Nay, I'm happy to say that I think MOST of them were already in
oral tradition. My only point was that if Matthew and Luke were free to
edit and style such sayings, so was Mark, probably. Hence some of the
style is likely due to him, as it certainly is in both Matthew and Luke's
editings.
<I suppose it's also fair to say that the
questionable Greek found in Mark may itself have been in oral tradition
too. We can't know.
Right! Again, my point was only that SOME of the dubious Greek may
well be due to the tradition, left untouched by Mark, Certainly Matthew
let some real errros through, so why not Mark?
<Yes: Apocalypse is the worst; the gospel of John seems primarily pedestrian
rather than grammatically or stylistically offensive. And the first letter
of John really is pretty bad. However, if you want to get me going about
bad Greek, I don't think there's any passage in the NT I find more
offensive (stylistically) than the opening of Ephesians.
I agree with everything you say here. Sometimes I think that
Thomas Mann's style in Zauberberg was based on the opening endless sentence
of Ephesians!
<I guess that I'd want to say that I really don't think Greek was Mark's
native language. Just my own hunch that I can't prove. Ornery, I guess.
This is one I have pondered often, reading dissertation after
dissertation (submitted for publication) on the subject. My biggest
problem is that It pretty clearly can't have been either Hebrew or Aramaic,
nor Latin. So what will account for his style?
I just looked at your Home Page for the first time (got a new multi
-media computer), and enjoyed seeing it. How about putting a flattering
portrait of yourself on it? (Failing that, how about a portrait of Mark,
warts and all?)
Edward