Is Jesus Divine in Mark?

I appreciate the dialogue.

Of course there’s not enough time to respond in detail here, so why don’t you your circle of respondents just move out to the Bay Area and we can meet regularly for beer? However, since you can’t do that right away, I’ll remark about a couple of things you mention, which seem to get at the main issue.

You wrote, “while the parallel between Mark 6 and Job 9 is striking, we should be cautious in assuming Mark is referring to this text”, apparently because you don’t think Job is a “likely” source for Mark.

Yet if these two texts are, as you admit, “parallel” and the parallel is “striking”, why is it not “likely” that Mark is alluding to Job? Are you working from some presumption of what Mark “would” have had available to him? Job was “canonical” scripture in the 1st century, known at least to educated Jews. It was part of the Septuagint, of which Mark elsewhere shows knowledge. So why would Job not have been available to Mark?

Or are you assuming that Mark “would” or “would not” have used various sources for some other reason? Do you have proof of what he “would” or “would not” have used, or even good reason for making any such claim?

Any writer, including Mark, is perfectly capable of alluding to anything he’s ever read, however obscure to his audience it may or may not be. Why must a writer limit himself to texts his audience would already be familiar with? Why again must a writer never write with the expectation that his audience might later become familiar even with his most obscure allusions— especially if he intends his work to be somehow “normative” for his audience, and hence read and studied more than once? It cannot, of course, be “realistically expected that a largely non-literate audience will have sufficient knowledge of an alleged source text”— but it can be expected that the Scriptures (all of them) were known and studied in the Church just as much as they were in the rest of Israel.

But your main caution there is that it’s necessary to “verify that something that is claimed to be an allusion actually is”. Certainly, that’s true. Your criterion, though— “that we might use the obvious allusions as examples what we might expect to find in the oblique one”— seems insufficient, in view of the questions i just asked. The fact that “it is obvious that he likes Isaiah, Malachi, the Psalms, Exodus-Numbers, and certain portions of Deuteronomistic history” does not in any way rule out his possible use of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Esther— all of which can be found in the book— or even Job. By calling the Lake of Galilee a “sea”, Mark has already signaled that it is for him a symbolic place. Mark 4.41 has already alerted us to Jesus’ identity: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” In telling the story of Jesus’ walking on the “sea”, he needs a story from the OT that features the same identity walking on the Sea. Job 9.8-11 LXX is just about his only choice, but it will do just fine.

In his two Echoes of Scripture books, RB Hays specifically addresses the question of verification which you raise, and proposes a number of criteria by which to assess potential allusions. And in fact it’s from Hays, who follows his own good advice, that I learned of the allusion to Job in the walking on water episode. Scholars have ever been stumped as to why Jesus “wanted to pass them by” (Mk 6.48)— but Job 9.11 neatly accounts for that. Of course, Mark is taking the narrative in his own direction; Job’s point is not Mark’s point— and Mark isn’t using Job as a “proof-text”. Rather, he wants his (ideal) audience to recognize, in the way he’s telling the story, that the disciples experienced Jesus in the same way that Job experienced Yhwh, the God of Israel. I’ll get back to this in a moment.

In your interesting discussion of Mark 1.1-3, you note the change from Malachi’s “I” to “you”— “In Malachi the messenger is sent before “me” (YHWH),” you say, “and Mark changes this and has the messenger sent before “you” (Jesus).”

LaVerdiere and others have noted that we can equally read the “you” in this “prefatory” unit (Mk 1.1-3) as addressed to the audience, and in that case, the “messenger” who goes before them (i.e., us) would be Jesus. And indeed, doesn’t the young man in the tomb say to the women precisely that the risen Messiah “goes before you in Galilee, and you will see him there”? (16.7). Well, that’s the thing about a great writer— he remains aware, and in control, of his ambiguities, and gets you to thinking about them, the more you read the book.

But Malachi 3.1 does indeed say, “I am sending out my messenger, and he will look over the way before my face”, as you point out. And Mark does change “my” to “your”. Although don’t forget that Malachi himself is already quoting Exodus 23.20— “Behold I am sending my messenger before your face”, so that Mark 1.2a is acutally quoting this Exodus verse exactly as it is, omitting only the superfluous pronoun “I” (egō ἐγὼ): “Behold [I] am sending my messenger before your face” (Mk 1.2). In fact we wouldn’t even be talking about Malachi here at all (except to note a more distant parallel), except that the Exodus passage says the messenger “will guard you on the way”, and Malachi has, “look over the way”, which seems closer to Mark’s “prepare the way”. Here are all three passages in the Greek:

Malachi 3.1 ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐξαποστέλλω
τὸν ἄγγελόν μου,
καὶ ἐπιβλέψεται ὁδὸν
πρὸ προσώπου μου

Exodus 23.20: ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω
τὸν ἄγγελόν μου
πρὸ προσώπου σου,
ἵνα φυλάξῃ σε ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ

Mark 1.2: ἰδοὺ ἀποστέλλω
τὸν ἄγγελόν μου
πρὸ προσώπου σου,
ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου

In the mere twenty seven words of 1.2-3, Mark brings together at least three OT verses (Ex 23.20 and Mal 3.1 in Mk 1.2, and Isa 40.3 in Mk 1.3)— and not only that, by doing so he manages to tie his narrative— not just the Gospel as a whole, but specifically the forthcoming story of John as Malachi’s Elijah as well— to the experience of faithless/redeemed Israel, both both in the Exodus and in the post-Exilic period, spanning Israel’s entire history.

The very verses that Mark quotes in 1.2-3 draw attention to the interplay of allusion and cross-allusion in Scripture, which is constant, deep, compact, and subtle even in the OT. Mark has already shown himself to be a consummate master of the game, just as the prophets were. We know nothing of his own background— although I believe there’s some educated speculation that he came from a Temple family— but it would be unwise to assume that he was merely an “uncouth” writer (I’ve read such things!) who “would not” have had access to the total corpus of Israel’s Scriptures, known them any better than we do, or been able to handle them any more skillfully than we can.

Now, you go into a lengthy discussion of how “later theologians inevitably see a trinitarian formula” behind Mark’s first three verses. I’m not sure what “later theologians” you’re referring to, who “inevitably” do this, because none of those i’ve read have done so. But you might be right about that— perhaps consider adding a footnote? Yet I agree— even though St Paul was already using trinitarian formulae some 20-30 years before Mark— formulae which were at least partly “traditional” when he used them— it would be “anachronistic” to look in Mark’s opening verses for the modern, somewhat rationalistic idea of the “Trinity” that most people have these days. But I think Mark never was trying to do that in the first place, and that what he actually is doing undermines your thesis.

That is, you’re trying to show in your article is that Jesus is not “divine”, and I think you understand this as it would be understood within the context of modern apologetics. You want to say that Mark cannot be used for such an apologetic purpose, and moreover that his Jesus is not only not divine but even sinner. This is also the thrust of your discussion of the “Son of Man” and “Son of God” titles.

I can agree with you that Mark doesn’t work for that kind of apologetics, but as i said i don’t think Mark is pointing to Jesus’ divinity in quite the way you’re expecting him to. A friend of mine wrote the other day that he thought Jesus “wanted to prove his divinity by walking past them on the water. . . . proving his divinity by performing a miracle”. Correct me if i’m wrong, but i take this to be more or less the view (or a version of it, anyway) that you’re trying to refute.

The problem is that there’s not a single instance in any of the Gospels where Jesus seeks to prove his divinity by performing a miracle. In fact in Mark 8.11-13 he scowls at and denies the Pharisees’ request that he do just that! So any interpretation that assumes that Jesus is “proving he’s God” has either missed Mark’s point, or convicted Mark the master storyteller of rank inconsistency. I’ll go with the first hypothesis before i try the second.

Throughout his narrative, Mark is actually at pains to show the disciples’ (and others’) experience of Jesus. By the constant interplay of allusion underlying the way he tells the story, he recounts their experience in terms of and as identical to Israel’s experience of Yhwh her God— and not only that, he shows also that their response to Jesus was identical to Israel’s response to Yhwh.

Mark is not trying to “prove” anything about Jesus, or to “show” Jesus’ divinity as such. If at the end of the day he has done so, that will only be because it’s the conclusion you’ve drawn, not because it’s something he’s told you by a more or less point-blank declaration or proof-text. One proof-text can be surmounted by another. That’s why rationalistic apologetics seldom convinces anyone. But when an event of meaning happens, we’re already in. And that’s the purpose of telling any story— to convey that event of meaning.

Which is to say, Mark aims at communicating a certain experience. He’s not just recounting something that happened in the past for its own sake, or telling you about a figure from the past and demanding that you “believe” something about him (something quite absurd, if you think about it— that a crucified man could be Lord of the Universe!). Rather, he’s shaping his narrative so that his audience itself will be caught up in the apostles’ experience of Jesus through the narrative.

The Greek word for this is anámnēsis (ἀνάμνησις), for which “memorial” is maybe about as close as we get in English— Mark is narrating the event of Jesus in the way that our Fourth of July celebrations not only commemorate the events of 1776 as such, but also allow us to experience and celebrate now and for ourselves the sense of liberation experienced by our forefathers then.

Ok, so now about the baptism:

You mentioned that “there is nothing in the text that suggests that Jesus is acting in a representative way” in the Baptism. Just to clarify: Israel’s king was a representative figure, as was the literary character of suffering-servant Israel in Deutero-Isaiah. So I wasn’t saying that Jesus comes for baptism as a representative of Israel, but that when he emerges from the waters and is anointed as King and Messiah by the Spirit, he “becomes” Israel’s representative. Of course, by calling him the “Stronger One”, John has already implied that he is already that, but the events of the baptism (which by the way only Jesus himself is aware of) are his commissioning. Israel’s renewal is underway!

You also wrote that “A sharp and clear distinction between the meaning of Jesus’ baptism from the people’s baptism would have to be established, and Mark’s narrative does not provide the necessary leverage to do this. Mark tells the reader what John’s baptism signifies in 1:4, and it would be odd for the reader to believe that a short 5 verses later (1:9) that baptism actually means something else.”

Au contraire, mon frère! Mark certainly shows Jesus’ baptism as different— the Spirit doesn’t descend on anyone else. And only one who bears the Spirit can baptize with the Spirit.

Now, in the OT, forgiveness, restoration, and the giving of the Spirit are three facets of the same diamond. The purpose of forgiving is renewal; to renew is to bestow the Spirit. Jesus indeed comes as the “Stronger One” (1.7), but (now commissioned precisely to inaugurate God’s regime), he emerges from the desert precisely to proclaim the arrival of God’s regime (1.14-15). As a sign of this he grants, precisely, the “remission of sins” that characterizes the messianic Age— that is the point of his speech to the paralytic: “Child, your sins are remitted. . . . arise. . . . and walk” (2.9). We’ll get to the conferring of the Spirit later.

But again, gramatically, “eis” (εἰς), usually translated “unto” in 1.4, has the same value as “eis” (εἰς) in 14.55— they took counsel “unto” or “toward” putting him to death. The counsel didn’t effect the murder, it was a necessary preliminary. John’s baptism was not itself the renewal; it was only the necessary preliminary.

Well, this is too long already, so i will skip the rest and go right to your final paragraph, where you wrote,

If I am correct that Son of Man is the model by which Mark’s Jesus wishes the designation Christ to be understood, then it is reasonable to suspect that Jesus becomes the Son of Man at the same time he become the Christ. To stay true to the Markan narrative, we need to stay within events actually narrated in the Gospel. Because there is no solid evidence that this exaltation refers to a pre-existent state, and no birth narrative, it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus became the Son of Man/Christ at the Baptism of John. If he received this new status at the Baptism, then he did not possess it before. This would suggest that he was a regular person, who came to John’s rite of forgiveness. As a regular person he was also a sinner. But because of John’s rite, he received forgiveness. Also, at the rite he experienced his election to become the Christ/Son of Man. Having experienced Forgiveness, it became a central element of his ministry.

The point of Mark’s Gospel is the enthronement of the Son of Man as Son of God, according to the vision of Daniel 7.13-27 (all of it, btw). Or rather, Mark is explaining, by his narrative as a whole, with key moments at the baptism, transfiguration, and crucifixion (which are all united by common motifs, especially by the designations “my son, the beloved” (1.11, 9.7) and “God’s son” (15.39), enthronement symbolism, and so forth what the meaning of Daniel’s prophecy is. We can assume— and we know from Josephus in fact— that this had taken on huge significance in the period of the Jewish Revolt and its aftermath. For various reasons, scholars think, and i completely agree, that Mark was writing just as Jerusalem and its Temple were about to fall. This is what chapter 13, usually called the “Discourse on the End Times” or some such is also about. It’s actually not about the “End Times”, but points to the enthronement of the Son of Man on the cross, and the persecution of the fledgling Church as the disciples’ co-enthronement with him:

And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you strong enough to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

They replied, “We are strong enough.”

Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” (Mark 10:37-40)

So, by the way, are you sure that Jesus doesn’t baptise anyone with the Spirit in Mark? Of course you’re right in one way— John’s prophecy about the Stronger One baptizing with the Spirit refers to something the Markan community was indeed experiencing— “in a time frame after the narrative” (or was it?), as you say— in their own time, as they were being handed over to councils and beaten in synagogues; standing before governors and kings because of Jesus, when brother was betraying brother to death, and a father his child, and children were rising against parents and having them put to death, and they were “hated by all because of my name” (13.5-13).

But I am saying that Mark’s narrative is actually about Mark’s community, and so they are indeed receiving the Spirit inside the narrative. Because in grasping, through the narrative, the apostles’ own experience of Jesus, they are certainly in being baptized with that baptism, they are certainly receiving his Spirit, and they are certainly empowered to say whatever is given them at that time of their trial, “for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit” (13.11).

There’s sooo much more going on in Mark than we even start to guess! We are completely blinded by historicism, by our need to prove and defend our theological views, and even by our christology. We need to read the stories as stories once again, so that we can experience their raw power once again!

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