Is the Ascension Story an Embellishment?

[One Bad Pig]

Won't someone please pay attention to Adam? If you don't, he'll keep whining.

[Adam]

Thank you, OBP. But I've got Robrecht cornered and he doesn't know how to get out.
If you're wondering why I don't take this lovely opportunity to present MY evidence for a Proto-Mark or Proto-Matthew (or their underlying Proto-Gospel or Grundschrift), I've done it for Robrecht before, and he remains as stolidly an unbeliever as Shunya, the latter of whom I first worked fruitlessly upon back in 2007.

[robrecht]

I never claimed there was no evidence.

Nor did I say that you did.

That's prima facie the absurd statement. Plus you said it first. (Are we playing "Kick the can" now?)

I said it first and I am still not aware of any evidence. This is not an absurd statement.

Can you cite even one scholar who agrees with you, that there is absolutely no evidence there was an earlier draft of Mark?.

I've never seen any scholar discuss this topic in this way, positive or negatively. I have seen scholars present their hypotheses and theories of an Urmarcus, proto-Marcus, or proto-Matthew, but their views were typically based more on presuppositions and not evidence. As you no doubt know already, I agree with Neirynck and Van Bella on this question. You say that Van Bella agrees with you that there is indeed evidence for an Urmarcus, but from my discussions with him, I think you're mistaken on that point. If you have finally read Van Bella, I congratulate you on this. Previously, you had no interest in reading his work.

For good measure, would that scholar (if he exists) hold that our Mark was NOT further redacted before another gospel was written from it, with that Deutero- or Trito-Mark having been lost forever after being used for Matthew or Luke? Note I'm saying SCHOLARS, not Fundamentalists whether Protestant nor Catholic.

I think many of the text-critical emendations of Mark are similar to the same type of emendation that either Matthew or Luke might also have made, ie, minor improvements of grammar or style that even Mark himself or someone else in his community might have made or any intermediary scribe. Thus it is very possible that some of these were made prior Matthew and or Luke having received their copies of Mark. Neirynck and his colleagues who have worked on this issue argue that a deutero-Markan recension is not necessary to explain such minor agreements, but I certainly admit of the possibility of some kind of deutero-Markan recension.

[robrecht]

Thank you, OBP. But I've got Robrecht cornered and he doesn't know how to get out.
If you're wondering why I don't take this lovely opportunity to present MY evidence for a Proto-Mark or Proto-Matthew (or their underlying Proto-Gospel or Grundschrift), I've done it for Robrecht before, and he remains as stolidly an unbeliever as Shunya, the latter of whom I first worked fruitlessly upon back in 2007.

I do not recall you presenting any evidence at all. I do recall your refusal to read the work of Van Bella that I recommended to you.

[Adam]

Nor did I say that you did. I said it first and I am still not aware of any evidence. This is not an absurd statement.

I deliberately gave you an easy out from pity, I guess. You just needed to quote one scholar who agreed with you that there is NO evidence of a Proto-Mark nor a Deutero- or Trito-Mark.

I've never seen any scholar discuss this topic in this way, positive or negatively. I have seen scholars present their hypotheses and theories of an Urmarcus, proto-Marcus, or proto-Matthew, but their views were typically based more on presuppositions and not evidence. As you no doubt know already, I agree with Neirynck and Van Bella on this question. You say that Van Bella agrees with you that there is indeed evidence for an Urmarcus, but from my discussions with him, I think you're mistaken on that point. If you have finally read Van Bella, I congratulate you on this. Previously, you had no interest in reading his work.

No, there is no Van Bella nor Neirynck book available to me at my academic library (UC Davis). I've read enough from their articles or quoted material to know better than to spend money on them.
You should have stopped while you were ahead. You say Van Bella has personally told you there is no evidence for a Proto-Mark. He does not speak English as a native, so confusion regarding the word "evidence" is at issue. Granting that he does disbelieve in Proto-Mark, you could have stopped there without admitting he is open to
texts (Deutero-Mark or Trito-Mark) between our Mark and Matthew. I did, in addition claim that they both push the typical current conservative Roman Catholic concept of Proto-Matthew. They do limit that, I think, to a precursor to Matthew, but my theory holds that the same (or similar) text also was used in the making of Mark.

I think many of the text-critical emendations of Mark are similar to the same type of emendation that either Matthew or Luke might also have made, ie, minor improvements of grammar or style that even Mark himself or someone else in his community might have made or any intermediary scribe. Thus it is very possible that some of these were made prior Matthew and or Luke having received their copies of Mark. Neirynck and his colleagues who have worked on this issue argue that a deutero-Markan recension is not necessary to explain such minor agreements, but I certainly admit of the possibility of some kind of deutero-Markan recension.

Wow, any admission from you is like pulling teeth.

[robrecht]

I deliberately gave you an easy out from pity, I guess. You just needed to quote one scholar who agreed with you that there is NO evidence of a Proto-Mark nor a Deutero- or Trito-Mark.
No, there is no Van Bella nor Neirynck book available to me at my academic library (UC Davis). I've read enough from their articles or quoted material to know better than to spend money on them.
You should have stopped while you were ahead. You say Van Bella has personally told you there is no evidence for a Proto-Mark. He does not speak English as a native, so confusion regarding the word "evidence" is at issue. Granting that he does disbelieve in Proto-Mark, you could have stopped there without admitting he is open to
texts (Deutero-Mark or Trito-Mark) between our Mark and Matthew. I did, in addition claim that they both push the typical current conservative Roman Catholic concept of Proto-Matthew. They do limit that, I think, to a precursor to Matthew, but my theory holds that the same (or similar) text also was used in the making of Mark.
Wow, any admission from you is like pulling teeth.

You've completely misunderstood Van Bella's position.

[shunyadragon]

Won't someone please pay attention to Adam? If you don't, he'll keep whining.

I refuse to wind up the spring loaded whine.

[Adam]

You just did.

[Adam]

You've completely misunderstood Van Bella's position.

I guess I prefer to mix it up with better-informed RC scholars like Boismard who misunderstand in the opposite direction with a most elaborate set of preliminary sources and refinements.

[robrecht]

I guess I prefer to mix it up with better-informed RC scholars like Boismard who misunderstand in the opposite direction with a most elaborate set of preliminary sources and refinements.

If you have not read or understood enough of his work to even know what his position is, on what basis can you claim to know that Boismard is a better informed scholar?

[Adam]

Untenable conclusions imply the information inputted is deficient.

[robrecht]

Untenable conclusions imply the information inputted is deficient.

The overwhelming majority of critical scholars are in near universal agreement with Van Bella's view, thus it is certainly not an untenable conclusion.

[Adam]

Nevertheless, it is.

[robrecht]

Nevertheless, it is.

Why do you think that? And why do you think so many critical scholars hold an untenable conclusion?

[Adam]

Mind you, I'm a reformed "Two-Document Hypothesis" scholar. Eventually I found out what outlandish circumlocutions Christopher Tuckett and such do to maintain the fiction that our complete Mark plus Q (as if it's one document--it isn't, it's at least 3 parts) was used by both Matthew and Luke. I had been under the illusion that they were sophisticated enough to know that a Proto-Mark preceded our Mark, or at least preceded its use towards Luke. I had thought the nonsense views of Mark + Q were just misunderstandings promoted by encyclopedias and some trashy introductions.
(To be clear, even less do I believe the theories sorting out only extant documents, particularly the Griesback, Farrer-Goulder, and Augustinian Hypotheses.) I don't know how people can be so gullible.)
(It helped that about two years ago I started saying that the Synoptic Problem could never be solved. Then sure enough I realized it could be done. Skepticism has to precede truth. An open mind is the only way to discover truth.)