Friday, July 26, 2024

Maurice Casey’s Reconstruction of, and Commentary on, the Possible Aramaic Source of Mark 14:18

  

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 μετεμου 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 μετεμου , is not credible. We have another small argument in favour of Markan priority. (Ibid., 229-30)

 

  

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