Jesus__Man, God, Alien

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Interesting view on the Gospel of Mark

Mark, The Embarrassing Gospel
Filed under: Criteria: Embarrassment,Gospel of Mark,Religion — Neil Godfrey @ 7:30 pm
The criterion of embarrassment is a “rule” commonly appealed to by scholars to argue that certain events must be historical because they were so well-known and undeniable that, although gospel authors were clearly embarrassed by them, they nevertheless could not avoid addressing them. One example is the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Why would gospel authors say that Jesus was baptized by his inferior unless it really happened? Surely it was not in the interests of presenting Jesus as the superior to John the Baptist to publicize such an event. The only explanation could be that the event was so well known that the authors had no choice but to report it and put the best spin on it that they could muster.

(This reasoning sounds so “self-evident” that it deserves to be kept in mind when reading the scholarly explanations for why Paul does NOT mention so much about Jesus for the reason that it was “so well known that there was no need to address it” — even if to do so would (a) support his position, or (b) require spin to get around how Jesus embarrassed Paul’s position.)

But there is a problem. One of those canonical gospels demonstrates not a single ounce or gram of embarrassment over Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, nor any of the other episodes to which spin has to be plied by the other gospels to get around various “embarrassing but unavoidable historical facts.” The Gospel of Mark simply waltzes in and unashamedly offers us a point by point account of how John the Baptist baptized Jesus (his superior)!

Could it be that three of the canonical gospels (Matthew, John and Luke) were not so much embarrassed by “historical facts” as they were by their predecessor, the Gospel of Mark?

Should the criterion of embarrassment point not to the historicity of the events themselves, but to offence at the “unorthodox” theology implicit in the original canonical gospel?

The Gospel of Mark shows no signs of embarrassment at all over the baptism of Jesus. Nor does it appear to have any trouble in suggesting Jesus could lose his temper. It even tells a story of Jesus needing two attempts to completely heal a blind man. But Mark’s account of the trial of Jesus before Pilate is most puzzling when compared against standard scholarly explanations for how the other gospel authors treated this event.