1. Reading this Gospel after the cross and resurrection, we might connect these three days to another three-day wait, to relieve the hunger of humanity after Jesus’ crucifixion.

2. Some argue that the five loaves in the first feeding represent the five books of the law and the twelve baskets, the twelve tribes of Israel. The seven loaves in the second feeding refer to the seven Hellenist deacons (Acts 6:1–6) or may represent the seven Noachian commandments (justice, idolatry, blasphemy, immorality, murder, stealing, eating live animals) enjoined on all. These numbers may be related to 1 Sam. 21:1–7 (see Mark 2:25–26), which recounts David’s finding twelve loaves, five of which he took to feed his men in the desert and left seven (see Tolbert, Sowing, 183). Some also interpret the number 4,000 as a multiple of the four points of the compass.

3. The word kophinoi (“basketfuls,” 6:43; 8:19) is associated with Jews by Juvenal (3.14; 6.542), but that does not make the common word spurides (“basketfuls,” 8:8, 20) into a Gentile basket.

4. The word used to describe the desert area differs. In 6:35, Mark uses the phrase eremos … topos, a common phrase in the LXX; in 8:4, he describes the area as an eremia, which occurs only five times in the LXX. Chapman (Orphan, 62–65) contends that it refers to Gentile territory, a place that has become a desolation (Isa. 60:12; Ezek. 35:4, 9; Wis. 17:17; Bar. 4:33).

5. Chapman, Orphan, 66.

6. James F. Strange “Dalmanutha,” ABD 2:4.

7. Jeffrey B. Gibson, “Mark 8:12a: Why Does Jesus ‘Sigh Deeply’?” BibTrans 38 (1987): 122–25.

8. See 2 Kings 20:1–10; Isa. 7:10–11, 18–25; 38:1–20; John 2:13–18; 6:26–31.

9. Jeffrey B. Gibson, “Jesus’ Refusal to Produce a ‘Sign’ (Mark 8.11–13n),” JSNT 38 (1990): 38–40.

10. Ibid., 45–47.

11. Ibid., 53.

12. Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “The Jesus of Mark and the Sea of Galilee,” JBL 103 (1984): 364.

13. Plutarch (Roman Questions 289F) wrote that leaven “is itself also the product of corruption, and produces corruption in the dough with which it is mixed … and altogether the process of leavening seems to be one of putrefaction; at any rate if it goes too far, it completely sours and spoils the dough”; see also Pliny, Natural History 18.26.

14. Geddert, Watchwords, 69.

15. The Greek verb anablepo (8:24) can mean “to look up” (see 6:41; 7:34; 16:4), as it is translated in the NIV, but when used to refer to blindness it means “to regain sight” (see 10:51, 52). See E. S. Johnson, “Mark viii.22–26: The Blind Man from Bethsaida,” NTS 25 (1979): 376–77.

16. Ibid., 370–83; Frank J. Matera, “The Incomprehension of the Disciples and Peter’s Confession,” Bib 70 (1989): 153–72. Elizabeth Struthers Malbon argues that it alludes “backward to 4:1–8:21, where Jesus repeatedly works in two stages so that the disciples may see and see clearly” (“Echoes and Foreshadowings in Mark 4–8: Reading and Rereading,” JBL 112 [1993]: 225–26).

17. Peter suffers a serious relapse of blindness in his denials (14:66–71). Twice he says that he does not know Jesus and once that he does not understand. He exhibits a stubborn case of blurred spiritual vision, but one Jesus can also remedy.

18. Guelich, Mark, 420.

19. Geddert, Watchwords, 32.

20. Ibid., 68.

21. Ibid., 41.

22. Gibson, “Jesus’ Refusal,” 55.

23. Bilezikian, The Liberated Gospel, 66.

24. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman; rev. ed. (Berkeley/Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1982), 477.

25. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, 35.

26. Schweizer, Mark, 159.

27. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 55.

28. Calvin R. Schoonhoven, “The ‘Analogy of Faith’ and the Intent of Hebrews,” in Scripture, Tradition, and Interpretation, ed. W. Ward Gasque and William Sanford LaSor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 110, n. 14.

1. The word “immediately” has appeared thirty-two times in 1:1–8:26 but appears only four times in this unit (8:27–10:52), three in the healing of the boy with the demon (9:15, 20, 24).

2. Bilezikian, The Liberated Gospel, 102.

3. Trans. by R. B. Wright, “Psalms of Solomon,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985), 667.

4. Matera, The Kingship of Jesus, 145.

5. “After three days” is a standard phrase for the time when God intervenes (see Gen. 22:4; 42:17; Ex. 15:22; 2 Kings 20:5; Hos. 6:2; Jonah 2:1).

6. Lane, Mark, 296. The verb “it is necessary” (dei) expresses that God aims to establish the kingdom through Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection (see also 9:12; 14:21).

7. Francis Watson (“Ambiguity in the Marcan Narrative,” Kings Theological Review 10 [1987]: 13) states it well:

What Peter expresses is not simply a conclusion from what has preceded, but a hope for the future: that Jesus will now begin to exercise his power in order to inaugurate the glorious new age in all its fullness. He must act not simply to free individuals from the power of Satan, but to remove the entire dominion of Satan from the face of the earth. In this way, the secrecy, misunderstanding and rejection which have so far characterized Jesus’ ministry will be removed. There is no room for any ambiguity in the bringer of the new age.

8. Cited by Martin Hengel, The Zealots (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989), 277.

9. We learn later that just as Satan speaks here through Peter, so Jesus will speak through him. He tells the disciples that when they are handed over for trial, they need not worry what to say, because the Holy Spirit will speak through them (13:11).

10. Best, Following Jesus, 24–25.

11. Gundry, Mark, 451.

12. Cicero, Against Verres 2.5.64, 165; 5.66, 169; Pro Rabiro 5.16. Tacitus (Histories 4.11) described it as “a slave’s punishment,” and Josephus (J. W. 7.6.4 § 203) called it “the most pitiable of deaths.”

13. So E. Nardoni, “A Redactional Interpretation of Mark 9:1,” CBQ 43 (1981): 373–74.

14. J. J. Kilgallen, “Mark 9:1—The Conclusion of a Pericope,” Bib 63 (1982): 81–83.

15. France, Divine Government, 66–76.

16. Walter Wink, “The Education of the Apostles: Mark’s View of Human Transformation,” Religious Education 83 (1988): 287.

17. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Viking, 1985), 121.

18. Best, Following Jesus, 37.

19. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 97.

20. Gundry, Mark, 436.

21. David Rhoads, “Losing Life for Others in the Face of Death: Mark’s Standards of Judgment,” Int 47 (1993): 363.

22. Eduard Schweizer, “The Portrayal of the Life of Faith in the Gospel of Mark,” in Interpreting the Gospels, ed. James Luther Mays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 173.

23. David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (Clarksville, Md.: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1992), 41.

24. Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 99.

25. Luccock, “The Gospel According to St. Mark: Exposition,” 7:733.

26. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:677–78.

27. David Buttrick, The Mystery and the Passion: A Homiletic Reading of the Gospel Traditions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 115–16.

28. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Ronald Knox and Michael Oakley (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1959), 2.9 (pp. 76–77).

29. Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivializes Religious Devotion (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 3.

30. Minear, Mark, 95.

31. David Lodge, Therapy (New York: Viking, 1995), 23.

32. William Faulkner, Requiem For a Nun (New York: Random House, 1951), 278.

33. Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), 247.

1. Tolbert, Sowing, 204.

2. Marcus, The Way of the Lord, 82, citing Joachim Jeremias, “Μωϋσῆς,” TDNT 4:867–73, n. 228. In Bib. Ant. 11:15–12:1, the biblical story is retold so that Moses’ descent from the mountain with a transfigured appearance (Ex. 34:29–35) follows immediately after his ascent. See also Dale C. Allison Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 243–48.

3. Marcus, The Way of the Lord, 92. The reference to the Transfiguration in 2 Peter 1:16–18 pictures it as an enthronement.

4. The only other precise reference to time in Mark’s narrative appears in 14:1. When his enemies plot his death, the high priests note that the Passover would arrive “after two days,” that is, on the third day. See E. L. Schnellbächer, KAI META HEMERAS HEX (Markus 9:2), ZNW 71 (1980): 252–57.

5. Acts 1:10; Rev. 3:4; 4:4; 7:9, 13–14; see also 1 Enoch, 62:15–16; 2 Enoch 22:8. Compare the vision of a “man dressed in linen” in Dan. 10:4–11:1 and the Ancient of Days, whose clothing was “white as snow” (7:9). In 16:5, the young man at the tomb is dressed in a white robe. See also Dan. 12:3; 4 Ezra 7:97; 2 Apoc. Bar. 51:3, 5, 10, 12; 1 Enoch 38:4; 39:7; 104:2; Matt. 13:43.

6. Both Elijah and Moses witnessed theophanies on mountains. Both were faithful servants who suffered because of their obedience, were rejected by the people of God, and were vindicated by God. Jewish tradition claimed that both did not die: Elijah was caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2:11), and later Jewish interpreters combined Deut. 34:6, “no one knows where his grave is,” with Exod. 34:28, “Moses was there with the LORD,” to conclude that Moses did not experience death (so Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis 1.86).

7. Myers, Binding, 250.

8. Lane, Mark, 321.

9. In Deut. Rab. 3:17 (on 10:1), God tells Moses: “When I will send Elijah, the prophet, you are to come both of you together.” 4 Ezra lists seeing “the men who were taken up, who from their birth have not tasted death” as a sign of the end of the age (4 Ezra 6:25–26).

10. See 11:21; 14:45.

11. Schweizer, Mark, 182.

12. The overshadowing cloud represents the presence of the Lord. See Ex. 16:10; 19:9; 24:15–18; 33:7–11; 34:5; 40:34–35; Deut. 31:15; 1 Kings 8:10–11; 2 Chron. 5:13–14; Ps. 97:2; Ezek. 1:28; 10:3–4; 2 Macc. 2:8.

13. Tolbert, Sowing, 206.

14. See Gnilka, Markus, 2:41–42; Marcus, The Way of the Lord, 99.

15. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Jr., The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991), 2:706.

16. Ibid., 2:706–7.

17. Homilies in Matthew, PG 59, 552, cited by Leopold Sabourin, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Bombay: St. Paul, 1983), 2:704, n. 33.

18. Luccock, “The Gospel According to St. Mark: Exposition,” 7:775.

19. Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam, 1995), 80–83.

1. Lane, Mark, 332.

2. The Greek reads literally, “The if you can” (9:23a). Jesus repeats the doubt expressed by the father and challenges it. Marshall (Faith As a Theme, 116–17) paraphrases it well: “So far as your ‘if you can’ is concerned, I tell you that all things are possible to the one who believes.” Lane (Mark, 333) also paraphrases it: “As regards your remark about my ability to help your son, I tell you everything depends upon your ability to believe, not on mine to act.” The disciples are therefore not the only ones in this generation who lack faith.

3. A. E. J. Rawlinson, St. Mark (Westminster Commentaries; London: Methuen & Co. 1931), 124.

4. Many have noted that the demonic resistance to Jesus increases as the story progresses in Mark.

5. Chapman, Orphan, 111.

6. The two miracles that occur during the journey to Jerusalem convey lessons for discipleship.

7. These same disciples ironically have the gall to report to Jesus that they obstructed the successful exorcisms of an outsider “driving out demons in your name.” The reason they did this was because “he was not one of us” (9:38).

8. It has weak manuscript support and was added because fasting was an interest of the early church (Acts 13:2; 14:23). “Fasting” was added to “prayer” in some texts of Acts 10:30 and 1 Cor. 7:5.

9. Hooker, Mark, 225.

10. Ant. 8.2.5. § 45.

11. Ant. 8.2.5. § § 47–48.

12. Lane, Mark, 335; see also Cranfield, Mark, 305.

13. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 223.

14. Lewis B. Smedes, How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong? (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 80–81.

15. Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Living Reminder: Service and Prayer in Memory of Jesus Christ (New York: Seabury, 1977), 12.

16. Cranfield, Mark, 305.

17. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Creative Ministry (Garden City: Doubleday, 1978), xxiii.

18. Nouwen, The Living Reminder, 52.

19. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 121.

20. G. K. Chesterton, G. F. Watts (London: Duckworth, 1904), 98.

21. Eduard Schweizer, “The Portrayal of the Life of Faith in the Gospel of Mark,” in Interpreting the Gospels, ed. James Luther Mays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 178.

22. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 121–22.

23. Ibid., 119.

24. Ibid., 120.

1. Harry Fledderman, “The Discipleship Discourse (Mark 9:33–50),” CBQ 43 (1981): 66, notes that Mark is not interested in any details about the strange exorcist who is simply identified as a “certain one.” Mark cares only about the disciples’ reaction and Jesus’ correction of their attitude. He comments: “Like the dispute about greatness the episode of the strange exorcist reflects an attitude of the disciples that leads to conflict. In both cases Jesus intervenes. The disciples’ exclusivism is rejected, as was their self-seeking.”

2. Cited by Myers, Binding, 261.

3. The millstone was a familiar object in the ancient world. The phrase translated “large millstone” literally reads, “the millstone of a donkey.” The rotary mill requires a strong beast of burden to pivot the heavy upper stone.

4. The eye is the cause of covetousness, stinginess, jealousy, etc. See b. Nid. 13b, which speaks of adultery with the hand (masturbation) and with the foot (euphemism for penis).

5. The term “Gehenna” means the valley of Hinnom, referring to the valley south of Jerusalem that was used in ancient times as a crematorium, where children were sacrificed to the gods of Canaan (2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 32:35). The deep gully later became a refuse dump, where fires were kept continually burning, and the name became associated with the place of fiery punishment. In b. ‘Erub. 19a, Gehenna has seven names: Netherworld (Sheol; Jonah 2:3); Destruction (Ps. 88:12); Pit (of destruction; Ps. 16:10); Tumultuous Pit (Ps. 16:10); Miry Clay (Ps. 40:3); Shadow of Death (Ps. 17:10); and Underworld.

6. Hooker, Mark, 233; see 1 Peter 1:6–7; 4:12–19.

7. Salt could spoil, according to Pliny, Natural History 31.44.95.

8. Fledderman, “Discipleship,” 73.

9. Ibid.

10. Since John alone speaks to Jesus, is this a royal “we” (cf. Myers, Binding, 261)?

11. Moule, Mark, 75.

12. Bill J. Leonard, God’s Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990).

13. C. Douglas Weaver, A Cloud of Witnesses (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 1993), 52–53.

1. The phrase “he went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan” reverses the natural geographical order, as many commentators point out. The majority of texts represent a concern to correct it by changing the “and” to “through the far side of the Jordan.” Some interpreters attribute the original, harder reading to a vague geographical knowledge on the part of Mark. Others suggest that this reference reflects some knowledge of a longer stay in Judea than Mark narrates. Still others contend that Mark uses a clumsy expression to indicate that Judea was the ultimate goal of the journey (see 7:31; 11:1; so Gundry, Mark, 529). Schweizer gives it a theological twist, suggesting that Judea comes first “to show that Jesus goes to his suffering deliberately” (Schweizer, Mark, 202). The best solution regards the phrase as an imprecise reference to an area. Chapman warns against “the intrusion of map-reading perspective” in reading the text. He observes that while modern maps contain specific boundary lines outlining a region, the earth does not. Nor were there road signs to greet travelers entering into a different region, so that one did not know exactly when one entered into a new political entity. He contends that the word orion (trans. “region”) is more correctly translated “area” or “neighborhood” and depicts “Judea and beyond the Jordan” as one culturally cohesive area (Chapman, Orphan, 171).

2. Lane, Mark, 354.

3. The word apostasion is a legal term in the papyri that contains “the idea of giving up one’s right to something” (Cranfield, Mark, 319).

4. Jesus’ statements about divorce include a prohibition against a wife’s divorcing and remarrying. In Judaism, a woman could not divorce her husband except in special circumstances. She could, however, take actions that would entice her husband to divorce her. Christians may have adapted Jesus’ teaching to a Hellenistic setting, where women did have the right to divorce. Seneca paints a bleak picture of upper-class Roman matrons: “Surely no woman will blush to be divorced now that some distinguished and noble ladies count the years not by the consuls but by their own marriages, and divorce in order to be married, marry in order to be divorced” (On Benefits 3.16.2).

5. See further, Craig S. Keener, “And Marries Another”: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991); Andrew Cornes, Divorce and Remarriage: Biblical Principles and Pastoral Practices (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).

6. Dan O. Via Jr., The Ethics of Mark’s Gospel—In the Middle of Time (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 101.

7. On this see David E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 67–70.

8. Via, Ethics, 102.

9. Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 120.

10. C. A. Whitaker and D. V. Keith, “Counseling the Divorcing Marriage,” Klemer’s Counseling in Marital and Sexual Problems, eds. R. F. Stahmann and W. J. Hiebert, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1977), 71.

11. Robert C. Tannehill, The Sword of His Mouth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 97; cited by Myers, Binding, 266.

12. Stephen C. Barton, “Child, Childhood,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, eds. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1992), 100.

13. See the infamous letter written in 1 B.C. by a poor laborer to his pregnant wife in Alexandria, advising her to keep the child if it is a boy and to cast it out if it is a girl (POxy 744).

14. Constance R. Ahrons, “21st-Century Families: Meeting the Challenges of Change,” Family Therapy News 3 (October, 1992): 16.

15. Frederick Dale Bruner, Matthew 13–28 (Dallas: Word, 1990), 674. For a critique of the media’s maligning of marriage, see Michael Medved, Hollywood Vs. America (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), 122–38.

16. John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail … And How You Can Make Yours Last (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).

17. Adapted from Diana R. Garland, “Quilting and Marriage Making,” The Western Recorder (September, 1993), 4.

18. Diana S. Richmond Garland and David E. Garland, Beyond Companionship: Christians in Marriage (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 165.

19. Howard J. Clinebell and Charlotte H. Clinebell, The Intimate Marriage (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 154.

20. Wolfgang Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 97.

21. Cranfield, Mark, 320.

22. W. A. Heth and G. J. Wenham, Jesus and Divorce (Nashville: Nelson, 1984), 96. For a different answer, see Myrna and Robert Kysar, The Asundered: Biblical Teachings on Divorce and Remarriage (Atlanta: John Knox, 1978).

23. Any moral superiority that the undivorced might feel toward the divorced who remarry is undermined by Jesus’ claim that everyone who lusts after another is guilty of adultery (Matt. 5:28).

24. James Garbarino, Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).

1. A comparable incident appears in the rabbinic tradition. “When R. Eliezer fell ill his disciples came to visit him. They said to him, ‘Rabbi, teach us the paths that we may merit the life of the world-to-come.’ He said to them, ‘Be careful about the honour of your colleagues; restrain your sons from studying Greek learning and place them between the knees of the Sages, and when you pray know before whom you stand, and thereby you will merit the life of the world-to-come.’” The man may have expected some kind of similar response from Jesus.

2. He is identified as “young” only in Matt. 19:20 and as a “ruler” only in Luke 18:18.

3. Schweizer (Mark, 211) comments: “The church encounters God in the Son because the Son is seeking nothing for himself. He desires that no facet of his life might call attention to himself, but that all may point to One who is greater.”

4. Jesus says “Do not defraud” rather than “Do not covet” (Ex. 21:10; Deut. 24:14). The questioner’s identity as a rich man may have affected the wording. Many believed in the ancient world that riches could only be attained by defrauding others of their fair share. See Bruce Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 75–85; “Wealth and Poverty in the New Testament,” Int 41 (1987): 354–67; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Riches in 1 Enoch 92–95,” NTS 25 (1979): 327.

The command to honor one’s father and mother is out of sequence and listed last for emphasis. Jesus’ teaching does not undermine the basic unit of society, the family, which was so important in the context of Roman society. He condemns divorce (Mark 10:1–12) and adultery and insists that parents be honored (7:8–13).

5. He does not address Jesus as “good” a second time.

6. This man may remind one of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable who thanks God that he has not sunk to the depths that others have, the thieves, rogues, adulterers, and toll collectors. He fasts and tithes and comes to the temple regularly to pray (Luke 19:10–12). The parable’s conclusion makes the startling declaration that the Pharisee’s extraordinary goodness did not make him righteous.

7. See also 3:34; 6:34; 8:33; 9:25; 10:23, 27.

8. m. ‘Arak. 8:4; b. Ketub. 50a; see b. Ta‘an. 24a.

9. This idea is picked up in later Christian literature. In Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 1:8–9, one finds the advice: “Therefore instead of lands, purchase afflicted souls, as each is able, and look after widows and orphans and do not despise them, and spend your wealth and all your establishments for such fields and houses as you have received from God. For this reason did the master make you rich, that you should fulfill these ministries for him.”

10. The attitude in 1 Enoch 97:8–10 is even more harsh:

Woe to you who acquire silver and gold, but not in righteousness, and say, “We have become very rich and have possessions and have acquired everything that we desired. Now let us do what we have planned, for we have gathered silver and filled our storehouses, and as many as water are the husbandmen of our houses.” Like water your life will flow away, for riches will not stay with you; they will quickly go up from you, for you acquired everything in wickedness, and you will be given over to a great curse.

11. Compare Matt. 23:24, where camels are contrasted with gnats, and b. Ber. 55b and b. B. Mes. 38b, which refer to an elephant passing through the eye of a needle. The elephant was the largest animal in Mesopotamia, where the Babylonian Talmud was compiled.

12. Stephen G. Barton (Discipleship and Family Ties in Mark and Matthew [SNTSMS 80; Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994], 220–21) shows that Jesus’ summons to discipleship, which may sever family ties, was not unprecedented, irrational, or arbitrary. It could be found in the strict monotheistic religious tradition of Judaism, which required a proselyte to forsake former relations, and also in the diverse philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world. Followers, therefore, could make sense of the demand to subordinate family ties for the sake of a higher good.

13. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in the World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 119, points out that father is not in the list. The father is one who claims and exerts authority over others. That role is reserved for God alone.

14. Theophylact first suggested this interpretation in the eleventh century; see Paul Minear, “The Needle’s Eye. A Study in Form Criticism,” JBL 61 (1942): 157–69. Mark 10:25 has raphis, used especially for a sewing needles, while Luke 18:25 uses belone. If such a gate as the “Needle’s Eye” ever existed, it would most likely have been identified by the same Greek word.

15. C. S. Lewis, Poems (New York/London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964), 134.

16. Adapted from Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 81.

17. Robert Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982), 334.

18. Via, Ethics, 135.

19. This is why all attempts to see the failure of the disciples as some polemical attack on them misread Mark. One can only expect them to fail until the death and resurrection of Christ, which unleashes a new power in their lives.

20. Via, Ethics, 137.

21. Luccock, “The Gospel According to St. Mark: Exposition,” 802.

22. James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ: The Vital Elements of Paul’s Religion (London: Holder and Stoughton, 1963), 95–96.

23. Via, Ethics, 134–35.

24. Waetjen, Reordering, 170.

25. Via, Ethics, 134–35.

26. Cited by Taylor, Mark, 429–30.

27. Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, 3d ed. (Dallas: Word, 1990), 159–60.

28. Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 24–26.

1. One always “went up” to the Holy City.

2. Marcus, The Way of the Lord, 36.

3. Lane, Mark, 374.

4. One can be said “to sit” on a cross because some crosses had a small cleat, called a sedile, or a seat for the victim to support himself. See Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 25.

5. Myers, Binding, 343.

6. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1:170.

7. Geddert, Watchwords, 153.

8. From an apocalyptic viewpoint, the real rulers of this world are Satan and his minions, who are being challenged and overcome by God (see 3:22, 24).

9. See Peter Stuhlmacher, “Vicariously Giving His Life for Many: Mark 10:45 (Matt. 20:28),” in Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 16–29.

10. This saying parallels a text in 4 Ezra 8:3: “Many have been created, but few shall be saved.”

11. Eduard Schweizer, “The Portrayal of the Life of Faith in the Gospel of Mark,” in Interpreting the Gospels, ed. James Luther Mays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 176.

12. John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1986), 286–87.

13. Peter de Vries, The Mackeral Plaza (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1958), 5.

14. The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Alex Ayres (New York: Meridian, 1993), 205.

15. Geddes MacGregor, From a Christian Ghetto (London: Longmans Green and Co, 1954), 95–96; cited by Roland Mushat Frye, Perspective on Man (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 149.

16. Cited by Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994) 2:427.

1. Curiously, Mark interprets the meaning of the name Bartimaeus for his audience (“that is, the Son of Timaeus”), while not translating the term “Rabbouni” (10:51, trans. “Rabbi” in the NIV). He may wish to underscore the irony that one whose name means “worthy of honor” is treated so shabbily.

2. Note how the crowd’s mood shifts when Jesus takes notice of the man they have been scorning.

3. The address, Rabbouni (“my teacher,” see John 20:17), may express deferential honor to a great teacher or may imply that Jesus bears divine authority by using a title reserved for God (Waetjen, Reordering, 178–79).

4. Marcus (The Way of the Lord, 34) writes, “The removal of blindness is linked to the picture of the holy highway upon which the redeemed of the Lord return to Zion with exultant singing. Thus, the blooming wilderness, opening eyes of the blind, and the way of the Lord are interrelated themes.”

5. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 124.

6. Ibid.

1. See G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity (North Ryde: Macquarie Univ. Press, 1981), 1:36–43.

2. Hooker, Mark, 257. Although donkeys were more common in Palestine, the colt could have been a horse or a mule; and kings rode mules (2 Sam. 18:9; 1 Kings 1:33–48).

3. According to m. Sanh. 2:5, no one else may ride a king’s horse.

4. Myers, Binding, 294.

5. Mark does not use the verb “to look around” (periblepomai) for gawking but for scrutinizing critically (see 3:5, 34; 5:32; 10:23). One may picture Jesus staring reproachfully.

6. In this stirring entry, Mark establishes Jesus’ identity as the king of Israel. Bilezikian (The Liberated Gospel, 127) shows that the scene also conforms to a dramatic convention. A joyful chorus, dance, or procession, and a lyrical expression of confidence and happiness occur just before the catastrophic climax of the play. The hopes associated with the outburst of joy, however, are not to be realized.

7. Fred B. Craddock, The Gospels (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), 64.

1. Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1925), 269.

2. Cited by Cranfield, Mark, 356.

3. See discussion of Mark 3:20–34 for comments on Mark’s bracketing technique.

4. Eric M. Meyers and James F. Strange (Archaeology, the Rabbis, and Early Christianity [London: SCM, 1981], 52) estimate that the entire court could easily hold 75,000 people. This figure could be exceeded when people stood shoulder to shoulder.

5. Gundry, Mark, 674, 676.

6. See Jostein Ådna, “The Attitude of Jesus to the Temple,” Mishkan 17–18 (1992–93): 68; Benjamin Mazar, “The Royal Stoa in the Southern Part of the Temple Mount,” in Recent Archaeology in the Land of Israel, ed. H. Shanks (Washington/Jerusalem: BAS, 1984), 141–47. The Royal Stoa (described by Josephus in Ant. 15.11.5 §§ 411–16) was similar to the Caesareum structures and was directly accessible via the steps leading down from “Robinson’s arch” to the market below.

7. The outer court was not called “the court of the Gentiles” in the time of Jesus; that is a modern term.

8. Two tablets with the Greek inscriptions have been found. The text of the complete one is cited in Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, ed. and trans. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Matthew Black (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1979), 2:222, n. 85; 285, n. 57. It reads: “No foreigner is to enter within the forecourt and the balustrade around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his subsequent death.”

9. Hooker, Mark, 264–65. She also notes that there is little comparison to what Jesus did and the purification of the temple by Josiah (2 Kings 23) and Judas Maccabeus (1 Macc. 4:36–59).

10. Schweizer, Mark, 233. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985], 63) argues: “Those who write about Jesus’ desire to return the temple to its ‘original,’ ‘true’ purpose, the ‘pure’ worship of God, seem to forget that the principal function of any temple is to serve as a place of sacrifice, and that sacrifices require the supply of suitable animals.” See also Judaism. Practices and Beliefs 63 BCE–66 CE (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1992), 47–76; Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990), 49–51.

11. Richard Bauckham, “Jesus’ Demonstration in the Temple,” Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity, ed. Barnabas Lindars (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1988), 78. The goals of rural religious reformers typically ran counter to the interests of the inhabitants of urban Jerusalem, whose entire population had a direct or indirect stake in the financial well-being of the temple. Jerusalem had no major industry to support the population other than the temple, and no trade routes passed through it. Consequently, the urban Jerusalemites would have been motivated by something more than piety in defending the sanctity of the temple and preserving the status quo. They had a financial interest in protecting the source of their livelihood.

12. Jacob Neusner, “Money-Changers in the Temple: The Mishnah’s Explanation,” NTS 35 (1989): 289; see also “The Absoluteness of Christianity and the Uniqueness of Judaism,” Int 43 (1989): 25.

13. Examples of prophetic representative actions are recorded in 1 Kings 22:11; Isa. 20:2; Jer. 19:1–15; 28:10–11; Ezek. 4:1–3; Acts 21:11.

14. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 70.

15. The word skeuos (“vessel”; “merchandise,” NIV) could be a term used for any object [as in the translation], and some have suggested that Jesus stops people from using the temple as a shortcut to other parts of the city (see Josephus Ag. Ap. 2:8; m. Ber. 9:5). They do not ask an important question, however: a shortcut to where? The text does not say that Jesus prevents people from using the temple as a shortcut or from carrying anything through the temple but that he prevents anyone from carrying a “vessel through the temple.” It is best to translate the word as “vessel,” referring to the sacred temple vessels for the showbread, oil for the lamps, and incense censers used in the sacrificial service (see Isa. 52:11). A Gentile audience familiar with the functioning of temples would have assumed that it refers to vessels used in the sacrifice.

16. Jesus’ actions have some parallels to the Jesus, son of Ananias, who cried out woes against the city before its destruction (Josephus, J. W. 6.1.3 §§ 300–309).

17. Josephus, Ant. 15.11.4 § 417; in 4QMMT B 39–42 access is allowed only to Israelites who were ritually pure and physically whole; 4QFlor 3–4 insists that the (ungodly or defiled) Ammonites, Moabites [Deut. 23:3], half-breeds (or bastards) [23:2], aliens, or sojourners will ever enter the house (sanctuary) because God’s holy ones are there.

18. The temple literally became a refuge for bandits during the war with Rome when the Zealots retreated to it. According to Josephus, they committed all manner of vile acts: “For this reason, I think, even God Himself, hating their impiety, turned away from our city, and no longer judging the temple to be a clean house for Him, brought the Romans upon us and a cleansing fire on the city” (Ant. 20.8.5 §166). If the original readers were aware of this fact, the reference to the “den of robbers” would have a double meaning.

19. The “leafy” fig tree (is it fruitless?) reappears in 13:28–32.

20. Tolbert, Sowing, 193.

21. Gundry (Mark, 674) argues that this interpretation puts “incredible demands on Mark’s audience and imports foreign bodies into the text and context.” But Mark puts incredible demands on the reader throughout. The reader, like Jesus’ original audience, must listen with care. Hearing, seeing, remembering (11:14, 20–21; see 8:14–21) are crucial to understanding an event.

22. Dowd (Prayer, Power, and the Problem of Suffering, 96–103) points out that it is faith in God’s power. Moving mountains is the work of God alone (Ex. 19:18; Job 9:5–6; Pss. 68:8; 90:2; 97:5; 114:4–7; 144:5; Jer. 4:24; Nah. 1:5), and the leveling of mountains is a characteristic of the eschatological age (Ps. 6:2, 6; Isa. 40:4; 49:11; 54:10; 64:1–3; Ezek. 38:20; Mic. 1:4; Hab. 3:6; Zech. 14:1–4; Judith 16:15; Sir. 16:19; Bar. 5:7).

23. Hooker, Mark, 270. The “holy mountain” is mentioned in the opening part of Isa. 56:7; see also Ps. 78:54; Isa. 2:2–3; 10:32; 25:6–7, 10; 27:13.

24. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 168–69.

25. See 1 Sam. 1:1–28; 1 Kings 8:27–30, 31–51, where prayer is offered in or toward the temple; see also 2 Kings 19:14–33; Jonah 2:7; Judith 4:9–15.

26. See Dowd, Prayer, Power, and the Problem of Suffering, 47–48.

27. b. Ber. 32b.

28. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 162–63; see also S. Hre Kio, “A Prayer Framework in Mark 11,” BibTrans 37 (1986): 323–28.

29. Geddert, Watchwords, 287, n. 20.

30. Meinrad Limbeck, Markus-Evangelium (Stuttgarter Kleiner Kommentar; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984), 170.

31. See Isa. 28:3–4; Jer. 8:13; Hos. 9:10, 16; Joel 1:7, 12; Mic. 7:1; and William R. Telford, The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree (JSNTSup 1; Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), 161–62.

32. Victor of Antioch (fifth-century catenist) wrote that it was an acted parable in which Jesus “used the fig tree to set forth the judgment that was about to fall on Jerusalem” (cited by Cranfield, Mark, 356).

33. Waetjen, Reordering, 185.

34. b. Sukk. 53a-b; see Jon D. Levenson, The Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 99.

35. Myers, Binding, 305.

36. Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer (Garden City: Doubleday, 1972), 20.

37. Myers, Binding, 301.

38. Schweizer, Mark, 233.

39. Tom Shepherd, “The Narrative Function of Markan Intercalation,” NTS 41 (1995): 536.

40. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 176.

1. See Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome A.D. 66–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), 55–75. Galilean peasants, on the other hand, would have probably sided with the tenants.

2. More often than not an allegory’s biting censure of contemporaries is lost as it is retold in different contexts over the years. Compare Jonathan’s Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which most today read as harmless children’s stories.

3. See Klyne Snodgrass, The Parable of the Wicked Tenants: An Inquiry into Parable Interpretation (WUNT 27; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] 1983), 76. See also 2 Kings 19:30; Ps. 80:8–9; Song 8:11; Isa. 3:14; 27: 6; 37:31; Jer. 2:21; 12:10 (cf. 6:9); Ezek. 15:1, 6; 17:5–10; 19:10; Hos. 10:1 (cf. 14:6–9).

4. In t. Me‘il. 1:16 and t. Sukk. 3:13 the tower is taken as referring to the temple and the winepress to the altar. See Tg. Isa 5:2, 5: God will destroy Israel’s sanctuaries.

5. Compare Pliny (Epistles 10.8), who describes letting his lands, the time for dressing the vineyards, new tenants, and making abatements in rents because of a bad harvest.

6. Snodgrass, The Parable of the Wicked Tenants, 77–78.

7. See 1 Kings 14:18; 15:29; 18:36; 2 Kings 9:36; 10:10; 14:25; and the phrase “my [your, his] servants the prophets” in Jer. 7:25; Dan. 9:6; Amos 3:7.

8. In the Lives of the Prophets 2, however, Amos was said to have been hit on the head by Amasias, so the reference in v. 4 may only be a general reference.

9. The verb “respect” (entrepomai) is used in the Septuagint to refer to people “humbling themselves” before the messengers of God (see Ex. 10:3; Lev. 26:41; 2 Kings 22:19; 2 Chron. 7:14; 12:7, 12; 34:27; 36:12).

10. The phrase, “Come, let’s kill him,” is the same one used by Joseph’s brothers in Gen. 37:20a LXX (see T. Sim; T. Seb. 1–5; T. Dan 1; T. Gad 1–2; T. Jos. 1; T. Ben. 3).

11. The capstone is the central, wedge-shaped stone at the summit of an arch, locking the others into position. In Aramaic, Jesus’ statement would feature a play on words between “son” (ben) and “stone” (eben); see Matthew Black, “The Christological Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament,” NTS 18 (1971): 11–14. A reference to “the builders of the feeble wall” in CD 4:19; 8:12 suggests that the term “builders” was used in some quarters as an epithet for the temple leadership.

12. Tolbert (Sowing, 260) writes “… for the rejected stone to become the centerpiece, the buildings presently standing must first be completely dismantled and the tenants presently in control must first be destroyed; only then can the new edifice rise and the faithful tenants be installed.”

13. For arguments that the parable originates with Jesus, see James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 139–43; Snodgrass, The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.

14. John R. Donahue, The Gospel in Parable (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 55.

15. Charles E. Carlston, The Parables of the Triple Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 185.

16. Geddert, Watchwords, 121.

17. Tolbert, Sowing, 238.

1. Mark identifies the tribute with the term “census” (kensos).

2. See Josephus, J. W. 2.8.1 §§ 117–18; Ant. 18.1.1 §§ 1–9.

3. According to y. Meg. 1:11, 72b, Nahum is called the most holy because of his scruples about graven images: “he never gazed upon a coin in his entire life.” See also b. Pesah. 104a.

4. During the war against Rome the rebels minted their own coins with images of the temple and religious festivals.

5. The only tax Jesus specifically rejects is the temple half-shekel dues, but then he recommends paying it to keep from scandalizing others (Matt. 17:24–27; see David E. Garland, Reading Matthew [New York: Crossroads, 1993]).

6. Tertullian interpreted this passage to mean: “Render unto Caesar, the image of Caesar, which is on the money, and unto God, the image of God, which is in man; so that thou givest unto Caesar money, unto God thine own self” (On Idolatry 15; Against Marcion 4.38.3). See Charles H. Giblin, “‘The Things of God’ in the Question Concerning Tribute to Caesar [Lk. 20:25; Mk 12:17; Mt 22:21],” CBQ 33 (1971): 522–23.

7. Cited by Joseph Lecler, The Two Sovereignties (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952), 60.

8. Cited by Charles Grant Robertson, Religion and the Totalitarian State (London: Epworth, 1937), 79.

9. Cited by Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 19.

10. Ibid., 136.

11. Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Tim. 2:1–2; Titus 3:1–2; 1 Peter 2:13–17; 1 Clem. 61; Pol., Phil. 12:3; Justin, Apology 1, 17.3; Tertullian, Apology 30.

12. Martin Hengel, Christ and Power (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 40.

13. Frank Stagg, “Rendering to Caesar What Belongs to Caesar: Christian Engagement with the World,” Journal of Church and State 18 (1976): 96–97.

1. See Acts 23:8; Josephus, Ant. 18.1.4 §§ 16–17; J. W. 2.8.14 §§ 164–65.

2. The term levirate is derived from the Latin word for brother, levir.

3. Compare the story of Sarah, whose seven husbands had each died on their marriage night (Tobit 3:8; 6:14).

4. If the resurrected are “like the angels,” Jewish tradition assumed that they do not eat and drink (Tobit 12:19) or marry (1 Enoch 15:6–7; 104:4; 2 Apoc. Bar. 51:9–10).

5. Prior to chapter and verse divisions, one could only cite Scripture by describing a distinguishing feature of the passage; see Rom. 11:2, where Paul uses the phrase “in Elijah” to refer to the passage about Elijah in 1 Kings 19.

6. IG XIV (1890) 1201; cited by G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity 1979 (North Ryde: Macquarie Univ. Press, 1987), 4:42.

7. IG XIV (1890) 1607 + 2171; cited by Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity 1979, 4:40.

8. John Baillie, And the Life Everlasting (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1934), 107.

1. Shema is the Hebrew imperative “to hear.” The confession comes from Deut. 6:4–9; 11:13–21; and Num. 15:37–41. The first item discussed in the Mishnah concerns the times to recite the Shema each day (m. Ber. 1:1).

2. Walter Grundmann, “μέγας,” TDNT, 4:536.

3. One finds similar sentiments expressed in the Old Testament: 1 Sam. 15:22; Ps. 51:16–17; Isa. 1:11; Jer. 7:21–23; Hos. 6:6.

4. Hooker, Mark, 293.

5. See Ps. 18:49–50; Isa. 9:2–7; 11:1–9; Jer. 23:5–6; 33:14–18; Ezek. 34:23–24; 37:24; Amos 9:11–12.

6. Myers, Binding, 319.

7. Kingsbury, The Christology of Mark’s Gospel, 102–14, 248.

8. The situation may have to do with the dishonest management of the estates of widows, who did not manage their own affairs (J. Duncan M. Derrett, “‘Eating Up the Houses of Widows’: Jesus’ Comment on Lawyers?” NovT 14 [1972]: 1–9). Or it may refer to their “sponging off the hospitality of widows” (Gundry, Mark, 727).

9. See also Ex. 22:21–23; Deut. 10:17; 24:17; Isa. 1:17, 23; 10:2; Ezek. 22:7.

10. They were designated as “new shekel dues,” “old shekel dues” (paid only by males), “bird offerings” (for the purchase of turtle doves), “young birds for whole offerings” (for the purchase of pigeons), “wood” (for burning on the altar), “frankincense,” “gold for the mercy seat,” and six others as “free-will offerings” (m. Seqal. 6:5–6).

11. It was equivalent to 1/4 of a Roman as, which was estimated to be 1/16 of a denarius. It was therefore equal to 1/64 of the wage for the day laborers who work in the vineyard (Matt. 20:2). See D. Sperber, “Mark xii 42 and Its Metrological Background,” NovT 9 (1967): 178–90.

12. Minear, Mark, 114.

13. Hooker, Mark, 296.

14. Frederick Danker, “Double-Entendre in Mark XII,” NovT 10 (1968): 115.

15. See Addison G. Wright, “The Widow’s Mites: Praise or Lament?—A Matter of Context?” CBQ 44 (1982): 256–65, and the response of Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “The Poor Widow in Mark and Her Poor Rich Readers,” CBQ 53 (1991): 589–604, on the problems of context.

16. Myers, Binding, 320.

17. See discussion in Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).

18. David McCracken, The Scandal of the Gospels: Jesus, Story and Offense (New York/Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994), 64.

19. Minear, Mark, 115.

20. Howard Thurman, Deep River: Reflections on the Religious Insight of Certain Negro Spirituals (New York: Harper, 1955), 44.

1. Francis Watson, “The Social Function of Mark’s Secrecy Theme,” JSNT 24 (1985): 61.

2. The command to “look!” (blepete, trans. “watch out” in 13:5 and “be on your guard” in 13:23) and the warning about being deceived (planao, apoplanao) appear at the beginning and the end of the unit (13:5–6 and 13:22–23).

3. The disciples initiate the discourse by asking, “Tell us … [about all] these things” (13:4a), and Jesus responds at the end of this unit, “I have told you everything ahead of time” (13:23).

4. J. W. 5.5.6 §5.

5. Noted by Lane, Mark, 452.

6. Compare Ps. 74:3–7; Jer. 7:14; 26:6–9; Mic. 3:9–12.

7. The Mount of Olives is where the glory of Yahweh withdraws from a corrupt Jerusalem: “The glory of the LORD went up from within city and stopped above the mountain east of it” (Ezek. 11:23).

8. Geddert, Watchwords, 60, 146.

9. Hooker, Mark, 306.

10. Josephus castigates a group whom he claims were worse than the violent revolutionaries: “Cheats and deceivers, claiming inspiration, they schemed to bring about revolutionary changes by inducing the mob to act as if possessed and by leading them out into the wild country on the pretence that there God would give them signs of approaching freedom” (J. W. 2.13.4 §§ 258–60).

11. Seneca wrote: “Man, naturally the gentlest class of being, is not ashamed to revel in the blood of others, to wage war, and to entrust the waging of war to his sons, when even dumb beasts and wild beasts keep peace with one another” (Epistles to Lucilium, 95.30–31).

12. For the image see, Isa. 26:17; 66:8–9; Jer. 22:23; Hos. 13:13; Mic. 4:9–10.

13. Gundry, Mark, 739.

14. See 4 Ezra 4:40–43: “Go ask a pregnant woman whether, when her nine months have been completed, her womb can keep the fetus within her any longer.… No, Lord, it cannot.”

15. Morna Hooker, “Trial and Tribulation in Mark XIII,” BJRL 65 (1982): 86. Beasley-Murray (Jesus and the Last Days, 404) comments, “Mark would call his starry-eyed fellow Christians to cease gazing into heaven for intimations of the parousia and to further the witness to Christ in a world that continues to be hostile to the gospel.”

16. Tacitus, Annals 15.44.2, 4.

17. Geddert, Watchwords, 217.

18. Tolbert, Sowing, 265.

19. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days, 411, 416.

20. Ernest Best, “The Gospel of Mark: Who Is the Reader?” Irish Biblical Studies 11 (1989): 124–32.

21. Ibid., 129.

22. See Josephus, J. W. 2.10.1 §§ 184–203; Ant. 18.8.2–9 §§ 257–309; Philo, Embassy to Gaius; Tacitus Histories. 5.9.

23. Josephus J. W. 4.3.6–10 §§ 147–92; 4.5.4 §§ 334–44.

24. Ibid., J. W. 4.6.3 § 388.

25. Ibid., 6.6.1 § 316.

26. Ibid., 4.7.5 §§ 433–36.

27. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days, 14, 74.

28. Dio, History, 66.6.2–3. Sadly the Jewish people fought three wars against Rome, in 66–70 (74), 115–17, 132–5, with the same fierce devotion to their nationalistic hopes centered on the temple, with the result that all Jews were eventually expelled from Jerusalem entirely.

29. Geddert, Watchwords, 218.

30. Ibid., 219.

31. Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History 3.5.3) records the escape of Christians before the war:

The people of the Church of Jerusalem were bidden in an oracle given by revelation to men worthy of it to depart from the city and to dwell in a city of Perea called Pella. To it those who believed in Christ migrated from Jerusalem. Once the holy men had completely left the Jews and all Judea, the justice of God at last overtook them, since they had committed such transgressions against Christ and all his apostles. Divine justice completely blotted out that impious generation among men.

32. Hooker, Mark, 316.

33. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days, 420.

34. Josephus, J. W. 6.5.1. §§ 285–86.

35. Geddert, Watchwords, 234–35.

36. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days, 425.

37. Ibid.

38. George Beasley-Murray (in “Jesus’ Apocalyptic Discourse,” RevExp 57 [1960]: 160) offers one possible explanation for Jesus’ misunderstanding. “Intensity and certainty of prophetic convictions express themselves in terms of a speedy fulfillment.… The very intensity and sharpness of the vision of the end vouchsafed to Jesus added to the naturalness of his reckoning with nothing else in time but it alone, just as in clear atmosphere mountains appear far closer than they do on a dull day.” Another image suggests that a prophet’s vision is foreshortened and two-dimensional. Viewing things from the top of a mountain one cannot always perceive the amount of space in between one mountain top and the next. As a prophet, Jesus can only see the coming of the end, which looks near, and cannot see the space of history that will unfold before the end comes.

39. Telford, The Barren Temple and the Withered Fig Tree, 216–17.

40. Hooker, Mark, 320.

41. Geddert, Watchwords, 251–52.

42. Schweizer, Mark, 282.

43. Tacitus, Histories 1.2–3.

44. Noted by Gundry, Mark, 750.

45. Geddert, Watchwords, 25–26.

46. Ibid., 283, n. 53.

47. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days, 442.

48. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 316.

49. Juel, Mark, 184.

50. Barry Brummett, Contemporary Apocalyptic Rhetoric (New York/Westport, Conn./London: Praeger, 1991), 124.

51. Cranfield, Mark, 405.

52. Geddert, Watchwords, 150.

53. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949), 271.

54. G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 115.

55. Will D. Campbell, “On Silencing Our Finest,” Christianity and Crisis 45 (1985): 340.

1. Wolfgang Reinhardt, “The Population Size of Jerusalem and the Numerical Growth of the Jerusalem Church,” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting: Volume 4. Palestinian Setting, ed. Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 237–65.

2. One does not find this eschatological expectation in the discussion of the Passover in rabbinic literature. One reason for its absence is that the Mishnah was compiled long after the second and third revolts against Rome had ended again in utter disaster. The last revolt resulted in the martyrdom of many leading rabbis at the hands of the Romans, and Jerusalem became a forbidden city to Jews. After the last catastrophe in A.D. 135, the surviving rabbis frowned on any messianic fervor since, in their minds, it brought about Israel’s sorry state.

3. For those sensitive to Old Testament allusions, this intrigue echoes the plight of the innocent victim (Pss. 10:7–11; 31:13; 54:3; 71:10; 86:14) and the terror all around that Jeremiah faced (Jer. 6:25; 11:19; 20:3, 10).

4. As John the Baptizer was murdered at Herod’s birthday party, Jesus will be executed during the Feast.

5. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 143.

6. Nard was an expensive perfume from two plants, nadala, imported from Nepal, and spike; it is sometimes called spikenard.

7. Cf. 6:21, where Herodias was looking for “an opportune time” (eukairos) to have John the Baptizer killed.

8. In Luke 7:46, Jesus chides his host, “You did not put oil on my head.” See Deut. 28:40; Ruth 3:3; Ps. 23:5; Eccl. 9:7–8; Ezek. 16:9; Dan. 6:15; Mic. 6:15.

9. David Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (New York: Arno, 1973; orig. 1956), 315.

10. See t. Pe’a 4:9; b. Sukk. 49b.

11. Tolbert, Sowing, 274.

12. Charles L. Mee, White Robe, Black Robe (New York: Putnam, 1972), 42–43.

13. Augustin Stock, Call to Discipleship (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1984), 195.

14. Cited in W. H. Vanstone, The Stature of Waiting (New York: Seabury, 1983), 2.

1. Mark tells us that it was the first day of Unleavened Bread when the Passover was sacrificed. Actually the first day of Unleavened Bread began after Passover day (see Lev. 23:5–6; Num. 28:16–17), but Jews in the first century referred to the two feasts in combination (see 2 Chron. 35:17). The confusion between the two days stems from the fact that leaven was removed in a ceremonial search of the dwelling on the morning the Passover lambs were sacrificed, and it could be thought of as the first day of Unleavened Bread.

2. Hooker, Mark, 335.

3. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 347–48.

4. We should probably picture a common bowl.

5. Covenants were sealed by a meal—for example, Abimelech and Isaac (Gen. 26:26–31), Laban and Jacob (31:51–54), and Jehoiachin and the king of Babylon (2 Kings 25:27–29; Jer. 52:31–33).

6. Hooker, Mark, 338. On the Lord’s Supper, see Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London: SCM, 1966); I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’s Supper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980).

7. Senior, The Passion of Jesus, 58.

8. Hooker, Mark, 342.

9. See Lev. 3:17; 7:26; Deut. 12:16, 23–25; 15:23; 1 Sam. 14:32; 1 Chron. 11:15–19.

10. Claude Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels (London: Macmillan, 1927), 1:332; Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1925), 329; see also Hooker, Mark, 342.

11. Vincent Taylor, Jesus and His Sacrifice (London: Macmillan, 1937), 134.

12. “Many” in the biblical idiom means “all” (see Rom. 5:19, “many were made sinners”; 1 Cor. 15:22).

13. The REB translates that they left the Upper Room after they sang “the Passover hymn.” But hymneo need not refer to the Hallel hymns (Pss. 115–18), sung after the Passover meal. Brown (The Death of the Messiah, 1:122–23) argues that it conveys the “prayerful context as the meal closed,” and the first readers would have connected it to hymns they were familiar with singing in their worship.

14. Marcus, The Way of the Lord, 157–59.

15. Juel, Mark, 195.

16. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:130.

17. See below, p. 622.

18. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:134. Peter’s protest, “Yet not I,” is not unlike the high priest’s concern, “not during the Feast.”

19. Tolbert, Sowing, 212.

20. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:137.

21. Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1983), 80.

22. Rudolf Bultmann, Historical Jesus and Kerygmatic Christ, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Roy A. Harrisville (New York/Nashville: Abingdon, 1964), 23; cited by O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 82.

23. Hans Küng, On Being a Christian (London/New York: Collins, 1977), 320; cited by O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 84.

24. For the complex arguments, see Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London: SCM, 1966), 1–88; Brown, Death of the Messiah,2:1350–78.

25. Xavier Léon-Dufour, Sharing the Eucharistic Bread: The Witness of the New Testament (New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1987), 193.

26. A. M. Hunter, Jesus—Lord and Saviour (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 140.

27. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 376.

28. Theodore E. Dobson, Say But the Word: How the Lord’s Supper Can Transform Your Life (New York/Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist, 1984), 5.

29. Hans Lietzmann (Mass and Lord’s Supper [Leiden: Brill, 1953], 204–8) argued that the early Christians developed two distinct Supper observances: (1) the Jerusalem type, which grew out of Jesus’ table fellowship with his disciples and was a joyous meal celebrating Jesus’ spiritual presence and looking forward to his return; (2) the Pauline type, which was a memorial to Jesus’ death and stressed its meaning for salvation. Paul, however, argues that he passed on the tradition he had received, which went back to Jesus’ last meal with his disciples (1 Cor. 11:23). The case for two distinct types of Lord’s Supper observances has not been established.

30. Paul Winter, “The Lord’s Supper at Corinth: An Alternative Reconstruction,” RTR 37 (1978): 73–82.

31. Ibid., 79. Winter argues that the verb ekdechomai does not mean “wait for one another” in the semantic context of a meal but welcome one another, implying that they share with them.

32. Ibid., 81.

1. The slopes of the Mount of Olives were filled with olive groves before the Romans cut down huge numbers to build their siege works during the war of A.D. 66–70.

2. Urs Sommer, Die Passionsgeschichte des Markusevangeliums (WUNT 2/58; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1993), 105.

3. Cranfield, Mark, 431.

4. Sir. 37:1–2 describes a grief unto death when one’s friend and companion turns to enmity. Jesus is not burdened down by a sorrow that could kill (see Pss. 42:5, 6, 11; 43:5; 116:3) or a sorrow so great that death would be preferable (see the laments of the drained prophets, Num. 11:14–15 [Moses]; 1 Kings 19:4 [Elijah]; Jer. 20:14–18; Jonah 4:3–9).

5. Schweizer, Mark, 311; for example, see Ps. 55:4–6; Sir. 51:6–10.

6. Senior, The Passion of Jesus, 76.

7. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:167.

8. Gustav Dalman, The Words of Jesus (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902), 189.

9. See Georg Schelbert, “Sprachgeschichtliches zu ‘abba,’” Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy, eds. P Casetti, et al. (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 38; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 395–447.

10. G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 401.

11. Richard T. France, Matthew (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 373.

12. Austin Farrer, The Triple Victory: Christ’s Temptation According to St. Matthew (London: Faith, 1965), 94.

13. So David M. Stanley, Jesus in Gethsemane: The Early Church Reflects on the Suffering of Jesus (New York/Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist, 1980), 139.

14. Juel, Mark, 197.

15. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1:199.

16. Among the many other proposals, some have argued that the subject is impersonal and means, “It is paid up,” that is, “The time is up.” Some manuscripts add the words “the end.” It could be punctuated as a question addressed to the disciples, “Is the end far off?” as your sleep suggests. Jesus then answers his own question, “No, the hour has come!”

17. Schweizer, Mark, 318.

18. Luke and John identify it as the right ear, and John gives the victim’s name as Malchus.

19. Taylor, Mark, 561–62.

20. Some go so far as to imagine that the Upper Room in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, was the place where the Last Supper was eaten (Acts 12:12; 1:13). John Mark thus followed the disciples into the night, hastily clad in a linen sheet.

21. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:299.

22. Francis Watson, “Ambiguity in the Marcan Narrative,” Kings Theological Review 10 (1987): 14.

23. Ibid., 15.

24. Swete, Mark, 343–44.

25. Werner Kelber, “Mark 14,32: Gethsemane. Passion Christology and Discipleship Failure,” ZNW 63 (1972): 177.

26. Tolbert, Sowing, 215; following R. Scholes and R. Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1966), 177–94.

27. Ibid., citing Scholes and Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative, 180.

28. Tolbert, Sowing, 216.

29. Dowd, Prayer, Power, and the Problem of Suffering, 33.

30. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:178.

31. Ibid., 1:309.

32. Senior, The Passion of Jesus, 85.

33. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), 75.

34. W. H. Vanstone, The Stature of Waiting (New York: Seabury, 1983), 83–85.

35. Ibid., 85.

36. Ibid., 69.

37. Geddert, Watchwords, 99.

38. Ibid., 98.

39. Paul Minear, The Commands of Christ (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 178.

40. Ibid., 159.1986

41. Leo Tolstoy, Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy, trans. Louis and Aylmer Maude (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 512; cited by Caroline J. Simon, “Evil, Tragedy and Hope: Reflections on Tolstoy’ ‘Father Sergius,’” Christian Scholar’s Review 24 (1995): 292.

1. Olivette Genest, Le Christ de la passion—Perspective structurale: Analyse de Marc 14,53–15,47, des paralleles bibliques et extra bibliques (Recherches 21; Montreal: Belarmin, 1978), 116.

2. The Mishnaic tradition was compiled around A.D. 200, in another era and circumstance. Some scholars, however, have appealed to the laws in Mishnah Sanhedrin regarding capital cases to argue that Mark invented the trial before the Sanhedrin to shift blame from the Romans to the Jews. But the laws for the Sanhedrin are idealized and theoretical. The rabbis who compiled the oral tradition were driven by wishful thinking, and the idealistic regulations regarding the Sanhedrin may never have been operative. For example, the tractate Sanhedrin treats the council as if it were an all-powerful body, not subject to any other external power. It is assumed to have the authority to judge the king and the high priest, to set boundary lines, and to declare war (m. Sanh. 1:5). That is what the compilers of the tradition thought should be the case, but it certainly was not the way it was in the first century. They have provided prescription, not description. Consequently, one should be cautious in using this Mishnaic tractate to judge the historicity of Mark’s account of Jesus’ trial.

3. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:348–49.

4. Jerusalem was anything but a free city, and the nation consisted of anything but loyal subjects to Rome. The Jews were allowed to follow their own peculiar customs as far as religious matters were concerned, and the local authorities had police powers. But they could not sentence offenders to death as they pleased. Turbulent Judea is the last place in the empire where one would expect the Romans to make such extraordinary concessions. The high priest was a political appointee of the Romans; the council did not have the right to convene without the governor’s permission (Josephus, Ant. 20.9.1 § 202), and they did not even have the right to keep custody of the high priest’s vestments and ornaments. They were stored in the Antonia fortress under Roman guard until Pilate was recalled and Vitellius granted them the right to keep them again in the temple (Josephus, Ant. 15 § 403–8; 18.4.3 § 90–95; 20 § 6–9). If Mark is writing to a Roman audience, he does not have to explain why the Jewish court did not put Jesus to death in a manner prescribed by Jewish law. It would have been taken for granted that they did not have this power. See further the discussion in Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:357–72.

5. Something made with hands is of purely human origin and opposed to God. In Old Testament usage it is associated with idolatry and pagan gods (Ps. 115:4, Isa. 46:6; Wis. 13:10).

6. The witnesses also use the word naos, which refers to the sanctuary of God’s presence (14:58; see 15:29, 38). Mark, however, consistently uses the word hieron to refer to the entire temple complex (11:11, 15, 16, 17; 12:35; 13:1, 3; 14:49). If Mark makes a distinction between the two words, the testimony of the witnesses is only partially true because Jesus did not say or intimate that he would destroy the sanctuary of God’s presence. See Donald Juel, Messiah and Temple, 127–28.

7. His quiet deportment makes an interesting contrast with Herod the Great’s defiant belligerence, which cowered the Sanhedrin (Josephus, Ant. 14.9.4 §§ 168–76).

8. That the crucified Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God is a central confession in the New Testament (Acts 2:33; 5:31; 7:55; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3).

9. See Joel Marcus, “Mark 14:61: ‘Are You the Messiah-Son-of-God?’” NovT 31 (1989): 125–41.

10. A. Vanhoye, Structure and Theology of the Accounts of the Passion in the Synoptic Gospels (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1967), 25–27.

11. A passage in the Talmud deals with the heresies of those who see God as more than one being on the basis of the phrase from Daniel 7:9, “till thrones were placed.” “One [throne] was for Himself and one for David [the Messiah]. Even as it has been taught: One was for Himself and one for David: this is R. Akiba’s view. R. Jose protested to him: Akiba, how long wilt thou profane the Shechinah? [note: by asserting that a human sits beside him] Rather, one [throne] for justice, and the other for mercy” (b. Sanh. 38b; cited by Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], 137–38).

12. Hooker, Mark, 361.

13. Geddert, Watchwords, 212. See 1 Enoch 62:3–5: “On the day of judgment, all the kings, the governors, the high officials and the landlords shall see and recognize him—how he sits on the throne of his glory, and righteousness is judged before him.… They shall be terrified and dejected; and pain shall seize them when they see that Son of man sitting on the throne of his glory.…”

14. See Juel, Messiah and Temple.

15. A passage from the Talmud, citing Isa. 11:2–4, asserts that the Messiah is able to judge by smell. Bar Koziba (perhaps “son of lies,” a name given to Bar Kochba) was the leader of the third revolt, A.D. 132–135. He “reigned two and a half years and said to the rabbis, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They answered, ‘Of the Messiah it is written that he smells and judges: let us see whether he can do so.’ When they saw that he was unable to judge by scent, they slew him” (b. Sanh. 93b).

16. The courtyard (aule, 14:66) was the open space around which rooms were arranged; the proaulion (14:68) was the vestibule leading to the courtyard.

17. See G. W. H. Lampe, “St. Peter’s Denial and the Treatment of the Lapsi,” in The Heritage of the Early Church: Essays in Honor of G. V. Florovsky (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 195; Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1973), 113–33.

18. Some have argued from later rabbinic tradition that fowl were forbidden in Jerusalem (m. B. Qam. 7:7; but see the contradictory evidence in m. Ed. 6:1). They conclude that the rooster crowing refers to the third watch of the night (12:00–3:00 A.M.) according to Roman reckoning (see 13:35, where the four watches of the night are listed). It was sounded by the blowing of a horn at the end of the watch. Mark, however, clearly understands a rooster to be somewhere in the vicinity because he assumes it crows a second time.

19. Note Job 12:7: “The animals … will teach you, or the birds of the air … will tell you.”

20. Brown (The Death of the Messiah, 1:609–10) lists nine options for translating it.

21. John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 150; cited by Marcus, The Way of the Lord, 170.

22. Claude Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels (London: Macmillan, 1927), 2:342.

23. Schweizer, Mark, 331.

24. John Steinbeck, The Short Reign of Pippin IV (New York: Viking, 1957), 102.

25. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 139–40.

26. Schweizer, Mark, 322.

27. Mitton, Mark, 122.

28. R. W. Herron, Mark’s Account of Peter’s Denial of Jesus: A History of Its Interpretation (Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America, 1992), 143.

1. So Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:629–32.

2. Paul found himself in a similar situation and escaped the leaders’ vendetta against him only because he was a Roman citizen (Acts 22:22–30; 24:1–23).

3. Colin Wells, The Roman Empire (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1984), 146–47.

4. See Josephus, J. W. 2.9.2–4 §§ 169–77; Ant. 18.2.2. § 35; 18.3.1–2 §§ 55–62; 18.4.1 §§ 85–89; Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 299–305. Pilate remained in office for ten years (A.D. 26 or 27 to 37). According to Josephus (Ant. 18.6.5 §§ 174–78), Tiberias explained why he left governors in place with a wry illustration.

Once a man lay wounded, and a swarm of flies hovered about his wounds. A passer-by took pity on his evil plight and, in the belief that he did not raise a hand because he could not, was about to step up and shoo them off. The wounded man, however, begged him to think no more of doing anything about it. At this the man spoke up and asked him why he was not interested in escaping from his wretched condition, “Why,” said he, “you would put me in a worse condition if you drove them off. For since these flies have already had their fill of blood, they no longer feel such pressing need to annoy me but are in some measure slack. But if others were to come with fresh appetite, they would take over my now weakened body and that would indeed be the death of me.” He too, he said, for the same reason took the precaution of not dispatching governors continually to the subject peoples who had been brought to ruin by so many thieves; for the governors would harry them utterly like flies. Their natural appetite for plunder would be reinforced by their expectation of being speedily deprived of that pleasure. The record of Tiberias’ acts will bear out my account of his humor in such matters. For during the twenty-two years that he was emperor he sent altogether two men, Gratus and Pilate, his successor, to govern the Jewish nation.

5. Acts 24:1; Josephus, J. W. 2.9.4 § 175.

6. Evidence may exist in a passage from the Mishnah: “they may slaughter [the Passover lamb] for one … whom they have promised to bring out of prison …” (m. Pesah. 8:6). A papyrus document records judicial proceedings where the governor of Egypt, G. Septimus Vegetus, allowed the crowd to decide a verdict: “You deserve to be scourged … but I will deal more humanely with you and will give you to the people” (PFlor 61).

7. See Richard A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs (New York: Winston, 1985); see also Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) on banditry in Palestine.

8. J. W. 2:10.7 § 581.

9. Suetonius, Domitian 11.

10. Pilate had probably taken over the former palace of Herod the Great when he traveled to Jerusalem to attend to business there.

11. H. St. J. Hart, “The Crown of Thorns in John 19:2–5,” JTS 3 (1952): 66–75.

12. Camery-Hoggatt, Irony, 170–71.

13. Juel, Messiah and Temple, 28.

14. Marcus, Mystery, 117.

15. Charles Colson with Ellen Santini Vaughn, The Body (Dallas: Word, 1992), 318–27.

16. W. H. Vanstone, The Stature of Waiting (New York: Seabury, 1983), 17–18.

17. Ibid., 22.

1. Colin Wells, The Roman Empire (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1984), 53.

2. J. W. 5.11.1 §§ 449–51.

3. Roman Antiquities 7.69.1–2.

4. “Forced” (angareuo) is a technical term for commandeering a person or property (see Matt. 5:41).

5. Athol Gill, Life on the Road: The Gospel Basis for a Messianic Lifestyle (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1992), 63.

6. Simon may have had some connection with the synagogue of Cyrenians that later instigated the arrest and death of Stephen (Acts 6:8–15). Was he the Simon who was called Niger, who is mentioned in Acts 13:1? Mark tells the story of Jesus, not of Simon and his family, and all conjecture about them is just that—conjecture.

7. The familiar term “Calvary” derives from the Latin calvaria, which means skull.

8. See the discussion in Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977); Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 2:945–52; Pierre Barbet, A Doctor at Calvary (New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 1953).

9. According to later rabbinic tradition (b. Sanh. 43a), the women of Jerusalem, motivated by Prov. 31:6–7, offered a narcotic drink to those who were condemned to death in order to alleviate the pain of execution, but it refers to wine and frankincense.

10. Frank J. Matera, Passion Narratives and Gospel Theologies (New York/Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1986), 42.

11. Justinian, Digest, 48.20.6.

12. See Tolbert, Sowing, 280; Gundry, Mark, 945.

13. A textual variant highlights this fact by inserting a quotation from Isa. 53:12 (Mark 15:28).

14. Matera, Passion Narratives, 42.

15. A rabbinic story tells of a wicked man who taunted his uncle when he was crucified. He rode by on a horse, though it was the Sabbath, and mocked: “Behold my horse which my master lets me ride and thy horse which thy Master [God] makes thee sit” (Gen. Rab. 65:22).

16. Matera, Passion Narratives, 44.

17. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 206.

18. See Dale C. Allison, Jr., The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 27–30.

19. Virgil writes: “… the Sun will give you signs. Who dare say the Sun is false? Nay, he oft warns us that dark uprisings threaten, that treachery and hidden wars are upswelling. Nay, he had pity for Rome when, after Caesar sank from sight, he veiled his shining face in dusky gloom, and a godless age feared everlasting night” (Georgics 1.463–68).

20. Gundry (Mark, 947, 964) adds another suggestion. The darkness veils the shame of the crucifixion: “God hides the Son from the blasphemer’s leering.” Jesus, however, has been open to view for three hours.

21. We find a completely different atmosphere in Luke and John. In Luke, we hear a cry of resignation to the will and protection of God (23:46). In John, we hear a victor’s shout of triumph (19:30). The apocryphal Gospel of Peter drastically altered the cry to “My power, my power, why hast thou abandoned me?”

22. Cited by Bilezikian, The Liberated Gospel, 129.

23. Marcus, The Way of the Lord, 174.

24. Ibid., 182. Matera (The Kingship of Jesus, 130) argues that the use of Ps. 22:22 in Heb. 2:12, Ps. 22:18 in Rev. 11:15, and Ps. 22:23 in Rev. 19:5 from the viewpoint of the risen Christ means that it “was an apt vehicle for describing God’s eschatological victory as well as the sufferings of Jesus.”

25. Gundry, Mark, 947–48.

26. David Ulansey, “The Heavenly Torn Veil: Mark’s Cosmic Inclusio,” JBL 110 (1991): 123–25.

27. Josephus, Ant. 3.6.4 § 123; 3.7.7 § 181.

28. Josephus, J. W. 5.5.4 §§ 212–14.

29. “Son of God” is anarthrous (without a definite article) and could mean simply that he was a divine man, but the same anarthrous usage appears in 1:1 and clearly means “the Son of God.” See the evidence compiled by Gundry, Mark, 951.

30. Mary was a common name. The Mary named in 15:40 could refer to one woman who is the wife, mother, or daughter of James the younger and the mother of Joses, or to two women named Mary—one the wife, mother, or daughter of James the younger, and the other the mother of Joses. The best option seems to be that it refers to one woman: “Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses.”

31. Epistles 1.16.48.

32. On the Special Laws 3.151–52.

33. John Calvin, Institutes, 2.16.10 and 12; cited by John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1986), 81.

34. Taylor, Mark, 594.

35. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 370–71.

36. Ibid., 255, 285.

37. John A. Broadus, The Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), 574.

38. Francis Watson, “Ambiguity in the Marcan Narrative,” Kings Theological Review 10 (1987): 15.

39. Hooker, Mark, 375.

40. Tolbert, Sowing, 286–87.

41. Senior, The Passion of Jesus, 124.

42. Matera, The Kingship of Jesus, 137.

43. Gérard Rossé, The Cry of Jesus on the Cross (New York /Mahwah: Paulist, 1987), 20.

44. Geddert, Watchwords, 141–43.

45. Matera, The Kingship of Jesus, 139.

46. Geddert, Watchwords, 302, n. 103.

47. J. R. Fears, “Rome: The Ideology of Imperial Power,” Thought 55 (1980): 106.

48. Lightfoot, The Gospel Message of St. Mark, 58.

49. Matera, Passion Narratives, 44.

50. E. M. Blaiklock, The Young Man Mark (Exeter: Paternoster, 1963), 19.

51. Rudyard Kipling, Complete Verse (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 507–8.

52. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), 91.

53. Sipre Deut 3:23 § 26, noted by Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 2:1044, n. 34.

54. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 301.

1. Later Jewish law required two male witnesses to verify the truth of something except in exceptional circumstances (m. Yebam. 16:7; m. Ketub. 2:5; m. ‘Ed. 3:6), and it is reasonable to conclude that this rule was applicable in the first century. For an event so critical to the faith, one would want the testimony of reputable persons who were considered to be reliable (compare Acts 4:13).

2. Mark inconsistently lists their names in 15:40; 47; and 16:1. The differences may be attributable to stylistic variation to avoid “monotonous repetition” (so Adela Yarbro Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 130). Only the second name varies. In the first reference (15:40), she is described fully as the mother of James the younger and of Joses. The second reference shortens it to a reference to Joses (15:47); the third (16:1), to James.

3. Gnilka, Markus, 2:341.

4. For the design of rock tombs, see R. H. Smith, “The Tomb of Jesus,” Biblical Archaeologist 30 (1967): 80–90.

5. For example, Robin Scroggs and Kent I. Groff (“Baptism in Mark: Dying and Rising with Christ,” JBL 92 [1973]: 542) identify the young man as the Christian initiate in baptism who has laid aside his garments, descends into the water naked, and emerges clothed with a white garment. The young man who was stripped of everything is now restored, radiantly dressed and seated at the right hand, a fulfillment of Isa. 40:30–31. This interpretation is a case of extreme allegorization.

6. The white robe is the customary attire of heavenly beings. See Dan. 7:9; 2 Macc. 11:8–10; Acts 1:10; 10:30; Rev. 4:4; and the description of Jesus’ garments in the Transfiguration (Mark 9:3).

7. Only the seraphim had wings, and they numbered six (Isa. 6:2). The cherubim had animal and human features. In 2 Macc. 3:26, 33, angels are described as “two other young men remarkably strong, strikingly beautiful, and splendidly attired.” In Tob. 5:4–21, the angel Raphael appears as a man. According to Bib. Ant. 9:10, “a man in a linen garment” appeared to Miriam in a dream. And in 64:6, when Saul asked the witch of Endor about the appearance of Samuel, she responds that Saul is asking her about divine beings: “for behold his appearance is not the appearance of a man. For he is clothed in a white robe with a mantle placed over it, and two angels are leading him.” Josephus describes the angel who appears to the wife of Manoah in Judg. 13:13 as being in the likeness of a beautiful youth (Ant. 5.8.2 § 277).

8. Minear, Mark, 134.

9. Joel Marcus, “Mark 4:10–12 and Marcan Epistemology,” JBL 103 (1984): 573.

10. Thucydides, Hist. 7.6.2; Polybius, Hist. 3.60.13; 3.72.8; 4.80.3; 5.7.6; 5.13.9; 5.48.12; 5.57.6; 5.70.12; 9.18.7; 11.20.4; 12.17.3; 27.16.3; 31.17.5.

11. Marshall, Faith As a Theme, 40.

12. Many scholars have found examples where sentences end in gar; see Peter W. van der Horst, “Can a Book End with gar?” JTS 23 (1972): 121–24. See also Mark’s use of gar: “for they were fishermen” (1:16); “for she was twelve years” (5:42); “for they were exceedingly afraid” (9:6); “for they feared him” (11:18); “for it was very large” (16:4). See also Gen. 18:15 (LXX), where Sarah denied that she had laughed, “for she was afraid.”

13. Hooker, Mark, 392.

14. Contrary to the NIV, the name “Jesus” is not mentioned. We only know Jesus must be the subject of the verb because the participle anastas is masculine.

15. So Cranfield, Mark, 471; Schweizer, Mark, 366; Gundry, Mark, 1009–12.

16. Hooker, Mark, 383.

17. Bilezikian (The Liberated Gospel, 136) argues: “In artistic endeavors serendipity is the result of diligence, not chance.”

18. Kurt Aland, “Die wiedergefundene Markusschluss,” ZTK 67 (1970): 3–13.

19. J. L. Magness, Sense and Absence (Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986), 30–31.

20. Norman R. Peterson, Literary Criticism for New Testament Critics (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 49–80.

21. On Style, 119–20; cited by Gerd Theissen, The Miracles Stories of the Early Christian Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 167.

22. Minear, Mark, 136.

23. Juel, Mark, 45.

24. Samuel was afraid to tell the of his vision to Eli (1 Sam. 3:15) but eventually did. As Daniel kept silent about the visions in his head but eventually made them known (Dan. 7:28) (noted by Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, 2:536).

25. Andrew Lincoln, “The Promise and the Failure: Mark 16:7,8,” JBL 108 (1989): 286–87.

26. Minear, Mark, 134.

27. A. Lindemann, “Die Osterbotschaft des Markus. Zur theologischen Interpretation von Mark 16:1–8,” NTS 26 (1980): 305. See William Lane Craig, “Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?” in Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, eds. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 141–76, for an excellent assessment of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. For a more popular treatment, see Murray J. Harris, Three Critical Questions About Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 31–64.

28. Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1979), 68.

29. Best, The Gospel as Story, 132–33.

30. Lincoln, “The Promise and the Failure,” 298.

31. Lane, Mark, 592.

32. Juel, Mark, 234.

33. J. I. H. McDonald, The Resurrection Narrative and Belief (London: SPCK, 1989), 52.

34. Lincoln, “The Promise and the Failure,” 292–93.

35. Geddert, Watchwords, 202.

36. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1:141.

37. Achtemeier, “Mark,” 4:556.

38. Juel, Mark 235.