Monday, August 27, 2012

22nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)


He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips,but their hearts are far from me. 
Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 

v. 2. They observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
v. 3. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders.

According to the Jewish experts in such matters, the evidence of the Talmud (a written recension of the oral tradition.) is that in the time of Jesus ritual washing of hands before meals was obligatory only on the priests. An occasional 'pietist' might try to live, so far as outward purity was concerned, as if he were a priest, but the ordinary layman - including the Pharisee and the scribe - was not concerned with such questions of religious defilement unless he was about to enter the temple and-make a sacrifice. For this reason, the story as it stands can hardly be historical. 

It is agreed by everyone that, about A.D. 100, or a little later, ritual washing did begin to become obligatory on all; such a change will not have been completely sudden, so may it not be that there was already a strong move in this direction in the time of Jesus? If so, it would certainly have found its chief supporters among scribes and Pharisees, and they might well have expected a religious leader such as Jesus to exact the highest standards from his followers. If that suggestion can be accepted, it may preserve the historicity of the story itself, though it cannot save St Mark's generalizing aside that the Pharisees, and all the Jews practised such ritual washing, for the Talmudic evidence makes clear that, as a group, they did not.

“The elders” (vv. 3 and 5): 
Greek, presbyteron, literally 'older men' or 'men of fairly advanced years', a word used by the Greeks in many senses, mostly honorific, among them 'ancestors' or 'forefathers'; that may be the meaning here and the phrase would then mean: 'the ancient tradition of our race'. But probably the reference here is more specific, to the 'honored Jewish teachers of the Law whose judgments were handed down and were considered binding by the scribes and Pharisees.

v. 4. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles [and beds].)

A. Buchler has discovered some evidence that Jews of the Diaspora who were constantly surrounded by Gentile 'impurity' may have had quite strict rules about handwashing earlier than the Jews of Palestine; in that case, St Mark may have assumed that customs common among the Jews known to him were also current in Palestine.

The subject of vv. 1-13 is the propriety or impropriety of obeying the Jewish oral tradition. Jesus' teaching on this subject is not affected if St Mark in his comments, or even in his setting of the scene, is not altogether accurate about some of the details of the tradition.

v. 6. He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips,but their hearts are far from me;
v. 7. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’
v. 8. You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”

“Well did Isaiah, etc”.: 
The meaning is brought out in Moffatt's translation: “Yes, it was about you hypocrites indeed that Isaiah prophesied”. The quotation is from Isa. 29:13 and, with some modifications, follows the LXX version. It may well have been one of the texts used by Greek-speaking Christians in their polemic against the Jews (cf. Col. 2:20ff. and Titus 1:14), and perhaps that was how St Mark came to hear of it and insert it here. But even if the quotation is St Mark's, v. 8 may well contain a word of Jesus. The style and attitude are entirely his (cf. Matt. 23:23); though, as suggested above, the words would be more devastating in a context proving that the Pharisees actually disregarded the written Law in the interests of their oral tradition.

v. 14. He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand."

In Mark a crowd is always waiting in the wings, as it were, to be summoned on to the stage when needed.

v. 21. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
v. 22. adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.

“Evil thoughts”: 
“Designs of evil” not merely evil thoughts but evil devising which issue in degraded acts and vices which are now enumerated.

“Envy”: 
Literally “the evil eye”; in Jewish context ‘envy’ would probably be the correct translation, but if the list is of Gentile provenance, a reference to the malevolent glance which casts a spell cannot be ruled out.


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