(I use the translation of the ‘Jerusalem Bible’, with some alterations, and present my commentary in italics).
The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Messiah the Son of God.
It is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah:
Look, I am going to send my messenger before you;
he will prepare your way.
A voice cries in the wilderness:
Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.
And so it was that John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All Judaea and all the people of Jerusalem made their way to him, and as they were being baptized by him in the Jordan they acknowledged their sins. John wore a garment of camel-skin, and he lived on locusts and wild honey.(1/1-6)
John was called “the Baptizer” because he asked people for a ritual bathing as a sign of a fundamental personal change. He rejected the tainted civilization of the cities and lived in the wild desert near Jerusalem. Mark sees him as a reincarnation of the prophet Elijah (9/12), drawing on a popular tradition that Elijah would appear at the end of the world to announce the coming of the Messiah. This precursor of Jesus was like Jesus in his liking for the wilderness (1/12, 1/35, 6/31) and in his martyr’s death (6/17). Mark knows of some “scriptures” (unknown to us) that he thinks predict the death of this Elijah (9/18).
In the course of his preaching he said, `Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with a holy Spirit.`(1/7-8)
It was at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. No sooner had he come up out of the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down into him. And a voice came from heaven, `You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you’.(1/9-11)
Immediately afterwards the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness and he remained there for forty days, and was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him.(1/12-13)
After John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the gospel of God. `The time has come’, he said, `and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Change your lives, and put your trust in the gospel.`(1/14-15)
Jesus is the bearer of a spirit that is holy (contrasted with “unclean spirits” 3/30), that replaces the ritual bathing of John in “cleansing” people. Mark probably suggests that this spirit came into Jesus at his baptism, and there is a close connection between his having this spirit and his being the “Beloved Son” of God. (Mark may be suggesting that Jesus became a “son of God” when and because this spirit entered into him.) This spirit also sometimes comes into Jesus-followers.(13/10) The voice from heaven here is one of several places in the Gospel where beings from the supernatural world break through into this one to reveal the real meaning of what is happening, and the real identity of Jesus. This also happens when demons recognize him as “the Holy one of God” (1/24)
As he was walking along by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the lake for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, `Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men’. And at once they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little further, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they too were in their boat, mending their nets. He called them at once and leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the men he employed, they went after him.(1/16-20)
The response of the first disciples is unmotivated in this story–the story gives no motivation for them leaving suddenly leaving their jobs and family. This probably shows that it is not meant as a realistic story representing an historical occurrence. It dramatizes, rather, the charismatic power (exousia) of Jesus as a spiritual presence in the lives of Jesus- followers, taking them forcefully out of their normal round of existence and family life (see 3/31-35).
They went as far as Capernaum, and as soon as the sabbath came he went to the synagogue and began to teach. And they were astounded at his teaching, because he was teaching them as one having exousia/authority, not like the scribes. In their synagogue just then there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit, and it shouted, `What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus said sharply, `Be quiet. Come out of him.’ And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and with a loud cry went out of him. The people were so astounded that they started asking each other `What is this? A new teaching with authority; he gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey him.’ And his reputation rapidly spread everywhere, through all the surrounding Galilean countryside.(1/21-28)
Here Jesus’ exousia/power:authority is connected with the way some people felt that his teaching directly touched them—they found it “charismatic”. The story contrasts this with the impression made by learned “scribes”. But “charismatic” is a relative word: other contemporaries would probably have been more impressed with scribal learning, and have regarded Jesus’ teaching as simple-minded and his followers superstitious. The contrast between the scribal mentality and the charismatic mentality is the main theme of many stories Mark has borrowed from oral tradition. It must have been a principle issue for the original audience of these stories. The storyteller assumes an audience who is much more attracted to the charismatic mentality. I believe that Mark’s gospel is ultimately and internal critique of this mentality.
The crowd’s response associates the charismatic “power” (exousia) of his teaching with his supernatural “power” to cast out unclean spirits. In this story again the supernatural world pokes through into this one: the demons from the other world recognize Jesus’ true identity as a supernatural being himself. They reveal the hidden meaning of what is going on in Jesus’ activity. Mark shows Jesus here treating this revelation as a kind of secret that should not be broadcast to all. This reflects a recurrent theme in the Gospel, that during Jesus’ lifetime he revealed his true identity only to a small inner circle of followers. (Mark however criticizes Jesus-followers who claim to have been given special revelations about these hidden secrets. See comments on 4/10-20).
Why are there so many stories about Jesus casting out “unclean spirits”? Very few in Mark’s time questioned the fact that some people might be possessed by demons. But very few writings of the time give so much attention to this phenomenon and its cure. This is my theory: (1) First, about “uncleanness”: I believe the nearest analogy in our experience is our feeling of revulsion at the thought of eating dogs or cats. This is an instinctive, not a rational, revulsion. It probably has something to do with a certain unconscious ordering of the world, in which certain animals are food-animals and other animals are pets. To eat a pet-animal is to go against this unconscious but very strong boundary. Dealing with people who are severely disturbed mentally can have a similar effect of making us terrifically uneasy, shaking our normally unconscious but solid sense of an organized human world. I believe that Jews, like many other premodern peoples, felt an instinctive revulsion against things or people that shook their sense of an organized world, and called such things “unclean”. (I draw this theory from the anthropologist Mary Douglas, in her 1966 book Purity and Danger). They attributed a religious significance to this: A person who wants to maintain self-respect will avoid “unclean” things; and a self-respecting society will likewise maintain a strict separation between the clean and the unclean. To maintain this separation is to maintain a clear boundary between an organized and a disorganized world. (2) It is most likely that people thought to be “possessed by demons” were people modern psychology would call neurotic or psychotic. (In two juxtaposed sentences [3/21 & 22], Jesus is called both “crazy” and “possessed by a demon.”) Lacking any accurate medical diagnosis of diseases, ancient peoples tended in general to imagine hypostatized forces lying behind every bodily or mental disturbance. A “fever” or a “leprosy” is a kind of force that takes over a person and causes their illness, so that when Mark says that “the fever left her” (1/31) or “the leprosy left him”, he has a more literal picture in mind than we would have. Likewise a severe mental disorder would easily be thought to be brought about by an hypostatized force, a “demon” inhabiting the person. (3) Mark is living in a world that, for him, is “out of control” in general. Traditional social organization has completely broken down, and the world seems to be dominated by godless and alien (Roman) forces. The breakdown of social organization can easily cause more widespread and severe mental illness. And also, a person who feels the social breakdown acutely, would be unusually sensitive to the existence of “demon-possessed” people around him as a kind of extreme sign of the disorderly state of things. This could account for the large place that demon-possession has in his picture of the world. In addition, such a person could easily project his hatred of the ruling powers onto a cosmic scale: their regime is the agent of cosmic “demonic” forces with which a supernatural savior/messiah needs to do battle. (see 3/27) (4)
The Pharisees in Mark’s gospel try to inject organization into a disorganized world by devising and adhering to a set of rules that govern more and more aspects of daily life, strengthening the separation between the “unclean” and the “clean”. Jesus on the other hand puts himself in direct contact with those people and forces that lie beyond the boundary of respectable social organization. He associates with outcasts and is executed as an outcast criminal himself. He also does battle directly with the “unclean spirits” that trouble Mark so much. He is the bearer of a “holy spirit” that is able to overcome the unclean spirits destroying the lives of others (3/27). To translate this into modern terms: There is a potential (“Dionysiac”) power in the alienated and apparently disorganized aspects of human existence, a power that is lacking in the more (“Apollonic”) way of life organized by clear categories and rules. This power is potentially destructive of all order, but if one can tap into it in the right way it becomes an internally felt “holy spirit” bringing an idealism and unity to one’s life driven entirely from within. Mark sees this as a kind of power “not of this (social) world”, and so associates it with something “supernatural”.
On leaving the synagogue, he went with James and John straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. Now Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with fever, and they told him about her straightaway. He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to wait on them.(1/29-31)
That evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by demons. The whole town came crowding round the door, and he cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another. He also cast out many demons but he would not allow them to speak, because they knew who he was.(1/32-34)
In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. Simon and his companions set out in search of him, and when they found him they said, `Everybody is looking for you.’ He answered, `Let us go elsewhere, to the neighboring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came’. And he went through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.(1/35-39)
Jesus’ teaching, healings, and exorcisms attract large crowds. He wants to be by himself (showing that he is not personally dependent on worldly success), but also has a sense of being “sent” on a mission to change the world, that keeps him traveling.
A leper came to him and pleaded on his knees. `If you will it’ he said `You can cure me’. Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. And he said to him, `I will it. Be cured.’ And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, `Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses, for a witness to them’. The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to him.(1/40-45)
When he returned to Capernaum some time later, word went round that he was back; and so many people collected that there was no room left, even in front of the door. He was preaching the word to them when some people came bringing him a paralyzed man carried by four men, but as the crowd made it impossible to get the man to him, they stripped the roof over the place where Jesus was; and when they had made an opening, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralyzed man lay. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, `My child, your sins are wiped away.’ Now some scribes were sitting there, and they thought in their hearts, `How can this man talk like that? He is blaspheming. Who can wipe away sins but God.’ Jesus, inwardly aware that this was what they were thinking, said to them, `Why do you have these thoughts in your hearts? Which of these is easier: to say to the paralytic, `Your sins are wiped away’ or to say, `Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk’. But to prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to wipe away sins,’ he said to the paralyzed man, `I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher; and go off home.’ And the man got up, picked up his stretcher at once and walked out in front of everyone, so that they were all astounded and praised God saying, `We have never seen anything like this’.(2/1-12)
This is the beginning of a section (2/1-3/6) dramatizing Jesus’ conflict with the scribes and Pharisees. We need to pay close attention to the exact contrast drawn in the stories between what Jesus stands for and what the Pharisees stand for. These issues must have been important issues for Mark’s community of Jesus followers. They see their own issues dramatized in these stories about what happened to Jesus in Galilee many years earlier.
The opening of this story dramatizes the Markan theme of the great crowds that gathered around Jesus wherever he went, an external manifestation of his charismatic attraction. The fact that Jesus first speaks of “sin” rather than sickness implies an association assumed by the story’s original audience: that physical illness is a sign of “sin”. I take this as an indication that “sin” here has a much more concrete sense than it later acquired (connected with the concrete mentality described above under 1/1-6). It does not refer to the belief that certain acts are “sins” because they violate certain rules. It refers rather to a concrete feeling of inadequacy or vague “guilt” that often accompanies physical sickness in people who already have a low self-image. Such a feeling would be common in people who feel socially alienated and excluded–the kind of people who in my hypothesis form Mark’s audience. In this context, “Jesus wipes away sins” would not refer to an intellectual belief that Jesus had brought about an unseen spiritual event. It would refer to a concrete feeling that “Jesus” (a spiritual presence to Mark’s audience) removes this feeling of inadequacy and guilt. By contrast, the scribes’ idea that “only God can wipe away sins” was probably felt as a reference to a God who is much less immediately present.
The story appeals to an audience who would have assumed a very close connection between the supernatural power Jesus has to cure paralysis, and his power to wipe away sins. They would have regarded the former as a more visible external sign of the latter. The response the story’s author hopes for from his audience is reflected in the crowd’s response: They were “astounded”. This mentality contrasts with that of the learned scribes, who probably would not be impressed with this “proof”. These scribes make their first personal appearance in this story, the first of a series of stories of conflict between Jesus and scribes/Pharisees (2/1-3/6). If I am correct, the scribes/Pharisees in the story stand for a certain mentality and attitudes common in the Assemblies Mark’s audience attends, tendencies with which the Jesus-followers he appeals to are in conflict. Note also, however, that Mark elsewhere suggests that “being astounded” is also an inadequate response to Jesus’ “power” (see comments at 4/35-41).
He went out again to the shore of the lake; and all the people came to him, and he taught them. As he was walking on he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus, sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, `Follow me’. And he got up and followed him.(2/13-14)
When Jesus was at dinner in his house, a number of tax collectors and sinners were also sitting at the table with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of them among his followers. When the scribes of the Pharisee party saw him with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, `Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this he said to them, `It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.`(2/15-18)
The Pharisees in Mark object to Jesus eating with “tax collectors and sinners”, pr
esumably indicating that they regarded tax-collectors (Roman collaborators?) as among the (”unclean”) outcasts whom one should keep a distance from. But one of these, Levi, is among the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples. “Sinners” in 2/17 is not a moral but a social category: those whom others would look down upon. The Pharisees represent a mentality that tries to solve the problem of “sin” by making strict divisions between “good/clean” and “bad/unclean”. This division is both internal/psychological and external/social. Internally, they try to identify with that part of themselves that is good/clean, and exclude the part that feels unclean/inadequate/sinful. Externally, they set up rules that clearly distinguish the good/clean rule-keepers from the bad/unclean rule-breakers, and they avoid association with unclean sinners. This kind of “righteous” mentality is unreceptive to what Jesus stands for; his “power” cannot get through to this kind of person.
One day when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came and said to him, `Why is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’ Jesus replied `Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of fasting while the bridegroom is still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they could not think of fasting. But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then, on that day, they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak; if he does, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No: New wine, fresh skins.`(2/18-22)
Fasting on certain days was again one of the practices some Jews emphasized as a way of externally demonstrating their Jewishness, in opposition to the Roman attempt to impose cultural uniformity on the entire Mediterranean world. Many non-Jews, also alienated from official Roman culture, adopted this “Eastern” (eastern Mediterranean) religion and its practices. Mark assumes readers who also identify with the Jewish tradition (they, not the Pharisees, are its true inheritors 12/1-12).
One can see that this story has gone through at least two stages in the oral tradition, representing two different attitudes on the part of Jesus followers to this custom: Jesus’ first reply gives a reason why Jesus-followers do fast; his second reply gives a reason why they do not fast. The first reply explicitly presents the fasting of Jesus-followers after his death as a departure from the practice of Jesus and his disciples (Jesus’ presence was a cause for celebration, as at a wedding feast; when this “bridegroom” goes away [dies], then people can fast). So the second reply probably belongs to the earliest version of the story. (Whoever wrote the first reply was conscious that his defense of fasting went contrary to a well-known story that Jesus had gone against the practice of some Jews on the fasting question; the first form of the story probably is this well-known story.)
This story in its first form says that Jesus did not fast because what he stood for was something radically new, and he did not want to associate this with “old” customs (new wine needs to be poured into fresh skins, i.e. needs to be expressed in different practices). This implicitly acknowledges that the Pharisaic opponents have some claim to represent traditional/established “Judaism”, in contrast with Jesus-followers. Even though the latter claim to be the true inheritors of the Jewish tradition, they also in some sense represent something radically new in the Jewish tradition, and even consciously claim this.
One sabbath day he happened to be taking a walk through the cornfields, and his disciples began to pick ears of corn as they went along. And the Pharisees said to him, `Look, why are they doing something on the sabbath day that is forbidden?’ And he replied, `Did you never read what David did in his time of need when he and his followers were hungry, how he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the loaves of offering which only the priests are allowed to eat, and how he also gave some to the men with him?’ And he said to them, `The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is master even of the sabbath’.(2/23-28)
Observing the sabbath-rest was also a means by which Jewish people and Jewish converts everywhere defied Roman culture and showed their adherence to this “foreign” religion. The statement that “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath”, applied to the situation in the story, assumes an audience for whom this strategy has very little appeal. Sabbath-rest rules have so little appeal that they feel one can break them even simply in order to satisfy momentary hunger. The assumed audience sympathizes with plain human feelings and needs, in contrast to religious laws. They find this teaching “charismatic”, and they want to make this part of the basis for their new interpretation of “Judaism”. The connection of “man” in this saying with “Son of Man” in the last saying may give us some clue as to the connotation that “Son of Man” has for Mark. The “Son of Man” is a supernatural figure (he will “come on the clouds of heaven” at the end of the world). But his supernaturalness is also closely associated with his “humanity”, his human feeling, contrasted with religious lawkeeping. This suggests a connection between plain human feeling on the one hand, and supernatural charisma on the other. The appeal to a scriptural precedent set by David (1Sam. 17/2-7) reflects the way that debates over “true Judaism” took place partly in the guise of “scripture interpretation”. But this made no pretense to being objective hermeneutics. The storyteller likes the passage about David breaking religious rules because he was hungry, because he already thinks that human feeling should take precedence over religious rules.
He went again into a synagogue, and there was a man there who had a withered hand. And they were watching him to see if he would cure him on the sabbath day, hoping for something to use against him. He said to the man with the withered hand, `Stand up out in the middle.’ Then he said to them, `Is it against the law on the sabbath day to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to kill?’ But they said nothing. Facing them angrily, grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, `Stretch out your hand’. We stretched it out and his hand was better. The Pharisees went out and at once began to plot with the Herodians against him, discussing how to destroy him.(3/1-6)
Here again Mark presents the issue as a conflict between plain human sympathy for a sick man, versus (“meaningless”) sabbath-rest laws. And, as in 2/1-12, Jesus does not “win the argument” by giving better reasons. He first of all represents the conflict in highly exaggerated and prejudicial terms, picturing the Pharisees as “evil” and heartless men in favor of “killing” rather than healing people. And he clinches his case by a show of supernatural power. Underlying the story lies is a connection between the exousia/”power” of the position Jesus takes for human sympathy against religious rules, on the one hand, and his miracle working power on the other. This power, and the popularity it gains for Jesus (and charismatic Jesus-followers), is pictured as threatening to the “Pharisees”. The conflict between these two mentalities, and the combative and confrontational stance adopted by Jesus, is pictured as the motivation for the Pharisees’ grudge that will lead to Jesus’ death, hinted at here for the first time in the story. This probably mirrors something about the experience of Jesus-followers too, who could expect to be “handed over to [Jewish] Sanhedrins” and beaten in [Jewish] synagogues” (13/9)
Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lakeside, and great crowds from Galilee followed him. From Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordania and the region of Tyre and Sidon, great numbers who had heard of all he was doing came to him. And he asked his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, to keep him from being crushed. For he had cured so many that all who were afflicted in any way were crowding forward to touch him. And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, would fall down before him and shout `You are the Son of God.’ But he warned them strongly not to make him known.(3/7-12)
He now went up into the hills and summoned those he wanted. So they came to him, and he appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to preach, with power to cast out demons. And so he appointed the Twelve: Simon to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges or `Sons of Thunder’; then Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the man who was to betray him.(3/13-19)
Mark repeats the tradition that Jesus chose a special inner circle known as “the Twelve” (see 1Cor. 15/4). Jesus here takes them aside and imparts to these his supernatural powers to cast out demons. I believe this reflects the fact that the in-group of Jesus-followers that Mark ultimately wants to criticize are people who also perform demon-exorcisms. Later in Mark’s story (9/18-19) he says that the disciples had limited power over demons, and attributes this to the fact that they belong to “this faithless generation”. This is part of his recurrent theme that this special group were potential recipients of special powers and revelation but that they blew it because they didn’t have the state of mind required to receive the power and true understanding of the revelations. Mark’s critical treatment of “the Twelve” in his story may reflect the fact that the Jesus-followers he wants to criticize claim some connection with a circle of Twelve in Jerusalem who claim to have received special powers and revelations from Jesus. Note also his special remark that one of these Twelve, Judas, was the one that later betrayed Jesus.
He went home again, and once more such a crowd collected that they could not even have a meal. When his relatives heard of this, they set out to take charge of him, convinced he had gone crazy.(3/20-21)
The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem were saying, `Beelzebul is in him and, `it is through the prince of demons that he casts demons out’. So he called them to him and spoke to them in parables. `How can Satan cast out Satan. If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot last. And if a household is divided against itself, that household can never stand. Now if Satan has rebelled against himself and is divided, he cannot stand either, it is the end of him. No one can make his way into a strong man’s house and burgle his property unless he has tied up the strong man first. Only then can he burgle his house’. I tell you solemnly, all men’s sins will he forgiven and all their blasphemies; but let anyone blaspheme against the holy spirit and he will never have forgiveness: he is guilty of an eternal sin.’ This was because they were saying, `An unclean spirit is in him’.(3/22-30)
His mother and brothers now arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, `Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you. He replied, `Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, `Here are my mother and my brothers Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.`(3/31-35)
Mark has been telling the story of Jesus’ activity, and of the reaction to him by Pharisees who failed to understand what he really (in Mark’s eyes) represents. This passage is a kind of climax to this chain of events. For Mark, there is a contrast between Jesus, on the one hand, and ordinary and regulated social life on the other; and this is associated with his charismatic power, a manifestation of the “holy spirit” operating in him. Here he tells a story first about his family who are embarrassed by this contrast, reading it as a sign that Jesus is a crazy man, and then another story about the Pharisees who (equivalently) ascribe his extraordinary powers to the fact that there is an “unclean spirit” operating in Jesus. These gross misjudgments are not pictured as a sin against Jesus (or God), but against the “holy spirit” that is manifest in his teaching and actions, a “holy spirit” that also inhabits the Jesus-followers (13/11). There is hope for everyone except the person who rejects this spirit; for that person there is no hope.
The story offers a different explanation of Jesus’ ability to cast out demons: it is an earthly manifestation of the outcome of a war in a hidden supernatural world, where Jesus has figuratively “broken into the house of the prince of devils and tied him up.” (Again this story may have been formulated in two stages. This reply that relates the exorcisms to events in an unseen supernatural world comes after a first reply that is somewhat different. The main point of the first reply seems to be to accuse the scribes of failing to think through their position, and so holding a position that is self-contradictory. This is like the Sadducees’ criticism of Jesus’ “illogical” position about the life in the world to come [11/18-27].)
Next, Mark inserts a series of parables. The parables are interpretations of the meaning of the preceding story: Jesus’ sayings and doings are like a “seed” sown among the people, and the mentality of different people who react to him are like the various kinds of “ground” that the seed falls upon. (There is no exact fit here, since in all probability Mark did not make up the parable to fit his story, but is repeating a parable that is part of oral tradition.) This parable is important because of its implied contrast: Just as what Jesus stands for in the Gospel is defined by contrast with the Pharisees, so here the ideal reader of the gospel (“receiver of the seed”) is implicitly defined by contrast with those who fail to understand and accept Jesus. Such failure to understand is pictured here as a moral, not an intellectual, failing. Some reactions are given a supernatural explanation: they are the result of falling under the influence of the evil supernatural force, “Satan”. (Note that Peter is called “Satan” in 8/33.) Some initially get excited, but their excitement is based on superficial attraction (probably to the success caused by spectacular miracles, worked by Jesus, and by some Jesus-followers in Mark’s community–this reaction is represented by the crowds in the Mark’s story); this is a superficial basis for commitment (without “deep roots”), and will disappear as soon as being a Jesus-follower becomes a reason for outcast-status and persecution (13/9). The minds of others are simply too clouded with “worldly” concerns (riches, status, pleasure) to provide “fertile ground” for what it is that Jesus stands for. What “good ground” is is not defined so specifically. (It clearly cannot be simply defined as a mind “committed to Jesus”–what “commitment to Jesus” means is precisely what is at issue for Mark; it is something he thinks is still “hidden” to the Jesus-followers he is addressing.) But this parable gives us some clues by telling us what this “good ground” is the opposite of.
When he was alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company, asked what the parables meant. He told them, `The secret of the kingdom of God is given to you, but to those outside everything comes in parables,
So that they may see and see again, but not perceive;
may hear and hear again,
but not understand;
lest they be converted
and be forgiven.'(Is. 6/9-10)
Although the parables give a clue as to the hidden meaning of the Jesus-story, they themselves are not easy to understand. Like the Jesus-story, they are a kind of test. What a person gets out of a parable depends partly on the mind-set with which she approaches it, hence by failing to “get” their meaning a person reveals her own moral failing, her own “bad” mentality. Mark’s quotation from the Book of Isaiah 6/9-10 evokes the traditional idea that some events represent crisis points (krisis=”judgment”), provoking a strong polarization: Good people are forced to make a stronger and purer commitment to the good; some people who might have appeared borderline are provoked to a more clear and direct manifestation of the badness in their hearts. The resultant polarization is sometimes seen as something “destined by God”, who uses certain events to “harden the hearts” of the bad.
He said to them, `Don’t you understand this parable? So how will you understand any of the parables?’
What the sower is sowing is the word. Those on the edge of the path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than Satan comes and carries away the word that was sown in them. Similarly, those who receive the seed on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear the word, welcome it at once with joy. But they have no root in them, they do not last; should some trial come or some persecution on account of the word, they fall away at once. Then there are others who receive the seed in thorns. These have heard the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of riches, and the craving for the rest of such things come in to choke the word, and so it produces nothing. And there are those who have received the seed in rich soil: they hear the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.`(4/1-20)
Here Jesus takes the Twelve and some others aside and directly reveals to them the meaning of the parable that is hidden from “those outside”. I believe Mark is presenting here the claim that some Jesus-followers associated with the Twelve have, to have been given special revelations. But, ultimately, Mark uses this tradition ironically: Although the Twelve were indeed given special revelations of secrets hidden from others, they fail to understand what Mark thinks is the real hidden meaning of the Jesus-story. This critical theme is initiated here by criticizing the disciples’ failure to understand the first time (4/13). In the stories before this parable (chs. 2-3) are about the failure of outsiders (scribes and Jesus’ family) to understand and accept him. But here, as Jesus offers an interpretation of this failure, he also presents the first criticism of the disciples for not understanding. Later (8/14-18) he will repeat the charge that this failure is partly due their inability to understand parables. Eventually it is made clear that just explaining parables to them–even having voices from heaven revealing to them that Jesus is the “Son of God” (9/7)–is not sufficient to impart to them a “true” understanding.
He also said to them, `Would you bring in a lamp to put it under a basket or under the bed? Surely you will put it on the lampstand. For there is nothing hidden but it must be disclosed, nothing kept secret except to be brought to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to this.`(4/21-23)
This parable asserts that (contrary to 4/10) what Jesus stands for does not remain hidden from people because he is deliberately keeping the truth from them (deliberately “hiding his light under a basket”). The Jesus-story Mark is telling is in fact a strenuous attempt to reveal this truth. Part of the difficulty is that what he stands for cannot appear in its full reality in the socio-cultural world as it now stands. It will appear in its full reality only when this world as we know it is done away with it, and the kingdom of God comes. What is now hidden will be revealed in the apocalypse-as-revelation.
He also said to them, `Take notice of what you are hearing. The amount you measure out is the amount you will be given, and more besides; for the man who has will be given more; from the man who has not, even what he has will be taken away.`(4/24-25)
4/23 is addressed to the reader of the gospel, who has to be careful that she “hears” Jesus’ words properly. In this context, “the amount you measure out” (4/24) seems to refer to the care and purity of heart a person puts into trying to understand Jesus and his story. This image repeats the theme above: the Jesus-story is a kind of test. For one who brings to the story the germ of pure insight, the story will bring a great expansion and development of her understanding of the truth about the world. For one who brings to the story too little of this right mentality, the story will turn her off and further harden her heart: “even that which she has will be taken away”.
He also said, `This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time: he starts to reap because the harvest has come.`(4/26-29)
He also said, `What can we say the kingdom of God is like? What parable can we find for it? It is like a mustard seed which at the time of its sowing in the soil is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet once it is sown it grows into the biggest shrub of them all and puts out big branches so that the birds of the air can shelter in its shade.`(4/30-33)
Both the parable of the seed growing by itself (4/26-29), and of mustard seed (4/30-33) expand on the image of the “seed” sown by Jesus (4/3-21), and further also the idea (4/24-25) of something small that grows into something much larger. These are further clues Mark offers as to what the hidden something is that Jesus potentially brings to Mark’s readers. What Jesus brings is something that is like a very small seed that could take root in someone who receives it well; that has a life of its own and will grow by itself, rather than by conscious willed effort; and that can potentially become something very large and extensive; ideally it will develop fully and be ready for the “harvest” in the Kingdom of God soon to come at the end of the world as we know it. These are called “images (parabolai) of the Kingdom of God”. Note the implication that the core of this “kingdom” is a kind of mentality that one can have at the present time, before the full coming of the kingdom at the end. This thing that appears very small in the present context is the mentality that will be “vindicated” by the great revelatory apocalypse. So what it means to “stay awake” awaiting this apocalypse (13/37) is to hold onto this mentality in the face of the fact that it puts one at odds with this world, and makes one appear a loser in this world.
Using many parables like these, he spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding it. He would not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were alone.
With the coming of evening that same day, he said to them, `Let us cross over to the other side’. And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him. Then it began to blow a gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped. But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion, asleep. They woke him and said to him, `Master, do you not care? We are going down.’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, `Quiet now. Be calm.’ And the wind dropped, and all was calm again. Then he said to them, `Why are you so afraid? Why do you have no faith?’ They were frightened with a great fright, and said to one another, `Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.`(4/35-41)
The disciples are criticized here because their fear about the storm shows a lack of confidence that Jesus has the power to save them from the forces of nature. (The hidden thing Jesus stands for in the Gospel is associated with such power.) But Mark says they were also “frightened with a great fright” after the calming of the storm, apparently at the uncanniness of Jesus’ otherworldly power. In the other calming-the-sea story, Mark says again (6/52) that the disciples were astounded after the miracle, and says that this is because their “hearts were hardened”; and this hard-heartedness shows in the fact they had not understood the hidden meaning of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. In the light of this, we probably need to take seriously the disciples’ final remark “Who can this be?” Their fright as a response shows that they really do not understand the secret about “who Jesus is”. (This is similar to the townspeople of Gerasa in the next story, whose fright at Jesus’ power over a “legion of demons” causes them to ask him to leave their territory.) They are still frightened because they lack “faith”–but then “faith” here must refer not just to commitment to Jesus in a general sense, but to true understanding, which alone for Mark allows for true “following Jesus”. I think that this implied criticism of fright and astonishment at miracles represents Mark’s criticism of some Jesus-followers who are too impressed by the supernatural power manifest in miracle-working. This would connect well with his criticism of them for not appreciating the centrality of suffering to what Jesus stands for (8/33, 9/32)
They reached the country of the Gerasenes on the other side of the lake, and no sooner laid he left the boat than a man with an unclean spirit came out from the tombs towards him. The man lived in the tombs and no one could secure him any more, even with a chain; because he had often been secured with fetters and chains but had snapped the chains and broken the fetters, and no one had the strength to control him. All night and all day among the tombs and in the mountains, he would howl and gash himself with stones. Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and fell at his feet and shouted at the top of his voice, `What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear by God you will not torture me.’ For Jesus had been saying to him, `Come out of the man, unclean spirit’. `What is your name?’ Jesus asked. `My name is legion,’ he answered, `for there are many of us.’ And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the district. Now there was there on the mountainside a great herd of pigs feeding, and the unclean spirits begged him, `Send us into the pigs, let us go into them’. So he gave them leave. With that, the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand pigs charged down the cliff into the lake, and there they were drowned. The swineherds ran off and told their story in the town and in the country round about; and the people came to see what had really happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his full senses the very man who had had the legion in him before, and they were frightened. And those who had witnessed it reported what had happened to the demoniac and what had become of the pigs. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave the neighborhood. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed begged allowed to stay with him. Jesus would not let him but said to him, `Go home to your people and tell them all that the Lord in his mercy has done for you.’ So the man went off and proceeded to spread throughout the Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him. And everyone was astounded.(5/2-20)
The original story in 5/2-20 may have involved a veiled reference to a Jewish desire that the “devil-legions” of unclean Roman foreigners occupying Palestine would make their way into unclean swine and drown in the sea. The great strength of the demon-possessed man may be connected to the power some felt present in the demonic (rejected/”unclean”) aspects of human life. Again note that the demon in the man recognizes Jesus’ supernatural status as Son of God. The Gerasene people are frightened at this invasion of the uncanny into their lives, and want Jesus to leave.
Jesus’ instruction to the formerly possessed man, to go and tell others about the miracle, contrasts with his usual instruction in other stories not to do this. Is this perhaps related to the fact that Gerasa was a more “Gentile” district?
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered round him and he stayed by the lakeside. Then one of the synagogue officials came up, Jairus by name, and seeing him, fell at his feet and pleaded with him earnestly, saying, `My little daughter is desperately sick. Do come and lay your hands on her to make her better and save her life.’ Jesus went with him, and a large crowd followed him; they were pressing all round him.
Now there was a woman who had suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years; after long and painful treatment under various doctors, she had spent all she had without being any the better for it, in fact, she was getting worse. She had heard about Jesus, and she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his cloak. `If I can touch even his clothes,’ she had told herself, `I shall get well again.’ And the source of the bleeding dried up instantly, and she felt in herself that she was cured of her complaint. Immediately aware that power had gone out from him, Jesus turned round in the crowd and said, `Who touched my clothes?’ His disciples said to him, `You see how the crowd pressing round you and yet you say, `Who touched me?’ But he continued to look all round to see who had done it. Then the woman came forward, frightened and trembling because she knew what had happened to her, and she fell at his feet and told him the whole truth. `My daughter,’ he said `your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be free from your complaint.
While he was still speaking some people arrived from the house of the synagogue official to say, `Your daughter is dead: why put the Master to any further trouble?’ But Jesus had overheard this remark of theirs and he said to the official, `Do not be afraid; only have faith’. And he allowed no one to go with him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. So they came to the official’s house and Jesus noticed all the commotion, with people weeping and wailing unrestrainedly. He went in and said to them, `Why all this commotion and crying? The child is not dead, but asleep.’ But they laughed at him. So he turned them all out and, taking with him the child’s father and mother and his own companions, he went into the place where the child lay. And taking the child by the hand he said to her, `Talitha, kum.’ which means `Little girl, I tell you to get up’. The little girl got up at once and began to walk about. She was twelve years old. At this they were overcome with astonishment, and he ordered them strictly not to let anyone know about it, and told them to give her something to eat.(5/21-43)
Presumably Jesus brings them in to witness the raising of the young girl from the dead because of the special character of this miracle. But all three come in for severe criticism later on (9/33, 10/35, 14/66-72). (There was a Peter, James, and John who were leaders in a community of Jesus-followers in Jerusalem, with whom Paul has a quarrel [Gal. 1/17-2/14], and Mark may share this quarrel with them, although Paul calls James the brother of Jesus [Gal. 1/20], and Mark calls this James the son of Zebedee.)
Going from that district, he went to his home town, and his disciples accompanied him. With the coming of the sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and most of them were astonished when they heard him. They said, `Where did the man get all this? What is thus wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him? This is the carpenter, surely, too, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joset and Jude and Simon? His sisters, too, are they not here with us?’ And they would not accept him. And Jesus said to them, `A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house’. And he could work no miracle there, though he cured a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.(6/1-6)
The saying, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country” draws on a common experience: When someone belongs to a circle familiar to us, we tend to see them in the fixed context of the familiar; it is harder for us than for strangers to see or accept anything extraordinary about them. In this story, then, Mark pictures another obstacle to a true understanding of (“faith in”) Jesus: What he is cannot appear so long as people insist on seeing him within the fixed framework of ordinary social life. What he stands for is something radically new, requiring that people break out of their ordinary world in order to see it. Neither can Jesus’ power have any effect on such people.
In this story, then, Mark pictures another obstacle to a true understanding of (“faith in”) Jesus: What he is cannot appear so long as people insist on seeing him within the fixed framework of ordinary social life. What he stands for is something radically new, requiring that people break out of their ordinary world in order to see it. Neither can Jesus’ power have any effect on such people.
He made a tour round the villages, teaching. Then he summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs, giving them authority over the unclean spirits. And he instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff–no bread, no haversack, no coppers for their purses. They were to wear sandals and not to take a spare tunic. And he said to them, `If you enter a house anywhere, stay there until you leave the district. And if any place does not welcome you, and people refuse to listen to you, as you walk away shake off the dust from under your feet as a sign against them.’ So they set off to preach a change of heart; and they cast out many demons, and anointed many sick people with oil and cured them.(6/7-13)
This story advances the theme of the appointing and sending of the inner circle of Twelve (begun in 3/13-19). They are again given exousia/power over demons. In contemporary society there were many wandering preachers representing various religions and philosophies (like the Greek “Cynics”), who showed their lack of involvement with current society by abandoning all possessions and depending on charity, as Jesus requires of the Twelve here. Paul is a wandering Jesus-preacher of this kind, and such figures were probably familiar and important in the diaspora synagogues that Mark’s audience is connected with. Although obviously this way of life was not available to large numbers of people, these property-less wanderers became important symbols of the mental rejection and “dropping out” of conventional society that was an ideal for all. The story assumes that rejection of these Jesus-preachers can only be a sign that the hearers are hard-hearted (not “good ground”), and are condemning themselves by such rejection.
King Herod had heard about him, since by now his name was well known. Some were saying, `John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him’. Others said, `He is Elijah’; others again, `He is a prophet, like the prophets we used to have’. But when Herod heard this he said, `It is John whose head I cut off; he has risen the dead’.Now it was this same Herod who had sent to have John arrested and had him chained up in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife whom he had married. For John had told Herod, `It us against the law for you to have your brother’s wife’. As for Herodias, she was furious with him and wanted to kill him; but she was not able to, because Herod was afraid of John, knowing him to be a good and holy man, and gave him his protection. When he had heard him speak he was greatly disturbed, and yet he liked to listen to him. An opportunity came on Herod’s birthday when he gave a banquet for the nobles of his court, For his army officers and for the leading figures in Gallilee. When the daughter of this same Herodias came in and danced, she delighted Herod and his guests; so the king said to the girl, `Ask me anything you like and I will give it you’. And he swore her an oath, `I will give you anything you a ask, even half my kingdom’. She went out and said to her mother, `What shall I ask for?’ She replied, `The head of John the Baptist’. The girl hurried straight back to the king and made her request, `I want you to give me John the Baptist’s head, here and now, on a dish’. The king was deeply distressed but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he was reluctant to break his word to her. So the king at once sent one of the bodyguard with orders to bring John’s head. The man went off and beheaded him in prison; then he brought the head on a dish and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. When John’s disciples heard about this, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.(6/14-30)
The death of John the Baptist is similar to the death of Jesus, and probably is inserted here as a kind of a suggested anticipation of Jesus’ crucifixion, a theme that will not directly surface in Mark until 8/31. One thing noteworthy in both cases is that the authorities who order the deaths do not do so because they understand well what John and Jesus stand for and are threatened by this something in some special way. In both cases the execution order happens almost accidentally, as a result of machinations by other people. The top rulers ordering the execution do not really understand the cosmic religious conflicts Mark thinks are at stake here. This may well reflect the experience of early Jesus-followers: Although they viewed their movement as based on something of cosmic proportions, they lived in a chaotic world where they were very small fry indeed, and in which they and other people could be killed by the authorities for reasons not even closely related to what they were actually doing.
The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. Then he said to them, `You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while’; for there were so many coming and going that the apostles had no time even to eat. So they went off in a boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves.(6/30-32)
This is one of several places in the Gospel that pictures Jesus getting away from the crowds in towns by going into wilderness areas. He takes the inner circle of his disciples with him. This may reflect the feeling among wandering Jesus-preachers that they had to “get away” sometimes from the pressures of missionary activity in the towns.
But people saw them going, and many could guess where and from every town they all hurried to the place on foot and reached it before them. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length. By now it was getting very late, and his disciples came up to him and said, `This is a lonely place and it is getting very late, so send them away and they can go to the farms and villages round about, to buy themselves something to eat’. He replied, `Give them something to eat yourselves’. They answered, `Are we to go and spend two hundred denarii on bread for them to eat?’ `How many loaves have you?’ he asked `Go and see.’ And when they had found out they said, `Five, and two fish’. Then he ordered them to get all the people together in groups on the green grass, and they sat down on the ground in squares of hundreds and fifties. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing; then he broke the loaves and handed them to his disciples to distribute among the people. He also shared out the two fish among them all. They all ate as much as they wanted. They collected twelve basketfuls of scraps of bread and pieces of fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.(6/033-44)
This is the first of two stories where Jesus miraculously creates meals for thousands out of a few loaves of bread and some fish (see also 8/1-10). Mark states twice (6/52, 8/18-21) that there is some hidden meaning in these feedings, and the disciples are strongly criticized for failing to grasp this meaning (though Mark never makes it very clear to the reader what the meaning is either, and there is no agreement among modern scholars on this issue either). In 8/14-17 this lack of understanding is also connected to the fact that the disciples’ literal-mindedness makes them fail to grasp a “yeast” metaphor, and think that Jesus is speaking literally about bread (8/14-17). Taken all together, this suggests that “Give them something to eat” is intended as a reference to nourishment provided by teaching; the disciples mistakenly take it to be a reference to physical bread. Making enough food for 5,000 people out of a few loaves of bread and two fish may be related to the image of the kingdom as a mustard seed that grows into a giant tree.
Directly after this he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to Bethsaida, while he himself sent the crowd away. After saying goodbye to them he went off into the hills to pray. When evening came, the boat was far out on the lake, and he was alone on the land. He could see they were worn out with rowing, for the wind was against them; and about the fourth watch of the night he came towards them, walking on the lake. He was going to pass them by but when they saw him walking on the lake they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they had all seen him and were terrified. But he at once spoke to them, and said, `Courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.’ Then he got into the boat with them, and the wind dropped. They were out of their minds, completely and totally, because they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.(6/45-52)
After the miracle they are “out of their minds” (existanto, the same word Jesus’ relatives use to describe Jesus “gone crazy” in 3/22). Mark says that they react like this to the miracle because their hardness of heart had prevented them from understanding the meaning of the multiplication of the loaves of bread in the previous story. I believe this represents Mark’s criticism of those who are overawed by supernatural miracles and fail to understand the deeper meaning of what Jesus stands for.
Having made the crossing, they came to land at Gennesaret and tied up. No sooner had they stepped out of the boat than people recognized him, and started hurrying all through the countryside and brought the sick on stretchers to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, to village, or town, or farm, they laid down the sick in the open spaces, begging him to let them touch even the fringe of his cloak. And all those who touched him were cured.(6/53-56)
The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered round him, and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them. For the Pharisees, and all the Judeans [Judaioi], follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from the marketplace they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes. So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, `Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’
He answered, `It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:
This people honors me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.
You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.(7/1-8)
We meet here one of the main sources of puzzlement about the social context of the gospel: The many stories in Mark centering on conflicts about Pharisaic legal observances imply that this was an issue of some importance for Mark’s readers. This would seemingly only be true if these customs had some standing in their communities, i.e. if these communities were in some sense been “Jewish”. Yet here Mark seems to refer to “the Jews” as people different from his audience, some of whose customs need to be explained to them. This is one of the main pieces of evidence for the hypothesis (the most commonly held one today) that Mark’s audience consists of small gatherings of people outside of Palestine, both of Jewish and non-Jewish ethnic descent; they identify with certain elements of the Jewish tradition, and look for spiritual guidance to Jewish scriptures; but they are not in close contact with influential Jewish parties in Jerusalem (and the south-Palestine district “Judea” where Jerusalem is located), and do not regard them as authorities.
Mark includes a story here from the oral tradition about a conflict between Jesus and “Pharisees and scribes coming from Jerusalem”, over a “tradition of the elders”, a ritual cleansing performed to avoid uncleanness from contact with pagans in marketplaces. This makes me think that his audience is familiar with other Jewish religious rules like the Sabbath-rest (2/23-3/6) and fasting (2/18-22), but not with these practices regarded as “tradition of the elders” by Judean Jews. (These practices were in fact relatively recent innovations, not prescriptions clearly spelled out in the Jewish scriptures.) Mark has to inform his audience of this tradition, unknown to them but adhered to by “Pharisees and all the Judaioi”–Judaioi here to be taken in its narrow sense of “inhabitants of Judea”, not its more normal broad sense referring to all ethnic Jews. The fact that he has to tell his audience about practices of the Pharisees may mean that they are not in actual contact or conflict with Pharisees; the Pharisees in his gospel, then, usually stand for some other group with a Pharisee-like mentality, whom Mark’s audience are in contact and conflict with; these may even be other Jesus-followers who share the Pharisee’s law-centered interpretation of the Jewish tradition, such as those Paul seems to be combating in his letters to the Galatians and Romans.
Jesus argues against the scribes with a bit of scripture interpretation, selecting a short passage from the Book of Isaiah (29/13) that contrasts people who follow “human regulations” (his characterization of “the traditions of the elders”) with people whose hearts are close to God.
And he said to them, `How ingeniously you get around the commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition. For Moses said: `Do your duty to your father and your mother and, Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say, `If a man says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is Corban (that is, dedicated to God), he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his father or mother’. In this way you make God’s word null and void for the sake of your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this.`(7/9-13)
Next Jesus picks a weak point in the Pharisaic position, the fact that a very legalistically minded person could under their laws conceivably officially “donate” all their possessions to the temple while continuing to enjoy their personal use, being only unable to use them for support of their parents. This is an exaggerated version of the contrast visible in earlier stories (2/23-3/6), a clash between legalism and plain human decency (the basic reason for selecting and interpreting another scripture passage as he does). This is of course at best an exaggerated caricature of the Pharisaic mentality; we have no other evidence that any contemporary Jewish group ever advocated this kind of practice.
He called the people to him again and said, `Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean. It is the things that come out of a man that make him unclean. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to this.’ When he had gone back into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, `Do you not understand either? Can you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot make him unclean, because it does not go into his heart but through his stomach and passes out into the sewer.’ (Thus he pronounced all foods clean.) And he went on, `It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.`(7/14-23)
One can see here what would be required to understand Jesus’ “parable”: One would have to be completely unsympathetic to the Pharisaic strategy of creating and accentuating a set of distinctions between “clean” and “unclean”, the following of which in everyday life would be an external symbol of adherence to the Jewish tradition in opposition to Roman culture. Jesus’ parable means to deny any important symbolic value to food (“what goes into a person”), and to make everything depend on a person’s internal moral motives (“what comes out of a person”). There would have been nothing special about the list of vices Mark gives here. He merely lists those things that almost everyone would have looked upon as human vices at this time. Jesus explains his point as a special revelation to the disciples, prefacing his explanation with criticism for their lack of ability to understand the parable itself.
He left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not pass unrecognized. A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him straightaway and came and fell at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, `Let the children be fed first, because it is not good to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs’. But she spoke up: `Ah yes, sir,’ she replied, `but the dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps’. And he said to her, `For saying this, you may go home happy; the demon has gone out of your daughter’. So she went off to her home and found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.(7/24-30)
Returning from the district of Tyre, he went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region. And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, `Ephphatha’, that is, `Be opened’. And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it. Their admiration was unbounded. `He has done all things well,’ they said `he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.`(7/31-37).
Tyre was a non-Jewish settlement on the Mediterranean coast in northern Palestine. Jesus’ very harsh (“racist”) reply to the gentile woman probably just reflects the naive ethnocentrism common to almost all peoples in the ancient world. But Mark probably places this story here to contrast this gentile’s reaction to Jesus with that of the Pharisees in the previous story, representatives of a kind of Jewishness that prides itself on its contrast with gentile culture. (Some commentators think that the acceptance of gentiles into the Christian community is an important part of Mark’s message. Although his criticism of special Jewish customs could of course lead to this, I don’t see any emphasis on openness to gentiles in Mark’s gospel.)
This is the first healing of a deaf man in Mark. A healing of a blind man occurs in 8/22-26 and 10/46. A main theme of the passages in between these stories is the lack of understanding of Jesus by the Pharisees, and increasingly by the disciples–they do not have “ears to hear or eyes to see” (8/18). Given the indications elsewhere in Mark that the miracles have some hidden meaning, this is a likely indication that Mark intends some connection between these stories and the “deafness and blindness” of the Pharisees and disciples.
And now once again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat. So he called his disciples to him and said to them, `I feel sorry for all these people; they have been with me for three days now and have nothing to eat. If I send them off home hungry they will collapse on the way; some have come a great distance.’ His disciples replied, `Where could anyone get bread to feed these people in a deserted place like this?’ He asked them, `How many loaves have you? `Seven’ they said. Then he instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground, and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and handed them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them among the crowd. They had a few small fish as well, and over these he said a blessing and ordered them to be distributed also. They ate as much as they wanted, and they collected seven basketfuls of the scraps left over. Now there had been about forty thousand people. He sent them away and immediately, getting into the boat with his disciples, went to the region of Dalmanutha.(8/1-10)
The Pharisees came up and started a discussion with him; they demanded of him a sign from heaven, to test him. Sighing deeply in his spirit he said, `Why does this generation demand a sign? I tell you solemnly, no sign shall be given to this generation.’ And leaving them again and reembarking he went away to the opposite shore.
The Pharisees want Jesus to validate himself by a sign that will mean something according to their standards (he has presented many “signs from Heaven” by Mark’s standards). But from Mark’s perspective it is their mentality that is the problem–who Jesus is cannot be validated to someone with their mentality.
The disciples had forgotten to take any food and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. Then he gave them this warning, `Keep your eyes open; be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod’. And they said to one another, `It is because we have no bread’. And Jesus knew it, and he said to them, `Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you not yet understand: Have you no perception: Are your minds closed? Have you eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear? Or do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of scraps did you collect?’ They answered, `Twelve’. And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets full of scraps did you collect?’ And they answered, `Seven’. Then he said to them, `Are you still without perception?`(8/11-21)
The Pharisaic mentality is likened to yeast. Yeast mixed with bread dough causes a fermentation process, and this was seen as a kind of “corruption” (so Jews ate more “pure” unleavened bread [matzos] on holy days). Just so the Pharisaic mentality could get into a person’s heart and corrupt it. The disciples fail to understand this “parable” due to an extreme literal mindedness, and the fact that their minds are focused on material concerns. The metaphoric language itself here is not difficult to understand at all, and it is hard to believe that an ordinary reader of Mark would have missed its meaning. He must be presenting the disciples here as being quite stupid; he probably wants to provoke a laugh in his readers. It may even be that their response is intended to show that they were already infected with something like the Pharisaic “yeast”.
Jesus immediately relates the disciples’ lack of ability to understand his symbolic “yeast” language, to their failure to understand the meaning of the multiplication of loaves in the wilderness.
This is the clearest indication in the gospel that Mark thinks there is some hidden meaning at least in these two miracles, that the failure to get this meaning is the sign of a moral fault, and that getting this hidden meaning is very crucial to understanding the meaning of Jesus’ activity.
It is unclear exactly what meaning Mark means his readers to see in these two miracle stories. Some see a symbolic reference in the numbers “twelve” (=twelve tribes of Israel, Jews) and “seven” (gentiles? see Acts 6/1-6). I think it more likely that the feeding stands for the spiritual “nourishment” that Jesus-teachers could be able to offer the whole Mediterranean world if they could grasp the true hidden meaning of Mark’s gospel stories. (There might then be a relation between these miracles and the image of the small mustard seed that grows into a big tree.)
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to him a blind man whom they begged him to touch. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Then putting spittle on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked, `Can you see anything?’ The man, who was beginning to see, `replied,’ I can see people; they look like trees to me, but they are walking about’. Then he laid his hands on the man’s eyes again and he saw dearly; he was cured, and he could see everything plainly and distinctly. And Jesus sent him home, saying, `Do not even go into the village’.(8/22-26)
The accusation that the disciples have “eyes that do not see” is immediately followed by the healing of a blind person.
Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, `Who do people say I am?’ And they told him. `John the Baptist,’ they said, `others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets. `But you,’ he asked, `who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, `You are the Messiah.’ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.(8/27-30)
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly.
Then, taking him aside, Peter started to scold him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, `Get behind me, Satan. Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.`(8/31-33)
This is a very crucial turning point in the gospel narrative. Up to this point, most stories show how Jesus’ power defeats the Pharisees, with no real suggestion that Jesus will ultimately lose this battle. Also most of the early part of the gospel shows the special powers and revelations given to the inner circle of disciples, though they have been coming under increasingly explicit criticism in the last few passages. Here the special revelations to the disciples reach their climax in Peter’s realization that Jesus is the Messiah. But immediately afterward Jesus predicts for the first time his suffering, death, and resurrection; the juxtaposition indicates a strong connection between this fate and Jesus’ status as Messiah.
The disciples’ lack of understanding comes to very strong expression in Peter’s rejection of this idea, for which rejection he is called “Satan”. Even though he’s gotten the words right–Jesus is the Messiah–he doesn’t understand what “Messiah” means (i.e. what Mark thinks it means).
We learn here that the “hidden meaning” behind Mark’s Jesus-story is strongly connected with Jesus’ suffering and death (the climax of Mark’s story). This connects Mark’s message quite closely with that of Paul: Paul also emphasizes the “saving” character of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and emphasizes also the centrality of suffering for the Christian worldview, over against some Jesus-followers who want to emphasize miracle-working as a key sign of possessing the Christian “spirit” (See 2Cor. 11/16-12/13). Peter here probably represents Jesus-followers of this sort for Mark, criticizing Jesus for speaking of a suffering “messiah”.
Modern Christians have become very accustomed to the idea of a suffering Messiah, and usually assume that there is some relatively easily grasped and well-established reason for this connection. This assumption will be one of the main obstacles to trying to grasp the hidden meaning that Mark is trying to get across in telling his Jesus story. (It is not enough to say that Mark thinks God decided that the Messiah must suffer, and that is that. This doesn’t address the issue as to why Mark thinks God decided this, or the basis on which he expects his audience to accept this idea about God’s decision.) We must try to see this issue with a fresh eye, see the extreme unusualness of the idea, and try to follow clues Mark himself gives about why the Messiah must suffer.
He called the people and his disciples to him and said, `If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin his life? And indeed what can a man offer in exchange for his life? For if anyone in this adulterous and sinful generation is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
And he said to them, `I tell you solemnly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power’.(8/34-9/1)
Crucifixion was still a common mode of criminal execution, so for Mark’s audience “take up the cross” would have had a very concrete association with bring social outcasts. One must be willing to lose one’s life “for the sake of the gospel”. But remember that for Mark “the gospel” itself is something very difficult to grasp–it is not simply identical either with the surface details of Jesus’ life or with any doctrinal formulas about who he is. And there is no hint in Mark that being loyal to this gospel consists in being loyal to some particular community. It cannot be that Mark is simply pointing to the necessity of being willing to suffer because one is socially known as a “Jesus-follower”. Almost every social group wants its members to do this. Following a “Suffering Messiah” must mean that suffering is somehow an intrinsic and central element in what it is one is following, not only that one might have to suffer because one follows something else which provokes persecution.
Jesus announces here for the first time also (9/1) the coming of the end of the world–coming soon, not more than one generation away–and of his own status as Lord of the Kingdom of God that will come about at this time. We need to keep in mind that Mark is writing for people who share this expectation.
The expectation that the world would end soon was a common one among many people of this time, a manifestation, I think, of their alienation from the socio-political order of the time (“this adulterous and sinful generation”), which is always what is going to be destroyed in this end. The pragmatic implication Mark draws from this belief in the imminent end is that Jesus-followers must not let the scorn of others lead one to lose confidence in Jesus’ message and become ashamed of it.
After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter spoke to Jesus, `Rabbi,’ he said `it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say; they had become very frightened.
And a cloud came, covering them in shadow; and there came a voice from the cloud, `This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’ Suddenly, when they looked round, they saw no one with them any more but only Jesus. As they came down from the mountain he warned them to tell no one what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They observed the warning faithfully, though among themselves they discussed what `rising from the dead’ could mean. (9/2-10)
And they put this question to him, `Why do the scribes say that Elijah has to come first?’ `True,’ he said `Elijah is to come first and to see that everything is as it should be; yet how is it that it is written about the Son of Man that he is to suffer grievously and he treated with contempt? However, I tell you that Elijah has come and they have treated him as they pleased, just as it is written about him.`(9/11/13)
This is probably the climax of special revelations given to the inner inner-circle of disciples, Peter, James, and John: Jesus in the company of supernatural figures, the ghosts of Elijah and Moses (whom some supposed would come at the end of the world), and a voice from heaven revealing that Jesus is the Son of God. It is unclear what Peter’s statement about the tents really meant in the original story; it may be that Mark couldn’t make any sense out of it either–he represents it as Peter’s babbling because he was so frightened at the apparition (another instance of fright as an inadequate response). Jesus commands them not to tell anyone about this special revelation until after his death and resurrection, probably suggesting that the foundation of Jesus’ “glory” somehow lies in his death and resurrection, and so cannot be understood apart from this. The disciples do not understand what `rising from the dead’ means; it is unlikely that Mark means they didn’t understand the literal meaning of the words; more likely he thinks that the event of Jesus rising from the dead itself has some meaning beyond the literal facts.
We do not know where “it is written” that Elijah and the Son of Man are to suffer. This passage reflects the fact that Mark lives in a subculture similar to that of the “scribes” he mentions here: both groups look through old writings, selecting passages out of context and reading into them their own interpretations of current events and predictions about the future. We do know of traditions about Elijah coming at the end of the world–here Mark has Jesus assert that John the Baptizer was this Elijah, and links his own suffering and death with that of John.
When they rejoined the disciples they saw a large crowd round them and some scribes arguing with them. The moment they saw him the whole crowd were struck with amazement and ran to greet him. What are you arguing about with them?’ he asked. A man answered him from the crowd, `Master, I have brought my son to you; there is a spirit of dumbness in him, and when it takes hold of him it throws him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and goes rigid. And I asked your disciples to cast it out and they were unable to.’ `You faithless generation’ he said to them in reply. `How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.’ They brought the boy to him, and as soon as the spirit saw Jesus it threw the boy into convulsions, and he fell to the ground and lay writhing there, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, `How long has this been happening to him?’ `From childhood,’ he replied, `and it has often thrown him into the fire and into the water, in order to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.’ `If you can?’ retorted Jesus `Everything is possible for anyone who has faith.’ Immediately the father of the boy cried out, `I do have faith. Help the little faith I have!’ And when Jesus saw how many people were pressing round him, he rebuked the unclean spirit. `Deaf and dumb spirit,’ he said, `I command you: come out of him and never enter him again.’ Then throwing the boy into violent convulsions it came out shouting, and the boy lay there so like a corpse that most of them said `He is dead’. But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him up, and he was able to stand. When he had gone indoors his disciples asked him privately, `Why were we unable to cast it out?’ `This is the kind’ he answered `that only be driven out by prayer.`(9/14-29)
Mark probably puts this story here because it shows the failing of the disciples–it continues his double theme of the disciples as recipients of special revelations (like the one just given), but who also do not understand these revelations. Jesus had earlier (3/14, 6/7) conferred on the disciples the power to cast out demons, and now their inability shows that this special inner circle are after all members of “this faithless generation”.
After leaving that place they made their way through Galilee; and he did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, `The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again’. But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.(9/30-32)
This begins a long section (9/30-10/45) that Mark describes as “instructions to the disciples”. This section is indeed the only long section in Mark’s story devoted mainly to direct teaching. It is important because it gives us the most direct indication about the pragmatic implications Mark drew from his ideas about Jesus, what are the concrete consequences of “following Jesus”.
The first line of this section (9/30) indicates that all of this instruction is secret teaching given to the disciples. This seems to represent another turn in the story: So far the secret revelations given to the disciples are about Jesus as a powerful and divine figure, revelations that would attract people who want to be associated with power and high status. The “secret teachings” in this section are mainly about the way that following Jesus requires giving up the desire for status and wealth. I think that Mark treats many of the earlier passages about secret revelations ironically: They represent claims certain people have made about secret revelations, but Mark thinks that the real meaning of these revelations remains hidden from the people who claim to have received them. If this is correct, he may intend this passage ironically as well, but in the opposite sense. Understanding that Jesus is the Son of God might well be put forward as some hidden knowledge that not everyone has grasped. Understanding that one ought not to quarrel over status (9/33-37) just doesn’t seem as likely a candidate for “secret wisdom”. But Mark thinks that this rather plain advice is actually closer to the true “hidden meaning” of Jesus’ life.
They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, `What were you arguing about on the road?’ They said nothing because they had been arguing which of them was the greatest. So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, `If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all’.(9/33-35)
He then took a little child, set him in front of them, put his arms round him, and said to them, `Anyone who accepts one of these little children because of my name, accepts me; and anyone who accepts me, accepts not me but the one who sent me’.(9/36-37)
I think many phrases and implied connections in the section 9/33-42 are best explained if we assume that Mark is assuming a complex of issues similar to those that Paul is addressing in the First Letter to the Corinthians, chs. 1-4 and 12-14. There Paul is criticizing certain members of the community of Jesus-followers who are boasting of their special gifts. They regard themselves as more advanced in their understanding of the Christian message than other members of the community, and claim also that their exceptional status shows in their greater miracle-working power. Paul contrasts what he terms their “human wisdom” with the message of Christ’s crucifixion (“hidden from the masters of this age”), and criticizes them for looking down on other members of the community, and also causing disharmony in the community by breaking it into factions, each faction claiming to follow one outstanding leader. He speaks of the message of the crucifixion as a kind of secret wisdom which the worldly do not understand, and says that the competitive wrangling among members of the community is a sign that they have not understood it. He characterizes them as spiritual “children” who have not yet achieved the “maturity” that would enable them to understand this secret wisdom. Here he is probably using the language of his opponents, who claim that their special wisdom shows them to be the spiritually mature, in contrast to other Jesus-followers they look down upon as “children”.
In Mark 9/30 we have Jesus speaking of the crucifixion and resurrection as a secret wisdom that he revealed to disciples, not to outsiders, but that the disciples themselves did not understand. Then in 9/33-35 we have a new criticism of the disciples, for fighting with one another about who is the greatest. Then 9/36 contrasts this attitude with the attitude of one who “accepts one of these little children because of my name”. This sentence presents a puzzle: Does “because of my name” indicate that one ought to accept certain children because they belong to the Christian community? Does it mean that one should accept children in general because somehow they represent Jesus? Why would Mark be so concerned about attitudes toward children among the Jesus-followers?
The Pauline passages described above suggest a different solution: “Children” does not refer to those young in age, but to those in a community of Jesus-followers whom others would tend to look down on as less spiritually advanced. This solution is reinforced by the mention in 9/42 of “little ones [or “lesser ones”, mikroi) among the believers”, and people who “give you a cup of water because you belong to Christ”. That is, Mark is addressing a group of people (a subgroup connected with a synagogue?) who are indeed distinguished as a social group because they “believe in Jesus”. He sees the child in the story as representing some members of this group, whom other group members regard as less advanced in their understanding of Christian mysteries (whom Paul also calls “children”). Mark blames the disciples in that the fight of each to assert his own greatness implicitly puts down others in the community by contrast. “Those who belong to Christ” refers to all members of the group of Jesus-followers, and one shows that one “accepts Jesus” precisely by one’s willingness to be of service to those others regard as the “lowest” members (accepting these “little ones among the believers” “because they belong to Christ”, “because of [Jesus’] name”.) [I am not aware that any other commentator has interpreted “children” in this way, but I have a hard time believing that Mark is specially worried that Jesus-followers don’t treat their children right; the Pauline passages quoted seem to offer a very clear way of resolving this difficulty.]
This is one of the main pieces of evidence in this gospel that Mark has some social grouping in mind, publicly distinguished from other social groups by the fact that they claim to “believe in Jesus”. Note that “believing in Jesus” as a public claim cannot be the same as the understanding of Jesus’ true meaning, which Mark implicitly claims is something that is by nature hidden and not easy to understand; hence it can’t be the subject of a public claim one makes by using the words “I believe in Jesus”. Paradoxically, Mark is addressing a group of Jesus-followers, trying to get them to understand the hidden meaning of Jesus that they do not yet understand; and he also says that one sign that some do not understand it is that they look down on others who they think are not as advanced in understanding as they are.
John said to him, `Master, we saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him’. But Jesus said, `You must not stop him; no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.`(9/38-40)
If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward. But anyone who affronts and upsets these little ones who have faith, it would be better if he were thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck.(9/41-43)
Sandwiched in between these references to “little children” is a story about Jesus’ criticism of the disciples’ attempt to stop someone from using Jesus’ name in exorcisms “because he is not one of us”. In the context, this suggests a background in which some who use Jesus’ name claim a special status for themselves over against others who use his name. Mark is probably implicitly criticizing competitive wrangling among various groups of Jesus-followers over the claim each has that it “owns” Jesus. Like Paul, he implies that competing for status like this is a sign that one has not understood the message of the cross. All this is a set of added clues as to the mentality Mark is criticizing in his pictures of “failure to understand” Jesus. Those who use a claim to higher understanding as the basis for divisions between in-groups and out-groups are reinstating on a different basis the Pharisaic division between “righteous” and “sinners” that Mark criticizes in 3/15-17.
And if your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that cannot be put out.’ And if your foot should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life lame, than to have two feet and be thrown hell. And if your eye should cause you to sin, tear it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where their worm does not die nor their fire go out. For everyone will be salted with fire.(9/44-48)
Salt is a good thing, but if salt has become insipid, how can you season it again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.`(9/49-50)
It seems likely that Mark includes this section here mainly because in oral tradition it belonged with 9/43 as part of a group of sayings; the group hung together by an association of images rather than similarity of their main theme. Mark may have liked 9/43-48 for its emphasis on the necessity of placing adherence to the Christian message above absolutely everything. The very high demands placed on Jesus-followers seems to be the theme of 10/1-12 and 10/17-22 also. Association by catchword is especially evident in the last two lines. “Salt” first seems to refer to the punishing fires of hell. But in the next line it refers to the special something Jesus-followers have that makes them the “salt of the earth”. It may be that the very last line is Mark’s own: he interprets this special something as a community spirit that brings peace rather than competitive wrangling to the group.
Leaving there, he came to the district of Judaea and the far side Jordan. And again crowds gathered around him, and again he taught as his custom was. Some Pharisees approached him and asked, `Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife?’ They were testing him. He answered them, `What did Moses command you.’ `Moses allowed us’, they said, `to draw up a writ of dismissal and so to divorce.’ Then Jesus said to them, `It was because you of the hardness of your hearts that he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. This is why a man must leave father and mother and the two become one body. They are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.’ Back in the house the disciples questioned him again about this, he said to them, `The man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another she is guilty of adultery too.`(10/1-12)
Here Mark presents Jesus as more strict than the Pharisees: He claims that the scriptural passage permitting divorce (Dt. 24/1-4) represented a softening of the real rule, written because of the Jews’ “hardness of heart”–because they were not spiritually up to the faithfulness that marriage really ought to require. He quotes another scripture passage (Gn. 2/24) in support of his position. But it is more evident here than elsewhere that Mark’s preconceived ideas govern his use of scripture, rather than vice-versa: If one of his opinions contradicts a scriptural passage, he just claims that that passage itself represents a lapse and should not be regarded as authoritative. Given that elsewhere Mark’s thinking seems to be governed by human feeling, the basic motivation behind his argument here is probably that “the two become one body” resonates with his own experience of the bond between two partners. In the light of this experience, permission to break this bond seems to him to manifest a legalistic mentality on the part of people who lack the feeling he has for the depth of this bond, and so do not see divorce for the betrayal of the bond (a sin against the other partner) that he feels it to be.
People were bringing little children to him, for him to touch them. The disciples turned them away, but when Jesus saw this he was indignant and said to them, `Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not accept the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. Then he put his arms around them, laid his hands on them and blessed them.(10/13-16)
If my earlier conjectures about the symbolic meaning of “children” are correct, then the disciples in this passage are probably being criticized because their concern for status and high opinion of themselves causes them to look down on others whom they regard as “children” less deserving of respect and closeness to “Jesus” (a spiritual presence in their community). In this passage children also represent a certain mentality or attitude necessary to “accept the kingdom of God” as it needs to be accepted. The passage does not make very clear exactly what kind of “childlike” mentality Mark has in mind, but the context makes it pretty clear that it is an attitude opposite that of the self-promoting disciples.
He was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him, and put this question to him, `Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, `Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: you must not kill; you must not commit adultery; you must not steal; you must not bring false witness; you must not defraud; honor your father and mother.’ And he said to him, `Master, I have kept all these from my earliest days’. Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, `There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.(10/17-22)
Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, `How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were astounded at these words, but Jesus insisted, `My children,’ he said to them’ how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were more astounded than ever. `In that case,’ they said to one another, `who can be saved?’ Jesus glared at them. `For men,’ he said, `it is impossible, but not for God; because everything is possible for God.`(10/23-27)
This story illustrates another kind of mentality that might prevent one from fully accepting what Jesus stands for: Attachment to material wealth. This was hinted at already in the mention of the “cares of the world and lure of riches” that makes one “bad ground”, unable to accept the seed that Jesus is sowing (4/19). One who is not willing to give up absolutely everything else if it interferes with commitment to the “kingdom of God” cannot enter into this kingdom. Jesus’ reply in 10/18 seems to reflect a very early stage in the Christian tradition before Jesus became identified with God. It also reflects a strong polarization characteristic of some Jewish and Christian thought, that attributes all true “goodness” to God alone; it never becomes an internal and permanent property of human beings, in whom goodness is only a characteristic of individual responses they make to God’s call. This is part of the basis for the early Christian egalitarianism reflected in Mark 9/33-41: the distance between God on one side, and all humankind on the other, makes all people more or less equal in the eyes of God.
The disciples apparently expect the wealthy to be the most likely to be saved (10/26). This seems a very crass notion, leading me to suspect again here that Mark is parodying the disciples and making them look very stupid. Note also that Jesus’ final statement does not really fit the disciple’s question. They ask, If even rich people can’t be saved, then who can? (assuming that no one can be saved, if the rich can’t.) Jesus can hardly be explaining that God’s power is sufficient to save even the non-rich. I believe Mark sees Jesus’ statement as a humorous and sarcastic expression of exasperation at their crassness and their literal-minded interpretation of the hyperbolic eye-of-the-needle “parable”.
The disciples reaction is an exaggerated expression of a mentality much taken with appearances, which tends then to associate wealth with success, and success with merit. This is the same basic mentality that manifests itself in their concern for their own status and in their looking down on “unimportant” children. This mentality also causes them to be very impressed with the great temple buildings 13/1.
Peter took this up. `What about us?’ he asked him. `We have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, `I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, father, children or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not be repaid a hundred times over, houses, brothers, mothers, children, and land–not without persecutions–now in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life. Many who are first will be last, and the last first.`(10/28-31)
Those who leave their families and lands “for the sake of the gospel” may be early leaders among Jesus-followers like Paul who abandoned home life to spread Jesus’ message. This way of life represents complete dedication, contrasted here with the rich young man’s unwillingness to go all the way. It is also the prime example of what it means to “follow” Jesus, who also broke with his family (4/31-35) to take up the life of a wandering preacher (1/38-39). The communities they found will become their substitute “families” (compare the close personal relationship Paul feels with the Christian communities he founded.) But their way of life will make them feel in the meanwhile the lowest (“last”) members of society. And this feeling will be aggravated by the “persecutions” directed against them: Mark probably has in mind struggles in groups closely associated with gatherings of Jews and Jewish converts, between Jesus-followers and others who identified with the Jewish tradition, or among rival factions among Jesus-followers. (See further comments at 13/9-13, which directly mentions persecutions in synagogues).
They were on the road going up to Jerusalem; Jesus was walking on ahead of them; they were astounded, and others who followed were afraid. Once more taking the Twelve aside he began to tell them what was going to happen to him: `Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the pagans, who will mock him and spit at him and whip him and put him to death; and after three days he will rise again.`(10/32-34)
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him. `Master,’ they said to him,’ we want you to do us a favour.’ He said to them, `What is it you want me to do for you?’ They said to him, `Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory’. `You do not know what you are asking,’ Jesus said to them. `Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I must be baptized? They replied, `We can.’ Jesus said to them, `The cup that I must drink you shall drink, and with the baptism with which I must be baptized you shall be baptized, but as for seats at my right hand or my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted’.(10/35-40)
James and John are concerned about their status in the coming kingdom of God. This concern shows that they have not understood the centrality of suffering in the Christian message; Mark suggests this by the implicit contrast between this story and the prediction of Jesus’ suffering immediately preceding it. Jesus’ first reply implies that suffering is a condition for high places in the kingdom, and this is what James and John do not understand. His last statement suggests that places in the kingdom are alotted by some kind of secret supernatural plan which he himself is subject to.When the other ten heard this they began to feel indignant with James and John, so Jesus called them to him and said to them, `You know that among pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No, anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be among you must be slave to all. For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.`(10/41-45)
Jesus pictures the habit community leaders have of “lording it over” others as something “pagans” do. He undoubtedly has Greek and Roman rulers in mind here; and he assumes a contrast between their mentality and that of “authentic” Judaism. He may be drawing here on an old feeling in Jewish culture that the ideal society is a kingdom under an invisible God with no other earthly human authorities–all men are equals under God. (In 800 b.c., the statement “We have no king but God” expressed an attachment to an egalitarian tribal culture in opposition to the special status that Davidic kings claimed for themselves.) Like Paul, Mark presents willingness to serve the needs of others in the community as the primary criterion by which a person shows herself an outstanding member of the Christian community. Mark includes a saying here that uses the “ransom” image to express the significance of Jesus’ death. But he uses the saying here because it presents Jesus as a role-model for “servant”-leadership, not in order to give his own interpretation of Jesus’ death. I think the meaning he does suggest by telling his story is somewhat different.
They reached Jericho; and as he left Jericho with his disciples and a large crowd, Bartimaeus (that is, `son of Timaeus’), a blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and to say, `Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me’. And many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he only shouted all the louder, `Son of David have pity on me’. Jesus stopped and said, `Call him here’. So they called the blind man. `Courage,’ they said, `Get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus. Then Jesus spoke, `What do you want me to do for you? The blind man said to him, `Rabbuni (Master), let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, `Go, your faith has saved you’. And immediately his sight returned and he followed him along the road.(10/46-52)
Mark ends this section on Jesus’ teaching with a story about healing a blind man–probably intending some reference to the “blindness” that the disciples show throughout this section, by their lack of understanding and by the fact that their conduct manifests attitudes in direct contrast to what Jesus is saying in this section. Mark has the blind person call Jesus “son of David”, perhaps in anticipation of the next story, which pictures Jesus as the future king of “the coming kingdom of our father David”. (David was idealized as the paradigmatic “Anointed” king, and this is the source of the use of “The Anointed One” (Hebrew messiach, Greek christos) as a title for a messianic savior.
When they were approaching Jerusalem, in sight of Bethphage and Bethany, close by the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, `Go off to the village facing you, and as soon as you enter it you will find a tethered colt that no one has yet ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you, `What are you doing?’ say, `The Master needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ They went off and found a colt tethered near a door in the open street. As they untied it, some men standing there said, `What are you doing, untying that colt?’ They gave the answer Jesus had told them, and the men let them go. Then they took the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on its back, and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, others greenery which they had cut in the fields. And those who went in front and those who followed were all shouting, `Hosanna! Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessings on the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heavens!’ He entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple. He looked all round him, but as it was now late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.(11/1-11)
This story probably reflects the importance that Jerusalem had in the minds of Jews and Jewish converts, inside and outside Palestine, as the symbolic center of the Judaic tradition. The Messiah who will make this tradition victorious ought to appear in Jerusalem. Mark regards his community as the true inheritor of this tradition (12/10-11), so it is important that the “king” of this new community be acclaimed such in Jerusalem itself.
The special arrangements made so that Jesus could enter the city riding on a colt probably reflects the idea that he was fulfilling a scriptural “prophecy” describing the coming of the Messiah. The passage (Zachariah 9/9) referred to, pictures the colt as a sign of humility (in contrast to the magnificent horses characteristically used by kings in procession), and this continues Mark’s theme from 9/33-41, 10/35-45. Jesus’ foreknowledge about people letting the colt go, and the fact that they actually did so, shows the supernatural power at work behind the scenes here; this shows at several points in the events leading up to Jesus’ death, and reflects Mark’s sense that this story follows a `predestined’ pattern hinted at in the old scriptures for the one who knows how to read them rightly (see remarks on 1/1-6).
Next day as they were leaving Bethany, he felt hungry. Seeing a fig tree in leaf some distance away, he went to see if he could find any fruit on it, but when he came up to it he found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season for figs. And he addressed the fig tree. `May no one ever eat fruit from you again,’ he said. And his disciples heard him say this.(11/12-14)
When Jesus curses the fig tree, this is a symbolic act after the manner of classic Israelite prophets. (For example, Jeremiah put a cattle yoke around his neck, and than had one of his friends break it off in public view; this symbolized the way God would “break the yoke” which foreign rule placed around the neck of Israel. See Jer. 27/2 & 28/10.) This story needs to be read in the light of the parable in 12/1, where envoys sent to collect the owner’s share of vineyard-produce represent God sending prophets to Israel to “collect a harvest” (true righteousness), and the punishment for their failure represents the Romans’ destruction of the temple, God’s punishment of Jerusalem-based Judaism. Here the barren fig tree also symbolically represents the “barrenness” of the Judaism of the Jerusalem-based Pharisees and scribes, and Jesus’ effective curse represents the “destruction” of it. It was robbed of exousia/power:authority by the greater power of Jesus vs. the scribes. This is probably an indirect reference also to the Roman’s destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., which Mark probably interpreted as God’s “destruction” of the Jerusalem-based Judaism. In 13/1-27 he seems to regard the destruction of the Temple as part of the destruction of this world, a prelude to the coming of God’s kingdom. [Some think that Mark was written before this event, but still predicted its coming, which would probably not have been too difficult to foresee, given growing revolutions in Palestine and well-known Roman military power and brutality. The destruction of an earlier Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. was also interpreted by prophets as God’s punishment on corrupt Jewish priests and kings.]
So they reached Jerusalem and he went into the temple and began driving out those who were selling and buying there; he upset the tables of the money-changers and the chairs of those who were selling pigeons. Nor would he allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he taught them and said, `Does not scripture say: My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples? But you have turned it into a robbers’ den.’ This come to the ears of the chief priests and the scribes, and they tried to find some way of doing away with him; they were afraid of him because the people were carried away by his teaching. And when evening came he went out of the city.(11/15-19)
Here we can see the heavily moralistic and symbolic mentality of the early followers of Jesus: in their minds there is a strict polarization between morality and religion on the one hand, and commercial interests on the other. To have anything commercial associated with a holy symbol like the temple is a sacrilege. This reflects their entire alienation from the more practical mentality of the Jerusalem Jews, in charge of the necessary task of managing temple business. (The temple and priesthood had become the governing center of whatever independent Jewish politics and economics existed under foreign rule; the original story here may reflect popular resentment at the way Jerusalem Jews had taken over a holy symbol and used it as part of a system of economic and political power that Galileans felt oppressive. The use of money connected with temple affairs was a very sensitive and contentious one among contemporary Jews.) This story continues the theme that Jesus is exercising authority over the major symbols of Jewish tradition.
Next morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered to the roots. Peter remembered. `Look, Rabbi,’ he said to Jesus, `the fig tree you cursed has withered away.’
Jesus answered, `Have faith in God. I tell you solemnly, if anyone says to this mountain, “Get up and throw yourself into the sea’, with no hesitation in his heart but believing that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. I tell you therefore: everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours. And when you stand in prayer, forgive whatever you have against anybody, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your failings too.`(11/20-25)
They came to Jerusalem again, and as Jesus was walking in the Temple the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, `What authority have you for acting like this? Or who gave you authority to do these things?’ Jesus said to them, `I will ask you a question, only one; answer me and I will tell you my authority for acting like this. John’s baptism, did it come from heaven, or from man? Answer me that.’ And they argued it out this way among themselves, `If we say from heaven, he will say, `Then why did you refuse to believe him?’ But dare we say from man?’ They had the people to fear, for everyone held that John was a real prophet. So their reply to Jesus was `We do not know’. And Jesus said to them, `Nor will I tell you my authority for acting like this’.(11/27-33)
Jesus here outwits the leaders of Jerusalem Judaism when they ask for his credentials. In Mark’s mind, they would not understand the basis for Jesus’ authority, so Jesus simply silences their questions with a rhetorical trap. He exploits the conflict between their desire to maintain the respect of the common people, on the one hand, and the fact that they did not share the peoples’ attraction to `charismatic’ prophets like John the Baptizer and Jesus.
He went on to speak to them in parables, ‘A man planted a vineyard and fenced it round, dug out a trough for the winepress and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When the time came he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce from the vineyard. But they seized the man, beat him up and sent him away empty handed. Next he sent another servant to them; him they beat about the head and treated shamefully. And he sent another and him they killed; then of number others, and they thrashed some and killed the rest. He had still someone left: his beloved son. He sent him to them last of all. `They will respect my son’ he said. But those tenants said to each other, `This is the heir. Come on, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and make an end of the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this text of scripture:
It was the stone rejected
by the builders, that became the keystone.
This was the Lord’s doing
and it is wonderful to see.
And they would have liked to arrest him, because they realized that the parable was aimed at them, but they were afraid of the crowds. So they left him alone and went away.(12/1-12) T
This parable gives the Jesus-followers’ version of the history of Israel, emphasizing the way that Jewish leaders were always rejecting the prophets God sent to them (compare Acts of the Apostles 7/1-53); Jesus, God’s “beloved son” was only the last of these. The story implies that the Jerusalem Jews unconsciously recognized Jesus’ special status, and conspired to kill him on this basis. “Make an end of the tenants” probably refers to the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D., which Mark probably saw as a “divine punishment” on Jerusalem for rejecting Jesus. But this external event represents a deeper aspect of Mark’s view: that the power/authority (exousia) he experienced in Jesus cast the religion of Jerusalem Jews in the shade by contrast and so destroyed any authority they might have claimed. “Give the vineyard to others” represents the fact that the followers of Jesus think of themselves as the true inheritors of the Jewish tradition, founded on the “stone [Jesus] rejected by the builders”.
Next they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to catch him in what he said. These came and said to him, `Master, we know you are an honest man, that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you, and that you teach the way of God in all honesty. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay, yes or no?’ Seeing through their hypocrisy he said to them, `Why do you set this trap for me? Hand me a denarius and let me see it.’ They handed him one and he said, `Whose head is this? Whose name?’ `Caesar’s,’ they told him. Jesus said to them, `Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God’. This reply took them completely by surprise.(12/13-17)
The Pharisees are trying to turn the tables on Jesus here, playing on his reputation as a completely fearless and uncompromising moral prophet. They hope that he will either compromise himself in the eyes of the common people by approving of oppressive Roman taxes (tribute acknowledging Caesar as lord), or else he will commit the treasonous act of advocating non-payment of taxes, for which the Roman authorities might well put him to death. As in 11/27-33, the main point of the story for Mark is probably the way Jesus outwitted the Pharisees in debate, escaping their trap. (Jesus avoids a direct challenge to Roman rule, but reading a modern “separation of church and state” into this passage overextends it.)
Then some Sadducees–who deny that there is a resurrection–came to him and they put this question to him, `Master, we have it from Moses in writing, if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a wife and then died leaving no children. The second married the widow, and he too died leaving no children; with the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?’ Jesus said to them, `Is not the reason why you go wrong, that you understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven. Now, about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the Bush, how God spoke to him and said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken.`(12/18-27)
This story too shows Jesus’ skill in scriptural debate. It probably reflects early Christian debates with others they met in synagogues. Belief in angels, and in individual life after death with the angels, was a very recent development in Judaism, shared by Pharisees, Jesus-followers, and other Jews, but not by the conservative party called the Sadducees. The strategy of their argument is to demand that the details of life-after-death be worked out and form a perfectly consistent whole when taken literally. Jesus’ accusation that they do not understand the power of God may imply that they don’t recognize God’s power to make life after death something completely different from earthly life. His appeal to the scriptural passage typically reads an idea into the passage that was not originally there.
One of the scribes who had listened to them debating and had observed how well Jesus had answered them, now came up and put a question to him, `Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Jesus replied, `This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’ The scribe said to him, `Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true: that he is one and there is no other. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.’ Jesus, seeing how wisely he had spoken, said, `You are not far from the kingdom of God’. And after that no one dared to question him any more.(11/28-34)
There may be some intended contrast between the simplicity of Jesus’ morality on the one hand, and the complexity of Pharisaic legalism on the other.
Later, while teaching in the Temple, Jesus said, `How can the scribes maintain the Messiah to be the son of David? David himself, moved by the Holy Spirit, said:
The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand,
And I will put your enemies under your feet.
David himself calls him Lord, in what way then can he be his son?’ And the great majority of the people heard this with delight.(12/35-37)
Early Jesus-followers probably searched the scriptures for sentences that might support their views and answer objections to them. The passage from the psalms quoted was originally written by someone addressing an Israelite king (his `lord’). This became a puzzle when Jews later came to believe (mistakenly) that king David himself wrote all the psalms. This passage takes advantage of this puzzle to read the passage as support of early Christian claim that Jesus was the messiah even though he was not descended from David (the Gospels of Matthew and Luke make him out to be actually a descendent of David). The quote may also mean to suggest that Jesus is actually superior to the legendary king David.In his teaching he said, `Beware of the scribes who like to walk about in long robes, to be greeted obsequiously in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets; these are the men who swallow the property of widows, while making a show of lengthy prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.`(12/38-40)
Here Mark resumes his criticism of people concerned about external recognition. The common people resented wealthy scribes who made money as money lenders, often putting peasants in debt and foreclosing on their land. In a society where family connections were so important, widows were especially vulnerable.He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, `I tell you solemnly, this poor widow put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on’.(12/41-44)
This story goes counter to the admiration of wealth that the disciples exhibit in 10/26. It illustrates very well what seems to be the main characteristic of Jesus’ moral teaching in Mark: human actions get their goodness or badness from the intentions underlying them, not from laws or from the fact that they are in accord with what is conventionally admired.
The next Chapter, Chapter 13, is the “Markan Apocalypse”. Jesus has already said in 9/1 that the end of the world will come within the lifetime of his hearers. Here Mark gives a fuller description, in which many frightening events known to the readers are interpreted as “childbirth pains”, preceding the birth of the Messianic kingdom to come. Jesus-followers were not unique in this expectation: Predictions were common at this time among Jewish groups, that the present world order would soon end in a cosmic catastrophe, preceding the coming of a utopian “Kingdom of God” (see the comments on contemporary “apocalyptic” thinking under 1/1-6). This sense that the present material world would soon be transformed into a utopian kingdom of God makes early Christian belief into something somewhat different from later Christianity which focused on the fate of a spiritual soul going to a spiritual heaven. Note also that the coming kingdom is not pictured so much as a place where good people receive “rewards”; its coming serves rather as a vindication of their sense of their rightness, in contrast to the present world where they appear to be “losers”.
The Markan apocalypse begins with comments about the Jerusalem Temple. It was actually a very large and impressive structure for its time, one of the contemporary “wonders of the world”, and was the symbolic center of Judaism for Jews and Jewish converts throughout the Mediterranean world. The disciples are awed by it, but Jesus predicts that it will be destroyed. 12/1-12 has probably already interpreted this destruction as divine punishment for the spiritual “barrenness” of Jewish leaders and their consequent rejection of Jesus. The temple was actually destroyed in 70 a.d. by the Romans, as part of a suppression of massive Jewish revolts that lasted from 66 a.d. to 73 a.d. The Gospel of Mark was probably written either shortly before or shortly after 70. His audience (perhaps living in proximity to Palestine, in the Roman province of Syria just to the north or northwest of it) would have been hearing of “wars and rumors of wars” in Palestine, and either knew the temple had been destroyed or could easily foresee it. Mark wants them to see the temple destruction, the wars and other catastrophes, as precursors and signs that the final catastrophe, the end of the world, is approaching. Clearly he and his readers are living in a very “heated” atmosphere.
As he was leaving the Temple one of his disciples said to him, `Look at the size of those stones, Master! Look at the size of those buildings.’ Jesus said to him, `You see these great buildings? Not a single stone will be left on another: everything will be destroyed.`(13/1-2)
And while he was sitting facing the Temple, on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John and Andrew questioned him privately, `Tell us, when is this going to happen, and what sign will there be that all this is about to be fulfilled?’
Then Jesus began to tell them, `Take care that no one deceives you. Many will come using my name and saying, “I am he”, and they will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed, this is something that must happen, but the end will not be yet. For nation will fight against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes here and there; there will be famines. This is the beginning of the birthpangs.(13/5-8)
Be on your guard: they will hand you over to Sanhedrins; you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them, since the Good News must first be proclaimed to all the nations. And when they lead you away to hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what to say; no, say whatever is given to you when the time comes, because it is not you who will be speaking: it will be the Holy Spirit. Brother will betray brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all men on account of my name; but the man who stands firm to the end will be saved.(13/9-13)
Roman rule often gave some subordinate political authority to local councils. There was such a council in Jerusalem, made up of Jewish priests and other community leaders. But “Sanhedrin” was also a general name for similar local councils in other cities. Mark seems to have in mind situations where Jesus-followers would be brought before local Jewish councils, who would then bring charges against them before local Roman authorities. (Some of the stories about Paul in the Acts of the Apostles probably give a good general picture of how this might happen, though most modern scholars don’t think these stories are reliable historical accounts of Paul’s life. For the relationship between Jewish councils and Roman authorities see especially Acts 18/7-17, 22/24-30, 23/10, 26-30, 24/1-8, 25/6-12.) There was frequently no fixed body of law determining what “crimes” people could be charged with, and Roman authorities had considerable leeway in applying laws, so they might give serious attention to any cases where someone was accused of “causing trouble” and upsetting a local community. Jesus-followers might expect members of their own families to bring charges against them in these proceedings, and to have the feeling that they were “hated by all men” (13/12-13). This presents us with something of a puzzle regarding Mark’s audience, and especially about those others in the community who were so upset about them. What exactly could they have been doing that would be perceived as such a threat that other family members might want to put them to death for it? It doesn’t seem enough to say that they were “questioning Jewish tradition”. It does not seem likely that Roman governers would punish people for simply not adhering to Jewish customs. Jesus-followers must not only have been refusing to follow some Jewish customs and leaving the synagogue community on account of this. They must have been making a big fuss about their stand and being very confrontational about it in the synagogues (just as Jesus is pictured in 3/1-6). This is an important bit of evidence that Mark’s audience were involved in some internal disputes between Jews in the synagogue community. Most likely they were not only breaking some Jewish religious laws, but (like Mark) claiming that in doing so they were adhering to something greater that made them “true Jews”, and that also made more traditional Jews absolutely wrong. But what is this something? “Following Jesus as Messiah”? But if this is to amount to something beyond repeating the formula “I follow Jesus the Messiah”, there must have been something else they thought was at stake, having to do both with the reason why they followed Jesus as Messiah, and with the practical difference it would make in their concrete lives.
Mark sees the proceedings against Jesus-followers as a means of “preaching the Gospel to all nations” (i.e. the entire Mediterranean world; this is one of the things that must happen “first”, i.e. before the end of the world.) Jesus-followers must be doing something when they stand before councils and magistrates that they think will potentially convert other people to become Jesus-followers themselves. It is interesting to try to imagine what this might be. Whatever it is, they feel they are doing it under the guidance of a “holy spirit” that is in them (just as it was in Jesus, 3/29)
When you see the disastrous abomination set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains; if a man is on the housetop, he must not come down to go into the house to collect any of his belongings; if a man is in the fields, he must not turn back to fetch his cloak. Alas for those with child, or with babies at the breast, when those days come! Pray that this may not be in winter. For in those days there will be such distress as, until now, has not been equalled since the beginning when God created the world, nor ever will be again. And if the Lord had not shortened that time, no one would have survived; but he did shorten the time, for the sake of the elect whom he chose.(13/14-20)
The “disastrous abomination set up where it ought not to be” is a reference to 12/11 in the Book of Daniel (also an apocalyptic book). The Daniel passage probably originally referred to a statue of the Greek God Zeus set up in the Jerusalem Temple in 168 b.c. by a Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes. But, as part of their attempt to Hellenize or Romanize the Jews, foreign rulers were frequently trying to make the Jerusalem Temple into a temple for other divinities. (The Roman Emporer Caligula almost succeeded in having a statue of himself put up in the Temple in 40 a.d.) Mark may have some particular contemporary event in mind that his readers already know about; or he may be forseeing such an event in the near future.
And if anyone says to you then, “Look, here is the Christ” or, “Look, he is there”, do not believe it; for false Christs and false prophets will arise and produce signs and portents to deceive the chosen ones, if that were possible. Therefore you must be on your guard. I have forewarned you of everything.(13/21-23)
The warning against “false Messiahs” is probably a reference to some of the leaders of the Jewish rebellions, whose followers thought of them as Messiahs.(13/21-23)
But in those days, after that time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then too he will send the angels to gather his chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the world to the ends of heaven.
Note that the proceedings being brought against Jesus-followers are pictured by Mark as on a level with wars, earthquakes, and the destruction of the Temple, as one among the great troubles that are signs of the coming end of the world, and the “childbirth pains” of the coming Kingdom of God. Jesus-followers are at this time a relatively small group in the Roman Empire, but they think that the fate of the entire cosmos revolves around them. The power and status that other groups enjoy in the present world are illusory and temporary. They stand for something that alone has substantive value, and their sense that this is so will be vindicated when “what his now hidden will be brought to light” (4/22), following the catastrophic destruction of the entire cosmos.
Take the fig tree as a parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. So with you when you see these things happening: know that he is near, at the very gates. I tell you solemnly, before this generation has passed away all these things will have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But as for that day or hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son; no one but the Father.(13/24-32)
Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come. It is like a man traveling abroad: he has gone from home, and left his servants in charge, each with his own task; and he has told the doorkeeper to stay awake. So stay awake, because you do not know when the master of the house is coming, evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn; if he comes unexpectedly he must not find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake!`(13/33-37)
The final parable here describes the present situation of Jesus-followers. The Pord of the true kingdom is temporarily absent from their lives; they might feel themselves to be in a weak position in relation to those who want to do them in; they might feel great pressures to compromise in order to make their lives easier in this world. But this would be like going to sleep while one is supposed to be on watch. Mark’s final statement seems to be addressed to his readers: “Stay awake.”
Chapter 14 begins the final stage of the narrative theme begun in 3/6, the plot of Jesus’ enemies against him. Note that the plot began in Galilee as a conflict between Jesus and “scribes and Pharisees”. In the story about Jesus overturning the tables of the Temple money-changers (11/15-19), this turned into a conflict between Jesus and “the chief priests and scribes”. The Pharisees are not mentioned after this, except in 12/13, where they are sent by the priests to question Jesus. In actuality, the Pharisees and the priests were often rivals of each other in Palestinian politics. The priests did have more official authority in Jerusalem. Mark associates all of these groups together as representatives of a kind of “Jerusalem establishment”. (It is possible that in speaking of these groups he is also making oblique reference to a group of Jesus-followers led by Peter, James, and John, located in Jerusalem, who were less radical than Mark in their attitude to Jewish tradition.) Among other things, this allows him to picture the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple as a divine punishment of the Pharisees, and a victory for Jesus in his conflict with them begun in the earlier part of the story.
From this point on in Mark’s story, he emphasizes more and more a point that has occurred at several earlier points as well: The fact that everything is happening according to some predestined plan. (E.g. in 14/3-9 the annointing happens in preparation for a burial already forseen.) This offsets another aspect of the plot that becomes stronger as we proceed here: the impression that Jesus is powerless and everything is happening under the control of his enemies. The idea that everything is happening according to a predestined plan seems to be the main point also of 14/12-16. (14/12-16 is very similar to Jesus’ instructions about finding a colt for him in 11/1-11, just before he entered Jerusalem).
The theme of a predestined plan is also carried out in chs. 14-15 by allusions to parallels between what happens to Jesus and what is said in some passages of Jewish scriptures. The basic idea behind these allusions was described at the beginning of this commentary: It was part of the “apocalyptic” mentality to search for correlations between old writings and present events, and to look upon the former as “predictions” of the latter and clues to the divine plan underlying all the events. Some scholars think that Mark may have also composed his account of Jesus suffering and death partly to picture him as one like the suffering righteous people described in the traditional scriptures. I think that there is a “power” in the anguish expressed in some of these passages that may help us understand the “power” Mark sees in the figure of the crucified Jesus. (A common idea among modern Christians, that the Old Testament actually predicts Jesus’s life and death for anyone willing to look, will not bear much scrutiny. Once one knows the events of Jesus’ life and death, one can then pick out some passages in the Old Testament that could be regarded as “predictions”. But no one looking at these passages without Jesus already in mind would have guessed that they were predictions about the Messiah.)
Here are some excerpts from some of the Psalms that Mark seems to be quoting from or alluding to in his account of Jesus’ final days. I indicate in brackets some lines in Mark that relate to lines in these Psalms.
From Psalm 21.
My God, my God, why have you deserted me? (Mk. 15/34)
How far from saving me, the words I groan.
I all all day, my God, but you never answer, all night and I cannot rest…
Here am I, now more worm than man, scorn of mankind, jest of the people, [Mk. 15/29]
All who see me jeer at me, they toss their heads and sneer,
`He relied on Yahweh let Yahweh save him.
If Yahweh is his friend, let Him rescue him… [Mk 15/29]
Do not stand aside: trouble is near, I have no one to help me…
I am like water draining away, my bones are all disjointed,
My heart is like wax, melting inside me;
My palate is drier than a potshard, and my tonge is stuck to my jaw
A pack of dogs surrounds me, a gang of villians closes me in;
They tie me hand and foot and leave me lying in the dust of death.
I can count every one of my bones, and there they glare at me, gloating;
They divide my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothes. [Mk. 51/24]
From Psalm 41
My enemies say of me with malice,
“How long before he dies and his name perishes?”
They visit me, their hearts full of spite,
They offer hollow comfort, and go out to spread the news.
All who hate me whisper to each other about me,
Reckoning I deserve the misery I suffer.
“This sickness if fatal that has overtaken him,
He is down at last, he will never get up again.”
Even my closest and most trusted friend, who shared my table
Rebels against me [Mk. 14/18]
From Psalm 69
Save me, God! The water is already up to my neck!
I am sinking in the deepest swamp, there is no foothold;
I have stepped into deep water, and the waves are washing over me.
Worn out with calling, my throat is hoarse, my eyes are strained, looking for my God.
More people hate me for no reason, than I have hairs on my head,
More are groundlessly hostile than I have hair to show.
It is for you I am putting up with insults that cover me whith shame,
That make me a stranger to my brothers, and alien to my mother’s sons…
Pull me out of this swamp; let me sink no further,
Let me escape those who hate me,
Save me from deep water! Do not let the waves wash over me,
Do not let the deep swallow me, or the Pit close its mouth on me…
Come to my side, redeem me, from so many enemies ransom me.
You know all the insults I endure, every one of my oppressors is known to you;
The insults have broken my heart, my shame and disgrace are past cure.
I had hoped for sympathy, but in vain, I found no one to console me.
They gave me poison to eat instead, when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink [Mk. 15/36]
From Psalm 109.
Reduced to weakness and poverty, my heart is sorely tormented
I am dwindling away like a shadow, they have brushed me off like a locust.
My knees are weak for lack of food, my body is thin for lack of oil.
I have become an object of derision, people shake their heads at me in scorn. [Mk. 15/29]
Help me, Yahweh my God, save me since you love me,
And let them know that you have done it, that it was you, Yahweh, who did it.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12, and the Book of Wisdom chs. 2-5 are also passages about the “Suffering Righteous One” that may have provided partial models and parallels for Mark in composing his account.
It was two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread, and the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by some trick and have him put to death. `For they said, `It must not be during the festivities, or there will be a disturbance among the people’.(14/1-2)
Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper; he was at dinner when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the ointment on his head. Some who were there said to one another indignantly,’Why this waste of ointment. Ointment like this could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor’; and they were angry with her. But Jesus said,’Leave her alone. Why are you upsetting her? What she has done for me is one of the good works. You have the poor with you always, and you can be kind to them whenever you wish, but you will not always have me. She has done what was in her power to do: she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. I tell you solemnly, wherever throughout all the world the Good News is proclaimed, what she has done will be told also, in remembrance of her.`(14/3-9)
This story is interesting for showing how much importance Jesus-followers attributed to the person of Jesus. Honor shown to Jesus is more important than doing good deeds like helping the poor. (We must again ask: What could “Jesus” stand for that could motivate such importance given to his person?)
Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, approached the chief priests with an offer to hand Jesus over to them. They were delighted to hear it, and promised to give him money; and he looked for a way of betraying him when the opportunity should occur.(14/10-11)
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was sacrificed, his disciples said to him,’Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, `Go into the city and you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him, and say to the owner of the house which he enters, “The Master says: Where is my dining room in which I can eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large upper room furnished with couches, all prepared. Make the preparations for us there.’ The disciples set out and went to the city and found everything as he had told them, and prepared the Passover.(14/12-16)
When evening came he arrived with the Twelve. And while they were at the table eating, Jesus said, `I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me, one of you eating with me’. They were distressed and asked him, one after another,’Not I, surely:’ He said to them,’It is one of the Twelve, one who is dipping into the same dish with me. Yes, the Son of Man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will, but alas for that man by whom the Son of is betrayed! Better for that man if be had never been born!`(14/17-21)
Along with 4/10-11, this passage introduces the idea of the betrayal of Jesus by his disciples. This is the culmination of the theme of the disciple’s lack of understanding, that has been emphasized in the story more and more since Peter’s rejection of the idea that Jesus must suffer in 8/32. Judas betrays Jesus for money; this may represent Jesus-followers who “sell out” to make themselves more comfortable in the world. Peter denies his association with Jesus because he is embarrassed to be associated with an accused criminal; this may represent Jesus-followers who are, in Paul’s words, “ashamed of the cross”, embarrassed to be followers of an executed criminal, (and to pursue a life-style that is somehow determined by this fact about their leader?) Again the fact that Jesus predicts that this will happen shows that things are proceeding according to a predestined plan, and operates as a counter to that aspect of the plot that shows everything happening to Jesus and beyond his control.
And as they were eating he took some bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to them. `Take it,’ he said `this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and when he had returned thanks he gave it to them, and all drank from it, and he said to them, `This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many. I tell you solemnly, I shall not drink any more wine until the day I drink the new wine in the kingdom of God.`(14/22-25)
In this story, Mark’s audience would probably see the beginning of their own practice of eating a meal together to commemorate Jesus’ death and identify themselves with him through eating bread and wine that symbolically represented Jesus’ body and blood.
Jesus speaks of the blood he will shed as he is crucified as “covenant blood”. “Covenant” evokes the idea of the Jewish people’s agreement (“covenant”) with God, making them his chosen people on condition that they observe his laws. The initial covenant with Abraham and Moses was sealed, according to custom, by sacrificing an animal. Here Jesus presents the crucifixion as the basis for a similar covenant by which Jesus-followers become the true “chosen people”. But note that this account is sandwiched in between two passages about the betrayal by Jesus of those who are eating this sacred meal. A “covenant” requires certain things on both sides, and Jesus-followers have to keep up their side, which the disciples here fail to do. (Compare 1Cor. 11/23-34, where Paul similarly warns the Jesus-followers at Corinth against “eating the bread unworthily”, by which he means treating other community members badly at the community meals.)
After psalms had been sung they left for the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said to them, `You will all lose faith, for the scripture says: I shall strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered, however after my resurrection I shall go before you to Galilee’. Peter said, ‘Even if all lose faith, I will not’. Jesus said to him, `I tell you solemnly, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will have disowned me three times’. But he repeated still more earnestly, `If I have to die with you, I will never disown you’. And they all said the same.(14/26-31)
They came to a small estate called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, `Stay here while I pray’. Then he took Peter and James and John with him. And a sudden fear came over him, and great distress. And he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here, and keep awake.’ And going on a little further he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, this hour might pass him by. `Abba (Father)!’ he said `Everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it.’ He came back and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, `Simon, are you asleep? Had you not the strength to keep awake one hour? You should be awake, and praying not to be put to the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’ Again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came back and found them sleeping, their eyes were so heavy; and they could find no answer for him. He came back a third time and said to them, `You can sleep on now and take your rest. It is all over. The hour has come. Now the Son of Man is to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up! Let us go! My betrayer is close at hand already.`(14/32-42)
This passage makes very explicit what the many predictions about Jesus’ suffering implicitly suggest: that Jesus’ death is not only something brought about by his enemies, but something willed by God. Christians have gotten used to this idea and so tend to take it for granted. We should not let this reduce the element of strangeness in the idea, and prevent us from puzzling over how Mark might expect his audience to accept and make sense of it. The fact that this is one of the main things Peter does not understand suggests that the ability to make sense of this idea is one of the main keys to understanding the hidden meaning of Mark’s Jesus-story.
This passage itself shows both Jesus’ weakness and his strength. He is weak in the sense that his feelings revolt against what he knows is his destiny, and he wants not to go through with it. He is strong in the sense that he ultimately manages to accept and take on this destiny. His resolve is explicitly contrasted with the disciples’s weakness. (Their sleeping at this point seems a bit unrealistic under the strained circumstances, and may be intended as a dramatization of the warning to Jesus followers not to go to sleep, but “stay awake”, 13/37.)
Even while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, came up with a number of men armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the traitor had arranged a signal with them. `The one I kiss,’ he had said `he is the man. Take him in charge, and see he is well guarded when you lead him away.’ So when the traitor came, he went straight up to Jesus and said, ‘Rabbi!,’ and kissed him. The others seized him and took him in charge. Then one of the bystanders drew his sword and struck out at the high priest’s servant, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus spoke. `Am I a brigand’ he said `that you had to set out to capture me with swords and clubs? I was among you teaching in the Temple day after day and you never laid hands on me. But this is to fulfill the scriptures’. And they all deserted him and ran away. A young man who followed him had nothing on but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the cloth in their hands and ran away naked.(14/43-52)
They led Jesus off to the high priest; and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes assembled there. Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the high priest’s palace, and was sitting with the attendants warming himself at the fire.(14/53-54)
The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus on which they might pass the death-sentence. But they could not find any. Several, indeed, brought false evidence against him, but their evidence was conflicting. Some stood up and submitted this false evidence against him, `We heard him say, “I am going to destroy this Temple made by human hands and in three days build another, not made by human hands’. But even on this point their evidence was conflicting. The high priest then stood up before the whole assembly and put this question to Jesus,’Have you no answer to that? What is this evidence these men are bringing against you’?’ But he was silent and made no answer at all. The high priest put a second question to him, `Are you the Christ,’ he said `the Son of the Blessed One?’ `I am,’ said Jesus, ‘ and you will see the San of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’ The high priest tore his robes, ‘What need of witnesses have we now?’ he said. `You heard the blasphemy. What is your finding?’ And they all gave their verdict: he deserved to die. Some of them started spitting at him and, blindfolding him, began hitting him with their fists and shouting, `Play the prophet!’ And the attendants rained blows on him.(14/53-65)
Some of Jesus’ accusers say that Jesus has said he will destroy the temple and in three days build another. Even though Mark calls this “false” evidence, he seems sometimes to put truths in the mouth of people who don’t realize they are telling the truth, as when he has the Roman soldiers call Jesus “King of the Jews”. Other parts of his story suggest that Jesus is indeed the real cause of the temple’s destruction by the Romans. He may also see Jesus’ risen body (come to life after three days) as what symbolically ought to take the place of the Jerusalem Temple as the center of true Judaism.
Previously in Mark’s story, the fact that Jesus is the Messiah has been a special revelation reserved only to the disciples. It is in this context of extreme hostility from his enemies that he asserts it for the first time to people beyond the inner circle. Mark has suggested all along that Jesus’ special status is something that Jewish leaders should have recognized but didn’t, but this is a claim that a neutral reader of the Gospel would find little motivation for in the story itself. Its motivation depends on an audience already disposed to see something “authoritative” in what Jesus stands for, in contrast to his enemies. For such an audience, this scene is a climax, showing Jesus asserting to the priests what the audience knows to be true, while the priests explicitly reject it.
While Peter was down below in the courtyard, one of the high servant-girls came up. She saw Peter warming himself there, stared at him and said, `You too were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth’. But he denied it, `I do not know, I do not understand, what you are talking about’ he said. And he went out into the forecourt. The servant-girl saw him and again started telling the bystanders, `This fellow is one of them’, `But again he denied it. A little later the bystanders themselves said to Peter, `You are one of them for sure! Why, you are a Galilean. “But he started calling down curses on himself and swearing, `I do not know the man you speak of’, At that moment the cock crew for the second time, and Peter recalled how Jesus had said to him, `Before the cock crows twice, you will have disowned me three times’. And he burst into tears.(14/66-72)
First thing in the morning, the chief priests together with the elders and scribes, in short the whole Sanhedrin, had their plan ready. They had Jesus bound and took him away and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate questioned him,’Are you the king of the Jews? “It is you who say it, he answered. And the chief priests brought many accusations against him. Pilate questioned him again, `Have you no reply at all? See how many accusations they are bringing against you!’ But, to Pilate’s amazement, Jesus made no further reply.(15/1-5)
This is the first reference to Jesus as “King of the Jews”, which will be repeated several more times in the story from here on. Although it is brought up by Pilate, Mark’s readers know this to be true in a special sense that Pilate does not know. He is Lord of the group that represents “true Judaism” and King of their kingdom soon to come.
At festival time Pilate used to release a prisoner for them, anyone they asked for. Now a man called Barabbas was then in prison with the rioters who had committed murder during the uprising. When the crowd went up and began to ask Pilate the customary favour, Pilate answered them, `Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?’ For he realized it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over. The chief priests, however, had incited the crowd to demand that he should release Barabbas for them instead. Then Pilate spoke again. `But in that case,’he said to them what am I to do with the man you call king of the Jews?’ They shouted back, `Crucify him’ `Why?’ Pilate asked them `What harm has he done?’ But they shouted all the louder, `Crucify him!’ So Pilate, anxious to placate the crowd, released Barabbas for them and, having ordered Jesus to be scourged, handed him over to be crucified.(15/6-15)
Great crowds have gathered around Jesus since the beginning of his public activity. This is the point at which they turn against Jesus.
The soldiers led him away to the inner part of the palace, that is, the Praetorium, and called the whole cohort together. They dressed him up in purple, twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on him. And they began saluting him, `Hail, king of the Jews!’ They struck his head with a reed and spat on him; and they went down on their knees to do him homage. And when they had finished making fun of him, they took off the purple and dressed him in his own clothes.(15/16-20)
They led him out to crucify him. They enlisted a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull.They offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he refused it. They crucified him, and shared out his clothing, casting lots to decide what each should get. It was the third hour when they crucified him. The inscription giving the charge against him read:’The King of the Jews’. And they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.The passers-by jeered at him; they shook their heads and said, `Aha! So you would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days! Then save yourself; come down from the cross!’ The chief priests and the scribes mocked him among themselves in the same way. `He saved others,’ they said `he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross now for us to see it and believe.’ Even those who were crucified with him taunted him.
When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus Cried out in a loud voice, `Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, `My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’ When some of those who stood by heard this, they said, `Listen, he is calling on Elijah’. Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and, putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying, `Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down’.
But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said, `In truth this man was a son of God’.(15/21-39)
Mark has Jesus cry out at the last that he has been deserted by God. I think this needs to be understood against a background of very concrete-mindedness, in the light of which being totally defeated by one’s enemies is taken also to rob one of all legitimacy. (It is not enough to hold the theory that a person can be right internally and in principle even though he is losing externally. External losing constitutes total delegitimation.) Being defeated is thus a sign that “God is no longer with” the defeated person. I think we need to take this seriously as Mark’s picture of Jesus’ final state of total weakness, abandonment, and defeat.
After some mockery, this description of Jesus’ cry is followed by the statement that, as he died, the veil of the Temple was ripped from top to bottom. This tearing of the veil (the veil closing off the most sacred “holy of holies” inside the temple) foreshadows the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, and thus is the climax in Mark of the suggestion earlier (12/1-12) of a correlation between Jesus’ death and the destruction of the Temple, as God’s final rejection of the Jewish Pharisees/scribes/priests. At the moment they finally defeat Jesus, this sign occurs that they themselves are defeated.
And then the Roman centurion standing in front of Jesus, “seeing how he died, said `this man was truly a Son of God”’.
What did the centurion see that made him say this? The story leading immediately to Jesus’ death, from 14/1 onward, brings to a climax all of the major themes of the Gospel before this. And this is the climax of that series of events. This suggests, I think, that in this final scene Mark is giving the final revelation of the hidden meaning of the Jesus-story for the reader properly prepared to “get it”. There is an exousia/power:authority in the image of the totally defeated person, that renders this image the most apt manifestation of God’s presence on earth. The reader who can make sense of this is the one to whom “seeing how Jesus died” will immediately lead to the conviction “this man indeed was the Son of God”. One who can make sense of this scene has fully understood why the Messiah must suffer and be executed┼or rather, why suffering and being executed are what make Jesus the Messiah.
There were some women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary who was the mother of James the younger and Joset, and Salome.’ These used to follow him and look after him when he was in Galilee. And there were many other women there who had come up to Jerusalem with him.(15/40-41)It was now evening, and since it was Preparation Day (that is, the vigil of the sabbath, there came Joseph of Arimathaea, a prominent member of the Council, who himself lived in the hope of seeing the kingdom of God, and he boldly went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate, astonished that he should have died so soon, summoned the centurion and inquired if he was already dead. Having been assured of this by the centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph who bought a shroud, took Jesus down from the cross, wrapped him in the shroud and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary of Magdala and Mary the mother of Joset were watching and took note of where he was laid.(15/42-47)When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.They had been saying to one another, `Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb? But when they looked they could see that the stone–which was very big–had already been rolled back, On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement. But he said to them,’There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him. But you must go and tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going before you to Galilee; it is there you will see him, just as he told you”.’ And the women came out and ran away from the tomb because they were frightened out of their wits; and they said nothing to a soul, for they were afraid.(16/1-8)
In Mark’s “Resurrection-story”, Jesus himself does not appear. What the young man tells the women is a picture of the present state of Mark’s audience. Jesus is not now with them. They have to try to remain true to what he stands for in his absence, and await his return in the near future.
As we saw earlier (4/35-41, 6/52) Mark probably contrasts being “astounded” at miracles with understanding their meaning. This theme may be suggested here also in the amazement and fright of the women: Jesus-followers who are only amazed at the Resurrection are different from those who truly understand it. Mark’s story ends with Jesus’ only remaining followers failing to understand key events. What would it mean to “truly” understand the Resurrection? I don’t believe Mark thinks that Jesus’ crucifixion was a defeat, and the resurrection was a separate event necessary to make him actually the winner. He suggests rather that the crucifixion was already the ultimate revelation of Jesus’ Kingship and authority. The Resurrection is only an outward manifestation of what his readers already need to be able to see in the crucifixion. (Just as the coming of the Kingdom will just make physically manifest what Jesus followers already know to be the truth, temporarily hidden in the present “worldly” context.) Those who don’t see Jesus’ authority as Son of God already revealed in his moment of greatest weakness, will only be “astounded” at the Resurrection, will not see this event as “motivated” by the crucifixion-as-revelation, and so will not grasp its hidden meaning. They will continue to put their hopes in miracles and other kinds of worldly power they might hope to gain by following Jesus.
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