mark
7 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
comment : i note that only after the woman shows herself (verse 33) jesus then knows the answer to his question.
jesus gets drained by a woman’s faith.
matthew
“20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. ”
comment : i note that the cure takes place only after jesus speaks to the woman and verse 22 seems to indicate that jesus knew exactly who it was once he turned himself.
questions:
why is matthew “fixing up” marks ignorant jesus?
Because Mark creates several situations like this in which Jesus appears less than what one would expect of the Messiah. Jesus is successively pumped up with power so to speak in the gospels. Starting in Mark Jesus is a hesitant savior who is not the all-powerful Messiah that Christians who viewed him as the literal son of God would have expected. Compare this to how John views Jesus where he is the logos (the Word of God, or God’s message) who existed before and/or outside of time.
In the two source hypothesis both Matthew and Luke used Mark, but John is not believed to have used any of the synoptics. That said, one can hardly miss the evolution in how 1st century Christians viewed Jesus as he becomes more and more god-like in the progression from Mark to Matthew/Luke to John.
Other examples in Mark of a Jesus who might have been less powerful than Christians expected him to be are found in, for example, Mark 8 where Jesus heals the blind man, but it takes him two shots at it before the man really sees. On the first attempt Jesus spits in the man’s eyes (sounds like a shamanistic ritual healing to me!) and asks him if he can see. The man says yes, but everything must have been blurry because the people looked like trees to him. Jesus gives it another shot and this time the man’s sight is restored. Overall, the Jesus in Mark was a man who tried not to draw attention to himself. He does his miracles in private. In the pericope I just described Jesus takes the man away from his village to heal him. Jesus doesn’t proclaim that he’s the Messiah and frets over people saying that he is.
When it was time for Jesus to be baptized Mark’s description of the event is that Jesus simply goes to John, gets baptized and then the dove descends over him and the voice of God says “You are my beloved son”. But, to early Christians this story must have been a little scandalous. It looked like Jesus was submitting himself to the earthly authority of John the Baptist, ie., that John was more powerful. Even worse, Mark’s version left open the possibility that Jesus needed to be baptized because he was spiritually unclean!
Matthew changes the story a bit. Jesus goes to John, but John is incredulous that Jesus would go to him to be baptized. He says to Jesus, “you come to me?!? I should go to you to be baptized!” In order to show humility though, Jesus says this needs to be done to fulfill all righteousness”. Perhaps Matthew is referring to the verses from Isaiah that Luke quotes in the Lukan version of the baptism which is fairly similar to Matthew.
I’m sure there are many other examples like this in Mark (the passion narrative is another), but the story of the blind man and the baptism are a couple I’ve read a lot about.
Greg
comment : i note that the cure takes place only after jesus speaks to the woman and verse 22 seems to indicate that jesus knew exactly who it was once he turned himself.
i will add that it seems that the jesus in matthew seems to know exactly what the problem was so does not include the words
“and told him the whole truth.”
In his two volume Anchor Bible Commentary of the Gospel of Mark, Joel Marcus makes the case that Mark was written for the internal use of an early Christian community and not intended for evangelism of nonbelievers. If this is correct it would go a long way in explaining some of the anomalies in the Gospel and some of the qualities that the writers of Matthew and Luke might have found unsatisfactory. It’s also why I think that Mark 16:8 was the original end of the gospel.
I looked for Marcus’ commentary at Prof Ehrman’s recommendation. It’s pricey but well worth it. I was lucky enough to find a used copy in a local bookstore that stocks textbooks. Find it if you can. Until I read it I just thought I had read the gospel of Mark. What a genius this unknown writer was! Rather than being the also-ran gospel it is literally as it says, “The beginning”.
I’ve had that commentary for a while too and also recommended it on here. While Marcus’ views aren’t accepted universally (his idea for the Markan community being in southern Syria near the border of Israel seems reasonable to me, but I don’t think it’s any more widely accepted than other ideas; non-secular scholars of course place the community in Rome) his commentary is still eye-opening for those of us who don’t have a background in Biblical study.
mark:
35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him
with them in the boat, just as he was.
Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
MATTHEW:
23 And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24 A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25 And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” 26 And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. 27 They were amazed, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”
questions
1. if i am reading this right does this mean jesus , according to matthew, is addressing his deciples in his sleep? matthew has made his jesus omniscient in other stories, why would his jesus need to be awoken from sleep to know about surroundings? so is it any surprise that matthew does not include “he woke up” ?
does the greek in matthew say he got up on his feet or arose from sleep?
What ever version of Matthew you’re quoting from says “25 And they went and woke him up”. How can he be asleep if they woke him up?
In the Joel Marcus commentary of Mark that stephen and I mention above Marcus makes no special mention or note AT ALL about Jesus waking up or being woken up or how ever you want to view it. I don’t have the Anchor Matthew commentary yet so I can’t comment on it. However, just my guess here, but I’d say that the important part of these verses in both Mark and Matthew has nothing to do with Jesus waking up, but rather with him being asleep. It would seem to me that the important point here is that the disciples worried over the storm and woke Jesus up with their worry which gave him the opportunity to rebuke them: “oh ye of little faith” etc. The whole thing is a literary utility that leads to the disciples stating in awe ‘what kind of man is this? He has control over the forces of nature!’
So, what I’m trying to say is I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here with your question of was he or wasn’t he asleep. The entire pericope is an allusion to the Jonah and the whale story. The storm is the whale and the disciples are figuratively Jonah.
Also, you made a point of bolding Mark’s words in 4:38-39 that Jesus apparently woke up twice. I believe this is one of those literary devices the Jews used where something is stated twice. The chiasmus that Prof Ehrman has been discussing lately is a similar literary device.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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