Read The Jewish Annotated New Testament Online
Authors: Amy-Jill Levine
7
Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him;
8
hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon.
9
He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him;
10
for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.
11
Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!”
12
But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.
13
He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him.
14
And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles,
*
to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message,
15
and to have authority to cast out demons.
16
So he appointed the twelve:
*
Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);
17
James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder);
18
and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean,
19
and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
Then he went home;
20
and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.
21
When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”
22
And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”
23
And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?
24
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
25
And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
26
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.
27
But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
28
“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter;
29
but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—
30
for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
31
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him.
32
A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters
*
are outside, asking for you.”
33
And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”
34
And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!
35
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
4
Again he began to teach beside the sea. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the sea and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.
2
He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:
3
“Listen! A sower went out to sow.
4
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up.
5
Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil.
6
And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away.
7
Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.
8
Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”
9
And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
10
When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables.
11
And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret
*
of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables;
12
in order that
‘they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not
understand;
so that they may not turn again and be
forgiven.’”
13
And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables?
14
The sower sows the word.
15
These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.
16
And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy.
17
But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.
*
18
And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word,
19
but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.
20
And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”
21
He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?
22
For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.
23
Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
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And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you.
25
For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
PARABLES AND KINGDOM
Because of their prominent place in the first three Gospels, parables are, as scholars have argued, among the most likely teachings to go back to the historical Jesus. Ironically, however, their elusive quality has not yielded a consensus as to what they meant for Jesus or his first followers. Gk
parabolē
(lit., “throw alongside,” that is, talk about one thing in terms of another) and Heb
mashal
(from a verb meaning “compare”) referred to any figurative comparison, from clear proverbs to obscure riddles. The rabbis also told many parables of God’s relation to Israel (e.g.,
Gen. Rab
. 3.1;
Lam. Rab
. 1.1)
The first parable in Mk 4 (vv. 2–9) seems clear to the modern audience, but Jesus’ followers have difficulty understanding. For Mark, the secret of the kingdom of God, communicated through the parables, is explained to the insiders, but those outside only hear the impenetrable shell (vv. 11–12,33–34). Thus Mark suggests that the parables, without an explanation, are impenetrable, although most of them succeed at least on a suggestive level. Mark’s presentation also rigidly and irrevocably separates insiders from outsiders, and the latter are lost. Jesus speaks in parables
in order that
the outsiders may not understand and seek forgiveness. (This hard line may have been softened in Mt 13.13.) Mark is here quite emphatic that the community is a separate entity with insiders’ understanding and restricted salvation. The parables also express “the secret [lit., ‘mystery’] of the kingdom of God” (v. 11). It is left ambiguous whether the kingdom is present now or lies in the future. In the parable of the sower, the extended comparison is stretched: the “seed” stands for the “word” that the believer hears, and yet the plants that spring from the seed are the believers themselves.
26
He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,
27
and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
28
The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.
29
But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30
He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?
31
It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
32
yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
33
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;
34
he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
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?”
5
They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.
*
2
And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him.
3
He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain;
4
for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him.
5
Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones.
6
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him;
7
and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”
8
For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”
9
Then Jesus
*
asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”
10
He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.
11
Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding;
12
and the unclean spirits
*
begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.”
13
So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.