Fasting- depth of field- 2:18-22

Fasting
“and people came and asked him... is just 'and they asked him' (no people- no seperate subject) in the greek (still the same meaning- maybe a slight difference in that it might show more of a straightforward flow in Mark).
They are trying to get a handle on him- We've just had the scribes of a pharasaical persuasion grumbling at him, because he's not giving off the right signals about his deference to accepted purity conventions, and now others have come to him comparing him to perhaps the two things in their world that seem to be the closest fit. John's followers and those of the pharisees, fast- its what those seriously into religion in Israel do- yet you're followers don't- why is that? Where do we put you? They have noticed an incredible authority when it comes to his teaching- he teaches the scriptures in a powerful way- has a deep appreciation for them- but seems a bit lax on a few things.
What did they do with his answer I wonder? With the benefit of hindsight it seems clear enough- but at the time... The question was relatively straigtforward, and the motivation for asking it- Jesus answer: He's got bridegrooms coming and going with new and old wineskins with new and old wine being sloshed around. That's the end of it- we don't hear of any more questions, I imagine the questioners are trying to untangle the answer they had been given. Probably a few layers here- Jesus a masterful communicator with a potent veiled message. He had to be careful how he released it – otherwise he would get himself killed prematurely (it was going to get him killed in the end- more than the message- he was a man of substance- he was a little too believeable- if he had have been a crackpot the authorities wouldn't have had to worry about him, the crowds would not have come flocking- a scene like that on the way up to the passover with him riding on the donkey and the crowds rejoicing in the fact and yelling out hosanna to the son of David, wouldn't have happened. Though it was very hard to get a handle on Jesus, when you put all the pieces together, you ended up with congruence). He gave answers that often required pondering- if you were only there for the spectacular factor you would miss it, but it you sought and strove for meaning, the ideas you might come up with, could set you on a very interesting journey. There is an invitation to exploration, I think, often with Jesus answers.
There is Peter remembering this event (If we take Papias' information as been correct- collaborated by various church fathers a bit after him)- I wonder if Peter and Andrew had conversations where they compared Andrew's experience following John the Baptist with their experience following Jesus. And Peter remembered and retold Jesus take on people questioning him about it.
Then there is Mark compiling the material (With my limited knowledge, it seems that much form criticism is potentially dubious- that conjecture has to be one of your major tools- so your first plank could be conjecture followed by a second plank based on the same- it feels like form criticism often doesn't properly recognise this limitation- so you can get a whole lot of theories and scholarship built on not much). Not that it's bad to ponder how the gospels were put together and come up with theories on how this happened- just need to remember that you are dealing with potential possibilities- so take heed you myriad of form critics. Far too easy to have presuppositional analysis, a flat view of history which doesn't necessarily match reality very closely.

Mark is also telling the story and has a reason for doing so- and he is making editorial decisions as he goes. And however the Old Testament was put together, we are, here, on much plainer ground. All the accounts of Jesus in the New Testament are based on eye witness accounts- For all the gospels it was potentially no more than 35-40 years- and even if you take the older view of the lateness of John- you are still most probably dealing with John the apostle's recollections of the actual events. The actual events and remembrances of those events constrain the editing (another thing form criticism often got wrong). So, though we don't have each gospel account necessarily following the strictest chronology, and at times splicing different events together- they are not made up events- and this shapes the remembering and the editing. They certainly read like eyewitness accounts- interestingly they don't necessarily read like present day christian accounts- they are more abrupt, less sensational, less didactic.

So we get this incredible man through the lens of Peter and Mark- which does give it a certain flavour- though very different if it was a made up account or something where there was a whole lot of analysis that went with it. We also get three other lenses (complicated a little by the fact that two of them are using a lot of similar material to Mark – mostly his material according to most scholars)
Each has differences to the others- as you would expect- and we do get slightly different views. I'm glad of that. As it is we don't really have a huge amount written about this Man/God. There is no more interesting person in history (I'm sure I'm right even though I don't know every person in history). Far more has been written on heaps of other people. Its good to have that depth of field from more than one account.