The Gospels

by Sarah Ruden

  *8 Matthew 1:1–17 and Luke 3:23–38 both trace Jesus’ genealogy through the male line back to King David, as a qualification for the status of Messiah, or God’s anointed ruler. The connection in Matthew and Luke depends (despite the lack of a blood tie) on Joseph’s origin in Bethlehem, David’s native town, which according to Micah 5:2 will be the origin of another great ruler.

  *9 Virginity was assumed in unmarried girls. Technically, the Greek word parthenos does not refer to lack of sexual experience, but merely to the unmarried state. Luke does not allude to any legal or social consequences of an extramarital pregnancy, as Matthew does in 1:18–25; see the note at Verse 19.

  *10 The greeting plays on the similarity of the verbs chairō and charitoō.

  *11 Greek for Yeshua (our “Joshua”), who led the Hebrew conquest of Canaan. The root is the verb for “save.” It was a common name at this place and time.

  *12 The same euphemism, usually translated as “to know,” is used in the Hebrew Bible.

  *13 A shadow or shade is a Hebrew Bible image of protection.

  *14 The town of Mary’s destination in the Jewish heartland is not identified, but her journey could be well over a hundred miles. The custom of married women’s visits to each other is witnessed even in the very restricted context of Classical Athens, but I’m unaware that young unmarried women anywhere enjoyed any such privilege.

  *15 This passage, known by the Latin translation of its first word as the Magnificat (“Exalts”/“Glorifies”/“Enlarges”), follows fairly closely the thanksgiving of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, for her pregnancy in 1 Samuel 2:1–10 and shows the same extraordinary reach, linking one woman’s fertility to God’s comprehensive and eternal protection of his chosen people, especially the distressed and humble among them. The song also has language in common with the “Messianic Apocalypse” among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  *16 Circumcision of male infants (Genesis 17:9–14)—decreed in preparation for the birth of Isaac, the first child given in fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham—is essential to Jewish identity.

  *17 The Hebrew means “God is gracious.” Special circumstances could justify a name with no precedent in the family.

  *18 Wholesale “freeing” normally takes place only immediately after wars, when the captured, threatened with permanent enslavement, can be ransomed back if their families or states make it worth the captors’ while. It was a common metaphor for the Jews to use of their whole nation, which was comparatively poor and perpetually defeated.

  *19 The image is of a strong young bull tossing his horns in preparation for combat.

  *20 These promises, repeated from Genesis 12 onward, mainly concern land and descendants.

  *21 Zacharias’ outpouring contains phrasing found in Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, and other scriptural books. The meanings are clear enough in their essentials, but the presentation here is unusually difficult, with trailing clauses and concatenations of verbs, some of these in the infinitive form, which makes their functions rather vague: Greek grammar and syntax differ widely from those of Hebrew, and the Septuagint was plainly not a sophisticated model for translation. As often in the Gospels, the most important imagery is that of Isaiah.

  *22 Jews at this period had no coming-of-age ceremony, and the Greek word anadexis is normally used for royal or official investiture or the display of a god’s image.

  *23 Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor, was the adoptive son and heir of the civil warrior and dictator Julius Caesar.

  *24 In the manner of a Classical historiographer, Luke indicates the year by naming the head of government. The Latin name of this Roman governor was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, and according to the historian Josephus he was not in office before 6 C.E., when Roman rule by occupation began. Herod the Great, however, who appears later in this story, died in 4 B.C.E.

  *25 No worldwide or Roman Empire–wide registration is reported elsewhere, though particular regions (Syria and Judea had joint administration of the census) had their inhabitants counted for assessment of a “head tax” of individuals. But the requirement for heads of households to report to ancestral homes sounds needless and disruptive and is not attested elsewhere. If the decree did obtain, hardly “everyone” would have had to travel: most clans were geographically deeply rooted. Luke tells of the journey to show that Jesus, though known as a Nazarene, was actually the great ruler from Bethlehem who fulfilled the prophecy in Micah 5:2.

  *26 Kataluma is not the usual word for a commercial inn, but rather simply for a place to stay. It is probably an ordinary Judean house, which means that animals slept indoors on the ground floor at night and were removed at daybreak; humans slept in a loft with limited space and privacy. The empty feeding trough along one wall (I avoid “manger,” which suggests the magazine-stand-like object in a Christmas crèche) could have provided a satisfactory bed for a baby. Swaddling or tight wrapping was traditional baby care.

  *27 These men are probably staying with the flock all night to look after ewes and their offspring during lambing season. But mock-military language, including pleonastic flourishes parallel to the Hebrew infinitive absolute, is applied to them: literally, they “guarded guard-duties” and “feared a great fear.”

  *28 The “heavenly host” is the army, numerous as the stars, that the Hebrew Bible’s God is pictured leading across the sky.

  *29 See the note at Verse 1:59 concerning circumcision. Leviticus 12 decrees that a woman (but not her husband or baby) be purified after childbirth through isolation and animal sacrifice, in parallel to her purification after menstruation. Exodus 13:1–16 (Verse 2 is quoted here) has as a context the Hebrews’ liberation from Egypt: all firstborn creatures are to be “set aside” (see the Glossary for “holy”) and sacrificed, but animal sacrifices “buy back” or redeem firstborn human male offspring, given that Hebrew children were spared from the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn.

  *30 This resembles the other thankful poetic and prophetic outpourings so far in Luke, and has similar quasi-Hebraic syntax.

  *31 Simeon turns now to the oracular mode, with its familiar riddling manner. The “falling” may allude (but probably not exclusively) to the military disasters to come for Judea. “Rising again” is the term for resurrection of the dead. Jesus’ mission or fate is a “sign” fraught in many ways; just two are the long-prevailing secrecy about his identity, and the contrast between the shameful death and the glorious return to life. The mother’s grief is foretold, perhaps even with an allusion to a scene at the cross: in John 19:34, Jesus’ side is pierced by a spear. The end of the speech points to apocalyptic ideas: “unveiling” is literally what the Greek for “apocalypse” means. (My translation in Verse 32 above is “revelation.”)

  *32 It may not have been an unusual fate to be widowed so young and never to remarry. Girls normally married around the time of menarche, and mature women were far less eligible as spouses than older and previously married men were. And across the ancient world, it was considered virtuous for a widow not to remarry. Prophecy was not a calling restricted to men: Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, and Noadiah were women prophets of the Hebrew Bible.

  *33 The heedlessness of the parents about their only son may seem strange, but the normal assumption in a clan or tribe is that a child is never alone and will not go far.

  *34 The noncanonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas goes far in this direction, with adults (in their ignorance of Jesus’ identity and power) horrified at the boy’s behavior.

  *35 Again, such scene-setting is in the tradition of Roman historiography, with the year identified by officeholders. Tiberius is Augustus’ successor as Roman emperor. These client kings are Herod the Great’s sons. Annas and Caiphas do not actually seem to have held the Jewish high priesthood at the same ti
me, but rather the former was deposed by the Romans in favor of the latter, his son-in-law.

  *36 See the note at Mark 1:4 concerning baptism.

  *37 Isaiah 40:3–5. See the note at Mark 1:3.

  *38 Such a person would be moderately well off, since the production, processing, and weaving of wool were labor-intensive enough to make even basic clothing scarce.

  *39 The Roman Imperial regime outsourced tax collection to private contractors and did not normally concern itself with the extortion by which the collectors’ profits could be increased.

  *40 Imperial soldiers were in practice as free to commit abuses as Imperial tax collectors were. Jews were formally exempt from service in the Roman army, but some enlisted anyway.

  *41 Care of feet was among the dirtiest and smelliest of slaves’ and servants’ regular tasks.

  *42 See Mark 6:14–29.

  *43 See “S/spirit” in the Glossary.

  *44 Similar language is used by God to Abraham concerning his son Isaac, in the command to sacrifice the boy (Genesis 22:2).

  *45 Contrast this list with that of Matthew 1:1–17. Some differences will leap to the eye: this list runs from Jesus back to creation; Matthew’s runs in the other direction, and only from Abraham down to Jesus. The names, the style, and even the number of generations in the overlapping period vary markedly.

  *46 See “devil” in the Glossary.

  *47 Deuteronomy 8:3. During the forty years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after the escape from slavery in Egypt, they ate not bread but the mysterious and miraculous manna.

  *48 Deuteronomy 6:13 and 10:20.

  *49 The devil quotes from Psalms 91:11–12, Jesus from Deuteronomy 6:16 and perhaps Isaiah 7:12. One version of the death of James the Just, the leader of the early Jesus movement in Jerusalem, has him being thrown from this same pinnacle.

  *50 Isaiah 61:1 and 58:6. According to the Hebrew Bible, every fiftieth year was to be a “Jubilee,” requiring remission of debts and freeing of slaves.

  *51 1 Kings 17.

  *52 2 Kings 5.

  *53 Here the “going down” seems merely physical, as Capernaum is on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, whereas Nazareth is in the uplands.

  *54 The region of Gennesaret was the populous coastal plain between Magdala and Capernaum, and the Sea of Galilee was sometimes called after it.

  *55 The joke is based on the verb for capturing animals alive.

  *56 See Leviticus 13–14.

  *57 The specific joke about the relative length of the expressions that may be operative in Mark (see the note at 2:9 there) would not be operative here, because the statement of forgiveness is longer.

  *58 Tax collection did function like a legal mafia, so the objections here are understandable.

  *59 This verse is likely a later interpolation, influenced by Greek or Roman culture. The Romans in particular had connoisseur tastes in wines.

  *60 The unanimous principle in the rabbinic writings is that saving a human life takes priority.

  *61 See the second note at Mark 3:16.

  *62 Compare the other lists in the Gospels, and See the note at Mark 3:19. Perhaps the most interesting development here is that someone “called a zealot” is listed among Jesus’ followers. Kananaios (see Mark 3:18 and Matthew 10:4) does also mean a Zealot, but that word would have been easy to confuse with an adjective meaning “from Cana.”

  *63 I.e., both the Jewish heartland and the Phoenician coast.

  *64 See “crowd” in the Glossary. Across the two verses the author uses wordplay to compare the eager mass of people to the riotous mobs of demons within some of them.

  *65 Compare Matthew 5:38–42. This version has the more specific—and more wittily presented—Jewish context stripped out.

  *66 See “grace” in the Glossary.

  *67 This does not acknowledge interest, which was part of the Jewish financial system too in this era.

  *68 The good-natured and canny merchant crams as much as possible into the standard measuring container. A fold of the clothing at the chest was used to carry items of moderate size such as daily groceries. The repetitious wording at the end of the verse suggests witty commercial patter.

  *69 The centurion, in charge of a hundred soldiers, was the essential officer of the Roman army. This one appears to be a “God-fearer” or “God-worshipper,” a pagan with a friendly interest in Judaism. There is inscriptional evidence that a pagan patron could in fact donate a synagogue building.

  *70 Probably the modern Nein, in Galilee.

  *71 For a widow to lose her grown-up only son meant not just emotional trauma. She now has no one to support her and is likely past the age of bearing further children. (See Ruth 1:11–13.) Surviving personal correspondence reveals how thoroughly a widow could be cheated.

  *72 Even if “Judea” in this instance is only the Jewish heartland, the verse suggests that word spread into some areas where Jews were minorities.

  *73 These are mainly phrases found in Isaiah.

  *74 Isaiah 40:3.

  *75 John’s baptism could arguably have special functions and meanings, because it was distinct from ordinary cleansing by immersion: it was administered by one person in a single, hard-to-reach place, and it was in running water.

  *76 Perhaps a singsong taunt or part of a game.

  *77 This could be the personified Wisdom of scripture, and legal representation of widows by adult sons might be suggested.

  *78 This is a repeated scene in the Gospels, but here it is climactically lurid, containing female tears, quite intimate and unseemly physical contact, and a euphemistically designated prostitute, as well as the Jewish euphemism for “penis” (“feet”). Only with the usual ancient dining posture and furniture can the scene work: she can approach a backless dining couch and gain access to his feet while still standing on her own feet. To access the feet of a man sitting at a table, she would have to crawl under it and minister unseen to his lower body—not a good look in these circumstances.

  *79 A denarius was a standard daily wage for a menial worker.

  *80 This context particularly, the company of respectable women—one even connected to the client ruler’s court—makes it unlikely that she had ever been unchaste, as later legend depicts her. Perhaps her background as a female demoniac contributed to the legend. The best scholarly guess about her name is that she is from a village named Magdala, but that she is “called” so is not a normal way of citing geographical origin.

  *81 The wording about knowledge and (literally) “mysteries” (as in pagan cults accessible only to the initiated) suggests influence from the Gnostic (“Knowing”) branch of Christianity.

  *82 Isaiah 6:9.

  *83 The tone of this depends a great deal on whether he has circled back and is in his relatives’ home again at this point.

  *84 This would very likely be the Sea of Galilee.

  *85 The location is uncertain, but would likely be in the Greco-Roman “Ten Cities” region.

  *86 A Roman legion numbered around five thousand.

  *87 From the time of the Psalms, an image of both the terrors of seafaring and a metaphor for any kind of annihilation from which God could provide a rescue.

  *88 Eating will be proof that she is not a ghost.

  *89 Compare the story in Mark 5:21–43 and Matthew 9:18–26. This later version has one element that may be distinctly Greco-Roman in character (which would be suitable to Luke), the special concern the parents have for their “only daughter.” There was usually only one cherished daughter even in a wealthy Greek or Roman household, as the rest would have bee
n abandoned outdoors immediately after birth. (Infant exposure was not a Jewish practice; note at Matthew 6:3, for example, that Jesus has more than one sister.)

  *90 Echoing the rules of the Essene sect for traveling in reliance on their fellow sectarians’ hospitality; Jesus’ followers, however, are not even allowed a staff for self-defense.

  *91 A mysterious curse, but probably related to the lowliness and dirtiness of feet.

  *92 This would be Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great and ruler of Galilee and Perea.

  *93 A town near the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

  *94 Likely a spoof on formal dining. The word for dining groups is used. See the more elaborate wordplay at Mark 6:40. The men assume the more casual posture, and the women and children probably eat separately.