THEO 1432: The Religious Quest
🎵 Recording ⌨ Space / ←→

Mark 1-3

03/12/2026 · Tue/Thu 12:00-1:15 PM · Brad Bannon · Boston College

📄 Synopsis

This session marks the transition into the second half of the semester, shifting focus from themes of creation to 'recreation.' The instructor introduces the two primary texts for the remainder of the term: the Gospel of Mark and the Bhagavad-Gītā. The class spends a significant portion of the session playing a game called 'Tumbling Tower' to illustrate the theme of recreation before diving into the first three chapters of Mark. Regarding the Gospel of Mark, the class discusses its historical context, dating it to approximately 70 CE, coinciding with the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by General Titus. The text is characterized as a fast-paced narrative written in 'clumsy' Greek by a likely native Aramaic or Hebrew speaker, intended for an oppressed Jewish audience living under Roman occupation. Key literary features such as the 'Messianic Secret,' the authority of Jesus, and the frequent use of the word 'immediately' are highlighted. The instructor briefly mentions that the class will begin reading the Bhagavad-Gītā on Tuesday and encourages the use of study guides and commentaries for leadership days. Finally, the class explores the transition from oral tradition to written scripture, noting that writing often emerges when a community is threatened or decimated, ensuring the text is preserved when those who have it memorized are at risk.

⚡ Key Takeaways

  • The Gospel of Mark was likely written around 70 CE, a pivotal year marked by General Titus's destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
  • Mark’s Greek style is characterized by the frequent use of 'kai' (and), which suggests the author was a native speaker of Hebrew or Aramaic.
  • A central theme in Mark is the 'Messianic Secret,' where Jesus repeatedly instructs those he heals or the demons who recognize him not to reveal his identity.
  • In the early chapters of Mark, unclean spirits and demons recognize Jesus as the Son of God, while human characters generally do not.
  • The transition from oral to written scripture in ancient traditions often occurred when communities faced existential threats like war, ensuring the text survived if the people who memorized it were killed.
  • Memorizing scripture was traditionally valued because the discipline of memorization was thought to train a person to be ethical and allowed for immediate application of the text in life decisions.
  • Markan priority is a scholarly consensus suggesting that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a primary source, often refining its simpler Greek grammar.
  • The class will officially begin reading the Bhagavad-Gītā on Tuesday.
  • The instructor uses a game of 'Tumbling Tower' to transition the class into the semester's new focus on 'recreation.'

🎤 Transcript Tap any timestamp to jump the audio player

Opening and Administrative Housekeeping

Brad
Howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy. Let's take a moment. Wait, anybody doing quizzes? Did you finish? Did you turn the quizzes in? Let's take a moment to transition and just be fully present. Let's take a breath together and then breathe in and out. ⚠
Student
Word?
Brad
Word. So, welcome to the second half of the semester. The way I've designed the course, the entire first half of the semester prepares us for the second half. So, second half is kind of the point of the course, honestly. And so, everything we've done on the Hindu side of things prepares us to read the Bhagavad Gita. Which will start on Tuesday, and we haven't done that much on the Christian side of things, but the text that we've had, that we have read, you know, have been intentionally designed to prepare us to read Mark's Gospel, which we're starting on today. A lot to do today. I want to kind of introduce the second half, introduce the Gospel of Mark, introduce Bhagavad Gita, and that kind of stuff. We've also got a quiz to do, so go ahead and start on the quiz. And I want to play a little bit of Tumbling Tower. It's not Jenga. I know it looks like Jenga, but it's Tumbling Tower. ⚠
Student
Got you, got you.
Brad
Wait, extras? Yep.
Student
Thank you so much.
Student
Sure.
Brad
Good. All right, go ahead and pass them to the middle if you would. And, uh, everybody's here except for Jayden, right? Missing Jayden? Today is the last day to make up quizzes from the first half of the semester, except there's a few quizzes that I didn't have on hand from February. Couple, and yeah, so if you're trying to take one of those, then you can still take it in my office hours or otherwise I'll give you another chance for those quizzes on Tuesday. I also do have midterm grades to hand out and your quizzes and exam and all that kind of stuff, so we'll do that at the end of the class. Cool. Let's reset. This first half of the semester in part focused a lot on creation, and second half of the semester we're going to focus at least a bit more on recreation. So in that vein, let's play a game. ⚠
Student
Yeah, cool.
9:13

Recreation Activity: Mark's Magnificent Tumbling Tower

Brad
So we are not going to play Jenga, we're going to play Tumbling Tower, which is totally different. And well, one of the best things— the previous session made me take one turn and I lost. I blew the whole thing. The only difference here is that you have to roll a die, right? And then if you get like green, you gotta take green. Yeah, that sort of thing. There's a price of entry. In order to play, your team has to have a name. So if you already have a name, great. If not, team's gotta have a name. So, you know, take a couple of minutes and Pick a team name and then we'll, uh, then we'll start playing the game. Cool? Word? ⚠
Student
All right.
Brad
What? Dandy. I don't know.
Student
What's the name of your—
Brad
The shepherds? German shepherds?
Student
Yeah. Renny.
Brad
You don't have any sheep?
Student
Oh, horse.
Brad
Horse's name? Lola.
Student
One time you had a video of you milking a cow and then someone kept getting— something kept getting in the way.
Student
Like, if you were like a lamb. ⚠
Student
Oh, it's a baby calf.
Student
Baby calf.
Student
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brad
That's Yogi. Yeah, like yogurt is a good name. Yeah, Yogi's, uh, she went off to freezer camp. She's still with us but in like a different kind of way, you know. All right. You got a team name? Um, shall we just go this way clockwise? Yeah, let's go. Yeah, all right. Oh, you have a team name? ⚠
Student
Can you come back to us?
Brad
Sure. All right, you all have a team name?
Student
The Brads.
Brad
The Brads, okay. All right, go ahead for it. Go for it. Who's going to go? We'll rotate. Yeah, Drona. ⚠
Student
I got Mark's magnificent tumbling tower.
Brad
Wow, OK. Okay, the Brahms. No, no, I'm gonna roll with that. Um, okay, Mark's Magnificent Tumbling Tower— what team? Okay, uh, let's, let's go. Who's gonna go? Y'all ready? ⚠
Student
The quintessential three.
Brad
Quantessential 3. I do not know how to spell quintessential.
Student
Just do quint, Q-U-I-N-T, and then it's essential, the second. ⚠
Brad
Oh yeah, it is. All right, y'all gonna go? Who's gonna go? Go for it. Yeah. What does star mean? Star is anything. Okay, wait, let's clarify the rules. So star means anything, you can choose any color. You can't take it from the top row. You have to put 3 on the top row. You can only use 1 hand at a time. You can switch hands, but only one-handed sign. ⚠
Student
Oh, thanks.
Brad
No tools. You have to put that on top.
Student
Oh, I didn't know it was gender rules.
Brad
It's not, it's tumbling tower rules. All right, let's go. Yeah. Nice. All right. Okay, Hannah, you all have a team name? ⚠
Student
Yeah.
Brad
Um, lucky number 13.
Student
Okay.
Brad
Yaroslava's happy she's not on that team.
Student
I am.
Brad
Oh, I would miss it anyway, so— All right, who's going back there? In going first. All right, come on up, somebody. Let's go, let's go. This shouldn't take an hour and a half.
Student
Yeah, only like half of them are on this team. ⚠
Brad
So Lucas, what's your team name?
Student
Uh, Team Flash.
Brad
Oh, right. Nice. All right, Cooper, I don't know, your team. ⚠
Student
The Crazy Nuts.
Brad
Crazy Nuts? Crazy Nuts?
Student
No, no.
Brad
Like astronaut, but crazy nut?
Student
Crazy Nuts.
Brad
Crazy Nuts, like N-U-T-S? N-U-T-S. Okay, all right, Crazy Nuts, you gotta send someone, a player up here. Maybe move a little bit faster. So, Jordan, you have a team name? The Bruins. ⚠
Student
The Bruins?
Brad
Yeah. Okay. I assume that's a play on Ursa Major, Ursa Minor? 'Cause they both mean bear. Somebody got it. All right, and then, uh, yeah.
Student
Who we missing?
Student
Just us.
Brad
Yeah, Anchors. The Anchors. Cool. Oh, you got to use one hand. That's okay, next time.
Student
2, 2 pounds. Oh no, we got— Oh no. One hand, one hand. ⚠
Brad
I can put it on top of two, right? No. Who's next? Crazy Nuts?
Student
Blue? The level of— sorry, get the blue. What does that mean? ⚠
Brad
Anything. Go for green.
Student
I can't touch it.
Student
Good job, Yara. Who's next?
Brad
Let's move a little, let's have a little space, less space between people, please. Who's after Jordan? It's after choreo. Let's go. Who's after Advaita? ⚠
Student
Just pull the one on the third, third to the top here.
Student
Is that like viable?
Student
I don't know. Is there enough weight to like—
Brad
how about, how about the bottom right one?
Student
This one? I'll play this. I'll play this. Oh my God, oh my God, nice. ⚠
Brad
Oh my God, we're going aggressive.
Student
Nice. Who's next? I'm so— it's not my— but it is. No, it is that deep. ⚠
Brad
I'm so scared.
Student
What'd you get? Blue.
Student
Oh, can you take the top blue one? Can you take that? ⚠
Brad
The second— is it a second row? It's okay. We can do that next time. Orange. ⚠
Student
Red.
Brad
Red.
Student
Red.
Student
Oh my God, nice!
Student
Green.
Student
What was it?
Student
Nice. Can I do second round? ⚠
Brad
Throws it on there.
28:51

Introduction to the Gospel of Mark: Context and Composition

Student
GG.
Brad
All right, um, cool. Recreation, um. Alright, a lot of things I want to try and cover today. Let's do a couple of boring little history things. So Gospel according to Mark. So Gospel according to Mark, it never says anywhere that— it never uses Mark's name anywhere. So we don't really know who wrote it or what their name was. Tradition says it was written by somebody named Mark, and there's not really any reason to, you know, there's no reason really arguments in either way, right? So we don't know who wrote it, so we just continue calling it Mark, which is fine. Though one thing we do know a lot more about the date. So as you see, there's pretty stark scholarly consensus around this range of dates. In fact, most scholars kind of say it's either 69 or 70. So it's like a really— usually when you're dating historical texts, you have a much wider range. But this we know pretty, pretty, you know, pretty much when it was written. ⚠
Brad
And as I wrote there, so 70 is a super significant date because in 70 CE, that's when Titus, General Titus, before he became emperor, just kind of a resume builder. But Titus destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, sacked the temple, destroyed, I mean, most of Jerusalem, including and especially the temple that was built by, or at least funded by King Cyrus of Persia way back, you know, hundreds of years before. And originally, you know, originally built by Solomon, you know, many hundred years before. But anyway, so the audience, from what we know just based on the text that we have, the audience, you know, primarily Jewish audience. So Jewish author, Jewish audience, and living in the region of present-day Israel, around Jerusalem area, which at the time was occupied by the Roman Empire. And not just occupied, but quite oppressed, quite a hostile occupying force. And hostile in terms of religion, hostile in terms of social mobility, economics, hostile in, you know, all sorts of oppressive ways. So it's written by an oppressed people. Yeah, by an oppressed person to oppressed people, I could just say. ⚠
Brad
Beyond that, it's hard to say too much about the author and the audience. Our focus this semester, for the rest of the semester, is going to be on the Gospel of Mark. Um, but you know, it's helpful to kind of compare and contrast a little bit to some of the other gospels. If you have not read any of them, um, honestly it gives you a little bit of— it's not a bad thing at all if this is the only— if this is your first time reading it and you haven't read any of the other ones. That's not going to hurt you, actually give you, um, you know, a unique perspective on the text, um, and a lot, um, yeah, it can give you fresh eyes, which is really good. For those of you that do know the gospels really well, then comparing and contrasting them can also be very helpful. The place where people get in danger if they kind of have like a muddled sort of understanding of all the gospels without any sort of clear distinction. So we really are focusing on Mark's gospel. ⚠
Brad
You don't have to look or pay attention to the other ones at all. But just so you kind of have a sense of how they're connected, So Mark's Gospel, definitely 100% the earliest, right around the year CE, I mean 70 CE. Matthew and Luke's Gospel were written about 15 years-ish later. And no doubts, at least among scholars, that Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark with them when they were writing their gospels. So how do we know that? We know it because, well, I mean, they copy significant sections just verbatim, word for word. How do we know that it wasn't the other way around, that they, that Mark was copying them? You know, Augustine actually thought that Mark was like an abbreviated version of Matthew's Gospel, but I don't think any scholars think that. No scholars think that anymore. One of the ways we know that Matthew and Luke were copying from Mark is because Mark is clearly like a Greek as a second language, right? His first language, I think pretty clearly, is Hebrew or Aramaic. So Hebrew or Aramaic speaker writing in Greek, which is not his native language. ⚠
Brad
And his Greek is, you know, you know, it's like not great, honestly. It's okay. He makes some grammatical— he's a little clumsy, a little simplistic in his grammar, whereas Matthew and Luke both have really good Greek grammar, really good Greek writing skills. And so they will sometimes copy Mark's Greek and improve it. So, you know, from a scholarly perspective, it's pretty unlikely that somebody was copying good Greek into bad Greek, but more likely that they copied bad Greek into better Greek, right? So the— so that's one of the ways that we know that they were using those texts. Matthew and Luke also have some sources in common, at least one source in common, which is probably the Gospel of Thomas, which are just sayings of Jesus. And they also both have their own sources, but we're not really talking about them. Beyond this, John, John written sometime around 95 CE, and John's kind of doing his own thing. So I think that's all that I have to say about that. ⚠
Brad
I think, well, one thing, one of the reasons I said that Mark you know, seems to be a native Aramaic or native Hebrew speaker and writing in Greek. One of the ways we can— one of the signs or signals that we have for that, I'll pass this around, but if you have a look, this is— I'll put this little thing here in Mark's Gospel. And if you look at Mark's Gospel in Greek, one of the things you'll notice is that almost every verse I mean, like 95% of the verses, almost every verse begins with the word chi. Chi means and. No one translates all of them. Like, it would be super awkward to begin every single verse with the word and. So why on earth would he do something like that? Why on earth would you start every sentence with that? That's one of the ways we know, or we suspect, that he's probably a native Hebrew. Hebrew Aramaic speaker, because in Hebrew you don't have punctuation between sentences. So one of the ways you mark the end of one sentence and the beginning of another is with a vav. This is a vav. ⚠
36:04

Class Discussion: Themes of Authority, Immediacy, and the Messianic Secret

Brad
It looks like a straight line. That's because a vav just looks like a straight line. So the vav is used— so vav is a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. But it's also a word which means "and." Then "kai" means "and." So, you know, there have been some people that argued that Mark was originally written in Greek or Aramaic and then translated into Greek, but, well, you know, we don't have any copies of those, so no real hard evidence to that effect. Any questions? I think what I'd like to do now is take a few minutes in your teams and just talk about the first 3, you know, like literally a few minutes. We'll take 7 minutes. And talk about the first 3 chapters. Try to draw attention to anything that you— anything that stands out to you, anything that you took notice of, anything that's missing, anything that— I don't know, just anything that stands out to you, and we'll start focusing on themes here. So take about 7 minutes. ⚠
Student
One of the things that I highlighted was that the middle of Jesse, there was like, I went to Cody Farmall, and he was like, that's one of the words that I call not the right book center. Like, he kept saying, I was like, it's one of the main takeaways I also have one thing I was like, it's so confusing. I've been like, I got like a 4-year-old or like 5-year-old learning this too, where sometimes people are just like, like, no, that's not your name anymore, we're changing it. ⚠
Brad
I don't like it.
Student
I'm like, okay, it's like Simon is now Peter. ⚠
Brad
And you're like, oh my God, yeah, you're like, okay, sure.
Student
Why was it a big deal that he healed someone on the Sabbath? And like, why would— why would God— and we said, you said that, um, like, God is everything, which is apparently false. Like, then, like, you're— God isn't everything. God is everything. ⚠
Brad
So then, like, I wouldn't Right, I mean, that was, uh, what's his name, the Brazilian, uh, yeah. Okay, anything stand out to you? We'll start with, uh, chapter 1. Yeah, Olivia. ⚠
Student
Just kind of a quote that we pulled from the middle of chapter 2. The quote is, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners." I thought that really encapsulated the first 3 chapters really well in regards to the theme of Jesus being like coming for those who have sinned. And also we see that again when he talks about the Sabbath and how it wasn't just made— like, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So I think those things are kind of interconnected, which I thought was really interesting. ⚠
Student
Okay. Yeah, good.
Brad
Yeah, Cooper.
Student
We were talking about how when Jesus talks to the fishermen, they immediately leave their nets and follow him.
Brad
Yeah.
Student
So we kind of compared this obedience to Abraham. And then we also were talking about how the idea of them leaving their nets seems symbolic in the sense that the idea of following requires some sort of sacrifice.
Brad
Okay, yeah, good, good. And that word immediately, you'll see, comes up very frequently. It's not even always translated just because it's in there so much. But yeah, take notice of that word immediately. And so yeah, good catch.
Student
Yeah, Dylan?
Student
I thought an important theme was like there's kind of two reactions to Jesus in a way. Like one is like, wow, he's teaching with authority. And it's like a positive one.
Brad
Yeah.
Student
And on the other side, they're kind of like scared of him in a way. Like they kind of like accuse him of blasphemy. Like they're like, this guy's lying, stuff like that. So I think it kind of shows like a duality aspect of it. And then it kind of shows like it's up to interpretation, like how you take these teachings.
Brad
Okay, yeah, another one of his favorite phrases is authority. He keeps saying he teaches with authority. Look, he has authority already. It's come up a few times. You'll see it. Mark did not have a thesaurus, so he keeps using the same words over and over again. And authority and immediately, those are both really big ones that he uses a lot. Yeah, Delaney? ⚠
Student
I think we noticed Jesus's humility in the the fact that he was very adamant that everyone he healed shouldn't go around sharing that he had healed them. And I also thought it was interesting, like, the only group he said truly that knew him were the demons and not his followers. ⚠
Brad
Yeah, so good, really important. So this is what Delaney's pointing to is usually called the messianic secret. And the fact that Jesus keeps anybody, anytime somebody recognizes him, His response is, "Don't tell anyone," right? He just keeps saying this over again. "Don't tell anyone, don't tell anybody." They often ignore him, right? They do tell people, but he seems like low-key annoyed that they're telling people. And the other thing is to take notice of who recognizes him or identifies him as the Son of God. One thing we see it right in the first verse, right? The very first verse, the beginning. That's a super interesting word there too. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. A couple of things about that sentence. One is we are being told that he's the Son of God, right? So just because we know it doesn't mean that other characters— so let's pay attention to who else in the text identifies him as such or recognizes him as such. And as Delaney's pointing out, we've got all these unclean spirits. So these unclean spirits keep referring to him as the Son of God. ⚠
Brad
But, you know, so far at least, we haven't seen any human characters recognize him as the Son of God or call him that. They do see him as somebody who has power, right? And authority. A couple of things, just sort of mechanistic sort of things. So this is the copy I've given you is the Oxford Annotated Translation of the New Testament, or of the Gospel of Mark, and this is widely— this is the most used translation in academic settings like this one. The notes down here are are really pretty good. I think very, very helpful, useful. You're not required to read them, but I would encourage you to take a look at them, especially if anything sounds out as like, I don't know, they're very helpful. These other notes, you see the ABCD sort of footnotes, so there's two different sets of footnotes. Those, these ABCD, those are really notes about the text itself, so the original text, right? So a couple of things we notice. One is It says the good news or gospel. Gospel is literally just the Greek word for good news, so there's no difference in those words at all. ⚠
Brad
Just one's translated, one's not. One's an English cognate. Christ, so that is the Greek word there. Christ is a translation of the Hebrew word Messiah. We'll come back to that later. And then the other thing you see there, Son of God, and it has a little footnote B. Which says other ancient authorities lack the Son of God. That means that we don't have any original copies of the text. We have a lot of very old copies of the text, and we have fragments of text. We have, you know, we have a lot of different versions, a lot of different fragments, but certainly no, like, original copy. And so some of those copies vary from one another a little bit. Sometimes the variations are significant. Most of the time they're pretty minor variations, but those notes will tell you what the variations are, right? Sometimes they're very significant, like the last chapter of Mark's Gospel. There's a whole bunch that's added later, but this little line, Son of God, it doesn't— I mean, it is almost definitely added later, but probably pretty early, and I don't think that that addition really significantly changes anything. ⚠
Brad
But the important thing to notice is that we, the reader, are being told that Son of God, which is different than the characters in the text, right? So it's, um, good. Uh, yeah, next. Other things?
Student
Yeah, we were kind of talking about— it's kind of like tedious, but the word immediately kind of like shows up a lot in, in the text, and we were just thinking like It's kind of like everything's like urgent and like you have to pay attention to it right away.
Brad
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Mark seems to be in a hurry. It seems to be— it's a fast-paced text. And yeah, that word comes up very frequently. Yeah.
Student
Yeah, something about the immediately thing that stuck out to me was like it almost seems like instinctive that everyone like drops what they're doing and starts following Jesus. Like they don't question it at all. There's no time to like actually think about it like thoroughly. It's almost just kind of like an instinct. ⚠
Brad
Just command, follow, right? Yeah, excellent.
Student
Yeah, Hannah?
Student
This is more like about the text itself, but that's something I noticed when I was reading it. I felt like I was like speedrunning the Bible. Like it just felt like one after the the other. And I think this could also be to do with in Catholic school, I grew up learning these stories separately. So then reading 3 different stories that I had learned in 2 paragraphs, I was like, this is really, really fast. Did it happen this fast? But then when you were saying how Mark's Greek wasn't great, so if it's his second language and he doesn't have— if he's not that great at writing in it, that could also be why it feels so —like one, as it is. Yep. ⚠
Brad
Yep. All good observations, especially if you compare it to Matthew, Luke, or John. I mean, Matthew and Luke, you'll find the exact same stories. Like I said, they're copying from him. But they copy from him, and then they add a lot. And they have a lot of things in between. And so yeah, definitely significant difference. ⚠
Student
Yeah, Tana? Kind of going back to the immediately part. I was thinking that this kind of differs from when you're reading the Vedas and something really important was to hesitate and really critically think about what you're being told. ⚠
Student
So I think this is a pretty big contrast. Okay. Yeah, good. Yes. ⚠
Student
I was more like a follow-up to the previous question. I know that Matthew and Luke use other sources. Are those as viable as Mark or is mark like most viable text that we should like face? ⚠
Brad
What do you mean by viable? Like, I don't know, like— Reliable? Reliable, yeah. I mean, how would we judge that? So I mean, I think they're just different. So they're different. They have different sources. They give us different information. We've got things like, just as one example, The Good Samaritan story, the story of the Good Samaritan, that's only in Luke. So we don't get that anywhere else, right? And yeah, yeah, Forrest. ⚠
Student
Yeah, I found it interesting how throughout the text he heals and forgives a bunch of stuff, and then there's the specific distinction made that the only thing that can't be forgiven is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Student
Yeah, that was an interesting, like, specific point to add. ⚠
Brad
Yeah, so another thing to notice is like this, the Holy Spirit and what is meant by Holy Spirit. And I mean, there's a lot about spirit, right? Unclean spirits seem to be— it's not super clear what the difference is between an unclean spirit and just like a disease, right? Like leprosy or something. Or what the difference is between unclean spirits and demons also seems to be blurred the lines there. Um, and so there's Holy Spirit and then these other kinds of spirits. Um, so yeah, good things to pay attention to as we go forward, right? What's going on here? Yeah, I was— ⚠
Student
that was one of my questions, was that he sometimes refers to like people who are ill, or like the— for the guy who was paralyzed, he says like, son, your sins are forgiven. Yeah, it's like he groups in people like disabilities or illnesses as they have sinned. So I don't know. ⚠
Brad
I was confused by that. Yeah, so then is he saying— yeah, good. So I mean, there's no clear answer there either, right? But so is it that the guy was healed of his physical disease because he was healed of his sins, because his sins were forgiven? So does Jesus, you know, I mean, at least the most straightforward way to read it is that way, right? I think if you're just taking the most literal way, I think you can legitimately interpret either way. But the most straightforward way maybe would be to say he forgives the sins and then that is what enables him to get up and walk, right? So presumably he could have gotten up and walked before Jesus said that. Because he was healed by his— by the forgiveness of sins. But even Jesus is raising that question, right? Like, which one is more difficult? Like, I could say your sins are forgiven. Does that mean anything, right? I mean, he gets in trouble for saying that because he speaks with authority and he doesn't have the authority, you know, at least socially. Religiously to do that. ⚠
Brad
So then that's part of why he's— I mean, he makes enemies right off the bat, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Student
So I thought it was interesting that the second that he was coined like the Son of the Beloved, like Spirit brought him to the wilderness and he was tempted by Satan for some time. And so it seems like he was able to evade Satan and like go on to be especially with such a long time of being tempted. So I think it kind of works to show his credibility and how good he is and the fact that he didn't become tempted. ⚠
Student
That he truly is more representative of the divine.
Student
I think that was helpful to have in the beginning of the gospel just to give credibility.
Brad
Yeah. And that's back to Hannah's— connected to Hannah's point, right? Like in the other gospels, Matthew and Luke, the temptation scene, this whole encounter with the tempter in the wilderness, there's a lot of details. There's different stages to it and all this kind of stuff. Here it's just like a couple of verses. It's just like he went into the desert and was tempted, and then it's over. So again, things seem to move really quickly through this gospel. ⚠
Student
Yeah? Just talking about the wording in the end of chapter 3. Um, Jesus says like, these are my brothers, my sisters, and my mother. Yeah, they're all the same. But he doesn't say father. And I thought that was really interesting just because like, we know that like Jesus like was claimed as like the Son of God and like God is his father. But then like when you get deeper into it, like it's like they're all like the three-in-one kind of idea. So I just thought it was interesting that they introduced this idea so early. ⚠
Brad
Okay, yeah, interesting. I never I never actually paid attention to the fact that the Father was omitted there. That's interesting. Good. Yeah, Tana.
Student
I was also kind of just wondering why Jesus was getting baptized in the first place. Like, the point of baptism is to be forgiven of your sins, but then Jesus is without sin. So what is— ⚠
Brad
Yeah, good. So Jesus is baptized in each of the four Gospels, and there's often some uncomfortableness with it, particularly in— yeah, well, in all of them actually. But, but here it's, it's almost glossed over. It's just, again, right, it just sort of happens. It almost happens off script, right? So like, then he was He was baptized, right? It just kind of— it's almost like an afterthought or something. So, so yeah, what do we make of that baptism? Yeah, Cooper. ⚠
Student
I took it as like a way of conveying his humility, where he joined everyone getting baptized just to show that he wasn't above in any way.
Student
Okay. All right. Yeah, of course.
Student
Kind of the question I'm thinking, why was he also tested in the forest for 40 days, like it's the same thing. If he's supposed to be perfect, why is there a need to test him, right? ⚠
Student
You know he's going to pass, right? So why do it?
Brad
Maybe, yeah. I mean, yeah, so it is one of the few things that's in all four of the Gospels, and, um, and yeah, what is it? What does it mean, right? And here we're told, we're told that it happens but it's super fast. We're not given any insight as far as what is— what does it mean? Yeah, Ben? To both those points. Maybe it's like a factor of just complication of everything to show that it's a person. ⚠
Student
Yeah, okay, good.
Brad
One thing I want to say a little tiny— well, since we're on this, a little tiny bit about John the Baptist. I did try I'm going to bring my camel hair jacket through. But John the Baptist, we're not told very much about him in any of the gospels. Scholars were kind of speculating, but speculating that he may have been part of the Essene community, or at least something similar. So the first half of the semester— it feels like another semester ago. But in the first half of the semester, I mentioned that the veda is all— was orally transmitted, right? The expectation is that you are supposed to memorize your recension of the veda, right? And your— not the whole veda, but your portion of the veda. And that's really important because— well, why would it be important? Why is it important for, you know, the same thing is true of the Hebrew scriptures. So for centuries, The Hebrew Scriptures were not written down. So it's called the— yeah, I mean Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament. So they weren't written down. They were passed down orally. ⚠
1:00:14

Theology of Oral Tradition: Memorization in Hindu and Christian Contexts

Brad
And, you know, young people were expected to memorize the entire text. It wasn't— it was, you know, looked down upon. Writing it down was frowned upon, right? Why do you think that would be? Why would it be— why would there be so much emphasis on in any tradition about memorizing the entire text.
Student
Yeah? Would it be like a—
Student
because it kind of shows some dedication if you spend the time to memorize it. So if you kind of want to take that shortcut and write it out, it kind of shows you want to bypass that and take shortcuts? ⚠
Brad
Yeah, for sure. So yeah, my mentor Clooney wrote— has argued exactly that, that if you're the kind of person that takes the time and diligence and patience to memorize the kind of thing, the whole thing, you don't take shortcuts and that kind of stuff, then that's sort of training you to be a good ethical person and that sort of thing. So just the exercise and the discipline of it is its own reward. Yeah. A lot of the scriptures are supposed to be the word of God. ⚠
Student
So especially for the Vedas, when it's an unauthored text, if now you're trying to, you know, author it and transcribe it into something real and tangible, you can be misrepresenting it.
Student
Okay. Yeah.
Student
Great. Also kind of like with how when in the veda, like it's supposed to be like a teacher telling you, like having someone like an elder, like a priest telling you the story rather than you reading it, there's like a different level of like respect and like it's just like a different environment kind of. ⚠
Brad
Okay. Yeah. Good. Others? Yeah, Tana?
Student
Also, like we talked about in the past, just like having all that knowledge of the scripture and like the text in your head, then you can like start to apply it.
Brad
Yeah, right. So then I think this is, this is an important point as well, right? That like when you're, sometimes when you have a major decision, what college am I going to go to, or what job am I going to take, or that kind of stuff, stuff. Sometimes you have a lot of time to pause and reflect and take your time with the decision, but I think you'll find that in a lot of cases you have to make really major decisions and snap, you know, in a moment. And so the idea is that you don't have time to go home and study the scriptures and discern and think about the decision, right? But instead you should have the entire text memorized So that, you know, sort of like Sunahsepa, right? Remember, he's, you know, he had the text memorized and he knew which verse to utter exactly at that time, right? He didn't have to, like, go look it up because he's, like, tied to a post, right? ⚠
Brad
So the idea is that on the one hand, as Dylan was saying, just the activity of memorizing the text is it kind of makes you a disciplined person who doesn't take shortcuts. And the other aspect of it is that the content of the text is going to lead you to make ethical decisions and this sort of stuff. Yeah, Olivia? ⚠
Student
Um, going back to like the idea of like being taught a text, I think a really big part of like the ideas that we can find like in the Bible, like Hebrew Bible, and then like also New Testament, is like the idea of like finding like family through like a belief system. And I think like the idea of oral tradition is that you're kind of put into a position where you have to have a conversation about the text. Like, if someone is teaching it to you, you're kind of expected to like have this back and forth. So I think without like writing it, when you're kind of given something to read, you could just read it and memorize it. But they're like a conversation, you kind of have to talk about it. ⚠
Brad
I think that's kind of the point. Yeah, good. So in order to have a real depth of understanding and a real discourse, then you have to have the whole text memorized, right? Otherwise you're just kind of like cafeteria-style picking and choosing. Good. So all of those are really important points. So then taking all that into account, we should ask, well then why would the text be written down, right? So if we have all these great reasons of why the text shouldn't be written down and should be memorized, why do you think a text, you know, that hasn't been written down for centuries, all of a sudden the community would write it down? ⚠
Student
Well, as like the world grows and like different languages are spoken broken and the religion itself grows as well, like orally it's just going to be hard to translate, so writing it down is a better way to like not only get the translation like more right, okay, to spread it easier. You just make copies and spread them out. ⚠
Brad
For sure. I mean, the case— definitely in the case of like Buddhist tradition, that was the entire point of like teaching, of writing all the teachings of the Buddha down, is so that they could be translated and spread into other cultures and Yeah, Elliot? ⚠
Student
I don't know the exact history, but I'm assuming since the temple was destroyed in 7 BC, then they must have had a war going on or something. Yeah. They might have been threatened, like they might be all killed or something. So you got to write it down to make sure some part of it stays going on. ⚠
Brad
Yeah, this is really the point I wanted to get to. Yeah. Which is that, right, if your job as a child is to memorize the entire text, and your job as a parent is to teach the entire text. What if all the parents are being killed, right? So then if all the parents are being imprisoned or enslaved and killed and that sort of thing, then, you know, it takes time to memorize the entire text. So then if the community is threatened, the community is oppressed and literally being decimated, decimated means like 90% of the population, you know, especially the adult men. Are being destroyed, then there's this urgency of like, oh, we got to write it down before all the people who have it memorized are gone. So the Essene community was exactly that. So this is during the time of Roman occupation of present-day Israel. Lucas, did you want to jump in? No. Go ahead. ⚠
Student
Well, I was just like, wanted to say that like, like that, like it was really like the Jews that had this like exclusive religion. And then I think like Mark or Jesus like came to open it up to like everyone else and the Gentiles too. And that's kind of like Mark's purpose, like why he was writing in Greek was to like communicate this message in the gospel like to the Gentiles. ⚠
Brad
Okay. Yeah. So good, good point is that unlike the Buddhist texts, which were written down in order to be translated and spread. That wasn't so much the case with the Hebrew text because it wasn't a, hey, let's spread this to non-Jews kind of thing. But yeah, I think you're right that we see something different going on in Mark. So really important point. So John the Baptist, or at least the Essenes, right? We think John the Baptist may have been one of those Essenes, but They were a group of scholars who basically said, hey, let's get out of the city. Let's get away from everybody else. Let's go off into these caves. The caves that they went to were across the street from the Dead Sea. And they basically hid in these caves, and they lived in those caves for years. And their whole function was to just write down the scriptures, to try and write down everything. And sometimes you write them down, and Nicholas's version is a little bit different than Elliot's version. And then so you got to kind of talk through that kind of stuff. ⚠
Brad
But they wrote down multiple copies, and some of the copies they literally buried under the sand. And that's basically what the Dead Sea Scrolls are, these texts that were written down by the Essenes so that they wouldn't be lost and buried so that they wouldn't be destroyed.
Student
Yeah? I was just going to say, aren't the Dead Sea Scrolls a lot of stuff that isn't included in the Bible, but they're still viable texts? ⚠
Brad
There are some things that aren't included in the Bible for sure. Yep. Yeah, and most of those have to do with like the community, community practices and rules and regulations and those kind of things. Not something I know a whole lot about, but, but they are also some of the most authoritative ancient copies of the Hebrew Scriptures. But so anyway, John the Baptist may or may not have been a part of that group. But he was definitely somebody who was secluded, separated from the society, who came to, you know, perform this baptism once a week, you know, probably on the Sabbath. ⚠
1:08:43

Historical Context: The Destruction of the Temple and Dead Sea Scrolls

Student
Good.
1:08:46

Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gītā and the Mahabharata

Brad
I, before we end, so I got 6 minutes left, before we end, I kind of want to shift gears a little bit and talk about the Bhagavad Gita, just so you have a little bit of prep for Tuesday and also for leadership days. So leadership days this semester, this half of the semester, we're gonna do basically the same way that we did last half of the semester. But for when it's your leadership day, I'd really like you to consult a commentary. So if you're reading on the Christian side of things, you know, it's like the Women's Bible. There's so many commentaries, especially at Boston in college and are hard to find. And for the, for the Gita side of things, that Gita study guide, the tool that I gave to you on the website or that I created for this purpose, it has all those commentaries in there and their original sources and that kind of stuff. So you can actually just use that AI on that source, and it will draw from the good sources. ⚠
Brad
So, you know, you could use that whether it's your leadership day or not, but, you know, I'll try and maybe even populate with some, some kind of good questions to ask. One of them is like, what's the difference between, you know, how does Shankara read this verse versus how does Ramanuja read this verse? Those are great questions. They also ask like, hey, what does Gandhi have to say about this verse, or what does give a Jain perspective or a Sikh perspective or a non-Hindu perspective on the text, that kind of stuff. So when it's your leadership day, consult one of the commentaries, not just the primary text. Oh, I still have 4 minutes left. So let me give you a little tiny bit of intro to the Bhagavad Gita. So the Bhagavad Gita is a smriti text. Technically, it's been elevated almost to the status of shruti, but it's technically smriti. It is part of the Mahabharata, which is actually itihasa, right? So the Mahabharata, as I mentioned before, is like twice the length of the Odyssey and the Iliad combined, so really, really, really big. ⚠
Brad
But the Bhagavad Gita is just 18 chapters, excerpted right from the middle of the Mahabharata. This is actually not just the entire Bhagavad Gita, but this is the entire thing in two different languages, in English and in Sanskrit. So it's not very big, 700 verses, written kind of like pretty close to the same time as the Gospel of Mark, you know, within 100 years or so. So scholars pretty much agree it was after 100 BCE and before 100 CE. Somewhere in that range, probably more towards the middle. A couple of things, one is it is a poem, "gita" means song, so Bhagavad Gita means the song of the Bhagavan or the Lord, song of the, you know, God's song or the Lord's song. Bhagavan really means Lord. The translation that I asked you to print for, you know, for every Tuesday There's 3 different translations here, and the middle one is by Barbara Stoller Miller, and you can kind of see one of the things that's nice about her translation is it's very poetic. She really translates it in the sense of like the, you know, trying to maintain the poetic aspect of the text. ⚠
Brad
So have a look at that as you're reading. The basic thing, I don't want you to get bogged down. I remember the first time I tried to read the Bhagavad Gita, I didn't really know much about it. I just kind of knew that it was like important and I like wanted to go and read it. And I started reading it and I was like, I can't read this. And I literally didn't make it through the first chapter. The first chapter is really not super exciting. It's just like this, these people, so many names and so many conch, everybody blowing their conches. Read it, but don't get bogged down in chapter 1. We're going to spend most of our time in this unit focused on chapter 2. In fact, we're going to really take our time with chapter 2, and so you can pretty much rush through chapter 1 and then start focusing. We're only going to read the first half of chapter 2 for Tuesday, and then we'll do the second half of chapter 2 the following Tuesday. ⚠
1:13:18

Closing and Reading Guidance for Chapter 2

Brad
The entire Gita is kind of like, or everything after chapter 2, you could even take as a commentary on chapter 2. So chapter 2 really contains all of the most important things in the chapter, in the key tab. And yeah, I guess that's kind of all I have time for. I've got your midterm, you know, grades and all that kind of stuff if you want to grab those. They're in, they're in number order. Have a good weekend. ⚠

THEO 1432: The Religious Quest · Brad Bannon · Boston College

Generated by Mitra