A Jungian psychologist decides that the Gospel of Mark ends without resurrection, on purpose, but apparently he has never read the damn thing lol

 The Transcendent Absence: Mark's Unresurrected Christ and the Creative Imperative

... Mark's unresurrected Christ ... The absence of resurrection in Mark's Gospel . . ..                                                                                                                                                                                                    

There's just one little problem with these statements: They are falsehoods. The text says Jesus rose.

Everyone agrees that Mark's "narrative rupture" occurs at the close of 16:8.

But the resurrection occurs before that:

And entering into the sepulchre, [the women] saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. 

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. 

But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you [in Mark 14:28]. 

And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid. 

-- Mark 16:5-8

The endings after this are obviously supplied based on internal evidence of language and style which differ from Mark's. And their variety is a sign that something was felt to be wanting from a very early time. External evidence shows the gospel ending at 16:8 in two famous codices from the fourth century: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. And Matthew and Luke and John in their turn each supply their own fuller accounts, some of the elements of which resemble the endings supplied to Mark. 

The twice promised resurrection appearance in Galilee in Mark is perhaps the most wanting thing. Simply on that basis it strains credulity to think Mark intended the ending to be 16:8. The composition is unfinished, or was early on damaged. 

But the resurrection is not missing from this abruptly ending gospel. One cannot speak of an unresurrected Christ in Mark. One cannot say there is no resurrection in Mark. It's right there in verse six.

Meanwhile we are told that "the sacred emerges through collective human action rather than through divine intervention", and that "the kingdom of God exists only insofar as we create it through revolutionary praxis within history's unfolding".

Unfortunately for the author, Brian Nuckols, Mark's Jesus doesn't believe any of that hooey.

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

-- Mark 1:15

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. 

-- Mark 9:1   

On Repentance

 

 Repentance so altereth and changeth a man through the mercy of God,

be he never so defiled, that it maketh him pure and clear.

 

-- John Whitgift (1530?-1604), Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University from 1567, tutor of Francis Bacon in the 1570s, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583, and persecutor of the Puritans 

Scholarship which presses Matthew 10 for the sake of a high Christology focuses on a tiny sapling and misses the entire forest

 

 Seen here:

For example, one case that Pitre makes is that scholars are almost unanimous in their belief in the historical plausibility of Jesus’ demand that His disciples love Him more than their parents [Matthew 10:37]. But many scholars also agree that in a first-century Jewish context, the love of parents is second only to the love of God. Pitre thus persuasively argues that we must logically conclude that Jesus of Nazareth makes a demand of His followers that only the God of Israel can make. He quotes Rabbi Jacob Neusner, who says, “For, I now realize, only God can demand of me what Jesus is asking… In the end the master, Jesus, makes a demand that only God makes.”

This point of view comes from the introspective conscience of the West, not from the text.

The Jesus of Matthew 10 does not imagine our existence, that we would be born to live and worship him. The entire narrative is about the sending out of the Twelve and the imminent end of the world and about their role in it. Jesus actually elevates the disciples as fellow itinerant prophets. He does not demand their worship.

The Matthew 10 narrative is the eschatological prophet sending out his disciples to evangelize Israel, which they will not complete before the end of the world comes, the climax of which is the coming of the Son of man:

But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord.

The impending judgment of the world demands a kind of repentance which turns away from all conventions of family, work, and life. It is not simply a question of loving parents more than their master, but also of sons and daughters.  The narrative describes a climactic descent into social chaos involving the persecution of Jesus' true and few followers by their very own kin:

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. ... He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward;    

This is not about Christology, but about eschatology and the cost of discipleship. The price is intensely personal.

There is hardly a more vivid repudiation of the idea of the Christian family anywhere in the gospels, let alone of a high Christology, except in Luke:

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. ... So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. 

-- Luke 14:26f., 33 

The US footprint of The Church of the Nazarene is small, just over 600k as of 2016, but it is growing abroad because it is Christian, Holy, and Missional

Church of the Nazarene expels theologian over LGBT advocacy

“Oord is guilty of conduct unbecoming a minister and of teaching doctrines out of harmony with the doctrinal statement of the Church of the Nazarene,” read the decision, as quoted by the Roys Report.

“Oord has shown absolutely no repentance or willingness to submit to the authority of the church … his behavior exhibits a pattern of disregard and disrespect for authority.” ...

The Church of the Nazarene traces its origins to the 19th century Wesleyan Holiness Movement and is a member of the World Methodist Council. The denomination reports having more than 30,000 churches globally and approximately 2.6 million members.

Oord is not the first Church of the Nazarene figure in the United States to face punishment for advancing progressive views on LGBT issues within the Methodist denomination.

Are the churches emptying because they've been too successful?

 

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 

-- Luke 5:32

Jesus' trial: Why Luke omits "Ye shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven"

 

Luke omits Jesus' prediction at his trial that his Jewish judges would see the Son of Man coming in the clouds. Luke also omits that they would see him seated at the right hand.

 

These predictions are made at Jesus' trial as found in Mark and in Matthew but not in Luke:

 

And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.  

-- Mark 14:62

 

Jesus said to him, "You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on [ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι] you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven." 

-- Matthew 26:64

 

But from now on [ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν] the Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.

-- Luke 22:69

 

Of course, some commentators get around the omissions by positing that Luke simply used a different, independent source from Mark and Matthew at this point, but that simply leaves us with two competing versions of what Jesus said.

Luke, however, is not unaware of the main idea and has Jesus say it elsewhere, and therefore it is not necessary to posit a different source but that he has simply made a different editorial decision about where and when to put it. To Luke it doesn't belong at the trial.

Like Mark 13:26 and Matthew 24:30, who thus have the conception uttered twice by Jesus, Luke reserves it to his version of the Little Apocalypse about the end of the world, where "they" refers to humanity in general:

 

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  

-- Luke 21:27

 

This makes more sense to Luke, and removes what looks like a difficulty for him if Matthew and Mark are insisting what they appear to be insisting.

 

For Luke the kingdom is already here because Jesus is present and working (Luke 17:20f.), but it will never really be "at hand" as it is in Matthew (3:2; 4:17; 10:7) and Mark (1:15) until a little later, when the trees shoot forth in the summer (Luke 21:30f.).  For Luke's apocalyptic Jesus, the appearance of such leaves is analogous to the emergence of the signs of the end of the world in sun, moon, and stars: chaos on land and sea and the powers of heaven rocked (Luke 21:25f.).

 

In Luke's hands Jesus now states perfunctorily at his trial that the Son of Man will sit at God's right hand, dropping the coming on the clouds and the prediction that his Jewish judges will see that or the enthronement. For good reason. Presumably he knows that Annas and Caiaphas died in the 40s and lived to see nothing, and Luke as he is writing has not witnessed the fulfillment of such predictions either.

 

It is little appreciated how Luke's editorial activity in the trial scene is connected to his larger theological project.

 

It is designed to agree with Luke's understanding of Jesus exalted at God's right hand in Acts, continuing his presence on earth by directing the missionary activities of the church through the Spirit, especially those of Paul among the Gentiles. 

 

Jesus' Jewish judges are now completely beside the point. God has bypassed them, just has Paul and Barnabas shook off the dust from their own feet against the Jews at Pisidian Antioch and turned to the Gentiles instead (Acts 13).

 

For Luke, the judgment of the Jews is postponed temporarily until the still imminent but delayed end of the world, when Jesus will then bring vengeance upon Judea (Luke 21:22, 31).

 

God's focus is turning elsewhere in the meantime. Jesus' objective is no longer his immediate return for the judgment of Israel, but rather a  near-term future of reigning at the right hand of power in order that the whole world might repent and be saved (Acts 2:39; John 3:17; Romans 4:16; 16:26; I Corinthians 9:22; I Timothy 2:4; Titus 2:11; II Peter 3:9).

 

Luke clearly thinks Mark and Matthew have the trial details wrong, just as they have wrong the reason for Jesus' trial (Jesus' call to discipleship required radical poverty, a direct threat to the revenue of the Jewish temple, and so to the Roman treasury). Jesus is no longer returning immediately to turn the tables on his Jewish judges, to become the judge instead of the judged. He is remaining at God's right hand to do something else: extend God's offer of mercy to all of mankind.

 

Consequently the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven for Luke is now a matter of a future second coming, conforming to a more or less structured apocalyptic narrative, unfolding at an undetermined but still imminent point in the near future, in agreement with the apocalyptic parallel narratives of both Mark and Matthew.

 

And then (καὶ τότε) shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

-- Luke 21:27

 

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 

-- Mark 13:26

 

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 

-- Matthew 24:30

 

The imminently coming eschatological Son of Man without signs still front and center in Jesus' mind at his trial according to Mark and Matthew has been relegated to a future second coming narrative of his followers creation.

 

It is easier to explain the development of the Little Apocalypses of the gospels as derivative from an original, simple, and straightforward eschatological belief than it is the other way around. The former was developed in an elaborate manner to explain the failure of the latter.   

 

Those narratives notably all have Jesus condescend to address an apocalyptic timetable which was anathema to the original eschatological message, supplying a second coming replete with signs in the heavens above and the earth below which indicate that the ensuing end of the world can indeed be said to be observable to a certain extent, despite the fact that Jesus had in no uncertain terms eschewed any such observable signs, most notably in Mark 8:12:

 

 There shall no sign be given unto this generation.

 

Luke is not unaware of this tradition, either:

 

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you [plural Pharisees].

-- Luke 17:20f.

 

The kingdom was already there among them, in the person of Jesus, and they had already missed it. It did not need Jesus to die and rise to be present. There would be no apocalyptic signs. It had already come as a surprise without them. Repent and follow him or perish!

 

But as both Luke and Matthew hedge Mark on Jesus' trial statements (Matthew followed by Luke already extenuate by adding "from now on", see above), they both hedge Mark about the signs as well, supplementing Mark 8:12 in their parallels with "no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonah" who was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, about whom Mark knows . . .  nothing (Matthew 12:39; 16:4; Luke 11:29f.).

It is clear what is going on here.

 

Matthew and Luke reinterpret what is ostensibly the earliest tradition from the point of view of the resurrection wherever they can, freely tampering, dare we say it, with the word of God (II Corinthians 4:2) just as much as Mark had done (for example, by making Jesus' predict his rising on the third day in Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; 14:28). They are, all of them, to one degree or another, with one degree of success or another, the new scribes of the kingdom of heaven (conveniently provided for by the kingdom-as-net story in Matthew 13:52 to justify their activity) who bring out of their treasure things new and old, discarding the bad and keeping the good.

The death of Jesus required as much. This bad thing that happened to Jesus had to be explained. They thought he would bring the kingdom and he did not.

 

In the case of the NT apocalyptic narratives, which portray Jesus willingly and volubly engaging in talk of signs of the end of the world with the disciples,  Jesus' future return as the Son of Man is now predicated on the gospel first being published among all the nations (Mark 13:10), until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24), so that all nations hear and come to hate the elect, original disciples (Matthew 24:9, 14). At which point all the tribes of the earth shall mourn when they see the Son of Man return in the clouds of heaven because judgment is finally nigh. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations while there is still time (Matthew 28:19f.).

 

In this the gospels overwhelmingly evidence the new point of view of the church, especially championed by Luke in Acts, which ends with Paul's arrival in Rome, the center of the world (The epistles still teem with apocalyptic expectation because with that achievement, it's mission accomplished).

Gone is the high dudgeon of the Jesus who said only an "evil generation" seeks after a sign (Matthew 12:39; Matthew 16:4; Luke 11:29).

 

All of it flies in the face of Jesus' command to go not into the way of the Gentiles (Matthew 10:5f.), and of a host of other awkward eruptions of the original, simple eschatology in the halfway houses of the evangelists:

 

that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Matthew 15:24),

 

that his followers would judge the twelve tribes of Israel, not Gentiles (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30),

 

that those followers will not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come (Matthew 10:23),

 

that the kingdom is at hand (Matthew 3:2; Matthew 4:17; Matthew 10:7; Matthew 26:18, 45; Mark 1:15; Luke 10:9, 11), 

 

that the kingdom is already present in exorcisms (Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20),

 

that the Son of Man would come in his kingdom before the deaths of some of the disciples (Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; John 21:23),

 

that the kingdom is already in their midst but is unobserved (Luke 17:20-21),

 

and that there was a general buzz of expectation around Jesus that the kingdom was coming immediately in Jerusalem for some reason (Luke 19:11), an expectation most especially embraced by Jesus' own disciples even until the very last when Jesus ascended into heaven (Acts 1:6).

 

But the resurrection? They were supposedly blind to the very idea of it to the end and beyond. The resurrection "they yet believed not . . ." (Luke 24:41)! But a kingdom restored to Israel, that they most certainly did believe to the end and beyond, but wrongly!

 

Where oh where did they get that idea, if not from Jesus? The historical Jesus preached the imminently coming kingdom, an idea they did have, not the resurrection, an idea they did not.

 

The apocalyptic narratives are a mixture of the complicated, rationalized new and the simple, enthusiastic old. They contain at the same time 1) a thought out timetable with signs for the end of the world which was anathema to Jesus and 2) a memory of the unpredictable in-breaking of the kingdom which has no timetable, the message he actually preached.

 

It was the latter which otherwise and everywhere occasioned all this urgency and expectation swirling about Jesus in the first place.

 

His simple conception of the unpredictable end of the world, without apocalyptic adornment, is best remembered only by Matthew:

 

Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.  He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

 

-- Matthew 13:36ff.

 

Mark and Matthew tell us that Jesus believed this even to his fateful end:

 

"Ye shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven".

Against the Pharisees' core tenet of resurrection, Luke's Jesus insists it is superfluous

  

And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them . . . There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:  And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.       

-- Luke 16:14f., 19ff.

cf. John 5:45ff.:

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

Eschatological prophets don't leave gospels behind

 

p52, a 2nd century fragment of John from a codex

Jesus trying to keep his miracles quiet is in the news, by Father John Perricone, Ph.D., who alas in "Is Christ a Magician?" can't even get Matthew 16:4 right:

But, to our more serious question above. We should preface these words by God’s: “It is a wicked and perverse generation that asks for signs and wonders” (Matthew 16:4). 

The verse says nothing about wonders, which is a technical term most familiar to us from the Book of Acts, but also from the little apocalypses found in the gospels. The verse in question goes like this:

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

The father is right that we observe a Jesus who does occasionally try to keep his miracles quiet. They are "often accompanied by a stern admonition to tell no one". The thing is, not all the time. And the Christian gospels are replete with them nevertheless. 

Mark's Jesus is even more emphatic about this than is Matthew's. Mark's Jesus was unequivocally against signs of any kind, not even the sign of the prophet Jonah, and not just to the Pharisees, but to his entire evil generation.

It's a downright odd thing for someone to say who is supposedly leaving a trail of them in his wake in exorcisms, healings, and nature miracles. The gospels proclaim a miracle worker who wanted the miracles kept quiet? This is akin to the problem known as the Messianic Secret. "I'm the Messiah, but don't tell anyone".

The eschatological context of this sign business is preserved by Mark, although at a distance, as it is by Matthew in like manner in his doublet of the saying (Matthew 16:1ff., 27):

And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign [σημεῖον] from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. ... Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

-- Mark 8:11f., 38 (cf. Matthew 12:38f.; Matthew 16:1ff., 27; Luke 11:16, 29f.).

The emphasis of the eschatological Jesus is on his message of repentance, not on his deeds.

Vincent Taylor recognized long ago that the eschatological Mark 8:38 was quite out of place where it is.

A lot of things seem loosely connected together in Mark, not just this. Just read the form critics.

In Mark's unskilled hands, signs likewise aren't yet quite exactly the same thing as miracles either. Miracle in Mark is instead typically referred to, when it is referred to at all, as the palpable expression of divine authority [ἐξουσία] (Mark 1:27; 2:10; 3:15; 6:7), or of divine power [δύναμις] (Mark 5:30; 6:2, 5, 14; 9:39).

And from the start, Mark presents Jesus as more than willing to demonstrate to the Scribes his divine authority to forgive sins by performing a miracle to prove it (this despite later noteworthy teaching requiring mutual forgiveness between men if there is to be forgiveness of men by God, in Mark 11:26, which is rather different; is that blasphemy, too?):

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.  

-- Mark 2:10ff., Matthew 9:6ff., Luke 5:24ff. (similarly John 10:37f., 14:11).

We go back again the other way, though, in Mark 11:27-33, where Mark presents a Jesus who will NOT condescend to the chief priests, the Scribes, and the elders to demonstrate by what authority he had cast out of the temple the buyers and the sellers, the money-changers, and specifically the sellers of doves:

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.

So which is it?

 

In the same willy-nilly fashion, Mark has Jesus do an exorcism, a resurrection, and a healing of a deaf/dumb man in Galilee, one which Jesus wants declaimed, but the others which Jesus wants kept quiet:

Howbeit Jesus suffered him not [to follow him], but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel. 

-- Mark 5:19f.

And he charged them straitly that no man should know it; and commanded that something should be given her to eat. 

-- Mark 5:43

And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it; 

-- Mark 7:36.

So which is it?

  

Eventually Mark inexplicably makes Jesus actually respond positively and at great length to the question from Peter, James, John, and Andrew "what shall be the sign" of the coming of the destruction of the temple, in Mark 13:4, the beginning of the infamous Apocalyptic Discourse.

But why would Jesus do that, all of a sudden, and condescend to a question about signs  if "no sign shall be given"?

Obviously the Apocalyptic Discourse is post-resurrection re-interpretation of Jesus' original eschatological message that judgment was imminent. The warning had been the man and the message, but he got himself crucified, and with the man now gone they are in a new situation which is under pressure to explain itself. Like the supplied endings to Mark, the Apocalyptic Discourse bears all the marks of another time and other hands. But that is another matter.

As quickly, however, as Jesus deigns to entertain such talk of the sign of the end, Jesus warns in 13:22 that it is false Christs and false prophets who will come and do "signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect".

And with that we're right back to negativity about signs, which shows just how much that view was the original, dominant view going back to the historical Jesus and persisting beyond him in their memory.

So no sign it is.

(The positive embrace of miraculous signs in the supplied long ending in Mark 16:17, 20 may be dismissed as unoriginal to Mark on stylistic grounds, and not in the least because it conforms to the later ideas expressed for example by Luke in Acts).

 

This picture painted by Mark shows overall that he is confused and indecisive about what exactly to present as the actual content of Jesus' message, which Matthew and then Luke in their turn attempt to smooth over and remedy. It is one reason why Mark was not that popular in early Christianity. The relative paucity of witnesses to Mark, and the missing ending, if it really is missing, after 16:8 as late as Codex Vaticanus is . . . kind of a sign.

In the case of Mark 8, Matthew and Luke retain the harsh, negative evaluation of sign-seeking, but they augment the unequivocal "no sign shall be given" with "except the sign of Jonah", i.e. that the resurrection of Jesus after three days in the belly of the earth is the ultimate sign to this generation.

So the miracle of the resurrection is THE ONE legitimate sign, but none of the other miracles are signs? What are they then? Or were there no other such signs? Matthew and Luke haven't really thought this through. But of their post-resurrection re-interpretation of the original saying Mark knew absolutely nothing.

This is yet more evidence that the tradition is not solid, to put it mildly, and that the evangelists are willing, shall we say, to tamper with the word of God for theological reasons.

The solution of Matthew and Luke does little, either, to alleviate the wider problem involved, which is the failure of this evil generation to have faced the final judgment of the coming Son of Man predicted by Jesus.

But it is evidence of a trajectory of re-interpretation we see running through the Synoptics culminating in John, where we come to the explicit development of the completely different, positive understanding of sign as miracle.

And whereas the Synoptic witness is full of miracles by other names, and against signs more than not, miracles are now routinely called signs in the Fourth Gospel:

Turning water into wine at Cana of Galilee (John 2:11);

Destroying the "temple" "of his body" and rebuilding it in three days (John 2:18f);

Nondescript miracles which Jesus did in Jerusalem (John 2:23) which impressed Nicodemus (John 3:2); 

Healing a boy who was near death (John 4:48), Jesus' second miracle in Galilee (John 4:54);

Healing many who were sick (John 6:2);

Feeding the five thousand with five barley loaves and two fish (John 6:14, 26, 30);

Jesus' miracles generally (John 7:31);

Healing the man born blind (John 9:16);

John the Baptist performed no miracles but was right about Jesus (John 10:41);

The Pharisees are beside themselves what to do with Jesus, who does so many miracles, after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (John 11:47);

Some of the people hailed Jesus (triumphal entry into Jerusalem) as if he were king because of the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, as did also some of the authorities (John 12:18, 37); 

The appearance of Jesus in his crucified body to doubting Thomas was one of many miracles Jesus did after his resurrection (John 20:30). 

This last example in John rings the composition with the 2:18 allusion to Jesus' resurrection and echoes the re-interpretation of Mark 8 observed in both Matthew and Luke, who feel compelled to supplement Mark's "no sign, period" with "no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonah . . . who was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale" (Matthew 12:39f.; cf. Luke 11:29f.), which they put forward as a type of the resurrection.

The resurrection itself has now become a tool for proof of the truth of a different gospel, whereas Jesus as eschatological prophet had nothing to prove. Jesus insisted on the imminent end for this, his evil generation because "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15).

"Repent ye and believe the gospel".

That Jesus, the historical Jesus, was not interested in vindication by miracles and heavenly portents, but in actual demonstrations of repentance by his hearers, so that a few at least would be saved from that imminent judgment. Without those demonstrations there isn't any belief, and no salvation.

The new Jesus emphasizes the believing, which many can now get indefinitely into the future, even from a book:

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. 

-- John 20:30f.

The miracles are now constitutive of the message, so much so that John's Jesus can say:

. . . though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. 

-- John 10:38.

Whereas one may aver that to the final eschatological prophet who followed John the Baptist, the palsied fruit of repentance was a good thing (Matthew 3:8), not something to be healed from:

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

-- Mark 9:45.

If Jesus could speak today he would be appalled at the words which have been put into his mouth by his followers

 

Words such as these:

And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

-- Matthew 26:27f.

And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.

-- Mark 14:23f.

Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

-- Luke 22:20

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

-- John 6:53ff.

 

A Jewish Jesus would have thought such words as those to be an abomination. He preached instead a gospel of the fatherhood of God, of the imminent coming of God's kingdom with judgment, of radical renunciation of the world because it was about to be destroyed, of the necessity of mutual forgiveness of sins, of God's desire for mercy and not sacrifice, of the perpetuity of the law until heaven and earth pass away.

And here is the law on the subject, loud and clear:

 

But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

-- Genesis 9:4

It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.

-- Leviticus 3:17

Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.

-- Leviticus 7:26f.

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.

-- Leviticus 17:11ff. 

Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.

-- Leviticus 19:26

Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water. ... Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD.

-- Deuteronomy 12:16, 23ff.

Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.

-- Deuteronomy 15:23.

 

It beggars belief that a Jewish Jesus believed anything contrariwise.