Category Archives: Mark

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“This is My body”: the Lord’s supper — Mark 14:22-26

Verse 22: The head of the household blessing bread and wine was standard for any meal, but later sources suggest that special blessings were used for Passover. Jewish people broke bread rather than sliced it. In Aramaic, one would not distinguish “is” from “represents.” The standard Jewish interpretation of what the household head pronounced over the bread at Passover was not literal: “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate when they left Egypt.” No one assumed that the bread they were eating was 1300 years old, or had been digested by the ancestors; rather, they reenacted those events and participated in them.

23: Probably some time by the end of the first century, Jewish people used four cups at their Passover meal (like Greeks at banquets); scholars have suggested that this is the fourth cup (which followed blessing the bread) or the third. A common cup was passed, using red wine.

24: Sacrificial blood had long been used to ratify biblical covenants (for “blood of the covenant,” see Exodus 24:8). God had redeemed his people from Egypt through the paschal lamb’s blood. “On behalf of many” probably reflects Isaiah 53. Passover ritual interpreted the wine, but not as blood; the law forbade drinking blood.

25: Jewish people often made vows of abstinence (e.g., “I will not eat this or that until a particular thing happens”; similarly, “I will not use this or that …”). Jewish blessings over the wine called it “the fruit of the vine.” Early Jewish sources often view the kingdom as a banquet (cf. Isaiah 25:6-9); endless wine would then be available (Amos 9:13).

26: People usually sang the remaining part of the Hallel (Ps 113 to 118) after the Passover meal and lengthy discussion about the Passover. (Music was common fare at many ancient banquets.) Walking from a home in the Upper City to the Mount of Olives presumably took fifteen minutes or longer.

 

(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)

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The last supper — Mark 14:12-21

Verse 12: Technically the feast of unleavened bread immediately followed Passover, but by this period popular usage counted the Passover as part of the larger unleavened bread festival. Representatives from each household would have the lamb sacrificed at the temple, and the household would eat the meat that night.

13: Commentators often observe that, in contrast to leather wineskins, water jars were usually carried by women (often the matron of the home); thus a man doing so would be unusual enough to be recognizable. In well-to-do households (as apparently here), slaves would carry the water; running water was a great luxury, and in many cities people would collect water at public fountains.

14: People wanted to eat Passover within the city limits, so they often sought local hospitality, often leading to crowded accommodations, except in well-to-do homes (as apparently in 14:15).

15: Unless the house was unusually large (some were), the upper room would provide an intimate environment for just a few disciples (say, the Twelve; not many more). This house was presumably of significant size to support an upper room large enough even for twelve to recline. This suggests that this was a spacious home, apparently in Upper City Jerusalem (as opposed to the poorer Lower City, downwind of the sewers).

17: The Passover had to be eaten at night; because sundown came by about 6 p.m. in Jerusalem in April, they could have begun the meal at that time. Normally one or two families banded together to eat the lamb; here Jesus and the twelve function as a family unit.

20: Dipping bowls were particularly used at Passover; the dish here is probably Passover’s dish of bitter herbs. Hospitality and table fellowship established a covenant of friendship; to betray a former host or guest, much less a current one, was considered among the most despicable acts of treachery.

Some scholars suggest that dipping “with” Jesus could imply rebellion, since (as in the Dead Sea Scrolls) the leader should act first, and many ancient banquets seated people by rank. This interpretation would be likeliest if Judas reclined near Jesus, on the same couch (cf. Jn 13:26).

21: Various biblical passages (Job 3:3-26; Jer 20:14-18), early Jewish and Greek lamentations spoke of never having been born alive being preferable to selected worse fates.

 

(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)

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Herod’s adultery and murder in Mark 6:17-29

Herod Antipas’s affair with his sister-in-law Herodias, whom he had by this time married, was widely known.  Indeed, the affair had led him to plan to divorce his first wife, whose father, a king, later went to war with Herod because of this insult and defeated him.  John’s denunciation of the affair as unlawful (Lev. 20:21) challenged Herod’s sexual immorality, but Herod Antipas could have perceived it as a political threat, given the political ramifications that later led to a major military defeat.  (The ancient Jewish historian Josephus claims that many viewed Herod’s humiliation in the war as divine judgment for him executing John the Baptist.)

Celebrating birthdays was at this time a Greek and Roman but not a Jewish custom, but Jewish aristocrats had absorbed a large amount of Greek culture by this period.  Other sources confirm that the Herodian court indulged in the sort of immoral behavior described here.  After taking his brother’s wife (Lev. 20:21), Antipas lusts after his wife’s daughter Salome (cf. Lev. 20:14).  He then utters the sort of oath one might give while drunk, but which especially recalls that of the Persian king stirred by Queen Esther’s beauty (Esther 5:3, 6, 7:2), though this girl’s request will be far less noble.  But as a Roman vassal Herod had no authority to give any of his kingdom away anyway.

Salome had to go “out” to ask her mother Herodias because women and men normally dined separately at banquets.  Excavations at Antipas’s fortress Machaerus suggest two dining halls, one for women and one for men; Herodias thus was probably not present to watch Herod’s reaction to the dance.  Josephus characterizes Herodias the same way Mark does: a jealous, ambitious schemer.

Although Romans and their agents usually executed lower class persons and slaves by crucifixion or other means, the preferred form of execution for respectable people was beheading.  By asking for John’s head on a platter, however, Salome wanted it served up as part of the dinner menu–a ghastly touch of ridicule.  Although Antipas’s oath was not legally binding and Jewish sages could release him from it, it would have proved embarrassing to break an oath before dinner guests; even the emperor would not lightly do that.  Most people were revolted by leaders who had heads brought to them, but many accounts confirm that powerful tyrants like Antipas had such things done.

If a man had sons, normally the eldest son was responsible for his father’s burial; here, John’s disciples must fulfill this role for him.  Since he had been executed, the disciples performed a dangerous task unless they had Herod’s permission to take the body.  Their courage underlines by way of contrast the abandonment of Jesus’ male disciples during his burial!