Kata Markon

["Richard Anderson" <randerson58 AT home.com>]

Isaiah is the only prophet 'remembered' as having been killed and buried, like Jesus, in Jerusalem. The source of the tradition that Isaiah was sawn in half by the wicked king Manasseh is not known and in fact is not mentioned in the Bible.

 

There is a pattern of slaying of prophets in both the Matthean and Marcan versions of the parable which Luke lacks.

 

According to Frederick Houk Borsch, Many Things in Parables, (Philadelphia, 1988), 48 :

'This apparently motiveless killing is one of the signs that a historical allegorical interest has superseded a concern with realism in the narrative.'

 

I would recommend Kylne Snodgrass. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.  Add. sources can be found in my article, Luke and the Wicked Tenants which was published in the new e-journal, Journal of Biblical Studies this past January. The article is also on my website.

Richard H. Anderson
Wallingford PA
http://www.geocities.com/gospelofluke

 

In the parable of the wicked tenants (below), I assume that the vineyard is
the Lord's inheritance--the "house of Israel" (Isaiah 5:7), and its tenants
are the temporary custodians (Leviticus 25:23). The servants are ministers
sent by the Lord to complain about Israel's falling into ruin and sin.

Verse 12:1 obviously comes from Isaiah 5:7, while 12:2 is just an _expression_
of the Lord's expectation that his vineyard produce righteous men.  Mark has
Jesus predicting his death in 12:6-8, of course. Verses 12:7-9 may be based
on the conspiracy in 1 Kings 21 of Ahab and Jezebel to kill Naboth and seize
Naboth's vineyard, his inheritance. However, there's a gap in my
understanding in 12:3-5; I've been unable to find a story about any of God's
prophets being seized and beaten, or struck on the head and treated
shamefully, and still others beaten and killed.  One of the men killed can be
assigned to John the Baptist, I think, but what about the others?  Can anyone
help?  The parable is below.

Mark 12:1 He then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a
vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a
watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a
journey. 2 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from
them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, beat him and
sent him away empty-handed. 4 Then he sent another servant to them; they
struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 He sent still
another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they
beat, others they killed. 6 "He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved.
He sent him last of all, saying, `They will respect my son.'  7 "But the
tenants said to one another, `This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the
inheritance will be ours.'  8 So they took him and killed him, and threw him
out of the vineyard. 9 "What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will
come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

Incidentally, the story of the murder of Naboth and the theft of his vineyard
in 1 Kings 21 seems contain the "answer to the problem within the parable
that often has stumped interpreters" Dennis MacDonald noted in his book, _The
Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark_: Why would Mark have the tenants assume
that they would inherit the vineyard if they murdered the owner, since "no
society would award property to an heir's murderers." (page 36)  MacDonald
suggested that Mark borrowed this from the suitors' plot to murder
Telemachus, Odysseus's son, and steal his property; MacDonald indicates Mark
may have been so intent on retaining a connection to Homer that he allowed
the tenants to construct an irrational plan.  However, it seems to me that it
makes much more sense for Mark to have wanted his readers to know that the
high priests' coming doom was prefigured by Ahab and Jezebel when they, too,
illegally sought to become the heirs to a vineyard.  Any comments?


Regards,

Joe Alward

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