Mark’s Gospel is a highly crafted poem and eventually I want to show the structures of all its parts. Our culture has different conventions for telling stories and for writing books than Mark did, so his book can seem very disorganized to us. But whenever we have the feeling that it’s just a pile of paragraphs, completely at random, invariably what’s going on is that the narrative is built around a center of some kind, and we have to read it concentrically. Our culture favors a more linear style, and our “road signs” are titles, chapters, headings, subheadings, and so forth. Why heck, we even put spaces between words and use punctuation! (Ancient writers hadn’t thought of that stuff yet.) Such writing technologies are helpful for our more-visual-than-auditory culture, and make it easy to look up things in a book.
But few ancients were literate, books were hard to produce, and book technology didn’t yet include headings, subheadings, punctuation, and spaces between words, so most books would have been experienced by hearing them read, often by a reader trained and practiced at reading a specific text. I was ordained a “Reader” in the Orthodox Church in a rite that not only presupposed that I could read and read well, but also specifically exhorted me to familiarize myself with my parish’s books so that I could read them well for the people— because their experience as a congregation would be auditory, not visual, and the reading needed to be smooth and clear, even though I’d be reading from a manuscript that looked like this:
ms GA 032 is a 4th or 5th c— the “Freer logion”.
In a culture that didn’t have the writing technology of headings and subheadings like we do, writers, speakers, and hearers needed an aural way of keeping track of what was being said. A device called the “chiasm” was one very popular way of doing this. The name “chiasm” (sometimes chiasmus, in Latin) is related to the Greek letter Chi, written as “X”. A basic chiasm is an arrangement of things in an X—
A B B A
Two simple examples are—
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2.27).
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going”
Even a single word or phrase can be chiastic—
Abba a Toyota Madam, I’m Adam Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
—although these are usually referred to as “palindromes”. My favorite example of these is often found around the rim of the baptismal font in a Greek church—
—which reads the same backwards and forwards, and means “Wash sins not just face”.
The ancients delighted in such things.
Now, as I said above, a basic chiasm is just a simple X— a,b : b,a. But you could also arrange the parts around a center—
A B C B A
—and build it out even further—
A B C D E F G —H— G F E D C B A
—and so on. In this case it’s sometimes called a “ring composition” or “concentric structure”, etc. Sometimes whole books or speeches have such an order.
The important member of a chiasm is its centerpoint, and after that, its first and last members (A and A’). The center is the meat of the sandwich, and the bread keeps the mayo, tomato, and lettuce around the meat. But the meat is the main thing! So the center and the first and last items in the structure are naturally the ones that a person sensitive to chiastic composition will remember most. Not sure you can see this, but try and you’llgeta glimpse of how the Sinai Narrative in the Old Testament is structured.
Now, because we don’t tend to think in, to hear, or to read any but the most obvious chiasms, we can very easily miss the “point” of an ancient text, precisely because the author lodged it at the center— for the center is where we tend to put our supporting arguments, before we reach a conclusion. For ancient writers, the center is for the main point, and the support would be organized around it. You’ll see the importance of understanding the author’s method in the chart of Mark’s passion narrative that I provide below.
Now, how does this work in performance?
When a speaker understands his text well, and is practiced at highlighting its key terms as he recites it— and when his audience has the cultural competence to recognize a chiasm when they hear one— then everybody can process the argument easily enough. Yet the effort that it takes to do so also forces them to remember the point. How so?
Well, if you know or suspect that I’m reciting a chiasm, you’ll be listening for the midpoint. So I start, A B C D E F G. Now, you’re following me carefully, so as soon as I say F again, you know I’ve just passed the midpoint (G), and that what follows is going to be E D C B A. And when I get to A again, you’ll have a feeling of completeness and satisfaction. Ah, you’ll say— just so! But you’ll remember the midpoint, because you were listening for it and you had that Aha! moment when you recognized it.
Knowing that a writer (such as Mark) often writes chiastically can be enormously helpful when you want understand what’s important in a passage. At the end of this post, I will provide is one way of looking at the structure of Mk 14.1–16.8, Mark’s passion narrative. There are others ways of looking at it, but they tend to be similar or to work in similar ways. As you’ll see, the organization of these two and a half chapters is rather elaborate, but it’s quite lucid and clearly tends toward a single, very clear centerpoint, at which Jesus himself reveals the answer to a question that’s been with us ever since chapter 1 verse 1— What does it mean to claim that Jesus is “Messiah” and “God’s son”? I would say that, especially in context, Mk 14.62 is actually one of the most powerful moments in all of literature, and we’ll have to unpack it a good deal more, later on. But for now, let’s just look at its position in the narrative.
I do intend to come back to the theology and other considerations of this exceedingly dense and profound verse in the future. But because my friend Stefan Smart, who goes around performing the entire Gospel of Mark to live audiences, recently invited me to his Question Mark podcast to talk about Jesus’ trial before the High Priest (Mk 14.53-65), and because his viewers/listeners will surely want to see the structure I was talking about there, I’ll provide the outline here and now, in advance of that much longer discussion of narrative and theology.
As you can see from the structure, there would have been an advantage to discussing all of 14.53–15.1, including Peter’s betrayal, as a single unit. And indeed we couldn’t avoid doing so, to some extent— but not knowing the structure in advance, Stefan had already planned to have someone else discuss Peter’s denial later on. Which is fine as far as his podcast goes— but once you see the structure of Mark’s whole passion narrative, you won’t be able to unsee how everything converges around 14.62— the single self-disclosure of Jesus the Messiah, who is none other than Yhwh himself, Israel’s God, who is about to be enthroned (on the cross!) as the Son of Man, and who is coming to judge and to rescue Israel and— this is most remarkable, but you would have gotten it from reading the rest of the story, especially in its Old Testament contexts— the nations as well.
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What does Mark sound like in its original language? Here’s an audio file of me reading the Prologue of Mark’s Gospel, Mk 1.1-15, in the original Greek. Someday I hope I can get the entire Gospel into .mp3 format just for the practice, but that will need some time. Meanwhile, though, you can listen to this guy for the entire New Testament— obviously, he’s an American, and he pauses, at each phrase, but still, he’s fluent. Better yet, though the reader is a bit fast, you can download the entire Bible— Septuagint and New Testament— through this site. (For language, select Greek. It will then offer you two NT options; choose the Antoniades Patriarchal Edition; this is the text that the Greek Orthodox Church uses, which is based on the Byzantine textform. The Spiros Filos translation is in Modern. (You can also download the entire Septuagint in audio form there!)
In my own recording, linked above, I stumble in a few places, but it’s pretty much how you’d hear Mark’s Gospel read in church today. If you want to hear it in an actual Greek church, you can either visit one this coming Sunday, or see this video of John 4.5-42, the story of the woman at the well, read by a Greek deacon. (Would someone please explain to those Greeks, though, that loudspeakers— especially so loud they echo— destroy any sense of liturgy??!— Please!)
Here is a well-curated list of the various pronunciation options. As you’ll see, the “modern” pronunciation is the last one mentioned. I don’t know what drives academic resistance to learning from actual Greeks how they pronounce the New Testament that they still read in its original language, but that resistance is fierce!— and, I suspect, more than a little racist, and of course it stems from deep-seated anti-catholic Protestant bias.
It might be objected that the pronunciation of Greek has shifted since the first century. That’s true, but first of all, not actually as true as you might think— listen to some selections from John here in “Reconstructed Koine”. In any case, it was never as far from the way Jesus and his apostles would have spoken, as Professor Maurice Robinson’s rendering, here. For one thing, Robinson is very choppy and he slaughters the accents. I don’t mean his “accent” is bad, although it is; I mean, he pays little attention to the accents as they’re actually marked. He’s not as bad as some, but as a guy who teaches Greek, he ought to be ashamed of himself. Do people imagine that those diacritics are there just to make the text look more complicated? Jesus and the apostles most certainly spoke more smoothly than Robinson, and most certainly didn’t go around speaking American Erasmian, as academics do, and as the big Bible programs teach!
The manner of reconstructing the sound of 1st century Greek is interesting. What scholars look at, of course, are misspellings in ancient documents and sometimes also transliterations into other languages. These give us clues as to how people actually thought things sounded. The process is laid out nicely here. But the conjectures don’t always convince. That page, for instance, claims that “[οι] was pronounced the same as [υ]”. And it gives as an example, Papyrus 109.2 (ca. 100 AD), where “οιειωι” appears as a misspelling of “υἱῷ”, “to the son”. If [υ] itself was pronounced like [ι], as it is now, οιειωι would sound like “iiō”, just as it does now. But the page would have us think that οιειωι sounds like “uiō” because “οι and υ had not yet merged with /[ει, ι]/ as the modern, itacistic change”. I am simply not convinced by the examples given.
Some folks might be shocked to learn this, but— Koine is to some extent still a living language. Music and poetry are still being composed in it— although rarely and only for church— and the services of the Greek Church, which require no fewer than twenty-seven heavy tomes of dense print, chanted (in their entirety at least in monasteries), during the course of each year, are constantly in the aural horizon of the Greek people. And many folks actually do go to those services and listen to them and understand them. To be sure, not everyone goes and understands them all the time, any more— it’s been a long time since that was the case, and especially today as Greece is losing its culture just like everyone else— so there’s a great need to do the services in Modern Greek, painful as that may seem to some— and I get that! But still— if native Greeks have had a high school education, the Greek of the New Testament and the Fathers is not inaccessible to them. I relied on my Koine/Byzantine Greek to get around when I lived in Greece in the 80s and 90s, and it worked pretty well— partly, of course, because I could often guess more or less how to “update” it on the fly. But if Americans can understand “the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”, Greeks will not have to strain intolerably to manage things like, ὁ πατὴρ φιλεῖ ὑμᾶς, ὅτι ὑμεῖς ἐμὲ πεφιλήκατε. Or maybe if we can make sense of, “As thai haf writen and sayd, / haf I al in my Inglish layd, / in simple speche, as I couthe, / that is lightest in mannes mouthe’ (Robert Manning, 1338), they can handle ὅπως ἂν δικαιωθῇς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου καὶ νικήσῃς ἐν τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε (Ps 50.6). It takes work, but you can understand it, especially if you hear it often!
For sure, apart from the Scriptures themselves, the Greek you hear in church is mostly either the Septuagint or Byzantine— that is, patristic— Greek, but the difference between Byzantine Greek and that of the New Testament lies mainly in its more highly elaborated theological vocabulary— words like θεοτόκος (“Theotokos”) and ὑπερούσιος (“beyond being”), or in specialized meanings acquired by words like ὑπόστασις (“substrate” or “support”, but in trinitarian contexts, “hypostasis” or “person”) etc. And of course, Byzantine Greeks tended to use a much more, um, “Byzantine” literary style. But the grammar and the inflections of Byzantine are pretty much just as they were at the time of Christ and even centuries before. Heck, with Koine under your belt, you can even read Maximos the Confessor— and even St Photios— no illiterate he!— called him hard! But all you need is a dictionary and patience with his penchant for constructing 20-layer Chinese boxes. He’s not writing in a language other than Mark’s; he just takes that language to places you never thought you could go! The shift to Modern Greek came mainly in the post-byzantine era— in other words, it’s only a few hundred years old. So Modern Greek is to New Testament and Byzantine pretty much as Spanish is to Latin. And it was and is still pronounced like the Greek of the apostles.
Anyway, if you can understand Mark in Greek, it’s a great idea to download the files from a site like this one and listen to them at the gym or in the car or wherever, until you know it by heart!
So I’ve already said which pronunciation I favor, but just in case you’re still asking, let me say it again: Pronounce it the way the Church has pronounced it for just about its entire history, including the present. You’ll be glad you do.
Btw, why is it that so many recordings of people reading the Bible always have to have some schmaltzy, “uplifting” music in the background? Avoid that trash! Are the Scriptures so dull that we need gimmicks to make people feel “inspired”?? What, exactly, is this “inspiration” that we seek so much? I’m convinced all the producers of schlock like that are atheists, pure and simple!
Perceiving that the cross is God’s good news is not a matter of word studies on the use of the evangel*-words, but a matter of the narrative taken as a whole. The “punchline” of Mark’s Gospel, if you will, is the crucifixion— which of course would be meaningless, just another tragic story of a good man crushed by the Empire, had it not been for the resurrection. But Mark is pointing us to the crucifixion, and to its meaning, because that’s where the problem comes to a head.
That narrative understanding is what I think is missing from most of our preaching and theologizing— we imagine that, well, yes, Jesus (and we) had to go through the cross to get to the resurrection (and to the “kingdom”), but that was/is just an unfortunate detour, the career of the gospel in this evil world, but if we accept him into our hearts we’ll live prosperous lives in the present and finally dwell forever in Neverneverland or rather “the kingdom of heaven”, by and by.
That glorious existence was exactly what the Jews wanted at the time of Jesus— except that God’s reign was to be on earth and not just in heaven— and it was what the rebels wanted at the time of the Jewish Revolts. That Jesus didn’t deliver it is why the Jews rejected him, and why their children rejected the Christian message at the time of the Revolt. And ya know what? It’s what we in fact all keep thinking we’re gonna get when Jesus comes to rapture us to the sky.
And this is precisely the thinking that Jesus rejects.
Jesus announced that “God’s regime has arrived (ἤγγικεν)” (Mk 1.14-15), and he demonstrated it powerfully in word and in deed— but he invited others to participate in it precisely by picking up their cross, denying themselves, and following after him (Mk 8.34). He was vested, crowned, saluted, and enthroned as King precisely on the cross, having been lifted up and acclaimed there as King for everyone to see. The cross is the Messiah’s triumph, in the strange, backward logic of the gospel story. It is precisely to the cross— not to any “second coming” that Jesus refers in his answer to the high priest:
Mk 14.62 “You will see ‘the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’”
In Mark, that the cross is the climax and even punchline of the story is clear if you follow the story closely, but we seldom do that today, because we don’t often read the whole story all at once, preferring instead to chop it up into little fragments that we can then moralize about, and we mix all the gospels together into one general “story of Jesus” that isn’t so much apostolic as it’s just the one in our heads. But notice what Matthew and Luke do with Jesus’ words at that point— how they sharpen them, presumably because they found they needed a little sharpening for their own audiences. Mark’s Jesus had said—
Mk 14.62 “You will see ‘the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’”
—but Matthew and Luke have him say,
Mt 26.64 “From this point on (ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι)— you will see ‘the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power’ and ‘coming on the clouds of heaven.’”
Lk 22.69 “From now on (ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν)— ‘the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God’.”
What happens “from now on” in all three stories is precisely the torture and crucifixion of the Son of Man. That is the exaltation of the Son of Man.
In John the part of the trial relating to Jesus’ kingship is moved from Caiaphas’ offices to Pilate’s court, and in the end, Pilate very explicitly moves to “crucify your king” (Jn 19.15). It is then precisely on the cross that Jesus the King says “it is finished (τετέλεσται)”— that is, it’s complete— and it is from the cross that Jesus first “handed over (παρέδωκεν)” the promised Spirit (Jn 19.30). In all four Gospels, the cross is the throne from which the King of Glory reigns.
And of course you remember that astonishing exchange where Jesus announces that the Son of Man will be killed and rise— and then James and John ask to sit, “one at your right and one at your left (εἷς σου ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ εἷς ἐξ ἀριστερῶν) in your glory”. Throughout this whole section of Mark’s Gospel, the disciples seem to have the almost the same idea that we do— that suffering was/is just an unfortunate fact, possibly the career of those who live by the gospel in this evil world (but possibly avoidable?)— but as Jesus’ followers, we’ll get to dwell forever in the glory of God’s reign by and by— the only difference between them and us being that, as Jews, they all thought that reign would be here on earth, whereas we all think we’re going to “heaven”.
Well, and Jesus asks, Are you ready for my baptism and cup? and they say, We’re ready! and Jesus says, You’ll share!— and then adds, “but to sit at my right hand or at my left (ἐκ δεξιῶν μου ἢ ἐξ εὐωνύμων) is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared” (10.40).
The night before he’s betrayed, Jesus then duly shares the promised cup— “my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many”, at the Messianic Banquet (Mk 14.23-24). This would be a foretaste of the cup of suffering that the Father did not withdraw (14.36). But Mark doesn’t leave the thread about sitting at the “right and left hands” dangling. After notifying us that “the superscription of his accusation [was] superscribed, THE KING OF THE JEWS” (15.26), he goes on to say,
“And with him they crucify two guerrillas, one on his right and one on his left (ἕνα ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ ἕνα ἐξ εὐωνύμων αὐτοῦ)” (15.27).
—And if you read Greek, please note how carefully Mark uses the fact that Greek has two words for “left” to tie the crucifixion to Jesus’ response to James and John (he says εὐωνύμων), but not to the wording of their question (they say ἀριστερῶν).
The cross is when the Son of Man “came in his glory”, exactly as he said to the high priest (Mk 14.62). For as he explained to the disciples right before James and John asked their foolish question, “the Son of Man came . . . . to give his life as a ransom for many” (10.45). He did not come to “rule over the nations” in the sense of “lording it over them” (10.42).
The cross is Christ’s good news. Pick it up, deny yourself, and hang on it, and you will participate in God’s reign (or better, in his “regime”) (βασιλεία) forever (Mk 8.34-38); but be ashamed of the cross— and “of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he comes in glory” (Mk 8.38). Yet indeed, “some of those who are standing here will not taste of death, until they’ve seen that God’s regime has come with power” (Mk 9.1, translating ἐληλυθυῖαν as the perfect participle it is).
When will it have “come in power”? Jesus explains that to the high priest: “You will see ‘the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’” We avoid the implications of the gospel by imagining here that Jesus is referring to a “second coming”— especially one that “failed to arrive”, as the usual scholarly story goes, within the first generation. Such an idea assumes that the Church started out as a Jehovah’s Witness type of millennialist organization, which then wised up and institutionalized in order to control the masses, or some such. No, but from the beginning, the apostles were very clear about what this apocalyptic language meant on Jesus’ lips. The fulfillment of Daniel 7— the vindication of Israel in the exaltation of the Son of Man to power and dominion over all nations— took place on the cross!
The gospel is all about the cross! The eschaton had dawned where it was least expected! “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner: This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”! (Mk 12.10-11).
In fact all religion is about suffering. The uniqueness of the Christian message is that when we suffer in trust, aligning ourselves with what God is doing in his Messiah, then we actually participate with the Messiah in his universal reign.
When Jesus first began his career, he “came into Galilee, proclaiming God’s good news, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and God’s regime is at hand (ἤγγικεν); repent and put your trust in the good news” (Mk 1.14-15). When he said “is at hand (ἤγγικεν)”, did he mean that God’s regime is “somewhere nearby but not really here”, as we usually think? No, because the perfect refers to a present condition that has come about as a result of some an action in that past. We clearly see what’s going on when Mark uses the exact form later on—
“See, my betrayer is at hand (ἤγγικεν). And immediately while he was still speaking (εὐθὺς ἔτι αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος), Judas, one of the Twelve, was alongside (παραγίνεται)” (Mk 14.42-43). Judas was not “on his way”. He was stepping out of the bushes.
So it’s better to translate Jesus’ first announcement in Mk 1.14-15 as, “God’s regime “has arrived!” But how has it arrived? It has arrived— Mark’s whole story is that it has arrived on the cross. And it’s the same in all the New Testament.
Well, as far as I’m concerned, crucifixion is not any good news at all. In fact as “good news”, this “gospel” is not even believable— except for the resurrection. That’s why Paul says, “if the Messiah has not been raised, then empty is our proclamation; empty, too, your trust” (1Co 15.14). In the resurrection, God vindicated his Messiah, or as St Paul puts it, “established him as Son of God in power” (Rm 1.4).
But the resurrection does not abrogate the cross! No, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Ga 6.14). In fact the cross is the very heart of Paul’s “gospel”, and of the apostolic proclamation generally: “I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus the Messiah, and him crucified” (1Co 2.2).
So what’s the bathroom humor? Well, the Antiochia ad Cragum Archaeological Research Project (ACARP), which has been excavating an archaeological site on the southern coast of Turkey (not to be confused with any of the other “Antiochs” that dotted the ancient Middle East), has uncovered two mosaics from around AD 100— somewhat over a century after the Gospels were written— in the remains of the ruin’s public latrine.
One of the mosaics (see above) depicts Ganymede, a beautiful Trojan boy whom Jupiter kidnapped so as to have him as his cupbearer and concubine. Ganymede is today often portrayed as a god, or at least as an example, of gay love. Usually, he’s depicted with a stick and a hoop, which suggest youth and boyish innocence. This game of hoop and stick been popular for a long time and pretty much everywhere. I remember it from Dick and Jane, and saw kids playing it all over Africa.
In the newfound mosaic, though, Ganymede has a stick with a sponge on the tip, and no hoop. The Smithsonian writer opines that this was “possibly so he could clean the latrines”. Meanwhile, Jupiter is depicted in the scene as a heron(?— he should be an eagle), suggestively sponging Ganymede’s derrière with another stick-and-sponge in his long beak.
But why on earth would Ganymede be cleaning a latrine??
Well, the writer apparently wasn’t very familiar with Roman toilet hygiene. The sponge-on-a-stick had the purpose of toilet paper, today.
Just as soldiers today carry toilet paper, every Roman soldier carried a sponge. Put the sponge on a stick, dip it in spoiled wine or vinegar, and use it to wipe oneself. Or, have a slave do it for you. But if you don’t have a slave— well, with a stick, you still don’t have to touch anything. What Jupiter’s intentions were in playing slave to his Ganymede would suggest a topic of ribald humor in every age. But in a latrine, the sponge was likely to have been shared.
I mention this discovery here, and am grateful for it, because it gives us a very important insight into, and even an “icon” of what Mark is referring to when he writes,
’34 . . . . and at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
35 Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, “Look, He is calling for Elijah!”
36 Then someone ran and having filled a sponge with vinegar [and] put it on a reed, gave him a drink, saying, “Let it go! Let’s see if Elijah will come to take him down.”’
(Mark 15.35-36)
Ever wonder why there’d be vinegar at the site of the crucifixion?— or why indeed Jesus’ mockers would need a stick to offer the vinegar to him, given that crosses weren’t much taller than the men nailed to them?
Well, here’s why: There had to be guards to watch over a crucifixion until the victim died, and they couldn’t leave until death came, which might take some days. In fact this would have been one of the reasons they crucified Jesus along with two guerrillas— no need to waste manpower on serial crucifixions if you can do them in batches— especially as the presence of a centurion (captain of a hundred) suggests that Jesus’ crucifixion was heavily guarded; after all, both he and the guerrillas had friends! You’ll recall that Pilate asks precisely “the centurion” for confirmation when Joseph of Arimathea requests Jesus’ body (Mk 15.44-45). Now, those guards might need to attend to personal needs during their long watch, so they would bring their toilet kits. Hence the sponge, the stick, and the spoiled wine.
Mark’s clever bystander was not acting out of compassion, as commentaries often say. Mark’s readers would have immediately recognized what the sponge-and-stick combo was for.
A twinge of fear and bad conscience has led another bystander to suggest, nervously, that now, finally, Malachi’s Elijah (Mal 3.22 / 4.5) might just show up. But the guy with the stick says, “Aw, leave it”— and adds yet another insult.
In Mark’s story, this is the final and ultimate act of degradation. There’s nothing worse they can do to Jesus at this point, and so, having drunk the cup to its dregs— compare Mark 10.38–39; 14.23, and of course 14.36— “Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last” (Mk 15.37).
And from a Roman town in Turkey, we now have an “icon” of the sponge-and-stick. Very useful in explaining the Passion Narrative in the Gospels!
About ten years after Mark wrote his Gospel, Matthew used Mark’s Gospel to compose a new Gospel. In fact, more than 90 percent of Mark appears in Matthew— often word-for-word, but also often generally simplified and summarized. So what was Matthew up to? Why did he even bother? Well, brilliant as Mark is, Matthew was facing a new situation. Though he stood in the same events, he was looking at a different horizon.
Writing just before the Roman legions destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD, Mark was specifically addressing an audience in Palestine that was, at that very moment, hard-pressed to join the Jewish Revolt. With six legions amassed against Jerusalem and famine and civil war raging inside its walls, it was clear that unless God intervened, the Romans would indeed destroy the Holy City and God’s House once and for all. But many prophets were saying he would indeed finally act! When would the light would dawn, except in darkest night?!
But were they right? What side to choose??
“Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I Am’ and will deceive many. . . . do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet. . . . the good news must first be proclaimed to all the nations” (Mk 13.5-10). The destruction of Jerusalem will come, but will not be the end, because God’s reign has to be extended to the whole world.
By contrast, Matthew’s audience is not faced with any pressure to join the Jewish Revolt; he’s writing in Antioch in Syria ten years after it was suppressed, and the Temple’s destruction is already a fact of the past. For him what’s relevant about that disaster is how it’s led to the now-ongoing spread of the Good News to “all the nations”— just as Jesus said— of which Antioch is an example. He’s rewritten Jesus’ speech on the destruction of the Temple in Mark to address the troubles and persecutions that the Church is facing in this new context. If Mark wrote about “the beginning of the good news” (Mk 1.1), Matthew is writing about how it spread to the world— but not quite in the same way as Luke will, in another ten years or so.
Also, Mark is all but entirely narrative— an action thriller, if you will— and the apostolic generation is rapidly dying out. Matthew apparently wanted to include more of Jesus’ teachings, which apparently existed in some form but not as part of a formalized “Gospel” (remember, so far there’s only one Gospel, and that’s Mark). So he adds the sermon on the mount and a ton of other teaching material— making the book half again as long— and, while doing so, shifts some of Mark’s episodes or sayings around a bit to bring out some of his own didactic emphases. There’s no disrespect to either evangelist in pointing this out. This is only to describe the literary relationship between the two writers and their Gospels.
When it comes to Mt 24— Jesus’ discourse on the destruction of the Temple— Matthew describes that destruction in terms of Old Testament prophecies. Mark, of course, has already done this in his chapter 13, and indeed Matthew’s audience still needed (as we still need) to understand that catastrophe properly— i.e., in terms of how it fit in to the grand sweep of Israel’s history. So, as far as that goes, much of Matthew’s version is drawn word-for-word from Mark, and where it isn’t, Matthew has mostly just smoothed out Mark’s rougher Greek. But he does makes some tweaks, because he’s interested in Jesus’ announcement of the Temple’s destruction not just as a historical curiosity (“Oh look, Jesus predicted it, gee wasn’t he divine!”)— but as something directly helpful for his own audience.
Mark tells of how, right after Jesus left the Temple for the last time, he sat on the mountain opposite it (readers should have in mind Ez 11.22-23, the moment God abandoned the Temple in the OT), and announced its destruction— “not one stone will be left on another” (13.3). At this, the disciples ask, “When will these things be? And what will the sign be, when all these things will be ended up (synteleisthai συντελεῖσθαι)?” (13.4) (I’m using “ended up” because there are three words in play here, telos and synteleisthai (v.) or synteleia (n.), but translations say all kinds of things— “end”, “fulfill”, “complete”, “finish”— but we need to hear how they echo each other. So: end, and end up.) The disciples’ question in Mark is about the Temple’s destruction, very pressing to Mark’s audience, and when they ask how things will be “ended up”, they’re referring to what Jesus has just said about the end of the Temple, not to the end of the age.
Matthew rewrites this— “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your parousia and of the end-up of the age?” (24.3).
Parousia (παρουσία) does not mean “coming”, much less any “second coming”, but the presence or residence (literally, the being-near) of the emperor in a given city. Our Bible translations are simply wrong to translate parousia as “coming”! Matthew does not talk about any “second coming”; at the end of his Gospel, Jesus does not ascend to heaven but reassures his disciples, “I am with you all days, even unto the ending-up of the age (synteleias tou aionos συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος)” (28.20— using the same phrase as here in 24.3). We find the story of the ascension and the promise of a “coming [again]” only in Luke 24.51 and Acts 1.11, and Luke uses eleusetai ἐλεύσεται, not parousia. In the New Testament, the ascension belongs to Luke’s specific narrative and theology. Of course, the Church later reflects on all the Gospels at once and speaks from all of them together in the light of her living experience of the living Christ, but that’s not yet the case inside the Gospels— the four different narratives are only in the process of being written. So, in Matthew, the disciples are asking, What will be the sign of your residence as King? And the ending-up, on the other hand, is not that of the Temple, as in Mark, but, specifically, that of the present age as a whole. In fact the destruction of the Temple had turned out not to be the end of the world— just as Jesus had said— but then, how will it end?
So, changes: Where Mark’s Jesus said, “they will hand you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and stand before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them” (13.9)— Matthew’s Jesus doesn’t mention synagogues, but only that “they will hand you over to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (24.9).
Matthew does use Mark’s saying about witnessing before synagogues, but he puts it into Jesus’ instructions to the Twelve, as he sends them out for the first time (10.17-18). In that context, Jesus warns them, “They will hand you over to councils and scourge you in their synagogues; you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the nations” (10.18). In Mark’s version of this commission (6.7-11), there is no mention of being handed over or scourged, or of governors and kings— but persecutions by both civil and religious authorities are the reality that Matthew’s Christians are facing. So when Matthew’s Jesus gives the Twelve their commission, he does so in a way that will culminate at the end of the Gospel with a command to teach “all the nations” (28.19-20).
Even inside the speech on the destruction of the Temple, where Mark’s Jesus does say, “the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations” (13.10), Matthew’s Jesus emphasizes, “this good news of [God’s] reign will be proclaimed in all the inhabited [earth] as a witness to all the nations, and then the end (telos τέλος) will come” (24.14). By adding mention of the “end” here, Matthew again ties the speech not only to the disciples’ initial question about the “ending-up of the age” (24.3), but also to the final horizon of Gospel, when the risen Messiah tells his disciples, “make disciples of all nations. . . . and behold, I am with you always, to the ending-up of the age” (28.19-20, cp 24.3). In Mark, Jesus told the disciples that wars and earthquakes would not be the end, because the good news must first be proclaimed to all the nations (13.5-10). In Matthew, Jesus talks about the end as something that happens after the good news is proclaimed. Same thing, but the perspective has slightly shifted.
Again, Matthew heightens the evangelical implications of the persecutions, by inserting into Mark’s account of Jesus’ speech the words, “If they say to you, ‘Look, he’s in the desert!’— don’t go out; or ‘Look, he’s in the inner rooms!’— don’t believe it; for as lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the parousia of the Son of Man be” (24.26-27). The parousia of the Son of Man will be like lightning shining from east to west, obvious to the whole world, and not some secret teaching by a separatist sect. What will this look like?
Well, we see the same missional emphasis with mention of “the tribes of the earth” in 24.28-30, amid a dazzling tour-de-force that describes the Son of Man “coming (erchomenon ἐρχώμενον) on the clouds in power by referring all at once to Dn 7.13–14,18, Is 13.10, Ez 32.7, Jl 2.10,31, 3.15, and Zc 12.10,14. After he “comes in power”, then “he will send his messengers (angeloi ἄγγελοι) with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (24.31). Now, if you want to know what Matthew thinks what the Son of Man’s coming in power is about, read Daniel 7.13-14,18, where the Son of Man comes up to the throne of God and is given dominion over all nations, along with Mt 26.64, where Jesus tells the High Priest, “from this moment (ap’ arti ἀπ’ ἄρτι) you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven”, along with and 27.27-53, his enthronement. That Jesus said his crucifixion was the coming-in-power of the Son of Man was of course already what Mark had reported, but Matthew underscores it with his expression, “from this moment”. Just in case you missed the point! And the “messengers” that he sends out to the ends of the earth? Those would be those whom the risen Son of Man charged to “Go . . . . and make disciples of all the nations” (28.19).
Deflates a lot of misunderstandings, doesn’t it. Oh well.
Mark has the Jewish Revolt in mind; Matthew, the mission of the Church to all the nations. Each is dealing with the prominent fact of Church life in his own circumstances. And you see (I’m now responding to someone whose challenge inspired this post), paying careful attention to the actual Text— which is all that scholars try to do, really— does in fact help you to understand the “discrepancies” in the Bible without resorting to explanations like, “Matthew lied”, or “Mark got it wrong”. All four Gospels are perfect, and there are no “contradictions”. We ought to know that if we come up with answers like tht, we’re either asking the wrong question, viewing the matter in the wrong framework, or we haven’t dug deep enough. The very idea that the Gospels could be “wrong”—!!
God commands us to forgive debts and trespasses, and he does so himself, simply by saying, “I forgive you.” We don’t need to demand appeasements before we’re forgiven. We are to forgive, in fact, “seventy times seven times”, just because our brother comes to us and asks for it. Would God behave less kindly to us than we would to our own children? Do we need our “wrath” to be “appeased” before we forgive them?
In the Gospels we see that the eschatological remission of sins that John the Baptist proclaimed as imminent (Mk 1.4) actually arrived in Jesus’ healing ministry— he says to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are remitted” (Mk 2.5). And it’s done— they’re remitted! But there is nothing about how sin was forgiven at the other end of the Gospel, when Jesus goes to the cross. There doesn’t need to be, because he’s already forgiven sins. The cross is his enthronement as Israel’s— and the world’s— King and Lord.
The fathers of the church had exactly the perspective. Sin is easy— just forgive, and it’s done. The habits (“passions”, in patristic parlance) that lead to sin— lust, greed, anger, pride, and so forth— are harder, because they must be addressed not by forgiveness but by a program of healing. That’s what the “mysteries” (i.e., sacraments), fasting, prayer, confession, almsgiving, Lent, asceticism, and all those things are about— to soften our hard hearts, to restrain and retrain our responses, to transform our relationships. And since those are the passions of death, this is already the beginning of our conscious, voluntary, and intentional participation in the resurrection. “We are buried with him by baptism into death: that just as the Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Rm 6.4-6). These lines from Paul sum up the whole of patristic teaching.
It was Adam who fell, so it’s Adam who has to get up. But (obviously) the problem is, he can’t, because he’s dead! So as Paul says, the Messiah went down into death to Adam to bring him life— and that new life, by the way, is God’s Own life, not just a restoration to the previous kind of life Adam had previously enjoyed. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Messiah Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you” (Rm 8.11). The Messiah has become our New Adam— “as in Adam all die, so also in the Messiah shall all be made alive” (1Co 15.22); “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-creating spirit” (1Co 15.45).
In the final analysis, Jesus’ ministry was one of healing from beginning to end. By a word he healed the paralytic first of his sins, setting him uncondemned before the Father; then he healed him of his paralysis, restoring him to community and creativity; and now by his commandments and mysteries (“sacraments”) he heals those who follow him of their passions and evil habits, transforming their relationships with heaven, earth, and man; and finally, by his death and resurrection, he heals us all of death itself. And when death, “the last enemy”, is finally and absolutely overcome by his final appearance (1Co 15.26), “God will be all in all” (1Co 15.28; Ep 1.23), and “creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of God’s children” (Rm 8.20-21).
“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of covenant membership* reign in life through the one man Jesus, the Messiah” (Rm 5.17).
*This is the meaning of dikaiosynē (δικαιοσύνη) “righteousness” in St Paul.
After Jesus and the three disciples descended from the mount of transfiguration (Mk 9.9-13), they encountered a man who had brought his demon-possessed son for healing— but the disciples had failed to cast it out. The episode turns on the man’s anguished cry, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” Jesus almost scoffs at him with indignation— “This ‘If you can’!— All things are possible for one who trusts” (9.22-23). After Jesus casts out the demon, the disciples ask, “Why couldn’t we do it?” and Jesus replies, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer” (9.28-29). Later manuscripts say “prayer and fasting” but, apart from the mere fact that that’s apparently not the original reading, this seems contrary to Jesus’ point, that the disciples’ authority over demons is based on their connection with God, not on their “position” as disciples or their personal “spiritual powers” or ascetic exploits, or whatnot— and both trust and connection with God will come up again at the end of the subsection of the “Way” that follows (9.30–10.31).
“They then departed from there and passed through Galilee, and he didn’t want anyone to know, because he was teaching his disciples and saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And having been killed, he will rise on the third day'” (9.30-31).
The disciples don’t get it and are too afraid to ask about it (9.32). Plus they have other things on their minds. When they get back home in Capharnaum, Jesus asks them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” Dumb as they are, they know when to keep quiet, because they can see they’re in for a licking this time— they’ve been arguing about who among them was the greatest (9.33-34).
So at this point Jesus sits down and— your translation probably says, he “called” the Twelve. But “call” is kaleō and Mark says proskaleō— he “summoned” the Twelve. This is serious. But we already know that this is serious, because Jesus is sitting. In the ancient world, a teacher giving formal teaching would sit, and his students would stand, out of deep respect. So we envision the disciples standing with heads bowed before Jesus, the Master, seated in full authority. And he says, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all” (9.35).
In teaching this passage to my “Sixteen” in Uganda, I made them stand up while I spoke Jesus’ words from my chair. It was a powerful moment for all of us. Whenever Jesus sits, it’s always a sign that we should take what follows with the utmost seriousness.
Now, this entire section of Mark (8.22–10.52)— often called the “Section on the ‘Way'”— has four parts, each having this pattern:
Jesus anounces his forthcoming passion, One or more of the disciples spectacularly fails to get it, Jesus rebukes and teaches him/them, Jesus teaches all.
So, here, after Jesus rebukes and teaches the Twelve, there now follows a series of episodes and sayings on relationships— with the vulnerable (represented by a child) (9.36-37), with non-conforming disciples (9.38-41), with “little ones” (9.42-49), with each other (9.50), with wives (10.1-11), and with children (again) (10.13-16). In each case, Jesus emphasizes that the strong must yield to the weak, the privileged to the unprivileged, and the first to the last.
Finally, “one” arrives in breathless haste and immediately starts to flatter Jesus— “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit the life of the [messianic] age?” (10.17). This is the only place in Mark where we find the expression zōē aiōnios, “life of the [messianic] age”. “Eternal life”, the translation found in your bible, is by the way simply not correct; the man is not asking about “eternity” and certainly not wondering how he can “go to heaven when he dies”; he is interested in the life characterized as aiōnios, that is, as belonging to the aiōn, the “aeon” or “age” in which God’s regime will be established once and for all.
Note also his interest in “inheritance”, that is, in social advantage. We’ll get to that.
Jesus rebuffs him by saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, God” (10.18).
This is quite consistent with everything that’s transpired since he cast out the epileptic demon at the end of the previous section. In stark contrast to the disciples’ concern about being the “greatest,” Jesus has emphasized that the first must be last and be servants of all. And all glory is to be ascribed to God, not taken advantage of.
Many people have agonized over the christological implications of Jesus’ apparent self-effacement here in 10.18. But the problem disappears once we see that he is simply rebuffing the man’s effort to ingratiate himself and to gain advantage by bestowing an honor which, if Jesus accepted it, he would somehow have to reciprocate. Deflecting such flattery, Jesus effectively rebukes the man: Only “the One God” is good. Now, about you, sir. . . .
At first glance, Jesus seems to do little more than to quote some generalities from the Decalogue, and not particularly hard ones at that— most people don’t commit murder or adultery or even go around stealing or bearing false witness in court. So, from the man’s own point of view, he must be looking pretty good!
And of course, as Mark’s audience, we recall that in the controversy on divorce just prior to this, Jesus intimated that parts of the Torah were given as concession to human “hardheartedness” (10.5b). So if all that’s required for “inheriting the life of the messianic age” is to have a general commitment to the Torah (give or take a few “human” rules)— well then, the man is set!
Except for one thing. One of the statutes that Jesus cites doesn’t in fact appear in the Ten Commandments: “Do not defraud”. In fact, both Matthew and Luke drop this phrase, because they want to have Jesus quoting only the Ten in their stories. But Mark’s insertion takes us right to the heart of the point he’s making: In the Septuagint, the verb “defraud” (apostereō) refers to holding back the wages of an employee. Hmmm. Where’s he going with this?
Well anyway, the man seems to have missed Jesus’ point that “no one is good”, and cheerfully claims that he’s “kept all these things from my youth up” (10.20). And to be sure, he probably didn’t commit murder, adultery, and so forth. Yet the Talmud reports that only Abraham, Moses, and Aaron kept all of the Torah. So this man seems to think he’s in pretty good company, and probably just the kind o’ guy Jesus is looking for, so he can bestow an important inheritance in that glorious oncoming Age!
Well, Jesus looks at the man and “loved him” (ēgapēsen, related to agapē). This is the only place where Mark says Jesus “loved” anyone, so it strikes us as a bit odd— until we come to his later conversation with the scribe in 12.28-34, where the issue once again is the commandments of the Torah, and the verb “love” makes its only other appearance in Mark— the greatest commandments are to “love” God and neighbor. Mark is just being careful to show in advance that Jesus practices the “greatest commandment” even as he sets forth what this man who would “inherit the life of the messianic age” must do.
The man embodies the seed that falls among thorns in the Parable of the Sower— those for whom “the deceitfulness of riches, and desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (4.18). That he loves wealth and advantage is obvious from the fact that he’s trying to get more of it from Jesus. But Jesus’ love for the man contrasts vividly with this. The man seeks his own flourishing— and Jesus seeks his flourishing too! But, since the guy is choking with “the deceitfulness of riches, and desires for other things”, Jesus must prescribe a remedy! However pious he may have been from his youth, this man “yet lacks one thing”, and Jesus concretizes it for him in four distinct imperatives:
Go,
sell what you have,
give it to the poor (that’s where you’ll get the treasure in heaven), and
come, follow me (10.21).
The first command usually appears in healing stories (1.44; 2.11; 5.19, 34; 7.29), and that’s part of what we must understand here: be healed of the sickness of accumulation. The fourth closely echoes the call of the first disciples (deuro, “come”, 10.21, is the singular of deute, “come” in 1.16). And in this light, the second is really not so exceptional; the demand that an owner (10.22) divest his assets is not different from asking a fisherman to leave his nets (1.18).
But the third imperative is striking, and it shows how the therapy must be applied, and the benefit. The Torah enjoins not “defrauding”, that is, not holding back the wages of employees. Jesus stipulates more than that. The man must not just not defraud; he must positively distribute all his wealth to the poor. And why are they poor? Not least because they have been exploited and defrauded.
At this word, the man departs, “appalled” (stygnasas) and “grieved” (lypoumenos) (10.22). Mark’s word stygnasas recalls Ezekiel’s judgment on the rich and powerful of Tyre— “All the inhabitants of the coastlands are appalled at you” (Ez 27.35). We should recall his “grief” (lypoumenos) when we read of how the twelve felt “grieved” (lypeisthai) later on when accused of betrayal (14.19). But we should also recall Jesus’ own “sympathetic grief” (syl-lypoumenos) at his would-be murderers’ hard-heartedness in 3.5.
And the reason for all this grief becomes clear as Mark reveals what’s been at stake all along: the man departs, “grieved” and “appalled”, because “he was one having many properties (ktēmata)”. Ah ha, just as we might have expected. A ktēma is a piece of land, a farm, field, or estate (cf Ac 5.1). So with this punchline, Mark reveals the man to be a wealthy landowner, and ends the episode abruptly. Note that Mark does not say that the man is “young”, Mt 19.20, 22, or a “ruler”, Lk 18.18!— only that he’s a landowner who came to Jesus, seeking to ingratiate himself and to obtain “inheritance” and (further) advantage.
In Mark’s Palestine, landowners were the most politically powerful social stratum. And Jesus’ point is obvious. The man’s wealth has been gained by “defrauding” the poor. He is actually trying to bring his attitudes and his practices into God’s regime. He has not “kept all these things” at all— and he must make restitution. In fact, assuming that at least some of his wealth was inherited, he must even make restitution for his ancestors. For Jesus, the Torah and its supreme commandment of “love” are kept only through concrete acts of justice. A facade of piety confers no advantage upon the powerful.
“No one is good but the One God” is not a general theological principle that we may abuse out of context to “prove” that Jesus is “not equal to God”, or to show that all people are “born sinners”. It has a specific meaning within the text and social context in which it was written. In Mark’s narrative, Jesus uses the phrase to deflect a flattering attempt to claim the inheritance and the life of the messianic age as a matter of personal privilege.
Recall now how the father of the epileptic demoniac cried, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” and Jesus said, “This ‘If you can’!— All things are possible for one who trusts” (9.22-23). After the landowner departs, Jesus reflects on what has just happened, and returns to this theme:
10.23 . . . . looking around, Jesus said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for a rich person to enter God’s regime!”
24 But the disciples were astounded at his words.
But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s regime.”
26 They were terribly shocked and said to him, “Who then can be saved?”
27 And gazing at them, Jesus said, “With people this is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”
And the section ends where it began:
“Many who are first will be last, and the last, first” (10.31).
Gaining an “inheritance” in God’s regime has to do with the struggle for trust— for relationship— not for “faith”, if faith has to do with “believing” certain propositions— such nonsense is completely alien to Christianity. But are we actually willing to risk life and treasure— and certainly to surrender all unjust advantage— so that others may flourish?
Someone once said that love is “giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting they won’t use it”. But Jesus is teaching the disciples about giving someone the power to destroy you even knowing that they will use it— giving them that power when, by doing so, you can actually help them flourish in God’s regime.
Some of you may know that I have a degree in Buddhist Studies. So at this point I can’t help remembering the story of The Hungry Tigress, which is one of the Buddhist Játaka Tales:
While walking in the forest, three princes came upon a tigress and her seven cubs. Exhausted by hunger and thirst, the tigress was hardly able to move and looked as if she would soon die. The three brothers were greatly disturbed by the sight of this poor tigress and wondered what they could do. Of the three, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva (the future Buddha) was moved to great compassion and asked his brothers to leave him a while. When they were gone, Mahasattva laid himself down in front of the tigress, hoping she would eat his body and drink his blood. But she was too weak. Realizing this, Mahasattva slit his own throat, so the tigress could do so.
What we see here is that neither Jesus nor the Buddha are in competition with death. And compassion, even up to renunciation of one’s own life for another, is the supreme value even in cultures that have never even heard of Jesus, much less of the Torah and its “greatest commandment”.
So when Jesus said, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone” (10.18), was he saying he wasn’t divine? Does this prove that “all the great Teachers are the same”? No, not at all. This post is already too long to explore the reasons why that is— but one thing should be clear already:
We have to stop ransacking the Bible for “proof” of “non-traditional” theological theories, or for reinforcement of “traditional” but inhumane and cruel ideas about people’s “sin nature” and other such ideologies.
We need to start reading the story for what it is— God’s actual “good news”, shining out as clear as high noon.
From that reading we will get our answers about Jesus’ divinity and the other things that vex us in our postmodern age of pluralism. We will find, in fact, the place where the postmodern age and the messianic age intersect. Our only viable future starts there.
As we find ourselves emerging from fundamentalism, we begin to see that a straightforwardly historical way of reading divine Scripture is fraught with problems. Yet we still hang on to the assumption that the Scriptures’ main purpose is to provide historical information about the persons and events narrated.
That’s just not the case. For instance, as I’ve already pointed out, in his story of Jesus’ transfiguration, we find that Mark has fashioned a powerful version of a literary trope that everyone in the ancient world would have recognized— the apotheosis of a hero. Only in Mark’s usage, just at the moment his reader would have expected Jesus to ascend to the heavens, there to be forever enshrined as a constellation like Heracles, or as a star like Caesar, Jesus refuses his apotheosis. And if he refuses to go up to the sky, then he will have to come back down the mountain to the valley below. And if he does that, it can only mean he really will die, just as he’s been telling his disciples. But now we know that he will do so willingly; and that he’s entirely in charge of what’s going to unfold.
So, did the transfiguration “really happen”? There is no way of telling, one way or the other. We have only this story— which as we’ve seen is deeply literary— and we have nothing more— to tell us about it. So we have to find the meaning inside the story, not outside it, in history. We have no access to the history.
Scholars have come to appreciate that our sacred texts are literary through and through— and that only in the most rare of instances can they really be resolved to “history” in any sense that we think of “history”. This means they were never intended to “prove” anything historically. Archaeology simply doesn’t back up the OT as we once assumed; and in fact for much of both Testaments, the nature of the story itself pretty much denies us any independent corroboration. Look at how much of the narrative is concerned with private, interpersonal conversations between historically insignificant people. Can anyone prove that Saul’s father told him to go looking for his father’s asses? (1Sm 9.3). Was the woman who came to Jesus in Sidon a Syro-Phoenician Greek (Mk 7.26), or a Canaanitess (Mt 15.22)? Did the events in Jerusalem before Jesus’ arrest take two days (Matthew), or three (Mark)? Did the Transfiguration even happen?— there’s just no evidence on which we could build a case, one way or the other. So apparently building that case is not the point. And that’s the point we forget.
For modern persons, whether something is “true” or not is often treated as a question about scientific verifiability. Do we have external evidence? Supporting documentation? Can modern devices and methods verify it? Yet even where we have mountains of documentation, we’ve come to realize that any historical account entails point of view and a choice. Choose a different vantage point, or different key moments, and we’d understand the whole “history” differently. We all know how black people, and women, and gays, and Nikola Tesla were written out of the histories we tell, and we’ve begun to realize that those voices need to be restored.
The Scriptures aren’t even trying to give us “history”. Rather, they seek to communicate an experience. Of the OT, the subject is not “ancient history”, but what Israel experienced in her walk with her Creator God through the desert of Empire (to paraphrase Ezekiel 20.35). The OT is definitely not a report of events in the Ancient Middle East, but Israel’s own huge, sprawling story of the meaning of the history of Empire(s) in which she was caught up. For the narrative, a few examples were selected and curated, from a certain point or points of view, in order to highlight and convey that experience of God. In telling about this, the Bible aims to communicate the meaning of history— but the meaning of history is not the same thing as history itself!
When it comes to Jesus, the Gospel of Mark is our earliest and only source. Oh (perhaps) there’s another source, which scholars call “Q”— Q being an abbreviation for the German word Quelle, meaning “source”; but we have no evidence of any actual source document; the term “Q” simply designates those stories and sayings that are common to both Matthew and Luke, but which are not found in Mark. Whether this material existed as a separate written or oral source, or whether Luke just used Matthew in the same way that both he and Matthew used Mark, is an issue of debate. But Mark and “Q” together comprise 90% of the content of the Synoptic Gospels— and Q is not a narrative, but a collection. So it’s Mark who supplies the narrative— that is, the basic Gospel story. And— we have no outside corroboration for any of it.
And as to Mark— it’s already a highly elaborate, carefully constructed narrative in which events happen in formal series, for instance in A-B-C-B-A order (“chiasm”) or in matching sets of five, four, and three episodes— all of them told in a very carefully crafted manner, with microscopic attention to wording, and so on. History doesn’t happen in ABCBA order— certainly not again and again and again— and not in ways that can be expressed only by loading the account with careful allusions to the Greek translation of the Old Testament! From both structure and content, it’s obvious that Mark is a literary work from its very conception.
This highly literary work is our earliest and only source for “what happened”— we simply can’t get behind it. We have no outside information about the “historical Jesus”. We have no choice but to take the story we have on its own terms and to see what Mark is attempting to convey by it— and he conveys something other than a “blow-by-blow account” of Jesus’ “ministry”. He tells a story of Jesus. He gives us a literary account in order to convey an experience of Jesus.
Of course every literary work seeks to convey an experience of some kind— not primarily objective knowledge, even if it uses objective data in telling its story. Mark wants to communicate something other than “objective data”— as any writer of narrative does. But what Mark seeks to give us is the apostles’ own experience of Jesus. I hope to show you at length another time how the original ending of the Gospel— Mark 16.8— shows that he is perfectly aware of what he’s doing, and in fact is astonishingly brilliant at it. But when it comes to “objective facts”, we have no other source from which we could corroborate ANY of the “data” in Mark. So the “history” of Jesus, as such, is mostly indeterminable. We can of course make very interesting observations about how Matthew and Luke each treat Mark’s episodes in their own ways, in view of their own audiences and literary goals— and why they, and Mark, treated the common stories the ways they did. But none of this tells us “what happened”, for its own sake. Each is trying to convey the apostolic experience of Jesus, in terms they deem important for their own distinct and particular 1st-century audiences to get. And each is doing so on the basis of Mark, which is already a literary work, not a straightforward historical chronicle.
So if we want to find out “who Jesus was, and how much we can even really know about him”, as one of my friends puts it— we have no choice but to take the only path available to us, which is this literary one. But we are not left in the dark; precisely this literary work conveys the apostles’ own experience of Jesus!
As to whether Mark’s main figure (Jesus) really existed (people have often asked me this question), well, we can read Ehrman or NT Wright or just about any other reputable scholar on that question; they will all tell you that we have more evidence for the (mere) “existence” of Jesus than we do for Caesar or Alexander the Great. And yet nobody has any problem with Caesar’s “existence”; we simply take it for granted. But of Jesus, it is claimed that he was the Messiah, Savior, Incarnate Son, and so forth, and our attitude toward him has to do with how we think of the ultimate meaning and destination of our lives. So, denying Caesar’s existence would be a meaningless waste of time, but denying Jesus’ existence would mean we refuse to accept that he embodies the ultimate meaning and destination of our lives. Well, let the arguments rage— why not?— but let’s be aware of what we’re doing, when we argue passionately against an existence for which we have more evidence than for any other in antiquity.
At the end of the day, the Gospels aren’t interested in the mere history or activities of a historical figure named Jesus, but in the apostles’ own earth-shattering experience of one whom they recognized as the Lord of their faith. They aim to show us why and how they recognized him as God’s unique Anointed One, and what that turned out to mean for them. And they seek to convey this in such a way that confronts us with the same choice they faced: Do I align myself with this Jesus? Are his priorities, my priorities? Was he right about the nature of the world, of religion, of Empire?— or was the High Priest right, or Pilate, or ultimately, Caesar the one who got it right?
It would of course be exceedingly foolish, even insane, to align ourselves with a crucified failure. Except for one thing— this crucified failure was “declared Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rm 1.4). In other words, God backed him up, and not Caesar. If you can believe it. And Mark has a really interesting way of showing that you do, in the last verse of his story (16.8). In a future post, I’ll explain that.
But that’s the meaning we are confronted with, in the Gospels. Their one and only purpose is to convey a challenge. And it’s a very practical one, with practical consequences:
“You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But— It. Is. Not. Thus among you” (Mk 10.42-43; the Greek is quite emphatic).
We have read the story as a story, and the story communicates the apostles’ experience of Jesus. And in entering into the story, we find ourselves asking, Do I trust this? Do I align myself with this “Jesus”?
I often read, for example, that the Bible has been “written, translated, edited multiple times”, with the implication that it’s not really reliable. Because the question comes up fairly often, I thought I’d elaborate briefly on what the Text of Scripture is, that we use today.
The Bible really hasn’t been “written, translated, edited multiple times”. Modern bible translations are based on some 5000 or so ancient manuscripts that still exist, not on translations of translations. Some of these manuscripts (the Dead Sea Scrolls) go back to a little before the time of Christ, and by careful comparison, scholars can pretty much tell which of those that were written even many centuries later are reliable. News flash: All of them, although the differences are occasionally interesting.
Our earliest NT manuscripts go back to about the year 300, but we have no reason to think the texts were changed between their writing (between 50 and 100 AD) and the 300s; and certainly they remained stable after that. The church fathers who quote the New Testament earlier than 300, didn’t quote anything different, even though, obviously they were quoting from manuscripts earlier than those we still possess
Everybody agrees on the core canon of the Old Testament, which is known as the “Masoretic Text” (“MT”) or the Hebrew canon. The word “masoretic” is based on the Hebrew word for “tradition”— it’s the traditional (Hebrew) text. The “critical edition” currently in use— i.e., the carefully vetted Text used today by all scholars for study and translation— is based on one manuscript that was produced in the 900s, the Leningrad Codex. If you look around on the internet, I think you can find photographs of the original online.
One other
complete manuscript exists which is a few years older and almost
indistinguishable from the Leningrad Codex. This is the Aleppo Codex,
and it is currently being published but every “jot and tittle” has to be
checked and compared with all other manuscripts that exist, differences
noted and compiled, and so forth, and this will take some more years to
complete. When done, the differences will be of interest only to
specialists, but of course specialists do exist, so this is important.
You should be aware, though, that traditionally, the Christian Church never used the Hebrew Bible, but rather the Greek Septuagint— a translation of the Hebrew into Greek made by the Jews of Alexandria about 200 years before Christ. (It’s often referred to as the “LXX”, because it was supposedly translated by 70 experts; “septuaginta” is Latin for “seventy”, and the abbreviation is of course the Roman numeral, LXX, “70”.
The
LXX contains a number of books that are not included in the MT; as well
as other differences, some rather major. It appears that by the time of
Christ, there were at least two versions of the Old Testament in
circulation, one used especially in Alexandria, which became the
Septuagint, and the other used in Palestine and Babylon, which became
the the MT we use today. You remember that Alexandria was associated
with the prophet Jeremiah, and Babylon with the prophet Ezekiel. They
were aware of each other and in communication, but apparently had
different manuscript traditions, which nobody seems to have been too
worried about. Examples of both traditions are found (in Hebrew) among
the Dead Sea Scrolls.
On the basis of a comment somewhere in Josephus, there’s reason to believe that the number of books in the canon was meant to match the number of letters in the alphabet; since the Greek alphabet has more letters than the Hebrew alphabet does, there are more books in the Greek canon than in the Hebrew. You reach the right numbers if you count the Twelve Minor Prophets as one “book” (for they were in fact written on one scroll), 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings as one book each, and so forth.
For
the most part, the LXX is what the NT writers used when they quoted or
alluded to the OT, because they were writing in Greek. Thus, the
Christian Church everywhere used the LXX as its Old Testament, and the
LXX is still used directly (not in translation) by the Greek Orthodox
Church.
Early on, there was an “Old Latin” translation of the OT from the LXX, but later St Jerome retranslated it, and his translation, the “Latin Vulgate”, became standard in the West. Interestingly, he chose to translate the Masoretic Text, although of course the Vulgate also includes the books that were in the LXX and not in the MT, because those had been in use since apostolic times in the Christian Church. Psalms also followed the Old Latin because it was used constantly in prayer and people were used to it.
It was Martin Luther who decided to eliminate the “extra” books, which are now known as the “deutero-canonical” or “apocryphal” books— those that are in the Greek LXX and not in the Hebrew MT— from the canon. He didn’t have any particular authority to do that, but he preferred “Hebrew truth” to anything he thought was “Greek”, and for that reason, Protestant bibles contain only the books that are found in the Hebrew MT, whereas the Catholics and the Orthodox continue to use the same Greek LXX canon that the Church has always been using. Most people don’t know that the KJV originally did contain the “apocrypha”, and you can still buy the “KJV Apocrypha” as a separate book from google.
As to the
New Testament, everybody has always included the same 27 books,
although the Ethiopians include a couple of others such as the Book of
Enoch as well.
The NT was written in Greek, and most of our existing Greek Bible texts were understandably produced in what you might call “publishing houses” operated by the Greek-speaking Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire. There was an effort to correct and standardize the Text, but of course every scribe is going to make little errors, so there are occasional differences between manuscripts, occasionally they’re interesting. But of course we also possess many manuscripts that do not belong to this “Byzantine text-form”, and they tell us many things.
Above is a picture of the first page of Matthew as it appears in the standard critical edition of the NT. You’ll see lots of gobbledy-gook in the footnotes. That’s a highly compressed presentation of the differences between all manuscripts and an accounting of why the editors thought the reading given in the text above was more likely to be the original. Given that we have about 5000 hand-written manuscripts, you can see that there really aren’t very many differences. The text of the New Testament is quite well established. What you don’t see unless you’re an expert is that the differences tend to clump the manuscripts into “families”, so we can often tell the exact point at which a variant reading crept in. But as i said, most of the differences shown aren’t interesting to anyone but specialists— words in a different order (which you can often do in Greek without changing the meaning), spelling mistakes, etc.
There are a number of other books, the “pseudepigrapha” such as the Life of Adam and Eve and the Apocalypse of Isaiah, which were written between the two Testaments and after the New, but never became part of any canon (often for good reason). These are of interest, but they’re not part of any bible, except, as I said, for the Book of Enoch in Ethiopia and one or two others.
Scholars
of every church are interested in the whole picture, including the MT,
the LXX with its canonical and deuterocanonical / apocryphal books, as
well as the pseudepigrapha.
All of it is valuable for knowing about our origins.
And of course, some modern translations are better than others, but you can rest assured that the underlying text, at least,of all bibles is reliable.
In a recent Facebook discussion, someone concerned about women’s lack of power in the church said she’d found comfort in the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman who came to Jesus to ask him to heal her daughter:
“Here is Jesus being a racist dick, and she totally calls him on it. Then Jesus checks himself, repents, and changes his tune. From then out his ministry includes gentiles, pointedly. Jesus the man, Jesus the Israelite with all his own cultural hang-ups, shows us how to choose to give up your power, how to react when confronted with the power and biases you may have, and how God’s love is breaking down all the boundaries that power lets us make between ourselves and ‘others’.”
Jesus, in other words, was an ordinary man with “cultural hang-ups”. We have transcended those by now (at least those of us who are woke), but what makes him admirable was that he could allow himself to be set straight by a woman; if Jesus can learn stop being such a racist and start treating women properly (despite being a card-carrying member of patriarchist culture), then maybe the Church can eventually come around too.
This would seem to be the opinion of more than one person only. Apparently, the story going around today is that, like every human being, Jesus needed to learn justice:
Those Syro-Phoenician Greek women could teach Jesus a thing or two about social justice!
In researching this post, I found that even the Maryknoll Missioners recently tweeted,
“Jesus was part of his culture: prejudiced against Canaanites. But he allowed a foreign woman to expand his views. Do we?”
Are we really on the right track, though, when we think of Jesus as just “part of his culture”, “prejudiced”, or even a “racist dick” who then came to his senses and “repented” (of his sins!) when given comeuppance by a strong woman? Let’s do a double-take.
Every Episode Has a Context
The context of the story of the Syro-Phoenician Greek woman is the whole Third Section of Mark (6.6b–8.21)— sometimes known as the Section on the Bread— in which it plays a key role in Jesus’ self-disclosure to his disciples. To understand her story, we need to see it within the whole narrative where it has meaning, so this is going to be a somewhat longish post, but I promise not to bore you. The fact is, none of the episodes in the Scriptures are stand-alone, and the fact that we fail to understand them in context is the source of all our unnecessary problems with the Bible. So please bear with me; I think you’ll agree the journey is worth it.
Introduction: Exodus and Mission
As always in the first half of the Gospel, the introductory part (6.6b-30) of the Third Section features a story about Jesus, followed by a story about the disciples. Here, the story about Jesus is only half a verse long: “And he went around the villages in a circuit, teaching” (6.6b).
Now, we will need to know where this is happening. The previous Section (3.7–6.6a) featured several boat journeys, back and forth from Capharnaum and elsewhere. Jesus had gone to the land of the Gerasenes, in what was known as the Decapolis or Ten-City Region, on the eastern side of the “Sea” of Galilee, in 5.1-20. The Decapolis was a Gentile region; they even herded pigs there. From there, he went back to the “other side” from the Decapolis in 5.21, which would presumably have put him back in Capharnaum; but in any case this “other side” was Jewish, as we recognize when Jairus, a synagogue official, asked him to heal his daughter. From there he came to “his fatherland” (6.1)— presumably Nazareth (cf 1.9, 24; 10.47; 14.67; 16.6). And after that, he went “around the villages” in a circuit, teaching (6.6b), exactly as he had done did from his base in Capharnaum in 1.38-39. So as the Section opens, we may read his location as being in the area of Nazareth, or perhaps in that of Capharnaum. Most scholars assume that he’s working out of Capharnaum, because that seems to be his home base in general, but in either case, we know enough to know that the story is now unfolding on the western side of the “Sea” of Galilee— that is, in Jewish territory. That’s a key fact.
The introductory part (6.6b-30) of the Section features a story about Jesus, followed by a story about the disciples, so now we will learn of the disciples. To expand the reach of his ministry, Jesus begins to send the disciples out, two by two, whom he had designated as “apostles” in the introduction of the previous Section (3.13-19), empowering them to cast out unclean spirits (6.7). He instructs them to dress and to go forth as if for the Passover (6.8-9); when they enter a village, they’re to stay in one house until they leave— no looking for a better deal! (6.10)— and if they’re not received, they’re just to shake off the dust from their feet and move on— but it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day than for that village (6.11). So the disciples go forth, proclaiming that people need to change their attitude (“repent”). They heal the sick and cast out demons (6.12). Interestingly, though, Mark does not say they proclaim the arrival of God’s regime, as Jesus did (1.14-15); this invites further investigation, but it need not detain us here.
The disciples go forth (6.12-13) and return (6.29), but Mark interrupts his account of their journey— which he tells only schematically— with an extended and vivid account of the murder of John the Baptist (6.13-29). This story is fully self-contained, but Mark tells it as part of the disciples’ missionary journey, by having the disciples return and relate to Jesus all that they did and said (6.30) only after he finishes recounting John’s murder. Mark often uses this A-B-A form, known to scholars as an inclusion, to relate two stories that otherwise would have no obvious connection, and to get us to think of the one episode in terms of the other. There’s always a point of connection between the two narratives; here, the disciples proclaim a change of attitude (“repentance”), the very thing that John was proclaiming at the beginning of the Gospel (1.4-5)
When the disciples return and report on all they said and did (6.29), Jesus invites them to retire by boat to a deserted place for a retreat, “for there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat” (6.31-32). This verse transitions us to the body of the Section, and we note that Mark brings up the theme of eating.
The Body of the Section: Who Can Eat the Children’s Bread
5000 Jews Eat Manna in the Desert
Upon arriving at their place of retreat, they find that a crowd has already run there ahead of them (6.33-34). Out of compassion, Jesus teaches them. It grows late, and the disciples want him to send the crowd away to buy something for themselves to eat (6.35-36). Instead, Jesus orders them, “You give them to eat!” (6.37a). They protest— are they to go and buy bread (ártous ἄρτους) at a cost of 200 days’ wages for all these people? (6.37b). But he asks how many “breads” they have. It turns out they have five, and two fish (6.38). Jesus commands the crowd to sit down on the green pasture in battle array (“hundreds and fifties”, 6.39)— although Mark colorfully describes this “army” as a “leek garden” (prasiaì prasiaì, πρασιαὶ πρασιαὶ)— that is, as 50 x 100 onion rows (6.40). “And when He had taken the five breads and the two fish, he looked up to the sky, blessed and broke the breads, and gave them to [his] disciples to set before them; and the two fish he divided for all” (6.41). “And they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish, and those who had eaten [the breads] were about five thousand men” (6.42-44).
5000 is the size of a military unit, so even though they sat in “onion rows” of 50 x 100, it’s not surprising that Mark specifically says that the 5000 were specifically “men” (ándres ἄνδρες), not “people” in general (ánthrōpoi ἄνθρωποι). This is tantamount to saying “Israel, Officially Mustered”. What’s more, “Twelve” is the number of the tribes of Israel, and the type of basket Mark says they used for the fragments is a kophínos (κοφίνος), a kind that only Jews used.
The point here is obvious: Jesus has broken “bread” for 5000 Jewish men. Mark is underscoring that Jesus has provided “bread” (the narrative emphasizes this word) for Jews. The green grass recollects Psalm 23; the themes of blessing and abundance and other details suggest that this “bread in the wilderness”, which they ate until they were full, is both the antitype of the manna of the Exodus (Ps 78.19-29) and a type of the messianic banquet (Ps 72). The Messianic Age has arrived— for the Jews.
Yhwh, the God of Israel Himself Puts in an Appearance!
After they gathered the twelve baskets of fragments, Jesus “forced” (ēnágkasen ἠνάγκασεν) his disciples to get into the boat, to go ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismisses the crowd (6.45).
But why did he have to “force” them? Because it’s a windy day— as we learn a couple of verses later, when Jesus sees them “tortured in rowing”, because of this (6.48a)? But Mark doesn’t tell us this until he first recounts that Jesus had dismissed the crowd and gone up a mountain to pray (6.46), that evening had fallen and “the boat was in the middle of the ‘Sea’ and he was alone on the land” (6.47— and why is the latter obvious detail relevant?
From the mountain, he sees the disciples on the “Sea”, “tortured by rowing” (6.48). The wind is against them, and despite rowing all night, they make no progress.
If they are starting, as we’ve seen, from the western, Jewish side of the “Sea”— whether near Capharnaum or Nazareth— Bethsaida is to the east. They’re battling a “strong east wind all night”, as at the Exodus (Ex 14.21), but this wind does not turn back the sea so that the disciples may pass on dry ground. In fact they get nowhere.
Bethsaida, on the eastern side of the “Sea”, is a city of mixed population, in a mostly Gentile region. Jesus has constrained his disciples to go (alone!) to the Gentiles!
Is that what he’s praying about on the mountain? Mark doesn’t say, but “at about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the ‘Sea’, and wanted to pass by them” (6.48). If we’re to understand this in an ordinary sense, it suggests he was planning to let them struggle while he went ahead to Bethsaida, and would meet them there. Perhaps they need not have been so reluctant. But they don’t recognize him— in fact they’re terrified and shout, “It’s a ghost!” (6.49-50a). Jesus calms them by saying “I AM” (6.50b— usually translated, “It’s I”, but that misses the point, as we’ll see—) and gets into the boat (6.51). The wind ceases, and the disciples are astonished beyond measure, Mark tells us, “because they had not understood about the breads, because their heart was hardened” (6.52).
What an odd comment! But for the moment, we’ll just note that it underscores the theme of eating and bread, and that it refers to the previous episode of sharing bread. There’s something about that, that they failed to understand. Mark will develop these themes even further as we proceed.
Jesus’ “walking on the water as if to pass them by” has baffled interpreters perhaps since Matthew himself, who simply deletes the expression “as if to pass them by” from his rewriting of Mark’s account (Mt 14.25).
Of course, there have been plenty of imaginative (read: wrong) interpretations!— St Augustine, for example, says that Jesus wanted to pass by them, in order to get them to cry out, so that he could then come to their relief! (Harmony of the Gospels 2.47).
Sometimes St Augustine didn’t quite get it. Later on, St Anselm didn’t really help either.
In line with the 20th century American Quaker author, D. Elton Trueblood (The Humor of Christ), an interested non-scholar on the Internet writes,
“. . . . nonchalantly walking on water passing the disciples? That projects a sense of humor to me. One could picture him snacking on an apple or whistling as he went by.”
One could picture Jesus that way, but then one would have framed the story in purely sentimental and therefore meaningless terms. That Jesus!— why, he was the kind o’ guy that liked to do tricks with Nature itself, just to get you to laugh! Truth told, though, that isn’t much worse than Augustine’s solution. And my impression is that it’s probably about as much as we’re going to get from most sermons today— though I could be wrong.
Among academic commentators, some have fared better than others. There are basically three major approaches. Some say that Jesus’ “wanting to pass by” is how the event seemed to the disciples. In support, they adduce Luke 24.28, where Jesus “made as if he were going on”. But actually, even that is not about the disciples’ impression; Jesus is there observing expected social etiquette by deliberately expressing an intention not to impose. Here, as Jesus walks on the “Sea”, Mark explicitly casts Jesus’ intention in the declarative form: Jesus “came to them, walking on the sea, and he was wanting (kai ēthelen καὶ ἤθελεν) to pass by them”. Passing by them is his direct intention; there’s no dissimulation involved, and in fact the disciples respond not to his passing by, but to the fact that they think he’s a ghost!
Other scholars note that Jesus wants to pass by, but is forced to abandon his intention. He wants to prove his divinity by walking past them on the water, but he can’t make a full display of it because they’re afraid. He’s proving his divinity by performing a miracle, but they’re too scared to get it.
This is somewhat on track, but we need to understand it more deeply, and we can get to that understanding by taking the third approach, which is to discern what Mark is saying about Jesus, by telling the story the way he tells it. In other words, we need to grasp the web of allusions behind Mark’s discourse
The verb translated as “pass by” (parérchomai παρέρχομαι) has a broad semantic range and can mean “pass in view of”, as when Yhwh said to Moses on Mt Sinai: “I will pass by before you with my glory, and I will call by my name, the LORD, before thee; and I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and have pity on whom I will have pity. . . .” (Ex 33.19, 22; cf 34.6). Likewise, in 1Kg 19.11, God “passes by” Elijah on Horeb (1Kg 19.11). Interestingly, in that same verse, there was “a great and strong wind. . . . but the Lord was not in the wind”. In Am 7.8 and 8.2, Yhwh says that he will “never again pass by” his people in this sense; the end has come.
That this episode in Mark is a theophany like those I’ve just mentioned is confirmed by both the disciples’ terror (the standard reaction to divine epiphanies in the Old Testament), and by the way Jesus reassures them— for his words, “I AM, fear not” (egō eimi, ἐγώ ειμι, 6.49-50) of course correspond to Yhwh’s “I AM” at the burning bush (Ex 3.14; cf also Dt 32.39; Isa 43.10, 45.18).
But Mark is actually quoting the Septuagint version of Job. Marveling at how the Creator God eludes his understanding, Job says of God—
8 . . . . who alone stretched out the sky and walks upon the sea as on dry land … 11 If he passed over me, I would certainly not see him, and if he passed by me, I would not even know.
Job 9.8, 11
Job represents the Lord as walking on water and as “passing by”— and, for his part, Job, like the disciples in Mark, is uncomprehending.
Reading the phrase with this rich web of Old Testament associations in mind, Mark appears to be saying that Jesus “wanted” to “pass by” his disciples in the way that God “passed by” Moses, Elijah, and Job, but that when he did so, they just thought he was a ghost, even though they were “astonished beyond measure in themselves” at his power, once they realized that it was he who had been walking on the water (6.51).
But at this point, Mark says something really interesting. He tells us that they did not comprehend “because they had not understood about the breads, because their heart was hardened” (6.51-52).
Note the causal chain: their heart was hardened; therefore they did not understand about the bread, and therefore they failed to recognize him. The basic problem was hardness of heart; this prevented them from understanding about sharing the bread; and because of that they had failed to recognize Jesus precisely as Israel’s Lord and God. And the latter point is not exactly new news to them. They were present, after all, when Jesus forgave sins, which God alone can do (2.5-11), claimed to be Israel’s Bridegroom (2.19-20), and Lord of the Sabbath (2.28)! They should have gotten it!
Jesus has appeared as Israel’s Creator God, who apparently is making some kind of a new Exodus for his disciples. But the disciples fail to understand, so he gets into the boat with them, and he no sooner does so, than they end up in Gennesaret. There, as always crowds of people bring their sick to Jesus, and he heals them wherever he goes (6.53-56).
Which is all fine, and just as expected, except for one thing— they are supposed to be in Bethsaida! And Gennesaret is nowhere near Bethsaida; it’s still on the western shore of the ‘Sea’, in Jewish territory. They are not on the eastern side, on the Gentile shore:
They haven’t made any progress at all! More specifically, they haven’t gotten to the Gentiles yet. And, their reluctance to go there seems to have something to do with not “recognizing” Jesus. Now, at the beginning of the Section, Jesus had them dress for the Exodus (6.8-9) as they went to proclaim a change of attitude, heal the sick, and cast out demons. The exodus that Jesus seems to have had in mind appears to be related to sharing “the breads”. We should not be surprised to find Mark dealing with this at further length!
How = Who
In Gennesaret, almost immediately, a controversy arises with the Pharisees and some scribes from Jerusalem (this would be the “FBI”— the Temple is getting involved). The disciples are “eating bread with common, that is unwashed, hands” (7.1-5).
This is a controversy about the purity code. One of the chief purposes of the purity code in any society (and all societies have them) is to enforce a separation between “us”, the people who live the right way, and “them”, who do not. In Israel, the code separates Jews and Gentiles. Israel is “holy”; it is not “common”; Israelites therefore must not eat with “common” hands. Mark gives a long description at this point to the various washings that Jews do. Addressed apparently to a (mostly) Gentile audience, this description cleverly shows how different the Jews are from “us”— I say, cleverly, because this way of telling the story itself accomplishes for his Gentile audience the very thing that hand-washing accomplishes for the Jews— it separates “us” from “them”! So now the Gentiles have skin in the game too!
The scribes and the Jerusalem-based Pharisees have accused Jesus of violating the boundary between Jews and Gentiles, between God’s people and common humanity. In response, Jesus delivers one of the longest and most important discourses in Mark’s gospel (7.6-23). He is quite outspoken about how the Pharisees misinterpret and even abrogate God’s express commands. And as Mark relates Jesus’ subsequent private instruction to his disciples, he specifically tells us that Jesus has pronounced “all foods clean” (7.19). Some think that this is a marginal note that somehow got incorporated into the text; others, that Mark the author here breaks in to his story to speak directly to the audience— something he does nowhere else. Whether the note was preserved as if Mark had broken in like that, or whether Mark actually wrote it— in either case, its presence underscores how immensely important the issue was to the Church. St Paul wrote two entire epistles (Romans and Galatians) about it!
The Syro-Phoenician Greek Woman
All this is in the background as we finally come to the episode of the Syrophoenican Greek woman. Jesus has entirely set aside the purity code that separates Jews from Gentiles. Now he “arose”— note the resurrection language— “and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon”.
He is taking the disciples to what is most decidedly Gentile territory (7.24— see map above).
In Gentile territory, a woman approaches Jesus. Matthew simplifies and describes her simply as a “Canaanitess” (Mt 15.22), identifying her with Israel’s ancient enemies, but Mark describes her as a Greek, a Syrian, and a Phoenician (Mk 7.26)— that is, as a triple Gentile!— Moreover, she’s a woman. Mark is usually not this blatant. He is portraying her almost cartoonishly as a quadruple threat to Jesus, from the vantage point of the Israelite purity code.
A woman, a triple gentile, comes and begs a favor of a famous Jewish rabbi, directly challenging the purity code. And at this point that rabbi, fully conscious of his vocation as a leader and teacher, has only two choices. He MUST either ignore her or slap her down. Otherwise, he will not just lose face; he will even show that he is positively dishonorable, because he doesn’t care about the honor of his own people and his own God.
At this point, I want to pause and say something about purity codes. A friend of mine wrote that “purity codes are systems of fake boundaries.” But is that so? Despite what Jesus has just said to the Pharisees about “abandoning God’s commandment of God and holding to human tradition” (7.9), “rejecting God’s commandment in order to keep your tradition: (7.10), and “voiding God’s word through your tradition” (7.13), could we say that the purity code established by the Torah are “fake boundaries”— given that they were instituted by God? . . . .
So we see what was at stake with the Syro-Phoenician Greek woman. This conversation is not about setting aside “fake boundaries” at all. Those Jesus has dealt with in speaking to the Pharisees about their “traditions” in the previous section (7.1-23). This is not about prejudice, not about “Jesus being a dick”. In fact Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician Greek woman was very serious, and world-changing.
Now for her part, if Jesus ignores her, she will have no recourse but to slink away in shame. But if he engages her at all, he leaves himself open to a counter-challenge. And if she can top him, then he has to give her what she wants. The game is quite well known— sociologists call it “challenge-riposte”— and it’s common in honor-shame societies like that of Jesus. The form the game will take here is that of a “battle of proverbs”. She has challenged Jesus simply by making her desperate request. Jesus, who must either ignore her or make a suitable riposte, chooses to describe the situation of interest by means of a proverb, or at least by a proverb-like saying. If his opponent can find a more fitting proverb or gnomic saying to describe the situation, she wins. Can she do it?
He was saying to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
But she answered and said to him, “Yes, Lord, but even the puppies under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.”
Mark 7.27-28
We must note first that Jesus is not describing the woman as a “dog” or being a “racist dick”. When Chou En-Lai visited the USA and spoke of new economic reforms in China, a reporter asked, “Isn’t that capitalism?”, and Chou En-Lai replied that “The point is not whether the cat is black or white; the point is to catch the mouse”. Chou En-Lai was not calling capitalism a white cat and communism a black cat or vice versa. He was simply applying a proverbial saying to the reporter’s question, to illuminate the issue and to illustrate his attitude toward it. In the same way, Jesus is here just stating a proverb that’s sufficiently analogous to the situation, to make the point that God’s gifts are only for the Jews. Isn’t that the presupposition of the whole purity code, and of the scribes’ insistence on it?
But note that in proposing this proverb, Jesus specifically introduces the theme of eating bread, which was the topic of the controversy with the Pharisees in the previous episode, the very thing that the disciples failed to understand when they saw Jesus walking on the water, wanting to “pass by” them; the banquet he had made possible for 5000 Jewish men; and the activity for which there had been no room because of the crowd before that. Also, for Mark’s Christian audience, eating bread would have eucharistic connotations, and indeed, Mark will tie together the whole theme of bread and all that’s associated with it when he comes to tell of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples on the night before his murder.
We might also note, before we go on, that it was Jesus, not the woman, who has crossed the border into unclean territory. What is he up to?
The woman’s response, of course, is deliciously witty— she’s a true master of the game. And Jesus concedes. In fact he sought exactly this exchange; otherwise the proper response would have been to ignore her. Or rather, given the fact that people from the “coasts of Tyre and Sidon” are already coming to him (3.8), if he wanted to avoid such encounters, he shouldn’t have ventured into Gentile territory to begin with!
But Jesus allows the woman’s description of the situation to be the correct one.
Contrary to what some people are saying these days, the dog is actually in the background, not the foreground. Or am I being too subtle about this?
Mark hasn’t mentioned the disciples since Jesus taught them about how “all foods are pure” (7.19) and about what really “makes a person common” (koinoî κοινοῖ, usually translated “defiles a person”) (7.20-23). They’re still very much present, though. And the scene is being played out not in front of them only, but of course in front of the Church as well, which is Mark’s audience.
Since I’m writing this blog partly for an Orthodox audience (well, I can always hope!), let me add a comment about “St Photini”, the name that the Orthodox tradition has given to the Syro-Phoenician Greek woman. Or not— for in the first place, “St Photini” is usually identified as the “Canaanite” woman, from Matthew’s version. And Matthew and Mark— to say nothing of Luke and John— are NOT the same! Matthew of course is basing his story of Jesus on Mark’s, so there’s a continuity— but there are differences also, and we need to appreciate and respect them. That is precisely our work in reading the Synoptics. Otherwise we could just go with a Gospel Harmony, and be done with the hassle of different mismatching versions! But God has given us four gospels because he wanted us to understand the event of Jesus in four different ways.
And calling her “Photini” goes even beyond confusing Matthew and Mark. It positively re-frames Matthew’s version of Mark’s story as a bit of Byzantine hagiography— and Byz. hagiography has yet other interests beyond those of either Mark or Matthew! If we read the episodes in the Gospels within other frameworks, we don’t catch what Mark (or Matthew, or Luke, or John) is doing by placing a story about Jesus’ encounter with a triple-gentile woman and the threat she brings to a Torah-keeping rabbi of Israel at this point in his narrative. We Orthodox tend to read the Gospels within the generally moral and devotional interests of 10th century AD monasticism or thereabouts— and even this, we bring into our own 21st century context. That’s not bad, but we need to do it after we let the Scriptures speak with their own voice(s)!
And this means we even need to become very precise about how we quote the Bible. Not because there’s some Law that says you have to quote word for word, but because each writer was actually saying something very precise, and has made use of very precise words to do so. Don’t be fooled by similarities and by the writers’ seemingly informal prose! There is nothing haphazard in Scripture, and all differences are meaningful!
I can’t hammer on that point hard enough!!
Who Really Can Eat the Bread?
I mentioned that the scene with the Syro-Phoenician Greek woman is being played out not only in front of the disciples, but of course in front of the Church also, which is Mark’s audience. That includes us, certainly, but Mark would have had a more immediate first-century audience in view. What was the audience that Mark was writing for?
Eusebius (4th c) reports that Papias, bishop of Hierapolis (2d c) reported that Mark was St Peter’s helper in Rome, and more for lack of any other early testimony, this has become the standard view, even though it’s already at least a third-hand account:
Mark, Peter’s interpreter, wrote down from memory everything that was said or done by Christ, though not in proper order. For he had not heard the Lord nor had he been one of his followers, but, as I said, later became a follower of Peter, who adapted his teaching to the practical needs of the churches. Mark had only one purpose in mind: not to omit anything he had heard or to make any false statements.
Papias, quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. III.39
Personally I don’t think this is correct, and most Markan specialists don’t think so either. Eusebius is reporting Papias who got it from someone else, so this is third-hand information— and Papias— or at least Eusebius, who quotes him— Papias’ own works are lost— is known to have been wrong about other things as well. Personally, I’m troubled by the fact that he says Mark wrote down what Peter remembered about Jesus, “though not in proper order”. The actual events that Mark is describing may have happened in a different order— and if this is what Papias meant, but we’d like to know why he thought so. Did he have some way of knowing the exact sequence of events in Jesus’ ministry, apart from the Gospels? I judge that unlikely. Or is he just taking Matthew’s order to be the correct one, and saying Mark didn’t follow that? But we know that Matthew is an adaptation of Mark, and not the other way around. And few pieces of literature anywhere in the world are as well-ordered as Mark’s Gospel! Moreover, if you don’t recognize Mark’s order (structure), you don’t know the story he’s telling, which is why I have to take you through the whole Third Section to show you what Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician Greek woman is about. I don’t think Papias understood the structure of Mark— nor did Eusebius, who quotes Papias in this regard with approval.
The more common objection to Papias’ idea that Mark wrote down Peter’s “reminiscences” is that nothing at all in Mark’s Gospel strongly suggests a Roman audience. On the other hand, there’s a good deal that suggests Mark was writing for a mixed Jewish-Gentile church living in the Decapolis region (across the Jordan from Jerusalem and north a ways) precisely at the time the Romans are besieging Jerusalem, in 70 AD— perhaps Pella, where Eusebius tells us the Christians in Jerusalem fled before the Siege in 70 AD. They were already under persecution for not joining the Revolution. And Jewish zealots would have been very keen on keeping Israel “pure”, so as to ensure victory. And family members would have put enormous pressure on other family members to join the effort to free Israel of Gentile domination. “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name” (13.12-13)— for a single Messianic community had included both loyal Jews and Gentiles now for 40 years.
So— what is it to be a loyal Jew?
Can the “bread of the children” of the Promise be given to Gentiles, or even, ultimately, to Romans?
Can Jesus’ Jewish disciples have anything to do with Gentiles, or even, ultimately, with Romans?
Can Jews and Gentiles, and ultimately even Romans, be in the same Church?
Can they eat the same eucharistic bread?
These are the questions that seethed throughout the Christian church in the first century. Acts is all about them. Paul’s letters to the Galatians and the Romans are all about them. It’s no surprise that Mark is about them too. But what makes Mark interesting is that he is writing, apparently, right in the thick of the Jewish Revolution, watching as Jesus’ words are fulfilled: “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (13.2).
We should note that the aforementioned Elton Trueblood (The Humor of Christ) considers the episode of the Syro-Phoenician Greek woman to be another example of “Jesus’ humor”. The scene is, indeed, somewhat humorous, but it is in deadly earnest and the stakes could not be higher for Jesus, the disciples, or the Church. To stop at the witty aspect of Jesus’ counter-challenge and the woman’s riposte is to miss everything Jesus is teaching in this whole Section of Mark and hence in the Gospel itself. It’s appalling how we trivialize the Scriptures, but we do so because we fail to read episodes in the context of the whole book!
Well, and as I noted at the top, the alternative standard interpretation of this episode seems to have become that Jesus, the “racist dick”, was just “part of his culture: prejudiced against Canaanites”— but that he’s still cool because “he allowed a foreign woman to expand his views.” The not-entirely-subtle implication, of course, that we’re actually more cool than Jesus because we now recognize what he couldn’t, is also something we shouldn’t miss.
In fact we should be astonished!
Who Really Can Eat the Manna, Part 2
Well, ok, I’m borrowing the image of “manna” from John’s version of these bread-in-the-wilderness episodes: “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (Jn 6.31, 49). John, as usual, is headed in his own direction, but he’s only surfacing a theme that’s understated in Mark, so calling the bread here in Mark, “manna”, is legitimate— especially since, in any case, Mark isn’t finished with his Exodus yet.
After his encounter of the Syro-Phoenician Greek lady, Jesus and his disciples take a very confusing itinerary: “And going out again from the coasts of Tyre they came through Sidon to the ‘Sea’ of Galilee along the middle of the coasts of the Decapolis” (7.31). This is something like going from San Francisco to Miami via Edmonton and down the Colorado. But all the places that Mark mentions on this wild ride are Gentile or mixed, and the point is, they end up in the Decapolis, the Ten Cities region on what Mark has already referred to as the “other side” (the west) of the “Sea” of Galilee (cf 4.35, 5.1). The Decapolis has a mixed but mostly Gentile population. Upon arriving in the Decapolis, “they”— evidently, Jesus’ followers— bring a deaf and dumb man to him (7.32-37). In this Gentile region, we may infer that the man is a Gentile. In this extended and interesting story, Jesus gives the power of hearing and speaking to a Gentile. In the Bible, “hearing” is not trivial. Every single day, every observant Jew pronounces these words: “Hear, O Israel, Yhwh is our God; Yhwh is One!” (Dt 6.4).
6 Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. 7 Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbolc on your forehead; 9 inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Dt 6.6-9
So, immediately after giving this Gentile the power to be a son of the Covenant— still in the Ten [Jewish and Gentile] Cities— Jesus again breaks bread for a large crowd (8.1-9). This time, he doesn’t do it in response to the disciples’ insistence that he send the crowd away, but simply out of his own compassion. And this time, Mark does not specify that the large crowd consists of “men”, nor does he describe them with a military number. His neutral term, “about 4000” implies both men and women, Jews and Gentiles. Moreover, the number both of breads and of baskets of leftovers is “seven”, a number applied to the nations (the Gentiles) in the Old Testament (for example, 7 x 10 nations in the “Table of Nations” in Gn 10), and the baskets are spyridas (σπυρίδας), a type of basket used by the Greeks (each large enough to hold a man, as we read in Ac 9.25). And 4000 is a proverbially large multiple of 4, which is the number of directions on earth.
So then. We’re almost at the end of the long journey of the third Section of Mark (6.30–8.10). Jesus has taken the disciples— and hence Mark’s audience— on an Exodus from the Jewish shore to the Gentile shore, setting aside the purity code that separates Jews from Gentiles, and he has shared the bread of the Messianic Age with all who follow him, from whatever language or nation.
And Mark is telling this story just as the Gentiles have come to burn the Temple to the ground and enslave God’s people.
Conclusion: Surprise!— The Disciples Don’t Get It
The Section ends with the Pharisees asking for “a sign”, that is, for proof. And Jesus rejects them— “no sign will be given”— and gets in the boat and leaves them (8.11-13)— more or less had he had instructed the disciples to do when a village refused to hear them (6.10-11). That’s the conclusion of the Section.
But the Third Section of Mark (6.6b–8.21) is also the final one of the three Sections that constitute the First Half of the book, and the Second Half will be thematically and structurally quite different. So, fittingly, Mark adds a second conclusion that brings an end to the whole First Half with its multiple boat journeys and constant repetition of the themes of bread, healing, and casting out demons.
It’s not a comfortable ending.
Jesus and the disciples get into the boat one last time. Jesus warns the disciples against “the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (8.14-15). Mark tells us the disciples misunderstand, again because they didn’t get it about the bread (8.15-16).
At this point, Jesus positively unloads on them:
“Why do you argue that you have no bread? Don’t you perceive? Don’t you understand? Is your heart still hardened? You have eyes; don’t you see? You have ears, don’t you hear? Don’t you remember?
When I broke the five breads for the five thousand, how many kophinoi full of fragments did you take up?”
“Uh, twelve.”
“And when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many spyrides full of fragments did you take up?”
“Seven.”
—Gentlemen, that’s twelve kophinoi for the fullness of Israel; seven spyrides for the fullness of the Gentiles— such were the leftovers from the manna I gave in the desert—
“Don’t you get it?!!”
Mark 8.17-21
Jesus is very exasperated at these “racist dicks” of his (if you’ll pardon me), who just can’t quite seem to realize that both the Herodian path of collaboration with the Empire, and the Pharisee path of separatism have nothing to do with God’s regime; and who are still wrapped up in their own hunger, when they have the One Bread onboard with them.
At the beginning of the next Section (8.22), they will get out of the boat and leave the “Sea” for the last time. At that time, Mark will indicate that they’ve finally arrived in Bethsaida, the (mixed) Gentile town to which Jesus had sent them way back in the beginning of this Section, after the first feeding (6.45-53). Then, the disciples were tortured with rowing all night, but they could make no progress. Jesus came to them as God, walking on the sea as if on dry land (6.48-52; cf Job 9.8, 10 LXX), and led them on a long journey to show them that his bread was for both Jews and Gentiles. Now, as he gets out of the boat, he gives sight to a blind Gentile, and helps his disciples to see the Way they’re to walk as his followers (8.22–9.52).
St Paul distills the point this way:
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Ga 3.28
But do we get it? Do we still need to get it?
Seriously? We have heard, but have we yet seen who Jesus is?
And now a word about Bible interpretation:
My friends, brothers and sisters, PLEASE!—
When you find yourself thinking of Jesus as just “part of his culture”, “prejudiced”, or even a “racist dick” who then came to his senses and “repented” (of his sins!) when given comeuppance by a strong woman— know by that very fact that you haven’t understood the passage yet.
FIND OUT WHAT THE WRITER IS TALKING ABOUT !!
This penchant for taking our own fantasies, misinformation, and half-truths as truth—
traps us in delusion, mutilates our understanding, and destroys our relationship with God.
Sentimental ignorance, fantasy, and the failure to read the WHOLE STORY are the SOURCE of EVERY problem in the modern church!!
Scientific (historical) questions about Scripture episodes can lead to inconsequential answers at best, and completely wrong and misleading ones at worst— not because science is bad, but because it filters the object under discussion through the wrong categories.
Someone in one of the Facebook groups I participate in recently asked how we’re to understand Luke’s story of Jesus’ ascension, since trying to calculate his present location at a certain (assumed) rate of ascent obviously leads to absurdity. I responded that the only way for us in the 21st century to understand it, is obviously the way its audience was meant to understand it in the 1st century. We absolutely need to stop trying to read first-century, Iron-Age documents with Cyber-Age, scientific eyes!
Mark has no Ascension story, because his theological narrative doesn’t need one. (Some other time I’ll talk about why that’s the case.) It would be also be wrong to say (as I’ve read elsewhere) that Matthew, for his part, denies Jesus’ “ascension” when he has the disciples go to the mountain in Galilee that Jesus had specified, where Jesus meets and commissions them, saying only, “Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the age” (Mt 28.20)— showing that he’s not going anywhere! (“Aha!”, shout the critics. “Contradictions!!— untrustworthy!! lies!! they made it up!!”)— But of course, setting the gospels at odds with each other in this way is foolish; they tell different stories simply because they’re making different but interlocking theological points. But it’s still wrong to try to harmonize— “Well, Matthew left that part out; Luke only completed the story!” No, we need to appreciate the profoundly literary and theological nature of our Texts. Historicism is not our friend!
The story of Jesus’ Ascension into heaven is found only in Luke/Acts, so we need to read it as part of Luke’s theology, not as a scientific description of something that would have been accessible to anyone with proper equipment.
“But it can’t be just an idea, right? Because Luke mentions the disciples actually gazing up into the sky!” Well, as I said, historicism is not our friend. In Luke’s narrative, the disciples’ gazing at the sky confirms the ascension; but the ascension itself is already a literary device that alludes to Daniel 7.13-14— there, Daniel was standing in the celestial throne room and saw the Son of Man being brought up in the clouds; here, the disciples are standing on earth seeing the Son of Man going up in the clouds. The prophet’s vision is celestial, the disciples’ vision is earthly, but both Daniel and Luke are describing the same exaltation of the Son of Man (and that’s the point!)— “Dominion, glory, and kingship were given to him; all peoples and nations of every language must serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship, one that shall not be destroyed” (Dn 7.14). When the “men” (angels) in Luke’s story then rebuke the disciples for gazing upward, this also serves Luke’s point that Christians are not to look for heavenly visions, but to get to work on earth.
But does this mean that the Ascension is “just a story” and that it “didn’t actually happen”? No, not at all— because first of all, there’s no such thing as “just” a story— “everything is story”, as Muriel Rukeyser said. But more importantly, we need to understand that the exaltation/ascension of the crucified and risen Son of Man is itself what St Paul calls “mystery”— not something unintelligible, nor something that just hasn’t been figured out yet (scientifically), but something of unfathomable depth that can’t be put into a mere definition like 2 + 2 or even e=mc^2. Mystery requires a story; only by a story can we be introduced to it! And the story of the “Son of Man” which the evangelists are telling has a history, which is Daniel 7. Daniel 7 is about the mystery of Israel, of what the Creator God is doing with his world through his people. But this is beyond fathoming; St Paul says, “creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rm 8.21). Mystery is what we call that fathomless reality of God’s interaction with humanity that is to be experienced ever more deeply by those who trust in what God has done in Jesus, by raising him from the dead and exalting him at his right hand. So, what the Gospel writers do, each in his own way, is introduce us to what Jesus himself called the “mystery of God’s regime” (Mk 4.11), or what St Paul called “the mystery of Christ among you, your hope of glory” (Col 1.27). They give us the apostles’ own experience of Jesus in the language of Daniel. This is what we get, as we come to understand each of the Four Gospels in its own specific terms.
In his masterful study of Mark entitled, Jesus’ Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark’s Early Readers (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series; Cambridge, 2003), Peter Bolt noted that Mark’s Transfiguration story has the form of a classical “apotheosis” narrative— the hero takes his best friends to a high mountain, the gods or great heroes of old appear and converse with him, a cloud comes, the cloud departs, and the hero is no longer there, but has been taken to the abode of the gods / heaven and deified, leaving his friends astonished at his disappearance. This story is told over and over in classical literature, and it was even told of some of the Roman emperors when Jesus, Paul, Mark, and Luke were alive. So it was well-known all over the Empire.
Well, the shocking thing about the transfiguration story is that when the cloud departs, “suddenly looking around, [the disciples] saw no one with them any more”— so far, so good, eh? this is just what we expect— “but only Jesus” (Mk 9.8). Uh oh. Jesus is still there. He has refused his apotheosis. And that can mean one thing only: he will go back down the mountain to die, just as he told them in the immediately preceding episode. Jesus means business! He will not escape death, like the heroes in the classical apotheosis stories. And indeed the three disciples and Jesus discuss this very thing on their way back down. In Luke, the “heroes” (Moses and Elijah) discuss his “exodus, which he will accomplish in Jerusalem” (Lk 9.31). Interesting word, “exodus”. . . . .
Matthew and Luke do not deviate from Mark’s outline, but Luke ends his Gospel with a story that “completes” the “apotheosis” formula begun but aborted in the transfiguration narrative. He completes it in terms of Daniel 7, but on the way to doing so— unlike other ancient heroes— Jesus, the Son of Man, is crucified and dies. Luke’s purpose is to show that Jesus was indeed the Son of Man whom Daniel saw— and whom the disciples saw at the transfiguration— and that he was exalted precisely as Daniel had said— but that the way to such exaltation was not Hercules’ fantastic show of strength, nor Caesar’s impressive military and political exploits, but the Way of the Cross. In fact both Mark and Luke puts the Transfiguration (“apotheosis refused”) episode precisely at the beginning of their long treatment of the Way to Jerusalem (which is the way to exaltation)— in Mark, the whole of Section 2.1 (8.22–10.52), and in Luke, the entire middle third of his Gospel (Lk 9.51–19.44). On that journey Jesus explains and demonstrates by many parables and actions what he’s up to. He then arrives in Jerusalem and accomplishes his “exodus”, and is exalted in glory not by escaping death, but by dying.
That the Son of Man is enthroned precisely on the cross is the point affirmed in all three synoptic gospels when the High Priest asks, “You’re the Messiah?”, and Jesus answers, “I am; and you will see ‘the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’” (Mk 14.62). In fact, just to make sure we don’t miss the point, Matthew and Luke add a couple of words to Jesus’ response: “From now on [ἀπ’ ἄρτι] you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mt 26.64); “from this very moment [ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν— lit., “from this now”] the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God’s power” (Lk 22.69). What the High Priest is going to see “from this very moment” onward is precisely Jesus enthroned— and he will see him on a cross!
Only after dying on a cross does Jesus, the Son of Man, complete his apotheosis by “ascending to heaven”, the place of God (cf, eg, Ps 115.16), fulfilling Daniel’s prophecy. But as the “men” (angels) of Acts 1.10-11 assure the disciples, precisely because God has exalted him, he now in a position to come again— not to “rapture” us (that idea is less than 200 years old), but to judge and to rule the nations forever. Meanwhile, the disciples are to bring the good news to all those nations that the Father has raised this man from the dead and appointed him as judge, so that they too might be included in his regime and share in the blessings of the messianic Age. That’s the story in Acts— see especially Acts 17.31— and especially in Romans and Galatians.
The discussion on Facebook was in the context of a debate about the value of “apologetics”. I asserted that usual kind of apologetics— the kind where we “prove the existence of God”, or (worse) the “historical truth of Genesis”— is pretty much worthless. Instead, my experience in Africa (and differently, in Utah and San Francisco) taught me that we need to train in this kind of “narrative apologetics”. We have to learn how to tell the story of Jesus, not as we have it in our own heads, but as the Gospel writers told it. But of course that entails learning what the story in the Gospels actually is. It’s not about finding a satisfactory scientific explanation for things like the Ascension; rather it’s about learning to understand the language in which the writer (in this case only Luke) told it, which is provided by Daniel 7. And it’s in each evangelist’s specific story of Jesus that we get the particular experience that he wants us to get.
God is like Jesus, but to understand Jesus, we need to inhabit the story Jesus inhabited, which is that of Daniel’s “Son of Man”.
All four gospels open with a reference to the beginning of Genesis 1.1, which says, ‘In the beginning God created’.
Mark 1.1 says, ‘the beginning of the good news’;
Luke 1.2 mentions those ‘who from the beginning were eyewitnesses’;
Jn 1.1, ‘In the beginning was the Word’; and
even Matthew 1.1 says, ‘The book of the generations of Jesus the Messiah’; compare Genesis 5.1, which begins ‘The book of the generations of Adam’.
So it seems that a ‘gospel’ has to start with a reference to the beginning of Genesis, just as a ‘letter’ has to start with ‘Dear So-and-so.’
But Mark does more than just start with Genesis. The other gospels follow him in making the first verse of their Prologues echo the first verse of the Genesis Prologue, but Mark lets the ending of his Prologue echo the last verse of the Genesis Prologue as well (Gn 3.24)— and that in turn anticipates something very important, which comes at the end of the Old Testament.
Genesis 2.8 tells us that ‘the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed’. We all know the subsequent story of Adam, which ends in 3.24 as the LORD God ‘cast Adam out and caused him to dwell over against the garden of delight’— the word ‘cast out’ here is exébalen / ἐξέβαλεν.
Mark uses this very word at the end of his Prologue: ‘And immediately the Spirit casts him out into the desert’ (Mk 1.12). Of course, Mark puts the word into the ‘narrative present’ tense (ekbállei / ἐκβάλλει), as he does whenever he wants to draw you right in to the action. But the verb is from Adam’s story, and by using it, Mark shows Jesus as a new Adam, cast out into Exile. Now, why do I say ‘Exile’?
Genesis 1–3 is the prologue to the whole of the Old Testament. We can read it as a story about a priest-king who is cast out of his garden/temple/kingdom and has to go into exile. Precisely in this way, Adam is a figure, or type (a typos / τύπος), as St Paul and the church fathers say, precisely of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, the last kings of Judah, and hence of Israel itself, who were led away into exile in Babylon:
12 And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. . . . 15 and carried Jehoiachin away to Babylon; and the king’s mother, and the king’s wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, he carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
At that time, Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah to be a petty client-king in his place, changing his name to Zedekiah (2K 24.17). But Zedekiah ‘did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiachin had done’, and when Zedekiah finally rebelled against Babylon, the Lord ‘drove away (apérripsen / ἀπέρριψεν; lit. “threw away”)’ Zedekiah and the whole Judahite upper class, and indeed Israel, from his face (2K 24.19-20). And so, finally
4 . . . . [Jerusalem] was broken up, and all the men of war [fled] by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden. Now the Babylonians [were] against the city round about, and [the king] went the way toward the plain. 5 And the army of the Babylonians pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army were scattered from him. 6 So they took the king, and brought him up to Riblah, to the king of Babylon; and gave judgment upon him. 7 And they slew Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, and put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with shackles of bronze, and carried him to Babylon. (2K 25.4-7)
So as Mark’s Prologue (1.1-13) ends, ‘the Spirit casts Jesus out into the Desert’ (Mk 1.12), just as God cast Adam out of the Garden— Adam the figure of Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, and Israel, who were cast out of Jerusalem 3563 years later* (2K 24.12— and note the mention of a ‘garden’ in 2K 25.4).
Christ = Adam = Jehoiachin/Zedekiah.
Jesus is the new Adam— we know that from St Paul, who is interested in Adam as the beginning of the human race. But Mark is interested in Jesus/Adam as the new Jehoiachin/Israel. Jesus is the faithful Servant Israel of Isaiah 40-55, who comes to deal with the Exile. And to do so, he has to pick up where the story began and where it left off— in Exile.
So the Spirit cast Jesus out into the Desert (Mk 1.12). Now, regarding the ‘Desert’, as for anything else in the New Testament, we have to ask what the biblical background is. And really, the one and only archetypal Desert story in Scripture is that of Israel’s 40 years’ wandering, after the Exodus. In fact that’s exactly what John the Baptist has in mind as he calls people out to the Desert, to repent and be washed (Mk 1.4-8). After that, they will re-enter the Land, and await the final fulfillment of the Promise. Exciting stuff!
Where is this ‘Desert’? Well, you don’t have to go very far. The ‘Desert’ is precisely Not-The-Land; it is Outside-The-Land (but also not Egypt or Babylon etc). You don’t have to travel very far to get there; it starts just on the other side of the Jordan. It’s where Israel wandered before entering the land; and they were in the Desert until the night before they entered. That’s the point that John the Evangelist is making when he tells us where John the Baptist was baptizing— ‘in Bethabara beyond Jordan’ (Jn 1.28). Beth-Abarah means ‘House (i.e., Place) of Crossing’. Anyone who read that would think, Oh, of course— he’s talking about where Joshua and the Israelites crossed over from the Desert to the Promised Land.
And they would get the point: John is calling people out into the Desert again, to repent, and to re-enter the Land, purified and ready for the arrival of God’s regime. This is about Israel coming into possession once and for all of God’s Promise of Blessing.
So Jesus comes to take part in John’s ‘Israel renewal movement’, and is baptized in solidarity with the faithful who trust what John is saying. And as he comes up out of the water, the Spirit comes down like a Dove into him. In the Old Testament, a Dove is a symbol of Israel— I’ll post something on that later— so in receiving the Dove, Jesus receives the vocation to be Israel, and as such he is cast out into the Desert for ‘40 days’. The Spirit casts Jesus out into the Desert to go and be Israel, to be tested as Israel, and then to come forth as Israel’s king, to announce at last the arrival of God’s regime.
The typology extends, of course, into our own baptism as Christians.
How much does any of this actually inform our understanding of our own baptism?
The Atlantic Monthly has published a new review of David Bentley Hart’s translation of the New Testament.
I like his use of “blissful” over “blessed” in the Beatitudes, but for Mark 1.40-41 (the cleansing of the leper), Hart’s rendering is still too elevated and does nothing to capture Mark’s style. In fact it’s not really very different from Knox’s (quoted in the article). As Hart has it,
“A leper comes to him, imploring him and falling to his knees, saying to him, ‘If you wish it, you are able to cleanse me.’ And, moved inwardly with compassion, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and says to him, ‘I wish it, be clean.’ ”
I’d put it rather,
“40 And there came to him a leper
begging him [and kneeling]
and saying to him that
If you want, you can clean me.
41 And Jesus, moved with wrath*
having stretched out his hand, touched him
and says to him,
I want! Be cleaned!”
*[or: ‘moved with pity in his guts’, but i think there are reasons for preferring ‘moved with wrath’, which appears in some manuscripts.]
I also still think that the proper translation of “Logos” into English is “meaning”—
“In the beginning was the meaning,
and the meaning was with God,
and God was the meaning” (Jn 1.1).
I’m still waiting for Hart’s book to come out in paperback, so I haven’t read it yet. But what i’ve read so far really hasn’t impressed me as much as i’d expected. At this point i find myself questioning whether Hart can really leave behind his redoubtable and capaciously witty style as a “decidedly overcooked highbrow” and actually convey the feel of the original.
And I do most certainly and strenuously object to any assertion that the NT is “a grab bag of reportage, rumor, folk memory, and on-the-hoof mysticism produced by regular people, everyday babblers and clunkers”— though it may look that way at first— not because i think the NT “must have” been written by refined artists to be “worthy” of God or some such— but simply because I’ve studied Mark and Romans for the past ten years and am still astonished by the subtlety, complexity, and sheer pyrotechnical force of their structures and arguments!
Both NT Wright, arguably the top New Testament scholar publishing today, and David Bentley Hart, the super-erudite Orthodox theologian who has taken even much of the Evangelical the world by storm, have released new translations of the New Testament in recent months. A friend of mine complained on Facebook that she had yet to hear any discussion about the need of a new bible translation.
That is rather unfortunate, because we seriously need one. Let me give a couple of examples, which will also give you a glimpse of some of the things you’ll get out of my Gospel of Mark Workshop:
Bread in Mark
The evangelist Mark uses the word “bread” (artos, ἄρτος) 21 (i.e., 7 x 3) times in his gospel. All but one of those occurrences are in the first half of his book; the only other is at the last supper (Mk 14.22).
Bread is a major theme in Mark, appearing some 3 times in each of the first eight chapters, and in fact (among other strategies) Mark builds the first half of his story around it. On the other hand, he uses the term “cup” (potērion, ποτήριον) 6 times, all but one of which (7.4) are found in the second half of his story— and again, he builds that half of his Gospel around the theme of the cup, among others.
Not entirely surprisingly, the two themes come together only in 14.22-23 (the last supper). So if you want to understand the Gospel of Mark, you have to recognize that he chooses his language very deliberately as he tells his story, and if you don’t get this, you’re missing a good deal of what he wants you to see.
Knowing this, you can understand why it’s not really helpful when translators decide to translate artos as bread one time, loaf another time, and leave it out altogether a third time. I’ve been studying Mark for more than ten years now, to the point where I’ve nearly memorized the entire book and even give workshops on it, and I can certainly assure you that despite his “rustic” style, Mark never ever uses a word carelessly— most especially when it’s one of his theme words!
So with this in mind, i invite you to compare Mark 2.26; 3.20; 6.8, 37-38, 41, 44, 52; 7.2, 5, 27; 8.4-6, 14, 16-17, 19; and 14.22 in the various translations that are available (you can readily compare quite a few of them at biblegateway.com).
You might argue that loaves means the same as bread, and that bread is ok in the singular but breads sounds odd in English— and you’d be right to argue that about English. But using loaves half the time and bread the other half suppresses a key auditory echo and obscures Mark’s thematic exposition.
And note in particular Mk 3.20, where NRSV and others just leave it out, presumably because “so that they could not even eat bread” seems odd— why single out bread, as opposed to other kinds of food? Could they eat carrots but just not bread? Surely this “must” be an example of Mark’s “rustic” usage!
Well, or so it might seem, if you’re not alert to the theme— and the fact is, no translators were very alert to “themes” like this, when any of our existing translations were published. For what is now called narrative criticism (the investigation of the writers’ various literary techniques and their impact on the story) has developed only in the past 30 years or so. (And by the way, it holds enormous and exciting promise for Orthodox theology!)
So it’s desirable to have a bracingly literal translation, as free as can be of theological or stylistic “decisions” by translators. It’s not good to think we know better than the writer what he “really wanted” to say, or to “smooth out” his style! And are we really surprised to discover in the Scriptures depths we never saw before?
Jesus’ faithfulness vs our faith
Another example is the famous and (needlessly) controversial expression, pistis Christou (πίστις χριστοῦ) found in Rm 3.22, Ga 2.16 (twice), 2.20, 3.22, and Ph 3.9; but contrast, e.g., Ga 3.26 and Col 1.4.
The Greek word pistis (πίστις) basically means trust or faithfulness, not belief in the sense we use it today— like, one “believes in reincarnation”, or “UFOs” or “penal substitutionary atonement” or some such.
And when Paul wants to specify the object of this trust or faithfulness, he uses the words in (en) or toward (eis). But when he wants to speak of the one whose trust or faithfulness it is, he uses a possessive such as my (mou, μου), or your (ὑμῶν, hymōn), or of Christ (christou, χριστοῦ). The KJV almost gets this correct, in that it has “the faith of Jesus” in the passages I mentioned; it would be better if they’d rendered it as “Jesus’ trust” or “Jesus’ faithfulness”, but the case is no different than saying something like pistis paulou— i.e., “Paul’s faithfulness”. You would never even think of translating this as “faith in Paul”! It just means Paul’s, or Christ’s, act of trust or faithfulness.
But just about all modern translators have decided that what St Paul “really means” by his expression “pistis christou” is not “Christ’s [own] faith(fulness)” in God, but “[our] faith in Christ”. You see the difference? St Paul says that Jesus’ faithfulness to God saved us, whereas almost every modern translator makes him say that our faith (or even “belief”) in Jesus saves us. This, of course, is because they need to find in Scripture support for Luther’s idea of sola fide— that we are saved by faith alone.
And here arises a very serious problem, which causes a lot of people to abandon their faith altogether: How can I come to have this faith— or worse: this “belief”? Can I make myself “believe” something? Is that even honest?
You’d never know from your modern Bible translation that St Paul never demands that you have something called “faith”. He says over and over that Jesus’ faithfulness to God— his trust in God— has saved us. That’s a huge difference, and if the church hierarchs had any serious concern for these matters, they’d declare practically every last bible on the market invalid and not to be used by the faithful at all— and if not at home, how much less in church!
Oh, and by the way, all the fathers I’m aware of agree with me and the KJV, but not with the modern translators. The Greek is very simple; it’s only ideology that led people to view it as I’ve described.
Messiah
One final example: In our Bible translations, we need to stop using the word “Christ”. Of course, “Christ” is a perfectly legitimate translation of the Greek christos (χριστός, anointed), but we have to take into account the histories of words when we use them formally. For the New Testament writers, the word christos was simply the Greek equivalent of messiah, or anointed (one). If when you read the NT— especially perhaps Acts and St Paul— and every time you come to “Christ” you back-translate it as Messiah, you’ll quickly come to realize what the whole argument was about, in the apostolic era: Who is the Messiah?
But our translations don’t make it easy for us to see this, because the word christos had a subsequent thousand-year dogmatic development in which it came to be defined not by Old Testament notions of the Messiah so much as by the great conciliar dogmas about the Three Persons, the Two Natures, and the Virgin Birth. Those are, of course, completely correct and unimpeachable and necessary dogmatic formulations, but they are not the ideas that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and others had in mind when they were writing about the Messiah. Those great dogmas draw out the implications of what the biblical writers were talking about, but those implications aren’t what the biblical writers were talking about. When the biblical writers said christos, they meant the Messiah, the Anointed eschatological figure prophesied in Isaiah, Daniel 7, and so forth.
When we hear Messiah, we can’t help thinking of the Old Testament. But when we hear Christ, we really do tend to think instead of the Three Persons, the Two Natures, and the Virgin Birth. Just read any Orthodox commentary that might come to hand, you’ll see what I mean— not only is that the direction that the fathers take, but the editors of the commentary (the Orthodox Study Bible being one of them) don’t really even seem to be aware of this shift or treat it as being in any way significant.
So if our New Testament translations (and any new commentaries we write) are to accurately reflect what the New Testament writers were in fact occupied with, they will need to be explicit about it. David Bentley Hart uses “Anointed”, which is OK, but I don’t think it communicates the Old Testament context quite as instantly as it should. NT Wright uses Messiah, so I award him that point.
Still!— two new translations by two major scholars— exciting times for those who love the Scriptures!
Look for The Good News as Written: Mark’s Story of Jesus— the book I’ll be releasing in the near future.
In it, I’ll provide my fresh and literal translation of Mark’s Gospel side by side with the original Greek, organized according to the structure that Mark uses to tell his story.
Recognizing that structure is half the battle, and the main work of this book (and of the Workshop) is to help you see that. For Mark’s Gospel, the structure is the vehicle of the plot, and it’s designed to help you remember and retell the story— powerfully.
I will also point to important background that Mark’s first audience would have taken for granted, but you just wouldn’t have any reason to know— recent history, cultural references, and so forth.
If you want to order a copy ahead of time, again just email me at jbb (at) jbburnett.com and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s done.
