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Mark and the Relatives of Jesus by John Dominic

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Mark and the Relatives of Jesus by John Dominic MARK AND THE RELATIVES OF JESUS BY JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN Chicago The purpose of this article is to investigate certain sections of Mark's gospel where he is referring to the relatives of Jesus: their arrival in conjunction with the Beelzebul controversy (iii 20-35) ; the rejection of Jesus in his home town (vi 1-6) ; and, as a tentative hypothesis, the activity of certain women at the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (xv 40, 47 ; xvi i). The method to be used is that of redactional criticism and it will seek: to separate tradition from redaction in a verse by verse analysis so that redac- tional verses as well as redactional additions to traditional verses can be clearly isolated; to see what overall tendencies emerge from this redactional activity for the three units under considera- tion ; and, finally, to suggest the purpose of all this editorial work concerning Jesus' relatives against the general background of the gospel 1) . It might be useful to summarize certain "principles" for ascer- taining redactional activity in Mark which can be placed here at the start although they were actually determined in the process of the analysis itself. The methodological basis of the investigation is: that can be most probably judged as redactional which (i) creates some awkwardness, discrepancy, contradiction, impro- priety etc., by its presence-be this formal or material, linguistical 1) The theory of the method is well known: cf., for example, R. H. STEIN, "What is Redaktionsgeschichte ?" JBL 88 (1969) 45-56, and more fully in his 1968 Princeton doctoral thesis, The Proper Methodology for Ascertaining a Marcan Redaktionsgeschichte (U. Microfilm/Xerox), cf. DissAbstr 29 (1968-9) 2797-A. But, in practice, and apart from error in the analysis of the redac- tional activity, there is a far greater possibility of error in the synthesis of the redactional purpose: cf. the criticism of W. MARXSEN,Mark the Evan- gelist, trans. J. BOYCE et al. (Nashville/New York: Abingdon Press, 1969) in J. ROHDE, Rediscovering the Teaching of the Evangelists, trans. D. M. BARTON("The New Testament Library"; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968) 23-25, 113-140 (esp. pp. 136-140). The methodological "cautions" necessary in practice are well outlined in Q. QUESNELL,The Mind of Mark ("Analecta Biblica", 38; Rome: Pont. Bib. Inst., 1969) 46-55. 82 or logical, stylistic or conceptual; and (ii) this awkwardness is signalled as such by its absence (removal?) in the parallels of Matthew and/or Luke, and sometimes even by scribal changes in the Markan textual tradition; and (iii) the presence of this awk- wardness serves to promote some recognizable redactional purpose in the theology of Mark and may even be expressed in predomi- nantly Markan language or style. The simultaneous presence of all three points is highly persuasive in determining the presence of editorial work by the final redactor because it negates the possibility that the awkwardness stemmed from the tradition and was simply copied thence by Mark but not by Matthew or Luke. This would be true whether one is working on a two source hypo- thesis or on the theory of a common source for the three synoptics: in the former Mark has created the awkwardness for his own purpose and leaves it there since literary polish does not interest him (luckily for the exegete), and Matthew and Luke both delete it because of style, lack of interest, or opposition; in the latter case it is still unlikely that the awkwardness came from the tradition and was retained only by Mark since its presence serves a wider Markan purpose. These three points are especially useful in studying places where Mark has tampered internally with traditional material rather than created new verses from whole cloth. In such creations one may only have the second and third point to go on unless the very presence of the newly created verse develops some contextual awkwardness. I. THE REDACTIONAL ACTIVITY OF MARK This section will investigate the three pericopes verse by verse to isolate the editorial work of Mark from the received tradition. His purpose in all this will be a second problem. A. Mk. iii 20-35. What is the compositional and functional relationship of iii 20 to iii 21 and of these to iii 22-30 and iii 31-35 ? The status of iii 20-21 shows very significant differences in recent English translations. The Nestle-Aland text puts all of iii 20-35 in one paragraph. The RSV follows it in not putting iii 20-21 as a separate unit but placing minor paragraph breaks at iii 20-27, 28-30, 31-35. But the JB separates iii 20-21 as an individual paragraph with its own heading: "His relatives are concerned about Jesus." The NEB also unites .
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