I'm currently studying Mark 15:16-20 a little more intensively and am thinking about whether Philo's Carabas story was Mark's inspiration. But I'm very worried about whether I'm falling victim to parallelomania.
- Is this parallelomania?Apart that possible interesting clue, what would move an evangelist (for example, your "Mark") to be interested to Philo?
- Or are the overlaps in content enough to assume Philo as the source/inspiration?
Note: There are no real linguistic similarities!
My qualified argument could be the following:
The overlap concerns not only the mockery scene, but also the story about the Gerasene demoniac. The Gerasene is the different kind of madman compared to Carabas/Jesus, as Philo describes him at the beginning.
Mark's interest may lie in the following distinction
- the Gerasene: physically untamed, but personally submissive
- Jesus: physically completely passive, but personally steadfast
- Jesus: physically completely passive, but personally steadfast
| Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus, VI (36-39) | Mark 5:1-6 and 15:16-20 |
| There was a certain madman named Carabbas, afflicted not with a wild, savage, and dangerous madness (for that comes on in fits without being expected either by the patient or by bystanders), but with an intermittent and more gentle kind; this man spent all this days and nights naked in the roads, minding neither cold nor heat, the sport of idle children and wanton youths; | And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. |
| and they, driving the poor wretch as far as the public gymnasium, and setting him up there on high that he might be seen by everybody, flattened out a leaf of papyrus and put it on his head instead of a diadem, and clothed the rest of his body with a common door mat instead of a cloak and instead of a sceptre they put in his hand a small stick of the native papyrus which they found lying by the way side and gave to him; and when, like actors in theatrical spectacles, he had received all the insignia of royal authority, and had been dressed and adorned like a king, the young men bearing sticks on their shoulders stood on each side of him instead of spear-bearers, in imitation of the bodyguards of the king, and then others came up, some as if to salute him, and others making as though they wished to plead their causes before him, and others pretending to wish to consult with him about the affairs of the state. Then from the multitude of those who were standing around there arose a wonderful shout of men calling out "Maris"; and this is the name by which it is said that they call the kings among the Syrians; | And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him. |
Statistics: Posted by Kunigunde Kreuzerin — Mon Dec 09, 2024 6:34 am