Excavating The Empty Tomb

[The Grand Nudger]

The video's creator floats a theory that Mark was influenced by the tales of Odysseus,

Given the time period -and that the author had to learn to read and write from something.......had to learn the art of the tale somewhere -more than reasonable. The stories we read/hear float around in our heads waiting for a moment to resurface. I don't personally feel that this lessens the value of the narrative contained in Mark at all, personally. An author is influenced by other authors, and? Know what I mean?

and he compares numerous points where he feels the influence shows. It is only presented as a pet theory because it's not conclusive. I got the impression that it was like those Lincoln/Kennedy assassination comparisons; take the details that confirm a link and ignore the rest.

I think that the idea that Mark was influenced by old tales and legends is interesting and worth making with a few good examples. But he spends a lot of time finding every conceivable link, no matter how faint. Maybe he felt that quantity would be better than quality. I think it's a point worth making, but not worth drawing out as far as he did.

I get that impression with alot of literary comparisons. Though I don't know if it raises to the level of assassination conspiracies. I suppose when you invest the time to draw parallels you want to make sure your audience gets the full measure of what you see. As ever with these narratives, we are free to assign our own value to the relative importance of any comparison between parts.