GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 9-11
My Way or the Highway
Many articles today discuss artificial intelligence, the new generation of powerful computer programs that have access to a ginormous amount of information stored in computers around the world (referred to as Pretrained, P), recombining the bits of information (referred to as Generative, G), and printing out something completely new (referred to as Transformative, T)—hence GPT, an acronym for the next generation of language models. AI has also generated another new industry that tries to separate the tsunami of new information into existential or artificial, fact or fiction, verifiable or unverifiable. Discerning the difference between fact and fabrication, of course, is a very old issue, and it is a skill worth developing.
St. Mark provides an early example of the importance of correctly interpreting information. Jesus explained to his disciples that he would be rejected, persecuted, and killed. “And they were asking him, saying, ‘Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’” (Mark 9:11)
According to the scribes’ eschatology based on Malachi 4:5-6, Elijah would come three days before the Messiah and each day proclaim a separate message. On day one, he would stand on the mountain of Israel and proclaim, “Peace cometh to the world. Peace cometh to the world.” On day two, he would proclaim, “Good cometh to the world. Good cometh to the world.” On the third day, he would proclaim, “Yeshua (salvation) cometh to the world. Yeshua cometh to the world.” Then the Messiah would appear.
Some Bible scholars hold that the opponents, the scribes, refuted Jesus’ messianic claims by proposing their own sequence of historical events—the coming of Elijah—to which Jesus’ prophecy did not fit, somewhat like the twistifications of some AI-generated scenarios. So the disciples sought to clarify the issue. Good for them—and a lesson for me.
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