Torah for the man who has everything: "do not defraud" in Mark 10:19

During Jesus's dialogue with "the rich young man," he recites a list of commandments that the rich man must follow. Most of these commandments come from the Decalogue. The exception occurs in Mark's version, in which Jesus also says, ..., "Do not defraud." Scholars have not agreed on why Mark's Jesus includes this injunction, which is not part of the traditional ten. This critical note argues that the best framework for interpretation emerges from an economic analysis of the conditions by which someone could become rich in first-century Galilee-conditions partially obscured to readers situated in modern Western "growth" economies. The commandment was thus specifically chosen as a prophetic critique of the rich man's prior activities that led to his wealth.(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)..., "Do not defraud" (Mark 10:19)In a review essay about economic analysis of NT texts, Peter Oakes isolates three lines of inquiry in the field-three ways to relate economics to interpretation of early Christian evidence. "First, economics can provide an overall analytical framework for interpretation. Second, the aim of the interpretation of a text may be to gather economic evidence. Third, economic evidence may be a resource that is used in interpretation."1My task in this short article falls under both the first and the third categories: I propose that an economic analysis of the conditions by which someone could become rich in first-century Galilee offers the best framework to explain a particular exegetical problem in the Gospel of Mark.2 Consider Mark's version of the story that we often entitle "the rich young man" (Mark 10:17-22):17As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 18Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" 20He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." 21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing: go, sell what you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." 22When he heard this speech, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions [or estates]. (NRSV adapted)The title "the rich young man" is a conflation of the story in Matthew's Gospel, which labels the man "young" (...), and Luke's, which calls him "rich" (...) and a "ruler" (...). Mark uses none of these words, and the man's claim of piety "from [his] youth" in fact implies that he is not young. Instead, Mark characterizes him as eager ("running," ...) and perhaps obsequious ("kneeling," ...), preserving the detail of his "many possessions" or "estates" (...) until the punch line of the episode.For Mark, this is the tale of an acquisitive man who seems to have everything but feels in his heart that there is one thing he lacks: assurance of his eternal fate. His query about "eternal life" (...) is the only time the topic is introduced as such in the Gospel of Mark (the question is answered more fully in the subsequent pericope), whereas most of Jesus's interlocutors find the trials of this life quite enough to occupy them. But the man who thinks he has everything-possessing many items and practicing perfect obedience to the law-has sought out the itinerant rabbi in order to complete his perfect life, to acquire one final thing. Sadly for him, the thing he lacks is not what he thought. "You have it all," Jesus says, "but the thing you do not have is to give all that you have away. Do that, and you will have what you want." So goes the zen-like message of Jesus in this episode, a message well known to biblical scholars.3I. DO NOT DEFRAUDA pesky exegetical weed has been planted, though, in the middle of this salutary story. …