Kata Markon

["Ted Weeden" <weedent AT atw.earthreach.com>]

Joe Alward wrote on February 26 to my post of  February 23:

On another matter, Ted wrote, "It cannot be accidental either that Mark chose a betrayal kiss as the sign Judas gave the arresting party to identify Jesus." He notes that Funk/Jesus Seminar states that Absalom "launched his revolt by exchanging a kiss with David (2 Sam 14:33)." However, that's not exactly what happened at 14:33: "Then the king summoned Absalom, and he came in and bowed down with his face to the ground before the king. And the king kissed Absalom." There was no "exchanging a kiss." It was the one to be betrayed--David--who did the kissing, not the other way around. Ted also notes that "Absalom, who engineered the conspiracy against his father David, 'stole the hearts of the men of Israel' from his father (15:6), by this cunning practice: 'whenever a man came near him to do obeisance to him, he would put out his hand, and take hold of him and kiss him.' (15:5). It is clear to me that Mark's idea to have Jesus betrayed by a kiss came from Absalom's betrayal kisses."

But, I can't agree there, either. The correspondence Mark would have been looking for is not there in Absalom's kisses. He never kissed his father, whom he betrayed, and the men he embraced and kissed certainly weren't betrayed. Absalom kissed people to get them to like him, not so he could hurt them. Thus, there is no record of Absalom kissing a person who's then betrayed by him. Furthermore, the model for Mark's Judas is Ahihophel, David's counselor. A better model for Judas' betrayal kiss would by Joab, who embraced Amasa, kissed him, then stabbed him in the belly.

My response (delayed due to being away for the death of my mother and attendance at the Jesus Seminar and subsequent "catching up"):

You are correct in noting that the text of 2 Sam. 14:33 does not state that Absalom kissed David, which the Funk/Jesus Seminar’s cameo in _Acts of Jesus_ erroneously suggests when it states: "David had been betrayed , not just by his son, who launched his revolt by *exchanging a kiss with David* (2 Sam. 14:33; emphasis: mine)...." I shall return shortly to David’s kiss of Absalom as it relates to Mark’s narration of Judas’ kiss. With respect to Absalom kissing people "to like him" (as you suggest). Absalom’s kisses were not just for the purpose of being accepted by people. They were conspiratorial kisses. Absalom sought to ingratiate himself with people in order to win them over as part of his conspiracy against his father David (see 2 Sam. 15:10-12). Thus 2 Sam. 15:5f.: "Whenever people came near to do obeisance to him [Absalom], he would put out his hand and take hold of them, and kiss them. Thus Absalom did to every Israelite who came to the king for judgment; so Absalom *stole the hearts of the people of Israel*"(emphasis: mine).

 

As far as I can tell, Absalom's kissing of the people of Israel is the only instance in the OT of a kiss being used as a part of a conspiratorial plot. Joab's kissing of Amasa, while a treacherous and deceptive ruse utilized by Joab to gain close, unguarded contact with Amasa in order to kill his rival, is not portrayed in the text as a premeditated act in the service of a conspiracy against one with whom one has previously been a trusted associate and had intimate and close personal ties, as in the case of Absalom with David and Judas with Jesus. Absalom's use of a kiss in his conspiracy against David (2 Sam 15:6) and Judas' use of kiss as a prearranged act to consummate the conspiracy against Jesus (Mk. 14 ) are premeditated acts in the service of conspiracy.

 

Nor is Joab's kiss of Amasa is an act of betrayal, as was the case of Judas’ kiss of Judas and Absalom’s ingratiating kisses of David’s subjects. There is no evidence that Joab and Amasa ever had a close and trusting relationship. From the beginning Joab and Amasa were rivals. Absalom according to 2 Sam 17:25 replaced Joab with Amasa as commander of the army ("Now Absalom had set Amasa over the army instead of Joab.") And later, following the defeat of Absalom’s insurgent forces and the death of Absalom— all made possible under Joab’s shared command of David’s army (2 Sam. 18:2)—David, surprisingly and ironically, replaces Joab as commander of his forces with Amasa, the former commander of Absalom’s forces. Apparently Joab had fallen out of favor with David because of Joab’s slaying of Absalom (2 Sam. 18:9-15)—against the king’s orders (2 Sam. 18:5)—and perhaps for his chastising of David for David apparent duplicity toward Absalom and his insurgency ( 2 Sam. 19:1-7). Thus, Joab’s slaying of Amasa is in not an act of betrayal of former amity but a treacherous and premeditated act driven by Joab’s deep-seated enmity toward Amasa. Joab’s kiss of Amasa fails to incorporate the elements of conspiracy and betrayal which make it a kiss closely paralleling Judas’s conspiratorial and betrayal kiss of Jesus.

 

However, that does not mean that Mark did not draw upon the episode of Joab kissing and slaying Amasa in shaping the action in his Gethsemane narrative. It is at this point that I see the composition of Mk. 14:44, 45 in a way that is quite different from yours. You state your 2/25 post in response to Karel Hanhart’s post of 2/23:

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 am convinced that all of Mark’s Gethsemane narrative is a Markan creation which he composed using OT sources such as the Psalms for Jesus prayer (By the way I have previously argued that the reference to "the cup" in Jesus’ prayer is Mark’s intentional allusion to the Socratic cup.) and 2 Samuel, along with his own creative imagination.

This is how I see Mark went about composing his narrative of Judas’ betrayal. First, Mark created Judas de novo, as a narrative persona, "an insider" (one of Jesus’s twelve disciples) who would betray Jesus (3:19). There never was a historical Judas. The Markan narrative figure of Judas is a Markan construct, a collective persona symbolizing the Judean Jewish establishment which turned against Jesus and put him death. Thus IOUDAS (Judas) stands for IOUDAIA/IOUDAIOI (Judea/Judeans; see Richard Horsley’s persuasive suggestion, in _Galilee_, 34-52, that in Palestine during the second temple period there is evidence that the term IOUDAIOI was used to refer to Judeans in distinction to Galileans).

Mark, as I stated in my earlier post, modeled Judas after Ahithophel, David’s counselor who betrayed David and joined the conspiracy of Absalom, who also betrayed David, his father. Just as Ahithophel joined the conspiratorial plot of Absalom, the Judean rebel, to do away with David (2 Sam 15:12; 16:20ff.), the Mark has Judas join the conspiracy plot of the Judean temple establishment to do away with Jesus (14:1, 10). According to 2 Sam. 16, Ahithophel was charged by Absalom to conceive of a plan to humiliate David in the eyes of the Israelites (2 Sam. 20-23); and then Ahithophel proceeds to devise a way to kill David, a way which he proposed to Absalom (2 Sam. 17:1-4). The Markan Judas, likewise, having joined the conspiracy of the Judean religious establishment, "seeks an opportunity," a way, to deliver Jesus into the hands (PARADOI) of the conspirators.

Ahithophel’s proposal to get rid of David was to attack David at night, when David was "weary and discouraged and throw him into panic; and [as a consequence] all the people who are with him will flee" (2 Sam. 17:1f.). Mark took Ahithophel’s plan for delivering David into Ahithophel’s hands and followed it almost to the letter in his narration of the apprehension of Jesus by the Judean authorities. Mark depicts Jesus leaving Jerusalem, the location of the Last Supper (14:12ff.) and going to the Mount of Olives (14:26), the same location to which David fled from Jerusalem to escape from Absalom’s conspiratorial plot to kill him (2 Sam. 15:13-18, 23, 30). Mark describes Jesus’ psychological mood as "greatly distressed and troubled...[and] sorrowful" (14:33f.). In this wearied and discouraged state, as Mark scripts it per Ahithophel’s plan, the Judean establishment’s arresting forces (with swords and clubs), led by Judas, suddenly swoop in upon Jesus and disciples in Gethsemane (14:43).

But at that point Mark ran into a problem in modeling Judas’ role in the conspiracy against Jesus according to Ahithophel’s part in Absalom’s conspiracy against David, his father and king. According to the Davidic saga of 2 Samuel, Ahithophel never had the opportunity to put his plan to do away with David into operation. Absalom, on the advice of Hushai the Archite, rejected Ahithophel’s plan for killing David (2 Sam. 17:5-14). In fact, when Ahithophel learns that his plan has been rejected, he hangs himself (2 Sam. 17:23). Thus, Ahithophel could no longer serve as a Mark’s model for Judas’ actual act of betrayal which led to Jesus’ arrest and death, as a closely aligned narrative imitation of Ahithophel’s plan against David called for. So Mark was left to his own imagination to dramatize Judas’ role in the consummation of the plot to apprehend Jesus and do away with him.

But that did not mean for Mark that the Davidic saga of 2 Sam. did not offer some suggestive clues as to how to finish the story of Jesus’ apprehension by his enemies and still use the figure of Judas as playing the leading role in consummating the plot, even though Athithophel, the model for Judas, never was able to carry out his slaying of David. Exhibiting his creative resourcefulness, Mark seizes upon the suggestive narrative uses of *the kiss motif* he found in 2 Samuel to complete the betrayal of Judas and the consummation of the conspiratorial plot. In its various episodic appearances the kiss motif offered all the narrative ingredients Mark needed to finish the story of Judas’ betrayal without the help of the Athithophel prototype Mark had been dependent upon from the outset of his passion narrative.

Three different episodic appearances of the kiss motif in 2 Samuel provided Mark with three key, necessary narrative features. First, Absalom’s kiss of the Israelites to win them over to himself and his conspiracy against his father (2 Sam. 15:5ff.) provided Mark with the idea of creating Judas’ conspiratorial kiss to identify Jesus to the arresting party. Thus Mark appropriates the kiss motif which signaled the launching of Absalom’s conspiracy against his father and transforms it into the dramatic act which leads to consummation of the conspiracy against Jesus (Mk. 14:44f.). Second, the kiss motif as it functions in Absalom’s launching of his conspiracy also reverberates with overtones of betrayal. For not long before Absalom inaugurates his conspiracy with a kiss, a kiss with quite different intent had restored Absalom’s relationship with his father David (14:33), a restoration and reconciliation Absalom had fervently sought, employing even the bizarre means of setting Joab’s field on fire to expedite it (2 Sam. 14: 29-32). Following his arrangement of the murder of Ammon , his brother and David’s son, in reprisal for Amon’s raping their sister Tamar (2 Sam. 13:7-29), Absalom fled apparently in fear that David would seek revenge against him (2 Sam. 13:34-38).

Despite, however, his bitter distress over Ammon’s murder, David , after a three-year period of mourning over Ammon’s death, yearns for a reconciliation with Absalom, perhaps because, according to the author(s) of 2 Samuel, the Davidic succession is at stake. According to the story line, Joab, unbeknownst to David, orchestrates the means by which David is led to enable Absalom to return to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 14:1-22). David decrees that Absalom is to be brought back to Jerusalem and "to his own house," but with a proviso. Absalom must be barred from David’s presence (2 Sam. 14:24). Apparently, David is not yet ready to offer Absalom full reconciliation. Absalom returns. But after two years, unable to tolerate being barred from David’s presence any longer, he presses Joab to arrange and expedite a reconciliation with his father the king (2 Sam. 28-32). So desperate is Absalom for this reconciliation with his father that he avers to Joab, "if there is guilt in me, let him [David] kill me" (14:32). David, thence, summons Absalom, who prostrates himself before the king. David in response kisses Absalom, the "signature" sign that Absalom ’s full reconciliation with his father has been effected by David..

Therein lies both the irony and overtones of betrayal in Absalom’s subsequent use of a kiss in his conspiracy to turn the Israelites against his father. Absalom’s kiss is not only a conspiratorial kiss but also a kiss of betrayal of David’s forgiveness and renewed trust and acceptance of Absalom as his son. In Absalom’s kiss of the Israelites, then, there lies, according to the narrative of 2 Samuel, both conspiratorial and betrayal dimensions. Mark, I submit, recognized that fact and thus saw in the betrayal and conspiratorial kiss of Absalom, a motif that could be easily appropriated to serve as narrative means by which Mark could complete his account of how it was that Judas delivered up Jesus to his enemies. Namely, Judas treacherously delivered Jesus up with a kiss.

But there was one more dimension of the kiss motif found in 2 Samuel that Mark needed to bring his story of Judas’ betrayal to an appropriate dramatic close. For, while Absalom’s kiss in 2 Samuel was an act employed in a conspiracy against David and a blatant betrayal of David’s kiss of reconciliation with Absalom, Absalom never actually kissed David as Mark narrates Judas doing with respect to Jesus. Mark got the idea for Judas actually kissing Jesus as the consummating act of betrayal which would bring to fruition the conspiracy of Jesus’ enemies to apprehend and kill him from a third episodic application of the kiss motif in 2 Samuel.

Turning outside of his primary quarry for mining narrative ideas for the Gethsemane episode (namely, 2 Sam. 15-17), Mark fell upon the use of the kiss motif in the treacherous and deceptive ruse which Joab used to gain unguarded and trusting access to his rival Amasa in order plunge his sword into Amasa’s body and kill him (2 Sam. 20:9f.). In that use of the kiss motif in 2 Samuel, Mark found three narrative ideas to serve his purpose: (1) the "beguiling approach" (Joab to Amasa: "Is it well with you brother?" [2 Sam. 20:9]; Judas to Jesus: "Master" [Mk. 14:45]; (2) the kissing of a protagonist by his antagonist and (3) an antagonist’s kiss of the protagonist that leads thereby to the death of the protagonist. Thus Mark resourcefully and creatively draws upon the various dimensions of the use of the kiss motif in three different episodes in 2 Samuel to bring to dramatic conclusion Judas’ role in the Judean authorities’ conspiracy to apprehend and kill Jesus.

Some exegetes may question as to whether this reconstruction of how Mark brought his finishing touches on the story of Jesus together by imaginatively drawing upon the kiss motif found in 2 Samuel. For in Synoptic studies scholars are used to ascribing authorial dependency upon another source when it can be shown that there is an apparent one-to-one, easily recognized correspondence between the elements of the hypertext and the elements of the hypotext. But, as Dennis MacDonald points out in his _The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark_ (5f.), in the Greco-Roman world, in which Mark was educated to write, the most skilled writers were imaginatively resourceful in adopting, adapting and shaping elements of their textual sources to fit creatively their own needs. MacDonald describes such creative emulation by ancient authors of other authors with these metaphorical poetics (p. 6): "Skilled [Greco-Roman] authors were bees that took the best nectar from many blossoms to produce textual honey. According to Seneca, such apian authors should ‘blend those several flavours into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came.’"

Such borrowing and blending into a new and different rhetorical entity is what, I submit, Mark has done in order to bring his narration of the betrayal of Judas to its dramatic close. When he found that his model for Judas in 2 Samuel’s Ahithophel failed to provide the necessary ending for the conspiratorial plot with which Judas aligned himself and in which he played according to Mark’s purpose such a primary role, Mark turned to the "kiss" motif found in its diverse narrative ‘flavours’ in 2 Sam. 14:33-20:9. Mark then proceeded to "blend," to use Seneca’s words, "those several flavours into one delicious compound" to dramatize the consummation of the conspiratorial plot with Judas’ kiss of betrayal, a compounded kiss motif "that, even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came."

In a subsequent post(s?), I plan to suggest the sources from which Mark drew the sword motif and the cutting off of the ear of the high priest’s slave, why I do not think, contra to your suggestion, that a member of the priesthood was among the arresting party in Gethsemane, why it was important for Mark to disassociate Jesus from banditry (Mk. 14:48f.), aa well as to suggest the scriptural sources for Mark’s "forsaking" motif (14:50).

Ted Weeden