Carl,
Being "really interested in what Mark was doing" in Mk 1.2, is higher
criticism. You yourself are doing higher criticism here. Higher
criticism is "The criticical study of the literary methods and sources
used by the author" (Oxford Dictionary of the Chritian Church, page
637).If you are trying to find out what Mark was doing as an author in
Mk 1.2, discussing his supposed sources and how he treated them,
examining which parts of the Septuagint, or Hebrew text, Mark appears to
reflect, and so on, then you are a higher critic. If higher criticism
has no place on this list, then nor have your comments above!
I would like to know your views, and those of anyone else who cares to
give theirs, also on the other text which I quoted in Greek. I would
really hope to understand the Greek better, and quote it again here:
TOTE EPLHRWQH TO hRHQEN DIA IEREMIOU TOU PROFHTOU LEGONTOJ, KAI ELABON
TO TRIAKONTA ARGURIA, THN TIMHN TOU TETIMHMENOU...
The reference to - TO TRIAKONTA ARGURIA - is from Zechariah 11.13,
and is not found in IEREMIAJ. How are we to understand a text in
Matthew which, like Mk 1.2, says that it is from a book of the Old
Testament which does not, in fact, contain it? What does the text mean?
In Mt 27.9, what is the subject of "fulfilled" - EPLHRWQH - ? If it was
not something from Jeremiah, then what was it?
Never mind what Matthew, or Mark, was, or was not, doing with supposed
sources! Does the Greek of Mt 27.9, and Mk 1.2, have a meaning?
Brian E. Wilson