From: Bob Schacht (Robert.Schacht@NAU.EDU)
Date: Thu Dec 18 1997 - 20:53:45 EST
>Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 18:51 +0000
>From: dmurphy <dmurphy@sjc.edu.bz>
>Subject: Mark 7,19b
>Sender: owner-crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
>To: mahlonh.smith@worldnet.att.net, crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
>X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.21
>
>Dear Mahlon, Tom (Kopecek), Mark (Goodacre), and other Crosstalkers 
>actively interested in the meaning of Mark 7,19b,--...
>
>To be upfront from the beginning, I will say that I agree with the 
>position presented by Carl Conrad and Tom Kopecek.
>
>Ever since Mark 7,19b was discussed, in the wider context of the 
>historical Jesus' attitudes towards Jewish purity regulations, over a 
>year ago on Crosstalk, I have been much interested by the topic.  At 
>that time I was intuitively quite skeptical regardiang the position 
>being forwarded chiefly by Lewis Reich that Jesus in no fundamental way 
>would have challenged these purity regulations.  My careful study at 
>that time of Crossan was a major reason for my skepticism.  Since Lewis 
>was generously offering to send to interested Crosstalkers copies of 
>Paula Fredriksen's two articles which he lauded as strongly supporting 
>his position ("Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?" and "What You See is 
>What You Get: Context and Content in Current Research on the Historical 
>Jesus," I eagerly accepted his offer (since in Managua, as here in 
>Belize, there is simply no access to such journals).  After reading and 
>carefully re-reading both articles, I was left with the conviction that 
>Fredriksen simply did not confront either the method or the exegetical/ 
>historical reasoning used by Crossan to establish his contrary view.  
>(If any Crosstalker disagrees with my evaluation of Fredriksen's work, I 
>will be delighted to spell out my reasons.)
>
>As those of you who read my message on Crossan's method some weeks ago 
>know, it was only after that time that I came to know of the work of 
>Ched Myers on Mark's Gospel (Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading 
>of Mark's Story of Jesus).  My intense study of that work over the past 
>six months has greatly deepened my understanding of Mark's treatment, 
>among many other issues, of the area of Jewish purity laws.  It is that 
>study that leads me to agree, as I pointed out, particularly with what 
>Carl Conrad contributed to Crosstalk on this topic.
>
>I had enquired in that earlier "Crossan method" message as to whether 
>there were Crosstalkers other than Ray Pickett who had read Myers's 
>work.  Since no one has responded affirmatively, I have decided that it 
>could be a real service briefly to indicate the method and reasoning 
>with which Myers approaches his reading of Mark -- using the specific 
>example of Mk 7,19b in its context.
>
>A major strength of Myers's work, in my judgment, is that, in addition 
>to knowing very well the secondary literature on Mark over the last 
>century, he brings to bear on his interpretations, in a highly 
>integrated way, two relatively recent methods -- the literary and the 
>social (what he refers to in his introductory chapter as "Narrative 
>Analysis: Structure and Story" and "Social Analysis: Discourse and 
>Signification"; see pp. 31-35).
>
>In his second chapter, "The Socio-Historical Site of Mark's Story of 
>Jesus," Myers has a major section dedicated to "The Symbolic Order of 
>Ancient Judaism: A Matrix Model," which he studies under the rubrics of 
>"Purity and Debt" and "Torah and Temple."
>
>With this background, Myers in his seventh chapter comes to his study of
>what he identifies, though literary-structural analyis, as a carefully 
>constructed unit, in Mk 6:53-7:23.  He entitles this section of this 
>chapter "The Structures of Segregation: The 'Leaven' of the Pharisees 
>(6:53-7:23)," which he studies in two sections: "i. Attacking Exclusive 
>Table-Fellowship: Pharisaic Practice" and "ii. Attacking Oral Tradition: 
>Pharisaic Ideology" (pp. 217-223).
>
>Myers comments: "Once again, Mark's composition provides the key to 
>interpretation.  The debate unfolds in three layers:
>  1. the conflict is set up with a short excursus concerning Pharisaic 
>      practices of ritual washing (7:1-5);
>  2. Jesus begins by challenging not the purity code itself but
>      Pharisaic oral tradition (7:6-13);
>  3. Jesus returns to the original question by renouncing the kosher
>      regulations of the purity code (7:14-23).
>"The first and the third parts are thus related, each defined by the 
>repetition of their respective themes: in the first case the objection 
>of the Pharisees; in the second, Jesus' counterthesis:
> 1.  7:2     'They noticed that some of his disciples were eating
>              with unclean hands."
>     7:5     'Why do your disciples . . . their food with unclean
>              hands?'
> 3.  7:15c   'It is the things that come out of a person that make that
>              person unclean."
>     7:23    'All these things come from within and make a person
>              unclean.'
>"This compositional structure is didactic, stating the problem and the 
>solution, while also isolating the middle section (2).  There Jesus 
>attacks 'the tradition of the elders' (introduced in 7:3,5), which 
>represents the deeper issue of legitimating ideology.  Accordingly, I 
>will read (1) and (3) together, and then look at (2) below.
>"This conflict is first set up (7:1f.) and then explained to the reader 
>(7:3f.).  Mark identifies three aspect of ritual cleansing in 
>preparation for table, which he claims as universal Jewish practice (kai 
>pantes hoi Iodaioi):
>   a. the washing of hands;
>   b. the purification of food bought in the marketplace;
>   c. the cleansing of utensils.
>"In reality such a strict practice of ritual purity was probably kept 
>only by an extemeist sect of the Pharisees, the *haverim,* and perhaps 
>priests.  Booth suggest that the *haverim* are here, as in 2:18ff., 
>challenging Mark's community to match their 'supererogatory' piety as 
>befits the truly holy (1986:130ff. [This refers to Roger P. Booth. Jesus 
>and the Laws of Purity: Tradition and Legal History in Mark 7. 
>Sheffield: JSOT Press.])  Mark's generalization, however, may simply 
>mean to imply that all Jews are captive to the elitist conception of 
>purity.
>"Of particular interest is Mark's mention of the marketplace (agora) in 
>6:56 and 7:4.  This narrative site represents of course the economic 
>sphere, and Mark later refers to it as the public site of scribal 
>'piety' that oppresses the poor (12:38ff.).  The practice of 
>'sprinkling' (hrantisontai) food would appear to refer to Pharisaic 
>concern to guard against consuming produce that may have been rendered 
>unclean at some stage of the production process (it had nothing to do 
>with hygiene).  Impurity could have been contracted in one of two ways: 
>the farmer could have sown or harvested in violation of Sabbath or other 
>regulations; or the fruits may have not undergone proper separation for 
>tithes.  We have already seen (above 4,D,ii) that Pharisaic control over 
>production and distribution were touchy issues for Galilean peasants."
>[couple paragraphs skipped here]
>"The parable itself (7:15) is a word play on the 'external/internal' 
>antithesis: 'nothing coming into a person from the outside can pollute; 
>it is that which comes from a person that pollutes.'
>"The explanation in turn is in the form of a loose doublet:
> a. "nothing that enters from the outside can pollute a person, because 
>it bypasses the heart . . .' (7:18);
> b. ". . . for from within from the heart of a person designs of evil 
>come . . . all these evils come from within and pollute a person' 
>(7:1,23).  This doublet frames Mark's parenthetical comment in 7:19b and 
>the so called vice list of 7:22.
>"The 'declaring clean' (katharizon) of all foods emerges as the 
>'interpretation of the interpretation.'  Here Mark climaxes his assault 
>upon the purity code, which Jesus began by 'declaring clean' the leper 
>back in 1:41ff.  Booth points out that the 'medical' argument -- that 
>food cannot defile because it passes through as excrement -- is 
>'Hellenistic,' not Palestinian, for purity was a symbolic, not 
>physiological, matter.  This can be explained if Mark intends this 
>episode in particular to be intelligible to the gentile part of his 
>audience.  In effect, he grants the medical argument -- precisely 
>*because* he rejects the definition of purity given to the symbolic 
>order."
>[three paragraphs skipped here]
>"Embedded in Mark's attack on the purity code is a vigorous 
>counteroffenseive that attempts to delegitimize Pharisaic authority 
>altogether (7:6-13).  At is issue is the Pharisaic oral tradition, or 
>halakah:   . . . ."
>[long quotation from Isenberg skipped here]
>"Mark's charge that the halakah abrogates Mosaic law would not, 
>therefore, have been unique to him, but the *reasons* for it were.
>"Jesus' attack is two fold . . . ."
>
>I won't quote more from Myers.  I think, however, you can see my reason 
>for quoting as much as I did.  I actually quoted more today than I had 
>in the original message on Monday, because I have been following the 
>thread, mainly between Bob Schacht (who has shown another side of his 
>personality in this new thread!!) and Stephen Davies on the DSS and the 
>Pharisees; quite possibly Bob and Steve will find various references to 
>the attack by the Markan Jesus on the Pharisees in what I have quoted 
>meaningful for their discussion.
>
>There are many other aspects of Myers's presentation that I would much 
>like to see discussed on Crosstalk, particularly his treatment of Mk 13 
>because of its intensely challenging and new (based especially on the 
>work of John Collins and Adela Yarbro Collins) interpretation of 
>apocalyptic discourse (this applies also to the highly important 
>apocalyptic Son of Man sayings in others parts of Mark [8:34-9:1 and 
>14:62; as well, obviously, as 13:26] and to what Myers calls the three 
>"apocalyptic moments" in Mark (1:9-11; 9:2-8; and 15:33-39).
>
>I don't know how I feel about this second version of this message.  I do 
>regret not having been able this time to call up positions of the other 
>Crosstalkers who had contributed to the Mark 7:19b discussion of a 
>couple weeks ago and thus show where, following Myers, I disagree or 
>agree with them.  But I think I have accomplished my primary goal of 
>communicating Myers's position.  No doubt, if they have had the time to 
>read this long message, Mahlon Smith and Mark Goodacre will recognize 
>clearly where Myers challenges their interpretation -- and Carl Conrad 
>(if Bob reads it and decides to send it on to Carl, whose e-mail address 
>I no longer have) and Tom Kopecek will recognize close affinities with 
>what Myers says.
>
>I hope this time my message gets through!
>
>All the best to all!
>
>Don                     Don Murphy, S.J.
>                        Melhado Hall Jesuit Residence
>                        St. John's College
>                        P.O. Box 548
>                        Belize City, BELIZE
>                           Central America
>
>
>
>
>
Robert M. Schacht, Ph.D., Director of Research
American Indian Rehabilitation Research & Training Center
Institute for Human Development, University Affiliated Program
P.O.Box 5630 
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5630
phone 520-523-1342; FAX 520-523-9127
http://www.nau.edu/~ihd/airrtc.html
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