Jayson
What I sense is that the term
contemporary fiction, which never was firmly defined in the thread, has drifted and shifted to the point where, if I can distinguish
Mark from
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, then
Mark cannot be contemporary fiction.
OK, I can, so it isn't. Kumbaya. But the serious hypothesis space for
Mark's purposes does include any (literary) motives Ovid may have had in composing the Apotheosis of Julius Caesar, IMO. That is with the additional complication that Mark wouldn't have had the assurance about the historical reality of Jesus that Ovid had for Julius.
For all we know, Mark may have had good reasons to suspect that, or wonder whether, there was no historical Jesus, and still have written what he did. For example, we cannot eliminate hypothesis specification, to determine by construction whether any coherent narrative reconciles the incompatible, according to Paul, teachings of Paul and the James Gang. (We have the further disadvantage that we don't know what the James Gang taught about Jesus.)
Luke, in his time, will acknowledge the possibility that Theophilus might doubt something. While the stated purpose of Luke's writing is to reassure Theo and foster
conviction about what he was taught, the claims made for the actual narrative are that it is new and orderly - not accurate. In other words, all that Luke actually says is that he shows a possible Jesus.
Perhaps Mark intended no more contribution to history than that. He just doesn't say.
ETA
davefoc
Not sure I understood why eight bits brought this up as a counter example. It seems like he wrote fiction about real people.
Plutarch wrote mixed fact and fiction about both real people who lived in his lifetime and also about other figures whom he could not possibly know whether they were real or not. Moreover, the claim that was being countered back then was that an obvious and widely used literary technique was supposedly unprecedented, and Plutarch was kind enough to discuss his technique, not just tell his stories.
In short, Plutarch is a confirming example for the availability of several hypotheses about Mark's literary motives. Also, the precise genre of
Mark may well be what is called a "life," distinct from both what we would call history and biography, with the prototypical instance of the genre being Plutarch. What makes
Mark's genre uncertain is what makes Plutarch's genre secure: statements from the author about what he is trying to accomplish in the work.
I hope that helps to clarify things for you.
