The Jewish Annotated New Testament (206 page)

5.21
–43: Healing of Jairus’s daughter and a woman with a hemorrhage
(Mt 9.18–26; Lk 8.40–56). No sooner has Jesus crossed the sea to the more Gentile side than he retraces his route back to the western, more Jewish side. Mark never comments on what the regions may mean to Jesus’ mission to Jews and Gentiles (but cf. 13.10; Mt 10.5–6).

22
:
Leaders of the synagogue
, in the first century probably not a religious officer but rather a prominent person in the community. Jewish law distinguished between a woman in menses (“niddah”) and a woman with a continuous flow of blood beyond her monthly period (“zavah”; Lev 15.19–30). The result in either case is that the woman is in an impure state.

24
–34:
Leviticus 15 addresses normal and abnormal genital discharges. All cause ritual impurity, with different responses commanded. Whether such ritual impurity—an issue not mentioned in the text—would have mattered in a local village, where access to the temple compound is not an issue, is not clear. Mark’s story is concerned with a woman with a flow of blood for twelve years, which would have resulted in continuous impurity. It is often assumed that this healing miracle contrasts menstrual impurity codes and Jesus’ liberation of women from them, but it is more likely that the contrast is between sickness on one hand and miraculous healing based on faith on the other, as the text twice states (vv. 28–29,34; cf. 1.40–45 and “Impurity and Healing,” p.
63
). The elect community at the end of time is liberated from impurity, not impurity codes (Zech 13.1–2; 14.20–21).

41
:
Talitha cum
, the original Aramaic of Jesus’ words of healing is retained; this is presumably a vestige of the stage of oral tradition before the narratives that make up the Gospel were translated into Greek.

42
:
Twelve years of age
, the girl’s age is the same as the period of the woman’s suffering from hemorrhage, suggesting a reference to the renewal of Israel as a whole (“twelve” can stand for the twelve tribes, thereby indicating the whole Israelite people).

6.1
–13: Second rejection in Jesus’ hometown and the mission of the twelve
(Mt 13.53–58; 10.1–14; Lk 4.16–30; 9.1–6).

3
:
Brother, sisters,
Christian tradition has sometimes explained these family members as children of Joseph and a wife other than Mary, or as cousins. The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words for brother and sister can mean relative, even a marriageable person from one’s extended family, or “kissing cousin” (Tob 7.9). In ancient Israel, these would have been the members of the “mishpachah” or clan, but such traditional extended kinship categories may not have been so precise by this period. The context suggests close family members, and the virginal conception of Jesus is not mentioned in Mark (Mt 1.18–25; Lk 1.34–35). The point, as in 3.19b–30, is that Jesus’ own family and hometown rejected him. Such rejection is part of both the paradigm of the prophet and of the hero cross-culturally (see Introduction).

4
:
Prophets are not without honor,
the origin of the later Hebrew expression “There is no prophet in his own city” (“Ein nabi be‘iro”) is unknown, but it may ultimately derive from this verse.

5
–6a:
The lack of faith limits Jesus’ power.

6b
–13:
Jesus’ own rejection is followed by the mission of the twelve. There is a parallel between the power and authority of the disciples and that of Jesus himself; as
m. Ber
. 5.5 says, “A person’s representative is as the person himself.”

7
:
Two by two,
perhaps to ensure that there would be two witnesses in accordance with Deut 17.6; this would be relevant for the
testimony
in v. 11.

13
:
Anointed with oil,
a common medicinal practice in the ancient world (Isa 1.6; Josephus,
J. W
. 1.657).

6.14
–29: Beheading of John the Baptist
(Mt 14.1–12; Lk 9.7–9). The Jewish historian Josephus indicates that John the Baptist was a well-known and respected figure (
Ant
. 18.116–19; Mk 11.30–32). Mark presents John as a prophet who condemns
Herod
Antipas for violating Jewish law (Lev 18.16) by marrying his
brother’s wife
(in a situation where the levirate law [Deut 25.5–6] did not apply, because Herod’s brother did not die childless).

14
:
The
powers
of Israelite heroes were great (see Introduction).

15
:
Elijah,
Mk 8.28.
John … has been raised
, Herod apparently sees Jesus as the resurrected John the Baptist, since their preaching was similar and they both attracted crowds. Resurrection of the righteous in Israel was a common belief, though not universal (Ezek 37; Mk 12.18).

6.30
–44: Feeding of the five thousand
(Mt 14.13–21; Lk 9.10–17; Jn 6.1–13). There are two miraculous feedings in Mark, the first in predominantly Jewish territory, the second (8.1–10) in a predominantly Gentile area. Matthew includes both, while Luke and John have only one. A number of motifs evoke the Exodus and Elisha’s miracles (Ex 16–18; 2 Kings 4.42–44).

33
:
Improbably, the people see them leaving by boat, recruit others from
all the towns,
and run ahead on foot, and yet are able to arrive at the deserted place ahead of them (2.1–12n.). This emphasizes the miraculous nature of the kingdom and the ingathering of peoples at the end of time.

34
:
Sheep without a shepherd
, 1 Kings 22.17. It is typical of hero legends that the hero is called out of his preferred isolation (v. 31) by
compassion
for the people (e.g., Moses; Ex 3–4), who will ultimately abandon him.
Shepherd,
Num 27.17; Isa 40.11.

41
:
Taking … blessed … broke … gave
are reminiscent of the blessing at a Jewish Sabbath meal (based on Deut 8.7–10 and developed into the “blessing for nourishment” [“birchat ha-mason”] used at mealtime), but they are especially close to words used in the Lord’s Supper (Mk 14.22–25n.), thus providing a foreshadowing, while also suggesting the banquet prophesied at Isa 25.6, taken up also at Qumran (1QM 2.11–22; cf.
1 En
. 10.18–19).

43
:
Twelve baskets
suggests the twelve tribes gathered at the end of time, and by extension, the twelve disciples.

6.45
–52: Walking on the water
(Mt 14.22–33; Jn 6.15–21). Each of the feeding miracles in Mark is joined with a water miracle, evoking the Exodus miracles (e.g., God parting the waters [Ex 14.19–31], God feeding the people in the wilderness [Ex 16.13–21]).

48
–51:
Intended to pass them by
, perhaps meaning that the stilling of the waves did not require Jesus to enter the boat, but the disciples mistaking him for a ghost and their fear did.

52
:
The disciples’ misunderstanding is a serious condition, akin to that of Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites (Ex 7–11).
Hearts … hardened
, as with Pharaoh (e.g., Ex 7.14) but also the people (Ps 95.8), hardness of heart can mean a willful inability to understand.

6.53
–56: A Markan summary
(Mt 14.34–36). See 1.29–34n.

56
:
Fringe of his cloak,
the blue threads (“tzitzit”) commanded by God to be worn by Israelite males at the corners of their cloaks (Num 15.37–40). Jesus here is shown observing a requirement of Torah.

7.1
–23. Washing of hands and the commandment of God
(Mt 15.1–20). The issue of following Torah rules for kosher food and ritual purity was, along with circumcision for Gentile male converts, one of the contentious areas that followers of Jesus had to resolve (see Acts 15.19–20).

2
:
Defiled,
see “Impurity and Healing,” p.
63
.

3
–4:
That Mark must explain these practices indicates that the audience (though not the setting) is largely Gentile; this explanation is lacking in Mt 15.2 (Luke and John lack this story). The Pharisees were known for observing
traditions of the elders
not found in scripture, including hand washing (an observance that acknowledged the likelihood of contact with things that were ritually unclean in the course of daily life, but that did not require total immersion), but it is probably incorrect that
all the Jews
observed these laws at this time. Sadducees—and most Jews?—did not follow the Pharisees in this matter. This raises the possibility that even if Jesus’ followers disagreed with the Pharisees on hand washing, they were in agreement with many, if not most Jews.

6
–8:
Isa 29.13. Mark recognized the
commandment of God,
but disputes arise here over which are still binding (v. 19), and also which practices are merely human tradition.
Hypocrite
, a term from Greek drama, means one who plays a part, applied to a person who has only the appearance of righteousness (12.15; Mt 23;
Did
. 8.1). As in 2.25–26, there are multiple responses to the challenge; one response was the exaggerated, humorous, and even scatological (v. 15), implicitly comparing eliminated body waste to nonkosher food, a comparison that is undercut in vv. 20–22. Another response is the scriptural and legal arguments (vv. 6–13).

11
:
The controversy here involves both the determination of which part of Torah, honoring parents or keeping vows, supersedes the other, and also whether a vow can be repudiated. In the Mishnah (
m. Ned
. 9.1) there is a discussion of “opening the way” to repentance (i.e., of allowing one who has vowed something to be released from the vow if it leads to a conflict with something more important).
Corban,
Heb (“korban”) for a gift to God. When something had been declared devoted to God, it was generally not permitted for the giver to take back the gift. Rabbinic tradition, as noted above, also allowed release from “korban” when it deprived parents of their due.

14
–23:
The witty rejoinder is now treated as a special revelation:
Listen … understand
(v. 14),
parable
(v. 17); cf. 4.3n.

18
–23:
Like other parables, this one requires an interpretation.

19
:
Declared all foods clean,
literally and more accurately, “cleansed all foods.” The first issue, washing practices, is expanded here to refer to all kosher laws. Matthew omits this addition and Luke does not include this episode. There are several distinct possibilities here. The declaration may reflect Mark’s rejection of Jewish food laws (cf. Rom 14.20), or an older Jewish apocalyptic tradition of the transformations of impurity at the end (Zech 14.20; “Impurity and Healing,” p.
63
). Further, since this line and the descriptions of Jewish practices in vv. 3–4 above are not found in Matthew, they may have been added when the Gospel was brought into an understanding of Jesus’ teaching that was compatible with Paul. Concerning Jesus’ own teaching on this point, it is unlikely that the controversy over Torah among the early followers of Jesus would have been as intense if there had been a tradition going back to him that nullified Torah in this way. In either case, v. 19 likely goes beyond Jesus’ own practice, even if he had said v. 15.