Mark 1:40-45 A change is looming
Another (very) draft extract from my book on Mark...
Mark 1:40-45 A change is looming
40A man with a scale disease came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, 'If you choose, you can make me clean.' 41Angered, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, 'I do choose. Be made clean!' 42Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43He snapped at him and drove him away at once, 44saying to him, 'See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.' 45But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that he could no longer go into a town1 openly, but stayed out in the wilderness places; and people came to him from every quarter.
40Καὶ ἔρχεται πρὸς αὐτὸν λεπρὸς παρακαλῶν αὐτὸν [καὶ γονυπετῶν] καὶ λέγων αὐτῷ ὅτι ἐὰν θέλῃς δύνασαί με καθαρίσαι. 41καὶ ὀργισθεὶς2 ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ ἥψατο καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· θέλω, καθαρίσθητι· 42καὶ εὐθὺς ἀπῆλθεν ἀπ' αὐτοῦ ἡ λέπρα, καὶ ἐκαθαρίσθη. 43καὶ ἐμβριμησάμενος αὐτῷ εὐθὺς ἐξέβαλεν αὐτὸν 44καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· ὅρα μηδενὶ μηδὲν εἴπῃς, ἀλλ' ὕπαγε σεαυτὸν δεῖξον τῷ ἱερεῖ καὶ προσένεγκε περὶ τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ σου ἃ προσέταξεν Μωϋσῆς, εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς. 45Ὁ δὲ ἐξελθὼν ἤρξατο κηρύσσειν πολλὰ καὶ διαφημίζειν τὸν λόγον, ὥστε μηκέτι αὐτὸν δύνασθαι φανερῶς εἰς πόλιν εἰσελθεῖν, ἀλλ' ἔξω ἐπ' ἐρήμοις τόποις ἦν· καὶ ἤρχοντο πρὸς αὐτὸν πάντοθεν.
Translation notes
Leprosy… (vv40) The word lepra is used by the LXX to translate the Hebrew word sara'at which describes a range of skin (scale) diseases. Lepros means rough or scaly, and in Leviticus 13-14 and 2 Kings 5:10 is most likely describing what we would call eczema or psoriasis or a skin fungus.3 Leprosy did not exist in the locale of Leviticus.4 Across Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia, there are no records which match the symptoms of Hansen's Disease and its terrible disfigurements until the third century BCE, which is when a new disease whose symptoms sound like Hansen's Disease was recorded in Greece. It is hypothesised that it came back from India with the soldiers of Alexander the Great. By the time the LXX translated sara'at as lepros (third century BCE) it is possible that in the translators' minds this new disease was included, and it is possible that some of those who came to Jesus may have had Hansen's Disease.5 But our image of the leper and his bell, crying unclean is as much informed by the middle ages in Europe as it is by Leviticus 13-14.
Anger or compassion… (vv41) In Mark 1:41, some Greek texts contain the word orgistheis, which means to be moved with anger. Other texts have splagchnistheis, which can mean moved with anger, but can also mean moved with compassion!
Snapping and driving… (vv42) We are not comfortable with an angry Jesus, but the Scholars Bible snapping, and my drove for exebalan, honour the Greek text.
Town and Country? (vv45)
What NRSV calls country is erēmois topois, wilderness places, the same phrase as Mark 1:35 (see Mark 1:29-39 The erēmos place).
Rethinking what Jesus did
This is not a story about the repudiation of purity rules. It is a story about restoration of community. I emphasise this because I have been strongly influenced by the idea that Jesus opposed the purity rules of his society because he saw purity was the antithesis of compassion.6 Levine7 points out that there was no law against Jesus touching the leper, or healing him. Indeed,
Scripture assumes…that people will contract impurity as a matter of course. Impurity is not prohibited, and being impure implies no moral censure. The system cannot [simply] be transposed … to a moral key except as metaphor (for example, having an “impure heart”). An impure person—a menstruant, a leper or a mourner—is not thereby a sinner, nor is a pure person necessarily righteous. … Jesus was a Jew of his own time rather than a left-leaning liberal of ours.8
The pericope four times uses the purity system term clean in a positive manner, and Jesus sends the man to the priest, instructing him to offer the normal offering for his cleansing. Jesus shows his respect for the Law. There is no repudiation of the temple system at this moment. As Levine notes, the very fact that the leper came to Jesus challenges the idea that lepers were not allowed in public.9 To think otherwise assumes that the system outlined in Numbers 5 and in Leviticus 13-14 was observed literally in Jesus' time.
I conclude from the work of Levine and others, both here and concerning alleged taboos about women, (see Taboos under Mark 1:29-39 A woman is healed) that we have fundamentally misunderstood this text, and many others, and have indeed invented "a bad Judaism."10 How do we read Jesus and his relationship to the purity system? What does he do here in this pericope? Why does the "bad Judaism" trope have such a hold on our imagination?
I think the trope is so persuasive because we live in a world where tolerance is a virtue, and the setting of boundaries which exclude is a sin. We have learned/seen how sex and race and gender, and other differences, can be tribalised into racism, misogyny, transphobia; that is, used to create artificial and discriminatory boundaries. Wealth and family can be used for the same purpose.
Our rejection of these things is good and profoundly humanising for us. Indeed, our sensitivity to tribalising boundaries alerts us to the sharpest boundary of all, which is the choosing of the scapegoat. This sensitivity is not bad! We have learned it from Jesus.
But, if such we repudiate those harmful boundaries, what delineates community? What behaviours are to be rejected? Who decides, who enforces? If we seek to be a community which defines itself by being invitational rather than by its exclusions, how do we manage safety, that thing otherwise known as the sanctity of human life and dignity? Jesus himself says, " If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea." (Mark 9:42)
My thinking on this was reshaped as I considered how to include a recidivist sexual abuser in congregational activities. How could we be safe, both children and adults? I desired, also, for that person to be safe with us. This meant we needed to be able to show publicly that the person concerned was not able to abuse people in the congregation. I came up with a Management Plan11 which would allow us to invite this person to be a part of us, while still keeping safe that which we considered as holy; namely, the flourishing of human life in relationship with God. It was clear that to be true to Jesus' invitational example to us we would also need to have some very definite and very strict boundaries in place.
It was only much later that I realised the management plan I was proposing could be seen as a set of purity rules not entirely dissimilar to those by devised ancient Israel. Their intent was safety, inclusion, and the fostering of good/right relationship with God, for the whole community. True, they were always corrupted by the power-plays which are reflected in the Old Testament argument between the prophets and the cultists; the same is true of our best efforts. It is also true that in our scientifically informed culture some of those rules and boundaries may seem quaint and ill-informed, and even obscure. I have seen the claim that the law was burdensome, but Levine asserts that "Average Jews did not find the “Law” any more burdensome than we citizens of the United States, who have many more laws on the books than are found in the entire Talmud, find our laws particularly burdensome."12 The purpose of the system is clear even if the vision was (as is ours) contaminated by racism or sexism, and other things. It aims to build and protect a community which can relate to God.
In our text, Jesus enables the man to be a part of his community. Jesus does not repudiate the boundaries of the community. He consistently engages with the culture and, as much as he critiques it,13 his engagement implies a level of acceptance. In short, he is on the side of the prophets.
The problem with the view that Jesus simply repudiates and overturns his cultural boundaries is that it attempts a short-cut to the excellent goal of freedom from prejudice and exclusion, and like many short-cuts has unexpected results.
One very simple question would be to ask if we are inventing a Jesus who is so different from his culture that he is no longer truly human. This not only has doctrinal red flags all over it, it is difficult to imagine how he could be so different. And the Jesus it imagines looks suspiciously like us; rather like the reflection at the bottom of Schweitzer's well.14
The second problem is that this short-cut is a form of scapegoating. It makes Jewish people and culture the problem. We all scapegoat, and we all need to deal with that rather than pretending it is a problem of the Judaism of Jesus' time.
Was Jesus angry?
In Mark 1:41, some Greek texts contain the word orgistheis, which means to be moved with anger. Other texts have splagchnistheis. This word could mean moved with anger,15 but it could also mean moved with pity or compassion! Other things being equal, textual criticism goes with the more difficult reading,16 based on the idea that a scribe would not amend a text to a more difficult reading, but might well soften a difficult reading.17
But why would Jesus be angry? Marcus says scholars are "puzzled,"18 which is to say there is no consensus on the question. I suspect anger is the correct reading, because embrimēsamenos carries the meaning "to warn sternly, rebuke harshly; to be deeply moved"19 depending on the context. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Jesus is angry when putting this word along side exebalen, which is the drive out word associated with exorcism. (NRSV translates it as sent him away.) But clearly, Jesus is "moved with pity" (NRSV) for he heals the man. Marcus suggests Jesus' anger is directed at the sara'at or scale disease, which some sources suggest was seen as demonic.20 On this reading, we can see Jesus is using the same abrupt language as he used with the spirit at 1:25. Marcus says that Mark's desire to emphasise that connection "has gotten the better of his quest for narrative coherence."21
I wonder if Mark has concern for an even wider narrative coherence. Our current chapters are not Mark's division and organisation of his text. Instead of being at the end of Chapter 1, we are clearly at the end of what Marcus called the Honeymoon Period.22 Despite Jesus' respect for the law—he sends the man to the priest—Mark 1:40-45 is the beginning of a process which ends with the decision by the political-religious elite to kill Jesus.23 We move from his universal acclamation (plus some puzzlement) witnessed again in 1:45 through 4 sharp controversies with religious authorities up to Mark 3:1-6. There, in 3:5, Jesus is again angered (orgēs, cf 1:41 ) and a
hand is again stretched out (ekteinon, cf Mark 1:41.) Jesus' fourfold attack on very literal interpretations of cultic observance will lead to his death. It's as though Jesus/Mark identifies overly legalistic and lacking-in-compassion interpretations of the law as demonic. Of course he is angry: Although we sometimes say that his crucifixion becomes inescapable at Mark 3:6 when they go out to plot his death, but I suspect he could see what was inevitable much earlier than then.
Andrea Prior (November 2024)
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1. Polin is translated as city in 1:33.
2. καὶ ὀργισθεὶς (SBL text) contra καὶ σπλαγχνισθεὶς (NA28)
3. Levine and Brettler, JANT, Mark 1:40-52, pp62
4. Thiessen, "Jesus the faithful Jew…"
5. Summary from Browne, pp485-6
6. See Fredriksen for a summary of this understanding.
7. Levine Misunderstood Jew, pp174
8. Fredriksen. I have replace her term tout court with the word simply.
9. Levine Misunderstood Jew, pp174
10. Levine, Misunderstood Jew, pp174
11. A Management Plan is created by Uniting Church congregations as a part of our Safe Church obligations. See, for example, https://sa.uca.org.au/safechurch/
12. Average Jews did not find the “Law” any more burdensome than we citizens of the United States, who have many more laws on the books than are found in the entire Talmud, find our laws particularly burdensome. Americans manage to pass driver’s license examinations by demonstrating an understanding of traffic laws; American foods are supervised by the FDA; Americans know they are not to steal or murder. Or, for another analogy, vegetarians do not consider their diet any more of a “burden” or an impossible yoke than Jews today who keep kosher find restrictions against cheeseburgers an impossible demand. First-century Jewish tithing practices are comparable to tithing practices in contemporary churches or, to update the analogy, to paying one’s taxes. Were the Law such a burden, it is incomprehensible both that Jews chose to remain Jews and that numerous Gentiles chose to convert to Judaism. Levine, Misunderstood, pp126
13. For example, Mark 3:1-6 engages and critiques and interprets differently to the Pharisees, but does not repudiate the law.
14. The image actually belongs to Tyrrell: "The Christ that Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well." (George Tyrrell, Christianity at the Crossroads (London and New York: Longmans, Green and Co, 1909), 44 Quoted in https://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/jesus-creed-historical-jesus-series_17.html (Retrieved 28/11/2024)
15. It also was seen as the seat for the impulsive passions, such as anger or anxious desire. It was never used in the pre-Christian Greek world to mean mercy or compassion as it came to mean in the later Jewish-Christian writings. Nuechterlein, "Epiphany 6B"
16. Marcus, pp206
17. In fact, one ancient manuscript leaves out both words. (See Manuscript 1358, see https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/does-the-gospel-of-mark-reveal-jesus-anger-or-his-compassion/) as do both Matthew 8:2–4 and Luke 5:12–16) The referenced article summarises the debate over Mark 1:41.
18. Marcus, pp209
19. https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/embrimaomai
20. Marcus, pp209 He notes b. Ketubot 61b, although this is much later than the time of Jesus. https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.61b?lang=bi "I saw a leprous spirit hovering over the food..."
21. Marcus pp209
22. See Mark 1:16-20 Choosing Disciples - The Honeymoon Period, also Marcus, pp177
23. Mark 3:6 "The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. "
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