{"id":37903,"date":"2018-08-25T05:24:51","date_gmt":"2018-08-25T09:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=37903"},"modified":"2018-08-23T07:30:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T11:30:20","slug":"mark-invented-the-sea-of-galilee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/mark-invented-the-sea-of-galilee.html","title":{"rendered":"Mark Invented the Sea of Galilee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Teaching a class on the historical Jesus, I am revisiting posts from as much as a couple of years ago that I have long meant to highlight or discuss, which relate to this topic. One of these is Paul Davidson\u2019s post about the \u201cSea of Galilee\u201d in the Gospel of Mark<\/a>, and the fact that that work may well be the first work to have referred to the lake by this odd choice of name. Here\u2019s how the blog post begins:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Most of Mark\u2019s Gospel prior to the passion narrative revolves around a body of water the author calls the Sea of Galilee. It is the geographical focal point where Jesus calls his disciples, preaches to the crowds, travels (by boat), and performs his miracles \u2014 including many that involve the sea itself. It is a dangerous body of water whose raging waves must be quelled by Jesus on one occasion to save his shipmates.<\/p>\n

There is, in fact, no \u201csea\u201d in the Galilee region of Palestine. There is a lake in the right location that matches the geographical description of Mark\u2019s sea in many (thought not all) respects. But no ancient writer prior to Mark ever mentions a body of water called the Sea of Galilee, and some of the reasons Mark gives the sea such a prominent role are often overlooked.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See also Jim Spinti\u2019s post on how different translators deal with Mark calling the lake a \u2018sea\u2019 and what the symbolic significance of the wording may have been<\/a> for the ancient author and readers.<\/p>\n

The above connects in a natural way to Matthew Ferguson\u2019s post about eyewitnesses, ancient biographies, and the Gospels<\/a>. He wrote:<\/p>\n

Considering that virtually every Greco-Roman biographer from the early Roman Empire, writing on subjects dating to within half a century or so of his composition, mentions his personal relation to events, the failure of any of the Gospel authors to explicitly do so should make us question whether the Gospels belong to the same literary genre as these authors\u2026<\/p>\n

[T]he fact that the Gospels do not explicitly discuss any of their authors\u2019 relation to sources or events is a major reason why scholars consider them to be anonymous. The fact that historiographical biographers\u2013such as Nepos, Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Lucian\u2013actually do is likewise a reason why their biographies are not considered to be anonymous. But, we do have other anonymous biographical literature from antiquity\u2013such as the Life of Aesop, the Alexander Romance, and the Life of Secundus. These biographies are popular and novelistic, however, and not historiographical, which should thus offer us some insight into where, on the broader spectrum of Greco-Roman biography, the Gospels more appropriately belong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The one potential point that should perhaps be made in response is that Jewish authors may or may not fit this pattern that predominated in the wider Greco-Roman world. Of course, the works that come to mind about historical events often fit the description \u201cpopular and novelistic\u201d and so this may be a distinction without a difference. But the fact that the main archetypes that Jewish authors \u2013 including historians \u2013 sought to emulate were anonymous works from their scriptures needs to be part of the discussion.<\/p>\n

Of related interest see Steve Wiggins\u2019 post on false memories and recollections of uncertain reliability<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teaching a class on the historical Jesus, I am revisiting posts from as much as a couple of years ago that I have long meant to highlight or discuss, which relate to this topic. One of these is Paul Davidson\u2019s post about the \u201cSea of Galilee\u201d in the Gospel of Mark, and the fact that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":50118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,150],"tags":[4100,6324,14226,14227],"class_list":["post-37903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gospel-of-mark","category-israel-travel","tag-gospel-of-mark","tag-lake","tag-sea-of-galilee","tag-tiberias"],"yoast_head":"\nMark Invented the Sea of Galilee<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Teaching a class on the historical Jesus, I am revisiting posts from as much as a couple of years ago that I have long meant to highlight or discuss,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/mark-invented-the-sea-of-galilee.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mark Invented the Sea of Galilee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Teaching a class on the historical Jesus, I am revisiting posts from as much as a couple of years ago that I have long meant to highlight or discuss,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/mark-invented-the-sea-of-galilee.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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