Kata Markon

[JFAlward AT aol.com]

In regard to the betrayal by Jesus with a kiss, Karel Hanhart wrote on 2/23:

But elsewhere (Open Tomb p.449) I proposed to interpret the incident as a 
midrash on LXX 2 Sam 20.9, where Joab met Amasa with a kiss and a greeting, 
"Is it well with you, my brother?"  For precisely the next verse (v. 10) is 
quoted in the account of Judas' suicide in Acts 1.18, "Joab struck him [with 
the sword] in the belly so that his entrails poured out on the ground."  In 
other words the blow with which Judas (representing the high priest) wanted 
to kill Jesus, turned upon himself.  With S. Sandmel, I believe Judas is 
fictive.  Judas incorporates in my view a series of high priests (in Mark 
always in the plural) and in his person he is acting out their misdeeds which 
in  turn delivered the death stroke on themselves and the temple (70 CE).
======================================

My response:

The parallel Karel Hanhart points out at first seems quite sharp.  Two points 
of comparison stand out:


1.  Jesus was killed because he was a dangerous rival for the high priests; 
likewise, Amasa was killed because he was a dangerous rival for Joab (whose 
job Amasa had been given: 2 Samuel 19:13).  

2.  Jesus' death was facilitated by a greeting and a kiss:  the subsequent 
identification of Jesus to the armed crowd led to his trial and death.  
Likewise, Amasa's death was facilitated by a greeting and a kiss:  Amasa was 
put off guard by the embrace and kiss and was stabbed in the belly.

But, there are many differences.  Mark's Jesus is Samuel's David, and his 
Judas is Ahithophel, David's friend and counselor, as was pointed out at 
least as long ago as 1897 in Easton's Bible Dictionary (available online), 
and more recently in a helpful post by Ted Weeden. Mark, in my opinion, did 
not wish for his readers--then, or now--to connect Joab with Judas, as 
Hanhart seems to suggest, for if they were do so it would force them to see 
Amasa as the prefigurement of Jesus, and that is something Mark definitely 
wouldn't have wanted.  Mark worked too hard to write stories showing that 
Jesus was the Lord promised David would one day occupy his throne to risk 
confusing the reader about who was the prefigurement of Jesus:  It was David, 
not Amasa.  

I also don't see a strong connection between Amasa's intestines spilling 
after Joab stabbed him in the belly, and what Luke said happened to Judas, as 
Karel seems to suggest.   Judas wasn't stabbed, of course; Luke had Judas 
fall and burst open like an old wineskin bloated with new wine, because he 
was unable to stomach new ideas.  (I've not seen this latter explanation 
anywhere before, but that might just show I've not read as much as I should 
have; please let me know if others have already offered this explanation for 
Luke's description.)

Luke 5:36-38 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the 
new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will 
be ruined. 

Acts 1:17-19 (With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a 
field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines 
spilled out.


Finally, Karel believes that Judas "incorporates in [his] view a series of 
high priests...acting out their misdeeds which in turn delivered the death 
stroke on themselves and the temple." 

I agree that Judas was almost as evil as the high priest (at least Judas 
hanged himself in Matthew's story), but there's no indication in any of the 
gospels that the authors wished for the readers to connect Judas' death 
symbolically to the defeat of the high priests and the destruction of their 
temple.  As I indicated above, Judas was just an old wineskin not ready for 
new wine (in Acts).  Furthermore, in order that Judas' death be symbolic of 
the self-destruction of the high priests and their temple, but one must point 
not to the bursting in Acts, but the self-destruction by hanging in Matthew.  
In any case, this would just be a personal theology; there's no evidence that 
any of the gospel writers had this type of symbolism in mind.

There still remains the apparently unsolved problem of why Mark tells us that 
a signal was necessary before the arrest could be made.  The only thing that 
makes sense to me is that Mark 14: 44, 45 were added later, perhaps to evoke 
memories of the Joab-Amasa betrayal with a kiss scene in Samuel.  Whoever 
added those verses would have had to have been uncomprehending of the 
conflict with Mark 14: 49, and therefore might not have been bright enough to 
know that comparing Jesus to Amasa and Judas to Joab would work against 
original Mark's plan. 

I'd appreciate hearing anyone's thoughts on this matter.


Regards,

Joe Alward
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html