It has to do with the quality of Earl's scholarship and his misuse of sources.
Are you claiming that he is misusing Mark or other sources of scholarship about Mark?
Mark does not talk about Jesus as being God. Earl needs to do a better job evaluating and analyzing the information in his sources.
I think I understand why many critical scholars have this view of Mark and based on what I have read I agree. The problem I am having is understanding why this has anything to do with the issue. Some people DO believe that Mark points to Jesus' divinity and on those terms is is very much a theological issue.
A first good step would be to actually read them.
Are you making the claim that he hasn't read Mark or that he hasn't read the critical scholarship about Mark?
You seem to be rather incensed that he doesn't have his ducks in a row for a reason that doesn't seem at all obvious. Even if he is wrong about Mark, what does that have to do with anything regarding his scholarship other than that he is being sloppy on this one issue. Sloppyness seems to be something that is common for people who wade into this arena.
BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born --a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator? --Thomas Paine
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