1. The Appellation “Son of Mary” in Mark 6:3
The first task is to determine the authentic reading of
the Marcan verse, an issue that is affected both by a textual variant of Mark
and by the readings of the parallel verse in the other Gospels:
Mark 6:3 (major codices): “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the
brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? Are not his sisters here among us?”
Mark 6:3 (P45; family 13, OL, Bohairic,
Armenian): “Is not this the son of the
carpenter and of Mary, etc.”
Matt 13:55: “Is not this the son of the carpenter? Is not his mother called Mary, and are not his brothers James and Joseph,
Simon and Judas? Are not all his sisters here among us?”
Luke 4:22: “Is not this the son of Joseph?”
John 6:42: “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother?”
The three Synoptic Gospels set this question on the lips
of the townspeople of Nazareth on the occasion of Jesus’ only visit to his
hometown during his ministry, and the question is meant to stress the ordinary
origins of Jesus as contrasted with his growing reputation for marvelous deeds
and words. John sets the question on the lips of “the Jews” on the shores of
the Sea of Tiberias, but it has the same meaning. There is a good chance that
we are dealing with variant forms of the one basic tradition.
The manuscript evidence clearly favors the first reading
of Mark 6:3, but we must reckon with the fact that P45 is our
oldest ms. of Mark. As for the logic of which reading is more likely to have
been produced by scribes, many scholars who favor the second reading argue that
scribes, anxious to preserve the idea of the virginal conception of Jesus,
found scandalous the (original) reading of Mark calling Jesus “the son of the
carpenter and Mary” and that they rearranged the wording so that Jesus was
simply called “the son of Mary.” But one must ask whether scribes would be
likely to change Mark in a way that would bring that Gospel into disagreement
with the parallel readings in Matthew and Luke, both of which designate Jesus
in relation to his father (“the son of the carpenter”; “the son of Joseph”). It
is more likely, in my opinion, that scribes, faced with the Marcan original of
“the carpenter, the son of Mary,” would change it to agree with Matthew and
Luke by designating Jesus in relation to Joseph. By calling him “the son of the
carpenter,” the scribes would at the same time bring Mark into conformity with
the Christian tradition that Joseph (rather than Jesus) was a carpenter.
As for the inner logic of Synoptic relationships, in
determining which reading Matthew and Luke found in Mark, we must be careful.
Those who favor the second reading of Mark argue that it better explains why
Matthew and Luke agree in identifying Jesus in terms of Joseph—they both found
Jesus identified as “the son of the carpenter” in Mark. But can we really speak
here of Luke as modifying Mark? Rather there seem to be two traditions of the
basic saying, a longer one (Mark, Matthew) and a shorter one (Luke, John). In
the longer form there are references to the carpenter, Mary, the brothers and
the sisters; in the shorter form Jesus is simply called “the son of Joseph.” If
we consider Mark with that theory in mind, the first reading of Mark may have
been the original long form of the saying; and Matthew may have adapted it
slightly to avoid having Jesus called a carpenter—an instance of the generally
more reverential tone of Matthew.
It seems wise then to take the first and better attested
reading of Mark as the original reading, but also to resign ourselves to being
unable to get behind the longer and shorter forms of the saying to an earlier
form. In other words, we have no way of knowing whether the most ancient
tradition had Jesus called “the son of Mary” or “the son of Joseph,” or perhaps
even “the son of Joseph and Mary.” Admitting that, let us nevertheless discuss
the possible implications of calling Jesus “the son of Mary,” since that is at
least an ancient Christian memory of
the scene. If Christians could report that Jesus was known as “the carpenter,
the son of Mary,” does that tell us something about the attitude of Jesus’
opponents, as Christians understood them? Is the reference to Jesus by his
mother’s name an expression of contempt for him (and her) or simply an
expression that helps to underline the ordinary character of his background? To
some extent the answer to that question depends on the accompanying
appellation, “the carpenter.” There is really no proof that this was a slur on
him as an ignorant manual laborer. Rather, in the context, it places him in a
work or occupation comparable to that of the other citizens of Nazareth. The
tone is one of ordinariness in contrast to his new reputation as a miraculous
healer and religious teacher. Therefore, the use of “the carpenter” supplies no
a priori basis for seeing in “the son
of Mary” a contemptuous designation.
Nevertheless, Mark 6:3 is the only instance in the New
Testament wherein Jesus is identified by his relationship to his mother; and
one must explain that peculiarity. In a painstaking study, McArthur has
seriously weakened the contention that referring to someone as the son of his
mother, rather than as the son of his father, is a regular way of indicating that the mother is a widow or that the
child is illegitimate and the father is unknown. McArthur admits that in some
cultures the tradition prevails that an illegitimate son be designated by his
mother’s name, but he does not find evidence for this in the OT or in
rabbinical literature. He is quite right in arguing that passages like Lev
24:10–11 and Judg 11:1 (“Jephthah … the son of a harlot”) throw little light on
Jesus “the son of Mary.” Unfortunately, however, McArthur does not deal with all
the evidence brought forward by E. Stauffer, the most ardent defender of the
thesis that there is a reference here to illegitimacy. Stauffer points out that
in Samaritan and Mandaean usage “Jesus, son of Mary” has a pejorative sense;
and he calls attention to the later Jewish principle: A man is illegitimate
when he is called by his mother’s name, for a bastard has no father. Yet, of
course, we have no proof that such a principle was operative in Jesus’ time.
As I mentioned in discussing Mark in Appendix IV (A), the
easiest way of explaining the designation of Jesus as “the son of Mary” in the
context of the story in which it appears is that Joseph was dead and Mary, the
one living parent, was well known to all the villagers. As McArthur insists,
this is not a revival of the thesis that the son of a widow was identified by
his mother’s name; for an official record would still have identified him as
“Jesus, the son of Joseph.” The identification here as “the son of Mary” would
be purely contextual, rather than normal, official, or genealogical. (A good
parallel is offered by Luke 7:12 where, in the context, it is perfectly
understandable that the deceased is identified as “the only son of his mother
who was a widow.”) Does the Marcan context also suggest that, in the mind of
the villagers, Jesus was the illegitimate son of Mary? Is it a feeling of
uneasiness about such an implication that causes Matthew to modify the
designation “the son of Mary” to the harmless “Is not his mother called Mary?”
After all, there is a mention in Mark 6:3 of the scandal (skandalizein) of the villagers at the thought of Jesus as a
religious figure. However, the mention of the brothers and sisters militates
against this connotation. One can scarcely consider all of them to have been
illegitimate; and Jesus is being put together with them in order to emphasize
his ordinariness. Thus, Mark 6:3 offers no firm support for a Jewish charge of
illegitimacy during the ministry or even at a period contemporary with the
evangelists. (Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on
the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke [rev ed.; New
York: Yale University Press, 1993], 537-41)
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