The
Historical Jesus
Devices in Mark
It's important to remember when one sees huge chunks of Mark's Gospel
disappearing (as in Mark 9) that this is often because the author doesn't always
"record" things as they actually happened. His main purpose is
to teach about Jesus - to bring out what Jesus should mean for the early
Christians for whom he was writing. He's not particularly concerned about
recording history in the sense that we now understand it. "Truth"
about would, for the author of Mark's Gospel, have been conveyed by what we know
as "theology" rather than "what really happened".
Most of Chapter 9 is almost certainly not an account of
"what really happened" - although some parts may resemble what
we today call good history. But they seem to have been distorted either by
verbal transmission or by Mark's editing.
In Chapter 8 we should remember that Mark has the disciples declare
that Jesus is the Messiah. Although it's hard for us to credit, the fact
is that Mark would not have thought it dishonest to confirm their
declaration by building up the story of the "transfiguration" of
Jesus in Chapter 9 - perhaps loosely based on an account he'd come across
in oral tradition.
So we have to separate out the theology from the history, even though
some history may be buried in the theology. So, for example, the story of
man with the mute spirit (9.14-29) could be based on a story of an
exorcism. But Mark (or someone else's material he's using) has so overlaid it with
"convincing" detail that we can't be sure about "what
really happened".
Similarly, we have to be careful whenever we come across tales which
could easily refer to the problems of an early Christian community. Verses
33-50 seem to be vehicles for a series of sayings:
- 9.35: Christians aren't supposed to feel or act superior to others.
Their true role is that of servants. This is a theme in the
Gospels - so it could well have been something Jesus himself stressed.
But we can't be sure. There are too many Old Testament overtones to be
certain that this wasn't early theology.
- 9.37: We're not sure quite what the word "accepting"
a child means. The Greek is obscure and the Aramaic would have meant
something like "obey". If so it fits in with the previous
verses about Christians not feeling superior to other people, perhaps
especially to Jews, the people of the "Old Covenant".
- 9.39-40: We know from Acts 19.13ff that early Christians were often
faced with the problem of pagan exorcists using Jesus' name in their
work. It's a little strange that Jesus sounds so tolerant about such
people. The early
Christians certainly were not - so it's possible that Jesus actually
said something like this. But we
can't be sure if these were his exact words.
- 9.41: This is almost certainly an early saying because Mark uses the words "in the name of the Anointed". This was a title
for Jesus in the early Church. (Some translators are so convinced this
is a late addition that they leave this reference out
entirely.)
- 9.42: This seems to be a traditional saying which has been adapted
to apply to the early Church.
- 9.43-48: Whenever we find sayings which refer to the final judgement
and the Messiah returning to earth from heaven again it's quite likely that they were
used in the early Church. We know from Paul's letters that this was an
important subject in his time and no doubt later. It's possible that
Jesus taught something like this, but we can't now sort out the
history from the teaching and commentary in this case. But some
scholars think that this passage scrapes through the test for
historicity.
- 9.49-50: The first part of verse 50 is also given by another source
and some scholars detect echoes of an original in Aramaic (the
language Jesus would have spoken at home). So although we can't be
absolutely sure that he said these exact words, it's likely he said
something very like them. Many scholars think that the second part of
the verse was added by Mark to "round off" this section.
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