Source: http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2012/08/ethical-hermeneutics-and-hermeneutical.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 00:00:27+00:00

Document:
Below is my rough translation and notes for the Revised Common Lectionary’s Gospel Reading for the 15thSunday after Pentecost.
Biblical scholars often speak of the “canon within the canon,” as the question of what Scriptures we embrace as having priority in how we interpret other Scriptures. I think that is the point in this text. But, it is not simply a matter of ‘my preference v. your preference.’ At least according to this confrontation, there are hermeneutical choices that are hypocritical, because they emphasize the humanly-rooted portions of Scripture over the God-given teachings there.
Send your wood and gasoline to me and I’ll go ahead and burn myself at the stake for reading this text in such a heretical manner!
And the Pharisees and some of the scribes who came from Jerusalem are being gathered to him.
1. “Are being gathered”: This verb συνάγονται is in the present passive voice.
2. I think the identification that these folks came from Jerusalem is significant. In Mark, Jesus’ ministry is in Galilee, where he is enormously popular. The antagonists come from Jerusalem (in Judea) and Jesus only goes to Jerusalem during the last week of his life – to die. After the resurrection, Jesus instructs the disciples to meet him in Galilee. I agree with Richard Horsley’s contention that Jesus was trying to begin a grassroots movement in Galilee, not a Jerusalem-based or temple-based movement. See more under v.3.
1. “Defiled”: The word κοιναῖς also means “common.” It can mean “unclean” but is different from the term signifying “unclean spirits.” I am following the lead of other translations and going with “defiled” because that works better with vv. 15 and 23 below. 2. This story declares hands that are not washed according to ceremony ‘clean.’ In v.19 the narrator says “Thus he declared all foods clean.” In the story of the Syrophoenician woman, one could say that Jesus ultimately declares all persons clean. So, the matter of ‘defiled’ v. ‘clean’ is very important here and throughout.
3. “That is, unwashed”: This explanatory comment – along with other features that I will point out along the way – suggests that Mark’s audience may not be familiar with Judean customs. It may also indicate that the issue of washing properly is a difference between Judean and Galilean piety.
4. The sentence that begins here is a bit convoluted and requires patience. It seems to run from v.2 – 5, with vv.3,4 as an explanation of the observation begun in v.2. However, v.2 does not have a main verb; it only has a preposition that goes with the subject (Pharisees and some of the scribes from Jerusalem). V.5 picks up the thought begun in v.2 and finally gets to the action of the Pharisees/scribes, which is to challenge Jesus with a question.
κρατοῦντες: PAPart npm, κρατέω, 1) to have power, be powerful 1a) to be chief, be master of, to rule 2) to get possession of … 3c) to hold.
1. Again, the explanation in vv.3-4 does not assume that Mark’s readers know the customs of the Pharisees or all the Judeans.
2. Again following Horsley, I translate Ἰουδαῖοι as “Judeans,” and not as “Jews.” First of all, it sounds more like Judeans, but more importantly Horsley argues that Mark is writing from a context where Galilean piety and Judean piety had grown in very different directions, with Judean piety being more closely aligned with the temple and temple purity practices. See Horsley, Hearing the Whole Story.
κρατεῖν: PAInf κρατέω, 1) to have power, be powerful 1a) to be chief, be master of, to rule 2) to get possession of … 3c) to hold.
2. It seems significant to me that the Judean representatives are the ones who name their expectations the “according to the received tradition of the elders” as opposed to “according to the law.” What this seems to signify is that they know that the expectations by which they are critiquing the disciples is extraneous to the law, or at least a particularized interpretation of the law.
7μάτην δὲ σέβονταίμε, διδάσκοντεςδιδασκαλίας ἐντάλματα ἀνθρώπων.
1. The quote is from Isaiah 29:13 - The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote.
Having abandoned the law of God you hold to the received tradition of humans.
κρατεῖτε: PAI 2p, κρατέω,1) to have power, be powerful 1a) to be chief, be master of, to rule 2) to get possession of… 3c) to hold.
1. The problem – as I am reading it – is not that the Pharisees, etc. havea received tradition of human origin, but that they are abandoning the law of God in lieu of that received tradition. That is, they are holding up the tradition as if it originate in God and not in humanity.
I offer this example, with which you may take exception. Think of the popular notion, “God helps those who help themselves,” a saying that many people are convinced is found somewhere in the Scriptures. Not only is it not found in the Scriptures, it abrogates some of the more powerful expressions of grace in the NT. Thus, it champions a meritocratic vision of human life that is grounded in American culture, as if it were the Word of God.
1. Jesus changes the recipients of his words from a direct denunciation of the Pharisees and scribes to the crowd.
2. “all of you”: The ‘all’ is given in πάντες; the ‘of you’ is implied in the verbs, where Jesus is using the 2ndperson imperative.
15οὐδέν ἐστινἔξωθεν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου εἰσπορευόμενονεἰς αὐτὸν ὃ δύναταικοινῶσαιαὐτόν:ἀλλὰτὰἐκτοῦἀνθρώπουἐκπορευόμενάἐστιντὰκοινοῦντατὸνἄνθρωπον.
There is nothing outside of a person which going into him is able to defile him; but the things which go out of the person is the things which defile the person.
1. There is a discrepancy in moving from Greek to English between the plural subject “the things” (τὰ 2x) in the last half of this verse, which match the plural form of the participles involved (which go out, which defile) and the singular verb “is” (ἐστιν).
2. This seems to be a dramatic shift in ethics regarding purity laws about cleanliness or defilement. Leviticus 11 is not just an add-on tradition that someone made up as a Midrash to the “canon” of Scripture. It is Scripture; yet the assumption behind Leviticus 11 is that some foods are unclean, some animals are so unclean that by touching them a person becomes unclean and needs time and washing in order to be rid of defilement. Jesus’ point here – summed up in v.19 “Thus he declared all foods clean” – is a different theological ethic than in Leviticus 11. Again, this argument is not “Scripture v. add-on”, but a genuine, faithful way of reading Scripture v. a hypocritical way of reading Scripture, which – even by strict adherence to certain portions of Scripture – in the end abandon the words of God in order to follow the teachings of humans.
3. As I have indicated earlier, I think this is a inner-Jewish contention between Galilean, synagogue-based piety v. a Judean, temple-based piety. Too often I think it is interpreted as a Christian v. Jewish contention.
For from within, out of the heart of persons the evil deliberations go out – fornications, thefts, murders, 22adulteries, avarices, wickedness, deceits, licentiousness, envy, slanders, pride, follies.
1. I am taking these two verses together to keep the list intact.
2. One may quarrel with how each of these vices ought to be translated. I simply took this list from the NRSV, but I made them plural whenever the word allowed it because the list is certainly plural in the Greek. The first three are roughly parallel to three of the 10 Commands, but only roughly.
3. “Deliberations”: The word διαλογισμοὶ is comprised of a prefix δια and the root λογισ, which is related to the verb “say” (λέγω) and the noun “word” (λογοσ) and is manifestly the origin of the word “dialogue.” In Socratic philosophy, truth was often arrived at via interlocution, made famous in Plato’s renditions of Socrates’ dialogues. When the context is the individual’s heart, as opposed to the conversation between two persons, I think the word ‘deliberation’ captures the meaning better than simply ‘thoughts’ or ‘intents.’ Here, the evil actions that Jesus names stem from the “evil deliberations” of the heart. While there is a healthy debate within the discipline of ethics over whether one’s intentions or the effects of one actions have moral priority, Jesus is addressing the Pharisees and their piety here. As such, this may be a challenge to some of the “received traditions” of the Hebrew Bible, such at the guilt of “unintentional sins” in Leviticus 5:14-19.
All of these evil things go out from within and defile the person.
1. Again the verb is singular although the subject is a collective plural.
I love your material. Even more, I resonate with what I perceive to be a long and sometimes painful history with the Church. But, again, perhaps like me, I can't seem to tear myself away. Prisoner of hope stuff.
Anyway, thanks for what you are doing.
Dang. I meant to say, "perhaps like me, YOU can't seem to tear yourself away...."
I love the church, warts and all. What is comforting to me in reading the gospels is that all of our worst tendencies as the church have been present all along. We're just the latest incarnation of the same thing.
Sin of pride in Presbyterian tradition: Total depravity. We KNOW we're all screwed up! So deal with it!
Hey Mark-- just wondering if you've covered Acts already.. Did I miss it?-- and if so-- when did you do it?
Tom, I've been focusing solely on the Gospel lessons each week. (It's been a joy, but also a challenge, since I've been off lectionary all summer. But, I like the discipline of exegeting the lectionary gospel reading, so I've kept at it). To be honest, I've not looked much beyond the gospel readings at all this summer. Sorry.
I was just personally struck after 5 weeks of Lectionary readings in John with Jesus' claim to be the Bread of Life and telling folks they must eat his flesh to now read in Mark about folks being criticized as too 'defiled' to eat bread. It points out to me once again the big difference in Jesus' interpretation of scripture as well as provoking thought and questions about whether what we put in us cannot make us unclean, it comes from within. Can what we put in us (Christ-likeness) change us from the inside out? I'd say yes. He offers his very essence of self to all of us before we 'purify' ourselves. Very interesting how the gospels provide tension this way. Or maybe it's just my brain going off on a tangent again.
Once again, a seed for a sermon has been found/ or fostered in your blog. Thank you for your weekly posts and effort. I really appreciate the unvarnished manner of laying out the troubling areas.

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