Gospel of Mark Readthrough : 1:9-15

[jack]

¹⁰ Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.

OK, we make really, really sure the reader gets the point here. I suspect this "heaven being torn open" may have been more obvious in retrospect than it was at the time.

¹² At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, ¹³and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Hm. I think the wilderness thing is in more detail in some of the other gospels? Here's it's just one line. It looks like Mark knew a longer story about it, but just put in the bare bones for whatever reason (IIRC a lot of the Mishnah in the Talmud is like that, it's not expected to be read by someone COMPLETELY unfamiliar with it, but to provide an outline). There obviously was a really important story about it, or Mark wouldn't have mentioned it, but it's not really clear what happened or why it's important yet.

¹⁴ After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ¹⁵ "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"

Mark fills in some information about John's arrest later. I'd be clearer if it were a bit more chronological, but it's still fairly clear. Although it possibly suggests it wasn't all written together, even if it was written by the same guy.

Now Jesus wanders off into Galilee to start gathering followers. IIRC he spends some time knocking around here before eventually getting to the capital. I wonder how much time Jesus spent with John: just a baptism, or did they hang out for a while? When John was arrested did Jesus think of himself as carrying on John's work?

Follow-ups

Thanks to all who commented on the last post. I guess what I don't know about baptism was what John was doing. The lexicon (thanks, Paul!) says the relevant greek word was "baptizō", meaning something like "dip in water to wash clean", but is translated as "baptize". So it sounds like any full-body immersion (especially with a ritual component) may be called "baptizō" at the time? Including immersions which were traditional in Judaism before and since?

But I can't tell if it means John was doing this new, never seen before thing, baptising to wash away sins, or if John was doing something that already had a meaning in Jewish tradition. Or somewhere between, or something completely different.

Comments

[eudoxiafriday.wordpress.com]

Wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this series of posts :) for me, I've been reading this stuff forever, so I sometimes find it hard to actually read, IYKWIM? It's easy to scan through and go "yeah, that bit, then that bit, then that bit" without taking it in / thinking about it. So it's really interesting reading your posts and reactions to bits and thinking about everything.

There is indeed more wilderness elsewhere ... do you know whether there were Jewish beliefs / cultural norms / I'm struggling for a word here - about the wilderness? Ideas/symbolism, I guess.

I know enough to know that the wilderness is important and symbolic in the Bible, but not enough to know what it actually symbolises. I think I've heard/read stuff sort of says it's "getting away from it all" which I am suspicious of as that *may* be valid or may just be 21st century views latching on to a convenient idea.

Also I think that living in the 21st century after the invention of helicopters, GPS, etc I probably have very different ideas about what a wilderness is than someone living 2000 years ago would have had ...

[jack]

Wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this series of posts :) for me, I've been reading this stuff forever, so I sometimes find it hard to actually read, IYKWIM?

Thank you! Yeah, I know exactly. I wasn't sure doing this publicly was the best idea, but I hoped people would find it funny or interesting, and would helpfully fill in details for me :)

do you know whether there were Jewish beliefs / cultural norms / I'm struggling for a word here - about the wilderness?

I don't know if it had any specific connotations (that is, it never came up in conversation with Liv, but she may drop in and comment now any time :))

When I googled, there was a site suggesting it meant "out in the country where there weren't any people" not necessarily "no water, no plants, no animals, no food, only rocks", but I don't know any more :)

Some sort of spiritual journey seems a natural thing for a messiah to have gone through. Maybe he got lost (after John's arrest or something) and had to wander home, and got tempted along the way, or something...

[corrvin]

"The lexicon (thanks, Paul!) says the relevant greek word was "baptizō", meaning something like "dip in water to wash clean", but is translated as "baptize". So it sounds like any full-body immersion (especially with a ritual component) may be called "baptizō" at the time? Including immersions which were traditional in Judaism before and since?"

No, actually. Any kind of bathing at all. Even "I fell in the cow pen and got covered in manure, better take a bath all over" would be the same word in Greek. Baptizo just means immerse in water, nothing more. The Christian usage of a Greek word in English simply indicates the separate meaning.

In fact, there's a division between older churches that use the sprinkling method of baptism and newer churches that hold that the word itself commands us to do a total immersion or "bathing" of the person. (My parents' church has occasional combined services with local Baptist and Methodist churches-- at one of the more recent ones, the Baptist preacher announced that refreshments were available at the back: "We have a selection of Methodist and Baptist cookies available. The Methodist ones are the ones with the sprinkles, while the Baptist cookies are intended to be dunked.")

[jack]

Sorry, I see I didn't really think this through. I meant, "if you're looking for a word in English meaning to wash in a ritual, you would be more likely to say 'wash' than some other synonym of 'wash'" not "if you see the English word 'wash' it most likely means 'wash ritually'".

But I see that didn't really make sense in what I wrote.

[eudoxiafriday.wordpress.com]

I asked around at youth group (by which I primarily mean I asked the youth pastor and his wife, not the 14 year olds ...) about the history of baptism. They didn't know either, but some Googling turned up this article:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/asktheexpert/mar14.html

(FYI: Christianity Today, which this is linked from, is a pretty mainstream publication, not just some site some dude set up)

which says "... as "God-fearers" or "righteous" Gentiles expressed their desire to convert to Judaism, priests broadened the rite's meaning, and along with circumcision, performed baptism as a sign of the covenant given to Abraham"