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New Testament Narrative As Old Testament Midrash
New Testament Narrative As Old Testament Midrash
New Testament Narrative As Old Testament Midrash
Midrash
Robert M. Price
A. Introduction
1. Introduction (1:1--3)
Mark has set this first teaching and exorcism of Jesus at the
town called Capernaum (“Village of Nahum”) to hint at
Nahum 1:15a, the only passage outside of Isaiah to use the
term euaggelizomenou in a strictly religious sense. “Behold
upon the mountains the feet of him that brings glad tidings
and publishes peace!” For Mark, that is of course Jesus. And
so what better town for him to have begun bearing these
gospel tidings than that of Nahum? (Miller, p. 58)
Helms (pp. 76, 77) demonstrates how this story has been
rewritten from Jonah’s adventure, with additions from certain
of the Psalms. The basis for the story can be recognized in
Jonah 1:4-6, “But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea,
and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship
threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and
each cried to his god... But Jonah had gone down into the
inner part of the ship and had lain down, and was fast
asleep. So the captain came and said to him, ‘What do you
mean, you sleeper? Arise, call upon your god! Perhaps the
god will give a thought to us, that we do not perish.” Once
Jonah turns out to be the guilty party, they throw him into
the maw of the sea, “and the sea ceased from its raging. The
men feared the LORD exceedingly” (1:15b-16a). See also
Psalm 107:23-29: “Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of
the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep. For he
commanded, and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the
waves of the sea. They mounted up to the heavens, they
went down unto the depths; their courage melted away in
their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men,
and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the LORD in
their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; he
made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were
hushed.”
Why does Jesus call the poor woman and her daughter,
by implication, dogs? Mark has taken it from 2 Kings 8:7-15,
where Elisha tells Hazael (a Syrian, like the woman in Mark),
that he will succeed Ben-Hadad to the throne of Aram. He
replies, “What is your servant, the dog, that he should
accomplish this great thing?” In Mark, the question is
whether the great deed shall be done for the “dog” (Roth, p.
44).
The upper room of the Last Supper may also hark back
to the second-story rooms provided for Elijah (1 Kings
17:19) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:10) by benefactors (Miller, p.
331), one of whom Elijah first met by asking a drink of water
from a woman God told him would provide for him (1 Kings
17:9,10. He met her at the city gate, just as Jesus told the
disciples to meet a man carrying water in a vessel as soon as
they entered the city.)
All critics recognize the seed of the last supper story in Psalm
41:9, “Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my
bread, has lifted his heel against me.” Frank Kermode has
traced (pp. 84-85) the logical process whereby the original,
entirely and abstractly theological claim that Jesus had been
“delivered up” (paredoqh, Romans 4:25) has been
narratized. From God having “handed over” his son for our
sins grew the idea that a human agent had “betrayed” him
(same Greek word). For this purpose, in line with anti-Jewish
polemic, a betrayer named Judas was created. His epithet
“Iscariot” seems to denote either Ish-karya (Aramaic for “the
false one)” or a pun on Issachar, “hireling” (Miller, p. 65),
thus one paid to hand Jesus over to the authorities. Much of
the Last Supper story is taken up with this matter because of
the mention of the betrayer eating with his victim in Psalm
41.
Mark borrowed from Daniel 6:4 LXX the scene of the crossfire
of false accusations (Helms, p. 118): “The governors and
satraps sought (ezetoun) to find (eurein) occasion against
Daniel, but they found against him no accusation.” Of this
Mark (14:55) has made the following: “The chief priests and
the whole council sought (ezetoun) testimony against Jesus
in order to kill him, but they found none (ouk euriskon).”
Crossan (p. 274) and Miller and Miller (pp. 219, 377) note
that the empty tomb narrative requires no source beyond
Joshua (=Jesus, remember!) chapter 10. The five kings have
fled from Joshua, taking refuge in the cave at Makkedah.
When they are discovered, Joshua orders his men to “Roll
great stones against the mouth of the cave and set men by it
to guard them” (10:18). Once the mopping-up operation of
the kings’ troops is finished, Joshua directs: “Open the mouth
of the cave, and bring those five kings out to me from the
cave” (10:22). “And afterward Joshua smote them and put
them to death, and he hung them on five trees. And they
hung upon the trees until evening; but at the time of the
going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took
them down from the trees, and threw them into the cave
where they had hidden themselves, and they set great
stones against the mouth of the cave, which remain to this
very day” (10:26-27). Observe that here it is “Jesus” who
plays the role of Pilate, and that Mark needed only to reverse
the order of the main narrative moments of this story.
Joshua 10: first, stone rolled away and kings emerge alive;
second, kings die; third, kings are crucified until sundown.
Mark: Jesus as King of the Jews is crucified, where his body
will hang till sundown; second, he dies; third, he emerges
alive (Mark implies) from the tomb once the stone is rolled
away.
But before this, Luke opens his second episode with the
same opening from 1 Kings 17:17a: “And it happened
afterward” // “after this...” The widow’s son is dead (1 Kings
17:17b; Luke 7:12b). Elijah cried out in anguish (1 Kings
17:19-20), unlike Jesus, who, however, tells the widow not
to cry (Luke 7:13). After a gesture (Elijah prays for the boy’s
spirit to return, v. 21; Jesus commands the boy to rise,
7:14), the dead rises, proving his reanimation by crying out
(1 Kings 17:22; Luke 7:15). His service rendered, the
wonder-worker “gave him to his mother” (1 Kings 17:24;
Luke 7:15b, verbatim identical). Those present glorify the
hero (1 Kings 17:24; Luke 7:16-17).
“At that time” Moses prayed to God, like unto whom there is
none “in heaven or on earth” (Deuteronomy 2:23-24). In the
Q saying Luke 10:21-24//Matthew 11:25-27, perhaps itself
suggested originally by the Deuteronomy text, Jesus “at that
time” praised his divine Father, “Lord of heaven and earth”
(Luke 10:21). Jesus thanks God for revealing his wonders to
“children,” not to the ostensibly “wise.” In some measure this
reflects the wording of Deuteronomy 4:6, where Moses
reminds his people to cherish the commandments as their
wisdom and 4:9, there he bids them tell what they have seen
to their children. The Deuteronomic recital of all the wonders
their eyes have seen (4:3, 9, 34, 36) may have inspired the
Q blessing of the disciples for having seen the saving acts the
ancient prophets and kings did not live to witness (Luke
10:23-24). Only note the antitypological reversal of
Deuteronomy: for Q it is the ancients who failed to see what
their remote heirs did see.
1. Nathaniel (1:43-51)
1. Pentecost (2:1-4ff)
References