Bethsaida, Secret Mark, and the Not-So-Great Omission, pt. 4

In the last post, I made a case for my claim that an original version of GMk was used by the Q-author to produce a Q gospel that lacked the Bethsaida section.  This Q gospel was then combined with a canonical version of GMk to produce GMt, which used the Bethsaida material in canonical GMk; and GLk/Mc, which left out the Bethsaida material in canonical GMk (since it was absent in the Q gospel).

To further demonstrate the plausibility of this scenario, we'll have to show that the Q-author would have had reason to omit each of the original pericopes in the Bethsaida section in his Q gospel.  Once again, these original pericopes were determined, by Michael Turton, to have been:

a) The Water-Walking
b) The Feeding of the 4000
c) The Blind Man of Bethsaida

We deal with each pericope in turn:

Bethsaida, Secret Mark, and the Not-So-Great Omission, pt. 3

In Part 2, we showed how Michael Turton, in his Index to Historical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, reduced the so-called "Bethsaida section" of GMk (roughly Mk 6:45-8:26) to only three original pericopes:

• the Water-Walking
• the Feeding of the 4000
• the Blind Man of Bethsaida

These three pericopes were the only ones written by the original Markan author, i.e. the author responsible for most of the Gospel of Mark as we know it--its overall narrative, its structures, and its characteristic features.  Turton simply calls this author "Mark" (though this author was not the editor of the canonical GMk.)

So there was an original version of GMk that featured these pericopes alone, in this order, in this section of the gospel. 

We know that Matthew nevertheless used canonical GMk in composing his gospel, because he has all the material in the Bethsaida section that the canonical author has.  But did Luke/Marcion also use canonical GMk? 

Bethsaida, Secret Mark, and the Not-So-Great Omission, pt. 2

We now turn to Turton's analysis of the Bethsaida section of GMk.  

Turton individually examines the pericopes in this section of GMk using chiastic analysis.  He eliminates any pericopes that do not exhibit what he feels to be typically "Markan" characteristics; chiastic brackets that "talk to each other" (i.e. exhibit thematic or vocabular parallels), central bracket pairs that feature chreia, sayings by Jesus that neatly summarize teachings or deftly refute opponents, etc.  As summarized in his "Excursus on Mark without Bethsaida", this leaves him with four pericopes that are arguably Markan in this section:

Bethsaida, Secret Mark, and the Not-So-Great Omission, pt. 1

We now begin an examination of the "Bethsaida section" in GMk, so-called because at its beginning in Mk 6:45, Jesus and his disciples set out in a boat for Bethsaida, and at its end in Mk 8:27, there is a healing in Bethsaida of a blind man.

Michael Turton has done excellent work in showing that this section is riddled with non-Markan editing and interpolations, and that there was an earlier, original, "Markan" version, containing much less material than we now find in GMk.  In other words, Turton thinks there was an earlier version of GMk, that lacked much of the Bethsaida section.

What I'll show is that Cerinthus would have had every reason to eliminate the few pericopes in this authentic, earlier version of GMk.  In other words, Cerinthus performed a "Not-So-Great Omission" on original GMk.