[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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