Mark III

9:1 The only possible sense in which this came true is in the sense of the resurrection and ascension. "The Kingdom" then, does not seem to refer to a kingdom at all. Having cleared up, to my satisfaction, anyway, the other mysteries of Mark, this one remains: what is this Kingdom to which we are continually pointed?

9:2 Oh. I forgot about this. But my comment stands.

9:4 This is in part an answer to the "Is he Elijah?" question.

9:5 I don't know that I would have had the balls to say anything at all, let alone something relevant.

9:19 another puzzle: who is the generation? In this case, it could be the scribes (which fits with the earlier usage), the disciples, or the crowd.

9:23 There is a definite shift in tone after the transfiguration, noticeable here and in v. 19

9:29 This kind? The kind that is not actually a spirit but a disease? This one did not speak, after all. No wonder the authority given the disciples over the demons was useless.

9:39 Jesus is foreseeing the need to protect his legacy.

9:40 This verse goes completely unnoticed by most religions. I have never seen a better interfaith scripture.

9:42 I had always thought this referred to people in general, but in context it clearly refers to the non-disciple followers of Jesus, the undisciplined, so to speak.

9:42-48 Again with the darker, more aggressive tone.

10:1 At one point, his custom was to perform miracles, and not so much on the teaching.

10:2 And the religious leaders didn't take this much of an interest when he was only performing miracles.

10:14 Funny story about this verse: When I was a teenager, my family preached in Central America for about six months. At one hut my Mother visited, there ten children, and they were so poor that they only had one chair in the house. They offered the chair to my mother, who observed that the mother only had a few teeth, in spite of being around the same age as she was. The rule of thumb down there was a woman could expect to lose around one tooth for every child she bore due to lack of nutrients. She commented to the father that he certainly had a lot of children. "You know what the Bible says," he returned. "Let the little children come, and do not try to stop them!"

10:21 Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said . . . this is an interesting way of describing Jesus' powers of observation.

10:52 this seems to be a rather untrue, if instructive statement. Jesus by no means uses faith as a test for healing. Furthermore, it is not his faith at all that has made him well. Also, the phrasing here leads one to believe that Bartimaeus was not blind from birth, and that he was already a disciple of Jesus.

11:9 This just doesn't seem like the sort of thing Jesus would really do. It seems more likely that something resembling this really happened, but that it was not premeditated as Mark indicates.

11:10 although this crowd is not the most reputable source of information, let's take a moment and review the clues in our little kingdom mystery. Whatever the kingdom is, it:

• Is not yet present at the time of the entrance to Jerusalem or the transfiguration
• It arrives by the time the last of the apostles dies
• it is something present in peoples hearts
  
• it is something that grows
• or does not depending on the person

11:12-21 This, combined with statements in ch.9, paint a rather less than serene picture of Jesus. In this case, the stress of his coming death made him petulant, he was going against his nature and message to make a point, his nature and message were never all that serene to begin with, or this section of Mark is written by someone who had a different image of Jesus.

11:27-33 Rather a roundabout way of avoiding the Messiah question.

Before embarking on this next chapter, I have a thought on the mystery of the Kingdom. The Chinese parable of the Blind men and the elephant shows how something can be many things, a wall, a sword, a rope etc. at the same time. All of the blind men's descriptions are equally accurate, and equally incomplete. I have often thought of God in this light: a regular, solid of infinite sides. As long as you remain on one side, you will never see anything but a reflection of the other aspects. Why would the Kingdom not be similar? Jesus consistently refers to the Kingdom as a seed, but what is the literal interpretation? For Saint Teresa of Avila, the prayer is that seed, while for Baha'Ullah, the person him or herself is the seed, and correspondiingly the kingdom. Perhaps Jesus is capturing the mystery in the contradiction. The Kingdom, as he illustrates in various and conflicting parables, is all of these things and none of them.

12:6 Here Jesus seems to hint at some superhuman relationship with God. Heretofore, he sued the term Son of God in a way that left it open to a humanist interpretation. Here, though, he clearly is saying that he is special to God, more special than John and the other analogues. He doesn't quite indicate a prehuman life, but this is close.

12:12 That's hella dum. They were being chastised in front of the multitude for plotting against him. What better way to fall into Jesus' argument than to arrest him right there.
"I'm being represseed!"
"No you're not. I'm arresting you for even saying that!"

12:23 What resurrection? Was this some part of Jewish teaching? It's not in the Hebrew Scriptures really. Or was it something Jesus was teaching? He never talks about it either. when did this idea enter the dialogue?

12:26-27 These two seem to contradict each other. When this was said, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were looooong dead. Still it's a nice sentiment, compatible with that of Confucius: You can't even get this life right. Why worry about the next one?

12:34 in this context, this aspect, the kingdom of God is some sort of understanding. Actually, might that not fit with all his other mentions? Understanding=seed that is planted, something that comes in full by the time of the Apostles death, etc.? It surely does . . . this also fits in perfectly with the other question: why not reveal your identity? Because the whole mystery, the kingdom, is not arrived yet.

12:35 and now he actually is revealing the kingdom, his Messiahship.

Mark Pt II

5:1 They certainly do spend a lot of time around the sea in this account. I wonder if the other gospels treat his path similarly. If not, that bespeaks something.

5:9 So, he has this conversation after he removes the unclean spirit? In what milieu does it take place? On the astral plane? Or does the spirit manifest itself somehow?

5:13 Why allow this? The spirit's begging must have had some effect, but why? Is it related to the something that the spirits seem to know about Jesus that he does not want revealed?

5:19 A change of tack for Jesus here. This is the first time an object of his miracles has been encouraged to talk about it.

5:21 "and he was by the sea". Even more pointed here, drawing attention to the sea in a seemingly unnecessary addendum.

5:30 this is possibly the most fascinating verse so far. Here, Mark goes beyond narrative and actually touches on metaphysics for the first time. Now that I think of it, I don't recall the how of Jesus' miracles being discussed anywhere else in the gospels. So, what does it mean? Often, I think of so-called holy men as channeling power, rather than being the source of it, but Jesus felt power "go out of him", indicating that he was the source, rather than the conduit. Few others claim such a thing, and certainly no reputable ones. Is this an invention of Mark, or something resembling what Jesus actually said? If the latter, it has profound implications.

5:39 Is this a diagnosis or a metaphor?

5:43 And back to the adjuration not to speak of it. This makes five times? Surely he knew that it was pointless, or is it only certain types of miracle that are unmentionable? It could mean that Jesus is verrrry cleverly playing on the fact that people love to do what you tell them not to. It could also have some theological implication. Wouldn't it be interesting if this sort of thing was going on today, only people didn't talk about it?

6:3 Jealousy, or resentment? For some reason, this offense seems a perfectly natural reaction.

6:17 This is out of order in the narrative. Why is it here?

6:26 I remember having a very strong reaction to this verse as a 6-year old. My parents were explaining that Herod had a dilemma because he felt he had to save face in front of all of these people. He couldn't simply go back on his promise to Salome. "Yes he could," I said. "He could just explain that the head of a righteous man was worth more than half of his kingdom." i seem to remember them being at a loss for a way to explain. I thought myself terribly clever.

6:29 or part of it :)

6:36 Who do the disciples think they're fooling? They just needed an excuse to get away from the annoying hoi polloi.

6:48 How does Mark make claims such as this one about Jesus' intentions, motives, inner thoughts? This is almost as interesting as the fact that, until he was spotted, he was going to water-walk right on past them.

7:2-3 If all the Jews were in the habit of washing their hands, what sort of Jews were these disciples such that they did not? Probably the equivalent of modern trailer trash. At least it was only "some of his disciples".

7:6-7 Taken one way, this is another irritating example of retroactive prophesy. I can see it another way: that Jesus is saying, "Wow. Those words in Isaiah, when he was talking about our ancestors? He wight as well have been talking about you. Jerks."

7:14 This is only true in the strictest of Buddhist senses. Of course things you take in can corrupt you. Lies, gossip, drugs, terrible and shallow associates, all can darken your soul. Of course, one could say that, "you can't be corrupted without your permission," But Jesus seems to be saying something more along the lines of "nothing is necessarily good or bad, except for your intention regarding it."

7:21 This is a pretty pessimistic view of humanity. I'm not sure I believe it. Surely we are all born pure and innocent, and it is through this terrible, corrosive society that we become corrupt.

7:25 For example, is this unclean spirit of the girl's own making? Or is it something from outside that has corrupted her? Surely Jesus was oversimplifying earlier,much in the same way that the Buddha did.

7:27 This matches up with what he said in Ch. 5 about power going out of him. Metaphysically speaking, his abilities were not infinite.

7:29 Some literalists see this as a test of the woman, rather than as a moment of real humanity. I prefer the latter.

7:30 Here the word demon is used instead of unclean spirit.

7:34 Words are magic.

7:36 It is three out of four types of miracles that have received this admonition now, and only inconsistently.

8:5-9 I'm not sure how to feel about this account. How could it be other than a mistaken repetition of whatever happened in chapter 6? And yet, the writer of Mark is so judicious, even parsimonious with his words that one can't believe he would insert this without a very good reason. I can't see any reason to include this, either way.

8:12 And yet, haven't many amazing signs been given? Aren't there even more to come in the second act? By this generation, could he possibly mean just the Pharisees?

8:18-20 Ahh, here may be the reason for the repetition: the introduction or development of a theme.

8:23 As with the deaf man, he takes him away from the crowd. The witnesses stretch this into an example of Jesus foresighted mercy, but I wonder if it wasn't for some other reason.

8:26 If not for some other reason, then why adjure him not to go back in the village? Are we still trying to be incognito?

8:27-30 Here is what may be the crux of the book: conveniently placed in the middle of it, as I am just noticing. Who is this Jesus? Is he the son of God, as some have said? The Son of Man, as he refers to himself? John? Elijah? Anne Murray? And here we find the question seemingly answered with another of the recurrent and inexplicable themes: Shh! don't tell. Here is the secret that the demons held, here is what Jesus was afraid would get out: that he was the Messiah, a greater secret than all of these other things. So why was this a secret?

8:32 not in parables?

8:33 I never noticed the language here before. Peter rebuked him. I had always taken it to mean, possibly supported by the other gospels, that Peter was encouraging him to take it easy. If nothing else, Peter's balls are admirable here.

8:37 And yet, here he is preparing to sacrifice that same life.

8:38 This is the first mention here of an afterdeath. Is this tied to "the secret"? Is this the difference between a son of God and a Messiah?

Liveblogging the Bible: Mark

I can't believe I didn't think of this before.

1:2 I thought this sort of post facto messiahfication was reserved for the later gospels. I wonder where in Isaiah this comes from, if this one is a stretch or not. I seem to remember something about that in Isaiah . . .

1:5 Jews "were baptized by him" and "confessing their sins", just like that? Unless I'm mistaken, this was a pretty new concept in Judaism. I wonder if John came up with the idea, and if so how he framed it to people.

1:12 "The spirit drove him out intno the wilderness." I'm not sure how to interpret this, but I like the way it is put.

1:13 In later versions, the devil specifically tempts Jesus to have angels minister to him. In this version, the angels are doing it willingly. Not irreconcilable, but interesting.

1:14 This is certainly a more palatable message than John's. Not "come air your dirty laundry and go through this ritual with me" but "hey, take stock of yourself and listen up."

1:16 this is the second time that it feels Mark has left something out (1:5). Surely it was not this succinct.

1:20 Or was he just that charismatic?

1:21 Did they let people do this? Just walk in and start teaching? Probably not. Pretty ballsy.

1:22 And what does this "authority" consist of? Charisma? Confidence? Logic and reasoning? Knowledgability? Perhaps all of the above . . .

1:23 This is probably not the spirit [sic] in which it was meant, but having "an unclean spirit" has some real applicability. I feel sometimes like my spirit is dirty, like it needs polished.

1:27 I guess I forgot one type of authority: actual power.

1:31 this is the third mention of some sort of service to Jesus (1:7, 13). some kind of theme developing?

1:34 Why not permit the demons to speak this time? Because "they knew him"? What did they know?

1:40-42 A nice parallel to the driving out of the uncleannes in 1:25.

1:43 a little late for this, dontcha think?

2:1 toldya.

2:8 Did he read their minds, or just have good hearing? Or were they simply indiscreet?

2:14 Is this Matthew? Or James? NOTA?

2:21 this is an interesting juxtaposition: straight from a rebuff of fasting to the wineskins analogy. Is he saying that fasting is obsolete, or is it a trick of the editor? Unrelated: the wineskins is one of my favorite sayings of Jesus.

2:27 I don't recall noticing this turn of phrase before. A nice antimetabole.

3:4 Another nice political/rhetorical display of skill

3:11 surely there is something to the fact Jesus calls himself "Son of Man" and all the spirits call him "Son of God".

3:12 Again, a little late for that.

3:16 This is the first I realized that Jesus gave Peter his name. Researching . . . meaning stone! Interesting. More than interesting.

3:18 Again, what is the relationship between this James and the Levi of 2:14?

3:28-30 This seems to answer the question "what is the unforgivable sin?" rather more nicely than I had realized. In my upbringing, it was always a divine mystery, but here it is rather clearly used to mean calling something holy something profane.

3:33 Not very worshipful of the so-called Queen of Heaven.

4:3-9 This is distinctly unpolitical moment. Anybody really interested in temporal power would have seized this moment to make an explicable analogy. Why didn't he explain it? Had popularity gotten too crowded, and he felt like he needed to winnow?

4:12 Why is this section in verse? Researching . . . The first two lines seem to rhyme in Greek, both ending in aw-seen, and the ending appears again in the middle of the next line, which ends in tah-ees. I don't feel like searching through the entire Greek interlinear, but the ending aw-seen does not appear anywhere else in this chapter. It does therefore seem to be deliberate poetry. But what a bizarre thing to say, let alone put into verse. Where is it from? Researching . . . in one version (NRSV), it is given quotation marks, as though pulled from somewhere else. In another, (NWT) not. In Matthew's parallel account, it is definitely attributed to Isaiah, probably 6:9, to wit: "Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand." As in Mark, no reason is given. If it is not meant to be understood by the masses, why say it? Why not reserve it for its intended recipients. Why mess with people's minds like this?

4:13 And then, after specifically saying that the parable was inscrutable, why berate the apostles for not understanding it?

4:21 But he does seem to temper it a bit here, saying, "But don't worry. I'm not just being a jerk. All will be revealed; you really have to pay better attention though."

4:25 I think I understand what he is really saying here for the first time. I have always thought of this as a classic example of Jesus being a jerk. "If you understand, I will explain. If you don't understand, I will confuse you even more." But this interpretation is predicated (literally, for once) on the understanding that the getting and the giving are in the same currency. In light of v.23-4, it makes more sense to say "the measure [of attention] you give will be the measure [of understanding] you get." In this light, Jesus really does seem to be winnowing the flock. Trying to make it more manageable? Or more pure?

4:26-32 He then does them the favor of following up with two easily understood parables. To boost their confidence? To hone their deparabalizing skills? These, he does not seem to (need to) explain. Except tha tI am left with the question "What is this Kingdom of God?" Again, is it understanding? Or some spiritual gift?

Last and First

Rigoberta Menchu: I, Rigoberta Menchu

This last book of 2008 makes me want to revive my old content/style rating method for books. The content of the book was strong, the riveting story of a Quechua woman who fought for native rights in Guatemala. Dictated, rather than writeen, though, the book lacks style rather terminally. This is understandable, since Menchu had only been speaking Spanish for three years when she narrated it and was utterly uneducated, but it still keeps this from being worth reading other than as a curiosity. My World Literature class has been such a success so far, I decided to read in their entirety some of the books of which I taught on ly excerpts, and this one was easy to knock out on a single plane flight.

Philip K. Dick: Flow, My Tears the Policeman Said

I have to give this one a poor grade by comparison to Dick's masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? While the latter transcended typical ideas of literature, the former ultimately relied on a single technological conceit, and fell short of my recommendation. It felt as though Dick almost followed the same formula to write the two books. Although the two protagonists are ostensibly polar opposites--the hard-boiled detective and the glitzy celebrity, the end up with the same quandaries about their realities, and ultimately end up feeling the same. The worlds created for the two books likewise feels interchangeable, although the irradiated world of Sheep ties more nicely into its theme than the police state of Tears.

What originally irritated me about Sheep, however, I longed for in Tears. the lack of resolution in the former resounded with the whole text to create a truly thought-provoking statement about the nature of reality. While Tears treated the same topic--as I suspect all of Dick's work does, it ultimately didn't take it beyond typical science-fiction fare.