Mark 3:7-12

[jack]

Content

Jesus goes to the lake.
People from several specifically named nearby regions flock to him.
People were crowding him because of his reputation for healing, so he went out on a boat.
Unclean spirits fell down before him crying out "you are the son of God". He said "Yes, but don't tell anyone!"

Analysis

I don't have much to say about this. I wonder if it evolved from something like, some unsung scribe had before him/her a reported story that happened to Jesus which was basically "Jesus left the town and went out on a boat" but they knew this story was supposed to convey (i) Jesus was very popular (ii) Jesus was the son of God, so they tried to deduce the missing bits.

Why would he have gone out in a boat? Because he was being crowded because he was popular.

How much detail do we have on "popular". Well, it was pretty widespread, lets say from "Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon".

How did people know he was the son of God? Because the evil spirits fled from him.

Why did lots of people still deny it? Because he, um, told everyone to keep it a secret.

Why did he not tell anyone? Not sure.

But that's complete speculation, I don't think it did happen like that.

Comments

[jack]

I've heard claims that because of the shape of the harbour, hills, etc, being out on a boat may actually have been a sensible way to address lots of people (amphitheatre effect).

That's an interesting idea. I'm sceptical about the specifics of the acoustics being something special: that seems a bit too pat (unless Jesus arranged for it :)). But even if we don't know exactly, I'm not surprised there was some practical reason Jesus ended up in the boat, either exactly what it says, that he was too crowded on shore, or he was afraid of being mobbed, or he was going out in the boat and came back to talk to people when they were arriving, or just to give himself a bit of space to be heard.

In fact, the plausible-but-unexplained detail that he gave a sermon from a boat makes me think it's quite likely it really happened.

I never thought about him wanting to keep things discreet.

Yeah. When you know the ending, you don't stop to bear in mind who knew what at what stage. But in fact, it's very interesting to see when son-of-God starts coming into the narrative.

After all, whether or not Jesus was son-of-God, it's not clear when it started being accepted that he was. Did he know all along, but only slowly reveal it to people? Did he only slowly come to think that himself? Did he only realise that about the time he died? Was it only realised after that point, but people spreading the word just assumed it should be in the earlier story when they told those parts?

I don't know -- I haven't got far enough through the gospel yet :)

politically aware enough to not want to go "Yes! I am your Messiah!"

Come to think of it, that probably is the best strategy, even without the romans. If you're not the messiah, you may want to deny it. But if you want people to think you are, coy hints are likely to draw people's attention, whereas an outright declaration is likely to make people sceptical. It's annoying, but the same is probably true for lesser difficult-to-prove extraordinary claims too.