MacDonald's chapter seven, "Sleeping Sailors," is an excellent place specifically to examine his method in general. The chapter starts with some comments about how Mk. 1:16-20, the calling of the fisherman to follow Jesus, is an imitation of Odyssey 2.383-387, when Athena, disguised as Telemachus, goes through the city, bidding sailors come join Odysseus' ship. Then, MacDonald suggests that Mk 4:35-42 is an imitation of Odyssey 10.1-69. Here is his synopsis, taken directly from page sixty-one. I have added the line numbers:
Odyssey 10.1-69
1. Odysseus's crew boarded and sat down.
2. On a floating island Odysseus told stories to Aeolus
3. After a month he took his leave, boarded, and sailed with 12 ships
4. Odysseus slept
5. The greedy crew opened sack, "All the winds rushed out."
6. The crew groaned.
7. Odysseus woke and gave up hope
8. Odysseus complained of his crew's folly.
9. Aeolus was master of the winds.
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Mark 4:35-41
1. Jesus boarded and sat down to teach
2. On a floating boat Jesus told his stories to the crowds
3. When it was late, he took his leave; "Other boats were with him."
4. Jesus slept.
5. A storm arose: "[A]nd there was a great gale of wind."
6. The disciples were helpless and afraid.
7. Jesus awoke and stilled the storm
8. Jesus rebuked his disciples for lack of faith.
9. Jesus was master of the winds and sea.
As he does in other comparisons, MacDonald provides Greek terms that seem important because of their appearance in both texts. In this chapter, he intensifies his lexical examination when he includes a review about the importance of the Markan terms lailaps and galênê, since both terms appear in various places elsewhere in Homeric tales, though not in Odyssey 10. An abundance of exact terminological similarities between Homer and Mark like this is rare, even in most of MacDonald's other synoptic comparisons. This might suggest that comparison of these two particular texts could potentially uncover some of the strongest evidence in support of a theory that Mark imitated Homer's text. The more one might show that Homeric terms are specifically re-articulated in a Markan paraphrase, the more one could argue how accomplished is that paraphrase, since good paraphrases kept Homeric terms, used them differently, and added other terms to them. For example, it could be that Mark's thalassa replaces Homer's pontos, or his ploion replaces Homer's naus. MacDonald does note some of these terminological overlaps, but unfortunately he does not note them all or even use to full advantage the similarities he does identify. When he admits that lialaps may have been in such common use that it cannot be shown that Mark lifted it from a Homeric text exclusively, he seems inexplicably not to exercise his own method enough, appearing to lose heart as he pulls back in this way. The question of the use of in Mark takes on a different importance when one notes that there are numerous terminological similarities that could be identified between Mark, Od. 10.1-69, and other Homeric texts with content like them. A full list includes the terms lailaps, anemos, prumnê, kuma, galênê, thalassa, apollumi, egeiro, êmera.(11) This being said, perhaps MacDonald's synopsis should be redrawn.
Odyssey
10.18 Odysseus's crew boarded and sat down.
10.11-17 On a floating island Odysseus told stories to Aeolus
10.18 After a month he took his leave, boarded, and sailed with 12 ships
10.28 sailed nine days, "night and day"
1.98 & 5.48 divinities walk over water and across the boundless land
4.510 Aias sunk deep into the boundless sea
10.33-49 The greedy crew opened the sack and storm. "[A]ll the winds rushed out."
12.312-314 At night, Zeus stirred wind. and sent a storm
12.399-400 the wind ceased from blowing in a tempest
12.403-410 a great storm, blast of wind
5.109. Athena sent evil wind and towering waves
10.31 Odysseus slept
13.74-75 Odysseus spread a rug and linen sheet in stern and slept.
15.285 Telemachus and Theoclymenus sit in stern
10.49 Odysseus woke and gave up hope
10.27 Lost through folly
10.93 In harbor, there is no wave and a bright calm prevails
12.169 Wind ceases, calm ensues, and the daimwn lulls the waves asleep
10.68-69 Odysseus complained of his crew's folly.
10.19 Aeolus was master of the winds.
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Mark 4:1-2
Boarding a boat and sitting in the sea [ µ ]
Jesus taught in parables.
Mark 4:35-42
When it that day it got late [ µ µ], he announced, "Let us go to across" and sailed while "other boats were with him."
A storm arose: "[A]nd there was a great gale of wind, so that waves crashed upon the boat to swamp it."
Jesus was in the stern, sleeping upon a pillow.
The disciples woke Jesus and asked him if he didn't care that they were about to perish
Jesus awoke censured the wind and spoke to the sea ,"Silence, be quiet" The wind ceased and a great calm ensued.
Jesus asks the disciples why they are afraid and if they do not yet have confidence in him.
Subsequently, the disciples have a great fear and they inquire of each other what kind of person Jesus might be, that the wind and the sea comply to his command.
There are numerous detailed elements in the stories that overlap, from sleeping figures, to stormy winds, to ocean calms. One not implausibly asks how all these elements of The Odyssey did not affect the narrative of Mark. And if they affected, how?
huckelberry notes,
the comparison is bit easier to follow side by side as in the original. cut paste placed the comparison one after the other which is inconvenient.
I am inclined to think that people around the Mediteranian were concerned about boats in storms or at least found the subject of interest. I would not wish to deny that previous storm stories affected later storm stories being told.
.....adding,
Parallelomania? well perhaps, well perhaps not entirely.