- Inventing narratives based on OT stories was not uncommon during the intertestamental period, and was also seen in Mark. During the Second Temple period, the Jewish scriptures were not just the object of exegesis, they were also the means of composing new and independent works of literature. Devorah Dimant has described these two approaches as the expositional and compositional use of scriptural elements. In an expositional use, the scriptural text is explicit and distinct from what follows. Here the aim is to interpret or apply the meaning of the scriptural text. In a compositional use, however, “biblical elements are interwoven into the work without external formal markers [and it] is subservient to the independent aim and structure of its new context. We can observe both of these approaches in the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel begins with an expositional use of scriptural material, a citation partly misattributed to Isaiah (Mark 1:2-3). This is the only editorial citation of the Jewish scriptures in the Gospel.
- Few scholars have sought to understand the use of the scriptures in the Gospel as a means of composition—and these with limited success. Some have seen a basis for the composition of the Gospel in the scripture readings of the Jewish lectionary, though the sources for this are speculative at best (Philip Carrington, The Primitive Christian Calendar: A Study in the Making of the Marcan Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952); According to Mark: A Running Commentary on the Oldest Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960); John Bowman, The Gospel of Mark: The New Christian Jewish Passover Haggadah, SPB 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1965); Michael D. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974); The Evangelist’s Calendar: A Lectionary Explanation of the Development of Scripture). Others view the Gospel as a midrash on the scriptures, a term usually reserved for Rabbinic exegesis bearing no resemblance to the Gospel, like the Genesis Rabbah or the Mekhilta (John Drury, “Midrash and Gospel,” Theology 77 (1974): 291-296; Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew; J. Duncan M. Derrett, The Making of Mark: The Scriptural Bases of the Earliest Gospel (Shipston-on-Stour; P. Drinkwater, 1985); Dale and Patricia Miller, The Gospel of Mark as Midrash on Earlier Jewish and New Testament Literature, SBEC 21 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1990); Robert M. Price, “New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash,” in Encyclopedia of Midrash: Biblical Interpretation in Formative Judaism, ed. Jacob Neusner, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1.534-574).
More recently, some have argued that Mark modelled their Gospel on the scriptures using the Greco-Roman practice of mimesis (Thomas L. Brodie, The Crucial Bridge: the Elijah-Elisha Narrative as an Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a Literary Model for the Gospels (Collegeville, MN; Liturgical, 2000); Adam Winn, Mark and the Elijah-Elisha Narrative: Considering the Practice of Greco-Roman Imitation in the Search for Markan Source Material (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010); also Wolfgang Roth, Hebrew Gospel: Cracking the Code of Mark). Just as Virgil used Homer to compose the Aeneid, so Mark used the Elijah-Elisha cycle of 1 and 2 Kings to compose episodes in their life of Jesus (Bas M. F. van Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary, trans. W. H. Bisscheroux, JSNTSupp 164 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 65-67; Heikke Omerzu, “Geschichte durch Geschichten: Zur Bedeutung jüdischer Traditionen für die Jesusdarstellung des Markusevangeliums,” Early Christianity 2 (2011): 77-99). Like Elijah, Jesus emerges from forty days in the wilderness to call his disciples. Like Elisha, Jesus heals a leper. Like Elijah and Elisha, Jesus raises dead children. And like Elisha, Jesus multiplies food for the multitude.
Pseudo-Philo
The Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, once wrongly attributed to Philo, dates to the first-century CE and while it survives in Latin, many features point to a Hebrew original (Daniel J. Harrington, “The Original Language of Pseudo-Philo’s ‘Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,’” HTR 63 (1970): 503-514; “The Biblical Text of Pseudo Philo’s ‘Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,’” CBQ 33 (1971): 1-17). Its narrative roughly covers Genesis to 2 Samuel, though much is omitted, altered, or replaced with traditional and new material. A constant feature of LAB is the use of unmarked scriptural language, drawn from all over the Jewish scriptures, inserted into the narrative, especially the direct speech of characters. This occasionally results in scripturalized narrative. These are episodes not found in the Jewish scriptures that have nonetheless been composed out of scriptural elements. We will review three of them here. The first is the story of Abram in the fiery furnace (LAB 6). Abram, along with eleven others, refuses to help build the tower of Babel. Consequently, he is sentenced to die in a fiery furnace. But when he is thrown in, the flames from the furnace leap up and kill many bystanders, while God delivers Abram from the furnace and he emerges unharmed. The episode has its roots in Gen 15:7 where God tells Abram, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans.” As the place-name “Ur” ( א ו ר ) can be read in Hebrew as “fire,” later Rabbinic exegetes read the passage as describing Abram’s rescue from fire (Geza Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies, SPB 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1961), 85-90).
But the story itself is modelled unmistakably on the rescue of the three young men from the fiery furnace of Daniel 3. The influence of Daniel 3 is confirmed by the fact that Pseudo-Philo narrates not one, but two episodes of righteous men delivered from fiery furnaces.
The Gospel of Mark
In the first chapter, Jesus is driven into the “wilderness” (ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ) for “forty days” (τεσσεράκοντα ἡμέρας), where he is tempted and is with the wild animals and angels minister to him (Mark 1:12-13). After this, he goes to call his disciples from their work and families and they “follow after” him (Mark 1:16-20). The first scene appears to be modelled on Elijah in LXX 1 Kgs 19:4-8, where Elijah is driven into the “wilderness” (ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ) for “forty days and nights” (τεσσεράκοντα ἡμέρας καὶ τεσσαράκοντα νύκτας), where he wishes to die until an angel ministers to him. The second scene follows Elijah as he leaves the wilderness and calls Elisha from his work and family to “follow after” him (LXX 1 Kgs 19:19-21). Previously in the chapter, Mark has already described the attire of John the Baptist using the description of Elijah in LXX 2 Kgs 1:8. In the two feedings of the multitude (Mark 6:35-44; 8:1-9), Jesus’ miracle appears to be modelled, this time, on Elisha’s miracle at Gilgal (2 Kgs 4:42-44). As with Elisha, a small amount of food, including loaves, is brought before Jesus. As with Elisha, Jesus’ disciples express doubt about the amount of food. As with Elisha, Jesus orders his disciples to distribute the food. As with Elisha, despite his disciples’ disbelief Jesus miraculously feeds a great number of people with the small amount of food. And, as with Elisha, Jesus’ miracle is so successful that some food is left over. While unlike the wilderness episode there is no verbatim agreement here, the shared elements between the stories are unmistakable.
The most striking use of scriptural elements, however, occurs in an episode often thought to contain echoes of the Elijah-Elisha cycle. In the episode narrating John the Baptist’s execution (Mark 6:21-28), Antipas swears an oath to the dancing girl, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom (ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς βασιλείας μου).” Although many commentators overlook it, the passage offers one of the closest scriptural parallels in the Gospel. It is lifted from a Greek text of Esther (resembling the Alpha-text), where Ahasuerus thrice swears an oath to Esther, “What is your request? It shall be given you, even half of my kingdom (ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς βασιλείας μου)” (Est A 5:3, 6; 7:2). But the similarities do not end there. Like Esther (Est A 5:5; LXX Est 7:9 b 108), Antipas throws a “banquet” (δεῖπνον) for the court (Mark 6:21). Like Esther (LXX and Est A 2:9), Herodias’ daughter is described as a pleasing “young girl” (Mark 6:22: ἤρεσεν . . . κοράσιον). Like Esther (Est A 7:7), she uses the king’s “oath” (ὅρκος) to execute her enemy at a banquet (Mark 6:26). And it is probably no coincidence that Rabbinic tradition relates that Ahasuerus ordered the beheading of his queen, Vashti, and had her head was brought into the banquet on a platter (Roger D. Aus, Water into Wine and the Beheading of John the Baptist, BJS 150 Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988, 39-74). Our author therefore appears to have used Esther and related traditions to compose the episode of John’s execution.
But nowhere is the use of the Jewish scriptures more evident than in the Passion Narrative. While scriptural details appear throughout the narrative, the technique is most pronounced in the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion (Kelli S. O’Brien, The Use of Scripture in the Markan Passion Narrative, LNTS 384). Here the division of the clothes and the casting of lots (Mark 15:24), the shaking heads of the hecklers (15:29-30), and the cry of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (15:34) are taken from the Greek of Psalm 22 (LXX 21). Other details are drawn from elsewhere in the scriptures: the darkness at noon (Mark 15:33) subtly alludes to Amos 8:9, the offer of sour wine to drink (Mark 15:36) comes from Ps 69:21 (LXX 68:22), and the image of the companions looking on “from a distance” (Mark 15:40: ἀπὸ μακρόθεν) comes from Ps 38:11 (LXX 37:12). While some have seen the significance of Psalm 22 as proof of Jesus’ Davidic messiahship or a foreshadowing of his vindication, the Psalm appears to be used as it is elsewhere in Second Temple literature: as a way to describe the suffering of an individual (Omerzu, “Die Rezeption von Psalm 22 im Judentum zur Zeit des Zweiten Tempels,” in Psalm 22 und die Passiongeschichten der Evangelien, ed. Dieter Sänger, BthSt 88, (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2007), 33-76) like the hymnist of the Hodayot, Aseneth, or Esther in Rabbinic tradition (Hymnist: 1QH 12:33-34; 13:10-11,31; 15:4-5; 16:32-33; Aseneth: Jos. Asen. 12:11; 13:9; Esther: b. Meg. 15b; Midr. Teh. 22). The cosmic upheaval of the Amos-inspired darkness at noon may have its roots in the eschatological interpretation of the crucifixion by the Markan community, but the other Psalmic imagery simply expands upon the image of suffering initiated by Psalm 22 (Allison, The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1985), 26-30).
Contrary to certain scholars, if the scriptural language is taken away from the crucifixion, the bulk of the narrative remains (Pace Helmut Koester, “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” HTR 73 (1980): 126-128; Werner Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1983), 196; Burton L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1988); John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 520-521). The one indispensable presupposition of the entire episode is the brute fact of the crucifixion itself. Everything else, including the scriptural language, is framed around this fact. The scriptural origin of some elements of the crucifixion does not preclude the possibility of a historical origin—expect perhaps the fantastic darkness at noon. It does not, however, inspire confidence ( Pace Dodd, The Apostolic Teachings and Its Developments (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1936), 53; Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, 34; Moo, The Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives, 380-381). The historian can never know whether Jesus’ tormentors cast lots for his clothing, just as they can never know whether Judas Maccabeus could not “turn to the right or to the left” at the city of Ephron. But they do know this: the detail, as it appears in Mark 15:24, was composed on the basis of Ps 22:18 (LXX 21:19), just as the detail about Judas comes from Deut 2:27. It could be that if everything incidental was peeled away from the crucifixion narrative, all that would be left is Mark 15:20, “Then they led him out to crucify him.”
