The Gospels

by Sarah Ruden

  *95 A highly problematic promise, especially given that the Gospel of Luke appeared around sixty years after Jesus’ death.

  *96 The striking metaphor shows how unusual pure white objects were; they might more often be seen in nature than as prestigious, expensive, thoroughly bleached clothing.

  *97 In this context, Moses and Elijah are the perfect interlocutors. Moses led the exodus (from the Greek for, literally, the “road out”; “departure” is the word I use here) of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, and Elijah made his exit from earth on a heavenly chariot. Also, Moses and Elijah sum up the main authority of scripture, “the law and the prophets”: Moses was said to have written the Pentateuch, and Elijah was an exemplary prophet.

  *98 Conventionally, he is right: deities were thought to need physical shelters where they manifested.

  *99 Again, this resembles a famous Ciceronian rhetorical flourish.

  *100 Jewish pilgrims from the north would normally take a roundabout route to avoid hostile Samaria.

  *101 Elijah invokes God to rain fire in the presence of the priests of Baal, decisively winning a miracle contest with them (1 Kings 18).

  *102 A shocking precept, but the earthbound—either living or dead—will be of no concern to those saved in the apocalypse.

  *103 See the story of Elisha’s calling at 1 Kings 19.

  *104 See Mark 6:7–13 and the note, the note, and the note concerning the Essene rules for traveling, and other principles for dealing with the people in strange cities. The great outrages that the people of Sodom committed were not essentially sexual, but were crimes against hospitality (Genesis 18–19).

  *105 That is, the Jews’ historically emblematic pagan opponents, other Canaanite peoples, would adopt the characteristic Jewish mode of penitence if they had seen the miracles that Jewish towns have seen.

  *106 Perhaps due in part to dualistic Zoroastrian influences and Greek and Roman stories of the first generations of the gods, stories circulated among Jews about cosmic rebellion against God. The apocalyptic, noncanonical Book of Enoch contains an account of the contesting realms of good and evil.

  *107 The sky as a scroll, and the “book of life” in which the names of the righteous are recorded, are traditional images that may be reflected here.

  *108 Jesus sounds sarcastic here, using the jingle ekrupsas (“hidden away”) and apekalupsas (“put on display”).

  *109 This might allude to the ancient preoccupation with paternity, or even to the right of Greek and Roman husbands to get rid of a baby they suspected of being illegitimate rather than raise it.

  *110 Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. See the Glossary for “neighbor.”

  *111 A busy major route. See the note at Mark 10:33 for the symbolism of “going down” from Jerusalem.

  *112 Possibly because touching a corpse would ritually defile them. Priests and Levites formed the two most important contingents for service in the Temple.

  *113 The division between Jews and Samaritans dated back many centuries. The Samaritans had had their own temple on Mount Gerizim, near Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, and had long contested Jerusalem and the Southern Kingdom’s claim to be the inheritor of God’s covenant. This man is thus not only despised by Jews, but he is outside Samaritan territory and thus vulnerable himself.

  *114 Which, respectively, soothe and disinfect.

  *115 That is, a laborer’s wages for two days.

  *116 Innkeepers were notorious for swindles, so this act of trust is extraordinary.

  *117 The sisters are apparently without a servant, so the tasks of entertaining would be onerous for one person.

  *118 See the note, the note, and the note on Matthew 6:9–13, which represent the prayer commonly used in liturgy.

  *119 Both snakes and scorpions are unclean, and they may both be poisonous.

  *120 This is a farcical set of images in the circumstances. Outside the gladiatorial arena, the fully armed man of the time—a virtual human tank—was the Roman soldier equipped for action. The private homeowner thus equipped is stripped of his armor by the victor, as if he were a Vergilian or Homeric warrior defeated in single combat.

  *121 See 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9 on the Queen of Sheba, and Jonah 3. Conscientious heathens may stand in judgment of God’s chosen people.

  *122 This was not scripturally required, but was apparently a common practice during the late Second Temple period.

  *123 Jewish learning developed a veritable science of charitable donations, which are scriptural in foundation.

  *124 The tithing requirement was ten percent of everything.

  *125 Likely the Temple tax and the ritual requirements that were time-consuming and expensive for ordinary Jews.

  *126 Jeremiah 7:25–26—but there the prophets are only ignored.

  *127 For the death of Abel, see Genesis 4:1–16. This Zechariah has not been identified with certainty but is probably a recent martyr, as length of time seems to be the point here. The Hebrew Bible certainly does not provide a long list of prophets murdered by their own people, though some were persecuted by them.

  *128 A tiny amount of yeast can pollute the Passover bread, which must be completely unleavened. See “hypocrite” in the Glossary.

  *129 The two verbs play on the imagery of apocalypsis, literally “unveiling”; the first verb is an intensive form of the Greek for “to veil.”

  *130 Virtually the only private places in the hypersocial ancient world.

  *131 See “hell” in the Glossary.

  *132 The assarion was a copper coin worth one-sixteenth of the daily wage the Gospels depict as standard. God is shown as mindful of the lives of his own low-cost Temple offerings.

  *133 See the note at Matthew 10:20.

  *134 It must be a younger brother speaking. The Jews seem to have practiced a species of primogeniture from the earliest times.

  *135 See “soul” in the Glossary.

  *136 The Roman unit was the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.

  *137 I have tried to reproduce the play on sound between anekleipton (“never falling short”) and kleptēs (“thief”).

  *138 Belting up kept the legs unimpeded for work, and lamps could prolong the working day.

  *139 There were four watches of the night, so these would be toward midnight and in the small hours.

  *140 Again, the Gospels, circulating decades after Jesus’ return was expected, were concerned to address the resulting doubts and anxieties.

  *141 I.e., the tortures and imprisonment of a misbehaving slave are compared to those of punishment in the afterlife. See “faith” in the Glossary.

  *142 This may refer to the cult of celibacy and virginity that arose among the early Christians. Biographies of early saints emphasize young Christians’ resistance to marriage and the trouble this caused across generations.

  *143 This is one of the smallest coins in circulation, a tiny copper one worth a tiny fraction of a Roman as, which itself has often been called a “penny.”

  *144 The incident is not otherwise known. It probably involved the sacrifice of Passover lambs by pilgrims in the Jerusalem Temple courtyard—an eclectic, crowded place vulnerable to trouble and surveilled from on high by armed members of the Roman garrison. A sacrificial animal’s blood was unclean: it was passed ritually away from the slaughtered lambs in special cups.

  *145 A spring of the same name was near the inner wall of Jerusalem, but nothing is known from any other source about this accident.

  *146 See the note at Mark 11:14.

  *147 Routine and essential care of an
imals was of course provided for by Sabbath regulations—in this case, a beast actually needs to be removed from the ground floor of the house so that the human residents can use the space.

  *148 One saton was about one and a half pecks.

  *149 A deeply sarcastic response. In fact, however “prophet” is defined, extremely few were killed by the Jerusalem regime.

  *150 The images of the sly, predatory fox and the protective hen suggest animal fables. The work on two days and the rest on the third allude to the passion and the resurrection.

  *151 Psalms 118:26.

  *152 See “scribe” in the Glossary.

  *153 In rabbinic teaching, the suspension of Sabbath rules to save life on the Sabbath does not apply to animals, but it certainly applies to sons.

  *154 Etiquette around hierarchical dining couches is depicted in detail in contemporary Classical sources; the segmentation of the guests apparently made it easier for Roman hosts to serve food and drink of sharply different quality according to the guests’ importance.

  *155 That is, go from the urban beggars to notoriously poor rural laborers.

  *156 See the note at Matthew 5:13. Spoiled salt (common in the ancient world, because of unstable salt-based mixtures) is in fact a special waste product, which will poison either soil or fertilizer and can safely be disposed of only in a barren place.

  *157 As in Matthew 18:12–13, the scenario is doubtful. A single lost animal—unlikely to be recovered—is not worth leaving a large herd in the open; at most, a child or servant would be sent to search. But Luke adds improbability. Finding the animal would hardly be a cause of community celebration, which for a man of substance would necessitate slaughtering at least one animal: he would not even come out ahead.

  *158 The woman’s whole savings amounts to about ten days’ male wages. The lexicon indicates that she may just be seeking congratulations.

  *159 In a comical degree of misery, he’s not allowed the forage or slops of these unclean animals in a pagan district.

  *160 The weaned calf kept in a stall and fed on grain—human food—so that its meat would be particularly rich and tender, and butchered while it was still relatively small, was a great luxury.

  *161 In the ancient world, owners of substantial property almost never supervised its operations in detail. The manager in this story is an oikonomos (from the Greek words for “house” and “law”—notice the play on “law” in Verses 8 and 9), which yielded the English word “economy.”

  *162 A “bath” is around six gallons.

  *163 A “cor” is about six and a half bushels.

  *164 See Paul of Tarsus in 1 Thessalonians 5:5 for more of this apocalyptic terminology.

  *165 Hebrew for material possessions, usually in a bad sense.

  *166 No sane man would, in the first place, dismiss a manager without taking back the seal that gives him the authority to act for his employer (or owner). The ethical point of this far-fetched story must be the eternal rewards of charity and the impossibility of cheating God, through generosity toward fellow human beings, of what belongs to him. The nomos or law (see the note at Verse 1) must allude to the Jewish scriptural law as outdated.

  *167 The two isolated-looking verses entail a curious acknowledgment of the disorder and conflict caused by Christians’ rejection of the Jewish law. A keraia is the hooked stroke in some Hebrew and Aramaic letters.

  *168 These are the only creatures more miserable than he is, the dogs Jews considered unclean and untouchable.

  *169 Probably lying in front of him as his partner on a dining couch.

  *170 That is, the Torah, or first five books of the Hebrew Bible, purportedly written by Moses, and the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic books.

  *171 Unclear, because there is no context, whether this means children, as in Matthew 18:1–10, or simple or poor people.

  *172 The seeds of this shrub were notoriously tiny, whereas mulberry trees can grow very large and put down deep roots.

  *173 Masters might in fact eat with their slaves when there was no formal company, and Roman masters waited on their slaves at the Saturnalia festival. The master conceived of here, not distinguishing between a farm laborer and a house slave and making one man do double duty while he himself dines alone—a reviled practice in the ancient world—would in reality be alienating someone whose loyalty he needs.

  *174 Apparently going east to avoid Samaria, as Jewish pilgrims from Galilee tended to do.

  *175 Jesus and the sufferers both follow the Levitical prescriptions for isolation and for clearance under priestly authority: notice that Jesus does not approach or touch them.

  *176 Thus, both foreign to Jews and particularly despised by them.

  *177 The end date of secular history concerned Jesus’ followers more and more urgently as the first century progressed; they had expected this event soon after the resurrection. There have been efforts to construe entos (my “inside”) as “among,” or “at your disposal,” or “in your possession,” but these seem strained: entos usually means “within.”

  *178 Genesis 6:11–7:23.

  *179 Genesis 19.

  *180 Literally “unveiled,” the imagery of the Greek word for apocalypse.

  *181 Genesis 19:26: she is turned into solid salt through only a backward look at her home while fleeing.

  *182 Verse 36, translated as “Two will be in the field; one will be taken, the other left behind,” has been excised as spurious.

  *183 Similar to our saying “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire”: the events will be self-evident.

  *184 The temptations of unaudited tax collection under the auspices of the Roman Empire were so great that the profession itself was a brand of shame. The Pharisee boasts of tithing—an indigenous religious tax amounting to ten percent of income, mandated by the Torah—as well as keeping fasts that are not scripturally mandated.

  *185 It would in fact be shocking, according to ancient mores, for parents to ask for a leader’s attention for their young children, let alone for babies.

  *186 From the Ten Commandments, at Exodus 20:1–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21.

  *187 Wealth had normally been considered good in itself, and the means to carry out religious and charitable duties.

  *188 A witty promise: a home and loved ones are most worth having—but not when extravagantly multiplied.

  *189 Again, reckoned from only two nights and one full day.

  *190 An Imperial provincial tax collection contracting business was in practice allowed to operate privately for profit maximization.

  *191 Both Jewish and Roman law prescribed awards of multiple damages, so it might look as if this man is passing judgment on himself, his victims not being in a position to bring a lawsuit.

  *192 He has a Jewish name; tax collectors appear to have been ostracized from the mainstream of local communities in the Judean province.

  *193 The events in the Gospels present a fundamental interpretive problem articulated here: If Jesus was so important, why did this not manifest quickly and unmistakably in history?

  *194 In the Roman Imperial system, selected members of the indigenous ruling class might be given the title of ruler and limited power to run local affairs. This man probably travels a long way for his investiture by the Romans.

  *195 A mina (mna) was worth a hundred Greek drachmae, and a drachma was almost exactly equivalent to a denarius, a standard day’s wage.

  *196 The Roman laws on “deposit,” or the safekeeping of goods in the owners’ absence, were stringent, and were an underpinning of sophisticated Imperial finance; and property rights related to agriculture—now a massive intern
ational industry—were the ancient basis for the Roman legal system. God is depicted here as a sharp dealer, even in contrast to Empire-wide materialistic legal norms.

  *197 Jews were scripturally forbidden to lend money for interest, but lending to and through non-Jews were workarounds.

  *198 The villages are associated with the modern village al-Eizariya, on the far side of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem. Here the mountain has, unusually, a formal, capitalized name.

  *199 A young horse, donkey, or mule; the tradition indicates a donkey.

  *200 The play on words that may exist in Mark and Matthew—it is unclear in the Greek whether “of him” (or “of them,” the dam and her colt) goes with “master” (which can mean “owner”) or with the noun “need”—is made quite explicit here, as the colt’s legal “masters/owners” actually show up to object, but seem to cede to the witty assertion that Jesus is the true “master/owner.”