One of my chief practices in research has always been to obtain copies of whatever source materials a claimant has used in order to find out if, so to speak, there is any "incriminating evidence" of incomplete or careless reportage. This technique has allowed me to find, for example (as we see in the pagan copycat series) that writers like Freke and Gandy often go as far as manufacturing information that simply does not appear in their original source.

Dennis R. MacDonald is a scholar of some caliber, and he does not simply create material out of whole cloth. HEGM does, however, fail to report some highly significant information from its sources that has a serious effect upon its conclusions, implied or otherwise.

We begin with our initial question: Does the practice of mimesis (imitation) that HEGM refers to appear in other works of ancient history as well? Actually, we already knew that the answer was yes before HEGM even came to our attention. In response to Randel Helms, I noted the report of Flemming Nielsen (The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the Deuteronomic History, 28-9), who, in an examination of the histories of Herodotus, notes in that writer a purposeful intention to duplicate the vocabulary, morphology and style of Homer, and the use of "deliberate Homeric quotations", places where Herodotus "deliberately plays upon his readers' awareness of particular passages of Homer." Nielsen noted further:

A particularly marked occurrence of this is seen in the Croesus-narrative, where the many quotations from Homer and the entire Homeric structure are far more than merely an artistic decoration, in that they create a backcloth for Croesus' and Cyrus' speeches by associating them in the readers' mind with Agamemnon and Achilles. The most critical events in the account of the Persian wars are likewise related to the Homeric account. In this manner, the Persian wars are shown no less important than the Trojan war, the Persian-Greek conflict being a repetition of the war between Achaens and Trojans.

As I explored the sources I found listed in HEGM, I found even more examples of such practices engaged by ancient historians. HEGM tells us that mimesis was part of the educational program in ancient writing and schools of rhetoric, but it fails to mention the important point, in this context, that "many historians were themselves trained in rhetoric," [Bonn.EAR, 285] and that there are many given examples of serious historians engaging in this practice listed in sources HEGM appeals to. Indeed, one of HEGM's sources speaks of "a general Greco-Roman acceptance of imitation as an essential element in all literary composition." [Russ.DI, 1; emphasis added.] Historians did it; thus, for example, Tacitus imitated Livy, Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides.

Now the expected skeptical reaction to this data would be: "That's fine. All of those other writers used mimesis, and so they were all creating fiction like Mark was. History is bunk." In some cases, perhaps -- but that is not merely to be assumed, and secular historians do not merely assume it; they go on to apply the same criteria for determining historicity that historians always have. Which leads to our next question: How do we know when, or if, an incidence of mimesis in a historical work is actually a fiction?

One of the first things to be established is that there was room in the technique to take from works of fiction, and find real history to match it, and vice versa. Again, HEGM rightly points out that mimesis was a technique taught in the schools of rhetoric, but it somehow fails to inform us that the technique crossed the genres this way. As one of HEGM's cited sources tells us [Bonn.EAR. 255]:

Pupils might be given a fable, and told to illustrate it from some historical occurrence, or conversely, be given a historical narrative, and required to find a fable to suit it.

And another source makes this point [Clar.RGR, 145]:

In antiquity the word imitation (mimesis) was used by such writers on art as Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch with a number of different meanings. It might mean, for instance, imitation of men in action, imitation of ideal truth, imitation of appearances, true or false, in the phenomenal world. But imitation as a way of learning to practice an art has nothing to do with these metaphysical notions of the objects of imitation. Specifically, imitation as a guide to speakers and writers, as a rhetorical exercise, is concerned, not with the speaker's or writer's matter, but with his manner of speaking or writing. It is concerned, not with what he says, but how he says it.

Therefore, it was within the practice for Mark or any other writer to have take material from a mythical history like Homer's works and used it to report true history -- but in so doing, they would not make use of the history itself, but the way it was reported. The concern was to imitate style, not substance, and the question of historicity lies ultimately not in the fact of the mimesis itself, but the plausibility of the given account; obviously, one could choose a poor example to imitate within context, and end up stretching history; but one could also pick a very good example and remain true to what actually happened. The skill of mimesis lay in the ability to use the material being imitated and make it one's own property [ibid., 147], and this is a separate conception from whether the imitation produces a true or false report. Let's see how this works out in two examples offered in one of HEGM's sources. [West.TP; Wood.SI]

The first example is a comparison of two reports of separate plagues by Virgil and by Lucretius. The conclusion of the examination is that Virgil is imitating Lucretius, and that he does so, not in the interest of offering a "clinical history," but rather a "rhetorical creation." As the analyzer, David West, puts it:

In general Virgil has eschewed the clinical detail of Lucretius, but has put together words and concepts culled from Lucretius' richly detailed and coherent symptomology to produce a simplified picture of a disease in two phases, which is emotionally effective, rhetorically arresting by means of paradox and pathos, and has no regard for historical or scientific truth.

Evidence for Virgil's imitation is fairly straightforward and matches some of the criteria laid down in HEGM: for example, Virgil copies Lucretius in one area, "even to the unusual omission of the second coordinating conjunction" (!). But none of this was the grounds for dismissing Virgil's account as fabrication; at best it was regarded as a corollary proof, once the lack of historical versimilitude was established. West showed in detail how little sense Virgil's account made, and then decided that attempts "to diagnose the disorder with the help of modern veterinary medicine are doomed to failure." But this raises a question: What if veterinary medicine did provide a corollary that substantiated Virgil's account? What if what Virgil reported did make sense? The proof of fabrication lies not in technique, as we have said, but in content.

A second example confirms this point. Woodman makes an extensive analysis of a case of self-imitation by Tacitus. The subject in each case is a battle, but while one battle was fought within Tacitus' own lifetime, the other was well before his time. How is it determined that Tacitus is engaging in some creative writing? One reason is found in the seemingly strange coincidence of Tacitus finding men to report the details who were so often in the right place, at the right time. Woodman says, "This detail seems to me so unusual, and unparalleled elsewhere, that it places the many other correspondences in a different light." Another reason is found in the level of detail given for both battles, in spite of the difference in time. For example, it is mentioned that the earlier battlefield was littered with whitening bones; Woodman says, "it is highly unlikely that Tacitus has any historical evidence for whitening bones in the middle of the plain; more probably he has added an apparently factual detail which is reality is simply borrowed from Virgil." It is asked, in summary, "how Tacitus could possibly have acquired so many details of a routine frontier engagement which has taken place a century before he came to describe it." (Other examples of mimesis are of less importance. Tacitus uses the same word (trunci) in the different accounts, once to refer to the trunks of bodies, the other to refer to the trunks of trees.)

Woodman concludes by arguing that while main points of Tacitus' account are likely to be true -- based on factors like corroboration of other sources -- the details he filled in were likely not based on true accounts. And there are other cases of imitation to be found in Tacitus, though no judgment is made in terms of historicity on these other cases. His description of Livia's role in the ascent of Tiberius bears simiarities to his account of Agrippina's role in Nero's ascent. "...(B)y means of close linguistic correspondences Tacitus wishes to invest the account of Tiberius with the same air of questionable legitimacy" and show that each emperor somehow owes their position "to the machinations of the [previous] emperor's widow." The description of Sejanus (Pilate's sponsor) is modelled on Sallust's description of Catiline. Our points, at any rate, are made: Mimesis is not the province of fiction-writers alone, and it is not, in and of itself proof of non-history in the making.

Therefore, we move to our next point: Skeptics who have flaunted HEGM, as we have noted, carry the unstated assumption into their use of it that the resemblances in the imitation are so uncanny that there is no way that Mark could be reporting real history -- that is, no way that some event could have occurred which in itself, in its actual occurrence, contained correspondences of fact that Mark could have used or highlighted in imitation of Homer. Correspondence could not have occurred (so it is assumed) on its own, but had to be manufactured. We will address this point next.

In our review of HEGM, I made a certain point about the claim that Luke's story of Eutychus falling out a window has affinities to one of Homer's episodes from the Odyssey where someone falls off a roof. We'll look at this in detail in our next section, but I would like to expand upon the general point that is expressed in a well-known proverb: "History repeats itself." This is not becase of any sort of miraculous intervention, but simply because there are only so many ways that events can turn -- and even so, there can be "uncanny" (note the quotes!) resemblances and coincidences in history that 2000 years from now, another Dennis R. MacDonald may explain away as fictionalized mimesis.

In my review, I alluded briefly to a list many of us should find familiar -- offering correspondences between the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. Here is a list found at http://www.abeusa16.com/html/coincidences1.html:

• Both Lincoln and Kennedy were concerned with civil rights.
• Lincoln was elected President in 1860. Kennedy in 1960.
• Both were slain on a Friday and in the presence of their wives. [JP note: McKinley was assassinated on a Friday, as well!]
• Both were shot from behind and in the head. [JP note: McKinley was shot in the chest and abdomen -- this could be cited by D. R. MacDonald, year 3000, as an example of "transvaluation" of the text!]
• Their successors, both named Johnson, were Southern Democrats and both were in the Senate.
• Andrew Johnson was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson in 1908.
• John Wilkes Booth was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald in 1939.
• Booth and Oswald were Southerners who favored unpopular ideas. [JP note: This is a "vague generalization" coincidence of the sort we will find throughout HEGM.]
• Both Presidents lost children through death while in the White House.
• Lincoln's secretary, whose name was Kennedy, advised him not to go to the theater.
• Kennedy's secretary, whose name was Lincoln, advised him not to go to Dallas.
• John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and ran to a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and ran to a theater.
• The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.
• The names Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Johnson each contain 13 letters.
• The names John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald each contain 15 letters.
• Both assassins were killed before being brought to trial.
• Lincoln was shot in the Ford's Theater. Kennedy was shot in a Ford car. (And, as a matter of fact...it was a Lincoln!)

In addition, here are some thoughts from http://www.funtrivia.com/Time/Years21.html:

More similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy and their deaths: Lincoln was an unsuccessful candidate for vp in 1856; JFK was an unsuccessful vp candidate in 1956. Both of their vice presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Andrew Johnson, have 13 letters in their names; each was older than but died 10 years after their respective chiefs. In 1860 Lincoln beat Stephen Douglas, born in 1813, with less than 50 percent of the vote; in 1960, Kennedy beat Richard Nixon, born in 1913, with less than 50 percent of the vote. Lincoln and Kennedy each were killed in public, and each was accompanied by someone who was also injured but did not die in the attack. (And interestingly, Garfield and McKinley, the other two presidents who were assassinated, actually died of infection from their wounds, not the wounds themselves.)

(For the easily amused, check out also here, for a list of similarities between Lincoln and Darth Vader! Imagine what my character Phonias J. Futz would make of this!!! In fact, see here for what he does make of parallels between Lincoln's life and Kennedy's.)

How about some more uncanny coincidences? Our recent election fiasco provided some opportunities to compare to the last time a President won the Electoral College without the popular vote (Hayes vs. Tilden). What about the fact that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died July 4, 1826 -- exactly 50 years after signing the Declaration of Independence? Skeptics would call these meaningless coincidences, and I agree that they are -- they are evidence that history can, and does, repeat itself, even down to details, completely on its own -- and that there would be plenty of grist for any writer (like Tacitus or Mark) to produce an imitation based on real history.

That assumes, of course, that the evidence is valid at all -- and I would like to make note that in the first "Lincoln list" above, skeptics can and should have some ready explanations, just in case a Shirley MacLaine finds some symbolic mysticism in the above -- and then they should learn that the same lesson applies to HEGM. Item #1 above (re civil rights) seems impressive, until you realize just how vague it is -- one may as well say that both were "particularly concerned" with national security (the preservation of the Union, the Cuban missile crisis), and this "parallel" does not even begin to address such matters as the respective Presidential motivations for being "involved" in "civil rights" in the first place. Items like "killed on Friday" are of little significance -- the odds of such a coincidence are not that great in the first place, first because the odds of being killed any day are one in seven to begin with, and second because Presidents, like all of us, are most apt to go out on or around the weekend, when they can enjoy themselves and the public can come out and see them! Items like "shot in back of head" are no surprise either; the back of the head is a vulnerable area that is likely to be selected by any assassin (since they won't do as well approaching from the front). A couple of these "parallels" are even erroneous -- Booth was born in 1838, not 1839, and there is no record of a Lincolnian secretary named Kennedy. Others fudge the data terminologically -- Booth ran to a storage barn, not exactly a "warehouse"! Items like number of letters in a name are basically trivial. And a couple may indeed have uncanny elements (like the last). And none of these "parallels" even BEGINS to address the matter of significant differences, even within the "parallels" -- it would be easy to take the enormous lives of two men like Lincoln and Kennedy, yea, even slices of their lives, and find such parallels. Little wonder this "amazing" list is only heralded as amazing by the likes of Dear Abby!

The bottom line, in this diversion: It would hardly be any surprise if Mark was able to find some correspondences to take advantage of in the works of Homer. Reality provides enough correspondence to do this, correspondences which seem uncanny only on the surface and when differences are ignored -- and the options are only expanded when we are also allowed to offer a reverse correspondence (what HEGM would call a "transvaluation") as well. With this in mind, we may now proceed to some specific comments on HEGM and the evidence it offers, and show that the correspondences claimed are at best no more valid and/or significant than those found between Lincoln and Kennedy.

HEGM's first chapter devotes most of its space to explaining the process of mimesis. One of the first issues that caught my attention related to my question, asked of the skeptic who first brought HEGM to my attention, "How is it that pagan critics of Christianity did not see this, and accuse Mark of simply stealing from Homer?" I was quite suspicious (as I always am) of any claim to have discovered something new that has been missed for thousands of years. MacDonald offers no good explanation for this, other than positing rampant stupidity: Mark's mimetic efforts "seem to have been invisible to actual readers," and "readers for 2000 years apparently have been blind to this important aspect of Mark's project" [6-7] -- including, apparently, Homeric scholars. One must ask: If any of this is valid, is it not more likely that early readers were aware of this aspect of Mark, but recognized it for what it was, and did not make the illogical leap that the imitation meant fiction was being created? MacDonald cannot have it both ways: Either the parallels are clear, and thousands of intelligent men, including patristic writers who knew their Homer, and critics of Christianity like Lucian, Celsus, and Galen, missed it or somehow chose not to mention it; or else MacDonald is being too imaginative in his parallels. (We find it interesting that MacDonald begs for "special demands on the reader: patience, generosity, and above all, imagination"! [9] One wonders if Mark thought his readers -- few of whom would have been as educated as MacDonald -- would have had the patience or imagination to detect and appreciate the parallels!)

On the other hand, what of those educated readers? Could they really have missed all of this? Not likely! As Glenn Miller has recently noted in another context, along with this sophisticated training in mimesis came sophisticated training in detection:

"The easiest exercises, which were always taught early in the course (though not necessarily in the same order), were those based on the instructive Saying (chreia), the Maxim (sententia), the Fable (apologus, fabula) and the mythological Narrative (narratio). Here there was the advantage that all of these had been used at the primary level simply for writing-practice, whether by copying or dictation, and for learning by heart. Now boys had to reproduce them in their own words, and explain and expand them in short essays…Theon…not satisfied merely with explanation and expansion, he required his pupils to proceed to a confirmation and refutation of the Saying, Fable or Narrative, and argue that it was sound and plausible, or the reverse." [HI:EAR:253]

"As with the previous exercises, the rhetoricians had several varieties of treatment which could be applied to the [mythological] narrative. They might require it to be expanded or contracted, or to be cast in different sentence-forms, or to be rounded off at the end by an appropriate epigrammatic comment, a stylistic feature much appreciated in the Silver Age of Latin. But the most advanced treatment, which was sometimes put later in the course as a separate exercise, was what was known as Refutation and Confirmation (anaskeue and kataskeue); that is, the writer had to examine a given story from the point of view of its general credibility, and then write an essay either arguing that it was lacking in likelihood, or supporting it as quite feasible. The material here was largely drawn from poetry, especially mythology. Favourite subjects were the stories of Apollo's love for Daphne, Medea's murder of her children, Arion's adventure and escape on the dolphin. Homeric themes could also be used, as that of Chryses and his daughter at the beginning of the Iliad. Theon also includes legends from prose sources. In each case, there were guide-lines laid down for procedure; after setting out the alleged facts, the pupil should ask himself, according as he wished to substantiate or refute, whether the account was clear or obscure, possible or impossible, seemly or unseemly, consistent or inconsistent, expedient or inexpedient. He should argue accordingly, bearing also in mind at each stage the person, the act, the place, the time, the manner, and the motive. Although boys were thus exercising their wits and critical faculties mainly in the realm of mythology, the search for arguments based on likelihood had a quite important application later; for in criminal cases, both in the rhetoric schools and in the courts, considerations of likelihood came very much to the fore when tangible evidence was limited or lacking. It is also interesting to note that Quintilian wishes the early Roman legends to be examined critically in this way - can we believe the story of Valerius and the raven, Romulus and the she-wolf, Numa and Egeria? The credibility of early Roman history, then, was a subject which does not entirely belong to modern times." [HI:EAR:263]

Miller rightly asks, "Given that most, if not all, of your potential audience would have grown up debunking myth and fable, how comfortable would you be in making up miracle claims about ANYBODY?!" And I ask in turn: How plausible is it in light of this "baloney detection" training, that such substantial "Homeric mythologizing" went by unnoticed and uncommented upon by Christianity's critics?

One of HEGM's criteria for spotting mimesis is distinctiveness. Obviously this can be related to our general note above that skeptics using HEGM are essentially arguing that the parallels between Mark and Homer are so distinctive that any correspondence between actual history recorded by Mark and an event recorded in Homer could not possibly have happened. But in order to make this argument work, the issue of historical plausibility must be addressed, and HEGM makes virtually no effort to do this. It is not enough to hold the parallels side by side and stand back with an implied literary gasp of amazement. In our examination, we will be asking key questions: Is there actually a parallel? Is the parallel meaningful? Is there anything improbable about what Mark describes that would suggest only that it was lifted from Homer rather than history?

We begin, however, not with an example from Mark, but from Luke -- or rather, from Acts. The story of Eutychus in Acts 20:7-12 is offered as a mimetic counterpart of a story in the Odyssey (hereafter, the "O") of a young man named Elpenor. Let's start with a quote from Acts:

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.

Now let's look at the alleged O parallel, which is also short. (Here and elsewhere, I take from the version of the O used by HEGM; if not from there, then from the version published by Airmont Books.) The scene is described as, at dawn, Odysseus and his men prepare to leave the island of Circe the witch:

There was a man, Elpenor, the youngest in our ranks, none too brave in battle, none too sound in mind. He'd strayed from his mates in Circe's magic halls and keen for the cool night air, sodden with wine he'd bedded down on her roofs. But roused by the shouts and tread of marching men, he leapt up with a start at dawn but still so dazed he forgot to climb back down again by the long ladder -- headfirst from the roof he plunged, his neck snapped from the backbone, his soul flew down to the house of Hades.

The fate of Elpenor is related over the next two books of the O, as Odysseus later meets the soul of Elpenor, who describes himself as "a man whose luck ran out" and he asks to be properly buried. Later, at the dawn of a day, Odysseus sends men to fetch Elpenor's body and they took care of it as promised.

From these two stories, HEGM draws a series of parallels claimed to point to mimesis -- and by extension, though it is not explicitly stated, that Luke is writing fiction (I will use the KJV in place of the version used by HEGM):

1. Odysseus and crew left Troy/Paul and crew stopped at Troas
2. Odysseus sailed back to Achaea/Paul left Achaea to sail back to Jerusalem
3. Narration in first person plural in both cases
4. After a sojourn, Odysseus and crew/Paul and believers...
5. ...ate a meal.
6. Disaster came at night/midnight
7. Crew slept in Circe's "darkened halls"/"there were many lights in the upper chamber"
8. Elpenor fell into "sweet sleep"/Eutychus fell into a "deep sleep"
9. Both narrators switch to third person
10. "There was one, Elpenor, the youngest"/"A certain young man named Eutychus"
11. Elpenor fell from the roof/Eutychus fell from the third story
12. Elpenor's soul went to Hades/Eutcyhus' soul remained in him
13. Associates fetched the body, dead/Associates took up the body, alive
14. Elpenor was not buried until dawn/Eutychus was not raised alive until dawn

On the surface this list may seem impressive, but upon critical analysis, there are a few things that it becomes clear need to be taken into consideration before we start charging Luke with fiction -- and my main question is exemplified by item #7 above, having to do with lighting conditions.

The practice of mimesis was such that one might do as in #7 above, and stress something that was an opposite, a difference, and still be engaging the practice. Yet the weakness of declaring "fiction at work" lies in the very issue of whether or not what is described is historically plausible, and determining historicity on these grounds rather than in the bare "fact" of mimesis. For item #7 in particular, let's put it this way. In any given story about anything, anywhere, there will obviously be some condition of light present. It will either be totally dark, or there will be varying degrees of light. This is what I shall term an inevitable circumstantial element, or ICE for short. Even if it is not mentioned, characters in any story, true or false, obviously do what they do in some condition of lighting that will exist and can be highlighted.

Since HEGM's "mimetic detections" allow for citings of either "likes" or "opposites," or of any condition at all related to what is found in the "original," this means that whatever condition of light Luke cited, if he chose to do so, it will be setting off HEGM's alarms. Yet one could hardly say, since some condition of light is inevitable, that the mere citation of the condition is evidence for fictionalizing! A condition of lighting had to be present -- and we may not doubt that Luke could cite this in order to allude to the O story. But because some sort of lighting condition is inevitable, the parallel is meaningless in terms of asking whether Luke is relating true history or not. He could have cited darkness, or any degree of lighting, as the condition present, and still be accused by HEGM and by skeptics of practicing mimesis, and by extension, of creating fiction!

Several of the criteria fall under this same weakness. On #6, the disaster obviously had to take place at some time; if Luke had said related that the fall took place at noon, it could be said to be a "reversal" mimesis! For #10, had Eutychus been old, it could be accounted the same way.

Let's look at the others now. Criteria #3 and #9 are both grammatical issues; grammar is obviously something someone could switch at will without any implications of historicity. It may or may not be evidence of mimesis (there are only so many grammatical options open in various contexts), but it means nothing in terms of the reality of the story in Luke. Next up are a few where HEGM gets rather too active in imagination, or describes the stories as similarly as possible in order to find mimesis at work, or appeals to a "universal" that has no meaning in this context. I would include in these the following entries:

• Odysseus and crew left Troy/Paul and crew stopped at Troas
• Odysseus sailed back to Achaea/Paul left Achaea to sail back to Jerusalem

A great deal of fudge is at work here. By the time of Elpenor, the crew of Odysseus had "left Troy" quite some time ago. The only element that can be used here is the coincidence of the location of the Eutychus event at Troas -- we'll return to that later. "Achaea" is rather a large region -- it included, in Paul's time, all of Greece south of Thessaly, including Corinth and Athens. Since Troas was on the way around the coast to Jerusalem, and one could hardly get there from the West without going somewhere near Achaea (unless you liked to take a very long, unsafe and stupid diversion), the parallel is pointless to make; and Paul at any rate went nowhere near the part of Achaea Odysseus was striving for (Ithaca).

• After a sojourn, Odysseus and crew/Paul and believers...
• ...ate a meal.

The eating of the meal is meaningless in this context -- it falls under the category of an ICE; we would hardly expect the Troas church to have not eaten at some time when Paul was there! The first element is also slippery -- Odysseus and crew were all one group; Paul and the believers were a combined group of travellers and church, and this falls into the realm of ICE as well -- if Paul had been alone except for Eutychus, it could be seen as a "reversal"!

• Elpenor's soul went to Hades/Eutcyhus' soul remained in him
• Associates fetched the body, dead/Associates took up the body, alive
• Elpenor was not buried until dawn/Eutychus was not raised alive until dawn

Within the context of the accident described, all of these are ICEs -- after such a fall, a person is either alive or dead; his body is either attended to or he is helped in some condition, and it is done at a certain time. (Though "dawn" is the obvious time anyway, after a nighttime accident, to take care of a body, and in the context of Acts, the obvious time to depart -- in these days before streetlights and police patrols [and when police patrols themselves might be the ones to beat you up!], no one with brains would leave a nighttime venue until the dawn broke! Also, Eutychus was not "raised alive" at dawn; he went home at dawn, and some commentators do not even think he was ever "dead"!)

What it comes down to, then, is these three unique elements, and a fourth also added by HEGM separate from the primary list:

• The incident in Acts took place at Troas, which was 10 miles from Troy
• Elpenor and Eutychus both had accidents because of their sleep (though Elpenor woke up and fell, while Eutychus fell while asleep)
• Elpenor and Eutychus fell from a height (roof vs. third story)
• The name "Eutychus" means "Lucky" -- which is a counter to the description of Elpenor as "unlucky" in the O

So now the question is: Are these remaining four correspondences so uncanny that there is no way that Luke could be reporting real history?

HEGM makes little attempt to answer this directly, though of course, we are without adequate information to make an unqualified decision for much of this. We do not know how many people in ancient times carried the name "Eutychus" -- either as a real name or as a nickname; one might suggest it could have been as common a nickname as it's English correspondent ("Lucky") is today, especially since Roman cognomens were often rather amusing (like "Glabrio" = bald, "Rufus" = red). On the other hand, it may not be meant to reflect this young man's actual name or nickname at the time. The word behind "named" is also used in the NT in another way, though rarely: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel..." -- a reference not to a literal name, but to a characteristic. This could be Luke's way of saying, beforehand, "this man, in contrast to Elpenor, will be lucky" -- as it were, with a lowercase "L".

We do not know either how many high enough buildings there were in Troas (though Jeffers tells us that "private homes in more populous cities often had multiple stories" [Jeff.GRW, 54]), and we do not know the incidence of falling from high places in the ancient world -- though as I pointed out in the book review, people do fall off of roofs, balconies, and out of windows in real life. And anytime that someone did take such a fall, comparisons to the famous incident of Elpenor would have been inevitable, as indeed HEGM shows us. We are told that Plutarch (as one supposedly reporting history!) records a "young man" who "had fallen from a great height, struck his neck" (note that Luke does not even tell us on what bodily part Eutychus fell!), and died. So did Plutarch tell a fib? Or, as is more likely, was falling from a high place (in this era before OSHA, and before glass was used in windows, except by the very rich) a typical accident to have? (I would tie this in also with the "sleepy" condition of the respective subjects...one would very likely have to be in just such a state of inattention in order to even have such an accident!) The way the skeptics are using HEGM, there is no way that Luke could report such an incident without being accused of fictionalizing!

There remains, therefore, one element that could be called "uncanny": The location of the incident at Troas (which is NOT where Elpenor's accident happened, but where he was on the way from, some time before). HEGM pointedly relates that Troas was "a mere ten miles south of ancient Troy," and that Troas was identified by Suetonius and others with the legacies of Troy. Thus: "By placing the story of Eutychus in Troy, Luke seems to be hinting that one should read it in light of Troy's mythological traditions." [14] Well, we may grant that some sort of allusion was intended, but is this uncanny enough to have been "made up"? In a footnote we are told that recording this incident in Troas particularly is "surprising insofar as Luke had said nothing earlier about such converts, not even during Paul's earier visit there" in Acts 16. What makes this "surprising" is difficult to see. We are not told why this should be a surprise, and it is not as though Paul was alone making converts; he had thousands of Diaspora Jews, plus the Apostles, in front of him by as many as twenty years; if the gospel reached Rome before Paul in twenty or so years, it likely did not skip over Troas on the way. Moreover, as HEGM alludes to, but does not quote, Paul himself preached in Troas (2 Cor. 2:12), turned to Macedonia from this point (Acts 16:6-10, which suggests he did preach there) and 2 Tim. 4:13 tells us this is where Paul left his cloak, suggesting he had a place to stay there. It does not matter here whether Luke refers to Paul making converts in Troas. This is merely a weak attempt by MacDonald to suggest implausibility.

As it is, based on what little information we have, there is nothing uncanny at all about an event taking place in a nearby (not exact) geographic location that is remotely connected to a slightly similar and fairly commonplace event whose subject was at one time in a geographic location. It is, indeed, given how few the other correspondences are (in terms of significance and actual occurrence) far less uncanny than, for example, the Lincoln/Ford's theatre connection or the Adams/Jefferson July 4th correspondence. HEGM has done nothing to show that what Luke records is implausible as history.

And now HEGM focusses on its main target, the Gospel of Mark; and it begins with a small chapter that previews what is to come. We will reserve comment on much of what is vaguely generalized here, noting that specifics will be reached later.

Not surprisingly, the chapter begins with a stump for the standard "late date" post-70 argument for Mark, based on usual "it mentions the Temple being destroyed" argument we have refuted here, and offers the generalization that "the Jerusalem church, too, was destroyed" [15] (a thesis most questionable, both according to the sociology of Stark and by common sense -- was every member of that church destroyed with it?). After this, specific arguments for mimesis in this chapter concern what amounts to five words from Mark:

1. It is noted that Mark employs two words used also in Homer, in similar ways. Homer referred often to Odysseus returing "to his fatherland" (patris); Mark used the same word to refer to Jesus returning to Nazareth (Mark 6:1); Mark refers to Jesus as a "carpenter" (Mark 6:3), and this is said to be an echo of reference to Odysseus as a "master carpenter" and to be Mark's way of evoking the image of Odysseus and depicting Jesus, like Odysseus, as "a wise and powerful carpenter."

   Patris is used elsewhere in the NT, even outside the Gospels (Heb. 11:14), and at any rate, a patris or "fatherland" (home country or native town) is something every person has inevitably; the word constitutes an ICE and is therefore meaningless in terms of proving Mark created history. In terms of the "carpenter" issue, a judgment cannot be fully made without an impossible reckoning of how widespread the profession was in the ancient world. Yet HEGM notes that the identification of Jesus with this profession is taken for granted by most commentators, for it would have been something with negative associations in this time of Jesus. And HEGM goes as far as admitting "Jesus may indeed have been a carpenter" [18]. If that is so, then it is as much admitted by HEGM that Mark may not be creating history -- and if that is so, what of other alleged parallels thought to be fiction? (At any rate, the emphasis on Odysseus as a carpenter is made only once, apparently, in the O -- hardly a typifying characterization!)

2. It is also noted that Odysseus was referred to by Homer as one who was "much-enduring," "a man of many sorrows," "ill-fated above all men," and used often predictions of sufferings that use a form of the verb pascho, "to suffer." This included use of the phrases "suffer many hardships" and "suffer many things." It is then noted that Mark "used a similar expression" when he has Jesus say that the Son of Man will "suffer many things" (Mark 8:31, rather late if Mark is trying to make an allusion to Odysseus!). The implication: Odysseus is Mark's literary model as one who endured suffering.

   HEGM's case on this point, however, is extremely weak, and rests upon some slippery assumptions. HEGM admits that an expression like "suffer many things" "might have been commonplace" -- but in reply notes that the phrase never appears in the LXX or Philo, "only [!]three times in Josephus," and in the NT only once where (according to the assumed Q/Markan priority thesis) it was not taken from Mark. Thus it is said that the phrase "was not standard Jewish or Christian fare." [16] Perhaps not: But the proper category for this case is not "Jewish or Christian fare" but all literature in Greek from the surrounding time. How often does the phrase appear in that context? (Perhaps not at all -- but one smells something of a rat without the broader sweep.) And how many contexts are there where the phrase could or should have been used and wasn't? Unless it is shown that it could have been used more widely, the argument against it being a commonplace for such contexts is meaningless.

   But there is an even more poignant issue at work here, one that HEGM interestingly skates over, and it relates to what we noted in the opening of this essay. Whatever else may be argued to be unhistorical, it is certainly a matter of historical fact that Jesus did undergo crucifixion, and therefore unquestionably did "suffer many things." This is testified not only in the Synoptics, but also in John, the NT letters, Josephus, and Tacitus. Therefore, if Mark is indeed "mimesizing" here, he is doing so with true history behind his work -- undeniably so. And this raises the very question that HEGM seems to studiously avoid: Whether it is not possible that Mark is recalling rather than remaking history when he uses mimesis.

Thus Chapter 2 of HEGM has little to recommend for any case that Mark engaged in deliberate fictionalizing -- the data offered is simply not sufficient, or else contrary. We will close with, for the first time, an examination of the question of whether the data proves Markan priority: I believe that it does not, and that it rather indicates the priority of Matthew or his oral tradition (which, for convenience, I shall merely refer to in terms of "Matthew" for the remainder of this essay). The "suffer many things" phrase offers no clues, since it is reported in exactly the same terms in Matthew and Mark, as is patris. But what of the "carpenter" notation? Matthew 13:55 does not call Jesus a carpenter, but a carpenter's son. This is usually explained under the QM thesis as a softening of Mark's referral. But two, now three, arguments point in the other direction. First, as I noted against Randel Helms, who argued that Matthew made the change because of snobbery, "garbageman" is no more or less snobbish than "son of a garbageman." Second, Matthew's list makes sense as starting from the head of the family and working its way down the social chain: "Is not this the carpenter's son (father)? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?" Mark violates this neat order when he refers first to Jesus himself instead in the first entry. And so, now, third: HEGM has given us a reason why Mark should be regarded as secondary -- he has emphasized Jesus as a carpenter rather than his putative father (though again, the father/son relationship in Judaism was such that the association is exactly the same in terms of social status), in order to make an allusion, perhaps, to Homer. Whether that allusion is grounded in history is, in our view, to be answered in the affirmative barring meeting of the burden of proof that HEGM does not even bother to shoulder.

HEGM Chapter 3 begins with a brief analysis of the standard thesis that more than any of the gospels, Mark's "depicts Jesus' disciples as fearful, unfaithful, and uncomprehending." [20] This "harsh treatment" is assumed "surely" to be a Markan creation, which Matthew and Luke softened, we are told, by deleting disparaging passages or "adjusting them to improve apostolic reputations." [ibid.]

An endnote offers a list to compare, for example, Mark 6:50b-52 vs. Matthew 14:27-33:

And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.

But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.

Mark sounds harsher in his treatment, since whereas he concludes by saying that the disciples' hearts were hardened, Matthew concludes with them worshipping and confessing Jesus' divinity; furthermore, Mark comments on the "sore amazement" of the band. This is exemplary of editorial comments that Mark adds. Here is an example of another technique, comparing Mark 8:21 and Matthew 16:11-12:

And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?

How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

Mark has not reported Jesus' further explanation and the disciples' resultant understanding.

I have made the point elsewhere that Mark has likely freely used literary techniques to allow Jesus to make certain points; this is hardly problematic. Those who claim significance in the example just above, for example, that Matthew does no more than repeat what Mark already hints at earlier in verse 15 ("And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.") -- not surprising, since Matthew is designed as a teaching tool and might have been expected to beat one about the head with conclusions which may have been actually reached after extensive discussion between Jesus and the disciples (after all, one would expect extended teaching on what this leaven was, for example); whereas Mark may actually be "truer" to what happened in the reality: in the immediate sense, the disciples still "did not understand" and had to be told what the score was.

In any event, what of HEGM's argument here? It is, simply, that in portraying the disciples as dumb, quarrelsome, and foolish (though not consistently, it is admitted!), Mark is mimesizing the treatment of the crew of Odysseus, which was also a set of dim bulbs led around by the nose by one bright light (Odysseus). Is this so? Well, let us say that it is for just a moment -- what of it? Mark did not need Homer to have a source for what amounts to a common social structure -- there are leaders of men, and these are superior in some way, always, to those who follow; in the case of moral leaders (like Jesus, Confucius, Plato, Socrates and Moses -- all usually surrounded by thick heads of some degree) or of immoral ones (David Koresh), the leader is in some way superior to the followers -- that is why they are leaders! And those who constitute the followers are in that condition precisely because they lack the very virtues and capabilities that the leaders possess. With or without mimesis, actual history is just as likely an explanation for Mark's portrayal of the disciples.

But that assumes that HEGM is even right in seeing mimesis at work, and indications are rather than MacDonald is torturing the prose to elicit false confessions. Four main parallels are drawn [22]:

1. In both works, "the narrator first presents the hero's retinue favorably and gradually introduces evidence of their folly until, in the end, they fail altogether." No direct evidence or quotation is offered for this very vague generalization, other than that Peter is shown "favorably" abandoning all for Jesus (though this evaluation is not offered in Mark, the event is merely reported; after this, the next "favorable" report of Peter is his recognition of Jesus' divinity -- which takes place all the way in Mark 8, not exactly "first" presented). The introduction of the disciples in Mark is quite neutral in tone -- not surprising, given Mark's brevity. I see no more here than may be found in any work of literature (ficiton or non-fiction) in which a well-known process called "character development" occurs.
2. Both works "treat the hero's retinue as a unified group. Few individuals in either assemblage have distinguishing traits, and each group as a whole derives its identity almost exclusively vis-a-vis the protagonist." This is again no more than vague generalization; take any work of fiction or non-fiction, moreover, and see how much "character development" is done for any large group. Many factors come into play where this is concerned -- length of the work (Mark is rather too small, and has better concerns than, to be talking about Bartholomew's preference for rock music!); number in the group; purpose of the work (a biography of Jesus, for Pete's sake). HEGM has cited a practical and literary universal, not a point of correspondence between Mark and Homer exclusively.
3. In both works, the hero's retinues "failed, because they, unlike the hero himself, could not endure hardships." This is generalization three out of three -- Odysseus' retinue "failed" much more conspicuously than the disciples (they all ended up dead!); and to conglomerate all of the various failures of the two groups under one heading ("could not endure hardships") is so vague as to be criminal. Is Peter's moral failure at denying Christ to be placed in the same category as Odysseus' men eating the sun-cattle because of their hunger? One may as well compare petty larceny and first-degree murder under the vague heading of "crimes in which someone gets what they want"!
4. Finally, Simon Peter is said to mirror the role of Odysseus' second-in-command, Eurylochus. We may start with a note from our classical scholar, whose review we linked to:

   It seems implausible to find Homeric influence operating on Mark's depiction of Peter, which MacDonald sees as derived from Homer's characterization of Eurylochus. Both are said to be viewed in a favorable light initially and then to take on more unattractive characteristics (22). Yet as evidence for Eurylochus' good character MacDonald cites only two epithets ("godlike" [Od. 10.205] and "great-hearted" [Od. 10.207]); however, these epithets are probably only ornamental, no more meaningful in context than Penelope's "fat" hand at Odyssey 21.6.

   Further on, overstatement and vague generalization remains all that is found in HEGM's case for a Peter-Jesus/Eurylochus-Odysseus/Gilligan-Skipper parallel. Both men speak for the rest of the group -- which represents no more than that there is always a "second in command" in a given social structure. Both are said to oppose their leader at some point -- which is also a universal social-structure phenomenon, unless all followers are helpless droids. Most irrelevantly, Peter's challenge to Jesus' prediction of his own demise at Jerusalem is said to be "a complaint similar" to one made by Eurylochus to the effect that the crew needed a hot meal and some rest on solid ground before continuing -- but HEGM must strain for this "similarity," suggesting only that Mark may have seen in the words of Odysseus that some "god" was devising ill through the crew's complaints, spearheaded by Eury, an inspiration for Jesus' "Get thee behind me, Satan" rebuke (for Mark would have possibly taken "god" in Homer as a reference to a demon). Not that it matters that Odysseus wasn't issuing a rebuke; the vast differences here are ignored in favor of few and superficial similarities, created by using the same words to describe vastly different events: I.e., "Both runners-up challenged the authority of the protagonists, objecting to their severity and doomsday predictions." [22] Like Odysseus' crew, the disciples "broke their vows to the hero in the face of suffering. Jesus, like Odysseus, had to confront his opponents alone." [23] With statements like these, and the use of broad terminology ("runners-up," "challenged," "severity," "doomsday predictions," [!] "vows," suffering," "opponents") we are even more vague than "Lincoln and Kennedy were both concerned particularly with civil rights"!

The fourth chapter of HEGM is a bit of an oddity in context. Our classical scholar, though he finds MacDonald's argument in this chapter persuasive, observes that it "rests uncomfortably in a book devoted to parallels between Mark and the Homeric epics, since evidence is derived mostly from sources other than Homer." The thesis: that "the depiction of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, derives from legends associated with Castor and Pollux" -- who appear not in Homer, but in later works (the Homeric hymns of the 7th-6th century BC).

Are James and John new versions of Castor and Pollux? Even if so, once again Mark has done nothing that would suggest fabrication of history. Let's check some of HEGM's foundational claims:

First, it is said, "Mark consistently presented these brothers as veritable twins with no distinguishing traits." [24] That a point is made at all of this reflects, in my view, MacDonald's inability to think critically, for it is meaningless -- this says no more or less than could be said of other seconadary characters in any work of literature with a biographical focus on another person. Moreover, it consists of negative evidence: To not report something about someone is not therefore fabricating anything about them; one could do this to any person in a work of literature -- no one is immune to being reduced to a literary cipher. It is also meaningless to point out that in Mark "whatever the brothers do, they do together." Of course they do! This is exactly what would be expected within a given social structure in which family (especially brothers who grew up together) are involved. But even then, HEGM still reads to much into the data: James and John appear together 8 times in Mark's gospel. Once they appear with their father (1:19), twice with Simon Peter and Andrew (1:29, 13:3), once in a full list of the Apostles (3:17), three times with Peter (5:37, 9:2, 14:33), and only once completely alone (10:35, 39). This does not carry an implication of "loner twins" as much as HEGM's descriptions suggests.

Then we are told that Matthew "repeatedly deleted Mark's references to them," adding only the appearance of their mother at the tomb. Once again HEGM overstates the significance of the data. Matthew keeps the call of the brothers as fishermen (4:21); he keeps the listing of apostles (10:2); he "deletes" the reference paralleling Mark 5:37, but also "deletes" Peter; he keeps the transiguration episode (again, with Peter; 17:1); keeps the episode of them going before Jesus to ask for the thrones near him (as "sons of Zebedee, and adding their mother); "deletes" them (along with Peter and Andrew, referring only to generic "disciples") before the Olivet discourse (24:3); and he keeps them (not by name, but as the "sons of Zebedee") in Gethsemane (26:37). How two deletions, once in the context of a larger pericope also "deleted," amounts to "repeatedly" is something best left to the mathematical imagination. How this amounts to anything of significance is best left to MacDonald's imagination.

We are told that Luke also "often dropped" the brothers when taking from Mark, but the data here is no more of significance. Luke mentions the brothers 5 times, "keeping" the fishing episode (with Simon Peter -- 5:10), the Apostolic list (6:14), the Jairus episode (with Peter -- 8:51), and the transfiguration (with Peter -- 9:28), and adding one episode (9:54), which we will discuss later. He does not keep the "thrones" episode (one of many things Luke "deletes"), follows Matthew in "deleting" James, John, Peter and Andrew in favor of generic "disciples" at the Olivet discourse, and also uses generic "disciples" (no James or John, or Peter!) in Gethsemane. Again, that MacDonald finds some significance in this data,and bothers to report it at all, leads me to seriously question his analytical skills.

There is also the standard complaint that James is not mentioned in John's Gospel (though the "sons of Zebedee" are). We have noted elsewhere that this is a pointless objection -- John is not writing a family history, and at any rate, he "fails" to list the Apostles anywhere -- only a few are actually named.

But HEGM's major argument for the chapter begins with an observation of this unusual verse:

Mark 3:17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder.

This verse is unqiue to Mark, and it is from here that the main suggestion is made that Mark is comparing the brothers to Castor and Pollux (also called the Dioscuri). This is said, according to a quoted authority, to have "swept (James and John) out of whatever historic reality they might have had and into the procedures of mythic transformations" -- though I suspect the sweeping was done rather too haphazardly; why these brothers cannot have been reasonably nicknamed after the mythic twins in reality is not explained. Naming James and John after the Dioscuri no more makes them mythological than nicknaming a football player "Papa Smurf" (as was done in my middle school) thereby "sweeps [him] into the procedures of cartooish transformations." Not that the parallel is exact anyway: Zeus is the father of the Dioscuri, and it is he who is titled, "the Thunderer" -- the Dioscuri are "sons of the Thunderer" (not "sons of Thunder" per se), and Zebedee is nowhere given any such title. One also wonders why "sons of thunder" could not have been an appellation given independently of the Dioscuri story, based upon some other trait (hot tempers, for example) and that thunder is a universal phenomenon associated with disruption (or else, something associated in Judaism with the voice of God, hence J and J are "sons" or echoers of the voice of God).

Further parallels are no more convincing. The Dioscuri are noted as accompanying Jason and his argonauts, and that St. Elmo's fire was taken as an epihany of them; this is paralleled to James and John as "sailors." Are fishermen really "sailors"? Not at all -- this is a stretch of terminology akin to the "warehouse/storage barn" parallel listed above. Moreover, if this was of special significance, why are Peter and Andrew also fishermen? And is fishing an unusual profession to have had in Galilee? Not at all. Mimesis here is unlikely; historical reality is a far better explanation. (And of course, there is an ICE involved here: James and John had to have a job of some sort; any job could be cited, even as a "transvaluation", by HEGM's loose criteria.)

The next parallel offered involves this story:

Mark 10:35-8 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire. And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you? They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

If Mark is mimesizing here, we may point out, we have some good proof of Matthean priority: Why else would Mark delete the reference to the mother of James and John? Why would Matthew add such a detail? But that assumes we have mimesis at all, and again, the evidence is rather thin. It is noted that the Dioscuri often appeared in art of this time on the right and left of an enthroned deity [27]. It is said that Mark's readers may have seen a parallel. Perhaps so, but it is just as likely that they would see a parallel to the universal notion of secondary rulers sitting on the right and left hand of the king. Indeed, it is much more likely that the Dioscuri depictions and the request of James and John have their roots in this social-ideal commonality rather than one being derived from the other. (Did not all of the disciples argue about which of them would be the greatest in heaven?)

Further we are told that there are parallels to the respective fates of James and John. James was executed early as reported in Acts 12:2 (note: not by Mark), whereas John reportedly lived a long time (and by John's gospel, was said to be addressing a rumor of his deathlessness). I have noted especially that these things are found outside of Mark's gospel; to establish a parallel with Mark, HEGM is forced to draw in Jesus' admonition prior to the Transfiguration that some standing by would not taste death before the kingdom was ushered in, and supposing that this means Mark "may have shared the notion that this disciple [John] would not die before the return of Jesus." [28] Why we should narrow the "some" and "the one who endures to the end" noted in Mark down to a single person who is not mentioned alone in any nearby context is, again, best left to imagination. But a key parallel is said to be in that Castor and Pollux were respectively mortal and immortal. Castor died in a fight; Pollux was very upset and asked Zeus for help, and from this resulted the brothers sharing immortality in tandem -- alive and dead in alteration. We are told, then, that James' martyrdom "corresponds to the death of Castor" while John's longevity corresponds to Pollux's immortality; therefore also the request made to Jesus for glory in the afterlife corresponds to "want[ing] to make a special arrangement for the hereafter" as the Dioscuri did, in the form of an "equal glory" in which either could get the more prestigious right hand. Thus it is said, Mark transvalued and emulated the Dioscuri's story.

And so, these are the parallels laid out:

1. Sons of Tyndareus/Sons of Zebedee
2. Also known as Dioscuri, lads of Zeus/AKA Boanerges, Sons of Thunder
3. Argonauts/Fishermen
4. Castor/John died violently
5. Pollux could have lived forever/John was thought to live until Jesus returned
6. Pollux asked Zeus if he and Castor could share a single immortality/James and John asked to sit by Jesus in glory
7. Zeus consented/Jesus refused

We have already dealt with items 2 and 3 above. Item 1 is absurdly meaningless -- obviously every male is a "son" of somebody; that MacDonald cites this at all within the list seems to me to prove a desperation to find parallels. Items 4 and 5, as we have noted, depend upon traipsing outside of Mark -- and thus, assumes (within the context assumed by HEGM, that Mark came first) that Mark's readers were somehow aware of what is said in 4 and 5. If the readers were aware of it, then it was clearly being passed around as reflecting historical reality prior to Mark's "Homerization" of the story. But the parallel in 4 is meaningless anyway: Everyone dies (not necessarily violently, but if it had been a non-violent death by James, it would be called a "transvaluation" by HEGM), and a violent death was not an uncommon fate in ancient times, more so than today and especially in the context of a religious movement suffering persecution from a variety of sources (a historical circumstance that HEGM can hardly dispute). One also smells overgeneralization, since James' death by sword and under authority is hardly the same as Castor dying in a fight. Item 5 is a stretch -- there is nothing here but the conception of immortality, or avoiding of the universal of death; all of us, except atheists, want to make "special arrangements for the hereafter" and we would hardly expect the plans not to involve our closest family. Item 6 also has the odor of overgeneralization; the differences (nature of immortality; one brother alive vs. two) outweigh the similarities and make it much more possible to argue for actual historicity behind the Markan episode. Item 7 pairs with 6 and is an ICE in context.

We therefore find no merit in a case for Markan mimesis in this context. The chapter closes with two diversions. The second is an excursus on how medieval Spanish Christians viewed James and John in light of the Dioscuri, which we say proves that medieval Spanish Christians were as confused and as uncritical as MacDonald is. The first diversion is a return to Luke, and this special episoide:

Luke 9:52-55 And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

We are told that this parallels an episode in the life of the Dioscuri (again, outside Homer). The Zeus kids were known in one story as the "sackers of Las" -- a city called Lapersai. They also sacked another city in order to rescue their sister. HEGM thus finds James' and John's actions to be "a role consistent with that of the Heavenly Twins"! How? Because they wanted to be "city-sackers"! [30] We strongly suggest that MacDonald purchase a dictionary and find out what "sackers" means -- it has nothing to do with sending the fire of judgment down upon a city (fire reflects a motif of judgment in the OT and Judaism).

The subject of Chapter 5 is the conflicts between Jesus and the Jewish leadership -- and here, HEGM makes two admissions of possible historicity. It could hardly do otherwise. Jesus' interactions with the Jewish leaders are said to "quite possibly reflect contoversies of the historical Jesus" [33] (we may add, that Josephus verifies, at least, that there was such controversy; of what sort there would be, other than what the Gospels offer, is something we'd need to know to take the matter further). The Temple cleansing is acknowledged as something that "may" [34] be historical. Here, though, HEGM's good sense comes to an end. In this chapter also, more than any yet, the Homerian gnat is strained to produce an Odysseian camel. HEGM's resort to Homer ignores far more plausible lines of evidence pointing to historicity.

The thesis of the chapter is that the interactions the Jewish leaders "play a similar role to that of Penelope's suitors, who usurped the authority of Odysseus' estate and were willing to kill to protect their priviliged status." As a prelude, we are told, there is a similarity in Homer laying down an early warning of plans to kill Odysseus and his son Telemachus, and that "Mark never lets his reader forget the plots of the Jewish authorities" against Jesus. [33] How Mark "never lets the reader forget" this is not explained. The only footnote reference is to verses which speak of Pharisees coming up from Jerusalem and confronting Jesus; this, it is said, "prepares the reader to expect the worst when Jesus enters the city." [34] But of course, one can hardly say such a thing, since it has the air of retrojection; we already know through centuries of hearing the story to "expect the worst" out of the Jerusalem visit; so, likely, would have Mark's readers who were already believers. Mark himself delivers no early warning of Jesus' death; it is first noted in Mark 9:31, and that to be at the "hands of men" -- not the Jewish leadership. The Jewish leadership is specified in Mark 10:34, but in league with the Gentiles. The story of Mark 12 is another reminder. One strains to see how this can be described with the word "never lets the reader forget," especially since it is unlikely Mark's readers would need a reminder as to who was responsible for Jesus' death in the first place.

HEGM, as we have noted, admits that the Temple cleasing episode "may" have historical roots. But it goes on to find "intriguing parallels" in the story of Odysseus wreaking havoc among the would-be suitors. The examples given are: