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Subject: Kata Markon

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  • From: Steve Black <sblack AT axionet.com>
  • To: Kata Markon <gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Mark 7
  • Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 10:38:06 -0700


Mark 7:3-4 (NRSV)
(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)

I have gotten a lot of personal mileage from this text, and I want to examine my thoughts in light of what others might think. I have understood this text to indicate a geographical distance from the "Synagogue". (I am aware that the use of the term "Synagogue" might be a little problematic - I don't want to get hung up on that detail, I mean here non-Xn Jews - which itself might even be problematic...). In any event, it seems to me that Mark would not make this explanation if he thought that his audience did not have to be told - in other words they didn't know. I have assumed that Mark was writing for his own community, which would separate him and his community somewhat from the Synagogue. (Now I see another alternative - namely that Mark wrote his gospel for another community - like Paul writing to the Romans - which could mean that he himself might have lived near a point of contact with the Synagogue. I prefer the former explanation.)

The implications of this theory are significant. It seems to me that Mark's polemic with the Synagogue might be seen as something he "inherited" in the tradition - something that lacked the significance and urgency that it once had earlier - not something with the same "bite" as is found in John or Matt. Matthew takes up Mark and uses it in his gospel as part of a *present and active* battle with the Synagogue. Thus I have tended to see Mark as the least "anti-Judaic" of the gospels. This seems to be against the grain of how many see Mark.
--
Steve Black
Vancouver School of Theology
Vancouver, BC
---

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right...

-Robert Hunter From SCARLET BEGONIAS



  • Mark 7, Steve Black, 07/19/2002
    • <Possible follow-up(s)>
    • Re: Mark 7, Emmanuel Fritsch, 07/19/2002
    • Re: Mark 7, Steve Black, 07/19/2002

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