Mark for the Nations: A Text- and Reader-Oriented Commentary

By Lars Hartman

Mark for the Nations is a translation by the author of his Swedish commentary on the Gospel of Mark. It is meant both for students of theology and for pastors, as well as for lay people. Hartman reads Mark's Gospel through the eyes of an early Gentile-Christian reader. For this reason he quotes much material from the Hellenistic world in translation. To some extent this material appears here for the first time in a gospel commentary. The analysis makes use of literary criticism and text linguistics, but avoids the technical terminology. To stimulate a modern reader's understanding of the evangelist's message to his first-century audience Hartman has endeavored to translate traditional terms into slightly more common language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Jun 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781498270076

Lars Hartman

Lars Hartman is Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is the author of Prophecy Interpreted: The Formation of Some Jewish Apocalyptic Texts and of the Eschatological Discourse Mark 13 Par. and Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1-5.

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Mark for the Nations

A Text- and Reader-Oriented Commentary

Lars Hartman

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MARK FOR THE NATIONS

A Text- and Reader-Oriented Commentary

Copyright © 2010 Lars Hartman. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Pickwick Publications

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Translated from the Swedish Markusevangeliet (Kommentar till Nya testamentet, Stockholm: EFS-förlaget/Verbum Förlag AB, 2004–2005). Translation and revisions by the author.

isbn 13: 978-1-55635-894-4

eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7007-6

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Hartman, Lars, 1930–

Mark for the nations : a text- and reader-oriented commentary / Lars Hartman.

xiv + 690 p. ; 23 cm. — Includes bibliographical references.

isbn 13: 978-1-55635-894-4

1. Bible. N.T. Mark—Commentaries. I. Title

bs2585.3 h39 2010

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Introduction: A Commentary—on What?

The question above may seem astonishing. Would not the obvious answer be, On the Gospel of Mark? But such an answer would need to be given further elaboration and greater precision. This could be achieved in highly specialized terms inspired by scholars in the fields of hermeneutics and linguistics, but I will refrain from using such language in what follows, although I have spent some energy on it in other contexts. But the following, less sophisticated, introduction should be adequate to facilitate my readers’ use of this commentary.

1. When I comment on the Gospel of Mark, I am concerned with the text that the person whom we call Mark has left behind. I use the Greek text of the common scholarly editions, although in a few cases I choose alternative readings from the manuscript tradition not chosen by these editors.

Thus I do not deal with the pre-history of the text. For example, I do not discuss how Mark has used earlier gospel tradition, whatever it may have been like. Even less, I do not engage in a study of what Matthew or Luke is doing, because I am persuaded that these gospels are not only written after Mark but also that they have used this gospel. For that reason I neither fill out Mark’s story with details from these two gospels nor from the Gospel of John.

2. When I focus specifically on the text, this also means that I do not focus to any great extent on the personal intention of the evangelist. When commentators have done so, they have, as a rule, tried to find out what Mark may have meant by changing and/or editing the material he has taken over. Then, of course, one has to begin by getting an idea of what kind of material this may have been and of what it may have contained. I have touched upon this issue under section 1 above.

To the extent that I try to make a reconstruction of the theology of the evangelist or of his message to his readers, I do so on the basis of his text as we have it, i.e., I assume that the evangelist has wanted to say that which he says and to do so in the way he says it. It is quite possible that such an assumption does not meet the historical facts, but in this case the author is hidden behind his text. In addition, Mark’s text is occasionally rather difficult; in such cases we should either give up or suggest a possible solution, but also admit that the suggestion is weakly founded.

3. When I comment on Mark’s text, I comment on units of text, not on events. Many Bible readers and many preachers do not make this differentiation. The texts certainly are narratives that narrate about events. Often it is even an essential point of a narrative that it engages its readers in such a way that they feel they are partaking in the event that is being narrated. Nevertheless I think it is honest to keep a narrative about an event and the event itself as a historical phenomenon apart. For example, Shakespeare’s play about King Richard III, the unscrupulous king, should be taken on its own conditions for what it is. In the narrative world that would be what is presented on the stage. It is not fair to Shakespeare to correct him by adducing things we know from history, the Richard of which is rather different from the one in the play. Nor is it fair to Shakespeare to assume that his King Richard is the same one as the one of history. This example certainly represents a different kind of text than the Gospel, but it demonstrates that we render the most justice to an author by reading his work on its own conditions.

It is not impossible to use the gospel texts as sources when attempting to reconstruct what happened in the life of Jesus. But it is difficult, and the distinctive literary character of the gospels is one of the reasons for this difficulty. Already the relative freedom with which Matthew and Luke reshaped what they took over from Mark’s gospel is a small sign of this difficulty.

However, it is not pessimism in the face of difficult historiographical questions that makes me differentiate, time and time again, between the Jesus of the narrative and the historical Jesus. One reason is precisely the distinctive character of the gospels as literature. Mark characterizes the text he delivered to his church as a gospel. It is good news given implicitly as to how God turns to humans and cares for them and their lives, both now and beyond this world. The good news largely has the form of narratives shaped in a way that is similar to such narratives in the Old Testament that were read aloud in Jewish worship. In the same Judaism new narratives were also created about the heroes of old, not in order to add further historical information but for edification and for confirming Jewish faith and identity. Several works of the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha belong to this kind of literature. Thus, the Early Church took over from Judaism a way of doing theology through narration, indeed, of edification through narrative. Accordingly this kind of narrative does not always give clear answers to the present-day reader who asks how concretely-literally they were understood.

Another reason why I comment on texts instead of events, on the narrated scene instead of the assumed historical course of events, is that this approach renders better justice to the actual shape of the texts. I allow what the narrative puts into the center to be its center, I let strange features be strange, and let contrasts in the given text be contrasts, although they may be smoothed out when, e.g., Matthew retells the story.

4. Thus I try to comment on the scenes that Mark presents to his audience, that is, the listeners in the congregations in which his gospel was read aloud in their common worship. What I ask for is not what really happened or was said but instead: what did Mark appear to say to his readers/listeners through this book about the good news? This means that the text is rooted in a particular culture and is directed to people of a particular time in a particular culture. What was this culture like and accordingly what did Mark’s text probably tell them with regard to the presuppositions provided by this particular culture?

This kind of reader perspective distinguishes this commentary from most others. The readers/listeners of Mark’s gospel are Christians; Mark 7:3–4 demonstrates that they are not Jewish Christians. When the widow’s mite is explained with a Latin loanword, this intimates that they are living farther west in the Roman Empire rather than in Palestine. This aspect is further developed in the final chapter of the commentary. Furthermore, when the first generation of Mark’s readers heard, e.g., about leprosy (Mark 1:40–45), they did so on their own conditions, not on Jewish ones, even less on Palestinian-Jewish ones as illuminated by, e.g., knowledge of how some rabbis thought about the disease. So I comment on the text of the healing of the leper—not on the event itself!— in referring, inter alia, to some opinions of the physicians of those days. Their views probably tell us more about the associations of the readers when encountering this passage.

It may seem illogical that now and then the notes in this commentary contain information of conditions in the Palestine of Jesus’ time, even though I also mention that probably these conditions were unknown to Mark’s first readers. As a matter of fact this information is given only to satisfy the curiosity of present-day readers.

5. To write a commentary with regard to the horizon of the first readers calls for certain presuppositions in terms of what the readers knew and did not know. Thus, as already mentioned, I have assumed that the first generation/generations of Markan readers were Gentile-Christians, at least predominantly so. Their normal (whatever that may mean!) background was the Hellenistic-Roman world of late antiquity. However, Mark apparently also presupposes that they have some orientation in the Old Testament, perhaps mediated and even gradually enlarged upon in the teaching and preaching in the Christian community. It is reasonable to assume that this teaching had also given them certain insights into Christian beliefs and norms. I take it for granted that this Old Testament was the Bible of the Greek speaking Jews, the Septuagint. For that reason, when quoting passages from the OT, I normally do so from the Septuagint (although for the Psalms I retain the numbers of the Hebrew Bible).

To what extent the OT may have served as a sounding board for the readers when listening to Mark’s text is a question, the answer to which must remain uncertain. We should keep in mind that it is a very late phenomenon in the history of the church that in principle every Christian had a Bible and could read it. The books of the OT were written on scrolls, and we may assume that the first Christian communities only possessed a few scrolls of the Bible, if any. What they knew of the OT may have reached them by other literary media or orally via their teachers.

The historical question of how well acquainted Mark’s readers were with the OT may be put somewhat more loosely; namely, one may ask what reader image is created by the text of the Gospel, be that image an illusion or not. But even so the difficulty remains, since very often it is hard to decide whether a turn of phrase is so colored by an OT passage that one has to catch this echo in order to be able to understand what Mark seems to say to his readers. In such cases, I have often suggested more than one possible interpretation.

6. I have spoken above of commenting without defining the expression more precisely. Leaving aside any discussion of principle, the following may serve as a brief presentation of the method I work with in the subsequent pages: The text to be commented on is quoted in a translation that follows the Greek original more closely than is usual. The commentary proper begins by Notes that deal with matters such as linguistic problems and different text critical details. An important part of these notes is the comparative material, especially from Hellenistic-Roman sources; it will serve to give the present-day reader an idea of what determined the conceptual world of Mark’s first readers. Then follows the Analysis of the text as a text: I relate the particular passage to its literal context and then focus on how it is organized, something that often leads to conclusions concerning which features in the text are more central than others. A particular aspect of the structure of a text is represented by the relationships between the characters and their words and actions. In the Exposition of the particular passage I finally use the material from the Notes and the Analysis for an exegesis that suggests to a present-day reader what the text may have meant to the first readers. The world of my reader is, however, so different from the world of Mark that now and then I find it necessary to try to translate what I assume was the Markan message into expressions and forms of thinking that are not the traditional biblical ones.

7. Several times in my remarks above there appear expressions such as maybe, I think, etc. This holds true also of the following commentary. A text certainly does not mean just anything, but every commentator knows that the suggestions given in explanation and interpretation—in the sense of giving a deeper explanation—are not definitive and not the only possible ones. In addition, it is of course clear that the commentator as an individual person with personal gifts, experiences, interests, and biases colors every commentary. This applies also to the present commentator.

1

Introduction: According to God’s Plan—His Representative Enters the Stage

Mark 1:1–13

The Gospel According to Mark.

1:1

The beginning of the good news of Jesus, the Anointed, the Son of God.

2

As it is written in Isaiah, the prophet, "See, I send my messenger before you, who will prepare your way;

3

the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,"

4

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

5

And there went out to him all the country of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

6

And John was clothed in camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

7

He proclaimed, saying, "The one who is mightier than I comes after me; I am not worthy to bend down and untie the thong of his sandals.

8

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit."

9

And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

10

And just when he was coming up from the water, he saw the heavens torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove,

11

and a voice came from heaven, You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.

12

And immediately the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness.

13

And he was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan, and he was among the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

Notes

The gospel according to Mark. Most manuscripts contain a title of the Gospel, which has been kept in our common Bibles. It appears in several forms with the best manuscripts only reading According to Mark. Both this shorter form and the longer one are most probably later additions to the original text. The shorter version presupposes that Mark’s book is part of a larger collection with the title The Gospel. Mark’s book is then a version of this gospel.

1:1. The beginning of the good news. There are different opinions as to how much is contained in this beginning. It is mostly taken as referring to 1:2–8, 1:2–13, or 1:2–15. Some, however, suggest that this opening line aims at the whole of the following book. In that case the idea is that the contents of the Gospel are the beginning or the point of departure of the proclamation of Christ by the church, that is, of the church’s gospel.

The following is a non-biblical example of how one could refer to the beginning of a literary work: The previous book began with the kingdom of Philip . . . There, on the one hand, we dealt with all the deeds of Philip until his death, on the other, with those of the other kings (Diodorus Siculus, 1st c. BCE, Bibliotheca historica 17.1).

The preamble in Hos 1:2 (LXX) is similar: The beginning of the word of God to Hosea. The Greek word for beginning is the same here as in Mark 1:1, that is, archē. In Hosea, the phrase does not refer to the first line of Hosea’s message, but rather to the first section of the book, in which the Lord orders Hosea to marry a harlot and have children with her as an example of the faithlessness of Israel whom the prophet was to reproach.

Basilius the Great (ca. 330–379) seems to have been of the opinion that the beginning was contained in 1:2–8 when writing: Mark made the preaching of John the beginning of the gospel (Adversus Eunomium 2.15).

The good news. The Greek word is euangelion, which is the origin of, inter alia, evangelist. See also 1:14–15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9 (see further Excursus 1: The Good News).

of Jesus, the Anointed, the Son of God. In the Greek all these words are in the genitive. See also the good news of Christ in Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12; Gal 1:7, etc. The phrase can express not only that the gospel/ good news is about Jesus Christ, but also that he is/was proclaiming the gospel/good news, or even that the gospel/good news originates from him—that is, a genitivus originis or auctoris.

the Anointed. Often the translators render this Christ; the Greek word is Christos, which is a verbal adjective meaning anointed. One may ask whether Christ is a title that expresses that Jesus was the Anointed, i.e. the Messiah, or whether the word—as often in the NT—has faded so as to become his second name (cf. Jesus Christ, Pontius Pilate, Simon Peter). Nevertheless Christ is often used when his religious importance is in view, e.g., Christ died for our sins (1 Cor 15:3–5). But even in such contexts the name hardly stands for the Anointed/the Messiah, even if Paul, for example, knows that the word has this meaning—see Rom 9:5; 1 Cor 1:23, etc. In Mark, the Anointed/Christ appears only here together with Jesus; otherwise it stands alone, meaning the Messiah: Mark 1:34; 8:29; 9:41; 13:21; 14:61; 15:32 (although one may feel a bit uncertain in 9:41). Taking into account that the other title is the Son of God, and that we come across a similar combination in Mark 14:61, it is probable that in 1:1 Christ actually has the nuance the Anointed, i.e. the Messiah. In Mark 14:61 the high priest asks, Are you Christ/the Anointed/the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed? What the Messiah concept stands for in the different Markan passages is a problem by itself (see further Excursus 2: Christ).

the Son of God. The words do not appear in a couple of good manuscripts (Sinaiticus, in its original reading, and Coridethianus). Among the authors of the early church Irenaeus (d. ca. 200) and Origen (d. 254) testify to the shorter reading. Both of them, however, also know of the longer reading. The choice between the two readings is difficult, and most commentators are hesitant. The manuscripts that support the longer reading are very good and, in addition, represent different textual traditions (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus [in a later reading], Bezae, etc., indirectly also the numerous manuscripts of the so-called Byzantine tradition, which add the definite article to God but otherwise read as Vaticanus).

The common argument in favor of the shorter reading is that it is difficult to imagine why anyone would come upon the idea to delete the Son of God. On the contrary, one may argue, theologians would more likely have wanted to complete the christological designations with an emphasis on Christ’s divinity (cf. Matt 26:63; John 11:27; 20:31).

There is, however, a possible reason why somebody would delete the Son of God. A copyist could namely have been influenced by the fact that Paul uses the phrase the gospel of Christ eight times without any following the Son of God. Indirectly, then, this might provide support for choosing the longer reading. An additional support is the fact that the designation the Son of God plays an important role in the Gospel as a whole (1:11; 3:11; 5:7; 9:7; 15:39; see further Excursus 4: The Son of God).

2–4. It is possible to understand the relationships of the clauses in vv. 1–4 in a different way, keeping the first line and the quotation together and beginning a new sentence with John the baptizer appeared. Such a reading avoids the difficulty in these verses that Mark would have construed a sentence that by his standards would have been extremely long. On the other hand, in that case Mark would have begun the sentence John the Baptist appeared . . . without using a conjunction or a particle, which would be contrary to his usage. The reading above is supported by the fact that Mark connects the OT quotation to the following text by echoing its wording there, "As it is written . . . a voice in the wilderness . . . [so] John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness (cf. also the linkage of the quotation’s a voice of one crying with proclaiming in the next sentence). Nonetheless a so" (houōs) in the beginning of v. 4 would have been nice.

as it is written. The tense of the Greek verb is perfect, which gives the verb the nuance of expressing something which has happened the result of which persists.

in Isaiah, the prophet. Actually, only the words of v. 3 come from Isaiah (40:3). Verse 2 is a combination of and see, I send a [LXX, my] messenger before you from Exod 23:20 and see, I send my messenger, and he will prepare my way from Mal 3:1. The combination has taken place because the two passages are so similar. It may be regarded as an example of a way of handling the Bible that was well represented among the Jews of the time and that was also practiced among Christians. One of its characteristics was to combine passages with similar contents and wordings, often important or conspicuous ones, and let them shed light on one another. So also Mal 3:1 and Isa 40:3 have one expression in common, namely prepare (somebody’s) way, which is a rare form of wording in the OT. The similarity is found only in the Hebrew OT, not in the LXX, which indicates that Mark has taken over the combination—given that he did not read the Bible in Hebrew. Cf. Mark 3:17; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 10:46; 11:9–10; 14:36; 15:22, 34. The same Jewish type of Scriptural use is reflected in the fact that Mark has Mal 3:1 say your (way) instead of my (way), presumably with some inspiration from Exod 23:20, and there is also the fact that the Isaiah quotation says his paths instead of the paths of our God.

There is no simple explanation why the evangelist writes that the quotation of v. 2 also originates in Isaiah. There are several suggestions: that Mark has added Mal 3:1/Exod 23:20 but neglected to delete the reference to Isaiah; or that the combination comes from a collection of quotations in which the references to the biblical authors have been imprecise; or that v. 2 has been added secondarily. Insofar as the readers have been so well versed in the Scriptures that they have perceived the problem, they may have been as puzzled as we. Otherwise they would of course not have bothered.

Isaiah 40:3 is quoted in a text from the Qumran community, They shall be separated from the dwelling of the men of sin to walk into the desert to prepare his way, as it is written, ‘Prepare the way of xxxx [replacing the Holy Name] in the desert . . .’ This is the study of the Law (1QS VIII, 13–15). Thus the community thought that their life at Qumran prepared for God’s coming to his people.

Phrases from Isaiah also appear in Mark 4:12; 7:6–7; 11:17; 12:32, but only in 7:6 is there a note to the effect that Isaiah is quoted.

4–5. wilderness . . . were baptized. One may wonder how anybody could baptize in the wilderness/desert, where there is usually not much water. However, the Jordan valley actually forms a green strip through the wilderness, which, in addition, never has been a sheer desert of sand.

4. John the baptizer . . . proclaiming. There are variant readings in the manuscripts. Literally translated, the alternatives read as follows:

a) John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming

b) John, the baptizing one, appeared in the wilderness proclaiming

c) John appeared, the one baptizing and proclaiming in the wilderness.

The problems are due to the fact that the baptizing [one] (ho baptizōn)—as in 6:14—is a variant of his title the Baptist (ho Baptistēs; 6:25; 8:28). (In the translation above the baptizing one is rendered as the baptizer.) Instead of understanding the baptizing one as a title the tradition behind a) has brought the two participles baptizing and proclaiming together as describing what John was doing when he appeared which is the main verb of the clause. The differences in meaning are small, but with reading b), chosen above, the accent in the sentence falls on in the wilderness proclaiming. In this way v. 4 is linked a little closer to the second part of the quotation.

in the wilderness. The Greek word denotes a place that is lonely, desolate or deserted.

The Jewish historian Josephus (37–100) describes how several prophet-like figures appeared at the beginning of our era and took people with them to the Jordan or into the wilderness (Jewish Antiquities 20.97; 20.167). In the latter passage he writes, They persuaded the crowds to follow them into the wilderness; they told them that they would show them unmistakable wonders and signs which were to occur according to God’s plan. (Similarly in Jewish War 2.259–263; 6.285–286; 7.437–438.) In the background lie expectations for a liberation following the pattern of the exodus from Egypt (Isa 40:1–11; Hos 13:5; Ps 68:8). For the Jordan see Josh 3; Ps 66:6; 114:3, 5.

However, the readers of Mark probably had no knowledge of the events reported by Josephus, but were more likely reminded of OT passages about salvation in the desert according to the Exodus narratives and passages like those mentioned above.

6. locusts and wild honey. As food, locusts were considered extremely poor or ascetic. In a comedy by Aristophanes (ca. 400 BCE) a character is said to eat locusts (Acharnians 1118). In a so-called scholion a commentator explains, he led a very simple life. The geographer Strabo (63 BCE—23 CE) tells about a tribe, they are darker and shorter than others and very short-lived locust eaters. . . . The southeast wind brings the locusts to their region; they catch them by means of smoke and make a kind of salted cakes (Geography 16.4.12). Under the name of John Chrysostom a patristic homily describes John as an ascetic, His divan was the ground, his meat locusts, and his cakes wild honey (In saltationem Herodiadis 59.523).

7. untie the thong of his sandals. A statement of the Babylonian Talmud is often cited: A pupil shall provide all the services of a slave to his teacher except this one (b. Ketubbot 96a). This is a rabbinic opinion from the middle of the 4th century; thus it should not directly tell us anything about what the imagery meant to Mark’s readers. It intimates, however, that in late antiquity this kind of service was something that slaves would do, lowly creatures as they were regarded. This view is confirmed by John Chrysostom (ca. 340–407) in a homily on John’s Gospel, to the effect that the Baptist thought, ‘I am not even worthy of being counted among the humblest of his servants.’ Untying the sandals is namely the work of the lowliest servants (Homiliae in Joannem 59.106).

8. baptize. The Greek verb baptizō means to dip or to immerse. Apuleius (2nd cent. CE) reports of a baptism-like ritual that was part of the initiation into the Isis mysteries: The priest brought me, surrounded by the pious multitude, to a bath in the neighborhood. After I had had a bath, he said prayers for divine grace and washed me wholly clean and sprinkled me with water from all sides (The Golden Ass 11.23.1). The example illustrates how rites of immersion could be performed in antiquity, both among Christians and in other contexts.

in the Holy Spirit. In the whole NT baptism in (or, with) spirit is referred to only when such a baptism is contrasted to John’s baptism (Mark 1:8/Matth 3:11/Luke 3:16; cf. John 1:33). In addition, only Luke uses this phrase about spiritual gifts in the early church, particularly those characterized by ecstasy (Acts 1:5; 11:16; 19:1–7). A Christian baptism in water is never contrasted with a Christian baptism in (or with) Spirit. Thus it is only for Luke that we can tell what baptism in (with) Spirit may stand for, whereas it is much more uncertain in Mark and Matthew. Mark’s readers had no book of Acts with which to supplement the Gospel.

Spirit. One may confer with the Rule of the Community from Qumran about God’s cleansing of his people in the age of salvation:

In his truth God will cleanse all the deeds of man, and he will purify for himself some of the children of men and remove all spirit of falsehood from the inner of his flesh, and cleanse him, with the spirit of holiness from all evil deeds. He will sprinkle over him the spirit of truth like lustral water, . . . For God has elected them for the eternal covenant (1QS IV, 20–22).

For similar thoughts see Jubilees 1.23–25, I shall create in them a holy spirit and cleanse them . . . and they will cleave to my commandment and I shall be their father and they will be my children.

Although expectations of this kind may have been important in the ideological background of John’s baptism, we cannot assume that they meant anything to the readers of Mark.

9. And it came to pass in those days . . . Two OT phrases are combined, which are commonly used in the introduction of a new phase of a narrative or of a prophecy. One is in those days—e.g., Gen 6:4; Exod 2:11; 2 Kgs 10:32; Jer 31:29. The other is and it happened, which appears both in Gen 4:3 as it happened, he came and in Gen 39:7 as it happened (or, was) and he came. The two are combined in Exod 2:11 And it happened in those many days, Moses went, after he had grown up, to his brethren.

Galilee. See the note on Mark 1:14 and the exposition of that verse below.

was baptized. When regarded historically, it is verisimilar that Jesus underwent the baptism of John, because it is not probable that anyone would make it up that the one who was considered superior and blameless would come to him who was regarded as his forerunner, and, in addition, would undergo a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins (cf. Matt 3:14–15, which reflects the difficulty some Christians may have had in accepting this picture).

in the Jordan. The Greek has "into (eis) the Jordan, i.e., there is a glimpse of the nuance of dipping in the Greek verb. In v. 5, however, it says in" (Greek en).

10–11. the Spirit . . . you are my son. Some other NT passages also combine references to the Spirit and to Jesus as the Son of God: Luke 1:35; Rom 1:3–4; 8:14–15, 23; Gal 4:6–8. For the history of religions background cf. the quotations in the note on v. 8 on the Spirit, where cleansing, spirit, and election or son-ship are brought together in some passages that reflect expectations for God’s saving intervention in the last days.

10. And immediately. The expression immediately or soon, Greek euthys or eutheōs, is very common In Mark. It appears again in v. 12. It denotes real time (immediately) only occasionally, whereas elsewhere its function is simply to connect two narratives or two phases of a narrative.

he saw the heavens torn open. The translation above has kept a nuance of force that is contained in the Greek verb (cf. Mark 15:38–39). The imagery is used to express that God enters into communication with human beings. Cf. Isa 64:1, O, that you would rend the heavens and come down. See also Testament of Levi 2:6 (2nd cent. BCE?), See, the heaven was opened and an angel of the Lord said to me. ‘Levi, enter.’ See also Rev 4:1; 11:19; 19:11, and cf. the vision of Cicero according to Dio Cassius, quoted in the Analysis, the discussion of the distinctive character of 1:9–11, below.

the Spirit. In the Exposition below some OT passages are quoted, which illustrate how the Spirit stands for God’s powerful, invisible action on earth.

In antiquity the term spirit could be used with reference to different phenomena. Thus it could signify the divine power that took hold of a seer, for example, in the following passage from Plutarch (45—125): The power of the spirit [of divination] is not given to all or always to the same people in the same manner, but only to those who are in a suitable mind to receive it. The power comes from the gods and from divine beings, but it does not last for ever (De defectu oraculorum 438CD).

like a dove. Using like or as in this way belonged to the style of narratives of visions. See, e.g., Among the creatures [was] a vision as of burning charcoal, like a vision of torches (Ezek 1:13 LXX).

There are no Jewish examples from NT times and earlier, in which God’s Spirit is compared to a dove. There are, however, some examples from antiquity where deities, particularly goddesses, are associated with a dove.

11. a voice came. Literally, a voice was.

You are my son, the beloved. The wording of what the voice says comes close to Ps 2:7, You are my son. Cf. Excursus 4: The Son of God, which also touches on the messianic interpretation of this psalm. In the narrative about Abraham’s offering of Isaac your beloved son appears several times (Gen 22:2, 12, 16).

with you I am well pleased. The Greek verb means to like, be pleased with, take delight in, choose, resolve, be content. A couple of examples from the LXX may illustrate the usage: in 2 Sam 22:20 David says about God, He chose me, he was pleased with me; Ps 147.10–11, He does not take delight in the legs of a man. The Lord takes delight in those who fear him.

Sometimes it is argued (e.g., by Donahue and Harrington) that the words of the heavenly voice echo Isa 42:1, See my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him. The wording of the voice in Mark differs, however, totally from the LXX version of Isa 42:1. Since the OT of Mark and his readers seems to have been the LXX, the text hardly makes its readers think of Isa 42, nor does it indirectly intimate that Jesus would be the servant of the Lord mentioned in Isa 42, or, even less, the suffering servant of the Lord, described in Isa 52–53.

12. And immediately the Spirit drove him out. For immediately see the note on v. 10 above The Greek behind drove . . . out (ekballō) expresses some degree of force or violence. For examples of how the Spirit of God drives or forces human beings see 1 Kgs 18:12 and 2 Kgs 2:16 (about Elijah). Also in Greek religion it was commonly thought that a divine spirit could forcefully take hold of a person. John Chrysostom described the phenomenon in this way, This is typical of the seer: to be in ecstasy, to be under compulsion, to be constrained, to be drawn away, to be dragged away as in a rage (Homiliae in epistulam i ad Corinthios 61.241).

into the wilderness. For this word see the note on v. 3 above. One did not always consider the desert/wilderness as a horrifying and dangerous place, but often also as a place for stillness and contemplation. For example, the Jewish philosopher Philo (15 BCE—50 CE) wrote, Many times I have left family and friends and home area and gone into the wilderness to give my attention to something that demanded concentrated consideration (Allegorical Interpretation 2.85). He reports on the Therapeuts, a (fictive?) group, which he highly appreciates, They do not live in the cities but in the wilderness (On the Contemplative Life 20). In a similar way Plutarch contrasts the buzz of the city to the solitude [or, wilderness], the gymnasium of wisdom (De Quietate, fragment 143.11).

Old Testament ideas concerning the wilderness are particularly colored by the traditions about Israel’s wandering through the wilderness to the promised land. So the expectations for a new time of liberation often contained the idea that it would occur or begin in the wilderness (e.g., Isa 40:(1)9–11, where the Exodus motif has been transposed into a picture of how the Lord guides his people through the wilderness after they have been saved from the Babylonian exile. See also the passages in the note on v. 4 on the prophets appearing with a message of salvation in the wilderness).

forty days. Israel’s wandering through the wilderness lasted for forty years (Exod 16:35; Deut 1:3 etc.), it rained for forty days at the Flood (Gen 6:12), when Moses received the Law, he spent forty days on Mount Sinai (Exod 24:18), Moses fasted forty days and forty nights when the people had cast the golden calf (Deut 9:18), the men sent to spy out the land of Canaan did so for forty days (Num 13:25), Goliath continued defying Israel for forty days (1 Sam 17:16), and for forty days and nights Elijah fled through the wilderness to Horeb (1 Kgs 19:1–8). According to 3 Baruch Noah prayed and fasted for forty days before planting the vine (4:14). When Josephus as a military commander speedily fortifies a city, he does so in forty days (Jewish War 4.56), and when Plutarch describes the successfulness of a general, the officer in question is said to have conquered a city in forty days (Demetrius 48.6). Finally, the measure of forty days often appears in the texts of Galenus, the physician (129-199), where it is a period of observation or of healing (e.g., De difficultate respirationis 7.929; Ad Glauconem 11.29).

Thus the number is often used as a so-called round number. As such it is used for a relatively short period of time, or for a somewhat greater, but apprehensible length of time, during which something of importance takes place.

tempted. The Greek verb (peirazō) means test, try, as well as tempt. According to the OT God can test individuals or his people as a whole; the latter motif occurs in texts referring to the people’s years in the wilderness (e.g., Deut 8:2). Abraham is tested (Gen 22:1 as well as Hezekiah (2 Chr 32:31) and the righteous (Ps 11:5; Wis 3:1–6). If anyone does not stand the test, the consequence is fatal. This is also the case when a person does not stand a trial/test/temptation that is ascribed to the devil (Gen 3). An intermediate form of test is described in Job 1:6–12: with God’s permission Satan puts Job to the test.

Satan. The Hebrew word Satan means adversary. In the book of Job Satan is an angel in God’s court who is allowed to test Job by causing him misfortunes which perhaps would make him speak against God. In the LXX Satan is rendered (the) devil—(ho) diabolos.

As time went on, Satan came to be regarded as the prince of the evil spirits, often with other names as, e.g., Beliar or Masthema. Jewish speculations on the nature of evil could make use of, not only Gen 3 (on the first sin) but also of the notice in Gen 6:1–4 (on a fall in the angelic world). So Satan became a personification of evil, the radically evil adversary of God, and one who seduces human beings to apostasy (e.g., Wis 2:24, The devil’s envy brought death into the world). This is also Paul’s picture of Satan: he tempts or puts to the test (1 Thess 3:5), and he tempts people through their lack of self-control (1 Cor 7:5). However, Paul can also claim that Satan may run God’s errands (2 Cor 12:7).

Thus biblical-Jewish tradition is not consistently dualistic. It is by no means self-evident that God is not the source of trials, pain or affliction. There is, however, a tendency to differentiate. The following is an example of this: according to 2 Sam 24:1 God incites David to a census of the people and then sends a pestilence on them as a punishment. When, however, the same episode is retold in 1 Chr 21:1–14, Satan is the one who incites David to the census.

Sometimes to say that Satan—or an equivalent figure—tempts a person is a way of saying that the person feels drawn to doing something that is against God’s will, e.g., Testament of Judah 20:1 (2nd c. BCE?), Two spirits spend time on human beings, the spirit of truth and the one of aberration. In between are the considerations of the mind of what the inclination wants; Testament of Levi 19:1, Choose for yourselves light or darkness, the law of God or the deeds of Beliar. Similar ideas are found at Qumran, The spirits of his lot [i.e., of the angel of darkness] make the children of light stumble (1QS III, 21–25).

he was among the wild beasts. It was a general opinion that there were wild beasts in the wilderness. E.g., Posidonius (ca. 135–50 BCE), In the deserts of Ethiopia and of Libya there are many elephants and all kinds of serpents and beasts (Fragment 78.69). See also Isa 13:21–22; 34:9–15; Zeph 2:14.

When commenting on this verse interpreters have referred to OT passages such as the following: Deut 8:15 (there were serpents and scorpions in the wilderness), Ps 91:13 (the righteous one is safe from lions, serpents, beasts, and dragons), Isa 11:6–8 (the state of peace when the shoot comes out from Jesse’s stump, when a little child plays at the hole of the asp).

the angels. In Greek angelos means messenger, which is related to the verb angellō, send. In the OT the angels or the sons of God constitute a court or a suite of the divine majesty (e.g., 1 Kgs 22:19; Ps 148:2). So also angels can be described as God’s couriers or governors, or as beings that mediate between God and the world (e.g., Gen 19:1; Ps 91:11). After the exile some Jewish circles went far in their speculations on angels and reckoned with both a good and an evil world of angels. Presumably this was the kind of belief in angels that the Sadducees rejected according to Luke in Acts 23:8.

Philo calls the universe the temple of God, where the stars are votive gifts and the angels are priests, servants to his powers [paraphrased, instruments of his powers], incorporeal souls, not having a blend of rational and irrational nature as ours, but lacking the irrational, totally spiritual beings, beings of pure intelligence (On the Special Laws 1.66). Also the following passage from Philo is instructive, where he refers to spiritual beings "who are the governors of the Ruler of All, his ears and eyes, so to speak. . . . They are called demons [or spirits; Greek daimones] by the other philosophers, but the sacred word calls them messengers [angelous], employing a more suitable name, for they mediate [Greek diangellousin] both the commandments of the Father to the offspring and its need to the Father" (On Dreams 1.141).

The readers of Mark may have heard of angels in the OT. This is the only passage in Mark where angels explicitly appear in some kind of earthly context. The young man dressed in white that appears in Mark 16:5–7 is, however, also to be taken as an angel. In other instances angels are members of the heavenly court (Mark 12:25; 13:32) or are the suite and couriers of the Son of Man (8:38; 13:27).

ministered to him. The Greek (diakoneō) means serve but is often used in the sense of serving somebody with food. Cf. 1 Kgs 19:1–8: in the wilderness Elijah is awakened by an angel and finds food waiting for him. See also Ps 91:11–12 LXX, He will order his angels concerning you; they will protect you in all your ways. They will carry you on their hands (for the following lines see the quotation in the preceding note). Commentators often quote Life of Adam and Eve 4:1–2 (1st c. CE?), in which it is said in passing that in paradise Adam and Eve ate the food of angels, as well as Testament of Naphtali 8:4 (2nd c. BCE?) that contains the promise that if Israel lives in accordance with God’s commandments the devil will flee from you, the beasts will be afraid of you, and the Lord will love you and the angels will help you.

Analysis

context

In the note above it has been argued that there are linguistic reasons for not understanding vv. 2–3 as the continuation of a sentence beginning with v. 1. Thus v. 1 is left as a title, which characterizes vv. 2–13 as the beginning of the good news. After Mark 1:13 the next section makes a fresh start: the main character, Jesus, is alone on the stage, and the action takes place at a new location. Verses 14–15 introduce a sequence of narratives on Jesus’ activity. The two verses present an extremely brief summary of the good news from God that he had been sent to announce. So the writer connects his narrative to v. 1, in which he has told his readers that his book will contain the good news. In other words, Here comes the news. Nevertheless, vv. 2–8 and 9–13 together form a beginning that is also undeniably part of the good news.

So indirectly v. 1 also becomes the title of the whole book, due, on the one hand, specifically to its initial location, and on the other, to the fact that it characterizes not only the beginning of the good news, but also tells the reader that the following, that is, 1:2—16:8, is precisely good news. This does not mean that the book is a gospel in the sense that it is a gospel writing, but rather that it contains good news. So the readers have been provided with a filter through which to view what follows.

construction

As stated, v. 1 is a title. The following piece, 1:2–13, has two parts, the first of which, vv. 2–8, deals with John the Baptist and his work in general. The time marker in those days together with and it came to pass (v. 9) marks the beginning of the second part, in which Jesus, the main character of the book, enters the stage where John is already acting.

In narrative form vv. 9–13 will confirm and develop what has been said about Jesus in 1:1. Thus these verses color the readers’ understanding of the following narrative.

The first part of the beginning, vv. 2–8, begins solemnly with the combined quotations in vv. 2–3. They present, so to speak, the divine blueprint of John’s appearance, with v. 4 supplying its first few, swift, preliminary details. The tense is aorist, which indicates that staged against a steady background of the quotations, something specific occurs: John appears. He is the messenger in the wilderness, his proclamation of a baptism of repentance is the message of the one who cries in the wilderness, and so he prepares the way of the Lord.

In v. 5 follow some precise details of what the quotations and their application in v. 4 were saying. The preparing (vv. 2 and 3b) took place when the crowds from Judea and Jerusalem came to John and were baptized, confessing their sins (v. 5c).

In vv. 6–7 further specification is given, first in a description of the messenger, the one crying (vv. 2a, 3a) and then of his message (vv. 7–8). The tense is imperfect, which suggests that the activity is extended in time. Vv. 7–8 connect to vv. 2–3: we learn about whom the voice was crying, of whom he was the forerunner (v. 2c), and who was coming (v. 7) on your way (v. 2c) and on his paths (v. 3c).

A schematic outline vv. 2–8 can be delineated in the following way:

1 As it has been said by Isaiah (the blueprint),

2 so John appeared proclaiming a baptism of repentance (the realization):

2.1 all went out and were baptized,

2.2 His proclamation:

2.2.1 the proclamation is introduced

2.2.2 the contents: after me comes the mightier one.

The second phase of the beginning, 1:9–13, has two parts. Each of them consists of two short narratives, the former concerning what happened at Jesus’ baptism (vv. 9–11), the latter reporting Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (vv. 12–13).

In its turn, vv. 9–11 have two steps, the information that Jesus is baptized, and the notice that Jesus has a vision, including an audition. The normal literary function of visions in this kind of literature (on which see the discussion of the distinctive character of 1:9–11, below) suggests that this vision forms the culmination of vv. 2–13. So the construction of vv. 9–11 can be outlined in this way:

1 The mightier one comes,

2 is baptized

3 has a vision:

3.1 the Spirit descends,

3.2 a heavenly voice

3.2.1 the voice is introduced

3.2.2 its proclamation: you are my son.

As so often is the case, the item that appears to be the most important is the one indented the farthest, that is, the one that constitutes the deepest layer of the contents. The audition within the vision presents the mighty authority of the main character of Mark’s following narrative.

Mark 1:12–13, on Jesus in the wilderness, is closely attached to vv. 9–11, on the one hand, through and immediately, on the other, through the circumstance that the Spirit is the subject of both v. 10 and v. 12. Furthermore, they are held together in that Jesus is not introduced by name in v. 12 but only mentioned as him. V. 13 states three things one after the other: he was in the wilderness, he was among the beasts, and the angels ministered to him. The first element, however, overarches the others; then the detail that he was tempted in the wilderness also becomes an overarching element.

characters

1:1–8. In the Notes it was mentioned that the title The Gospel According to Mark, or only According to Mark, does not belong to the original text. Thus, the author is anonymous, but throughout the book the readers/listeners are involved in a communication with him, whom we call Mark for the sake of simplicity. (In what follows I shall avoid the somewhat longwinded term readers/listeners, although it probably meets the actual situation; it will be replaced by the reader/ readers.) The readers form a picture of the author, they experience him as the narrator, and they get an idea of his style, of his cultural background, etc. Now and then he becomes a little more visible. This is the case when he clarifies details in his narrative, for example, in 12:42, where he translates the widow’s mite into a currency better known to his audience. He also steps out of the shadows when he comments on something he is writing, for example, in the title of 1:1. To be over-explicit: in this title we encounter two persons outside the text; they do not appear on the stage of the drama when the curtain is about to rise. One is the author of the piece, the other his audience. The author appears, so to speak, in front of the curtain and says, Ladies and gentlemen, or, perhaps, Dear fellow-Christians, that which follows contains the good news of the Lord we hold in common; first of all here comes the introduction. The audience that seems to be presupposed apparently knows what is meant by the good news, at least well enough not to be confused. They would also know that some authority should be attached to the OT, here Isaiah, the prophet, and that this authority is warranted by God.

The heading names the main character of the book, Jesus, who is introduced by two titles the Anointed/Christ and the Son of God. The upshot is that he is the you of the combined quotations, whose forerunner is the messenger and whose way he is preparing. He is also the character about whom the voice cries, namely that one shall prepare the Lord’s way. In addition, we just noticed that he is described further in vv. 7–8: he comes after John, he is mightier, and he will baptize in the Holy Spirit. The first-time reader does not yet know what more experienced readers know, namely that this Jesus is a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee, that his mother is Mary, and that he is one of several brothers and sisters (6:3).

John the Baptist is intensely connected with the main character. He plays the main part in this beginning, but does so as a subordinate figure. This is underlined by the fact that the description of John in vv. 4–7 is to be read in the light of the combined quotations. When he appears, preaches, baptizes, and lives in a particular manner, he does so as the messenger and the forerunner. His own words in vv. 7–8 confirm his lowly position by directing the attention to the one who comes after him.

All the country of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem, are necessary minor characters. The messenger addresses them, they hear the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, and by being baptized and by confessing their sins they do their part in the preparation of the way and in making the paths straight. They are, however, not only the addressees of the messenger, but also somehow represent those to whom the you in the quotation will come.

Finally, there is a character who, although mentioned only once, is the driving persona behind everything said in these eight verses, indeed, behind the contents of the whole book, namely God. The main character, Jesus, is called the Son of God, a title that implies the Son is acting on God’s behalf (see 14:36). It is presupposed that God is the one speaking in the Bible quotations: he is the I who sends the messenger, and he also addresses the you, who will walk on the road to be prepared by the forerunner.

As the combined quotations are closely connected to v. 4, God becomes the inmost subject of John’s arrival: note the bridging statement, as it is written, ‘I send my messenger,’ . . . so John appeared. According to 11:30 Jesus poses a question that intimates that he has a similar view of John, Was the baptism of John from heaven?

1:9–13. Here Jesus is also the main character, but he is remarkably passive. He only comes to John (v. 9), comes up from the water, and sees (v. 10). Nevertheless what is said to him gives him a unique position. In the second part he is in the wilderness and is among the beasts.

There are others who are active: John baptizes Jesus like the others who come to him, the Spirit descends on him and drives him out into the wilderness, behind the voice there is an I who addresses him, and finally angels minister to him. The relationships between them, however, also have other dimensions: the readers know from the context that he who undergoes John’s baptism of repentance is mightier than John, furthermore that the Spirit, the divine power that is given to Jesus and takes command of him, is also the Spirit in which he is to baptize others (v. 8). The reader also knows that the Spirit who descends on the Son of God is the Spirit of God, that is, of the same God who here speaks as an I and who in the storyline is the inmost although the highest authority behind the work that has its beginning here. The angels are the messengers of this God and obviously are also submissive to the one on whom the Spirit descends. The beasts are normally considered inferior to human beings but may also be dangerous to them. Here the beasts and the man who is endowed with the Spirit are with one another.

Satan, finally, is also active in relation to Jesus. Here, as elsewhere in Mark, he is an actively evil power, and stands in opposition to Jesus, the Son of God. With regard to his nature he belongs to the dark side and stands in contrast to God’s Spirit and to God’s messengers, the angels. On the other hand, the picture is not so dualistic as one perhaps would like it to be (see further the Exposition below).

the distinctive character of the narrative of mark 1:9–11

Mark 1:9–11 contains a vision. In stories of this kind deeper insights are communicated from the transcendent world, or commissions or directives are given and supported by heavenly authority. Frequently a vision also contains an audition, that is, the visionary hears something that is decisive for the meaning of the vision. This is the case in our passage. To a great extent the words of the audition are a quotation from Ps 2:7, you are my son; thus the meaning of the vision is intimated by God quoting his own word.

The borderline between dream visions and other visions are fluid, and so visions should be considered a kind of symbolic or figurative language. Consequently they are misunderstood if taken as descriptions of the same sort of sober account as, for example, a report of a state visit.

The following three examples from the world of Mark’s readers suggest that they would have been acquainted with this kind of literature and consciously or unconsciously would have assumed that the function of such texts was to present great men in a transcendent perspective rather than to deliver reports on concrete events.

Before he [Octavius, later Emperor Augustus] saw the light of day, his mother saw in a dream [one manuscript has saw only], how that which was inside her was lifted to heaven and extended over the whole earth. In the night when he was born, Octavius [his father] saw the sun rise from his mother’s womb. (Cassius [ca. the middle of the 2nd c. CE], Roman Histories 45.1.3)

At the end of his childhood Cicero [a Roman writer, statesman and philosopher, 1st c. BCE] saw in a dream how he [Octavius/Augustus] was lowered down on the Capitol [the hill of Rome on which were situated the citadel and the most important temples] with a golden chain. He had a whip in his hand that he had received from Zeus. (The same book, 45.2.2)

In the following dream vision Alexander the Great hears a quotation from a highly revered text. It reminds of how Jesus in Mark 1:11 hears a sentence that originates from the Bible. The passage concerns Alexander’s