The Earliest Understanding of Jesus' Use of Parables: Mark IV 10-12 in Context

Abstract

tion of the evangelist 1). For others, the passage owes not to Mark himself, but to the post-Easter Christian community which was faced with explaining the unbelief of a majority of the Jews 2). Others have taken exception to that line of thought. D. W. RIDDLE, for example, noted that were Mark alone responsible for this unusual passage, it would almost certainly have been edited away 3). V. TAYLOR concurred, stating that iv IO-I2 best explained if it took its rise in something Jesus actually said ... 4). It remained for J. JEREMIAS to establish the case for the authenticity of the logion 5). He cited the Semitic features such as the antithetic parallelism, the repeated periphrasis, and especially the agreement of the quotation from Isa. vi 9 with the Targum as opposed to the MT and LXX. JEREMIAS' conclusion (with which I must agree) was, The recognition of this agreement 'creates a strong presumption in favour of the authenticity' of our logion and is of fundamental importance for the exegesis of Mark iv II f. 6). A number of