From: Bob Schacht (Robert.Schacht@NAU.EDU)
Date: Thu Dec 18 1997 - 20:53:45 EST
>Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 18:51 +0000
>From: dmurphy <dmurphy@sjc.edu.bz>
>Subject: Mark 7,19b
>Sender: owner-crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
>To: mahlonh.smith@worldnet.att.net, crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
>X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.21
>
>Dear Mahlon, Tom (Kopecek), Mark (Goodacre), and other Crosstalkers
>actively interested in the meaning of Mark 7,19b,--...
>
>To be upfront from the beginning, I will say that I agree with the
>position presented by Carl Conrad and Tom Kopecek.
>
>Ever since Mark 7,19b was discussed, in the wider context of the
>historical Jesus' attitudes towards Jewish purity regulations, over a
>year ago on Crosstalk, I have been much interested by the topic. At
>that time I was intuitively quite skeptical regardiang the position
>being forwarded chiefly by Lewis Reich that Jesus in no fundamental way
>would have challenged these purity regulations. My careful study at
>that time of Crossan was a major reason for my skepticism. Since Lewis
>was generously offering to send to interested Crosstalkers copies of
>Paula Fredriksen's two articles which he lauded as strongly supporting
>his position ("Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?" and "What You See is
>What You Get: Context and Content in Current Research on the Historical
>Jesus," I eagerly accepted his offer (since in Managua, as here in
>Belize, there is simply no access to such journals). After reading and
>carefully re-reading both articles, I was left with the conviction that
>Fredriksen simply did not confront either the method or the exegetical/
>historical reasoning used by Crossan to establish his contrary view.
>(If any Crosstalker disagrees with my evaluation of Fredriksen's work, I
>will be delighted to spell out my reasons.)
>
>As those of you who read my message on Crossan's method some weeks ago
>know, it was only after that time that I came to know of the work of
>Ched Myers on Mark's Gospel (Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading
>of Mark's Story of Jesus). My intense study of that work over the past
>six months has greatly deepened my understanding of Mark's treatment,
>among many other issues, of the area of Jewish purity laws. It is that
>study that leads me to agree, as I pointed out, particularly with what
>Carl Conrad contributed to Crosstalk on this topic.
>
>I had enquired in that earlier "Crossan method" message as to whether
>there were Crosstalkers other than Ray Pickett who had read Myers's
>work. Since no one has responded affirmatively, I have decided that it
>could be a real service briefly to indicate the method and reasoning
>with which Myers approaches his reading of Mark -- using the specific
>example of Mk 7,19b in its context.
>
>A major strength of Myers's work, in my judgment, is that, in addition
>to knowing very well the secondary literature on Mark over the last
>century, he brings to bear on his interpretations, in a highly
>integrated way, two relatively recent methods -- the literary and the
>social (what he refers to in his introductory chapter as "Narrative
>Analysis: Structure and Story" and "Social Analysis: Discourse and
>Signification"; see pp. 31-35).
>
>In his second chapter, "The Socio-Historical Site of Mark's Story of
>Jesus," Myers has a major section dedicated to "The Symbolic Order of
>Ancient Judaism: A Matrix Model," which he studies under the rubrics of
>"Purity and Debt" and "Torah and Temple."
>
>With this background, Myers in his seventh chapter comes to his study of
>what he identifies, though literary-structural analyis, as a carefully
>constructed unit, in Mk 6:53-7:23. He entitles this section of this
>chapter "The Structures of Segregation: The 'Leaven' of the Pharisees
>(6:53-7:23)," which he studies in two sections: "i. Attacking Exclusive
>Table-Fellowship: Pharisaic Practice" and "ii. Attacking Oral Tradition:
>Pharisaic Ideology" (pp. 217-223).
>
>Myers comments: "Once again, Mark's composition provides the key to
>interpretation. The debate unfolds in three layers:
> 1. the conflict is set up with a short excursus concerning Pharisaic
> practices of ritual washing (7:1-5);
> 2. Jesus begins by challenging not the purity code itself but
> Pharisaic oral tradition (7:6-13);
> 3. Jesus returns to the original question by renouncing the kosher
> regulations of the purity code (7:14-23).
>"The first and the third parts are thus related, each defined by the
>repetition of their respective themes: in the first case the objection
>of the Pharisees; in the second, Jesus' counterthesis:
> 1. 7:2 'They noticed that some of his disciples were eating
> with unclean hands."
> 7:5 'Why do your disciples . . . their food with unclean
> hands?'
> 3. 7:15c 'It is the things that come out of a person that make that
> person unclean."
> 7:23 'All these things come from within and make a person
> unclean.'
>"This compositional structure is didactic, stating the problem and the
>solution, while also isolating the middle section (2). There Jesus
>attacks 'the tradition of the elders' (introduced in 7:3,5), which
>represents the deeper issue of legitimating ideology. Accordingly, I
>will read (1) and (3) together, and then look at (2) below.
>"This conflict is first set up (7:1f.) and then explained to the reader
>(7:3f.). Mark identifies three aspect of ritual cleansing in
>preparation for table, which he claims as universal Jewish practice (kai
>pantes hoi Iodaioi):
> a. the washing of hands;
> b. the purification of food bought in the marketplace;
> c. the cleansing of utensils.
>"In reality such a strict practice of ritual purity was probably kept
>only by an extemeist sect of the Pharisees, the *haverim,* and perhaps
>priests. Booth suggest that the *haverim* are here, as in 2:18ff.,
>challenging Mark's community to match their 'supererogatory' piety as
>befits the truly holy (1986:130ff. [This refers to Roger P. Booth. Jesus
>and the Laws of Purity: Tradition and Legal History in Mark 7.
>Sheffield: JSOT Press.]) Mark's generalization, however, may simply
>mean to imply that all Jews are captive to the elitist conception of
>purity.
>"Of particular interest is Mark's mention of the marketplace (agora) in
>6:56 and 7:4. This narrative site represents of course the economic
>sphere, and Mark later refers to it as the public site of scribal
>'piety' that oppresses the poor (12:38ff.). The practice of
>'sprinkling' (hrantisontai) food would appear to refer to Pharisaic
>concern to guard against consuming produce that may have been rendered
>unclean at some stage of the production process (it had nothing to do
>with hygiene). Impurity could have been contracted in one of two ways:
>the farmer could have sown or harvested in violation of Sabbath or other
>regulations; or the fruits may have not undergone proper separation for
>tithes. We have already seen (above 4,D,ii) that Pharisaic control over
>production and distribution were touchy issues for Galilean peasants."
>[couple paragraphs skipped here]
>"The parable itself (7:15) is a word play on the 'external/internal'
>antithesis: 'nothing coming into a person from the outside can pollute;
>it is that which comes from a person that pollutes.'
>"The explanation in turn is in the form of a loose doublet:
> a. "nothing that enters from the outside can pollute a person, because
>it bypasses the heart . . .' (7:18);
> b. ". . . for from within from the heart of a person designs of evil
>come . . . all these evils come from within and pollute a person'
>(7:1,23). This doublet frames Mark's parenthetical comment in 7:19b and
>the so called vice list of 7:22.
>"The 'declaring clean' (katharizon) of all foods emerges as the
>'interpretation of the interpretation.' Here Mark climaxes his assault
>upon the purity code, which Jesus began by 'declaring clean' the leper
>back in 1:41ff. Booth points out that the 'medical' argument -- that
>food cannot defile because it passes through as excrement -- is
>'Hellenistic,' not Palestinian, for purity was a symbolic, not
>physiological, matter. This can be explained if Mark intends this
>episode in particular to be intelligible to the gentile part of his
>audience. In effect, he grants the medical argument -- precisely
>*because* he rejects the definition of purity given to the symbolic
>order."
>[three paragraphs skipped here]
>"Embedded in Mark's attack on the purity code is a vigorous
>counteroffenseive that attempts to delegitimize Pharisaic authority
>altogether (7:6-13). At is issue is the Pharisaic oral tradition, or
>halakah: . . . ."
>[long quotation from Isenberg skipped here]
>"Mark's charge that the halakah abrogates Mosaic law would not,
>therefore, have been unique to him, but the *reasons* for it were.
>"Jesus' attack is two fold . . . ."
>
>I won't quote more from Myers. I think, however, you can see my reason
>for quoting as much as I did. I actually quoted more today than I had
>in the original message on Monday, because I have been following the
>thread, mainly between Bob Schacht (who has shown another side of his
>personality in this new thread!!) and Stephen Davies on the DSS and the
>Pharisees; quite possibly Bob and Steve will find various references to
>the attack by the Markan Jesus on the Pharisees in what I have quoted
>meaningful for their discussion.
>
>There are many other aspects of Myers's presentation that I would much
>like to see discussed on Crosstalk, particularly his treatment of Mk 13
>because of its intensely challenging and new (based especially on the
>work of John Collins and Adela Yarbro Collins) interpretation of
>apocalyptic discourse (this applies also to the highly important
>apocalyptic Son of Man sayings in others parts of Mark [8:34-9:1 and
>14:62; as well, obviously, as 13:26] and to what Myers calls the three
>"apocalyptic moments" in Mark (1:9-11; 9:2-8; and 15:33-39).
>
>I don't know how I feel about this second version of this message. I do
>regret not having been able this time to call up positions of the other
>Crosstalkers who had contributed to the Mark 7:19b discussion of a
>couple weeks ago and thus show where, following Myers, I disagree or
>agree with them. But I think I have accomplished my primary goal of
>communicating Myers's position. No doubt, if they have had the time to
>read this long message, Mahlon Smith and Mark Goodacre will recognize
>clearly where Myers challenges their interpretation -- and Carl Conrad
>(if Bob reads it and decides to send it on to Carl, whose e-mail address
>I no longer have) and Tom Kopecek will recognize close affinities with
>what Myers says.
>
>I hope this time my message gets through!
>
>All the best to all!
>
>Don Don Murphy, S.J.
> Melhado Hall Jesuit Residence
> St. John's College
> P.O. Box 548
> Belize City, BELIZE
> Central America
>
>
>
>
>
Robert M. Schacht, Ph.D., Director of Research
American Indian Rehabilitation Research & Training Center
Institute for Human Development, University Affiliated Program
P.O.Box 5630
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5630
phone 520-523-1342; FAX 520-523-9127
http://www.nau.edu/~ihd/airrtc.html
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