognitive dissonance, then initiation always
requires some form of sacrifice, a destruction of the normal order as chaos breaks
through. Since, however, the trajectory is away from literal sacrifice, there need
be no holocaust of human immolations, especially since self—contradictions in the
text may act as checks and balances against monological excess as also do the tensions
between it and each new culture to which it is introduced.
Stretched further and further from its tribal origins, the much—reinterpreted,
Christian Bible has grown maleable, spreading throughout the globe. Its readership
is no longer to be the lineage of Abraham. The canonical appendix to Mark has Jesus
order the gospel delivered to “all creatures [pas—e t—ektisei]”(16.16). Already
in Mark 11.12—26, Jesus has cursed the fig tree for not bearing fruit to greet Him
as all, regardless of species, who are not ready for His Coming will be doomed. The
gospel’s being now for “all” collapses even the boundary between human and other.
One is prepared for additional boundaries to fall as well, including the very subtle
one between oral and literary.
Hearing Texts
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I am Thôth … (who makes) writing speak …. –The Book of the Dead |
As obsessed as the Egyptians were with literacy, speech was a supplement to
it. Even if, as instructed, sorcerers kept a scroll hidden, rubrics (their red ink
considered sacred) sometimes counseled magicians, at the risk of revealing the esoteric,
to recite the script as well, e.g., “TO BE SAID IN ADDITION TO THIS TEXT WHICH IS
IN WRITING ….”( Thompson, 52;.Allen, 122). All the more, the gospels combine both
modes of expression. Thus, Kelber overemphasizes the antagonism of orality and literacy
in maintaining;
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… spectacularly, Mark’s writing is fueled with a passion to disown the voices of his oral precursors. One is struck by this gospel’s repudiation of the disciples, the prophets, and the family of Jesus. In sociological terms, Mark undermines the very structures that facilitate and legitimize oral transmission: the legitimately appointed authorities, the charismatic authorities, and the hereditary authorities.... Because the Marcan narrative bears the brunt of a transition from the oral to the written medium, it is profoundly marked by a rebellion against orality and its authoritative carriers (Kelber 1983, 104, 105). |
Actually, that narrative muffles most human speakers to stress by contrast the supernatural
ones. Both during the prologue and the transfiguration, a voice breaking through
heaven proclaims Christ’s identity. Sometimes while rupturing their hosts, various
spirits do so as well. Since the supernatural is always with us, the Marcan narrator
does not have to give a chain of human authorities. Inherent in his attitude is the
idea that transcendent Truth speaks through his text, i.e., it is scripture, touched
by the divine. His Jesus even uses the expression “for my sake and the gospel’s”
(8.35), as if Christ and language about Him were of equal value–a step toward John’s
identifying Christ with the Word.
Signs
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I am your writing—palette, Thôth, and I have brought you your ink—jar. –The Book of the Dead |
A Greek idiom that could not have been in Mark’s Semitic sources description of the
Last Supper as “my blood of the covenant” (14.24) envisions the Eucharist as a new
contract between man and God–written in blood. The body has become a symbol and will
soon hang beneath a sign: “THE KING OF THE JEWS” (Mark 15.26) (Kuhn 81. The writer
of this was either too lazy to scrawl the full charge or intended the inscription
ironically. By a double irony, (according to Christian tradition) it is true. Writing
may turn against its makers. Their intentions may not be God’s. In the world of theistic
scriptures, words are double written, by the human “writing—palette” (to coin an
Egyptian metaphor) and by the deity. Expecting such divine equivocations, the second—century
Gnostic Basilides, noting the ambiguities of pronouns in Mark 15.21—34, argued that
Simon of Cyrene was crucified instead of Jesus (Grant 6). To some Egyptian Christians,
the cross was an ankh, originally a hieroglyph for the eternal life conferred
by Osiris (Robinson 18). In the Gnostic “Gospel of Truth,” Christ “became a fruit
of the knowledge of the Father …. he put on that book; he was nailed to a tree; he
published the edict of the Father on the cross” (1.18.25, 120.15; Robinson 41).
In addition to the written sign above the cross where (traditionally
interpreted) Jesus dies, there are other even less obvious signs in Mark. The veil
of the temple splits, at least temporarily an invisible omen, unknown to those at
Golgotha. Christ’s presumably wordless death cry (15.37)–after His scriptural quotation
(15.34)–converts the Roman centurion. Readers do not know why. Particularly with
the revelation of the empty tomb, the situation is moving beyond language. Elias
Bickermann and others have argued that this emptiness could refer to the translation
of Jesus (or any number of natural or supernatural phenomena) as well as to resurrection
(Bickerman 106). In the most reliable manuscripts, the Marcan portion of the text
ends:
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And they [the women] went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them: and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid. (16.8) |
Some of the emotional groundwork for Mark’s ending had been laid by the Egyptians.
Each November, women devotees, imitating the mourning of Isis, would roam, weeping
in sorrow and terror at the death of their god. But the ritual concluded more reassuringly
with cries of “heurekamen, synchairomen, ‘We have found! We rejoice together!’”–a
forerunner of medieval Easter plays celebrating Christ’s resurrection. Mark may be
more original (Meyer 1987). Not only does the gospel cease in a moment of wonder,
but the readers are to identify with women at a time of especial fragility. Aside
from this restraint in omitting the resurrection, however, Mark’s creation of a scene
like the mysteries of Isis is not surprising. She has much in common with the Logos
that Christ was becoming:
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I am Isis, the mistress of every land, and I was
taught by Hermes [Thôth], and with Hermes I devised letters, both the sacred
(hieroglyphs) and the demotic, that all things might not be written with the same
(letters). (Origen 185). |
She was also a goddess of sea and weather, believed to work such signs as Christ’s
stilling the storm. There is no miraculous claim that Mark could make that would
dwarf those made for Isis. What that gospel does in its artistry is to sketch the
portents, then leave completion to the readers’ imagination, which transcends any
definite termination.
Endings
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As for one who knows this roll on earth or puts it in writing on the coffin, he goes forth by day in any form he wishes and (re-)enters (his) seat unhindered. –The Book of the Dead |
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They reported briefly to Peter’s companions what they had been told. Then Jesus himself through their agency broadcast from east to west the sacred and incorruptible message of eternal salvation (New Jerusalem 1985, 1685). |
The Good News is “what they have been told” reported by women. Perhaps for that reason
or its brevity, it did not become canonical. Not until recently has wide interest
accrued to the value of seeing Christianity from a feminine perspective or in feminine
terms as does Janice Anderson: “Jesus and John are female. They are sources of food
who bleed and feed just as women bleed and feed.” (133). A few precursors of her
position did exist such as Julian of Norwich’s insight:
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…our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life (298). |
The boundary between male and female falls away. Similarly, Anselm of Canterbury
asked, “But you too, good Jesus, are you not also a mother?” (153). Given the prominence
of such female figures as Sophia and the Marys in Gnosticism as well as its emphasis
on divine androgyny, some precursors of feminist interpretations probably arose in
antiquity.
There may be as many ideas of Jesus as there are people who have
read or heard of Him. Even many non—Christians have had their own versions, such
as the first—century rabbinical testimony that Jesus learned magic in Egypt and therein
covered his body with magical tattoos (Smith 1978, 113). To a Jewish audience, that
rumor discredited him; to Copts, it would probably have made Him all—the—more congenial.
Similarly, one famous bit of graffiti shows a donkey being crucified. This may have
been anti—Christian mockery or an occult reinterpretation of the gospel:
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There was a long standing [Egyptian] legend that the god of the Jews was a donkey…. The legend probably arose from the fact that the donkey … was the sacred animal of Seth… who was commonly thought by the Egyptians to be the god of foreigners. He was also … given a large role in magic…. The Jews were among the largest groups of foreigners in Egypt, so their god, Iao [YHWH], was identified with Seth. Io or Eio in Coptic means “donkey” …. Moreover, Jews had a great reputation as magicians.… (Smith 1978, 62). |
With so many different ideas in the air about the ultimate meaning
of Jewish and Christian tradition, no wonder arises from scribes’ adding their own
views or summaries of other people’s. According to a tenth century manuscript, a
priest named Aristion wrote Mark 16.9—20, the appendix that became canonical (nineham
450). In it, Christ ascends into heaven, symmetrically reversing the descent of the
Holy Spirit in the prologue. Resembling the conclusion of the other gospels, it suits
what eventually became reader expectations, but there is no reason to consider it
Marcan:
The great fourth—century scholars, Eusebius and Jerome, testify
that the verses were wanting in all the best Greek MSS. known to them…. (nineham
450).
Furthermore, neither Aristion nor anyone else is likely to have written all of it
because yet another ending calling the epoch that of “Satan” exists in some manuscripts,
placed after 16.14. Its being tacked on there strongly suggests that for a time Mark
included 16.9—14, then stopped. Thus 16.15—20 is simply a second appendix. Although
the intention behind these many extensions was to give the text greater closure,
to readers aware of the textual history these supplements suggest the opposite, undercutting
any finality.
Perhaps inevitably, the endings were some readers’ favorite part.
In trying to assign one of the “four living creatures of Rev. 4 to Mark, Irenaeus
vacillated–testimony to Mark’s ambiguity. Later tradition (after the endings became
securely joined to Mark’s work) represented the gospeller with a lion (symbolic of
resurrection) because of a section written by others (Jeffrey 1992, 481).
Even to a greater extent, manuscripts of the Book of the Dead show
development from a period when “find[ing] any two manuscripts of exactly similar
layout would be unusual” to a later era when a standard arose (Allen 1974, 1). Whether
as inspired as they presumed, the scribes were prolific, producing piles of spells
and hymns. Even the standard does not manage to give the whole a shape with conclusive
ending, which was not missed during the time of its popularity. When it was passing
away, so was the original Mark, eclipsed by altered versions and even more by other
gospels, which filled in many of its blanks, thereby eliminating numerous riddles.
Energetic readers may have regretted the diminution of challenging
obscurity. The Gospel of Thomas, a work popular among Egyptian Gnostics, has Jesus
say that finding should come after long seeking and be troubling: “When one is troubled,
one will marvel and will rule over all” (Meyer 1992, 23). The idea may resemble that
of Zen Koans. A master assigns am insoluble riddle so the zealous pursuit of an answer
focuses concentration. In due course it brings the Great Doubt, a painful falling
away of previous presumptions and faith. Then comes illumination, Prigogine’s order
from chaos. The specific riddles and their answers are less important to spiritual
progress than the pursuit. Arriving at some single official interpretation may not
be necessary. So also in the description of the mysteries attributed to Aristotle,
its author repudiates the idea that initiates “learn” (mathein) anything,
saying instead that they “undergo or suffer an experience” (pathein; Burkert
69)). In a copy of the gospels, an Egyptian copyist inscribed his own prayer that
God might “turn his [writing] errors into some mystic good” (Metzer 20). This is
an attitude that has faded from religious orthodoxies, but it merely restates a pervasive
attitude of scripture, that the seemingly aleatory may be divinely inspired; or,
as one might say today, the paradoxical may lead toward the salutary “edge of chaos.”
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