I hope this hasn't been hashed recently, but I was noticing something about Mark 6:45-52. There the story has Jesus walking upon the sea and the apostles thinking they are seeing a ghost/spirit. The sea abates and it concludes by saying that they had not discerned the "meaning of the loaves".
The story about the loaves and feeding 5000 must preceed this story for this latter reference to loaves now. ( Matt copying Mark kept the former's context but without reference to the loaves).
Obviously symbolism was intended by the Markan story teller. The 5000 being fed story has been recognised and decoded as gemetria for the role of Jesus as the dying and raising savior. (explained at earlier time) My proposal now is that the walking unharmed over the sea was symbolic of his conquering death. Death=abyss/sea. This is why the disciples are said to not get the MEANING of the loaves. The feeding upon the loaves was another symbolic reference to his death.
Matthew (14:23-34) misses the symbolism entirely and relates it as just another miracle story.
It gets even more interesting when we consider that John (21)has similar scene take place as a resurrection appearance. In Matt Peter calls to Jesus to grant him the power to walk on water, but falls in, in John it is again Peter who gets out of the boat and gets wet. There jesus provides bread but uses it as symbol of dispensing gnosis. Luke 5 uses this story as it appears in John as something that occurrred early and again used the symbolism to mean teaching gnosis.
Is it possible that the UrMarkan story was intended after Jesus death with Mark relocating it closer to the loaves story because he too did not get the meaning? The walking over the sea and the describing jesus as a ghost fits. Or are we to interpret it as decetism (impervious to death because not actually bodily human), that Mat disguises as a miracle that anyone with faith could do, and Luke and John garble completely and disagree about when to present it? John uses the Pythagorean 153 fish gemetria so I see it as a later spin, probably of Luke.
Maybe Luke and John are not directly connected at all, but the boat and fishing and peter jumping into sea are suggestive to me.
I doubt I'm the first to suggest that the water walk was symbolic of power over death. Does anyone have input?
loaves walking on water
by peacefulpete 6 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
peacefulpete
-
Narkissos
From a Biblical standpoint, the walking on the sea appears as a creation motif echoing the cosmogonical victory of the creator god on the Sea (cf. Marduk / Tiamat, Baal / Yam), which is a prerequisite for life and its food-cycle. This creation motif is reinterpreted in some OT texts as an Exodus motif (the crossing of the Sea or the Jordan); of course the Exodus tradition also implies food (manna or bread from heaven):
Job 9:8ff (Creation): who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea; who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
who does great things beyond understanding, and marvelous things without number.
Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him.Psalm 77:20 (Exodus): Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen.
Sirach 24:5f (Creation): Alone I (Wisdom) compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss. Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway.
This is all the more obvious when related to the calming of the storm in Mark 4:35ff, resulting in the question:
Mark 4:41: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
Which points to a wider background:
Psalm 65:8ff: You silence the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples. Those who live at earth's farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy. You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it.
Psalm 89:10f: You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
Or, as creatio continua, from an ex-voto of sailers:
Psalm 107:23 Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters; they saw the deeds of the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their calamity; they reeled and staggered like drunkards, and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven.
The sea/abyss (tehom = Tiamat), uncreated in Genesis 1, is of course connected with death. The Jonah tale is a good example.
Needless to say, this is pure docetism: no walking on the sea in Luke...
Reminds me of Antonio Machado's verse: "I can't nor want to sing / to this Jesus of the cross / but to him who walked on the sea."
-
Leolaia
Just to add to Narkissos' comment, Asherah's principal epithet was "Lady who Treads the Sea". There is a direct connection to Jesus and Asherah through the figure of personified Wisdom (female), who in Proverbs (and elsewhere in intertestamental wisdom literature) was described in specific Asherah language and who in the synoptics was related to Jesus.
It has sometimes been said that Mark includes in its pre-Easter narrative two "resurrection" epiphanies: (1) the "lake" appearance in Galilee (cognate to John 21 and the ending to the Gospel of Peter), which became the stories of the apostolic calling and walking on water, and (2) the "mountain" appearance (cognate to the apperance at the end of Matthew), which in Mark became the Transfiguration epiphany.
-
peacefulpete
So I think your saying that some hold that the Mark wlking on water scene WAS a resurrection appearance, following the structure of John and presumably GPeter, but was relocated temporally. Or did you mean "epiphanies" in the sense of symbolic? Of course typically the resurrection appearances are understood as later additions. How can these be reconciled? I'm retreating into the idea that the W on W story was not a resurrection appearance but a purely mythical element of the protognostics (from wisdom/sophia imagery or other mythologies) that was reinterpreted by Mark as having symbolism about Jesus' mastery over death tho not specifically his resurrection. The docetic Xtians then used the passage as a proof text and this is why Luke drops it from his work.
John and GPeter are related,just who was first is debated, by the time of GJohn the object was to prove his resurrection and it seems logical that for this reason the story in Mark was reinterpreted as a resurrection appearance. The writer or later editers may have edited out the w on w detail so that it did not openly contradict the Synoptics. It sure would be great to have the ending of GPeter to see if the story has Jesus W on W!
Doesn't Mark 6 seem dependent upon chapt 4 story? (this type of argument is new to me so be kind if I'm making newbie mistakes) IOW do we have two separate ORAL traditions (walking on water and calming wind and sea) being conflated in chapt 6 where he walks on water and calms the wind. The endings being different in chapt 4 and 6 Mark apparently was unconcerned how similar the stores were in such close proximity. (Matt dutifully copied Mrk's pattern)
Narkissos..I understand the sea motif was often used as creation imagery, thanks for posting examples. It does as you said also often have death symbolism. Also I took note that the seeming docetic walking on water story was absent in Luke but the calming the stormwas present in chapt 8. Would the writer of Luke have felt threatened by the W on W story if it was a resurrection appearance in his sources? I wouldn't see why. wouldn't this suggest that Luke was using a source that either did not include the story or had it as a docetic preEaster tale. This either means a very complicated source mystery OR Luke was using Mark who was using Oral traditions. Where's Q? -
Narkissos
PP: IMO the resurrection / apparition stories were basically symbolic stories designed to express the divine identity of Jesus, including his mastery over death. In that sense they are no different in intent from other revelatory scenes which just happen to be located before Jesus' death, such as the voice/vision at baptism, the calming of / walking on the sea, or the Transfiguration. Only from the later antidocetic views which made the resurrection a "real event" (tm) did they appear to be different. Then the living Jesus' revelations came to be interpreted as pointing to the resurrection.
IOW: is a pre-Easter miracle such as the walking on water a signifier (signifiant) pointing to the resurrection as signified (signifié), or are they both equivalent and interchangeable signifiers pointing to something else -- namely, "who is this one"?
-
peacefulpete
I think I follow. I think we are agreeing. In some ways then this agrees with Spong's take onthe evolution of the exaltation/resurrection teaching. In his opinion the original purely metaphysical concept of God's essence and presence with humans was lost when OT images and godman myths (by then literalized by most) were grafted in. The statements about Christs exaltation to the essence of God became literalized. Therefore the spiritual concept of exaltation needed a physical grounding in time and space. Ascending to the God became an actual event not a theological expression. It seems that when this was done these symbolic tales took on new meaning. I'm cool with that.
-
peacefulpete
Thanks both of you for steering me in the right direction.