Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Bernard F. Batto on the Motif of the Sleeping God and Early High Christology in the Gospel of Mark

  

In the Old Testament the power both to still the raging sea (Job 26:12; Isa 51:15; Jer 31:35; cf. Pss 89:9[10]; 107:29) and to trample upon the back of the sea (Job 9:8; Hab 3:15; Ps 77:20) belongs to God alone, deriving ultimately from his victory over primeval sea. Accordingly, it is not accidentally that Jesus’ walking upon the sea (Matt 14:25; Mark 6:48; John 6:19) is described in the language of Yahweh walking or trampling on the back of the sea (note especially Job 9:8 LXX: kai peripatōn hōs ep’ edaphous epi thalassēs “and (who) walks on the sea as if on ground”). Similarly, Jesus’ calming of the sea borrows upon the terminology of Yahweh’s stilling of the hostile sea, especially when its stilling is done through the divine rebuke (gā’ar, LXX: epitimân, Job 26:11). The sea is also found of the divine rebuke in Pss 18:15[16] (= 2 Sam 22;16); 104:7; 106:9; and Isa 50:2; Satan is similarly rebuked in Zech 3:2. Whether Jesus’ stilling of the sea still retained the age-old connotations of a battle against the chaos monster (as in Job 26:11-12; Ps 89-10[10-11]) or only the power of the creator to control his creatures (as in Ps 107:29), Jesus is clearly depicted as exercising divine control: “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41 & //s). The evangelist used the theophanic connotations of this language to suggest that Jesus possessed divine power (2 Macc 9:8 claims that Antiochus IV had thought himself capable of commanding the waves of the sea, only to find himself a lowly mortal indeed. Antiochus, as his name Epiphanes implies, regarded himself as the incarnation of the god Zeus).

 

The matter of Jesus sleeping on the storming sea must be interpreted within this epiphanic context. Previous commentators have failed to appreciate the full significance intended by the evangelists. Some have missed the point totally, taking Jesus’ sleep as an indication of his humanness. Fatigued by the demands that the crowd had made upon him, Jesus was forced to seek refuge in the boat where he promptly fell asleep, oblivious to developments around him. Closer but still wide of the mark are those who interpret Jesus’ ability to sleep peacefully and undisturbed in such circumstances as a sign of his perfect trust in the sustaining and protective power of God. However, it is not the faith of Jesus but of his disciples that is on trial here. Finally, despite obvious similarities between Jesus’ calming of the storm and Joan 1, the sleeping Jesus cannot be adequately explained as the evangelists’ attempt to portray “one greater than Jonah.” Both the motive and the result of the sleep are different in the two stories. Jesus’ disciples do not awaken him to intercede with God as in Jonah 1:6. Rather, the disciples call upon Jesus even as the distressed sailors of Ps 107:23-30 called upon Yahweh to save them from the storm. (Bernard F. Batto, “The Sleeping God: An Ancient Near Eastern Motif of Divine Sovereignty,” in Batto, In the Beginning: Essays on Creation Motifs in the Ancient Near East and the Bible [Siphrut Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures 9; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2013], 155-56)

 

Commenting on Mark’s understanding of this event and it evidencing an early High Christology, Batto notes that:

 

Mark personified the sea and identified it with the demonic. Accordingly, the sea is rebuked (epitimān) by Jesus in almost identical terms (siōpa, pephimōso “Quiet! Be silent”) as the demon in Mark 1:25 (phitōthēti “Be silenced!”). Even the reaction of the bystanders is similar (compare 4:41 with 1:27). The sea as an extension of the demonic is evident also in the following incident of the possessed man in the land of the Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20). When Jesus cast the legion of demons out of the man, these entered the swine and rushed headlong over the cliff into the sea—appropriately to their rightful home, for the sea was considered to be the source of evil (Dan 7:2-3; Rev 13:2; contrast Rev 21:1).

 

Patently, Mark was drawing upon the long biblical tradition of the creator’s battle with the chaos monster, though the latter is reinterpreted more specifically as the diabolic kingdom of Satan and his cohorts. Indeed, a major theme in Mark is the conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of evil; it is a battle to the death. Just as the Israelites had called upon Yahweh to awaken and save them in their tribulation, so Jesus’ beleaguered disciples wake Jesus for help against the sea which threatened to engulf them. And like Yahweh, Jesus arises and stills the demonic sea. Accordingly, the image of the sleeping Jesus is modelled after that of the sleeping divine king. His sleeping indicates now powerlessness but the possession of absolute authority. The power of the demonic kingdom is only apparent, not real, as is evident when Jesus awakens and still the raging of the sea. (Ibid., 156-57, emphasis in bold added)