Jesus and His Bible Part 4

 Jesus and Purity

The next time in Mark that Jesus quotes his Testament is in Chapter 7.  In the intervening story, Jesus has done the following:

• Told more parables about the Kingdom of God—the seed growing, the mustard seed growing;
• Stilled the storm on the sea;
• Freed the Gerasene (Gentile) madman from his demons;
• Brought Jairus’s daughter back from death;
• Healed (inadvertently) the woman who had bled for 12 years;
• Met unbelief in his home town; 
• Sent the 12 disciples out in pairs to preach;
• Fed the 5000 men plus women and children with 12 baskets left over
• Walked on the water to his disciples’ boat.

The level of activity is breath-taking to read. In these encounters and events, we see the growing awareness among his followers that he is not a run-of-the-mill itinerant preacher or prophet. They add to their undoubted affection and admiration a streak of fear when he stills the storm and walks on the water.  We also see that his home town is blind to his worth and that the Gentiles want him to go away. Mark’s Jesus inspires awe, and yet desperate people continue to beseech him for help.

 Jesus quoted his Testament in the context of a dispute with Pharisees over ritual purification.  In Mark 7, Pharisees noticed that the disciples ate with unwashed hands. Pharisees asked Jesus why the disciples did not keep the traditions. This  reflected on Jesus as a trustworthy teacher, so they were really asking about his relationship to the Law and ritual.

 Jesus said, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Mark 7: 6-7).

This is a reference to Isaiah 29:13:-14: "Then the Lord said, ‘Because this people draw near with their words and honor me with their lips, but they remove their hearts from me, and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote,  therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people…and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be concealed.’”

The context in Isaiah is a prophesy against Jerusalem, specifically that the city will undergo a military siege, defeat, and a return to dust, accompanied by thunder, earthquake, tempest, and the flame of a consuming fire. Strikingly, God tells Isaiah that this vision will be like a sealed scroll to his audience, a scroll the literate will reject because it is sealed, and the illiterate because they cannot read. It is followed by the pronounced woe to those who act secretively, who consider themselves wiser and more understanding than God, who are like pots thinking themselves equal to their potter.

This chapter in Isaiah ends with a prophecy concerning bringing hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, gladness to the afflicted, causing the needy to rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. But also ending the ruthless, finishing the scornful, cutting off those intending evil, those who pervert justice with lies and bribes. Christians will see Jesus in these words, which express the hopes of humankind for a better future. 

It is clear where Jesus included those who were preoccupied with ritual purity—they were among the ruthless, the scornful, those willing to bully, lie and cheat for their own ends. 

Jesus went further with his indictment of Pharisees. Jesus said they put traditions ahead of the commandment of God, quoting Moses: “‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘he who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death’ but you say ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, anything of mine you might have been helped by is Corban—given to God’—thus invalidating the word of God by your traditions which you have handed down, and you do many such things like that” (Mark 7:9-11).

This commandment to care for parents deals directly with human relationships, calling the young to care for the old. The familiar context is the 10 commandments given to Moses by God on the stone tablets: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (Ex. 20:12, see also Deut. 5:15). It is worth noticing that Jesus quoted only the command. When God says to do something positive, do it regardless of outcome, may be the message.  [Robert Alter notes that “it is hard to square the causal link between honoring parents and longevity with empirical observation, and one probably has to regard this as part of the traditional wisdom of the ancient Near East, the sort of hopeful moral calculus reflected in the book of Proverbs” (Moses, 297, n.).]

Jesus also invoked the flip side of caring for parents. In a list of capital offenses is included the following: “And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death”) (Ex. 21:17, see also Lev. 20:9). Robert Alter translates “curses” as “vilifies,” and notes that it connects with treating parents with contempt. (Moses, 303, n.). Jesus condemns the tradition that makes it a good deed to give away “to God” money or goods  that one’s parents need. He makes clear that human need is more important than looking good.

Jesus followed this by an address to the multitude: “Listen to me and understand: there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile him” (Mark 7:15). Jesus directly confronted Jewish dietary laws about what could and could not be eaten. He explained to the disciples that, literally, what a person eats goes into the stomach and is eliminated, causing no impurity.  Mark asserts that this means “he declared all foods clean,” an interpretation confirmed by Peter’s vision on the rooftop detailed in Acts 10. This vision expanded the acceptability of all foods to include the acceptability of all persons, whether Jewish or not. Those of us who yearn for rules and guidelines that will make us acceptable to God are out of luck.

What is defiling before God are the ways we harm each other that derive from evil thoughts, pride, and foolishness. Again Jesus sets to the side the interpretations of the Law and the religious traditions that hinder us from caring for the human needs we encounter.

Jesus and His Bible, Part 3

Jesus and the Prophet Isaiah

Between the event in the previous post and today’s study, Mark has moved briskly through the following events:

• Jesus healed a man with a withered hand in the synagogue on Sabbath;
• Jesus preached to huge crowds from Galilee and from Idumea, Tyre and Sidon (non-Jewish audience);
• Evil spirits identified Jesus as the Son of God;
• Jesus chose the twelve;
• Jesus’s own people tried to take him into their care, thinking him mad;
• Jesus identified those who do God’s will as his family;
• Jesus told the parable of the sower and the seed.

When his disciples ask him about his parables, this is his response.

“To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God; but those who are outside get everything in parables; in order that while seeing, they may see and not perceive; and while hearing they may hear and not understand; lest they return again and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12).

This quotation links the ministry of Jesus with the prophetic ministry of Isaiah:

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' Then I said, 'Here am I. Send me!' And He said, 'Go, and tell this people: "Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep on looking, but do not understand." Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and repent and be healed'" (Isaiah 6:8-9).

This is from the famous passage where Isaiah sees the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, with a train that fills the temple. Isaiah responds with terror, as anyone would, and identifies himself as a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips. The word “unclean” has a history in the Law; people were rendered unclean by touching a dead body, by bodily discharges, by leprosy, by numerous causes, and in an unclean state were prohibited from engaging in worship with the community. We can infer that Isaiah had not made himself unclean in these ways since he was in the temple.

But he sees himself as essentially unclean when he sees the holiness of God, and in this he represents all of us. His cry, “Woe is me!” is the cry of all humanity when we see the difference between ourselves and God. His immediate understanding that he is a person of polluted language and boundaries (things represented by lips) applies to all of us. 

And it makes the reaching out of God to humanity through Jesus so necessary and important.  As Jesus, who identified himself always as the son of humanity,  says, “Whoever has seen me has seen my Father.” 

The sting in this quotation is for those who do not perceive their essential neediness before God, those who listen but do not hear, who see but do not understand. These will never turn back to God, will never face into God’s holiness and their own need. These people can be completely religious, and yet not healed.

By identifying himself  with the vision and calling of Isaiah, Jesus also admits and predicts a similar certainty that many people will not see, listen, or understand his own person and ministry; therefore they will not repent, and by this lack of repentance they will be judged. The parables are therefore challenges to us: will we listen with our spirits and imaginations? Will we look for how they call us to repent?

Jesus and His Bible, Part 2

Jesus and the Sabbath 

In Mark 2: 23-28, Jesus and his disciples were walking through a field on the Sabbath. His disciples plucked some grain and rubbed the chaff off and ate it as they walked.  The Law-abiding Pharisees were shocked at this action, which by their lights was a breaking of the holy Sabbath.  They said, “See here,” a confrontational opening to what turns into a very surprising conversation.

Jesus responded: “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and became hungry, he and his companions: how he entered into the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he gave it also to those who were with him?” (Mark 2:25-26).  

The historical context is this:  Saul’s jealousy of David’s military successes and fame among the women, sets out to have David killed. Jonathan tells David and sends him away, running for his life.  He comes to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest; tells him the lie that the king has commissioned David with a secret mission, and he and his young men need food  (1 Sam. 21:1) The priest answers that the only food on hand is the consecrated bread; they can have it only if they have kept themselves from women. David says they have, and they get the bread. [Sexual activity was taboo during periods of combat. Alter, Prophets 265, n.] 

It interests me that Jesus referenced Ahimelech’s father Abiathar, and the writer of the history identifies Ahimelech as the priest at this time.  It may have been that both were present, and, for all we know, the son consulted the father. What we can see is that Jesus was not bothering to be word-perfect in referring to this incident, but also that he knew the scriptures well enough to know the names of both father and son. This all by itself suggests that we also can make our emphasis on the meaning of the Old Testament texts, rather than focusing on the letter of the law. 

The laws governing this bread are found in Leviticus 24:5-9: “Bake 12 loaves, place them in 2 rows along with frankincense, which you will offer as a token for the bread, and the bread will be renewed each Sabbath. The priests shall eat it in a holy place.” 

Robert Alter notes that it was common in the ancient Near East to offer bread daily to the deity, but this law limits the offering to once a week. He suggests that this perhaps signifies that they are NOT keeping God alive. This idea is in keeping with other scriptures where God is depicted as saying that God does not need their bulls and sheep for food.  Additionally, it is notable that the bread was stale when priests finally ate it. (Alter, Moses, 248, n.)

Interestingly, Jesus made nothing of the fact that David got the bread by deceit. David  pressures the priest with his “secret mission” from Saul; he also cynically assures the priest that all his young men have kept themselves pure from women because they’d been in combat, which is not true as he is alone. His lies show that he is desperately hungry and will say anything. But Jesus attributed no ill to him. Jesus recognized the imperatives of bodily hunger.  And human need was more important than following the law.

Jesus went on to assert that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).  In the Law, God establishes Sabbath as one of the central identifying and compulsory laws for the children of Israel. Six days for labor, and then everything rests on the seventh day. Jesus took them back to the earliest establishment of Sabbath (Ex. 23:12, Deut. 5:14): it is a time to take a breath (Alter, Moses, 310, n.), to refresh all who labor, from master to slave to beast. Later elucidations of the meaning of Sabbath include God’s resting after creation or the history of Israel’s liberation from slavery, but Jesus did not invoke those in this instance. The simple identification Jesus made asserts that Sabbath was created for the good of humankind.

When Jesus went on to assert that consequently the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath(Mark 2:28), this had to shock the Pharisees. It comes after Jesus says you need to patch old garments with old cloth, that you need to put new wine into new wineskins. What he is bringing is not a patching of the Law, but a new Law altogether—the Law of love.  

Jesus and His Bible in the Gospel of Mark, Part 1

Preamble: I have spent my lifetime of reading the Gospels without taking special note of the distinction between what the Gospel writers invoke from the Old Testament and what Jesus actually quotes or references. I set out on a project to note what Jesus refers to in the Old Testament and to read those references in their original context and then sit with that information and reread the context in which Jesus uses them. Though it is impossible to read without preconceptions, I was trying to read with the intention of being open to my notions being challenged.

My academic discipline is English, so I used a method of literary criticism. We can look at it simply as investigating the source of literary allusions and influence, or we can invest it with weightier significance by invoking “intertextuality.” In either case, the idea is that we enrich our understanding of the text we are presently reading by recognizing references to other literature and by informing ourselves of that place that allusion or quotation occurs in the context of the original. In the case of ancient texts, we may also need to investigate the historical uses of various words to understand the original more fully.    

My purpose is both intellectual and spiritual. I am devoted to Jesus and to following his historical example and his present teaching in my life. Trying to understand more about his thinking seems to me to be useful in both aspects of my spiritual life.  

I chose the Gospel of Mark, the earliest and most unadorned. I have a warm history with this gospel, having read it all the way through on each of three consecutive weekends several decades ago. I fell in love with Jesus through this reading, finding him to be charismatic, irascible, and tender. 

The results of my study show Jesus aligning himself with the prophets, particularly Isaiah, in the opening and central parts of his ministry, and then, surprisingly to me, the apocalypse of Daniel in the days prior to his trial and crucifixion. I investigate the place of Daniel in the Hebrew scriptures used by Jesus and the specific use Jesus made of it. My investigation makes me think that Jesus himself, as he saw the conflict intensifying between him and the religious leaders, was driven to referencing exile and apocalypse by his disappointment in his reception and his dread of what was to come. This further humanizes him, as I see it, without diminishing his divine nature and vocation to save the world’s people from their sins. 

I hope that as you consider my analysis and inferences you will be encouraged to look at the words of Jesus with new interest and imaginative questions of your own that move you to study the Bible more carefully.

I have chosen (as a non-expert, academically speaking, in Biblical studies) these main sources for information: Robert Alter’s translation and commentary on the Jewish scriptures, known to Christians as the Old Testament, and the Jewish Study Bible.  I chose these in order to think about the Jewish scriptures more as Jesus might have thought of them—as the only scriptures he knew.  I also used for word study the online lexicon Blue Letter Bible. I looked at the New American Standard Bible with cross-references to help me identify the source of Jesus’s allusions and quotations from his scriptures.  

Chapter 1 Healing a Leper

The first passage to note where Jesus refers to his scriptures is the healing of the leper in Mark 1.  Jesus touches the leper, the leper is healed, and Jesus says to him: “Offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded” (Mark 1:45).

This raised for me the question: What did Moses command? It turns out the process for declaring a leper cleansed/healed is quite complex and invokes a great deal of the culture of ancient Hebrews. 

The procedure is outlined in Leviticus 14, which I summarize as follows:

Event 1

• The priest meets leper outside the camp;
• The priest takes two live clean birds, cedar wood, hyssop and a scarlet string;
• The priest kills one bird over an earthenware vessel (which catches the blood) over running water;
• The priest dips the live bird, the scarlet string and the hyssop in the first bird’s blood;
• The priest sprinkles the former leper 7 times with the blood, then lets the second bird go free.
• The former leper washes his clothes, bathes, then waits for 7 days.

Event 2

• On the seventh day, he shaves off all his hair, even eyebrows, washes his clothes and bathes;
• On the eighth day, he takes two perfect male lambs and a yearling ewe lamb, 3/10 of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, and one log (think of a pint or so) of olive oil, and goes to the priest;
• The priest presents him and his offering before the tent of the meeting [this was prior to the building of the temple, so think tabernacle];
• The priest presents one lamb and the oil and gives them to God as a guilt and a wave offering;
• The priest kills the lamb, which then belongs to the priest;
• The priest takes the lamb’s blood, puts it on the former leper’s right earlobe, right thumb, and right big toe;
• The priest takes some oil into his left palm, then dips his right finger into the oil and sprinkles it 7 times before the Lord.
• The priest then puts oil from his palm onto the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the former leper, and the remaining oil from his palm on the former leper’s head;
• Then the priest offers the sin offering to make atonement;
• The priest slaughters the burnt offering, offers it and the grain offering on the altar;
• Then the former leper will be clean.

If the former leper is poor, he can offer one male lamb for a guilt and a wave offering, and 1/10 of an ephah of flour mixed with oil, and a pint of oil, and two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a sin offering and one for a burnt offering. The process continues as above.

The reference in Leviticus 14 to the guilt and wave offering required me to read further to find what is said about these. In Leviticus 5, a guilt offering is required for those guilty of the following infractions: 

• When they do not testify though there is a public appeal for witnesses; 
• When they touch any unclean thing, whether human or animal or insect; 
• When they swear thoughtlessly to do something, whether evil or good. 

Further, it seems to have been thought that this skin disease was the consequence of a guilty act of some sort [as Miriam was struck with leprosy after disloyalty to Moses]; thus the guilt offering. A wave offering was waved before the altar and then given to the priests for their use.

The prescribed components of a guilt offering are a lamb, ewe, or kid goat; or, if that is too costly, two turtledoves/pigeons; or if that is too costly, 1/10 of an ephah of flour, unmixed with oil.  Most of the offering goes for the priest’s upkeep, and the rest is burned (one of the birds, one handful of the flour).  This is a part of the cleansing ritual above, which seems generally more expensive.

Many of these actions are clearly symbolic, certifying rather than effecting the cure.  The leper has initiated them as a result of the skin returning to one color. Blood and oil were considered purifying agents (Robert Alter, Moses, 330, n.) The blood on the right earlobe, etc., is a sign of consecration for priests (see Exodus 29) and invokes the organs of hearing, holding, locomotion (Alter, Moses, 330, n.). Oil on the head was also a confirming act of consecration for priests (Alter, Moses, 329, n.). This suggests that the former leprous exile now is an insider, a member of God’s people. 

So, to sum up what is involved in the interaction between the leper and Jesus.  The leper asks Jesus to heal him. Jesus does so with a touch. Jesus makes no comment about the “guilt” aspect of leprosy, though occasionally in other healings he does also forgive the sick person’s sins. He does ask the healed person to keep the healing quiet until the priest has certified it.  Again, the reason is not clarified. Perhaps it is to delay the inevitable confrontation with other Jews about the Law, perhaps it is to prevent being overwhelmed by crowds, perhaps it is because the man himself needs the discipline of the ritual rather than the attention of the crowd.

But here’s the interesting thing about Jesus. While he sends off the healed leper to the priest to accomplish all the tasks of ritual purification, he himself does none of them, despite having touched the leper and incurring uncleanness thereby.

This introduces, without comment, the tension between Jesus and the Law, a tension which is not resolved by Jesus’s comment in Matthew 5 that he came to fulfill the law.  Yes, he did, and also the opposite. Jesus “filled up” the law, like new wine in old wineskins, and burst it wide open.