18 ורבעין אנון ואכלין ואמר ישׁוע, אמן אמר
אנה להוןדחד מנכון ימסרני, הוא דאכל עמי.
. . .
18 And they (were) reclining and
eating and Jesus said, ‘Amen I say to you, that one of you will hand me over, he
who “eats” with “me”.’ (Maurice Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel [Society
for New Testament Monograph Series 102; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999], 219, 220)
Mark's defnition of the traitor as ο εσθιων
μετ’ εμου
looks odd at furst sight, but we
should follow those commentators who see the key to this expression in Ps.
41.10. I have suggested an underlying הוא דאכל עמי, which has the same effect
of singling out one person, yet by means of an activity which all those present
were doing. The particular person referred to, however, is the person of the
psalm, `the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who eats my bread, he has made
great his heel against me'. That is a reasonable description of one of the
twelve betraying Jesus: the reference to bread has been altered, because the
unleavened bread had not yet been started. We shall see this matter taken up
again at verse 20. The betrayal of Jesus by Judah of Kerioth could be seen at
Ps. 41 verse 7: `And if he comes to see me, his heart speaks falsehood, he
gathers wickedness, he goes outside, he speaks of it.' This gets Judah to the
chief priests and scribes, who may be seen at verse 8: `All those who hate me
whisper together against me, they devise evil against me.' Their intention is
given in verse 9, together with their denial of Jesus' resurrection, a denial
equally comprehensible in Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection and
in scribes and Pharisees who thought that he was too wicked to go to heaven: `A
thing of Belial will constrain him, and when he lies down, he will not rise
again.' Then Judah of Kerioth, as we have seen, at verse 10, `Yes, the man of
my peace, in whom I trusted, who eats my bread, has made great his heel against
me.' There follows a plea for resurrection in verse 11, `And you, LORD, be
gracious and raise me up.'
All this is surely too simple, and too
extensive, to be unintentional. We must infer that everyone knew psalm 41, and
that the betrayal of Jesus was written in scripture. No one suggested that they
could prevent him from being betrayed. Simon the Rock had remonstrated with him
once, and earned a very severe rebuke. Subsequently, Jacob and John had
accepted promptly the notion that they would die with him (Mark 10.39). We will
notice also that the plea for resurrection, unlike the original form of his predictions,
is a plea for him alone to be raised. Like them, it uses the verb קום, and is
consequently quite opaque as to the mode of raising. The verse is also quite
opaque as to time. This is one of the scriptures which the disciples could
hardly avoid returning to after the crucifixion, when they came to believe that
God had indeed raised him up, according to the scriptures. It was not, however,
picked up by Matthew. Without the reference, the description is not sensible,
since several people were eating with him. Matthew therefore removed this
phrase and inserted Matt. 26.25, which identifies Judas himself as the traitor.
That Mark himself should remove Matt. 26.25, and add in Greek ο εσθιων
μετ’ εμου , is not
credible. We have another small argument in favour of Markan priority. (Ibid.,
229-30)
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