The Gospels

by Sarah Ruden

*98 See Exodus 20:12–16 and Deuteronomy 5:16–20. A stricture not among the Ten Commandments is included here: Do not defraud. This appears in Deuteronomy 24:14 and refers to cheating a worker of his pay.

  *99 These requirements are found nowhere in the Hebrew scripture, which emphasizes the contrary: secure wealth as God’s reward for the righteous. The language with which the man has approached Jesus expresses conventional expectations along these lines: he thought he could inherit (Verse 17) eternal life the way he has received or will receive the family property; the “covenant” between God and the Jewish people is similarly expressed.

  *100 The wording is playful. Obviously, one home, family, and farm are enough; a hundred would be a persecution.

  *101 Though Jerusalem is comparatively very high above sea level and the Temple Mount itself is prominent in the landscape, “going up” to Jerusalem was also understood symbolically from ancient times, as a number of Psalms attest.

  *102 Again, inclusive reckoning’s expansive way of describing units of time.

  *103 Guests drank in turn, ritualistically, from a single cup; and Jews washed themselves before eating, using shared supplies of water. This seating will be at the “eschatological banquet,” or the heavenly celebration at the end of human history that apocalyptic tradition looked forward to. Position at the table was extremely important in ancient dining, as it signified honor and social rank.

  *104 In the Greek, word and sound play—including repetition of the prefix for “down”—add wit to this statement.

  *105 An important, well-connected man could expect to be ransomed out of captivity at a high price, not to die to rescue others.

  *106 A city in the Jordan valley; see Joshua 6:1–21 concerning its early history. It is just south of Samaria and west of the Jordan River, and so a convenient stopping place on an apparently usual route to Jerusalem from Galilee that circled back to the west of the Jordan to avoid Samaria.

  *107 “Bartimaios” also means “Son of Timaios,” and is a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic.

  *108 The Gospel of Mark, the earliest Gospel, makes no prior mention of Jesus’ human genealogy, which by the time of the Matthew (see 1:1–17) and Luke (see 3:23–38) was a matter of elaborate assertion.

  *109 The man calls him not rabbí (see “rabbi” and “teacher” in the Glossary), but the emphatic rabbouní, which occurs elsewhere in the Gospels only in John 20:16. Rabbouní (or rabbōni) can actually be addressed to God.

  *110 Both of these villages have been linked to the modern town Al-Eizariya, about a mile and a half from Jerusalem on the far side of the Mount of Olives.

  *111 The universal interpretation seems to be “donkey”; here it is clear only that it is a young animal, whether a horse, donkey, or mule.

  *112 The original word order makes the witticism even more definite. There is only one “of him” in the Greek, placed between the words for “master” and “need,” and therefore ambiguous: as literally as possible, this is “The master/owner [of him] has need [of him].”

  *113 The design for a saddle was a late import from the Asian steppes.

  *114 Riding could be considered prestigious and showy; see Esther 6:6–9.

  *115 Hebrew for “Rescue [me or us], I beg you.”

  *116 See Psalms 118:25–26.

  *117 Herod the Great’s expanded Second Temple rivaled the pagan “Seven Wonders” such as the pyramids of Egypt and attracted sightseers as well as worshippers.

  *118 Passover is in the spring.

  *119 The fig tree is a traditional symbol for Israel, owing faithful productivity to its true owner, God; its destruction here looks forward to the destruction of the Temple in the year 70. But the imagery of an unpruned and overgrown tree standing for undisciplined and therefore useless human personality is widespread. Note the “hubris”—based on this very agricultural metaphor—of Greek tragedy. Since the tree’s fertility is at issue, it’s fitting that Jesus addresses it as a personified female, reflecting the feminine gender of the noun and pronouns that is visible in the Greek.

  *120 Zechariah 14:21 predicts a ban on traders in the Temple. Urbanization and travel necessitated commerce in live animals for the required sacrifices. For Jews, money also had to be changed, because the Temple tax could be paid only in a single currency, Tyrian shekels. But here in Verse 16, Jesus actually enforces a Sabbath-like ban—but applied to holy space, not holy time—on carrying objects through the relatively freewheeling Temple courtyard. The verses quoted are Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11.

  *121 Verse 26 is not included here, because it has been excised from the authoritative Greek text as not genuine. It reads, “But if you don’t let go, your father in the skies won’t let you go from your blunders either.”

  *122 Wine presses appear to have normally been carved into the bedrock.

  *123 Literally, “deprived him of honor,” probably meaning that they raped him.

  *124 I.e., the covenant of Jewish inheritance will be transferred to Gentiles.

  *125 Psalms 118:22–23 has, literally, “for the head of the corner.” This image seems thus to have been confused from the start: cornerstones are at the base of a structure, whereas a keystone is at the upper joint of an arch, and a capstone tops a flat-topped structure such as a wall. In any event, the sense of the metaphor is clear: one stone stabilizes a whole building.

  *126 Probably courtiers or officials of the Romans’ client king.

  *127 The Greek word for this tax is from the Latin word census. An ancient census was primarily a tax roll. Jews at the time of Jesus paid two separate individual taxes, one to the Temple and one to Rome through the unregulated and very unpopular Imperial tax collectors. Galilee had been the source of a violent revolt against the institution of census taxation around the time of Jesus’ birth.

  *128 The denarius was the iconic international currency, with the world ruler’s image cast in relief on it. But only the shekels of Tyre were acceptable as taxes paid to the Jerusalem Temple, so a denarius has no essential function where Jesus and his audience are now. The literal meaning of the Greek verb for “pay what you owe” is “give back”: not only is the money owed, but it is owned, with its owner’s picture and name on it: there is no question that it should be returned to him.

  *129 We know little else about the beliefs of the Sadducees, a late, elite sect that intersected with the Temple priesthood.

  *130 Genesis 38:8, Deuteronomy 25:5–6. The practical purposes of such “levirate marriage” were to perpetuate the dead man’s family, channel his property through the male line, and provide the widow with the support of a son in her old age.

  *131 The witty intellectual sparring in this passage is similar to exchanges recorded in the Talmud. An afterlife threatens polyandry, but the lack of an afterlife means a nonsensical boast on God’s part (Exodus 3:6). The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Pentateuch, are traditionally ascribed to Moses, though before the Pentateuch’s narration is over, he is dead.

  *132 Undisputed in status are the commandment to love God in the Shema (the “Hear”: Deuteronomy 6:4–5) and the commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). Parallel to the latter is the famous saying of Hillel, the most renowned of the Pharisees: “What is hateful to you, do not do it to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah.”

  *133 Notice the difference in the potentialities named in the Shema the second time. There was no fixed, authoritative text of the Bible in any language at this period.

  *134 See Micah 6:6–8. A “holocaust” in ancient ritual meant that instead of all or most of the sacrificial animal’s edible parts’ being saved to eat, the entire carcass was burned to ashes—a rare and extreme measure.

/>   *135 This quotation is from the beginning of Psalm 110. It is likely that the poem’s speaker, a court musician, represents the divinity addressing the king, but Jesus’ view apparently is that the communication is between David and the Messiah.

  *136 The wording in Greek suggests that they acted regularly, and harshly, as judges.

  *137 The rich are contributing handfuls of change, but the widow’s coins are fantastically low in value. Women left without breadwinners could earn from indoor crafts such as spinning and weaving, but they competed with unpaid female slaves and servants.

  *138 The Second Temple, renovated by Herod the Great, was in fact mostly razed by the Romans in 70 C.E. as they put down a Jewish rebellion. Today, only the Wailing Wall remains standing.

  *139 These images also suggest the First Jewish–Roman War of 66–73 C.E., including the siege of Jerusalem, but also the motifs of apocalyptic literature going back for several centuries, and the writings of Jewish prophets as early as the eighth century.

  *140 The local versions of the Sanhedrin.

  *141 The imagery now reflects the persecution of Jesus’ followers by both Jewish and Roman authorities. However, major persecutions did not begin until Nero lashed out at the Christians in Rome in the year 64.

  *142 Daniel 9:27, 11:31, and 12:11. The Gospel author may be referring to an attempt to install a statue of the emperor Caligula there in or around 40 C.E. But there were many desecrations in 70 C.E., when the conquering general actually entered the Holy of Holies.

  *143 See Isaiah 13:10.

  *144 Again, this is language typical of apocalyptic literature.

  *145 This might be as early as 3:00 A.M.

  *146 Jesus’ followers associated the apocalypse with his Second Coming, which they expected in short order, like his appearances after the crucifixion. The indefinite delay contributed to provisos of uncertainty in the Gospels.

  *147 This was the greatest of the three Jewish pilgrimage festivals; the Torah command to appear “before God,” with sacrifices on each occasion, meant that Jews from all over the world visited the Temple. The Passover of the Angel of Death, who spared the Jewish firstborn but slew the Egyptian ones, was celebrated with feasting to commemorate the miraculous liberation of the Hebrew people from Egyptian slavery. It is not clear why the officials do not follow through on their own plan and wait until the crowds from the festival are dispersed.

  *148 See the note at Verse 11:1 concerning the likely identity and location of this town.

  *149 This was probably not leprosy or another severe condition showing on the skin, which would not allow him normal social interactions (Leviticus 13–14).

  *150 Around the yearly wages of a laborer in good times.

  *151 Nard, or spikenard, is a resin peculiar to a Himalayan plant. Perfumes were not only for preparing corpses for interment—traditionally women’s work—but were also offered as sacrifices. But kingly or messianic anointing was another matter; the verb used here for rubbing on oil or ointment is different from the verb—from which “Christ” derives—for anointing a king.

  *152 Pascha is the slaughtered animal, a lamb for each household, as well as the Passover festival itself. The lambs were slaughtered in the Temple courtyard. The past tense of the verb here strongly suggests that the Temple, along with its sacrifices, no longer existed when the Gospel of Mark was written. The complex was destroyed in 70 C.E.

  *153 Men were not the usual carriers of water in the ancient world. This water carrier is given the technically masculine but in effect vague designation as “a person,” probably because it would be unseemly if the men were pictured following a woman in the street, a circumstance with sordid overtones.

  *154 This is the manner familiar from Classical culture.

  *155 Here, bread is dipped into a common bowl to pick up portions of prepared food.

  *156 The scriptural reference is uncertain.

  *157 This could be self-conscious wordplay on the developing terminology of Jesus’ identity. (See this page of the Introduction on “Son of Man.”)

  *158 These prayers are kiddush, “sanctification,” prescribed in the Oral Torah that was supplementary to scripture.

  *159 This was the usual way for men to drink at a festive gathering, from the same cup, each taking a turn.

  *160 See “covenant” in the Glossary.

  *161 Reminiscent of sacrificial blood spurting from an artery and ritually caught in cups, as in the ceremony of slaughtering the Passover lambs. But consuming blood was forbidden to Jews.

  *162 Zechariah 13:7.

  *163 “Place of the Oil Press.” This is capitalized in the Greek text, unlike the words for what is traditionally called the Mount of Olives in English.

  *164 It seems extremely unlikely that the Jewish hierarchy—normally anxious to help keep the peace—effected the arrest, much less in this provocative manner. Would the Roman regime ever have authorized such a move, and would Jews have undertaken it on the night of their most important festival, against fellow celebrants?

  *165 See “kiss” in the Glossary.

  *166 See “thief” in the Glossary.

  *167 See Verse 27 above.

  *168 This mysterious and haunting incident is recounted only in Mark. The “young man” (a rare word in the Gospels, probably connoting distinction) is lightly dressed in linen, which was above average in cost and showiness; lower-class Jews dressed in wool. I concur with those scholars who think that the streaker is an important person, known but deliberately not named. A common force of the Greek pronoun tis, used here, is “a certain someone.”

  *169 The Sanhedrin.

  *170 Again, by inclusive reckoning, the “three days” of the text is a generous calculation for a period including only one full day.

  *171 The claim appears elsewhere in the Gospels (John 2:19), but it is not worded this way. In any event, Jesus would be foretelling his death and resurrection. See “T/temple” in the Glossary.

  *172 I do not think the chief priest identifies the Messiah as God’s literal son. (See this page of the Introduction.) Though “son of God” is an epithet of the Messiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls, descent from David is emphasized, and Hebrew Bible passages are quoted that cannot be understood in a genetic sense: for example, in 2 Samuel 7:14, God declares to David, who is well into his existence and whose human paternity is undoubted, “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.”

  *173 See Psalms 110:1 and Daniel 7:13.

  *174 See Leviticus 10:6; tearing clothing could be a mere rhetorical gesture for pagans, but it was forbidden to Jewish priests.

  *175 This religious body does not have the authority to condemn a man to death independently for a political crime, which is the reason he is passed on to Pilate.

  *176 The soldiers literally “veil him around,” possibly a gendered insult.

  *177 See “curse” and “swear” in the Glossary.

  *178 This is the Roman governor of Judea. A contemporary inscription concerning his tenure provides tangible evidence that the crucifixion story is factual.

  *179 A pointed question: the Romans sometimes made use of client kings, such as Herod the Great and his heirs, but cooperative local potentates were of course the only candidates.

  *180 There is no independent corroboration of this custom, but it might have been this governor’s improvisation, or a regular practice in line with other accommodations of the Jews, such as exemption from Roman military service and from formal worship of the Roman emperor.

  *181 The name means “son of the father” in Aramaic. His is a far more typical kind of troublemaking than Jesus’ to come to a provincial
government’s notice. There are several historical accounts of religious zealotry or separatist agitation combined with banditry or assassination during these decades. (See “thief” in the Glossary.) But if Barabbas had been involved in an actual insurrection, it is unthinkable that he would be made available for release.

  *182 Crucifixion was a standard Roman method of execution for those without citizen rights, and was a brutal display of state power. (It was, for example, the execution method for thousands of escaped slaves after the failed Spartacus rebellion in the first century B.C.E.: their crosses were set beside a thoroughfare in southern Italy, where the rebellion had occurred.) Nails went through the wrists, not the palms, and bleeding (including from a preliminary scourging) joined exposure and other stresses until the victim was too weak to raise his head and keep his airway open. Seneca the Younger writes of ghoulish added tortures, such as impalement of the genitals. The loincloths pictured in Christian art notwithstanding, the crucified were hung up naked, which in the case of traditional Jews, brought up to observe strict modesty, would have been an acute humiliation in itself.