Being part of a discussion group on the Gospel of Mark led by one of the instructors from Mount Angel Abbey who mentioned many of these details was an honor. It was most interesting!
WOW fascinating!
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Not sure translation is the correct word.
I attended an oral presentation of The Gospel of Mark some years back. I was predicated on its apparent oral heritage prior to its formal written version. It had much of the immediacy spoken of in this article and certainly was inspirational.
I’ve just answered my own question, but I’ll post it here for others:
“Writers from the earliest days of the Church tell us that Peter’s disciple Mark wrote down the apostle’s account of the life of Jesus as he told it to the first Christians in Rome. The vivid, detailed, unadorned prose of the Gospel of Mark conveys the unmistakable immediacy of a first-hand account.”
Being written in Rome at that time Greek was the language of the Scholar.
I guess I have nothing against it
I guess I have nothing against it although I do not need anything enterpreted to suit me, I just want the actual words as near as we can get them because even if it helps some people to see it better it is a paraphase and not
the actual scripture which make it a lie.
The old testament in ancient Hebrew was to most Hebrews an oral tradition, which continued in its written form, to tell a story and get the listener to engage in the story, to enter the story as their own, and in that process, more than memorizing words, to be inspired, to recieve inspiration by the same Holy spirit that inspired those who put the gospels together.
The new translation of Mark appears to be attempting something like that.
Presuming this is not a bait on your part but an honest request for commentary.
Another aspect that makes Mark’s Gospel so interesting and narrative-like is his use of the Greek work “kai.” Pakaluk describes it in this way:
In Greek, sentences in a continuous narrative must be joined, each with the one before, through a “connecting particle,” such as “hence,” “now,” “therefore,” “but,” and so on. Writers of ancient Greek typically vary these connectors for subtlety and argument. But Mark is famous for largely limiting himself to one such connective—the simplest one, at that—“and” (kai). The majority of the sentences begin with “and.” Translators usually deal with the problem by just leaving the word out. But Mark’s usage makes more sense if we think of how we speak when we tell a story: “So I left my driveway. And I turned around the block. And I saw a man with a pig. And I thought it was strange. So I stopped to ask him about it. And he said…” And so on (Introduction 24).
In this new translation of Mark, Pakaluk retains a lot more of the “and” (kai) connectors, varying its translation just a bit for variety: “and,” “so” “once again,” and so forth. This retention of “kai” also adds to the narrative or storytelling quality of the text.
And yet in the verses the Msgr selected to illustrate this "new translation" the translator left out the very word cited that makes this interesting: kai.
Καὶ εἰσῆλθεν πάλιν εἰς συναγωγήν, καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ ἄνθρωπος ἐξηραμμένην ἔχων τὴν χεῖρα· Mark 3:1
καὶ παρετήρουν αὐτὸν εἰ τοῖς σάββασιν θεραπεύσει αὐτόν, ἵνα κατηγορήσωσιν αὐτοῦ. Mark 3:2
καὶ λέγει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τῷ τὴν χεῖρα ἔχοντι ξηράν Ἔγειρε εἰς τὸ μέσον. Mark 3:3
καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς Ἔξεστιν τοῖς σάββασιν ἀγαθὸν ποιῆσαι ἢ κακοποιῆσαι, ψυχὴν σῶσαι ἢ ἀποκτεῖναι; οἱ δὲ ἐσιώπων. Mark 3:4
καὶ περιβλεψάμενος αὐτοὺς μετ’ ὀργῆς, συνλυπούμενος ἐπὶ τῇ πωρώσει τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, λέγει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ Ἔκτεινον τὴν χεῖρα. καὶ ἐξέτεινεν, καὶ ἀπεκατεστάθη ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ. Mark 3:5
καὶ ἐξελθόντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι εὐθὺς μετὰ τῶν Ἡρῳδιανῶν συμβούλιον ἐδίδουν κατ’ αὐτοῦ, ὅπως αὐτὸν ἀπολέσωσιν. Mark 3:6
A literal rendering of these verses would have each one beginning with "and".
I do applaud however, the Msgr's interest in the Greek. I recall an article about him beginning his study of the Greek some years ago.