FINDINGS III By Harry T. Cook

Advent II-B: December 4, 2011  

Mark 1: 1-8  

Harry T. Cook

Mark, the gospel, takes off with virtually no taxi-ing: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Perhaps C.S. Mann and the minority of other major-league New Testament scholars who do not go along with the "Mark first" hypothesis would point to that deliberate beginning as an indication that Matthew and Luke antedated Mark. From that vantage, one could say that, whoever the composer(s)/editor(s) of Mark were, they did not want to weigh down their effort with genealogies already in place elsewhere and the questionable birth and infancy narratives. The composers/editors apparently believed that the gospel actually did begin with the start of Jesus' public career as the Baptist paved the way for the Galilean's introduction to the Judean community.

The "Mark first" hypothesis recognizes 1:1-8 as the effective beginning of the Jesus story. It did not begin before someone was ready to say that Jesus was "the Son of God' as Mark's John the Baptist is depicted as saying, albeit indirectly, at 1:7-8. Several ancient manuscripts omit "the Son of God," and it is reasonable to propose that an original version simply said, "This is the beginning of the good news about Jesus." Yet by the early to mid-70s C.E. -- thanks in large part to Paul a quarter of a century earlier -- the notion was abroad that the itinerant wisdom teacher may have been a dying and rising son of a god, a messianic figure out of the Jewish tradition for a Graeco-Roman world. In any event, to have begun the document by saying exactly what the author(s) intended tells us what they will be up to over the next 16 chapters.

Matthew took us through three convoluted chapters and the first 18 verses of a fourth -- beginning with a genealogy tracing Jesus' lineage to Abraham -- before he got around to saying what Mark said in the 21st verse of his first chapter, viz. what Jesus did. Luke says in 3:23, "Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his work." Then ensues 15 verses of a genealogy going back to Adam followed by the temptation-in-the wilderness scene, then at 4:15 finally a mention that Jesus was teaching in various synagogues.

All that said, 1:1-8 is mostly about the Baptist and his baptism for the forgiveness of sins, which, he says, is prologue to the more important baptism of the Holy Spirit."

Some comments on semantics:

1) Mark's use of Άρχή calls to mind John's Έν άρχή with an echo of Genesis 1:1 and its ber� shith bara elohim, which can mean "in the beginning God created" or "When god began to create." The usage suggests that something momentous is about to occur or unfold.

2) The term τοϋ εύαγγελίου is commonly translated as "the gospel of," but to many in antiquity the term referred to a general amnesty that was about to be announced by a ruler or high public official. To others it meant a declaration that "our team won!"

3) The name or title Χριστος, by the time of Mark's appearance, may have been in common use by communities of Jesus Judaism. It probably reflected the Pauline concept of the divinely anointed/chosen one appointed to be the agent of salvation.

4) The elaborate description of the Baptist "clothed with camel's hair" and with "a leather girdle around his waist" eating "locusts and wild honey" was a broad hint dropped for the benefit of those still in touch with tradition that John was seen by the compilers of Mark to be an "Elijah" figure, one who, like the Baptist himself, would become a troubler of the establishment.

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The homilist or teacher treating of this text might do well to focus on the Baptist as representing the hair-shirt that all societies need to keep them honest. A hair-shirt in calling attention to himself points beyond himself to what needs to be seen, and that without rose-colored glasses. It is J. Dominic Crossan's suggestion that the Baptist was a countercultural figure who arose in a troubled time for Judea as its people -- especially the poor and its destitute -- could feel the vise-grip of Rome's oppressive military economy. The Baptist looked at the situation and seemed to think there was not much to be done about or against it, save to prepare for the end of life as it was known.

The gospels generally depict Jesus of Nazareth as seeing what John saw but coming to a different conclusion about it, viz. that life was redeemable, that the power to gain the desideratum of a good life for all was "within" or "among" the community. The community's job was to look soberly at that to which John was calling attention -- not unlike Charles Dickens' "Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come" pointing unmercifully with that skeletal finger to Scrooge's own gravestone and what it portended. Scrooge got the point and so set forth to fix what he could of a broken world he had helped to break. Big hint here.