Thursday, February 23, 2023

Jasmin Gimenez Rappleye on The Gadarene Demoniac—Mark 5:1-9

The following comes from:

 

Jasmin Gimenez Rappleye, “The Messianic Sacred, Not Secret: The Son as a Hidden Name in the Gospel of Mark,” in The Temple Past, Present, & Future: Proceedings of the Fifth Interpreter Foundation, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Salt Lake City: Eborn Books/Provo, Utah: The Interpreter Foundation, 2021), 183-84

 

The Gadarene Demoniac—Mark 5:1-9

 

This exorcism introduces some peculiar elements that underscore the power of hidden names both for Jesus in the title “Son” and for the demons. In this pericope, Jesus journeyed by the sea near the country of the Garasenes when a possessed man exuberantly approached Jesus. The narrator described the dangerousness of this man, and Jesus attempted to exorcise the demon. It is at this point that the demon identified Jesus as “the Son of the most high God.” (52)

 

Unlike some episodes of exorcism, when the demons called Jesus “Son of the most high God” (Mark 5:7), there was no command to silence. (53) In other instances of exorcism, I argue that Jesus silenced the demons after they pronounced his name in order to prevent the demons from exerting power over him. However, this episode escalates the scope of Jesus’s power and superiority, for he successfully performed the exorcism despite the use of Jesus’s sacred name.

 

This exorcism presents a more menacing threat than previous encounters. Mark characterizes this man as particularly wild and possessed, and he takes a digression of several verses to describe the activities and pitiful state of the man (Mark 5:3-5). Mark describes the man as dwelling among graves, a location associated with ritual uncleanness, death, fear, and decay. The man had inhuman strength to be able to break chains and resist restraint. And the man elicits frightful mister, as he is described as “crying, and cutting himself with stones,” while he wandered the mountains and their tombs (Mark 5:5).

 

Mark further heightens the challenge of the episode by having the demon appropriate exorcist behavior. After declaring Jesus’s sacred name “Son,” the demon exclaimed, “I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not” (Mark 5:7). The word rendered “adjure” in the King James Bible is the Greek word ορκιζω,” to make one swear” or “to administer and oath,” and is customarily used by an exorcist, not by the object of the exorcism (see Acts 19:13). (54) The demon, in his attempt to gain the upper hand, utilized Jesus’s hidden name and assumed the rhetorical posture of an exorcist.

 

In addition to the man’s altogether fearsome vignette, Mark raises the stakes of this exorcism by increasing the size of the demonic force. In the course of performing the exorcism, Jesus asked the demon for its name, a common element found elsewhere in the exorcism genre. (55) The demon revealed that its name was Legion and that it consisted of multiple spirits (Mark 5:9).

 

In the face of formidable opponent—formidable in visage, size, and behavior—Jesus nonetheless demonstrated superior power in his successful exorcism. This scene demonstrates that even if demons break from exorcism expectations, Jesus can be overpowered neither through possession of his sacred name, nor through large numbers, nor through special pleading. The “Son” only functions as a key word for righteous, covenanted, understanding disciples.

 

Note for the Above:

 

(52) This variation of the title “Son” is particularly appropriate for this Gentile setting. “Most High” distinguishes a certain god apart from a large pantheon of gods in pagan theology. For example, the “most high” god is an attested epithet in Hellenistic setting for Zeus. See Mark, Mark, 321; Collins, Mark, 268

 

(53) Roskam observes that another plausible reason for the lack of a command to silence is that Jesus was apparently alone with the disciples. While the crowds were not to know Jesus’s identity, he intends for his disciples to understand who he is. See Roskam, The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark, 179.

 

(54) Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones, and Roderick McKenzie, “ορκιζω,” in A Greek-English Lexicon, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940).

 

(55) Collins, Mark, 166, 268. For a first-century example of this formula, see Testament of Solomon vol. 9, 15, 17, 21, 22, 24, 28, 33, 46, 48, 51, 52, 58, 60, 64, 70, 72, 73, 121, 125.