wansbrough introduction to mark

8/14/2019 Wansbrough Introduction to Mark

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The following document is an INTRODUCTION TO MARK written by Father Dom Henry

Wansbrough of Ampleforth Abbey, York, England. His website and this document contains no

copyright notice. Some may find some of his views a bit too modern, but they will also find much

that will be helpful to them.

AIMS

4. To introduce students to the academic study of the Gospels.

5. To bring students to an understanding of the importance of Jesus in Marks eyes.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

After studying the course students should be able to6. Place the gospel of Mark in the context of the literature of hellenistic Judaism in the first

century of our era.

7. Discern the importance of the Hebrew Bible and of the Jewish starting-point in the development

of Christianity.8. Characterise the personal approach, literary style and theological emphases of the author of this

first gospel.

9. Appreciate the importance and place of Jesus for the beginnings of the Christian movement, andthe enduring impact of his personality.

10. Assess the interplay between history and interpretation in Marks presentation of Jesus.

11. Retain a firm basis for the appreciation of subsequent developments in Christian theology.12. Evaluate ideas and theories claiming to be based on the gospel text.

13. Articulate clearly and simply principal aspects of gospel study.

TOOLS

14. A steady and competent translation of the Bible. It will be important to look up and reflect on

passages of the Old Testament and of other gospels and the Pauline writings. It is useful (but not

essential) to have a personal working copy of Mark into which notes can be written. TheNew

Jerusalem Bible is one such translation, and also has useful notes. The Study Edition (ISBN

0232 520771) also has a useful Study Guide to the notes. If you dont want to spoil your own

Bible, photocopy Mark onto large pages with plenty of margin.15. TheDictionary of the Bible by JL McKenzie (Geoffrey Chapman, 1966) will be invaluable for

looking up unfamiliar terms and ideas.

16. Larger reference works can be useful on difficult points, such as theNew Jerome Biblical

Commentary (ed. Raymond Brown, etc, Geoffrey Chapman, 1990), the Oxford Bible

Commentary (ed. John Barton & John Muddiman, Oxford University Press, 2001). They might

be useful to have at your side.

17. Before embarking on the detailed study of this booklet it could well be useful to read throughthe chapter on Mark inIntroduction to the New Testamentby Raymond Brown (Doubleday,

1997) orFour Gospels, One Jesus? by Richard Burridge (SPCK, 1994) or both.

18. Other uncomplicated works on Mark, which may provide fuller or alternative views areA

Commentary on the Gospel according to Markby Morna D. Hooker (Blacks NT

Commentaries, 1991) and The Theology of the Gospel of Markby WR Telford (Cambridge

University Press, 1999). The former will provide additional information. The Excursus onparticular topics are especially informative. It would be useful to read the latter after you have

studied this booklet. You may find opinions with which you disagree, or you may find that the

opinions you have formed are confirmed and strengthened.

METHODS

19. Before starting the study, read through the gospel of Mark as though you had never read it
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before and had never heard of Jesus. If possible read it at one sitting, but only as long as you

can retain concentration. Imagine you are an open-minded Hindu or Taoist, wanting to discover

why some people reverence Jesus and call themselves Christians.

20. Work through the booklet, a chapter at a time. Look up all the references given, reflect on themand assess whether they show what the author claims they do. If not, cross them out in the

booklet. If there are too many such cases, throw the booklet away!

21. When you have finished a chapter, reflect on the topics suggested, do the exercises and answerthe questions posed. Ideally write a short piece for yourself on each topic or question suggested.

Imagine that you are writing for a sympathetic and like-minded friend who understands you

well. This will help you to sort out your ideas and will anchor the material in your mind. Do notscruple to turn back to the discussions in the course of the chapter and to the texts themselves.

Make up your own mind and give the references to the passages in Mk which convince you.

Your imaginary friend wants to know what you think and why.

22. If you are doing the work for credit you must write three pieces of 1,500 words each on threetopics suggested for assignments.

1. Begin with a short paragraph on how you see the issues or what you want to

prove.2. In the main body of the essay set out your arguments. Say why you think another

opinion is less satisfactory.

3. In a short final paragraph state the conclusions you have reached.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

I am grateful to the Benedictine Study and Art Centre of Ealing Abbey for giving me the stimulus towork on this project, and to the first-year students of Holy Trinity College, Tafara, Zimbabwe, for their

perceptive remarks as we worked through it, and to my colleague Dom Luke Beckett for his trenchant

comments.

Tafara, February 2006 HENRY WANSBROUGH


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CONTENTS

23. Mark, the Gospel-Writer 4

Exercises 11

24. The Kingship of God in Mark 12

Assignment One or Personal Work 24

3. Parables in Mark 25

Exercises 34

4. What Sort of Person is This? 35

Assignment Two or Personal Work 44

5. The Eschatological Discourse 45

Exercises 49

6 The Passion Narrative 50

Assignment Three or Personal Work 63


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CHAPTER ONE: MARK, THE GOSPEL-WRITER

1. BEFORE THE GOSPELS

A first task is to discover how the gospel came to be written, for it was written neither as a free

composition, straight out of Marks head or reminiscences of Jesus, nor like a divine communication

received at the end of a telephone wire. The actual writing was the fruit of an important pre-history.

Mark, who wrote the earliest Gospel, composed his work within a few years of the Fall of Jerusalem to

the Romans in AD70, some four decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus. In those four decadesthe stories about Jesus must have circulated in oral form. At that time, when books had to be copied by

hand and were consequently rare and expensive, oral tradition was considered at least as reliable as

written evidence. Learning by heart was an important part of education, so that memories were highlytrained. Particularly in Judaism a religious teacher, rabbi or scribe (=lawyer), was expected to

memorize quantities of sayings and decisions of previous rabbis, which would be quoted as precedents.

It was precisely Jesus failure to use this method of teaching which struck his audience at Capernaum,Here is a teaching that is new, and with authority behind it (Mk 1.37).

A. Tradition in Paul

Paul gives us two short pieces which he must have taught his Corinthian converts by heart. He uses the

two technical rabbinic terms for this process, received and handed on:

The tradition I handed on to you in the first place, a tradition which I had myself received, was

that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried,and that on the third day he was raised to life, in accordance with the scriptures, and that

he appeared to Cephas and later to the Twelve, and next he appeared to more than five

hundred of the brothers at the same time. (1 Cor 15.3-5)

Various terms used in the statement itself are uncharacteristic of Paul. He normally speaks of 'Sin' inthe singular, a power almost personified, not the plural as here. He never uses the expression 'the

Twelve'. When quoting the scriptures Paul himself says as it is written, not in accordance with the

scriptures, and so on. This passage is therefore, a basic credal statement, memorized by new converts.

Similarly about the institution of the eucharist he writes:

For the tradition I received from the Lord and also handed on to you is that on the night he was

betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and after he had given thanks, he broke it, and

he said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.' And in the

same way, with the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.' (1 Cor 11.23-25)


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This version of the institution has minute variations from the account given in Mk, which has This is

my blood of the covenant poured out for many (a more awkward and more semitic phrase), but lacks

the two commands, Do this in remembrance/as a memorial of me. They are obviously two different

but very closely related versions of the same scene.

B. Minor Variations in the Gospel Sayings

Within the gospel tradition, too, there are often two traditions of sayings of Jesus, where it is difficult to

establish which is the original. For instance on divorce:

Whoever 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 (Mk 10.11-12).

This cannot be entirely Jesus saying, for Jesus was speaking in a Jewish context, where only a

husband, not a wife, may initiate divorce proceedings. Mark, writing for gentiles, has added the second

sentence, to show that Jesus ruling applies equally to husbands and wives. On the other hand Matthew,writing for Christians sprung from Judaism, lacks the reciprocity but inserts the famous exceptive

clause (in italics):

Everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of an illicit marriage, makes her an adulteress; and anyone

who marries a divorced woman commits adultery (Mt 5.32).

Similarly there are slight variations between versions of the saying of John the Baptist:

I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandal (Jn 1.27).

I am not fit to carry his sandals (Mt 3.11).

Or

Anyone who loses his life saves it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life (Jn 12.25).

Anyone who loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it (Mk 8.35).

In this case the preference probably goes to Mk, for this world and eternal life are favourite phrases

of Jn, seldom or never used in the synoptics, so probably Jns own insertions. On the other hand Mkmay have introduced and for the sake of the gospel.

It is possible to argue in either direction

C. Variations in Gospel Scenes

Mt, Lk and Jn all have a scene of the healing of a gentile officials boy by Jesus at a distance, but there

are considerable variations between them, as may be seen by a study of the three texts together.

Mt 8.5-13 Lk 7.1-10When he went into Capernaum a centurion came He went into Capernaum. A centurion there had a

up and pleaded with him. Sir, he said, my boy servant,a favourite of his, who was sick and nearis lying at home paralysed and in great pain. Jesus death. Having heard about Jesus he sent some

to him, I will come myself and cure him. Jewish elders to him to ask him to come and healhis servant. When they came to Jesus they pleaded


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earnestly with him saying, He deserves this of

you, because he is well disposed towards our

people; he built us our synagogue himself. SoJesus went with them, and was not very far from

The centurion replied, the house when the centurion sent word to him by

Sir, some friends to say to him, Sir, do not put

I am not worthy yourself to any trouble because I am not worthy

to have you under my roof, just give the word and to have you under my roof; and that is why I did

and my boy will be cured. not presume to come to you myself; let my boy be

For I am under cured by your giving the word. For I am under

authority myself, and have soldiers under me, and authority myself, and have soldiers under me; and

I say to one man, Go! and he goes, to another, I say to one man, Go! and he goes, to another,

Come here! and he comes, to my servant, Do Come here! and he comes; to my servant, Do

this! and he does it. When Jesus heard this this! and he does it. When Jesus heard the he wasastonished and words he was astonished at him and, turning round,

said to those following him, In truth I tell you, in said to the crowd following him, I tell you, notno one in Israel have I found faith as great as this. even in Israel have I found faith as great as this.

And I tell you that many will come from east and

west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and

Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven, but the

children of the kingdom will be thrown out into

the darkness outside, where there will be weepingand grinding of teeth. And to the centurion Jesus And when the messengers

said, Go back, then; let this be done for you, as got back to the house they found the servant inyour faith demands. And the boy was cured at perfect health.

that moment.

John 4.46-53He went again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine. And there was a court official whose son was

ill at Capernaum; hearing that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judaea, he went and asked him to come and cure his son, as

he was at the point of death. Jesus said to him, Unless you see signs and portents you will not believe! Sir, answered the

official, come down before my child dies. Go home! said Jesus, your son will live. The man believed what Jesus had

said and went on his way home; and while he was still on the way his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.

He asked them when the boy had begun to recover. They replied, The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour. The

father realised that this was exactly the time when Jesus had said, Your son will live; and he and all his householdbelieved.

25. In Mt and Lk the official is a centurion; in Jn a royal official. The latter is more likely, since

Capernaum was in the territory of Herod Antipas, where no Roman centurion would be

stationed.26. In Mt and Jn the sick boy is the officials son, whereas in Lk he is a favourite servant, though he

is once called my boy (why? A contamination from Mt? In Gk, as well as in certain sorts of

English boy can also mean servant).27. Mt has a direct confrontation between Jesus and the official. Lk obviously want to keep them

apart and has two sets of messengers. It also gives him the chance to stress two of his favourite

lessons: generosity with wealth and good relations between Jews and Romans. Jn has thesecond set of messengers only28. Mt and Lk have the lively speech of the centurion about authority, absent from Jn. Jn has

instead Jesus complaint about signs and lack of belief (similar to Jn 6.26).

29. Mt here inserts the saying of Jesus about the heavenly feast, given by Lk at 13.28-30. This musthave been a saying of Jesus originally independent.

30. Mt and Jn have a final comment about faith, only implicit in Lk. Mt often explicitly stresses

faith as the cause of a healing (e.g. 9.22; 15.28).


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All these differences are perfectly tolerable within an oral tradition. One can imagine the same person

telling the story in each of these three ways to emphasize different points to different people. Imagine

the same family member of yours telling the same story three times, let alone three family members

each recounting the same family incident in a different way or from a different point of view!

2. MARK, THE FIRST EVANGELIST

In order to form a picture of Mks theological interests, we need first to try to distinguish passages and

phrases where Mk is writing himself from those in which he is merely passing on information receivedfrom the tradition. This will involve building up a sort of profile of Markan techniques of writing.

A. Marks Techniques of Teaching

On the assumption that Mt is using and editing Mk it is often comparatively easy to discern Mts

interests and techniques. So, for instance, after the Baptism of Jesus

Mt 4.1 Mk 1.12Then Jesus was taken up into the desert by the Spirit And at once the Spirit drives him out into the desert

31. Mk begins very many verses with And, and in ch. 1 alone has and at once nine times; Mt

avoids this, and substitutes a favourite words of his own, then.

32. Mk repeatedly uses the historic present tense (drives); Mt avoids this and uses the moresophisticated past (was).

33. Mt frequently inserts the name Jesus into Mks text, presumably out of devotion.

34. Mts taken up is preparing for the theme of Jesus as the New Moses, taken up onto the highmountain.

However, it is less easy to discern Mks techniques, since we have no predecessor against whom we

could compare Mk. Nevertheless Mk is sufficiently consistent in his verbal and compositionaltechniques for us to discern a number of clear characteristics. These show that Mk was primarily an

oral teacher and a story-teller of genius. One can imagine that the community came to Mk and said,

Mark, you are such a good story-teller that we choose you to write it all down. Here is a list of themore prominent features of Mks writing. They need to be understood and remembered, since they will

be widely used in what follows.

35. The and and and at once with the historic present gives a breathless speed to the narrative

which emphasizes the urgency of Jesus message.

36. Mk repeatedly uses two phrases of similar meaning for emphasis, e.g. 1.32 at evening//whenthe sun had set, or 1.42 the leprosy left him//and he was cleansed, or 2.20 then//on that day.

Particularly frequent are double questions: 4.30: What can we say that the kingdom of heavenis like? What parable can we find for it? (or 3.13; 4.40; 6.2). This repetition is a technique of

oral teaching.37. Mk zooms in, to focus on one memorable material object: 4.38 Jesus was asleep in the stern, his

head on the cushion, or 5.27 she touched his cloakfrom behind, or 6.28 he brought the headon a dish.

38. A delayed explanation with for, rationing the information till the reader asks a question,

when it could have been logical to explain earlier: 1.16; 2.15; 5.8; 16.1, 8.

5. The sandwich-technique, by which Mk inserts a piece between two halves of another piece in


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such a way that the outer halves and the central piece illustrate and clarify one another. Thus

2.1-4 Story about physical healing

2.5-11 Story about healing of sin2.12 Story about physical healing

3.20-21 Jesus family fail to understand him3.22-30 The scribes misunderstand him

3.31-35 Jesus family fail to understand him

4.1-9 Parable of the Sower

4.10-12 Jesus use of parables

4.13-20 Parable of the Sower explained

11.12-14 The fruitless figtree cursed

11.15-19 The Temple rubbished

11.20-25 The figtree found to be withered

6. The controversy-technique. This occurs in the controversies about divorce, about Jesus

authority in the Temple, about paying tax to Caesar and about the yeast of the Pharisees.(1) The opponents put a question to Jesus 10.2 11.27 12.14 8.16

(2) Jesus replies with a counter-question 10.3 11.30 12.15 8.17

(3) The opponents give inadequate answer 10.4 11.33a 12.16 8.19(4) Jesus clinches the matter 10.5 11.33b 12.17 8.21

In each case Jesus answer goes more profoundly into the matter than his opponents expected

(or wanted!) to hear.

7. Triple repetition for emphasis:

The prophecies of the Passion: 8.31 9.31 10.32Stay awake 13.33 13.35 13.38

The failure of the disciples in the Garden 14.37 14.40 14.41

Witness against Jesus 14.56 14.57 14.63Peters denials 14.68 14.70 14.71

Pilates questions to the crowds 15.9 15.12 15.14

B. The Overall Pattern of Mk

These seven instances of pattern show that Mk is a real author, receiving his material in an oral and

flexible form, and shaping this material consistently according to his own patterns of thought in such a

way as to bring out the lessons and emphases which he wishes to underline. For the understanding ofMk as a whole, however, it is important to be aware of the architectonic lines of the whole story:

witness of scripture 2-31.1-13 Introduction witness of Baptist 4-8

witness of Voice 9-11

testing and peace 12-13


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1.14-15.47 Diptych

16.1-8 Conclusion

The Diptych: 8.29

8.17 8.31

6.50 9.31

4.40 10.32

Introduction Climax

Adjust lines

The gospel begins with an Introduction, in which the reader/listener is told still somewhatmysteriously - who Jesus is, namely, that he is son of God, whatever that may mean (see p. 40-41).

First comes the witness of scripture, then the witness of John the Baptist, then the overwhelming

witness of the Voice from heaven. This witness is all the more overpowering because it uses theconventions of apocalyptic (see p. 45), and alludes especially to Is 42.1 (my beloved son, in whom I

am well pleased is a possible alternative translation to my chosen one in whom my soul delights).

Finally the Testing in the Desert shows Jesus in the messianic peace with the wild animals (as Is11.6-9) and ministered by angels (Ps 91.11), a return to the peace of the Garden of Eden.

Next begins the first half of the diptych, two panels, hinged in the middle (8.29), one matching theother. The curtain comes down, so to speak, and the actors on stage have no idea who Jesus is only

we, the privileged readers, know that. The actors discover slowly and painfully who Jesus is from a

crescendo of incidents in which they are repeatedly bowled over by Jesus charismatic authority. They

still, however, fail to understand what this means, and three times are rebuked, each time on the Lakeof Galilee, for their lack of understanding (4.40; 6.50-51; 8.17). This leads up eventually to Peters

declaration at Caesarea Philippi, which, however, is immediately preceded by the symbolically-placed

gift of sight to the blind man of Bethsaida. At Caesarea Philippi Peters eyes are at last opened, and hedeclares (8.29), You are the Christ. This is the turning-point of the gospel.

Peter has reached the truth that Jesus is the Messiah, but he immediately fails to understand what thisimplies, what sort of Messiah Jesus is. So in the second half of the diptych there follow the three great

formal prophecies of the Passion. Each of these is misunderstood, the first by Peters rebuke to Jesus

(8.32), the second by the squabble about precedence (9.33), the third by the sons of Zebedee asking for

the best places (10.35-40). After each of these failures Jesus re-iterates that his followers must share hisCross.

Finally comes the climax at Jerusalem. At they leave Jericho and enter the Wadi Qilt for the final three-hour walk up to Jerusalem (look at a map!), the other cure of the blind man, Bartimaeus, signals that

the disciples, too, are about to receive their full sight. The full revelation of who Jesus is occurs in two

scenes, first the scene before the High Priest, where Jesus for the first time accepts the three great titles,son of God, Christ and son of man. The second scene is the acknowledgement of the centurion, the first

human being to give Jesus the title, son of God (15.39). Whatever the centurion meant by that

formula, Mk must read it with Christian eyes. So the declaration of the Voice at the baptism hasreturned again with the declaration of the centurion. This title therefore functions as a bracket which

binds together the whole gospel, showing that the whole gospel is precisely about the revelation of the

personality of Jesus as son of God.


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There are other balances between the two halves of the diptych, for example the group of controversies

with the Jewish leaders in Galilee at the beginning of Jesus ministry (2.1-3.6) and at the end in

Jerusalem (12.1-37). Mk has gathered these two groups of controversies together.

Mks practice of gathering incidents together at least raises the question whether Mks presentation of

the ministry at Jerusalem in a few days is not itself a gathering together of incidents which in factoccurred over a wider time-span. The overall arrangement of Jn differs widely from that of the synoptic

gospels, which ultimately stems from Mk. Conventionally preference is given to the synoptic

arrangement, in which Jesus makes only one visit to Jerusalem, at the end of his ministry. Jn presentsfour visits to Jerusalem over the course of Jesus ministry, beginning with the Cleansing of the Temple.

Each time Jesus goes up to Jerusalem in Jn the authorities attempt to get rid of Jesus, but they succeed

only when Judas gives them the opportunity on the eve of Passover. This offers at least as plausible a

scenario as the single short visit to Jerusalem given by Mk. Just as at the beginning of Jesus ministryMk offers a sample day of his activity (1.21-38), so his careful time-indications serve Mk to knit

together Jerusalem incidents into a tight time-frame: next day (11.12), next morning (11.20), two

days before the Passover (14.1), on the first day of Unleavened Bread (14.12). The traditional placingof the messianic entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, six days before the Passover, comes, however,

from Jn 12.1, and Jn allows a considerably less packed timetable by placing at least some of the

incidents in previous visits to Jerusalem.

C. Who, then, was this Mark?

Marcus is one of the most common names in the Greco-Roman world. It was one of the sevenpraenomina, like Marcus Tullius Cicero orGaius Julius Caesar. In the NT are mentioned (i) a John

Mark, a young man of Jerusalem (Ac 12.12; 15.38 etc), whom Paul later dismissed from his team, butwho is mentioned as a companion by the author of Col 4.10, (ii) a Mark who was a fellow-worker of

Paul during his imprisonment (Phm 24), (iii) a Mark who is with the author of 1 Peter 5.13 in

Babylon, a code-name for Rome.

The association of Mark with the author of 1 Peter has been responsible for the traditional link of the

gospel of Mark with Peter, and even the theory that Mark was Peters secretary, taking down the gospelat his dictation. This theory was further fostered by the anxiety somehow to attribute the gospel to an

apostle, which both current scholarship and current Church authority see to be unnecessary. Current

theories of inspiration see the important factor to be that the gospel material was cherished within the

apostolic community at every stage of its transmission, oral and written, not merely that it was writtendown by an apostle (or in the case of the Petrine theory of Mk, by an apostles secretary). The difficulty

about the theory is that 1 Peter is now normally accepted as pseudonymous, that is, not really written

by Peter, but merely attributed to him by a convention of the time.

No other clear information is available. It seems unlikely that Mark knew the Holy Land. His

knowledge of Jerusalem is distant and sketchy (contrast Jn, who mentions the Sheep Gate, the Pool ofBethzatha, the Pool of Siloam and other known places in Jerusalem). He leads Jesus by a very

roundabout route from Sidon to the Lake of Galilee via the Decapolis (7.31). He seems unaware that he

gives the unfortunate Gerasene swine a run of 30km from Jerash=Gerasa down the cliff to drownthemselves in the Lake (5.13).

It is better to abandon any attempt further to pigeon-hole the author, and to identify him only by the


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was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth.

Lord, help me! and she begged him to cast the demon out

26And he answered. of her daughter. 27And he said to her,It Let the children first be fed, for it

is not fair to take the childrens bread is not right to take the childrens bread

and throw it to the dogs. 27She and throw it to the dogs. 28But she

said, Yes, Lord, yet even the answered him, Yes, Lord, yet even the

dogs eat the crumbs that dogs under the table eat the childrens

fall from their masters table. 28Then crumbs. 29AndJesus answered her, O woman, great is he said to her, For this you may

your faith! Be it done to you as you go your way; the demon has left your desire. daughter. 30And she went home and

And her daughter was healed instantly. found the child lying in bed and the

demon gone.


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CHAPTER TWO: THE KINGSHIP OF GOD IN MARK

'The kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and believe the gospel' (1.15). With this proclamationJesus' preaching begins. But the content of this proclamation and the nature of the kingdom envisaged

by Jesus have remained hotly disputed. What did Jesus mean by the Kingship of God?

1. THE PROBLEM - MODERN VIEWS

A. Albert Schweitzer

At the beginning of the twentieth century Albert Schweitzer, the great Swiss theologian, organist,

founder of a leper colony and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, propounded a theory which hasinfluenced theology and has been continually discussed ever since. He maintained that Jesus urgently

expected a cosmic cataclysm, the break-up of the present structure of the world. He sent out his

disciples with no time to lose, expecting that their preaching would usher in the final stage of the world.When they returned without it being fulfilled, Jesus revised his view and took the sufferings of the final

cataclysm on himself. He wrongly expected his passion and death to be the last act in the drama of

renewal of the cosmos. He thought that with his death the world as people knew it would come to an

end, and a new world-order expected by the Jews would begin.

Schweitzers viewpoint was encapsulated in one of the most famous theological passages of the

century:

Jesus. in the knowledge that he is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on

that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn and he throws himself upon it.

Then it does turn and crushes him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, he has destroyed them. The

wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great man, who was strong enough to think of

himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind, and to bend history to his purpose, is hanging upon it still (p. 403).

The strength of Schweitzers viewpoint was that he recognised the eschatological dimension of Jesus

message of the Kingdom. Its limitation was that he understood too literally and failed to translate, or tode-code, the apocalyptic language and symbols in which this eschatological vision was expressed. Such

a misunderstanding was, perhaps, more easily understandable in an age when the bulk of apocalyptic

writings of the first century had only recently begun to be unearthed, when the genre of apocalyptic

was still less widely appreciated. Before such nineteenth century discoveries, this style of writing wasknown only from the later prophetic books of the Old Testament, especially Daniel, and from the New

Testament Book of Revelation, a slim basis on which to form a rounded concept of the way theseapocalyptic symbols work. Inherent in this genre of writing are cosmic disturbances, lurid images of

violence, figures moving easily between earth and heaven (in both directions), heraldic and speaking

animals, far-reaching symbolism derived from the Old Testament. The basic message of such literature

is always reassurance that God will soon intervene to rescue his people from persecution. Butprediction of concrete events plays little or no part in its prophetic writings, which seek to interpret

history rather than to foretell how it will unfold. Against this background the apocalyptic sayings of the


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the royal authority which is due. The stress is on God. So R.T. France entitled his book on the concept

in Mark 'Divine Government'.

B. The Kingship of God in the Old Testament

That God is king of Israel is a basic concept of the Old Testament, which comes to expression at least

from the beginning of the monarchical period. Gideon refused to be king when his victoriouscampaigns against Israel's enemies led him to be offered this post (Jg 8.22-23). Eventually some sort of

permanent leadership was forced upon Israel, at the end of the period of the charismatic and temporary

Judges, to provide permanent opposition to the incursions of the Philistines.

Saul was anointed king by Samuel in about 1020 B.C., but only under protest from the prophet, who

regarded this assimilation to the structure of other nations as casting doubt on the effectiveness of

Yahweh's protection of his people. For Samuel, Yahweh alone was king. When the Israelites demandthat Samuel should anoint a king for them, Yahweh says to him, 'It is not you they have rejected but

me, not wishing me to reign over them any more' (1 S 8.8). Samuel follows this up with a recital of the

evils and abuses to which a human king will subject the nation (1 S 8.10-22).

When David became king - by fair means or foul - he ensured that he was regarded very firmly as the

Lord's anointed, punishing the mercy-killer of Saul as the murderer of the Lord's anointed (2 S 1.16),and making his personal capital the holy city of Yahweh by installing the Ark there (2 S 6). He ruled

there as the vice-regent of Yahweh. A very ancient psalm sings of the coronation of a king as his

adoption to be son of God (Ps 110.3). A whole series of Psalms sung in the Temple of Jerusalemcelebrates the sovereignty of Yahweh:

Great is Yahweh and most worthy of praise

in the city of our God.

Mount Zion in the heart of the north,

the settlement of the great king (Ps 48.1-2).

Yahweh is king, robed in majesty,

robed is Yahweh and girded with power (Ps 93.1).

Yahweh is king, the peoples tremble;

he is enthroned on the winged creatures, the earth shivers.

Yahweh is great in Zion (Ps 99.1; cf. Pss 96, 97, 145, 146).

As time went on, and particularly from the era of the Babylonian exile, Israel became aware that thekingship of Yahweh embraced not just themselves but the whole world. Until the exile Yahweh had

been conceived primarily as the God of Israel, Israel's special protector. The question of the

relationship of Yahweh to other nations had not become an important issue. At the Sack of Jerusalem in

597 B.C. one of the shattering blows on Israel was that Yahweh was unable (or unwilling) to protect hispeople as a king should. Such were the crimes of Israel that Yahweh could no longer underwrite Israel.

It was the king's business to keep his nation secure, and to other nations Yahweh seemed to have failedin this. As Ezekiel puts it, his name had been profaned among the nations, that is, his reputation as king

and protector of Israel had been tarnished.

But the exile was a time for new insights, and in exile, confronted with the plethora of gods at Babylon,Israel was forced to ask the question of the relationship of Yahweh to other gods, to the protectors of

other nations, and to the deities which the Babylonians claimed to rule various aspects of the world and


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of daily life. Israel reacted by asserting strongly for the first time that Yahweh is the creator and ruler of

the whole universe, and this was expressed in terms of Yahweh's kingship. This is especially a theme of

the prophet of the Exile, Deutero-Isaiah:

Thus says Yahweh, Israel's king,

Yahweh Sabaoth, his redeemer:

I am the first, I am the last,

there is no God except me. (Is 44.6, cf. 43.15; 52.7)

Finally, at the end of the Old Testament period, comes the expectation of a final, victorious coming of

God as King. This is a combination of the ancient theme of the Day of the Lord, a day of God'svisitation of the earth to correct wrongs and rescue his chosen ones, with the theme of kingship. It has

taken on universal dimensions, for God deserves worship from all the nations of the world, and failure

to worship him will bring them punishment:

When that Day comes, living waters will issue from Jerusalem, half towards the eastern sea, half towards the

western sea; they will flow summer and winter. Then Yahweh will become king of the whole world. ... After this,

all the survivors of all the nations which have attacked Jerusalem will come up year after year to worship the King,

Yahweh Sabaoth, and to keep the feast of Shelters. Should one of the races of the world fail to come up toJerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh Sabaoth, there will be no rain for that one. (Zc 14.8-9, 16-17)

C. The Kingship of God in First Century Palestine

In the century before Christ there was a lively expectation of some decisive event by which God wouldbreak into world history. There were many different schools of thought within Judaism (it is commonly

held that one should speak not of Judaism but of Judaisms at this period). This expectation is to be

found in all the many different circles of Judaism.

42. The Psalms of Solomon were written in the Pharisaic tradition during the latter part of the first

century before Christ. Psalm 17 concentrates on a Davidic king, a representative of the Lord,

who will purge Jerusalem of the foreigners who oppress it. He will gather together and lead aholy people, who will hope in the Lord and form a centre for all the peoples of the earth.

Raise up unto them their king, the son of David,...that he may shatter unrighteous rulers and purge

Jerusalem from nations that trample her down. ...And he shall gather together a holy people whom he

shall lead in righteousness. ...He shall judge nations in the wisdom of his righteousness, and he shall have

the heathen nations to serve him under his yoke. ...The Lord himself is his king, the hope of himthat ismighty through his hope in God.

43. The Assumption of Moses, a contemporary apocalyptic work, contains the same combination of

themes, associating the kingdom with an end to evil and the punishment of foreigners:

And then his kingdom shall appear throughout his creation,

and Satan shall be no more,

and sorrow shall depart with him...

and he will appear to punish the gentiles (Ass. Mos. 10)

44. In the Scrolls of Qumran one of the most important is the War Scroll, which describes a war

between the sons of Light and the sons of Darkness, to take place at the end of time, for thetriumph of the faithful and the destruction of the wicked. It is a constant refrain that this war is


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to the kingly glory of God:

You are a terrible God in your kingly glory...

For Adonai is holy

and the king of glory is with us, accompanied by the saints.

The powers of the hosts of angels are among our men,

and the valiant in battle is our congregation(1QM 12.7-8, Vermes, p. 137).

These are quotations from very different milieux. The first is from Pharisaic circles at the centre of

Jewish orthodoxy, the last from the sectaries of Qumran, who had precisely fled from such attitudes.

They all share these same themes. So Jesus' time was marked by a lively expectation that a decisiveliberation was about to take place. The sectaries who formed a community at Qumran, in revolt against

official Jerusalem Judaism, withdrew into the desert area near the Dead Sea in order to await the

Messiah, and laid a place for the Messiah at their daily ritual meal in anticipation of his arrival.

An element which was particularly important in the Qumran community, and is not without relevance

to Jesus behaviour, is the hope of a new Jerusalem of the last times. This is already voiced in the

prophets:

Look, I shall lay your stones on agates

And your foundations on sapphires.

I shall make your battlements rubies,

Your gateways firestone

And your entire wall precious stones. (Is 54.11-12).

Its fullest expression is in Ezekiels vision of the renewed Temple, described in detail in Ezk 40-43, to

which Yahweh would return. Again, the new Jerusalem is celebrated in the Book of Tobit (13.16-18):

The gates of Jerusalem will be built of sapphire and of emerald,

And all your walls of precious stone.

The towers of Jerusalem will be built of gold,

And their battlements of pure gold.

The streets of Jerusalem will be paved

With ruby and with stones from Ophir.

The gates of Jerusalem will resound with songs of exaltation.

Cf. Jub 1.15-17; Ps-Sal 17.32; 1 QM 7.4-10; 4Q Flor 1.6-7; 4 QpPs 37 3.11; 11 QTemple 29.8-10; Rv

21.22).

For the sectaries at Qumran this new sanctuary is not the Temple of Jerusalem, which they rejected as

unclean, but is the community itself:

He has commanded that a sanctuary of men be built for himself, that there they may send up, like the smoke of

incense, the works of the Law (4 Q 174, Vermes, p. 293).

The expectation was fomented by, and in turn boiled over into, the series of messianic revolts against

the Roman rule. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing to explain to the Romans the run-up to theJewish War, is interested chiefly in the political aspects. From him we know that at least petty revolts

were frequent. One of these was led by Judas the Galilean at about the turn of the eras. Judas objected

to the payment of taxes to Rome, on the grounds that it infringed the sovereignty of God (JosephusAntiquities, 18.1.1). Another rebellion was by the messianic claimant known only as 'the Egyptian'.


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Furthermore, the kingdom is something which demands certain qualities and to which other qualities

tend to be a bar. If one's eye leads one astray morally, it is better to do without the eye and enter the

kingdom one-eyed (9.47). Those who wish to enter must be like children (10.14,15). Riches make entry

difficult (10.23, 24, 25). The lawyer who recognises the importance of the two commandments of loveis 'not far from the kingdom of God' (12.34). There is no hint here of any long delay, or of any need for

an explosive event from God to make entry possible. Incidentally, all these sayings smack of the clarity

and the black-and-white quality, the absolute demands, or indeed even what seems to us theexaggeration, of Jesus' own teaching.

This aspect is echoed also in the writings of Paul. Overwhelmingly Paul also uses the term 'kingdom'with moral connotations. You must live a life worthy of the kingdom (1 Thess 2.12). The kingdom does

not consist in food and drink (Rm 14.17), will not be the inheritance of the unjust (1 Cor 6.9). In Paul,

therefore, just as in Mark, the meaning of kingdom may in one way be understood as a moral response

to the message of the gospel.

B. The Wonders

Another aspect of the kingship of God brought by Jesus is, however, the breaking-in of God's presence

and action in the world through the wonders by which he shows the triumph over evil, the purification

of Israel, the removal of sorrow, distress, alienation, and especially of sin. Here the kingship of God hasarrived and triumphs over evil. One way in which this comes to view in Jesus' ministry is in his conflict

with and triumph over evil spirits. This is a sign of the triumph over evil associated with the arrival of

the kingship of God. Jesus does not, of course, remove all evil and distress, but his wonders are a signthat the grip of evil and distress on the world is at an end.

1. Unclean spirits

Jesus' triumph over evil spirits is a recurrent theme of the gospel. It is important not only to show Jesus'power in these individual cases, but it must be seen also as evidence of Jesus' power over the evil

which ruled the world. The expulsion of an unclean spirit is the first wonder worked by Jesus (1.21-28).

The way the expulsion is sandwiched between passages on teaching suggests that Mark himself placedthe incident in this significant position. In the summary passages about Jesus' activity healings and the

expulsion of evil spirits feature together (1.32-34; 6.13). The expulsion of the evil spirit from the

Gerasene demoniac again is a highly Markan story (5.1-20). Most significant is the passage where thescribes attempt to explain away his expulsions, thereby implicitly granting that he does in fact perform

them (3.22-30, again sandwiched between the two passages on the kinsfolk of Jesus). Here, in his

rebuttal, Jesus alludes to the kingdom: 'If a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot

stand.'

2. Cures

Other illnesses, too, are viewed in the Markan stories as cases of possession. In 1.40-45 Jesus cures aleper.

The leprosy of the gospels is not what is today called leprosy ( mycobacterium leprae). In theBible the term covers many afflictions and skin-complaints. The legislation about 'leprosy'

given in Leviticus 13-14 shows that the term includes at least any contagious or virulent skin-

disease.

The narrative suggests that this too is regarded as possession by an evil spirit, for 1.43 should be

translated literally, 'And being angry with him/it, Jesus immediately threw him out.' It makes no sense


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that Jesus should have been angry with the sufferer, or thrown him out, especially after, in v. 41, he has

been 'feeling sorry for him'. It makes much better sense if the anger and expulsion are directed at the

disease or an evil spirit who is considered responsible for it.

Other wonderful cures by Jesus, bringing an end to the evil of sickness and disease, should also be

regarded as signs of the coming of God's kingship:

The healing of Simon's mother-in-law (1.29-31),

of the paralytic at Capernaum (2.1-12),

of the man with a withered hand (3.1-6),of the woman with a haemorrhage and of Jairus' daughter (5.21-43),

of the Syro-Phoenician's daughter (7.24-30),

of the deaf man (7.31-37),

of the blind man at Bethsaida (8.22-26),of the epileptic demoniac (9.14-29),

of Bartimaeus at Jericho (10.46-52).

Particularly significant among them is the healing of the paralytic at Capernaum, where the physical

cure is specifically linked to the forgiveness of sin. It is also significant that Jesus shows no fear of the

contagion of uncleanness, and has no hesitation about touching or being touched by the leper or thewoman with a haemorrhage. Part of the horror of these two sicknesses is, of course, the alienation they

impose: since they are unclean sicknesses, sufferers must keep apart from the rest of society and life in

isolation. Jesus touch puts an end to that alienation.

By these healings Jesus is fulfilling the prophecies of messianic peace and healing in e.g. Is 11.6-9;

35.5-7; 61.1-3. They are signs of the advent of the messianic kingdom or the kingship of God.

3. The eschatological context of the exorcisms and cures

Not all miraculous cures need necessarily be regarded as signs of the coming of God's kingship.

Numerous miraculous cures are recorded at the healing shrine of Aesculapius in Greece, in the Greekmagical papyri, and in the story of Apollonius of Tyana. About the same time other cures by those

attractive figures, the charismatic Galilean rabbis, are attested in Jewish literature, and carry no such

significance. But in the case of Jesus the whole context is different, and points only to this.

When the Baptist appeared, he already proclaimed the approach of the final times. He put himself

forward as the final messenger of God by bearing and wearing the signs of Elijah, the garment of

camel-skin (1.6, as Elijah had done, 2 K 1.8). Elijah was prophesied to precede the final coming: 'Look,I shall send you the prophet Elijah before the great and awesome Day of Yahweh comes' (Mal 3.23). So

Jesus' wonders must be seen quite specifically in the context of his proclamation of the kingship of

God.

This same interpretation is given, only more explicitly, by the passage in Mt 11.2-6, and its parallel in

Lk, where the messengers come from the imprisoned John the Baptist to ask whether Jesus is 'the onewho is to come'; he replies by citing the evidence of his miracles of healing in terms of the prophecy of

Isaiah (Mt 11.2-6). The miracles are therefore the fulfilment of these promises in the last times.

C. Controversies with the Pharisees

For the Pharisees the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth consists in the perfection of


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obedience to the will of God, that is, the perfect accomplishment of the Law. For the Pharisees,

therefore, the Reign of God consists in fulfilment of moral demands. In Mt this dimension of the

coming of the kingdom is particularly clear, for from the beginning of his ministry Jesus stresses that

he has come to fulfil all justice, when he joins with John at his Baptism, Mt 3.15. The first of thegreat discourses, the Sermon on the Mount, is dominated by the same idea: Jesus has come to complete

the Law, Mt 5.17, and entry to the Kingdom demands that the justice of the followers of Jesus should

exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. This fulfilment is then illustrated by the sixantitheses (5.21-48), in which Jesus constrasts the traditional interpretation of the Law with the

perfection demanded for the Kingdom.

This is also the meaning of Jesus controversies with the Pharisees in Mk over legal observance. These

do not necessarily show fierce hostility between Jesus and the Pharisees. The hostility between the

Pharisees and the Jesus-movement certainly intensified at the end of the century when, after the Fall of

Jerusalem, Pharisaic Judaism became the dominant, if not the only surviving, tendency within Judaism.It is from this period rather than from the lifetime of Jesus that the hostility dates which is visible in the

gospels. Jesus has considerable affinity with the Pharisees, and it is notable that they have no part at all

in his passion and death; there is no mention of the Pharisees after Mk 12.13. Jesus method ofargument with the Pharisees approximates to their own. His solutions to legal problems show a

consistently different tendency to theirs, but they are reached and supported by the same methods. So in

the controversy about picking corn on the Sabbath (2.23-28) Jesus quotes a legal precedent from Davidto establish his contention. Similarly, in the following controversy about healing on the Sabbath (3.1-5),

Jesus appeals to the purpose of the Sabbath to justify his action.

It is notable, however, that Mt, who is himself a legal expert (Mt 13.52), is not satisfied with

these rulings as given by Mk, and in each case improves the argument. In the former case he

finds the precedent of David insufficiently close and adds a precedent about breaking the

Sabbath (Mt 12.5). In the latter case he sharpens the general principle by quoting the parallel ofrescuing an ox from a pit on the Sabbath, adding the recognised Pharisaic argument a minori ad

maius, from the lesser to the greater (Mt 12.11-12).

In further controversies the same method is used. About Corban Jesus appeals over the oral Law, the

unwritten Law of tradition, to the written Law of the Pentateuch, to establish his ruling (7.10). On

divorce (10.1-12) he appeals to Genesis 1.27 against Dt 24.1 and its current interpretations, all of whichis good Pharisaic practice.

D. Jesus in the Temple

Perhaps most significant of all in understanding what is meant by the kingship of God is the popular

cry at the Entry into Jerusalem, hailing 'the coming kingship of our father David' (11.10). This must

imply that the kingship of David, the messianic kingship, is in some way being fulfilled, brought intobeing, at Jesus' entry into the holy city for the final phase of his ministry. The great celebration, whose

scriptural allusions are all instinct with messianic overtones, provides a patch of joyful light before the

sombre events which follow. Does 'the coming kingship' refer to the immediate event, the entry itselfand Jesus' activity in the Temple, or to the climax of that short week, the Resurrection?

The meaning of Jesus' action in the Temple has been disputed. It is often seen as a mere cleansing ofoffensive practices, money-changing and the sale of sacrificial victims. However, there is no indication

that these activities were real abuses. Rates charged for changing the money for the coinage required in

the Temple do not seem to have been excessive, and the sacrificial victims were needed for the Temple-


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worship itself. Furthermore, if Jesus had meant merely to cleanse abuses in the Temple practice, the

most effective sign would have been water.

There is no doubt that this action of Jesus was the cause of the violent reaction of the Jerusalemauthorities against Jesus, and their determination to do away with him. The Temple and its rites were

the glory of Jerusalem.

According to the Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder, it was the Temple which made Jerusalem 'by

far the most distinguished city of the East'. The disciples were right to wonder at the great stones,

'Master, look at the size of these stones' (Mk 13.1). The largest of them still remaining is 12m long, 3mby 4m in cross-section and weighs 400 tons. In general the dimensions of it were staggering. The

retaining wall of the esplanade on which it was built rose 30m above the street-level. The Royal Portico

on the south of the great esplanade was one and a half times the length of Salisbury Cathedral (186m

compared to 137m). The ten great pairs of gilded gates were each 13m by 6.6m (Josephus, Bellum

Judaicum, 5). Its wealth was fabulous: the Roman general Crassus stole from it 2,000 talents in cash,

and there were gold vessels worth 8,000 talents (Josephus, Antiquities, 14.72 and 105-109). Above all,

it was the goal of pilgrimage for Jews all over the mediterranean area, the religious and cultural centreof the nation, served by some 20,000 priests.

Jesus' action in the Temple must be seen in connection with the accusation at his trial and the mockeryon the Cross. He was accused of saying, 'I am going to destroy this Temple and in three days build

another, not made by human hands' (14.58). This saying is preserved also in a slightly different form in

Jn 2.20. The Jewish leaders who mocked him on the Cross also referred to this claim, 'Aha! So youwould destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days!' (Mk 15.29). Jesus' action in the Temple was

construed, then, as his attempt to destroy the Temple, a symbolic act of destruction, as part of his claim

to build a new Temple.

The building of a new Temple was part of the hope of Israel for the last times. Ezekiel 40-44 is a

complete blueprint for this renewed Temple, but the renewal of the Temple is also a constant theme in

other Jewish writings:

My soul blesses the Lord, the great King,

because Jerusalem will be built anew,

and his house for ever and ever (Tob 13.15-16)

An early witness to this hope comes in theBook of Henoch 90.28-29 (a section dated to the early

second century BC):

I went on looking till the Lord of the sheep brought about a new house, greater and loftier than the first one, and set

it up in the first location which had been covered up. All its pillars were new, the columns new and the ornaments

new as well as greater than those of the first, the old house which was gone. All the sheep were within it.

The same hope is strongly attested at Qumran, a quite different section of the contemporary tradition:

4Q174, commenting on 2 Sm 7.10: This is the house which [he will build for them] in the last days

This is the house into which [the unclean shall] never enter [Its glory shall endure] for ever; it shallappear above it perpetually. (Vermes, p. 293. cf. 4 Q 522; 1 QS 8.5-9). The renewal of the Temple is,

then, a part of Jesus teaching on the Kingship of God which would strike an immediate chord with his

contemporaries.

The complete meaning of this action in the Temple, then, can be seen only in the context of the final


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renewal of Israel and Jerusalem. Mk stresses this by sandwiching the account of the demonstration in

the Temple between the two halves of the Barren Fig-Tree; this little acted parable is symbolic of the

barrenness of Israel and of the withering of the old order (11.12-14 + 20-21). This gives the meaning of

what Jesus was bringing about by his demonstration in the Temple. This was what the authorities weredetermined to prevent. They challenged his authority so to act, but received no reply beyond the hint

that his authority was the same as that of John the Baptist, which popular acclaim pronounced to be

divine authority (11.27-33). There was, then, no other way to keep their power secure than to liquidateJesus.

Assignment 1 or Personal Study

1. Write a 1,500-word essay, using only the Markan material, either 'In what sense does Jesus makepresent the Kingship of God?' or discuss the statement, 'In Mark the Good News is the Kingship of

God'.

Be sure to present Jesus teaching against the background of the Old Testament conception and the

evidence contemporary with Jesus. You may find helpful McKenzies Dictionary of the Bible. Use the

index of other books under Kingdom of God. Notes in New Jerusalem Bible 2 S 7.1-17; Ezk 34.1a;Mi 4.14l; Zc 9.9h; Mt 4.17f.

2. Consider also the question, as a Christian, how would you reply to the frequent Jewish objection thatJesus could not have been the Messiah because the Kingdom has not yet come? Is it based on a

misunderstanding of the concept Kingdom or Messiah or something else?


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CHAPTER THREE: PARABLES IN MARK

1. PARABLES IN GENERAL

Mk has two general statements about parables: To you is granted the secret of the kingdom of God, butto those who are outside everything comes in parable (4.11), and He would not speak to them except

in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were by themselves (4.34). Clearly,

then, parables play an important part in Jesus teaching in Mk. Is it really true that he would not speakto them, the crowds, except in parables?

A. Mashalplural Meshalim

The gospels were written in Greek, but the thinking behind them is often Semitic, that is, either Hebrew

or Aramaic. Jesus, of course, spoke principally Aramaic; these are the concepts we must examine inorder to seize his meaning.The Hebrew concept ofmashalis wider than that of parable. The Greek

wordparabole means comparison, whereas mashalincludes any imaged saying or proverb. The

initial obscurity of such sayings also leads to the inclusion of riddle or dark saying among itsmeanings; meshalim need thought to yield their meanings! The Book of Proverbs is called meshalim in

Hebrew, and is composed of short, pithy sayings, aphorisms, many of them using imagery, but few of

them comparisons.

A few examples give the feel of the genre:

Idler, go to the ant, ponder her ways and grow wise (6.6)

A wink of the eye brings trouble,

A bold rebuke brings peace. (10.10)

A golden ring in the snout of a pig

Is a lovely woman who lacks discretion (11.22)

A wise child is a fathers joy

Only a brute despises his mother (15.20).

Like the roaring of a lion, the anger of a king,

But like dew on the grass his favour (19.12)

There are, however, also longermeshalim in the Old Testament, stories which point a lesson by a

comparison. Among the most striking of these are the delightful parable of Jotham (Jg 9), the parable of

Nathan (2 S 12.1-4) and Ezekiels powerful parable of the Foundling Girl (Ezk 16). Another, amusinglyunsuccessful because David saw through it, is the Wise Womans parable, seeking to gain the

rehabilitation of Absalom (2 S 14.6-11).


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B. JesusMeshalim in Mk

If Jesus meshalim are divided into story-meshalim and aphoristic meshalim it immediately becomes

obvious that the form of very many of his teachings is the aphoristic mashal. They are balanced,

rhythmical, challenging, often imaged, and therefore memorable. A collection of aphoristic meshalim inthe early chapters of Mk shows that virtually all Jesus teaching is, as Mk claims, couched in this form.

Come after me, and I will make you fishers of people (1.17)

It is not the healthy who need the doctor but the sick;

I come to call not the upright but sinners (2.17)

The bridegrooms attendants cannot fast

while the bridegroom is with them (2.19)

No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak (2.21)

New wine into fresh skins! (2.22)

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (2.27)

Anyone who does the will of God

Is my brother and sister and mother (3.35)

Besides these aphoristic meshalim Mk gives five narrative meshalim. Most are gathered into thecollection of ch. 4: The Sower, The Seed Growing by Itself, The Mustard-Seed (also The Lamp on a

Lampstand and The Measure, which are more aphoristic than narrative). Besides these Mk contains

also two others, The Wicked Vine-dressers (12.1-8) and the double parable of The Fig-tree and TheDoorkeeper (13.28, 34).

2. THE THRUST OF JESUS MESHALIM

In order to determine the thrust and purpose of Jesus meshalim it is necessary first to make a decisionabout parable and allegory. In 1899 Adolf Jlicher published his influentialDie Gleichnisreden Jesu, in

which he claimed that Jesus could not have used allegory. An allegory is a parable in which every

element of the story has an equivalent, whereas a simple parable is a story where there is only one pointof comparison. Thus for an allegory a key can be given to the code, as in the case of Mts parable of

the Wheat and the Darnel, for which the key is given in Mt 13.36-42, explaining the meaning of each

element in the story. Jlicher claimed that allegory was a Greek habit of mind, much used by theclassical Greeks in the attempt to give edifying sense to the disreputable behaviour of the Greek gods in

their legends, and descending from there into the early Church. Already Irenaeus (Adversus haereses,

4.36.7) interprets the five groups of workers in the parable of The Labourers in the Vineyard (Mt20.1-16) as those summoned in the five periods of history from Adam, and even that great exegete

Origen follows the same method. By the time of the Reformation such allegorical interpretation had run

riot. Jlicher pointed out that none of the Old Testament parables has more than one point of


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comparison. Jlicher assumed this to be the case of Jesus parables, though Mt, writing a mere half-

century after Jesus original proclamation, provides incontrovertible evidence that allegory crept in very

soon afterwards. This may be correct, but it would be a mistake to be too dogmatic about this.

Another important step towards understanding the parables was taken soon afterwards by two other

important scholars, Dodd and Jeremias. CH Dodd, inParables of the Kingdom (1936), took the

important step of looking for the original context of the parables Jesus spoke about the Kingdom, andJoachim Jeremias, in The Parables of Jesus (1954), extended this work to all the narrative parables.

The two works remain fundamental to all study of the parables. The thesis is that in order to understand

Jesus message it is essential to abstract from the application of the parables which was later made bythe early Church or the evangelists, who applied the lesson to their own situation. The paradigm

example is The Sower: the interpretation of the parable of The Sower in Mk 4.13-20 is an application to

the later situation of the community in the second generation, and should not be used towards

understanding Jesus meaning in telling the story.

A. The Sower

The fact that the interpretation is later becomes manifest first from its vocabulary, which contains many

expressions not used elsewhere in the gospels, but which are typically Pauline. So the word as themessage comes nowhere else in the gospels, but as the message preached and received with joy in 1 Th

1.6; sowing the word as a metaphor for preaching in 1 Co 9.11; the words for wealth, deception,

fruitless all only in the Epistles, especially Pauline. The temptations are in fact also those of a latergeneration and longer-term than Jesus ministry. Secondly, one may suspect that Mk has been at work

both from the sandwich-form (story, vv. 1-9; reason for parables, vv. 10-13; interpretation, vv. 14-20)

and from the triple failure through Satan, persecution and cares of the world. To this one might add the

notorious carelessness of Mk over tenses: sown is expressed once in the perfect (v. 15), once in thepresent (v. 18), and once in the aorist (v. 20), each time with the same meaning.

This finding has two important consequences. Firstly, it opens the way to reading the parable of TheSower without its interpretation. Taken on its own the parable may easily be fitted into Jesus ministry

as his own reflexion on the failure of his proclamation to all but the small group of disciples, and his

optimism with them (whence the crescendo of 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold in v. 20). The three separatefailures of his efforts need not each have a separate point, but simply represent repeated fruitless

attempts.

Secondly, the splitting up of the unit 4.1-20 lays open the possibility that that the enigmatic section onthe purpose of the meshalim, vv. 10-13, does not either basically belong to this context, but was

inserted here by Mk. Taken at its face-value these verses seem to say that Jesus purpose in usingmeshalim was deliberately to obscure his meaning from the crowds, outsiders: in order that, howeverhard they look, they may not see, and however hard they listen, they may not understand and be

converted and forgiven (v. 13). The possibility that this is not really the sense is confirmed by further

factors:

45. This same passage of Isaiah is used twice more to explain the failure of the Jews to accept the

message, once at the conclusion of Jesus ministry in Jn 12.40 and once at the conclusion ofPauls mission in Ac 28.26. This triple usage suggests that the quotation was used as a stock

scriptural explanation of the puzzling fact of Jewish failure.

46. The Markan passage fits the parables ill. The mystery/secret of the kingdom (v. 11, in the


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singular) is an expression used by Paul of the whole of the ultimate revelation reserved for the

end of time (Rm 16.25, cf. 1 Co 2.1; 4.1, cf. Ep 1.9; 3.5; Col 1.27). Mt and Lk, in their parallel

passages, in fact both adjust the phrase to make it fit the context better, turning the noun into the

plural, mysteries/secrets, so that it does apply to the parables.47. There is a strong case that vv. 11-12 are a very ancient Palestinian tradition, for the quotation of

Isaiah is in several respects closer to the Palestinian Targum tradition than it is to either the

standard Hebrew or the LXX text. Furthermore, the triple theological passive (use of the passiveto avoid using the name of God, in is granted, comes [literally is done], and being healed)

is typical of early Palestinian tradition. It may well be a saying of Jesus preserved, without its

original context, from the earliest times.

This removes the uncomfortable paradox that Jesus chief teaching method was designed to obscure his

message. Rather these verses are an early Christian reflection on the failure of the Jews to accept the

message, somewhat clumsily inserted here by Mk.

B. Harvest Parables

One of the chief images used in the parables of the gospels is the harvest: the coming of the Kingship

of God is the harvest-time. This was already used by John the Baptist, for whom it was a potent imageof judgement and of the imminent arrival of the new era. The Baptist used the image of fruit-harvest as

much as wheat-harvest:

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree

failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire His winnowing fan is in his hand; he will

clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never goout (Mt 3.8-12)

This is an image of divine judgement classically used in the prophets:

Look, I am making you into a threshing-sledge,

New, with double teeth.

You will thresh and beat the mountains to dust

And reduce the hills to straw.

You will winnow them and the wind will carry them off,

The gale will scatter them

Whereas you will rejoice in Yahweh,Will glory in the Holy One of Israel (Is 41.15-16).

Ply the sickle for the harvest is ripe.

Come and press, for the winepress is full.

The vats are overflowing, so great is their wickedness (Joel 4.13).

Johns message was primarily one of disaster, punishment and need of repentance. It was Jesus failure

to set fire to the chaff and cut down the rotten trees which led John to send his messengers to ask

whether Jesus really was the one who was to come (Mt 11.2). Jesus replied that he was fulfillingIsaiahs prophecies of healing, intimating that his concept of messiaship was not quite the same as

Johns. It is the property of images to be polyvalent, and the harvest is not necessarily an image of

disaster, and for those who are ready can also be an image of overflowing joy:

You have increased the nations joy.

They rejoice before you as people rejoice at harvest time (Is 9.2)


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Those who sow in tears will sing when they reap,

He went off, went off weeping, carrying the seed.He comes back, comes back singing, bringing in his sheaves (Ps 126.5).

So Jesus parables too are full of this harvest-imagery. Not only the Sower, but also the parable of theSeed Growing by Itself is in fact a harvest-parable, ending with the sickle: when the crop is ready, at

once he starts to reap because the harvest has come (Mk 4.29). It is a parable of the patient waiting ofGod coming to an end.

The prime example of harvest-parable in Mk is The Wicked Tenants (Mk 12.1-9). Built on Isaiahs

image of the vineyard (Is 5.1-8) it depicts the Owner sending for his rent, normally at harvest-time. In

Mk it has especial prominence, the only story-parable in the second half, balancing the long story-parable of the first half, The Sower. As it stands in Mk it may or may not have the allegorical feature of

Jesus as the son. In Mt it certainly has this, for Mt reverses the order to echo the historical facts. Instead

of they seized him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard (Mk 12.8), Mt 21.39 gives theyseized him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Jesus was crucified outside the city.

Whether this allegorical element is already intended in Mks version need not be examined at the

moment (but see p. 42). The parable makes sense without it, merely stressing that the Lord of thevineyard of Israel has vainly made every possible move to persuade the custodians of Israel to face

their responsibilities.

Parables of Mt extend this to a fishing-harvest, so that Mt has not only The Wheat and the Darnel (Mt

13.24-30), but its pair, The Dragnet (Mt 13.47-50), each harvest full of good and bad together, which

are finally to be sorted out.

C. The Wedding-Feast

Another centre of imagery is the wedding-feast. This too is a classical figure from the Old Testament,richly used since the bridal imagery of Hosea, for the final blissful healing of the infidelity of Israel:

I shall betroth you to myself for ever,

I shall betroth you in uprightness and justice

And faithful love and tenderness (Ho 2.21).

Yahweh says this:

I remember your faithful love, the affection of your bridal days,

When you followed me through the desert, through a land unsown,

Israel was sacred to Yahweh, the first-fruits of his harvest (Jr 2.2-3).

Before the gospels, the imagery is used by Paul of his apostolic work, I gave you all in marriage to a

single husband, a virgin pure for presentation to Christ (2 Co 11.2). There already Christ is thebridegroom, but this allegorical element is not a necessary part of the figure. The wedding-feast makes

sense on its own, without the introduction of Jesus as bridegroom. The image is used overwhelmingly

in the teaching of Jesus. First it comes in Mk 2.19, Surely the bridegrooms attendants cannot fast

while the bridegroom is with them? Jeremias wisely insists (p. 50, footnote 12) that the allegorisationof the bridegroom as Jesus must be a later addition, and comes only in the following verse. The idea of

a bridegroom being taken away from a wedding is so paradoxical that it would have been unintelligible

before the Passion (certainly at the early stage of the ministry in which Mk places it). The phrase whilethe bridegroom is with them simply means during the actual wedding. Furthermore, in the Old


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Testament it is Yahweh who is the bridegroom. Such also is still the understanding of the marriage-

imagery in Song of Songs by the early second-century Rabbis who included it among the sacred

writings for that very reason. It is an important development in Mks Christology that the bridegroom

has now become Jesus himself.

Similarly the parable of The Wedding-Banquet (Mt 22.1-14), although in its present form it includes

allegorical features of Jesus as the Son and Bridegroom, does not need these details, which are indeedabsent from the version in Lk 14.16-24. The point is the failure of the guests originally invited to

respond. The Matthean parable of the Ten Wedding-Attendants (Mt 25.1-12) is a further example of the

wedding imagery, though now Christologically allegorised.

D. Suddenness and Novelty

Apart from the joyful aspect of harvest and wedding-feast, the principal thrust of Jesus meshalim is the

newness of the Kingdom and its sudden, unexpected arrival. Unpreparedness enters into all the parables

of both harvest and wedding-feast. Perhaps its strongest expression in Mk is The Doorkeeper (Mk13.34b-35). In its present context the image of the Doorkeeper who should be ready for his Masters

return from a dinner-party has been interwoven with the image of servants who have been given a task

to do while their Master is absent on a journey (Mk 13.34a). This suggests a distinctly longer period ofabsence than a mere prolonged night out.

Newness is the subject of the meshalim of the New Patch on Old Cloth and New Wine in NewWineskins (Mk 2.21-22). There is no point in trying to combine new and old: a whole-hearted choice is

necessary. It is Jesus attempt to persuade his hearers that a firm and uncompromising decision is

needed.

3. JESUSMESHALIMVIEWED IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CHURCH IN THE NEXT

GENERATIONS

The situation changes drastically when the meshalim are applied to the Second Coming. When the

world did not come to an end at the Resurrection, a new interpretation of the meshalim, in continuitywith Jesus meaning but in a wholly new key, comes into being. The fulfilment of the Sovereignty of

God is not completed in Jesus lifetime, and this creates the tension between the two aspects of

already and not yet. The crisis is no longer, as it was in Jesus proclamation, a demand for an instant

decision with the arrival of Jesus, but of preparation for the coming of Jesus at the end of time. This isperhaps most evident in Mt, with its stress on eschatological rewards and punishments, and its repeated

warnings to be prepared beforehand by good works. So to the parable of the Wedding Banquet, Mt

subjoins the parable of the Wedding Garment, for a garment is a recognised symbol of good works (Mt22.11-14): in order to prepare for the banquet you must clothe yourself with the garment of good

works. In Mt the importance of the final reckoning is underlined by the illustration and elaboration of

each element of Mks conclusion to ch. 13 into one of the four contrast parables stressing the rewardsand punishments of the end, The Burglar, The Conscientious Steward, the Ten Wedding Attendants and

The Talents, before the whole is topped off with The Sheep and the Goats (Mt 24.42-25.46). By

contrast, the short-term parable of The Doorkeeper has disappeared.

Already in Mk, however, the re-interpretation has come into effect. The Doorkeeper has become a

warning to stay awake for the Second Coming (the triple Stay awake! in 13.33-37), and the servants


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have opportunity to perform their various tasks while the Master is abroad (13.34). Before the Son of

Man comes to gather his elect for a final reckoning, the period of the Church must intervene, with its

mission and its persecutions (13.9-12). The Wedding Banquet is not the final moment of time, but there

will be a time for fasting when the Wedding Banquet is over and the Bridegroom taken away (Mk2.19-20). The Mustard-Seed has time to grow into a shrub large enough to have big branches so that

the birds of the air can shelter in its shade (Mk 4.32). It is, admittedly, not yet a tree as in Mt and Lk,

but the birds sheltering in its branches represent the gentiles, as in the Book of Daniel 4.9, 18 (sointerpreted in Ethiopian Enoch 90), so presuppose a mission to the gentiles.

4. STORY-PARABLES IN MATTHEW AND LUKE

It would be disproportionate to embark on a full discussion of the parables in the other synoptics, but abrief outline of their treatment in Mt and Lk will help by contrast to illustrate Mks parables. Both Mt

and Lk draw largely on Mk, using his three principal parables, The Sower, The Mustard-Seed and The

Wicked Vine-Dressers. Not, however, The Doorkeeper, which is too immediate for their sense of thedelayed Second Coming of Christ. They also share with each other a large number of parables, which

would conventionally be called the Q-Parables, such as The Playing Children, The Leaven, The Lost

Sheep, The Great Feast, The Talents/Pounds. In addition, each has his own long parables. Both contentand treatment, however, vary considerably from Mk.

Mks story-parables are all drawn from the imagery of the countryside and village life, and are alldescriptive of the advent of the Kingship of God; they describe the situation as it is, leaving the

appropriate action to be understood by the listener. They are not too rich in imagery, but describe the

countryside with loving care (for example, one can watch each stage in the growth of the Seed: the

land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear).

Mts parables are much richer and more varied in imagery. They still describe the Kingship/Kingdom,

but are all concerned with people, and with contrasting people, for Mt favours black-and-whitecontrasts without intermediate shades of grey. So the Two Builders, who build respectively on sand and

rock (Mt 7.24-27), the Playing Children, unwilling either to dance or to mourn (Mt 11.16-17), the

Wheat and the Tares (Mt 13.24-30, good and bad corn, paired by the Dragnet with its good and badfish, Mt 13.47-50), the Forgiven but Unforgiving Servant (Mt 18.21-35), the Labourers in the Vineyard

(Mt 20.1-16), the Two Sons (21.28-32), the Wedding Feast and the Wedding Garment (Mt 22.1-14), the

Ten Wedding Attendants (25.1-13), the Talents (Mt 25.14-30), and finally and most obviously the

Sheep and the Goats (Mt 25.31-46). In all of these the interest is on the eschatological rewards andpunishments which will result at the last times. All lead up to the final five parables in Mt 24.42-25.46.

Lks story-parables are far more varied and more subtle. Instead of characters who are eitherthoroughly good or thoroughly bad, Lks characters are mixed, often doing the right thing for the wrong

reason: the Friend at Midnight, eventually giving bread out of sheer shame (Lk 11.5-10), the Wedding-

Guest, taking a low seat to avoid embarrassment (14.7-11), the Prodigal Son, going home simplybecause he is hungry (Lk 15.11-32), the Crafty Steward, cutting off the excessive interest to feather his

own nest (Lk 16.1-13), the Unjust Judge, giving the widow her due to save his skin (Lk 18.1-8). Lukes

heroes or rather, anti-heroes, for he has no real heroes enjoy making a little speech to themselves,often questioning what they should do: so the Rich Fool (Lk 12.13-21), the Invited Guests (Lk

14.15-24), the Prodigal Son (15.11-32), the Crafty Steward, The Unjust Judge, the Pharisee and the

Tax-Collector (Lk 18.9-14). Other parables show the related, well-known Lukan enjoyment of direct


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speech, e.g. the Closed Door (Lk 13.23-30), the Great Feast (Lk 14.15-24).

The major difference, however, from Mk and Mt is that the centre of interest of Lks parables is no

longer descriptive and no longer focussed on the Kingdom. The parables are hortatory rather thandescriptive, giving examples of virtuous behaviour in spheres which Lk considers particularly

important, such as perseverance in prayer (the Friend at Midnight, the Unjust Judge), or generosity with

possessions (the Good Samaritan, 10.25-37; the Rich Man and Lazarus, 16.19-31), or repentance andforgiveness (the Two Debtors, 7.41-42; the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin and Prodigal Son, 15.1-32).

5. ORIGIN OF THE PARABLES

The parables in each gospel have, then, a different and clearly-marked character, Marks parables one

character, Matthews another, and Lukes a third. A question is bound to arise about the origin of theparables. Are these three sets of parables all from Jesus? The question arises first about the parables of

Mt and Lk. Each set of parables is so characteristic of the two evangelists, both in style and in

theological interest that one may wonder whether the evangelist invented them personally. In the caseof Lk it is certainly possible to see the origin of a number of them elsewhere in the scripture. Michael

Goulder repeatedly insists that Lk never invents but only elaborates existing material. A table may be

constructed to suggest an origin of many of Lks parables:

Reference Title Origin

6.46-49 The Two Builders Mt 7.24-27=Q

7.31-35 The Playing Children Mt 11.16-19=Q

7.36-50 The Two Debtors The Unmerciful Servant, Mt 18.21-358.4-15 The Sower Mk

10.25-37 The Good Samaritan ?2 Chr 28.15

12.13-21 The Rich Fool Si 11.1812.35-38 The Watchful Servants The 10 Wedding Attendants, Mt 25.1-13

12.39-40 The Burglar Mt 24.42-44=Q

13.6-9 The Barren Fig-Tree Mk 11.12-2513.18-19 The Mustard-Seed Mk

13.20-21 The Leaven Mt 13.33=Q

14.7-11 The Wedding-Guests Pr 25.6

14.15-24 The Great Feast Mt 22.1-10=Q15.1-7 The Lost Sheep Mt 18.10-14=Q

15.8-10 The Lost Coin A pair (female/male) to The Lost Sheep

15.11-32 The Prodigal Son The Two Sons, Mt 21.28-3218.1-8 The Unjust Judge Si 35.12

19.11-27 The Pounds Mt 25.14-30=Q

20.9-19 The Wicked Tenants Mk

For the other Matthean and Lukan parables it is less easy to suggest a source. Are they elaborations of

Jesus teaching made by the evangelists themselves, stories invented to illustrate the points? Matthewhimself says at the end of his parable-chapter that the scribe in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a

householder who brings out from his storeroom new things as well as old (Mt 13.52). As a first

conclusion, therefore, it might be suggested that Mt and Lk have both elaborated Mks parables in their


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own strikingly individual ways, and that the parables of Jesus are to be found only in Mk, which are

both homogeneous and strikingly different from those of Mt and Lk. But then a second question arises,

whether this homogeneity is to be attributed to Jesus rather than to Mks own inventiveness. If Mt and

Lk both illustrated Jesus teaching by their own parables, drawn from other sources than Jesusteaching, did Mk do the same? No incontrovertible answer is possible, but Mks homogeneous story-

parables drawn from the imagery of agricultural life in the Galilaean countryside fit what we know of

Jesus the best of all three evangelists.

Exercises

48. Find and list the meshalim in the teaching of Jesus in Mk 10.

49. Construct imaginatively a context in which Jesus might have replied to the disciples wit

wansbrough introduction to mark

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