[B-Greek] THREAD CLOSED: Mark 7:18-19

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Nov 3 06:14:47 EST 2009


I have previously warned against expansion of this thread by bringing  
to bear upon it considerations that go beyond the Greek text under  
consideration and its immediate context. There have been tendencies in  
one or two previous messages to bring to bear upon the passage  
background perspectives and literary and hermeneutical assumptions  
that are not generally shared by list-members. In my judgment, the  
line has been crossed and it best to call a halt to this thread. I do  
think that it has been a productive thread and that proponents and  
defenders of both textual variants (KAQARIZWN and KAQARIZON) have set  
forth as persuasively as they could the reasons why they have reached  
the conclusion that they deem correct. There is no likelihood that a  
consensus will be reached by prolongation of the thread, but one must  
wonder whether the text under discussion would be illuminated without  
bringing to bear these assumptions and perspectives that lie outside  
our declared parameters of discussion.

The issues that broach the parameters of appropriate list discussion  
are, more often than not, certain assumptions about the nature of the  
Biblical text (its authorship, dating, historical context, its  
authority as an inspired and/or coherent organic unit, etc., etc.).  
One list-member expounding an understanding of a text will employ a  
method that is consistent with his or her own assumptions . BUT list- 
members hold a VARIETY of assumptions about the nature of the Biblical  
text and employ DIFFERENT methods of interpretation consistent with  
their particular assumptions. Now these hermeneutical perspectives are  
usually matters of very strong conviction, so much so that people  
readily take offense at straightforward assertions that run counter to  
their own hermeneutical perspectives.

In the current thread the line has been crossed when judgments have  
been offered about how the text in Mark compares with the text in  
Matthew and Lucan parallel texts and alterations made by any one  
evangelist in what is thought to have been an earlier version of the  
passage The problem is that list-members don't agree on ways of  
resolving the "Synoptic problem" and list-discussion could all too  
easily become bogged down in exploration of contending perspectives on  
the matter. In addition, hermeneutical and theological assumptions  
have entered into the discussion, assumptions regarding the unity and  
coherence of the larger Biblical corpus and the relationship of the  
text in question to other texts of other authors. Yet another element  
entering into discussion has been how the text has been interpreted in  
the course of church and cultural history.All of these are matters  
that we might expect to be explored in the complete exegesis of a  
passage, but these issues go beyond the effort to understand the Greek  
text as a Greek text.

It may be said that what we’re doing on B-Greek is Exegesis. In fact,  
however, we’re only doing the first “spade-work” stage of exegesis on  
B-Greek: trying to ascertain, in terms on which all or almost all of  
us who have some level of competence in Greek agree, exactly what the  
Greek text as a Greek text means. Real exegesis as it is usually  
taught goes beyond that to broader levels of contextual interpretation  
and interpretation in terms of the cultural context and the Biblical  
corpus as a whole, certainly including doctrinal implications. BUT on  
B-Greek we don’t go beyond that first “spade-work” stage. Even here we  
occasional have problems understanding each other, perhaps because of  
differing assumptions that impinge upon how we think the Greek text  
CAN mean. We should not delude ourselves into supposing that reading  
the Biblical Greek text is a discipline based upon exact science. But  
we should try, I think, to be as disciplined as we can in the process  
of reading the Biblical Greek text.

As I said in a concluding note explaining another closing of a thread  
several years ago, I hope that these comments on this problematic  
threadswill, rather than making things appear still more fuzzy, be  
helpful to those who want to understand what our parameters are. You  
must realize, if you haven’t already, that we who manage the list do  
make an effort to get things right and do things rightly, but often  
enough we just muddle through.

At any rate, let me reiterate the key item stated at the outset, the  
test question regarding whether a proposed question or comment falls  
within the list’s parameters:

“Does the question or comment focus upon the Greek text of a biblical  
passage AS A GREEK TEXT?”

If the question or comment could just as well be asked regarding any  
translation of that Biblical passage into the writer’s own language,  
then it’s almost certainly not properly a B-Greek question or comment.

On Nov 3, 2009, at 4:41 AM, Leonard Jayawardena wrote:

> Some list members have expressed difficulty in understanding Mark  
> 7:18-19, which in reality is exegetically quite a straightforward  
> passage.
>
>
> This is my understanding of this passage.
>
> We are told at the beginning of Mark 7 that the Pharisees and the  
> Jews in general had the custom of ritually washing their hands in a  
> certain way (Mark uses the word PUGMHi, the discussion of the exact  
> meaning of which could provide a topic for another thread) before  
> they ate. We are also told that this was part of "the tradition of  
> the elders" that they observed, thus implying this was no part of  
> the OT ceremonial law (vv. 3-4). The OT had remedies for certain  
> types of ceremonial defilement which came to the knowledge of the  
> person so defiled, such as touching a dead body. The Jews of Jesus'  
> time observed rituals that went beyond them to include cases not  
> covered by the OT, for example, unknowingly touching a ceremonially  
> unclean person or an article touched by such a person at a public  
> place such as the market (v. 4). Their ritual washing of the hands  
> was designed to remove such ceremonial uncleanness contracted  
> unwittingly. Apparently, their reasoning was that touching food with  
> ritually unwashed or "common" hands passed on the impurity to the  
> food and when such "contaminated" food was ingested by a person, he  
> became defiled.
>
>
> Seeing that the disciples of Jesus did not ritually wash their hands  
> before they ate, i.e., that they ate with KOINAIS CERSIN, they  
> protested to Jesus about it. Jesus' answer turns the focus from the  
> Pharisees' obsession with ritual cleanliness to what made people  
> spiritually defiled. He says that what a person eats does not enter  
> his heart, i.e., there is nothing in what anyone eats that can  
> defile his heart, the "heart" being considered as the seat of reason  
> and intellect. Food cannot spiritually defile a man. If Jesus had  
> stopped at EIS THN KARDIAN, it would have been sufficient to  
> establish his point. And if "Mark" had added his editorial comment  
> at this point, thus:
>
> KAI LEGEI AUTOIS, hOUTWS KAI hUMEIS ASUNETOI ESTE; OU NOEITE hOTI  
> PAN TO EKSWQEN EISPOREUOMENON EIS TON ANQRWPON OU DUNATAI AUTON  
> KOINWSAI hOTI OUK EISPOREUETAI AUTOU EIS THN KARDIAN?, KAQARIZWN  
> PANTA TA BRWMATA.
>
> this passage, I am sure, wouldn't have occasioned such difficulty to  
> so many. The words ALL' EIS THN KOILIAN, KAI EIS TON AFEDRWNA  
> EKPOREUETAI are really not necessary; they just supplement and  
> emphasize (with possible intentional jocular effect) Jesus' point  
> that whatever goes into a man does not enter his heart.
>
> KAQARIZWN PANTA TA BRWMATA then just sums up the jist of Jesus'  
> quoted words. "Mark" says that by so saying Jesus "purified all  
> foods," i.e., Jesus declared all foods, whether eaten with ritually  
> washed or unwashed hands, to be clean and spiritually undefiling.  
> Compare this with the concluding remark of Jesus in the parallel  
> passage in Matthew 15:20: "... to eat with unwashed hands does not  
> make a man unclean."
>
> Some commentators have seen the editorial comment of Mark 7:19 as  
> abrogating the dietary laws of the OT (Lev. 11 and Deuteronomy 14).  
> Our passage has not the remotest bearing on the law of clean and  
> unclean meats in the OT and to draw out such an implication, I  
> think, is a glaring example of eisegesis. In Colossians 2:16, on the  
> other hand, it is implied, I think, that the dietary laws of Moses  
> are not binding on Christians.
>
> It is instructive to look at Paul's treatment of a similar issue in  
> his epistles. Romans 14:1-4, 6-15; 1 Corinthians 8; and 10:23-33 all  
> deal with what was a problem for some Christians who were formerly  
> idolaters: eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. The meat  
> that was available in the meat market at that time usually had been  
> sacrificed to idols. Paul says that since idols have no real  
> existence, there is no problem in eating food sacrificed to idols.  
> But when some Christians who lacked this knowledge ate such food,  
> they ate it as if it were sacrificed to idols and their conscience  
> was thus defiled (1 Corinthians 8). To avoid this problem  
> altogether, some Christians had become vegetarians (Romans 14:2).  
> Paul says, "I know and am conviced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is  
> unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to  
> him it unclean" (Romans 14:14). In other words, conscience is the  
> key factor.
>
>
> Therefore "nothing is unclean in itself" (OUDEN KOINON DI' hEAUTOU),  
> i.e., no food (by itself) is unclean = all food is clean. So said  
> Paul.
>
> SIMILARLY, JESUS DECLARED ALL FOODS TO BE CLEAN.



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