The question is a discussion type question and should be answered in APA style format with a 200 minimum word count and a maximum of 500 words. Use only the source that has been uploaded. Harris, S. L. (2015). The New Testament: A student’s Introduction

NEWTESTAMNT
 

The question is a discussion type question and should be answered in APA style format with a 200 minimum word count and a maximum of 500 words.

Use only the source that has been uploaded.

Harris, S. L. (2015). The New Testament: A student’s Introduction (8th ed.). Mcgraw- Hill Publishing.

QUESTION:

The Church’s first Council (Conference, pp. 297-298) revealed some differences in ideas of ministry and mission between Paul and the Church in Jerusalem. What was the subject matter of the council? What were some of the differences in opinion? Do you think that the early church’s experience in dealing with these differences can be helpful for dealing with differences in the church today?

 

136
Key Topics/Themes Between about 64 CE , when
Nero began Rome’s fi rst offi cial persecution
of Christians, and 70 CE , when the Romans
destroyed Jerusalem (along with its Temple
and the original apostolic church), the Christian
community faced a series of crises that threat-
ened its survival. Responding to the wars,
revolts, and persecutions that affl icted his
group, Mark composed what appears to be
the earliest narrative account of Jesus’ public
career, presenting Jesus’ story in a way that
was strikingly relevant to the precarious
circumstances of Mark’s intended readers.
Mark’s Gospel thus portrays a Jesus who faces
attack on three crucial fronts: from Jewish
religious leaders, local ( Herodian ) rulers, and
Roman offi cials. Painting Jesus as a “ hidden
Messiah ” who was misunder stood and deval-
ued by his contemporaries, Mark emphasizes
that Jesus came to serve, to suffer, and to
die—but also ultimately to triumph by submit-
ting fully to the divine will.
The shortest and probably the earliest of the
four canonical Gospels, the narrative “ According
to Mark ” contains relatively few of Jesus’ teach-
ings. Instead, the author—who was the fi rst to
call his written account an evangelion (gospel)—
presents Jesus as a miracle-working man of ac-
tion who is almost constantly on the move,
dashing from village to village in Galilee and
adjacent regions and, fi nally, journeying to
Jerusalem for a fatal confrontation with its reli-
gious and political authorities. Mark’s Jesus an-
nounces God’s kingdom, exorcizes demons,
heals the sick, and voluntarily sacrifi ces himself
for others.
Mark’s Historical Setting
Several critical methods are helpful in studying
Mark, beginning with historical investigation of
the Gospel’s authorship, date, place of compo-
sition, possible sources, and social and religious
environment (see Figure 7.1 ). The earliest ref-
erence to Mark’s Gospel comes from Papias , a
Christian writer who was bishop of Hierapolis
in Asia Minor about 130–140 ce (see Box 7.1 ).
As quoted by Eusebius, Papias states that Mark
had been a disciple of the apostle Peter in Rome
and based his account on Peter’s reminiscences
c h a p t e r 7
Mark’s Portrait of Jesus
The Hidden Messiah and Eschatological Judge
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give up his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 137
of Jesus. Papias notes that Mark “ had not heard
the Lord or been one of his followers ” so that
his Gospel lacked “ a systematic arrangement of
the Lord’s sayings ” (Eusebius, History 3.39).
Besides his intention to link Mark’s Gospel
to apostolic testimony, a consistent trend among
church leaders during the second century ce ,
Papias makes two important historical observa-
tions: The author of Mark was not an eyewitness
but depended on secondhand oral preaching,
and Mark’s version of Jesus’ activities is “ not in
[proper chronological] order. ” Careful scrutiny
of Mark’s Gospel has convinced most New
Testament scholars that it does not derive from
a single apostolic source, such as Peter, but is
based on a general body of oral teachings about
Jesus preserved in the author’s community.
Mark’s author offers few hints about where
or for whom he wrote, except for his insistence
that following Jesus requires a willingness to suf-
fer for one’s faith. Mark’s near equation of disci-
pleship with suffering suggests that he directed
his work to a group that was then undergoing se-
vere testing and needed encouragement to re-
main steadfast (see Mark 8:34–38; 10:38–40). This
theme of “ carrying one’s cross ” may derive from
the effects of Nero’s persecution (c. 64–65 ce ),
when numerous Roman Christians were crucifi ed
City Country
Provincial aristocracy:
Herodian ruling house,
priestly and lay
aristocracy, members
of the Sanhedrin
Elite
(upper-stratum
groups)
Members of the Sanhedrin,
administrative and military
retainers, functionaries,
priests, scribes, local judges,
tax collectors, foreign
traders, wholesalers
Nonelite
(lower-
stratum
groups)
Prosperous craftsmen,
traders, peasant
farmers, tenants,
service workers
Small farmers,
tenants,
businessmen,
day laborers,
fishermen,
shepherds,
widows, orphans,
prostitutes,
beggars, bandits
Minimum existence
The Gospel According to Mark
Author: Traditionally John Mark, traveling
companion of Paul and “interpreter” for Peter in
Rome. The writer does not identify himself in the
Gospel text, and scholars, unable to verify the mid-
second century tradition of Markan authorship,
regard the work as anonymous.
Date: About 66–70 ce, during the Jewish Revolt
against Rome.
Place of composition: Rome or Syria-Palestine.
Sources: Primarily oral tradition. Many schol-
ars believe that Mark used a few written
sources, such as a collection of Jesus’ parables
(ch. 4), a compilation of apocalyptic prophe-
cies (ch. 13), and, perhaps, an older account of
Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution (chs. 14–15).
Audience: Gentile Christians suffering per-
secution.
f i g u r e 7 . 1 Social Pyramid 2: Social Stratifi cation of
Jewish Society in the Land of Israel (Without Religious
Groups). In Jesus’ day, Jewish society was sharply divided
between two unequal groups: a powerful elite, represent-
ing a tiny percentage of the total population, and the non-
elite masses. Whereas the elite upper stratum, such as the
Roman-appointed Herodian kings, aristocratic chief
priests, and large landowners, enjoyed the privileges of po-
litical infl uence, wealth, and prestige, the lower stratum,
encompassing the vast majority of the population, lacked
access to power or social privilege. Nonelite groups ranged
from some relatively prosperous artisans, small farmers,
and merchants to large numbers of landless day laborers
whose families existed in utter penury. Many of Jesus’ par-
ables deal with the social and economic inequities that
pervaded his society. See also Figure 5.7 for the pyramidal
structure of Roman society. (Pyramid fi gure is reprinted
from The Jesus Movement by Ekkehard W. Stegemann and
Wolfgang Stegemann, English translation by O. C. Dean,
Jr., copyright © 1999 Fortress Press. Used by permission of
Augsburg Fortress.)
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138 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
embellishment, for second-century churchmen
tried to connect extant writings about Jesus with
apostles or their immediate disciples. The Gospel
is anonymous; for convenience, we refer to the
author as Mark.
Mark’s Puzzling Attitude
Toward Jesus’ Close
Associates
Jesus’ Family
If scholars are right about assigning the Gospel
to a time when the Jewish War against Rome
had already begun and the Temple was ex-
pected to fall, most of the adult generation that
had known Jesus was no longer alive. Even forty
years after Jesus’ death, however, there must
have been some persons who had heard the dis-
ciples preach or who had known members of
Jesus’ family. James, whom Paul calls “ the Lord’s
brother ” (Gal. 1: 1 9), was head of the Jerusalem
church until his martyrdom in about 62 ce
( Josephus, Antiquities 20.9; Acts 12:17; 15:13–21;
or burned alive. Papias and Ir e naeus , another
early church leader, agree that Mark wrote
shortly after Peter’s martyrdom, which, accord-
ing to tradition, occurred during Nero’s attack
on Rome’s Christian community.
Although Rome is the traditional place of
composition, a growing number of scholars
think it more likely that Mark wrote for an audi-
ence in Syria or Palestine. Critics favoring a
Palestinian origin point to Mark’s emphasis on
the Jewish Revolt (66–73 ce ) and concurrent
warnings to believers who were affected by the
uprising (Mark 13; see Box 7.6). In Mark’s view,
the “ tribulation ” climaxing in Jerusalem’s de-
struction is the sign heralding Jesus’ Parousia ,
or return in heavenly glory. The association of
wars and national revolts with persecution of
believers and Jesus’ Second Coming gives an
eschatological urgency to Mark’s account.
Even though Papias and other second- century
writers ascribe the Gospel to John Mark, a com-
panion of Peter and Paul (Philem. 24; Col. 4:10;
Acts 12:12–25; 14:36–40), the author does not
identify himself in the text. The superscription—
“ The Gospel According to Mark ” —is a later church
The oldest surviving reference to Mark’s
authorship of the Gospel bearing his name comes
from Papias, who was a bishop of Hierapolis about
130 or 140 ce. An early church historian, Eusebius of
Caesarea, quotes Papias as writing that an unnamed
presbyter (church elder) was his source:
This, too, the presbyter used to say. “Mark, who
had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully,
but not in order, all that he remembered of the
Lord’s sayings and doings. For he had not heard
the Lord or been one of his followers, but later, as
I said, one of Peter’s. Peter used to adapt his teach-
ings to the occasion, without making a systematic
arrangement of the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark
was quite justifi ed in writing down some things just
as he remembered them. For he had one purpose
only—to leave out nothing that he had heard, and
to make no misstatement about it.”
(Eusebius, The History of the Church 3.39)
Eusebius also quotes Papias’s declaration that he
preferred to learn Christian traditions from the
testimony of persons who had known Jesus’ com-
panions rather than from written documents,
such as the Gospels:
And whenever anyone came who had been a
follower of the presbyters, I inquired into the
words of the presbyters, what Andrew or Peter
had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or
Matthew, or any other disciple of the Lord, and
what Aristion and the presbyter John, disciples of
the Lord, were still saying. For I did not imagine
that things out of books would help me as much
as the utterances of a living and abiding voice.
(Eusebius, The History of the Church 3.39)
Although Papias is a relatively early witness to the
Christian tradition, scholars caution that we have no
means of verifying the historicity of his claims.
b o x 7 . 1 Papias on the Origin of Mark’s Gospel
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 139
take charge of him, convinced he was out of his
mind ” (3:21, Jerusalem Bible). When “ his mother
and his brothers ” send a message asking for him,
apparently demanding that he cease making a
public spectacle of himself, Mark has Jesus de-
clare “ whoever does the will of God is my brother,
my sister, my mother. ” This is a startling repudia-
tion of his blood ties and an implication that in
the Markan Jesus’ view, his relatives were not do-
ing the divine will (3:31–35). The force of this
antifamily episode is intensifi ed because Mark
uses it to frame a controversy in which Jesus’ op-
ponents accuse him of expelling demons by the
power of Beelzebub, another name for the devil.
Jesus countercharges that those who oppose his
work are defying the Holy Spirit (God’s presence
active in human life), an “ unforgivable sin ”
(3:22–30). At this point in the narrative, Mark
shows Jesus’ family attempting to interrupt his
ministry, thus subtly associating them with his ad-
versaries (see also John 7:1–9).
Mark also depicts Jesus’ acquaintances
in Nazareth as hostile to a local carpenter’s
21:16), making him a contemporary of Mark.
Through his surviving associates, James pre-
sumably would have been an invaluable source
of information when Mark began compiling
data for a biography of Jesus.
Strangely, Mark does not seem to have re-
garded Jesus’ relatives—or any other ordinary
source a modern biographer would consult—as
worthy informants. One of the author’s prevail-
ing themes is his negative presentation of virtu-
ally everyone associated with the historical
Jesus. ( Box 7.2 lists Mark’s leading characters.)
From “ his mother and brothers ” (3:31) to his
most intimate followers, Mark portrays all of
Jesus’ companions as oblivious to his real na-
ture and/or as obstacles to his work. Mark’s
Gospel consistently renders all Jesus’ Palestinian
associates as incredibly obtuse, unable to grasp
his teachings, and blind to his value.
The Markan picture of Jesus’ family implies
that they, too, failed to appreciate or support
him: “ When his relatives heard of this [his draw-
ing large crowds around him], they set out to
John the Baptist (1:4–9); executed (6:17–29)
Jesus introduced (1:9); fi nal words (15:34)
Simon Peter and his brother Andrew (1:16–18);
Peter’s imperfect discipleship (8:27–33; 9:2–6;
14:26–31, 66–72)
James and John, the fi shermen sons of Zebedee
(1:19–20); wish to be fi rst in the kingdom
(10:35–45)
Levi (Matthew), a tax collector (2:13–17)
The Twelve (3:13–19)
Judas Iscariot, Jesus’ betrayer (3:19; 14:17–21, 43–46)
Mary, Jesus’ mother, and other family members
(3:20–21, 31–35; 6:3)
The Gerasene demoniac (5:1–20)
Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee (ruled 4 bce–
39 ce) (6:17–29; 8:15)
The Syrophoenician (Canaanite) woman (7:14–30)
A rich young man (10:17–22)
The woman who anoints Jesus at Bethany (14:3–9)
The High Priest Caiaphas (14:53–64)
Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea (governed 26–36 ce)
(15:1–15, 43–44)
Barabbas, the terrorist released in place of Jesus
(15:6–15)
Simon of Cyrene, the man impressed to carry
Jesus’ cross (15:21)
Joseph of Arimathaea, the Sanhedrin member
who buries Jesus (15:42–46)
Mary of Magdala (in Galilee) (15:40–41, 47; 16:1)
Mary, mother of James and Joseph (15:40, 47; 16:1)
*Characters are listed in general order of appearance,
along with the chief quality or event that distinguishes
them in Mark’s narrative.
b o x 7 . 2 Mark’s Leading Characters*
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140 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
stepbrother and Mary as eternally virgin; see
Chapter 20.)
The Disciples
Mark’s opinion of the Galilean disciples whom
Jesus calls to follow him (3:13–19) is distinctly
unsympathetic, although these are the Twelve
Apostles on whose testimony the Christian faith
is traditionally founded. Almost without excep-
tion, Mark paints the Twelve as dull-witted, in-
ept, unreliable, cowardly, and, in at least one
case, treacherous. When Jesus stills a storm, the
disciples are impressed but unaware of the act’s
signifi cance (4:35–41). After his feeding of the
multitudes, the disciples “ had not understood
the intent of the loaves ” because “ their minds
were closed ” (6:52). The harshness of Mark’s
judgment is better rendered in the phrase “ their
hearts were hardened ” (as given in the New
Revised Standard Version). This is the same
phrase used to describe the Egyptian pharaoh
when he arrogantly “ hardened his heart ” and
refused to obey Yahweh’s commands (Exod.
7:14–10:27). After listening for months to Jesus’
teaching, the disciples are such slow learners
that they are still ignorant of “ what [Jesus’ refer-
ence to] ‘rising from the dead’ could mean ”
(9:9–10). Not only do they fail to grasp the con-
cept of sharing in Jesus’ glory (10:35–41), but
even the simplest, most obvious parables escape
their comprehension (4:10–13). As Jesus asks,
“ You do not understand this parable? How then
will you understand any parable? ” (4:13).
Although he has “ explained everything ”
(4:33–34; see also 8:31–32), and the disciples
have presumably recognized him as the Messiah
(8:27–32), they desert him after his arrest
(14:30). Peter, who had earlier acknowledged
Jesus as the Messiah, three times denies know-
ing him (14:66–72). Almost the only character
in Mark shown as recognizing the signifi cance
of Jesus’ death is an unnamed Roman soldier
who perceives that “ truly this man was a son of
God! ” (15:39).
Mark’s recurring motif that all of Jesus’ origi-
nal associates, including family, former neighbors,
unexpected emergence as prophet and healer,
questioning his credentials as sage and teacher.
“ Where does he get it from? ” his neighbors ask.
“ ‘What wisdom is this that has been given him?’
and ‘How does he work such miracles? Is not
this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother
of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?’ So they
[turned against] him ” (6:2–3). In this incident
in which Jesus revisits his home turf, Mark ar-
gues that those who thought they knew Jesus
best doubted not only his right to be a religious
leader but also his legitimacy—note Mark’s ref-
erence to “ the son of Mary, ” a contrast to the
biblical custom of identifying a son through his
male parentage even if his father was dead. The
Nazarenes’ refusal to see any merit in him re-
sults in a troubling diminution of Jesus’ power:
“ He could work no miracle there ” except for some
routine healings (6:6; emphasis added). Mark
thus seems to dismiss both family and hometown
citizens as acceptable channels of biographical
tradition: They all fail to trust, comprehend, or
cooperate with his hero.
Mark’s allusion to Jesus’ “ brothers ” and
“ sisters ” (see also Matt. 13:54–56) may disturb
some readers. Because his Gospel does not in-
clude a tradition of Jesus’ virginal conception
or birth, the existence of siblings may not have
been an issue with the Markan community (as
it apparently was not for the Pauline churches;
none of Paul’s letters allude to a virgin birth).
Matthew, however, explicitly affi rms that Jesus
was virginally conceived (Matt. 1:18–25), and
Luke strongly implies it (Luke 1:26–38). Some
Protestant Christians believe that, following
Jesus’ delivery, his mother may have borne
other children in the ordinary way. According
to Roman Catholic doctrine, however, Mary re-
mains perpetually virgin. Jesus’ “ brothers ”
(translating the Greek adelphoi ) are to be un-
derstood as close male relatives, perhaps cous-
ins or stepbrothers (sons of Mary’s husband,
Joseph, by a previous marriage). (An apocry-
phal infancy Gospel, the Protevangelium
of James, which probably dates from the sec-
ond century ce , depicts James as Jesus’ older
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 141
Mark as a Literary Narrative
Organization and Bipolar Structure
Whatever the historicity of Mark’s version of
Jesus’ career, it eventually exerted a tremen-
dous infl uence on the Christian community
at large, primarily through the expanded and
revised editions of Mark that Matthew and
Luke produced (see Chapter 6). Because the
two other Synoptic Gospels generally follow
Mark’s order of events in Jesus’ life, it is im-
portant to understand the signifi cance of
Mark’s bipolar organization. Mark arranges
his narrative around a geographical north–
south polarity. The fi rst half of his narrative
takes place in Galilee and adjacent areas of
northern Palestine, a largely rural area of peas-
ant farmers where Jesus recruits his followers,
performs numerous miracles, and—despite
some opposition—enjoys considerable suc-
cess. The second half (after ch . 8) relates Jesus’
fatal journey southward to Judea and
Jerusalem, where he is rejected and killed (see
Figure 7.2 ). Besides dividing Jesus’ career ac-
cording to two distinct geographical areas,
Mark’s Gospel presents two contrasting as-
pects of Jesus’ story. In Galilee, Jesus is a fi gure
of power, using his supernatural gifts to expel
demons, heal the sick, control natural forces,
and raise the dead. The Galilean Jesus speaks
and acts with tremendous authority, effort-
lessly refutes his detractors, and affi rms or
invalidates the Mosaic Torah at will. Before
leaving Caesarea Philippi, however, Jesus
makes the fi rst of three Passion predictions,
warning his uncomprehending disciples that
he will go to Jerusalem only to suffer humilia-
tion and death (8:30–38; 9:31–32; 10:33–34).
By using the Passion predictions as a device
to link the indomitable miracle worker in
Galilee with the helpless fi gure on the cross in
Judea, Mark reconciles the two seemingly irrec-
oncilable components in his portrait of Jesus.
The powerful Son of God who astonishes vast
crowds with his mighty works is also the vulner-
able Son of Man who, in weakness and apparent
and followers, were almost preternaturally
blind to his true identity and purpose carries
through to the end of his Gospel. At the empty
tomb, an unnamed youth in white directs a
handful of women disciples not to linger in
Jerusalem but to seek their Lord in Galilee, but
they are too frightened to obey (16:1–8). The
Gospel thus ends with the only disciples who
had followed Jesus to the cross—a few Galilean
women— inarticulate with terror, unable to
cope with the news of his resurrection!
Mark’s view that the resurrected Jesus will not
be found near his burial site—Jerusalem—
contrasts with the Lukan tradition that Jesus in-
structed his followers to remain in Jerusalem
awaiting the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:47–53; Acts
1–2). Whereas Luke makes Jerusalem the center
of Christian growth and expansion, the Spirit-
empowered mother church led by Peter and
James, Jesus’ “ brother ” (Acts 1:4–3:34; 15:13–21;
21:16), Mark paints it as a hotbed of conniving
hypocrites who scheme to murder the Son of God.
Mark’s antipathy toward the historical Jesus’
closest associates and the original Jerusalem
church is puzzling. Does this apparent hostility
mean that the group for which Mark wrote
wished to distance itself from the Jerusalem
community, whose founders included Jesus’
closest family members, Mary and James (Acts
1:14; 12:17, etc.)? Does Mark’s negative atti-
tude indicate a power struggle between his
branch of Gentile Christianity and the Jewish
Christians who (until 70 ce ) headed the origi-
nal church? Some scholars caution that one
should not necessarily postulate a historical
tension between the Markan community and
Palestinian Jewish Christians. Ancient histori-
ans and biographers commonly portray their
heroes as enormously superior to their peers,
depicting a subject’s followers or disciples as
constitutionally incapable of rising to his level
of thought or achievement. Writing in this liter-
ary tradition, Mark may have emphasized the
defi ciencies of Jesus’ contemporaries to under-
score his hero’s unique status: By magnifying
Jesus’ image, Mark demonstrates that Jesus
alone does God’s work and declares God’s will.
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142 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
P
H
O
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I
C
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A
S A M A R I A
J U D A E A
I D
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D
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GA
LIL
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M E D I T E R R A N E A N
S E A
GAULANITIS
ITU
RAEA
PANIAS
ULATHA
BATAN
AEA
Samaria Sebaste
Sichem
Sychar
Lydda
Joppa
EmmausJamnia
Jerusalem
Bethphage
Bethany
Bethlehem
Bethany Beyond Jordan
Hebron
Azotus
MasadaRaphia
Gaza
Ascalon
Caesarea
Gaba
Nain
Ginaea
Pella
Gadara
Cana
Chabulon
Sepphoris
Damascus
Caesarea Philippi
Gergasa
Bethsaida-Julius
Hippos
Nazareth
Tiberias
Capernaum
Magdala
Machaerus
Jericho
Chorazin
Jorda
Lake Semechonitis
Jo
rd
an
R
.
Jo
rd
an
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iv
er

Decapolis
Tetrarchy of Philip
Under Pontius Pilate
Tetrarchy of Herod Antipas
Areas under special control
Cities of the Decapolis
Palestine During the Ministry of
Jesus (c. 30 CE)
Ptolemais
Tyre
Sarepta
Sidon
Arn
on River
KishonRiver
Le
on
tes
Ri
ve
r
MT. GERIZIM
Jacob’s
Well
MT.
TABOR
Plain of
Gennesaret
MT
. HE
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M
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US

0 10 20 30 Miles
0 10 20 30 Kilometers
MT. CARMEL
Plain of
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D
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Qumran
Sea
of
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f i g u r e 7 . 2 Political divisions of Palestine during the ministry of Jesus (c. 30 ce). Note that Rome
directly administered Judea and Samaria through its governor Pontius Pilate; Herod Antipas ruled
Galilee (Jesus’ home district) and Peraea; another son of Herod the Great, Philip, ruled an area to the
northeast. The Decapolis was a league of ten Greek-speaking cities on the east side of the Jordan River.
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 143
John, Jesus repeatedly travels back and forth be-
tween Galilee and Judea, performing miracles in
both regions. As Papias’s remark about the
Gospel’s lack of historical order warned, the
Markan sequence of events, with its emphasis on
a single, fi nal visit to Jerusalem, appears to
express the writer’s theological vision of Jesus’
life rather than a literal reconstruction of his
subject’s actual movements (see Box 7.3 ).
defeat, sacrifi ces his life “ as a ransom for many ”
(10:45). Thus, the author balances older Christian
traditions of his hero’s phenomenal deeds with
a bleak picture of Jesus’ sufferings, devoting the
last six chap ters to a detailed account of the
Passion. Although Matthew and Luke follow
Mark in his north–south, power–weakness di-
chotomy, John’s Gospel shows that there were
other ways to arrange events in Jesus’ story. In
beginning of jesus’ ministry (c. 27 or 29 ce)
Jesus is baptized by John at the Jordan River (1:9–11).
Jesus begins preaching in Galilee (1:14–15).
Jesus recruits Peter, Andrew, James, and John to
be his fi rst disciples (1:16–20).
Jesus performs miraculous cures and exorcisms in
Capernaum and throughout Galilee (1:21–3:12).
Jesus appoints twelve chief disciples from among
his many followers; he explains the meaning
of parables to this inner circle (3:13–4:34).
Jesus returns to Nazareth, where his neighbors
reject him (6:1–6).
Herod Antipas beheads John the Baptist (6:14–29).
Jesus miraculously feeds a Jewish crowd of 5,000
(6:30–44).
end of jesus’ ministry (c. 30 or 33 ce)
Jesus leaves Galilee and travels through non-Jewish
territories in Phoenicia and the Decapolis
(7:24–37).
Jesus miraculously feeds a second crowd, this
time of Gentiles (8:1–10, 14–21).
Jesus cures a blind man, and near the town of
Caesarea Philippi, Peter’s eyes are opened to
Jesus’ true identity as the Messiah; Jesus
rebukes Peter for failing to understand that
the Messiah must suffer and die (8:22–9:1).
Jesus is gloriously transfi gured before Peter,
James, and John (9:1–13).
Jesus travels south to Judea, teaching the crowds
and debating with Pharisees (10:1–33).
On the road to Jerusalem, Jesus for the third time
predicts his imminent suffering and death
(the Passion predictions) (8:31–33; 9:30–32;
10:32–34).
events of the last week of jesus’ life
On Palm Sunday, Jesus arranges his public entry
into Jerusalem; his followers hail him in terms
of the Davidic kingdom (11:1–11).
Jesus drives the moneychangers out of the
Temple (11:15–19).
Seated on the Mount of Olives opposite Jerusalem,
Jesus predicts the imminent destruction of the
Temple (13:1–37).
Jesus’ enemies conspire to kill him; Judas betrays
Jesus (14:1–11).
Jesus holds a fi nal Passover meal with the Twelve
(14:12–31).
After the Last Supper, Jesus is arrested at Gethsemane
on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem
(14:32–52).
Jesus is tried on charges of blasphemy before the
High Priest Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin
(14:53–65).
On Good Friday, Jewish leaders accuse Jesus before
Pontius Pilate; Jesus is declared guilty of treason,
fl ogged, and condemned to crucifi xion (15:1–20).
A group of Galilean women witness the Crucifi x-
ion; Joseph of Arimathaea provides a tomb for
Jesus (15:40–47).
On Easter Sunday, Mary of Magdala and other
women discover that Jesus’ tomb is empty; a
young man instructs them to look for Jesus in
Galilee, but the women are too frightened to
tell anyone of their experience (16:1–8).
b o x 7 . 3 Mark’s Order of Events in Jesus’ Life
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144 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
John predict a “ mightier ” successor, although
he does not show the Baptist as explicitly iden-
tifying Jesus as such.
The biographer’s decision to introduce
Jesus at the Jordan River is signifi cant, for the
Jordan was the gateway by which the Israelite
tribes originally entered Palestine, their Promised
Land. Mark may also have expected his readers
to remember that “ Jesus ” is the Greek version of
“ Joshua, ” the name of Moses’ successor who led
Israel across Jordan into its homeland. Mark’s
brief reference to Jesus’ being tested for forty
days in the Judean wilderness also has biblical
connotations. As the Israelites wandered for forty
years through the Sinai wilderness, undergoing
trials and temptations, so Jesus is tempted by
Satan in the desert, the untamed haunt of hostile
entities. Jesus vanquishes Satan, just as Joshua
conquered the Canaanite nations that opposed
Israel (Josh. 1–6).
Mark’s allusion to Jesus’ overcoming the
Evil One introduces another of the author’s
principal themes: God’s Son will break the
devil’s hold on humanity. Jesus’ exorcisms —
the casting out of demons who have possessed
human beings—are an important part of
Jesus’ ministry and are given proportionately
greater space in Mark than in any other
Gospel. (In contrast, John’s Gospel does not
contain a single reference to Jesus’ perform-
ing exorcisms.)
The Galilean Ministry:
Inaugurating the Kingdom
Mark’s Eschatological Urgency
Mark launches Jesus’ career with a startlingly
eschatological message: “ The time has come,
the kingdom of God is upon you; repent and
believe the Gospel ” (1:15). Mark’s sense of
eschatological urgency permeates his entire
Gospel, profoundly affecting his portrayal of
Jesus’ life and teaching. With the tradition that
Jesus had prophesied the Temple’s fall about to
be realized, Mark, writing about 70 ce , sees the
Mark’s Gospel can be divided into six parts:
1. Prelude to Jesus’ public ministry (1:1–13)
2. The Galilean ministry (1:14–8:26)
3. The journey to Jerusalem (8:27–10:52)
4. The Jerusalem ministry (11:1–15:47)
5. Mark’s Passion narrative: Jesus’ trial and
cruifi xion
6. Postlude: the empty tomb (16:1–8)
Prelude to Jesus’
Public Ministry
Like the writer of a classical epic, Mark plunges
into the middle of the action, providing no
background about his hero but introducing
him with apocalyptic suddenness. The opening
line, “ Here begins the gospel [good news] of
Jesus Christ ” (1:1), simultaneously announces
his epic theme and echoes Genesis 1, alerting
readers to see that, in Jesus, God has begun a
new creative activity. Jesus is the Christ (Greek
translation of the Hebrew mashiah ) and “ the
Son of God, ” titles that Mark seldom uses in his
narrative, for one of his purposes is to demon-
strate that in his lifetime the majority of people
did not recognize Jesus’ divine Sonship . No
person calls Jesus “ a son of God ” until almost
the very end of Mark’s Gospel (see Box 7.4 ).
Signifi cantly, at that point Jesus is already dead,
and the speaker is neither a Jew nor a disciple
but a Roman centurion (15:39).
By citing, as if from memory, a blend of
passages from Isaiah (40:3) and Malachi (3:1)—
that a divinely appointed “ herald ” and a “ voice
crying aloud in the wilderness ” are preparing a
path for the Lord—Mark immediately places
Jesus’ story in the context of the Hebrew Bible.
Mark identifi es the “ herald ” with John the
Baptist, a desert ascetic then conducting a reli-
gious campaign at the Jordan River, where
John baptizes converts “ in token of repentance,
for the forgiveness of sins ” (1:4). Jesus, implic-
itly included among the repentant, appears for
baptism, perhaps as John’s disciple. Mark has
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 145
Son  of Man who is about to appear in glory
(13:24–31) is the same as the Son of Man who
came forty years earlier to die on the cross (8:31,
38; 9:9–13, 31). The splendor of the one to come
casts its radiance over Mark’s portrait of the
human Jesus (9:1–9).
eschaton —the end of history as we know it—
about to take place (13:1–4, 7–8, 14–20, 24–27,
30, 35–37). He therefore paints Jesus as an escha-
tological fi gure whose words are reinterpreted as
specifi c warnings to Mark’s generation. In the
thought world Mark creates, the apocalyptic
Although Mark’s preferred designation
of Jesus is “Son of Man,” he also identifi es Jesus as
“Son of God” at strategic places in his narrative.
In most editions of Mark, the fi rst reference to
Jesus’ divine parentage occurs in the opening
verse and is addressed directly to readers, who
must be aware of Jesus’ supernatural identity if
Mark’s way of telling his hero’s story—an ironic
contrast between who Jesus really is and who peo-
ple mistake him for—is to succeed. Because some
early manuscripts omit the phrase “Son of God” in
Mark 1:1, however, it is possible that the author
originally intended for readers to learn of Jesus’
special relationship to the Father in the same man-
ner that Jesus did, at his baptism, when a heavenly
voice privately confi des, “You are my beloved Son;
in you I take delight” (Mark 1:11).
The “voice from heaven” paraphrases Psalm 2,
a poem sung at the coronation of Israel’s mon-
archs, a royal ceremony at which Yahweh is repre-
sented as adopting the newly consecrated king:
“You are my son, . . . this day I become your father”
(Ps. 2:7). Because Mark contains no reference to
Jesus’ virginal conception, many scholars think
that the author regards Jesus as becoming God’s
son by adoption, his baptism and visitation by the
Holy Spirit the equivalent of Davidic kings’ being
anointed with holy oil.
In an ironic counterpoint to God’s voice, Mark
next uses the speech of a demon to reveal Jesus’
hidden identity. When driven from a man he has
possessed, the demon angrily declares: “I know who
you are—the Holy One of God” (1:25). Whereas
Mark’s human characters fail to recognize Jesus’
true nature until after his death, supernatural
entities, including “unclean spirits,” know and fear
him. In a typically Markan paradox, human oppo-
nents accuse Jesus of being an agent of Beelzebub,
“the prince of demons”—allegedly the source of his
supernatural power—while the demons themselves
testify that Jesus is “the Son of God” (3:11, 22–28).
Mark draws further on the questionable testimony
of evil spirits when describing the Gerasene demo-
niac: The satanic “Legion” boldly announces that
Jesus is “son of the Most High God” (5:1–13).
In contrast, when Peter fi nally perceives that
Jesus is “the Christ,” he apparently does not also
intuit Jesus’ divinity, confi ning his witness to his
leader’s messianic (political) role. In Mark’s narra-
tive, Jesus’ closest disciples lack the perceptiveness
of Beelzebub’s imps! (Compare Mark’s account of
Peter’s “confession” with Matthew’s version, where
the author has Peter employ a major Christological
title, “Son of the living God,” absent in Mark [Matt.
16:13–16].) Even after Jesus is miraculously trans-
fi gured before their eyes and the celestial voice
again affi rms that he is God’s son (9:8), the Galilean
disciples remain oblivious.
At Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, Mark pre-
sents a darkly paradoxical glimpse of his hero’s real
identity. When the High Priest asks if his prisoner
is indeed the “Son of the Blessed One” (a pious
circumlocution for God), Jesus, for the fi rst time in
Mark’s account, admits that he is—a confession of
divinity that condemns him to death. Only when
Jesus hangs lifeless on the cross does a human
fi gure—a Roman centurion—belatedly speak of
Jesus as “a son of God,” a Hellenistic Gentile’s rec-
ognition that Jesus had died a heroic death worthy
of divine honor (see also Box 11.2).
b o x 7 . 4 Mark’s Identifi cation of Jesus as “Son of God”
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146 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
scene, Jesus converses with Moses and Elijah
(who represent, respectively, the Torah and the
prophets) to demonstrate his continuity with
Israel’s biblical tradition. Jesus thus embodies
God’s ultimate revelation to humanity. Mark’s
declaration that at Jesus’ baptism the heavens
are “ torn apart, ” suddenly giving access to the
spirit realm, anticipates a later apocalyptic vi-
sion in the Book of Revelation. Revelation’s
author similarly describes “ a door opened in
heaven ” and hears a voice inviting him to “ come
up here ” and receive a preview of future history
(Rev. 4:1–2).
At the most important event in his Gospel,
Jesus’ crucifi xion, Mark repeats his image of the
heavens being “ torn ” asunder. He states that at
the instant of Jesus’ death “ the curtain of the
temple was torn in two from top to bottom, ” a
phenomenon that inspires a Gentile soldier to
recognize Jesus’ divinity (15:37–39). In describ-
ing this incident, Mark apparently assumes that
his readers will understand the symbolism
of the Temple curtain. According to Josephus,
the outer room of the Temple was separated from
the innermost sanctuary—the Holy of Holies
where God’s “ glory ” was believed to dwell
invisibly—by a huge curtain that was embroi-
dered with astronomical designs, images of the
visible heavens that hid God’s celestial throne
from mortal eyes. In Mark’s view, Jesus’ re-
demptive death “ tore apart ” the curtain, open-
ing the way to a heavenly reality that the earthly
Temple had symbolized. For Mark, this rending
of the sacred veil functions as an apocalypse or
revelation of Jesus’ supreme signifi cance.
Jesus as Son of Man The author presents virtu-
ally all the events during Jesus’ fi nal hours as
revelatory of God’s unfolding purpose. At the
Last Supper, Jesus emphasizes that the eschato-
logical “Son of Man is going the way appointed
for him” and that he will “never again” drink
wine with his disciples until he will “drink it
new in the kingdom of God” (14:21, 25). At his
trial before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders’
highest judicial council, Jesus reveals his true
identity for the fi rst time: He confesses that he
Mark’s style conveys his urgency: He uses
the present tense throughout his Gospel and
repeatedly connects the brief episodes ( peri-
copes ) of his narrative with the transition word
immediately. Jesus scarcely fi nishes conducting a
healing or exorcism in one Galilean village be-
fore he “ immediately ” rushes off to the next
town to perform another miracle. In Mark’s
breathless presentation, the world faces an
unprecedented crisis. Jesus’ activity proclaims
that  history has reached its climactic moment.
Hence, Mark measures time in mere days (during
the Galilean ministry) and hours (during the
Jerusalem episodes). Reduced to tiny increments,
time is literally running out.
Mark represents Jesus as promising his
original hearers that they will experience the
eschaton — “ the present generation will live to
see it all ” (13:30). The kingdom, God’s active
rule, is so close that some of Jesus’ contempo-
raries “ will not taste death before they have
seen the kingdom of God already come in
power ” (9:1). The long-awaited fi gure of Elijah,
the ancient prophet whose reappearance is to
be an infallible sign of the last days (Mal. 4:5),
has already materialized in the person of John
the Baptist (9:12–13). Such passages indicate
that Mark’s community anticipated the immi-
nent consummation of all things.
Mark as Apocalypse
So pervasive is Mark’s eschatology that some
scholars regard the entire Gospel as a modifi ed
apocalypse ( apokalypsis ), a literary work that re-
veals unseen realities and discloses events des-
tined soon to climax in God’s fi nal intervention
in human affairs. Mark’s use of apocalyptic de-
vices is particularly evident at the beginning and
ending of his Gospel. God speaks directly as
a  disembodied voice (a phenomenon Hellenistic
Jews called the bath qol ) at Jesus’ baptism
and  again at the Transfi guration, an epiphany
(manifestation of divine presence) in which the
disciples see Jesus transformed into a luminous
being seated beside the ancient fi gures of Moses
and Elijah (1:11; 9:2–9). In this apocalyptic
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 147
future-coming fi gure who would vindicate Jesus’
own ministry and that the later church, because
of its faith in Jesus’ resurrection, retrojected
that title back into the account of Jesus’ life at
points where it originally did not appear. In
Mark’s view, however, Jesus himself is clearly the
eschatological Son of Man.
Son of Man in Hellenistic-Jewish Literature The
Hebrew Bible offers few clues to what Jesus may
have meant if he employed this title. The
phrase appears frequently in the Book of
Ezekiel, where “ son of man ” is typically synony-
mous with “ mortal ” or “ human being, ” com-
monly the prophet himself. In the Book of
Daniel, however, “ one like a [son of] man ” ap-
pears as a celestial fi gure who receives divine
authority (Dan. 7:14). Most scholars think that
this human fi gure (contrasting with the mystic
is the Messiah and that the offi ciating High
Priest “will see the Son of Man seated at the
right hand of God and coming with the clouds
of heaven” (14:62–63).
This disclosure—found only in Mark—
associates Jesus’ suffering and death with his ul-
timate revelation as the eschatological Son of
Man. A designation that appears almost exclu-
sively in the Gospels and then always on the lips
of Jesus, Son of Man is Mark’s favored expres-
sion to denote Jesus’ three essential roles: an
earthly fi gure who teaches with authority, a ser-
vant who embraces suffering, and a future es-
chatological judge (see Box 7.5). Although
many scholars question whether the historical
Jesus ever used this title, many others regard it
as Jesus’ preferred means of self-identifi cation.
Still other scholars postulate that Jesus may have
used the title Son of Man to designate another,
The authors of the Synoptic Gospels use
the expression “Son of Man” in three distinct ways,
all of which they place on the lips of Jesus to denote
three important aspects of his ministry. The three
categories identify Jesus as the Son of Man who
serves on earth, the Son of Man who must suffer and
die, and the Son of Man who will be revealed in es-
chatological judgment. Representative examples of
these three categories appear below.
the earthly son of man
Mark 2:10 (Matt. 9:6; Luke 5:24): Has authority
to forgive sins.
Mark 2:27 (Matt. 12:8; Luke 6:5): Is Lord of the
Sabbath.
Matthew 11:19 (Luke 7:34): Comes eating and
drinking.
Matthew 8:20 (Luke 9:58): Has nowhere to lie his
head.
Luke 19:20: Came to seek and save the lost.
the suffering son of man
Mark 8:31 (Luke 9:22): Must suffer.
Mark 9:12 (Matt. 17:12): Will suffer.
Mark 10:45 (Matt. 20:28): Came to serve and give
his life.
Matthew 12:40 (Luke 11:30): Will be three days
in the earth.
the eschatological son of man
Mark 8:38 (Matt. 16:27; Luke 9:26): Comes in
glory of the Father and holy angels.
Mark 14:26 (Matt. 24:30; Luke 21:27): Will be seen
coming with clouds and glory.
Mark 14:62 (Matt. 26:64; Luke 22:69): Will be seen
sitting at the right hand of power.
Luke 17:26 (Matt. 24:27): As it was in days of Noah,
so in days of Son of Man.
For a fuller discussion of the Son of Man concept and its
use by the Synoptic authors, see George Eldon Ladd, A
Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 1974), pp. 145–158.
b o x 7 . 5 The Synoptic Gospels’ Use of the Term “Son of Man”
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148 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
day. The Pharisees interpreted the Torah to
permit saving a life or dealing with other com-
parable emergencies on the Sabbath, but in
this case (2:23–28) , Jesus seems to have violated
the Torah for no compelling reason.
As Mark describes the situation, it is Jesus’
fl exible attitude toward Sabbath keeping that
incites some Pharisees and supporters of Herod
Antipas to hatch a murder plot against him
(3:5–6). To most readers, Jesus’ opponents over-
react inexplicably. To many law-abiding Jews,
however, Jesus’ Sabbath-breaking miracles and
declaration that the Sabbath was created for
humanity’s benefi t (2:27–28) seem to strike at
the heart of Jewish faith. Many devout Jews
believed that the Torah was infallible and eter-
nal. According to the Book of Jubilees, the
Torah existed before God created the universe,
and people were made to keep the Sabbath.
Jesus’ assertion that the Sabbath law is not ab-
solute but relative to human needs appears to
deny the Torah’s unchanging validity and to
question its status as God’s fi nal and complete
revelation.
Teaching the Mysteries of the Kingdom
Jesus’ Parables Many of Israel’s prophets, and
virtually all its apocalyptic writers, use highly
symbolic language to convey their visions of
the divine will. In depicting Jesus as the escha-
tological Son of Man, it is not surprising that
Mark states categorically that Jesus never taught
publicly without using parables (or other fi g-
ures of speech) (4:34). The root meaning of
the word parable is “ a comparison, ” the dis-
cernment of similarities between one thing
and another. Jesus’ simplest parables are typi-
cally similes, comparisons using as or like to
express unexpected resemblances between
ostensibly unrelated objects, actions, or ideas.
Thus, Jesus compares God’s kingdom—which
he never explicitly defi nes—to a number of
items, including a mustard seed. Like the tiny
seed, God’s rule begins in an extremely small
way, but eventually, like the mustard plant, it
grows to an unexpectedly large size (4:30–32).
“ beasts ” in Daniel’s vision) originally symbol-
ized a collective entity, Israel’s faithful. By Jesus’
time, Daniel’s Son of Man apparently had as-
sumed another identity, that of a supernatural
individual who will come to judge the world.
The composite Book of 1 Enoch, which be-
longs to noncanonical Hellenistic-Jewish writ-
ings known as the Pseudepigrapha , contains a
long section (called the Similitudes or Parables)
that prominently features the Son of Man as the
one who, at the consummation of history,
passes judgment on humanity (1 Enoch 37–71).
Although some scholars dispute this claim,
many believe that this section of 1 Enoch was
written by the fi rst century ce . Fragments of
Enoch (but not yet the Similitudes ) have been
found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the ca-
nonical Epistle of Jude cites Enoch as if it were
Scripture (Jude 14–15). It seems likely that ideas
about Enoch’s Son of Man were current in Jesus’
day and that he—or his immediate followers—
applied them to his role in history.
The major element that Mark’s Jesus adds
to the Son of Man concept is that he is a servant
who must suffer and die before attaining the
kind of heavenly glory that Daniel 7 and 1
Enoch ascribe to him (cf. Mark 8:30–31; 10:45;
13:26–27; 14:62).
“ The Son of Man Has the Right on Earth . . . ” It is
as the earthly Son of Man that Mark’s Jesus
claims the right to wield immense religious
power (see Box 7.5). As Son of Man, the Markan
Jesus assumes the authority to prescribe revolu-
tionary changes in Jewish Law and custom
(2:10). Behaving as if he already reigns as
cosmic judge, Jesus forgives a paralytic’s sins
(2:1–12) and permits certain kinds of work on
the Sabbath (3:1–5). In both instances, Jesus’
pronouncements outrage Jewish leaders. Who
but God can forgive sins? And who has the au-
dacity to change Moses’ inspired command to
forbid all labor on God’s day of rest (cf. Exod.
20:8–10; Deut. 5:12–15)?
In the eyes of Jews scrupulously observing
Torah regulations, Jesus dishonors the Sabbath
by healing a man’s withered arm on that holy
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 149
In one of his most controversial passages,
Mark states that Jesus uses parables to prevent
the public from understanding his message
(4:11–12). To many readers, it seems incredi-
ble that Jesus deliberately teaches in a way in-
tended to confuse or alienate his audience.
Mark justifi es his hero’s alleged practice by
quoting from Isaiah (6:9–10), which pictures
Yahweh telling the prophet that his preaching
will be useless because Yahweh has already
made it impossible for the Israelites to compre-
hend Isaiah’s meaning. Mark’s attempt to ex-
plain why most people did not follow Jesus
seems contrary to the gracious goodwill that
the Gospel writers normally associate with him
and probably does not express the policy of the
historical Jesus. In the historical experience of
Mark’s community, however, it appears that the
kingdom’s secrets were reserved for a few cho-
sen disciples, such as those whom Mark says
privately received Jesus’ esoteric teaching (4:11).
(In Luke’s edition of Mark, he removes Isaiah’s
pessimistic declaration from Jesus’ lips and trans-
fers the saying to his sequel, the Book of Acts,
where he places it in Paul’s mouth to explain
why the apostle gave up trying to convert fellow
Jews and concentrated instead on the more re-
ceptive Gentiles; cf. Mark 4:11–12; Luke 8:10;
Acts 28:25–28.)
Jesus and the Demons Eschatological beliefs
are concerned not only with the end of the world
but also with visions of invisible spirit beings,
both good and evil (see Chapter 19). Apocalyptic
literature, such as Daniel and 1 Enoch, typically
presents God’s defeat of spiritual evil as the ulti-
mate victory that completes God’s sovereignty
over the entire universe. Given Mark’s strongly
eschatological point of view, it is not surprising
that he makes a battle between supernatural
forces—God’s Son versus Satan’s demons—an
integral part of his apocalyptic Gospel. After
noting Jesus’ resistance to Satan (1:12–13),
Mark reinforces the theme of cosmic struggle
by making Jesus’ fi rst miracle an exorcism.
Remarkably, the demon that Jesus expels from
a  human victim is the fi rst character in the
(Jesus’ intent in this parable may have been
ironic, for farmers do not want wild mustard
plants taking over their fi elds any more than
most people wanted the kind of divine rule that
Jesus promoted.) Like the parable of the grow-
ing seed (4:26–29), which appears in Mark
alone, the mustard plant analogy stresses the un-
noticed evolution of divine sovereignty rather
than explaining its nature or form. Most parables
are open-ended: They do not provide a fi xed
conclusion but invite the hearer to speculate
about many possibilities inherent in the compar-
ison. According to Mark, understanding parables
involving germination and growth suggests the
“ secret ” of God’s kingdom, a glimpse into the
mysterious principles by which God rules.
Other parables take the form of brief sto-
ries that exploit familiar situations or customs
to illustrate a previously unrecognized truth. In
the parable of the sower , a farmer plants seeds
on different kinds of ground with distinctly dif-
ferent results (4:2–9). The lengthy interpreta-
tion that Mark attaches to the image of sowing
seeds (4:13–20) transforms what was originally
a simple parable into an allegory. An allegory is
a complex literary form in which each element
of the narrative—persons, places, actions, even
objects—has a symbolic value. Because every
item in the allegory functions as a symbol of
something else, the allegory’s meaning can be
puzzled out only by identifying what each indi-
vidual component in the story represents.
Almost all scholars believe that Mark’s elab-
orate allegorical interpretations, equating dif-
ferent kinds of soil with the different responses
people make when they receive the “ seed ” (gos-
pel message), do not represent Jesus’ original
meaning. By the time Mark incorporated the
sower pericope into his Gospel, the Christian
community had already used it to explain peo-
ple’s contrasting reactions to their preaching.
Jesus’ pithy tale based on everyday agricultural
practices was reinterpreted to fi t the later expe-
rience of Christian missionaries. The reference
to “ persecution ” (4:17) places the allegorical
factor in Mark’s time rather than in the context
of Jesus’ personal experience in Galilee.
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occurs when “ doctors of the law ” (teachers and
interpreters of the Torah) from Jerusalem ac-
cuse Jesus of using black magic to perform ex-
orcisms. Denying that evil can produce good,
Jesus countercharges that persons who attri-
bute good works to Satan “ slander the Holy
Spirit, ” the divine force manifested in Jesus’
actions.
Matthew’s version of the incident explicitly
links Jesus’ defeat of evil spirits with the arrival
of the kingdom of God. The Matthean Jesus
declares, “ If it is by the Spirit of God that I drive
out the devils, then be sure the kingdom of
God has already come upon you ” (Matt. 12:28).
To both Evangelists, Jesus’ successful attack on
demonic control is a revelation that through
his presence God now rules. Willful refusal to
accept Jesus’ healings as evidence of divine power
is to resist the Spirit, an obstinacy that prevents
spiritual insight.
The Existence of Demons Mark, like other New
Testament authors, refl ects a common Hellenistic
belief in the existence of unseen entities that
infl uence human lives. Numerous Hellenistic
documents record charms to ward off demons
or free one from their control. In Judaism,
works like the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit
reveal a belief that demons could be driven out
by the correct use of magical formulas ( Tob .
6:1–8; 8:1–3). Josephus, who was Mark’s con-
temporary, relates a story about Eleazar , who al-
legedly exorcised a demon in the presence of
the emperor Vespasian (69–79 ce ), drawing the
malign spirit out through its victim’s nose
( Antiquities 8.46–49).
Zoroastrianism A belief in devils and demonic
possession appears in Jewish literature primar-
ily after the period of Persian domination (539–
330 bce ), when Persian religious ideas seem to
have infl uenced Jewish thought. According to
the Persian religion Zoroastrianism, the whole
universe, visible and invisible, is divided into
two contending powers of light and darkness,
good and evil. Only after historical contact with
Zoroastrian dualism does the fi gure of Satan
Markan narrative to recognize Jesus as “ the
Holy One of God ” —who has come “ to destroy ”
the agents of evil (1:23–26).
Following his exorcisms at Capernaum,
Jesus performs similar feats in Gentile territory,
“ the country of the Gerasenes . ” Driving a whole
army of devils from a Gerasene madman, Jesus
casts them into a herd of pigs. The religiously
unclean animals become a fi t home for spirits
who drive people to commit unclean acts (5:1–
20). The demons’ name— “ legion ” —is an un-
fl attering reference to the Roman legions (large
military units) then occupying Palestine (and
in Mark’s day assaulting Jerusalem). When in
Capernaum, a Galilean Jewish city, Jesus com-
mands the demons to remain silent, whereas in
the Gerasene region, he orders the dispossessed
Gentile to tell others about his cure.
Mark arranges his material to show that
Jesus does not choose to battle evil in isola-
tion. At the outset of his campaign through
Galilee, Jesus gathers followers who will form
the nucleus of a new society, one presumably
free from demonic infl uence. Recruiting a
band of Galilean fi shermen and peasants,
Jesus selects two sets of brothers, Simon Peter
(also called Cephas ) and Andrew, and James
and John—sons of Zebedee also known as
“ sons of thunder ( Boanerges ) ” —to form his
inner circle (1:16–20). Later, he adds another
eight disciples to complete the Twelve, a num-
ber probably representing the twelve tribes of
Israel: Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas;
James, son of Alphaeus ; Thaddeus; Simon the
Canaanite; and Judas Iscariot (3:16–19; cf. the
different list in Acts 1). Mark states that, when
Jesus commissions the Twelve to perform exor-
cisms (6:7–13), they fail miserably (9:14–18,
28–29), a sad contrast to the success enjoyed by
some exorcists who are not Jesus’ followers
(9:38–41).
Jesus Accused of Sorcery In another incident
involving demonic possession (3:22–30), Mark
dramatizes a head-on collision between Jesus as
God’s agent for overthrowing evil and persons
who see Jesus as a tool of the devil. The clash
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and Revelation show a keen awareness of evil so
pervasive and so profound that it cannot be ex-
plained solely in terms of human acts, individ-
ual or collective. Whatever philosophical view
we choose to interpret the human predica-
ment, the Gospel portrayal of Jesus’ struggle to
impart wholeness and health to others ex-
presses the Evangelists’ conviction that human-
ity cannot save itself without divine aid.
Jesus the Healer Physical cures, as well as exor-
cisms, characterize Jesus’ assault on evil. In
Mark’s portrayal, one of Jesus’ most important
functions is to bring relief to the affl icted (see
Figure 7.3 ). He drives a fever from Simon Peter’s
mother-in-law (1:29–31), cleanses a leper (1:40–
42), enables a paralyzed man to walk (2:1–12),
restores a man’s withered hand (3:1–6), stops a
woman’s chronic hemorrhaging (5:25–34), and
emerge as humanity’s adversary in biblical liter-
ature ( Job 1–2; Zech. 3). Angels and demons
thereafter populate Hellenistic-Jewish writings,
such as the books of Daniel and 1 Enoch.
Belief in Supernatural Evil Although Hellenistic
Greek and Judeo-Christian writers may ex-
press their beliefs about supernatural evil in
terms considered naive or irrational to today’s
scientifi cally disciplined mind, they refl ect a
viewpoint with important implications for con-
temporary society. Surrounded by threats of
terrorism, lethal diseases such as cancer and
AIDS, and frightening disregard for human life,
people may wonder if the forces of cruelty and
violence are not greater than the sum of their
human agents. Does evil exist as a power inde-
pendent of human volition? Such diverse works
as the Synoptic Gospels, Ephesians (6:10–17),
f i g u r e 7 . 3 Christ with the Sick Around Him, Receiving Little Children. In this etching by Rembrandt
(1606–1669), healing light radiates from the central fi gure of Jesus and creates a protective circle of illumination
around those whom he cures.
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152 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
fl ow out when the woman touches him, as if
he were a dynamo being drained of electrical
energy (5:25–34). The Markan Jesus, more-
over, does not know at fi rst who is tapping
his power.
Mark then resumes the Jairus narrative: Al-
though a messenger reports that the girl has
already died, Jesus insists that she is only
“ asleep. ” Taking his three closest disciples into
the girl’s room, he commands her to “ get up ” —
“ Talitha cum, ” an Aramaic phrase that Mark’s
community probably revered for its association
with Jesus’ power over death (5:35–43). The au-
thor links the two stories by a simple numerical
device—the mature woman had been affl icted
for a dozen years and the young girl is twelve
years old—and by the assertion that it
is the participants’ faith that cures them. The
woman demonstrates unconditional trust in
Jesus’ power, and Jairus presumably accepts
Jesus’ advice to replace fear for his daughter’s
safety with “ faith. ”
Mark’s Ironic Vision In the Nazareth episode,
where Jesus appears as a prophet without honor
(6:4–6), Mark invites his readers to share Jesus’
astonishment that people who should have
known better reject a golden opportunity to
benefi t from Jesus’ help. As Mark presents
Jesus’ story—which is largely a tale of humanity’s
self-defeating rejection of God’s attempt to re-
deem it—such disparities abound. Demons
steeped in evil instantly recognize who Jesus is,
but most people —including his peasant neigh-
bors and the educated religious elite—do not.
The wind and waves obey him during a storm
on the Sea of Galilee (4:35–41) (see Figures 7.4
and 7.5), but his disciples ultimately prove dis-
loyal. He miraculously feeds hungry multitudes
(an incident Mark records in two different ver-
sions [6:30–44; 8:1–10]) and can suspend the
laws of physics by striding across Galilee’s wa-
ters (6:30–52; 8:1–10), but Jesus’ closest follow-
ers are unable to grasp the meaning of his
control over nature. Among the very few who
respond positively to him, the majority are so-
cial outcasts or nobodies such as lepers, blind
resuscitates the comatose daughter of Jairus , a
synagogue offi cial (5:21–24, 35–43). To Mark,
Jesus’ restoration of physical health to suffering
humanity is an indispensable component of di-
vine rule, tangible confi rmation that God’s king-
dom is about to dawn.
Mark’s Narrative Techniques
In assembling from various oral sources a series
of brief anecdotes about Jesus’ ability to cure
the sick, Mark stitches the miracle stories to-
gether like pearls on a string. Weaving these
originally independent pericopes into the fab-
ric of his narrative, Mark re-creates them with
vividness and immediacy. Besides using a wealth
of concrete detail to help readers visualize the
scene or feel its emotional impact, Mark com-
monly employs the technique of intercalation,
inserting one story inside another. This sand-
wiching device typically serves to make the story
placed inside another narrative function as in-
terpretative commentary on the framing story.
In telling of Jesus’ family’s attempt to impede
his ministry (3:21, 31–35), for example, Mark
inserts a seemingly unrelated anecdote about
Jesus’ opponents accusing him of sorcery
(3:22–30), implicitly associating his “ mother
and brothers ” with his adversaries.
Mark uses the same device of wrapping
one story around another when describing the
resuscitation of Jairus’s daughter, interrupting
the Jairus episode to incorporate the anecdote
about a hemorrhaging woman into the middle
of the narrative. Pushing through the crowds
surrounding him, Jesus is on his way to help
Jairus’s seriously ill daughter (5:22–24) when
a woman—who Mark says had suffered for
twelve years from unstoppable bleeding (and
was therefore ritually unclean)—suddenly
grabs his cloak and, as if by force of desperate
need, draws into her ailing body Jesus’ cura-
tive energy. This incident is doubly unique:
It is the only Gospel healing to occur without
Jesus’ conscious will and the Evangelists’ only
hint about the physical nature of Jesus’ ability
to heal. Mark states that Jesus can feel his power
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 153
The Journey to Jerusalem:
Jesus’ Predestined Suffering
Mark’s Central Irony: Jesus’
Hidden Messiahship
In chapter 8, which forms the central pivot on
which the entire Gospel turns, Mark ties together
several motifs that convey his essential vision
of Jesus’ ministry. Besides repeating the theme
of the disciples’ obtuseness, chapter 8 also
sounds Mark’s concurrent themes of the hidden
or unexpected quality of Jesus’ messiahship —
especially the necessity of his suffering—and the
requirement that all believers be prepared to
embrace a comparably painful fate. In contrast
to John’s Gospel, in which Jesus’ identity is pub-
licly affi rmed at the outset of his career, Mark has
no one even hint that Jesus is Israel’s Messiah
until almost the close of the Galilean campaign,
when Peter—in a fl ash of insight—recognizes
him as such (8:29). The Markan Jesus then
swears the disciples to secrecy, as he had earlier
ordered other witnesses of his deeds to keep si-
lent (1:23–24, 34; 3:11–12; 5:7; 7:36; 8:30; see
also 9:9). Jesus’ reluctance to have news of his
mendicants, ritually unclean women, and the
diseased. This irony, or logical incongruity be-
tween normal expectation and what actually
happens in the narrative, determines both
Mark’s structuring of his Gospel and his charac-
terization of Jesus’ messiahship .
f i g u r e 7 . 4 Fishing boat returning to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. The village of Capernaum,
home to Peter and his brother Andrew, served as a center for Jesus’ early Galilean ministry.
f i g u r e 7 . 5 Excavations at Capernaum. Dated to the
fi rst century ce, the ruins of these small private houses are
located near the shore of the Sea of Galilee, an appropri-
ate location for the dwellings of fi shermen. Archaeologists
have found considerable evidence indicating that one of
these humble structures belonged to Peter. According to
Mark, Jesus cured Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever there
(Mark 1:29–31; cf. 2:1–12).
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Jesus, occupying places of honor on his right
and left. As Jesus explains that reigning with
him means imitating his sacrifi ce, Mark’s read-
ers are intended to remember that when Jesus
reaches Jerusalem the positions on his right
and left will be taken by the two brigands cruci-
fi ed next to him (15:27).
In reiterating the necessity of suffering,
Mark addresses a problem that undoubtedly
troubled members of his own community: how
to explain the contrast between the high expec-
tations of reigning with Christ in glory (10:35–37)
and the believers’ actual circumstances. Instead
of being vindicated publicly as God’s chosen
faithful, Christians of the late 60s ce were being
treated like outcasts or traitors by Jewish Zealots
miracles spread abroad is known as the messi-
anic secret, a term coined by the German scholar
William Wrede (1901).
Some commentators have suggested that
Mark’s picture of Jesus’ forbidding others to
discuss him merely refl ects historical fact: that
during Jesus’ lifetime most of his contemporar-
ies did not regard him as God’s special agent
and that he himself made no public claims to
be Israel’s Messiah. Most scholars, however, be-
lieve that Mark’s theme of the messianic secret
represents the author’s theological purpose.
For Mark, people could not know Jesus’ iden-
tity until after he had completed his mission.
Jesus had to be unappreciated in order to be
rejected and killed—to fulfi ll God’s will that he
“ give up his life as a ransom for many ” (10:45).
A conviction that Jesus must suffer an un-
just death—an atonement offering for others—
to confi rm and complete his messiahship is the
heart of Mark’s Christology (concepts about the
nature and function of Christ). Hence, Peter’s
confession at Caesarea Philippi that Jesus is the
Christ (Messiah) is immediately followed by
Jesus’ fi rst prediction that he will go to Jerusalem
only to die (8:29–32). When Peter objects to
this notion of a rejected and defeated Messiah,
Jesus calls his chief disciple a “ Satan. ” Derived
from a Hebrew term meaning “ obstacle, ” the
epithet Satan labels Peter’s attitude an obstacle
or roadblock on Jesus’ predestined path to the
cross. Peter understands Jesus no better than
outsiders, regarding the Messiah as a God-
empowered hero who conquers his enemies,
not as a submissive victim of their brutality. For
Mark, however, Jesus’ true identity must remain
shrouded in darkness until it is revealed in the
painful glare of the cross (see Figure 7.6).
At the end of chapter 8, Mark introduces a
third idea: True disciples must expect to suffer
as Jesus does. In two of the three Passion pre-
dictions, Jesus emphasizes that “ anyone who
wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self
behind; he must take up his cross, and come
with me ” (8:27–34; 10:32–45). Irony permeates
the third instance when James and John, sons
of Zebedee, presumptuously ask to rule with
f i g u r e 7 . 6 Christ with the Crown of Thorns. In this
wooden carving of Jesus crowned with thorns, an anonymous
twentieth-century African sculptor beautifully captures both
the sorrow and the mystery of Mark’s suffering Son of Man.
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 155
joyous reception in the holy city with the tragedy
of his crucifi xion fi ve days later. A crowd, proba-
bly of Galilean supporters, enthusiastically wel-
comes Jesus to Jerusalem, hailing him as restorer
of “ the coming kingdom of our father David ”
(11:9–10). As Mark reports it, Jesus had carefully
arranged his entry to fulfi ll Zechariah’s proph-
ecy that the Messiah would appear in humble
guise, riding on a beast of burden (Zech. 9:9).
Mark thus portrays Jesus suddenly making a
radical change in policy: Instead of hiding his
messianic identity, Jesus now seems to “ go
public ” —challenging Jerusalem to accept him
as God’s Anointed. Jesus’ appearance as a messi-
anic claimant also challenges Roman authority.
Because the Messiah was commonly expected to
reestablish David’s monarchy, the Roman pre-
fect Pontius Pilate was likely to interpret Jesus’
actions as a political claim to Judean kingship
and, hence, to Rome, an act of treason (15:2–3).
Focus on the Temple
Once Jesus is in Jerusalem , his activities center
around the Temple : His entrance into the city
is not complete until he enters the Temple
courts (11:1–10). On the Monday following
his  arrival, he creates a riot in the sanctuary,
overturning moneychangers’ tables and disrupt-
ing the sale of sacrifi cial animals (11:15–19).
This assault on the Sadducean administration
brands him as a threat to public order and
probably seals his fate with the chief priests and
Temple police.
As Mark describes his actions, Jesus visits
the Temple, not to worship, but to pronounce
eschatological judgment: Jesus’ last teaching is
a prophecy of the sanctuary’s imminent de-
struction ( ch . 13)—a prediction that may lie
behind later charges that Jesus conspired to de-
stroy the center of Jewish religion (14:56).
Jesus’ negative verdict on the Temple begins to
take effect at his death, when the jeweled cur-
tain veiling its inner sanctum is split apart
(15:38), exposing its interior to public gaze and
foreshadowing its imminent desecration by
Gentiles (see Figure 7.7 ).
and like criminals by the Roman emperor.
Mark offers fellow believers the consolation
that their hardships are foreshadowed by Jesus’
experience; Christians must expect to be
treated no more justly than their Master.
Mark’s device of having a delegation of
Jewish leaders conspire against Jesus in Galilee
(3:6) and having Jesus repeatedly prophesy his
death serves to cast the shadow of the cross
backward in time over the Galilean ministry.
These foreshadowing techniques help unify the
polar opposites of Mark’s narrative: They not
only connect the powerful healer of Galilee
with the sacrifi cial victim in Jerusalem but also
link Jesus’ experience with that of Mark’s
implied readers.
The Jerusalem Ministry:
A Week of Sacred Time
In the third section of his Gospel, Mark focuses
exclusively on the last week of Jesus’ life, from
the Sunday on which Jesus enters Jerusalem to
the following Sunday’s dawn, when some
Galilean women fi nd his tomb empty (11:1–
16:8). To Mark, this is a sacred period during
which Jesus accomplishes his life’s purpose, sac-
rifi cing himself for humanity’s redemption.
Mark’s Christian Holy Week also corresponds
to Passover week, when thousands of Jews from
throughout the Greco-Roman world gather in
Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s deliverance from
slavery in Egypt. As he narrates Jesus’ rejection
by Jewish leaders and execution by Roman offi –
cials, Mark celebrates the irony of events: Blind
to Jesus’ value, no one recognizes Jesus as a de-
liverer greater than Moses and a sacrifi ce that
epitomizes the essential meaning of Passover.
The Triumphal Entry
If Mark was aware of Jesus’ other visits to
Jerusalem (narrated in John’s Gospel), he dis-
misses them as unimportant compared with his
last. In bold strokes, the author contrasts Jesus’
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156 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
to Rome, a snare he eludes by suggesting that
people return government coins to their source
while reserving for God the rest of one’s life.
The Sadducees also suffer defeat when
they try to force Jesus into an untenable posi-
tion they hope will illustrate the illogic of a be-
lief in resurrection to future life. When asked
to which husband a woman who has been wid-
owed six times will be married when all the for-
mer spouses are raised, Jesus states that there
will be no ethical problem because resurrected
persons escape the limits of human sexuality and
become “ like the angels in heaven ” (12:18–25).
Citing the Torah, apparently the only part of
the Hebrew Bible that the Sadducees accept,
he quotes Yahweh’s words to Moses at the burn-
ing bush—that Yahweh is the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob (Exod. 3:6)—arguing that, be-
cause Yahweh is “ not God of the dead but of the
living, ” the ancient patriarchs must still be alive
from the Deity’s perspective (12:26–27).
Interestingly, Mark closes Jesus’ Temple
debates with a friendly encounter in which the
Galilean and a Torah expert agree on the es-
sence of true religion. Answering a “ lawyer’s ”
question about the Bible’s most important re-
quirement, Jesus cites the Shema , or Jewish
declaration of monotheism: There is only one
God, and Israel must love him with all its force
and being (Deut. 6:4–5). To this he adds a
second Torah command: to love one’s neigh-
bor as oneself (Lev. 19:18). In agreement, the
“ lawyer ” and Jesus exchange compliments.
Although not a follower, the Jerusalem leader
sees that active love is the essence of divine
rule, a perception that Jesus says makes him
“ not far from the kingdom of God ” —a more
favorable verdict than Jesus ever passes on the
Twelve (12:28–34).
Jesus’ Prophecy of the Temple ’s Fall
In chapter 13, Mark underscores his eschato-
logical concerns. In response to the disciples’
question about when his prediction of Jerusa-
lem’s destruction will take place, Jesus delivers
his longest speech, associating the Temple’s fall
Besides condemning the Temple’s sacrifi –
cial system and the Sadducean priests who con-
trol it, Mark uses other devices to indicate that
Jesus’ Jerusalem ministry is fundamentally an
adverse judgment on the city. Jesus’ cursing an
unproductive fi g tree—the curse (11:12–14) and
its fulfi llment (11:20–24) bracketing the story
of  his attack on Temple practices— represents
Mark’s intent to condemn the Jerusalem leaders
who, in his opinion, do not bear “ good fruit ” and
are destined to wither and die.
The parable of the wicked tenants who kill
their landlord’s son (12:1–11) has the same
function: to discredit Jesus’ enemies. In Mark’s
view, the landlord (God) has now given his
vineyard, traditionally a symbol for Israel, to
“ others ” —the author’s Christian community.
Confrontations at the Temple
In Jerusalem, clashes between Jesus and Jewish
leaders intensify, becoming a matter of life or
death. Mark pictures Jesus scoring success after
success in a series of hostile encounters with
representatives of leading religious parties
as  he moves through the Temple precincts,
thronged with Passover pilgrims. The Pharisees
and Herod Antipas’s supporters attempt to trap
Jesus on the controversial issue of paying taxes
f i g u r e 7 . 7 Warning inscription from Herod’s Temple.
Illustrating the barrier erected between Jews and Gentiles,
this inscription warned Temple visitors that no Gentile could
enter the inner courtyards except on pain of death.
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 157
unless this period of testing was “ cut short, ” no
believers could survive (13:9–13).
The “ Abomination ” Mark incorporates a cryptic
passage from the Book of Daniel into his eschato-
logical discourse. When believers see “ ‘the abom-
ination of desolation’ usurping a place which is
not his, ” they are to abandon their homes in
Judea and take refuge in nearby hills (13:14–20;
cf. Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). Directly addressing
his readers, the author alerts them to the impor-
tance of understanding this reference (13:14).
Some scholars believe that Mark here refers to
the Zealots’ violent occupation of the Temple in
67–68 ce and their pollution of its sacred pre-
cincts with the blood of their victims, which may
have included some Christians (see Box 7.6 ).
This tribulation, which threatens the peo-
ple of God, will be concluded by the Son of
Man’s appearing with his angels to gather the
faithful. Mark shows Jesus warning disciples that
all these horrors and wonders will occur in the
lifetime of his hearers, although no one knows
the precise day or hour (13:24–32). Mark’s es-
chatological fervor, which Matthew and Luke
subsequently mute in their respective versions
of the Markan apocalypse (cf. Matt. 24–25 and
Luke 21), vividly conveys both the fears and
hopes of the author’s Christian generation.
Mark’s eschatology, in fact, closely resembles
that of Paul, who—a few years earlier—wrote
the church in Corinth that “ the time we live in
will not last long ” (1 Cor. 7:29). As his fi rst letter
to the Thessalonians makes clear, Paul fully ex-
pected to be alive at the Parousia (1 Thess. 4:13–
18; see Chap ters 14 and 15).
The Last Supper and Jesus’ Betrayal
Following the eschatological discourse, Jesus
withdraws with his disciples to a private “ upper
room ” in Jerusalem. On Thursday evening, he
presides over a Passover feast of unleavened
bread, an observance that solemnly recalls
Israel’s last night in Egypt, when the Angel of
Death “ passed over ” Israelites’ houses to slay
the Egyptian fi rstborn (Exod. 11:1–13:16). In a
with an era of catastrophes that culminate in
the Son of Man appearing as eschatological
judge. The author seems to have composed
this discourse from a variety of sources, com-
bining Jesus’ words with older Jewish apocalyp-
tic literature and perhaps with prophetic
oracles from his own community as well. A con-
siderably expanded version of the speech is
preserved in Matthew 24, and a signifi cantly
modifi ed version of Mark’s eschatological ex-
pectations appears in Luke 21. John’s Gospel
contains no parallel to the Synoptic prophecies
about the eschaton .
Readers will notice that Mark incorporates
two somewhat contradictory views of the End.
He states that a swarm of disasters and frighten-
ing astronomical phenomena will provide un-
mistakable “ signs ” that the Parousia is near, just
as the budding fi g tree heralds the arrival of
spring (13:8, 14–20, 24–31). Conversely, nei-
ther the Son nor his followers can surmise the
time of Final Judgment, so one must keep con-
stant watch, because the End will occur without
previous warning (13:32–37).
Oracles of Disaster Mark’s strong emphasis on
political and social upheavals as portents of the
End refl ects the turbulent era in which he com-
posed his “ wartime ” Gospel. If, as historians be-
lieve, Mark wrote during the Jewish Revolt,
when battles and insurrections were daily oc-
currences, he seems to have viewed these
events as a turning point in history, an unprec-
edented crisis leading to the fi nal apocalypse.
In addition to witnessing the intense suffering
of Palestinian Jews, the Markan community was
undoubtedly aware of recent persecutions in
Rome that resulted in numerous deaths, in-
cluding the executions of Christianity’s two
chief apostles, Peter and Paul (mid-60s ce ).
Between about 67 and 70 ce , Zealots may also
have attacked Palestinian Christians who ac-
cepted Gentiles into their communities, for
those extreme revolutionaries regarded virtu-
ally all Gentiles as enemies of the Jewish nation.
These ordeals may well account for Mark’s ref-
erences to “ persecutions ” and assertions that
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158 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
crucifi xion. Mark’s account of this Last Supper,
the origin of the Christian celebration of the
Eucharist, or Holy Communion, closely resem-
bles Paul’s earlier description of the ceremony
(1 Cor. 11:23–26).
ritual at the close of their meal, Jesus gives the
Passover a new signifi cance, stating that the
bread he distributes is his “ body ” and the wine
his “ blood of the [New] Covenant, shed for
many ” (14:22–25)—liturgical symbols of his
The longest speech that Mark assigns to Jesus is his
prediction of Jerusalem’s imminent destruction
(Mark 13), suggesting that for Mark’s intended au-
dience this event was of great importance, a warn-
ing that the Parousia (Jesus’ return in glory) was
near. Mark’s cryptic reference to the “abomination
of desolation,” an apocalyptic image borrowed
from Daniel (Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11), signifi es a
Gentile pollution of the Jerusalem Temple. Mark
pointedly advises his readers to take careful note of
this profanation of the sanctuary and, when they
see it occurring, abandon their homes in Judea
and take refuge in the surrounding hills.
In Daniel, the “abomination” was Antiochus
IV’s defi lement of the Temple by sacrifi cing swine
on its altar and erecting an altar to Zeus, king of the
Hellenic gods, in its courtyard. Some scholars sug-
gest that the “abomination” to which Mark refers
was the occupation of the Temple area by brigands
shortly before the Roman siege began.
According to Josephus, in the winter of 67–68 ce,
a mixed band of Jewish guerrilla fi ghters moved
into Jerusalem from the countryside and seized con-
trol of the Temple. Led by Eleazar, son of Simon
(see Chapter 3), this revolutionary group formed
the Zealot party, which resolved not only to expel
the Romans but also to purge the city of any Jewish
leaders who cooperated with them. Adopting a pol-
icy of radical egalitarianism, the Zealots fi ercely at-
tacked Jerusalem’s wealthy aristocracy and the
Temple’s priestly administration, which they con-
demned as traitors to the Jewish nation for having
collaborated with the Romans. The Zealots assassi-
nated many of the Jewish landowners and priests,
staining the Temple pavements with the blood of
Jerusalem’s leadership, acts that outraged Josephus
and may have been regarded as a polluting “abomi-
nation” by other Jews.
The Zealots also held illegal trials for and execu-
tions of those they suspected of not sharing their
total commitment to the war against Rome. It is pos-
sible that Jerusalem’s Christian community, which
by then included Gentiles (an anathema to the
Zealots), suffered Zealot persecution and that the
shedding of Christian blood, both Jewish and
Gentile, also contaminated the holy place, an
“abominable” guarantee of its impending fall.
The church historian Eusebius records that
shortly before Jerusalem was obliterated Christians
there received an “oracle” inciting them to escape
from the city and settle in Pella, a mostly Gentile
town in the Decapolis, a territory east of the Jordan
dominated by a league of ten Hellenistic cities (Eccl.
Hist. 3.5.3). Scholars still debate the historicity of
this episode, but Josephus reveals that such “in-
spired” predictions about Jerusalem’s dire fate were
circulating among Jews during the war with Rome.
He states that some Jews prophesied that the
Temple would be destroyed “when sedition and na-
tive hands [the Zealots] should be the fi rst to defi le
God’s sacred precincts” (The Jewish War 4.6.3; see
also 4.3.10 and 4.3.12). In Christian circles, oral tra-
ditions about Jesus’ pronouncement on Jerusalem
may have been the source of Mark’s declaration to
fl ee the city when the “abomination” (Zealot defi le-
ment of the sanctuary?) occurred.
For a detailed analysis of the Jewish Revolt’s infl uence on
Mark 13, see Joel Marcus, “The Jewish War and the Sitz
im Leben of Mark,” Journal of Biblical Literature 3(3)
(1992): 441–462.
b o x 7 . 6 The Desecrating “Abomination”
and Mark’s Eschatological Community
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 159
Jesus’ Hearing Before Caiaphas Mark’s skill as
a storyteller—and interpreter of the events he
narrates—is demonstrated in the artful way
he  organizes his account of Jesus’ Passion.
Peter’s testing (14:37–38) and denial that he
even knows Jesus (15:65–72) provide the frame
for and ironic parallel to Jesus’ trial before the
Sanhedrin, the Jewish council headed by
Caiaphas, the High Priest. When Peter fulfi lls
Jesus’ prediction about denying him, the disci-
ple’s failure serves a double purpose: confi rm-
ing Jesus’ prophetic gifts and strengthening
readers’ confi dence in Jesus’ ability to fulfi ll
other prophecies, including those of his resur-
rection (14:28) and reappearance as the glori-
fi ed Son of Man (14:62).
Mark contrasts Peter’s fearful denial with
Jesus’ courageous declaration to the Sanhedrin
that he is indeed the Messiah and the appointed
agent of God’s future judgment (14:62). The
only Gospel writer to show Jesus explicitly ac-
cepting a messianic identity at his trial, Mark
may do so to highlight his theme that Jesus’
messiahship is revealed primarily through hu-
mility and service, a denial of self that also
effects humanity’s salvation (10:45). Like the
author of Hebrews, Mark sees Jesus’ divine
Sonship earned and perfected through suffer-
ing and death (Heb. 2:9–11; 5:7–10).
Pilate’s Condemnation of Jesus At daybreak on
Friday, the “ whole council held a consultation ”
(15:1)—perhaps implying that the night meet-
ing had been illegal and therefore lacked au-
thority to condemn Jesus—and sends the
accused to Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect
(governor) who was in Jerusalem to maintain
order during Passover week. Uninterested in
the Sanhedrin’s charge that Jesus is a blas-
phemer, Pilate focuses on Jesus’ reputed politi-
cal crime, seditiously claiming to be the Jewish
king. After remarking that it is Pilate himself
who has stated the claim, Jesus refuses to an-
swer further questions. Because Mark re-creates
almost the entire Passion story in the context of
Old Testament prophecies, it is diffi cult to know
if Jesus’ silence represents his actual behavior
Mark’s Passion Narrative:
Jesus’ Trial and Crucifi xion
Mark’s Suffering Messiah
In describing Jesus’ Passion —his fi nal suffering
and death—Mark’s narrative irony reaches its
height. Although the author emphasizes many
grim details of Jesus’ excruciatingly painful ex-
ecution, he means his readers to see the enor-
mous disparity between the appearance of Jesus’
vulnerability to the world’s evil and the actual
reality of his spiritual triumph. Jesus’ enemies,
who believe they are ridding Judea of a danger-
ous radical, are in fact making possible his
saving death—all according to God’s design.
Jesus’ Arrest in Gethsemane Even so, Mark’s
hero is tested fully—treated with vicious cruelty
(14:65; 15:15–20), deserted by all his friends
(14:50), and even (in human eyes) abandoned
by God (15:34). The agony begins in Gethsemane,
a grove or vineyard on the Mount of Olives op-
posite Jerusalem, to which Jesus and the disciples
retreat after the Last Supper. In the Gethsemane
episode (14:28–52), Mark places a dual empha-
sis on Jesus’ fulfi lling predictions in the Hebrew
Bible (14:26–31, 39) and on his personal an-
guish. By juxtaposing these two elements, Mark
demonstrates that, while the Crucifi xion will
take place as God long ago planned (and re-
vealed in Scripture), Jesus’ part in the drama of
salvation demands heroic effort. While the dis-
ciples sleep, Jesus faces the hard reality of his
impending torture, experiencing “ grief ” and
“ horror and dismay. ” To Mark, his hero—
emotionally ravaged and physically defense-
less—provides the model for all believers
whose loyalty is tested. Although Jesus prays
that God will spare him the humiliation and
pain he dreads, he forces his own will into har-
mony with God’s. Mark reports that, even
during this cruel testing of the heavenly
Father–Son of Man relationship, Jesus ad-
dresses the Deity as Abba, an Aramaic term ex-
pressing a child’s trusting intimacy with the
parent (14:32–41).
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160 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Unlike Luke or John, who show Jesus dying
with serene confi dence (see Box 10 . 7 ), Mark
focuses only on Jesus’ isolation and abandon-
ment, making his last words (in Aramaic) a cry
of despair: “ Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani ? ” — “ My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ”
(15:34). In placing this question—a direct quo-
tation of Psalm 22:1—on Jesus’ lips, the author
may echo a memory of Jesus’ last words. Mark’s
main purpose, however, is probably to create a
paradigm for Christians facing a similar fate
and to show that out of human malice the di-
vine goal is accomplished. From the author’s
perspective, there is an enormous disparity be-
tween what witnesses to the Crucifi xion think is
happening and the saving work that God actu-
ally achieves through Jesus’ death. In Mark’s
eschatological vision, the horror of Jesus’ agony
is transformed by God’s intervention to raise
his son in glory.
Jesus’ Burial
Although some scholars believe that Mark’s
wealth of concrete detail indicates that he drew
on a well-developed oral form of the Passion
story for his Gospel, others think that the narra-
tive of Jesus’ last week is basically a Markan
composition. In contrast to the geographical
vagueness of much of his Galilean narrative,
the author’s Passion account is full of the
names of specifi c places and participants, from
Gethsemane, to Pilate’s courtyard, to Golgotha.
As in all four Gospels, Mary of Magdala pro-
vides the key human link connecting Jesus’
death and burial and the subsequent discovery
that his grave is empty (15:40–41, 47; 16:1).
Joseph of Arimathea , a mysterious fi gure intro-
duced suddenly into the narrative, serves a
single function: to transfer Jesus’ body from
Roman control to that of the dead man’s disci-
ples. Acquainted with Pilate, a member of the
Sanhedrin and yet a covert supporter of Jesus’
ministry, he bridges the two opposing worlds of
Jesus’ enemies and friends. Not only does Joseph
obtain offi cial permission to remove Jesus’ body
from the cross—otherwise, it would routinely
or the author’s reliance on Isaiah 53, where
Israel’s suffering servant does not respond to
his accusers (Isa. 53:7).
As Mark describes the proceedings, Pilate
is extremely reluctant to condemn Jesus and
does so only after the priestly hierarchy pres-
sures him to act. Whereas the Markan Pilate
maneuvers to spare Jesus’ life, the historical
Pilate (prefect of Judea from 26 to 36 ce ),
whom Josephus describes, rarely hesitated to
slaughter troublesome Jews (cf. An tiquities
18.3.1–2; The Jewish War 2.9.4). When a mob
demands that not Jesus but a convicted terror-
ist named Barabbas be freed, Pilate is pictured
as having no choice but to release Barabbas
(the fi rst person to benefi t from Jesus’ sacri-
fi ce) and order the Galilean’s crucifi xion.
Jesus’ Crucifi xion Stripped, fl ogged, mocked,
and crowned with thorns, Jesus is apparently
unable to carry the crossbeam of his cross, so
Roman soldiers impress a bystander, Simon of
Cyrene, to carry it for him (15:16–21). Taken to
Golgotha (Place of the Skull) outside Jerusalem,
Jesus is crucifi ed between two criminals (tradi-
tionally called “ thieves ” but probably brigands
similar to those who formed the Zealot party in
Mark’s day). According to Pilate’s order, his
cross bears a statement of the political offense
for which he is executed: aspiring to be the
Jewish king—a cruelly ironic revelation of his
true identity (15:22–32).
Mark’s description of the Crucifi xion is al-
most unendurably bleak (see Figure 7.8 ). To
bystanders, who mock him for his assumed pre-
tensions to kingly authority, Jesus—nailed to
the cross—appears powerless and defeated
(15:29–30). As Mark so darkly paints it, the
scene is a tragic paradox: Despite the seeming
triumph of religious and political forces allied
against him, Jesus is neither guilty nor a failure.
The failure lies in humanity’s collective inability
to recognize the sufferer’s inestimable value, to
see in him God’s hand at work. To emphasize
the spiritual blindness of Jesus’ tormenters,
Mark states that a midday darkness envelops the
earth (15:33).
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f i g u r e 7 . 8 The Small Crucifi xion. Painted on wood by Matthias Grünewald (c. 1470–1528), this small
version of Jesus’ tortured death heightens the sense of the sufferer’s physical pain and grief. Although his
emphasis on Jesus’ agony refl ects Mark’s account, Grünewald follows John’s Gospel in showing Jesus’
mother and the beloved disciple (as well as another Mary) present at the cross.
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162 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Mark’s Inconclusiveness:
Resurrection or Parousia ?
Other commentators propose that Mark’s be-
lief in the nearness of Jesus’ Parousia may ex-
plain why the risen Jesus does not manifest
himself in the earliest Gospel. The mysterious
youth in white tells the women how to fi nd
Jesus—the risen Lord has already started a post-
humous journey “ to Galilee, ” where Peter and
the other disciples “ will see him ” (16:6–7).
Some scholars think that Mark, convinced that
the political and social chaos of the Jewish
Revolt will soon climax in Jesus’ return, refers
not to a resurrection phenomenon but to the
Parousia . Forty years after the Crucifi xion,
Mark’s community may believe that their wan-
dering through the wilderness is almost over:
They are about to follow Jesus across Jordan
into “ Galilee, ” his promised kingdom.
Mark’s inconclusiveness, his insistence on
leaving his story open-ended, must have seemed
as unsatisfactory to later Christian scribes as it
does to many readers today. For perhaps that
reason, Mark’s Gospel has been heavily edited,
with two different conclusions added at differ-
ent times. All the oldest manuscripts of Mark
end with the line stressing the women’s terri-
fi ed refusal to obey the young man’s instruction
to carry the Resurrection message to Peter. In
time, however, some editors appended post res-
urrection accounts to their copies of Mark,
making his Gospel more consistent with
Matthew and Luke (Mark 16:8b and 16:9–20).
Summary
Christianity’s fi rst attempt to create a sequential
account of Jesus’ public ministry, arrest, and exe-
cution, Mark’s Gospel includes relatively little
of  Jesus’ teaching. Focusing on Jesus’ actions—
exorcisms, healings, and other miracles—the au-
thor presents his mighty works as evidence that
God’s kingdom has begun to rule, breaking up
Satan’s control over suffering humanity. Writing
under the shadow of Roman persecution and the
be consigned to an anonymous mass grave—
but he also provides a secure place of entomb-
ment, a rock-hewn sepulcher that he seals by
rolling a large, fl at stone across the entrance
(15:42–47).
Postlude: The Empty Tomb
Because the Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown
on Friday, the day of Jesus’ execution, the fe-
male disciples cannot prepare the corpse for
interment until Sunday morning. Arriving at
dawn, the women fi nd the entrance stone al-
ready rolled back and the crypt empty except
for the presence of a young man dressed in
white. (Is he the same unidentifi ed youth who
fl ed naked from Gethsemane in 14:50–51?)
Mark’s scene at the vacant tomb recalls
themes recurring throughout his Gospel. Like
the male disciples who could not understand
Jesus’ allusion to resurrection (9:9–10), the
women are bewildered, unable to accept the
youth’s revelation that Jesus is “ risen. ” Fleeing
in terror, the women say “ nothing to anybody ”
about what they have heard (16:8), leaving read-
ers in suspense, wondering how the “ good news ”
of Jesus’ resurrection was ever proclaimed. The
Gospel thus concludes with a frightened silence,
eschewing any account of Jesus’ post resurrec-
tion appearances (16:8).
Mark’s Challenge to the Reader
Some interpreters suggest that the double fail-
ure of Jesus’ disciples—the Eleven who desert
him in Gethsemane and the Galilean women
too paralyzed by fear to proclaim the good
news of his resurrection—is intended to chal-
lenge the reader. If all Jesus’ closest followers
fail him, who but the readers, who now know
conclusively that God has acted through their
crucifi ed Lord, can testify confi dently that he is
both Israel’s Messiah and universal king (see
Tolbert in “ Recommended Reading ” )?
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c h a p t e r 7 m a r k ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 163
must also expect to suffer? Would the wars, in-
surrections, and persecutions affl icting Mark’s
community have stimulated the author’s sense
of eschatological urgency?
2. Why does Mark paint so unfl attering a picture
of Jesus’ Galilean family, neighbors, and disci-
ples, all of whom fail to understand or support
him? Do you think that the author is trying to
disassociate Christianity from its Palestinian or-
igins in favor of his Gentile church’s under-
standing of Jesus’ signifi cance?
3. Do you think that Mark’s emphasis on Jesus’ ex-
orcisms—his battle with cosmic evil—is an ex-
pression of the author’s eschatology, his belief
that in Jesus’ activities God’s kingdom has be-
gun and the End is near? Explain your answer.
4. Discuss Mark’s use of irony in his presentation
of Jesus’ story. List and discuss some incongru-
ities between the spiritual reality that Jesus em-
bodies and the way in which most people in the
Markan narrative perceive him. In the literary
world that Mark creates in his Gospel, how do
appearance and reality confl ict? How does
Mark demonstrate that God achieves his pur-
pose in Jesus even though political and reli-
gious authorities succeed in destroying him?
5. In your view, why does Mark end his Gospel so
abruptly? Are there any clues in the Gospel
that the author expects the Parousia to occur
imminently? Are stories of Jesus’ post resurrec-
tion appearances merely precursors of his re-
turn as eschatological judge?
Terms and Concepts to Remember
impending Roman destruction of Jerusalem, Mark
presents Jesus as an eschatological Son of Man,
who will soon reappear to judge all people.
Mark’s ironic vision depicts Jesus as an unex-
pected and unwanted kind of Messiah who is
predestined to be misunderstood, rejected, and
crucifi ed—a Messiah revealed only in suffering
and death. God, however, uses humanity’s blind-
ness and inadequacy to provide a ransom sacrifi ce
in his Son, saving humankind despite its attempts
to resist him.
Questions for Review
1. According to tradition, who wrote the Gospel ac-
cording to Mark? Why are modern scholars un-
able to verify that tradition? What themes in the
Gospel suggest that it was composed after the
Jewish Revolt against Rome had already begun?
2. Outline and summarize the major events in
Jesus’ public career, from his baptism by John
and his Galilean ministry through his last week
in Jerusalem. Specify the devices that Mark
uses to connect the powerful miracle worker in
Galilee with the seemingly powerless sacrifi cial
victim in Jerusalem. Why does Mark devote so
much space and detail to narrating the Passion
story? Why does he have Jesus predict his own
death three times?
3. Describe the three different categories Mark
assigns the Son of Man concept. How is this
concept related to earlier Jewish writings, such
as the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and 1 Enoch?
4. Defi ne parable, and discuss Jesus’ use of this lit-
erary form to illustrate his vision of God’s king-
dom. Why does Mark state that Jesus used
parables to prevent people from understanding
his message?
5. Explain a possible connection between the
messianic secret concept and Mark’s picture of
the disciples as hopelessly inept and Jesus’ op-
ponents as mistakenly seeing him as the devil’s
agent. What devices does the author employ to
convey his view that Jesus had to be misunder-
stood for him to fulfi ll God’s plan?
Questions for Discussion and Refl ection
1. How does the historical situation when Mark
wrote help account for the author’s portrait of
Jesus as a suffering Messiah whose disciples
Abba
allegory
Andrew
apocalypse
baptism
Barabbas
Bartholomew
Caesarea Philippi
Caiaphas
Capernaum
Cephas
Christ
Christology
disciples
epiphany
eschaton
Eucharist
exorcism
Galilee
Gethsemane
Golgotha
Holy Spirit
Jairus
James
John the Baptist
Joseph of Arimathea
Judas Iscariot
kingdom of God
Last Supper
Mark
Mary of Magdala
Matthew
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Kelber, W. H. Mark’s Story of Jesus. Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1979. A penetrating but succinct
analysis of Mark’s rendition of Jesus’ life.
———. The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics
of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition,
Mark, Paul, and Q. Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1983. A major scholarly study of Mark’s place in
the Jesus tradition.
Ladd, George Eldon. A Theology of the New Testament.
Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974.
Levine, Amy-Jill, ed. A Feminist Companion to Mark .
Feminist Companion to the New Testament and
Early Christian Writings Series. Cleveland:
Pilgrim Press, 2004. Essays reexamining the role
of women in the earliest Gospel.
Marcus, Joel. Mark 1–8 (The Anchor Yale Bible
Commentaries). New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2002. An excellent resource, emphasizing
the Jewish context.
. Mark 8–16 (The Anchor Yale Bible
Commentaries). New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2009. Provides historical background and
appropriate theological interpretation.
Minor, Mitzi. “Mark, Gospel of.” In K. D. Sakenfeld,
ed., The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible,
Vol. 3, pp. 798–811. Nashville: Abingdon Press,
2008. A concise analysis of the earliest narrative
Gospel.
Perkins, Pheme. “The Gospel of Mark.” In The New
Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 8, pp. 509–733. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1995. Complete Markan text
with extensive commentary.
Tolbert, Mary Ann. “Mark.” In Carol A. Newsom and
S. H. Ringe, eds., Women’s Bible Commentary, pp.
350–362. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox,
1998. A perceptive essay.
Wrede, William. The Messianic Secret. Translated
by  J.  C. G. Greig. Cambridge: Clarke, 1971. A
technical but crucial study of Mark’s narrative
methods.
Recommended Reading
Bryan, Christopher. A Preface to Mark: Notes on the
Gospel in Its Literary and Cultural Settings. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Links Mark
with the oral tradition.
Collins, Adela Yarbro. Mark: A Commentary.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. A detailed,
verse-by-verse analysis of the Gospel, emphasizing
the author’s eschatological urgency.
France, R. T. The Gospel of Mark. New International
Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2002. Analyzes Mark as a literary
whole; for advanced students.
Harrington, Daniel J. What Are They Saying About
Mark ? New York: Paulist Press, 2005. An accessible
survey of contemporary critical interpretations.
Henderson, Suzanne W. “Mark, Gospel According
to.” In M.D. Coogan, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia
of the Books of the Bible , Vol. 2, pp. 42–56. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2011. Surveys Mark’s ver-
sion of Jesus’ story, summarizing different critical
interpretations.
messianic secret
Mount of Olives
Nazareth
oracles
parable
Passion
Passover
Pella
Peter
Philip
Pontius Pilate
Sabbath
Sanhedrin (Great
Council)
Satan
Sea of Galilee
Second Coming
(Parousia)
simile
Simon of Cyrene
Simon Peter
Son of God
Son of Man
Thaddeus
Thomas
Transfi guration
Zebedee [sons of
thunder
(Boanerges)]
Zoroastrianism
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c h a p t e r 8
Matthew’s Portrait of Jesus
A Teacher Greater Than Moses
Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets;
I did not come to abolish, but to complete. Matthew 5:17
Matthew’s Relationship
to the Hebrew Bible
If Mark was the fi rst Gospel written, as most
scholars believe, why does Matthew’s Gospel
stand fi rst in the New Testament canon? The
original compilers of the New Testament prob-
ably assigned Matthew the premier position for
several reasons. It offers more extensive cover-
age of Jesus’ teaching than any other Gospel,
making it the church’s major resource in in-
structing its members. In addition, Matthew’s
Gospel was particularly important to early
church leaders because it is the Gospel most
explicitly concerned with the nature and func-
tion of the church (Greek, ekklesia ). The only
Gospel even to use the term ekklesia , Matthew
devotes two full chapters ( chs . 10 and 18) to
providing specifi c guidance to the Christian
community.
The placement of Matthew’s Gospel at the
opening of the New Testament is also themat-
ically appropriate because it forms a strong
connecting link with the Hebrew Bible (Old
Testament), albeit in a Greek edition. Matthew
Key Topics/Themes Most scholars agree that
Matthew’s Gospel is an expanded edition of
Mark, which the author frames with accounts
of Jesus’ birth ( chs . 1 and 2) and post resurrec-
tion appearances ( ch . 28). Although retaining
Mark’s general sequence of events, Matthew
adds fi ve blocks of teaching material, emphasiz-
ing Jesus as the inaugurator of a New Covenant
(26:26–29) who defi nitively interprets the
Mosaic Torah and who, by fulfi lling specifi c
prophecies in the Hebrew Bible, proves his
identity as Israel’s Messiah. Written a decade
or two after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem,
Matthew somewhat softens Mark’s portrait of
an eschatological Jesus, adding parables that
imply a delay in the Parousia (Second Coming)
( chs . 24 and 25), an interval of indefi nite length
devoted to the missionary work of the church
( ekklesia ). Matthew’s principal discourses
include the Sermon on the Mount ( chs . 5–7),
instructions to the Twelve ( ch . 10), parables of
the kingdom ( ch . 13), instructions to the church
( ch . 18), and warnings of Final Judgment
( chs . 23–25).
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166 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
of Babylonian captivity to the appearance of
Jesus, who inherits all the promises made to
Abraham and David, is also fourteen genera-
tions (Matt. 1:17). As fourteen generations in-
tervened between Yahweh’s vow to Abraham
and the establishment of David’s throne, so an
equal span of time elapsed between the
Babylonian overthrow of the Davidic line and
the appearance of David’s ultimate heir, the
Messiah. Although the neatness of Matthew’s
numerical scheme conveys the author’s sense
of Jesus’ crucial importance to the covenant
people—and his view of the mathematically
precise way in which God arranges Israel’s
history—closer examination of the genealogy
raises some diffi culties.
First, Matthew actually lists thirteen, not
fourteen, generations between the Babylonian
destruction of Jerusalem and Jesus’ birth.
Second, one of Matthew’s sources for the pe-
riod between David and the exile, 1 Chronicles
3:10–12, reveals the names of several Davidic
kings (at least three generations) that he omit-
ted from the list, presumably to fi t his desired
sequence of fourteen. Finally, at the end of his
genealogy, Matthew unexpectedly states that
the line of royal descent directly connects not
with Jesus, but with Joseph, who the writer be-
lieves was not Jesus’ biological father. Somewhat
paradoxically, Matthew concludes his list by
noting that Jesus’ paternal grandfather is
“Jacob [father] of Joseph, the husband of Mary,
who gave birth to Jesus called Messiah” (Matt.
1:16). The Evangelist may assume that Joseph is
Jesus’ legal and social parent, and thus can
transmit his  Davidic legacy to a nonrelative ,
perhaps through adoption, even if he did not
transmit it genetically.
Writing independently of Matthew, Luke
compiled a strikingly different genealogy,
which further clouds the issue of Jesus’ Davidic
ancestry (Luke 3:25–38). Using many names
not on Matthew’s list, Luke states that people
“thought” that Jesus was Joseph’s son and that
his paternal grandfather was Heli (not Jacob, as
Matthew has it). Almost since the two Gospel
initiates his account with a genealogy that asso-
ciates Jesus with the most prominent heroes of
ancient Israel. Beginning with Abraham, pro-
genitor of the Hebrew people, Matthew lists as
Jesus’ ancestors celebrated kings like David,
Solomon, and Josiah. The manner in which
Matthew presents his record of Jesus’ ancestors
is typical of his use of the Hebrew Bible. His
purpose is not only to establish Jesus’ messianic
credentials—by right of descent from Abraham
and David—but also to present Jesus’ birth as
the climax of Israelite history. He therefore ar-
ranges Jesus’ family tree in three distinct seg-
ments, each representing a particular phase of
the biblical story. From the time of Abraham,
bearer of the covenant promises for land, na-
tionhood, and universal blessing (Gen. 12:1–3;
22:18), to that of David, bearer of the covenant
promise of an everlasting line of kings (2 Sam.
7:16), is fourteen generations. From the time
of David, whose prosperous kingdom is the
high point of Israel’s history, to the Babylonian
exile, the lowest ebb of Israelite fortunes, is
another fourteen generations. From the time
The Gospel According to Matthew
Author: Traditionally Matthew (also called Levi),
one of the Twelve. Because the writer uses Mark
as his primary source, scholars believe it unlikely
that he was an apostolic witness to the events he
describes. The work is anonymous.
Date: The 80s ce, at least a decade after the
destruction of Jerusalem, when tensions between
postwar Jewish leaders and early Christians
provoked bitter controversy. The author, a
Greek-speaking Christian Jew, penned the most
violent denunciations of his fellow Jews in the
New Testament.
Place of composition: Probably Antioch in
Syria, site of a large Jewish and Jewish-Christian
community.
Sources: Mark, Q, and special Matthean material
(M).
Audience: Greek-speaking Jewish Christians
and Gentiles who were, at least partly, Torah
observant.
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 167
spare her public dishonor. He accepts Mary as
his wife only after he dreams of an angel inform-
ing him that she had “conceived this child” by
the “Holy Spirit” (1:18–25). Although Matthew
connects Jesus with Abraham and David explic-
itly through Joseph, he also specifi es that Mary is
the sole human parent (1:16). As Matthew ar-
ranged Jesus’ forebears in groups of fourteen to
express divine providence at work, so he under-
scores the presence of ancestresses (and their
male partners) with questionable pasts to illus-
trate God’s unexpected use of fl awed humanity
to accomplish his purpose.
Matthew’s wish to connect Jesus with the
Hebrew Bible goes far beyond genealogical con-
cerns. More than any other Gospel writer, he
presents Jesus’ life in the context of biblical law
and prophecy. Throughout the entire Gospel,
Matthew underscores Jesus’ fulfi llment of an-
cient prophecies, repeatedly emphasizing the
continuity between Jesus and the promises
made to Israel, particularly to the royal dynasty
of David. To demonstrate that Jesus’ entire ca-
reer, from conception to resurrection, was pre-
dicted centuries earlier by biblical writers from
Moses to Malachi, Matthew quotes from, para-
phrases, or alludes to the Hebrew Bible at least
60 times. (Some scholars have detected 140 or
more allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures.)
Nearly a dozen times, Matthew employs a liter-
ary formula that drives home the connection
between prophecy and specifi c events in Jesus’
life: “All this happened in order to fulfi ll what
the Lord declared through the prophet,”
Matthew writes, then citing a biblical passage to
support his contention (1:22–23; 2:15, 23; see
Box 8. 1 ).
Matthew takes great pains to show that
Jesus both taught and fulfi lled the principles
of the Mosaic Law (5:17–20). For these and
other reasons, Matthew is usually regarded as
the “most Jewish” of the Gospels. At the same
time, the author violently attacks the leaders
of institutional Judaism, condemning the
Pharisees and scribes with extreme bitterness
( ch . 23).
genealogies were fi rst published, Christians
have sought to resolve their apparent disagree-
ment, but although ingenious solutions have
been proposed, none yet has been universally
accepted. Whatever its historical credibility, the
family tree with which Matthew begins his
Gospel (and hence the New Testament itself)
proclaims Jesus as the culminating fi gure in a
long biblical tradition. As several scholars have
observed, Matthew may have devised his genea-
logical pattern of fourteen for its messianic sig-
nifi cance. Because Hebrew, like Greek and
many other ancient languages, uses letters to
signify numbers, each letter of the alphabet has
a numerical value. In Hebrew, the three conso-
nants making up David’s name (DWD) total
fourteen, which can function as the symbolic
number of David’s promised heir.
Although biblical genealogists uniformly
recorded only the male line, linking fathers to
sons, Matthew includes four female ancestors
of Jesus—Tamar (1:3), Rahab (1:5), Ruth (1:5),
and Bathsheba, “the wife of Uriah ,” who later
became David’s queen and the mother of King
Solomon (1:6). Matthew’s reasons for depart-
ing from biblical tradition are unclear, but
scholars have found at least two factors that the-
matically bind these women together and that
may have infl uenced the Evangelist’s decision
to list them as part of Jesus’ heritage. Besides
the fact that all four were Gentiles (Ruth was a
Moabite, Tamar and Rahab Canaanites, and
Bathsheba a Hittite), all four were also involved
in irregular sexual activity. While Tamar posed
as a prostitute to beguile her father-in-law into
impregnating her (Gen. 38), Rahab actually
plied the trade of a “harlot” in Canaanite
Jericho ( Josh. 2; 6). A young widow, Ruth se-
duced Boaz into marrying her (Ruth 1–4), and
Bathsheba committed adultery with David, be-
coming his wife only after the king had ar-
ranged to have her husband Uriah slain in
battle (2 Sam. 11–12; 1 Kings 1–2).
Matthew states that, when Joseph discovered
that his future bride, Mary, was already expect-
ing a child, he planned to divorce her secretly to
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matthew
All this happened in order to fulfi ll what the Lord
declared through the prophet. (Matt. 1:22)
1. The Virgin will conceive and bear a son, and
he shall be called Emmanuel. (Matt. 1:22)
2. Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you are far
from least in the eyes of the rulers of Judah;
for out of you shall come a leader to be the
shepherd of my people Israel. (Matt. 2:5–6)
3. So Joseph . . . went away . . . to Egypt, and there
he stayed till Herod’s death. This was to fulfi ll
what the Lord had declared through the prophet:
“I called my son out of Egypt.” (Matt. 2:15)
4. Herod . . . gave orders for the massacre of all
children in Bethlehem and its neighborhood,
of the age of two years or less. . . . So the words
spoken through Jeremiah the prophet were ful-
fi lled: “A voice was heard in Rama, wailing and
loud laments; it was Rachael weeping for her
children, and refusing all consolation, because
they were no more.” (Matt. 2:16–18)
5. He shall be called a Nazarene. (Matt. 2:23)
[This statement does not appear in the Hebrew Bible;
it may be a misreading of Isaiah 11:1.]
6. When he heard that John had been arrested,
Jesus withdrew to Galilee; and leaving
Nazareth he went and settled at Capernaum
on the Sea of Galilee, in the district of
Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfi ll the
passage in the prophet Isaiah which tells of
the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, the
Way of the Sea, the land beyond Jordan,
heathen Galilee, and says:
“The people that lived in darkness saw a
great light:
light dawned on the dwellers in the land of
death’s dark shadow.” (Matt. 4:12–16)
7. And he drove the spirits out with a word and
healed all who were sick, to fulfi ll the proph-
ecy of Isaiah: “He took away our illnesses and
lifted our diseases from us.” (Matt. 8:16–17)
hebrew bible source
1. A young woman is with child, and she will bear
a son and will call him Immanuel. (Isa. 7:14)
2. But you, Bethlehem in Ephrathah, small as you
are to be among Judah’s clans, out of you shall
come forth a governor for Israel, one whose roots
are far back in the past, in days gone by. (Mic. 5:2)
3. When Israel was a boy, I loved him;
I called my son out of Egypt. (Hos. 11:1)
[Hosea refers to the Exodus from Egypt, not a future
Messiah.]
4. Hark, lamentation is heard in Ramah, and bitter
weeping,
Rachel weeping for her sons.
She refuses to be comforted: they are no more.
( Jer. 31:15)
5. Then a shoot shall grow from the stock of
Jesse, and a branch [Hebrew, nezer] shall
spring from his roots. (Isa. 11:1)
6. For, while the fi rst invader has dealt lightly
with the land of Zebulun and the land of
Naphtali, the second has dealt heavily with
Galilee of the Nations on the road beyond
Jordan to the sea:
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light:
light has dawned upon them,
dwellers in a land as dark as death.
(Isa. 9:1–2)
7. Yet on himself he bore our sufferings,
our torments he endured,
while we counted him smitten by God,
struck down by disease and misery.
(Isa. 53:4)
b o x 8 . 1 Representative Examples of Matthew’s Use of the Septuagint
(Greek) Version of the Hebrew Bible to Identify Jesus
as the Promised Messiah
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 169
matthew
All this happened in order to fulfi ll what the Lord
declared through the prophet. (Matt. 1:22)
8. Jesus . . . gave strict injunctions that they were
not to make him known. This was to fulfi ll
Isaiah’s prophecy:
“Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,
my beloved on whom my favour rests;
I will put my spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim judgment among the
nations.
He will not strive, he will not shout,
nor will his voice be heard in the streets.
He will not snap off the broken reed,
nor snuff out the smouldering wick,
until he leads justice on to victory.
In him the nations shall place their hope.”
(Matt. 12:16–21)
9. In all his teaching to the crowds, Jesus spoke in
parables; in fact, he never spoke to them without
a parable. This was to fulfi ll the prophecy of Isaiah:
“I will open my mouth in parables;
I will utter things kept secret since the
world was made.” (Matt. 13:34–35)
10. Jesus instructs his disciples to bring him a donkey
and her foal. “If any speaks to you, say ‘Our Master
needs them’; and he will let you take them at
once.” This was to fulfi ll the prophecy which
says, “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Here is your
king, who comes to you riding on an ass, riding
on the foal of a beast of burden.’” (Matt. 21:2–5)
[Matthew shows Jesus mounted on two beasts—the
donkey and her foal. See Luke 19:29–36, where a
single mount is mentioned.]
11. [Judas returns the bribe—“thirty silver pieces”—
given him to betray Jesus.]
. . . and in this way fulfi llment was given to the
saying of the prophet Jeremiah: “They took
the thirty silver pieces, the price set on a
man’s head (for that was his price among the
Israelites) and gave the money for the potter’s
fi eld, so the Lord directed me.” (Matt. 27:9–10)
hebrew bible source
8. Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight,
I have bestowed my spirit upon him,
and he will make justice shine on the nations.
He will not call out or lift his voice high,
Or make himself heard in the open street.
He will not break a bruised reed,
or snuff out a smouldering wick;
he will make justice shine on every race,
never faltering, never breaking down,
he will plant justice on earth,
while coasts and islands wait for his teaching.
(Isa. 42:1–4)
9. Mark my teaching, O my people,
listen to the words I am to speak.
I will tell you a story with a meaning,
I will expound the riddle of things past,
things that we have heard and know,
and our fathers have repeated to us.
(Ps. 78:2—not in Isaiah)
10. Rejoice, rejoice, daughter of Zion,
shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem;
for see, your king is coming to you,
his cause won, his victory gained,
humble and mounted on an ass,
on a foal, the young of a she-ass.
(Zech. 9:9)
11. [Matthew is wrong in citing Jeremiah as the source
of this passage, which, in the form he quotes it, does
not appear in the Hebrew Bible. It is Zechariah who
reports being paid “thirty shekels of silver,” which he
then donates to the Temple treasury:]
So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of
silver. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it into
the treasury—this is the lordly price [the standard
price of a slave] at which I was valued by them.”
So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw
them into the treasury in the house of the Lord.
[Jeremiah does record investing in a fi eld near Jerusalem
(Jer. 32:6–15) and refers to visiting a potter’s house
(Jer. 18:1–3), but neither he nor Zechariah provides
support for Matthew’s claim of prophetic fulfi llment.]
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170 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
analysis of his work enables us to gain some in-
sight into his theological intentions and distinc-
tive interests. Thoroughly versed in the Hebrew
Bible, the writer is remarkably skilled at its exe-
gesis (the explanation and critical interpreta-
tion of a literary text). Some scholars believe
that he may have received scribal training, a
professional discipline he utilizes to demon-
strate to his fellow Jews that Jesus of Nazareth is
the predicted Messiah. The author may refer to
himself or to a “school” of early Christian inter-
preters of the Hebrew Scriptures when he
states: “When, therefore, a teacher of the law [a
scribe] has become a learner [a disciple] in the
kingdom of Heaven, he is like a householder
who can produce from his store both the new
and the old” (13:52–53). Matthew effectively
combines “the new” (Christian teaching) with
“the old” (Judaism). To him, Jesus’ teachings
are the legitimate outgrowth of Torah study.
Recent scholarly investigations have
demonstrated that several varieties of Jewish
Christianity existed in the fi rst-century church.
The particular type to which Matthew belongs
can only be inferred from examining relevant
aspects of his Gospel. Some Jewish Christians
demanded that all Gentile converts to the new
faith keep the entire Mosaic Law or at least un-
dergo circumcision (Acts 15:1–6; Gal. 6:11–16).
Matthew does not mention circumcision, but
he insists that the Mosaic Torah is binding on
believers (5:17–20). In his view, Christians are
to continue such Jewish practices as fasting
(6:16–18), regular prayer (6:5–6), charitable
giving (6:2), and formal sacrifi ces (5:23). His
account also implies that Mosaic purity laws,
forbidding certain foods, apply to his commu-
nity. Matthew includes Mark’s report of Jesus’
controversy with the Pharisees over ritual hand
washing but omits Mark’s conclusion that Jesus
declares all foods ceremonially clean (cf. 15:1–20
with Mark 7:1–23, especially 7:19).
Matthew depicts Jesus’ personal religion as
Torah Judaism, but he has no patience with
Jewish leaders who disagree with his conclu-
sions. He labels them “blind guides” and hypo-
crites (23:13–28). Despite his contempt for
Authorship, Purpose,
Sources, and Organization
Who was the man so deeply interested in Jesus’
practice of the Jewish religion and simultane-
ously so fi erce in his denunciation of Jewish lead-
ers? As in Mark’s case, the author does not
identify himself, suggesting to most historians
that the Gospel originated and circulated
anonymously. The tradition that the author is
the “publican” or tax collector mentioned in
Matthew 9:9–13 (and called “Levi” in Mark 2:14)
dates from the late second century ce and can-
not be verifi ed. The main problem with accept-
ing the apostle Matthew’s authorship is that the
writer relies heavily on Mark as a source. It is ex-
tremely unlikely that one of the original Twelve
would have depended on the work of Mark, who
was not an eyewitness to the events he describes.
The oldest apparent reference to the
Gospel’s authorship is that of Papias (c. 140 ce ),
whom Eusebius quotes: “Matthew compiled the
Sayings [Greek, logia ] in the Aramaic language,
and everyone translated them as well as he could”
( History 3:39:16). As many commentators have
noted, the Sayings, or logia, are not the same as
the “words” (Greek, logoi ) of Jesus, nor are they
the same as the Gospel of Matthew we have to-
day. Whereas scholars once believed that
Matthew’s Gospel was fi rst written in Aramaic by
the apostle who was formerly a tax collector,
modern analysts point out that there is no evi-
dence of an earlier Aramaic version of the
Gospel. Papias’s use of logia may refer to an early
collection of Jesus’ sayings compiled by someone
named Matthew, or it may allude to a list of mes-
sianic prophecies from the Hebrew Bible that a
Christian scribe assembled to show that Jesus’ life
was foretold in Scripture. Most scholars do not
believe that Papias’s description applies to the
canonical Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew and Judaism
The author remains unknown (we call him
Matthew to avoid confusion), but scholarly
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Reading”). As we have seen, Matthew freely
employs all four interpretative techniques
when applying texts from his Greek edition of
the Hebrew Bible to Jesus’ biography.
Date and Place of Composition
The Gospel gives few clues to its precise time of
origin, but Matthew apparently refers to
Jerusalem’s destruction as an accomplished
fact (22:7). The author’s hostility to the Jewish
leadership and references to “their” synagogues
(9:35; 10:17; 12:9; 13:54) may suggest that he
wrote after the Christians already had been ex-
pelled from Jewish meeting places, a process
that occurred at many different synagogues
during the 80s and 90s ce .
The oldest citations from Matthew’s Gospel
appear in the letters of Ignatius, who was bishop
of Antioch in Syria about 110–115 ce . Ignatius’s
reference and the unusual prominence given
Peter in this Gospel (Matt. 16:16–19) suggest
that it originated in Antioch, a city in which Peter
had great infl uence (Gal. 2:11–14). Although we
lack conclusive evidence, many scholars favor
Antioch as the place of Matthew’s composition.
Founded by Greek-speaking Jewish
Christians in the late 30s ce , during the fi rst
generation of Christianity, the Antioch church
was second only to that in Jerusalem (Acts
11:19–26; 15:2–35). The Antiochean congrega-
tion was also the stage on which two different
wings of the early Christian community waged a
vigorous battle over the status of Gentile con-
verts. Whereas Paul advocated total equality for
Gentiles, James (called “the Lord’s brother”)
took a decidedly more conservative stance, in-
sisting that Gentiles keep at least some Torah
restrictions. Peter seems to have occupied a
middle position between James and Paul, per-
mitting Gentiles into the group but drawing
the line at close association with them, particu-
larly if they did not observe kosher food laws.
Matthew’s Gospel refl ects his community’s his-
torical movement away from exclusively Jewish
Christianity and toward a ministry that focuses
on Gentiles. In chapter 10, the Matthean Jesus
Jewish opponents, however, Matthew retains his
respect for Pharisaic teachings and urges the
church to “pay attention to their words” (23:3).
Like the writers at Qumran, the Essene com-
munity of monklike scholars who withdrew from
the world to await the fi nal battle between good
and evil, Matthew interprets the prophecies of
the Hebrew Bible as applying exclusively to his
group of believers, whom he regards as the true
Israel. He also commonly presents Jesus’ teach-
ing as a kind of midrash on the Torah. A de-
tailed exposition of the underlying meaning of a
biblical text, a midrash includes interpretations
of Scripture’s legal rules for daily life (called
Halakah ) and explanations of nonlegal material
(called Haggadah ). At various points in his
Gospel, Matthew shows Jesus providing halakic
interpretations of the Torah (5:17–48), particu-
larly on such legal matters as Sabbath obser-
vance and divorce (12:1–21; 19:3–12).
Matthew’s Methods of Interpretation
Although contemporary scholars may fl inch at
the ideological way in which Matthew inter-
prets ancient Scripture as specifi cally prophetic
of Jesus, the Evangelist follows procedures that
most Jewish scholars accepted in the fi rst cen-
tury ce . As David H. Stern reminds us, Jewish
scribes and rabbis recognized “four basic
modes” of biblical interpretation. The fi rst
mode (Hebrew, P’shat , “simple”) analyzes a
passage’s literal meaning, taking into account
both grammatical construction and historical
context. In the second method ( Remez , “hint”),
rabbis examined individual words or phrases
that offer clues to a signifi cance not apparent
in a literal reading. The third mode ( Drash or
midrash , “search”) involves a particular read-
er’s interpretation, a commonly fi gurative or
allegorical response to the text that illumi-
nates an individual’s mind but may have little
to do with the text’s literal sense. The fourth
approach ( Sod, “secret”) allows for a passage’s
“mystical or hidden meaning,” perhaps sug-
gested by individual letters or other minute
details (see David H. Stern in “Recommended
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172 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
and the unforgiving debtor (18:23–35). Other
parts are similar or virtually identical to material
found in Luke but not in Mark. Scholars believe
that Matthew and Luke, independently of each
other, drew much of their shared teaching from
the now-lost Q ( Quelle [source]) document (see
above). Containing a wide variety of sayings at-
tributed to Jesus, including kingdom parables,
instructions to the disciples, and (at least in its
fi nal edition) prophecies of impending judg-
ment, the Q document hypothesis works well in
accounting for the source of Jesus’ sayings ab-
sent in Mark but present in both Matthew and
Luke (see Box 6.3).
The M Source In addition to Mark and Q (assum-
ing its historicity), Matthew uses material found
only in his Gospel. Scholars designate this
material unique to Matthew as M (Matthean).
M includes numerous sayings and parables,
such as the stories about the vineyard laborers
(20:1–16) and many of the kingdom pronounce-
ments in chapter 13 (13:24–30, 44–45, 47–52).
Finally, Matthew frames his story of Jesus with a
narrative of Jesus’ birth and infancy (1:18–2:23)
and a concluding account of two post resurrec-
tion appearances, the fi rst to women near
Jerusalem and the second to the “eleven disci-
ples” in Galilee (28:8–20).
Matthew’s Editing of Mark
Before considering passages found only in
Matthew, we can learn something of the au-
thor’s intent by examining the way in which he
edits and revises Markan material (see Box 8. 2 ).
Although he generally follows Mark’s chronol-
ogy, Matthew characteristically condenses and
shortens Mark’s narrative. In fact, Matthew gen-
erally summarizes and abbreviates Mark’s ac-
count, commonly correcting Mark’s grammar
or awkward phrasing. In the story of the epilep-
tic boy, Matthew severely abridges Mark’s ver-
sion, recounting the episode in a mere fi ve
verses (17:14–18) compared with Mark’s sixteen
(Mark 9:14–29). Matthew is also signifi cantly
briefer in his telling of Jesus’ healing of Peter’s
mother-in-law (8:14–15; Mark 1:29–31), the
orders his disciples not to enter Gentile territo-
ries and to preach only to “the lost sheep of the
house of Israel” (10:5–6). At the very end of his
Gospel, however, Matthew pictures the risen
Jesus issuing the “great commission” —to “make
all nations my disciples” (28:19; emphasis
added). Mediating between Torah-oriented
traditions and a Hellenistic cosmopolitanism,
Matthew produced a Gospel appropriate for his
transitional generation, perhaps about 85 ce .
The Author’s Purpose
In composing his Gospel, Matthew has several
major objectives. Three of the most important
are demonstrating Jesus’ credentials as Israel’s
true Messiah; presenting Jesus as the supreme
teacher and interpreter of the Mosaic Torah,
the principles of which provide ethical guid-
ance for Matthew’s particular Jewish-Christian
community; and instructing that community—
the church—in the kind of correct belief and
behavior that will ensure Jesus’ approval when
he returns.
Structure and Use of Sources
Matthew accomplishes his multiple purposes by
assembling material from several different
sources to construct his Gospel. Using Mark as
his primary source, he incorporates about 90
percent of the earlier Gospel into his account.
Into the Markan outline, Matthew inserts fi ve
large blocks of teaching material. Many ancient
Jewish authors, consciously paralleling the Torah
(the “fi ve books of Moses”), arranged their works
into fi vefold divisions, as did the editors of the
Psalms. The fi rst of Matthew’s fi ve collections is
the most famous, as well as the most commonly
quoted—the Sermon on the Mount ( chs . 5–7).
The other four are instructions to the Twelve
Apostles ( ch . 10), parables on the kingdom
( ch . 13), instructions to the church (Matthew’s
Christian community) ( ch . 18), and warnings of
the Final Judgment ( chs . 23–25).
The Q Source Some of the material in these fi ve
sections is peculiar to Matthew, such as the par-
ables involving weeds in a grain fi eld (13:24–30)
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Mark: It happened at this time that Jesus came
from Nazareth in Galilee
and was baptized in the Jordan by John. At the
moment when he came up out of the water, he saw
the heavens torn open and the Spirit, like a dove,
descending upon him. And a voice spoke from
heaven: “Thou art my Son, my Beloved; on thee
my favour rests.” (Mark 1:9–11)
Matthew: Then Jesus arrived at the Jordan from
Galilee, and came to John to be baptized by him.
John tried to dissuade him, “Do you come to me?”
he said. “I need rather to be baptized by you.” Jesus
replied, “Let it be so for the present; we do well to
conform in this way with all that God requires.”
John then allowed him to come. After baptism Jesus
came up out of the water at once, and at that mo-
ment heaven opened; he saw the Spirit of God de-
scending like a dove to alight upon him; and a voice
from heaven was heard saying, “This is my Son, my
Beloved, on whom my favour rests.” (Matt. 3:13–17)
b o x 8 . 2 Examples of Matthew’s Editing of Markan Material*
jesus’ baptism
In comparing the two accounts of Jesus’ baptism, the
reader will note that Matthew inserts a speech by John into
the Markan narrative. Recognizing Jesus as “mightier”
than himself, John is reluctant to baptize him. By giving
John this speech, Matthew is able to stress Jesus’ superiority
to the Baptist. Matthew also changes the nature of Jesus’
experience of the “Spirit” after his baptism. In Mark, the
heavenly voice is addressed directly to Jesus and appar-
ently represents Jesus’ own private mystical experience of
divine sonship at the event. Matthew changes the “thou
art,” intended for Jesus’ ears, to “this is,” making the di-
vine voice a public declaration audible to by-standers.
jesus’ reception by his neighbors in his hometown of nazareth
Mark: He left that place and went to his home
town accompanied by his disciples. When the
Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue;
and the large congregation who heard him were
amazed and said,
“Where does he get it from?”, and, “What wisdom is
this that has been given him?”, and, “How does he
work such miracles? Is not this the carpenter, the son
of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judas
and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”
So they [turned against] him. Jesus said to them,
“A prophet will always be held in honour except in
his home town, and among his kinsmen and fam-
ily.” He could work no miracle there, except that
he put his hands on a few sick people and healed
them; and he was taken aback by their want of
faith. (Mark 6:1–6)
Matthew: Jesus left that place, and came to his
home town, where he taught the people in their
synagogue.
In amazement they asked,
“Where does he get this wisdom from, and these
miraculous powers? Is he not the carpenter’s son?
Is not his mother called Mary, his brothers James,
Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And are not all his sis-
ters here with us? Where then has he got all this
from?” So they [turned against] him, and this led
him to say, “A prophet will always be held in hon-
our, except in his home town, and in his own fam-
ily.” And he did not work many miracles there:
such was their want of faith. (Matt. 13:54–58)
*Matthew’s chief editorial changes are printed in bold-
face type.
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In editing Mark’s account of Jesus’ unsatisfactory re-
union with his former neighbors in Nazareth, Matthew
reproduces most of his source but makes some signifi cant
changes and deletions. He omits Mark’s reference to the
Sabbath, as well as Mark’s brief list of Jesus’ “few” deeds
there and Jesus’ apparent surprise at his fellow towns-
men’s refusal to recognize or trust in his powers. Matthew
also substitutes the phrase “the carpenter’s son” for
Mark’s “the son of Mary,” with its implication of Jesus’
illegitimacy. In both accounts, the Nazareans’ familiar-
ity with Jesus’ background and family (naming four
“brothers” and referring to two or more “sisters”) is
enough to make them skeptical of Jesus’ claims to special
wisdom or authority.
jesus’ stilling of a storm
Mark: [Immediately after miraculously feeding
the multitudes who had gathered to hear him
preach, Jesus sends the disciples by boat across the
Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida.] After taking leave of
them [the crowds], he went up the hill to pray.
It was now late and the boat was already well out
on the water, while he was alone on the land.
Somewhere between three and six in the morning,
seeing them laboring at the oars against a head
wind, he came toward them, walking on the lake.
He was going to pass by them; but when they saw
him walking on the lake, they thought it was a
ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were
terrifi ed.
But at once he spoke to them: “Take heart! It is
I; do not be afraid.” Then he climbed into the boat
with them, and the wind dropped. At this they
were utterly astonished, for they had not under-
stood the incident of the loaves; their minds were
closed. (Mark 6:45–52)
Matthew: As soon as they had fi nished, he made the
disciples embark and cross to the other side [of
the Sea of Galilee] ahead of him, while he dismissed
the crowd; then he went up the hill by himself to
pray. It had grown late, and he was there alone. The
boat was already some distance from the shore, bat-
tling a head wind and a rough sea. Between three
and six in the morning he came towards them,
walking across the lake. When the disciples saw him
walking on the lake they were so shaken that they
cried out in terror: “It is a ghost!” But at once Jesus
spoke to them: “Take heart! It is I; do not be afraid.”
Peter called to him: “Lord, if it is you, tell me to
come to you over the water.” “Come,” said Jesus.
Peter got down out of the boat and walked over the
water towards Jesus. But when he saw the strength
of the gale he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he
cried, “Save me, Lord!” Jesus at once reached out
and caught hold of him. “Why did you hesitate?”
he said. “How little faith you have!” Then they
climbed into the boat; and the wind dropped. And
the men in the boat fell at his feet, exclaiming
“You must be the Son of God.” (Matt. 14:22–33)
Besides adding the episode involving Peter’s impetuous
attempt to imitate Jesus’ power over nature, Matthew
radically changes the disciples’ reaction to their Master’s
miraculous control of the sea, symbol of primal chaos.
Whereas the Markan disciples fail to perceive Jesus’ di-
vinity in his ability to subdue wind and storm—Mark
says that “their minds were closed”—the Matthean disci-
ples immediately recognize Jesus as “Son of God.”
Matthew’s editorial changes refl ect not only his promo-
tion of Peter’s importance (see Matt. 16:13–19) but also
his tendency to picture the disciples as better role models
than Mark had portrayed them.
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elsewhere in the New Testament but probably
appears here to express Matthew’s conviction
that Jesus’ death makes possible the resurrec-
tion of the faithful.) Matthew introduces yet an-
other earthquake into his description of the fi rst
Easter morning, stating that the women disci-
ples arrive at Jesus’ tomb in time to see a divine
being descend and roll away the stone blocking
the tomb entrance. Mark’s linen-clad youth be-
comes an angel before whom the Roman guards
quake in terror (28:1–4). What Mark’s account
implies, Matthew’s typically makes explicit, en-
suring that the reader will not miss the hand of
God in these happenings. Nor does Matthew
leave the Galilean women wondering and fright-
ened at the empty sepulcher. Instead of being
too terrifi ed to report what they have seen, in
Matthew’s version the women joyously rush away
to inform the disciples (28:8; Mark 16:8). In this
retelling, the women set the right example by
immediately proclaiming the good news of
Jesus’ triumph over death (28:19).
Organization of Matthew’s Gospel
Because of the complex nature of the Matthean
composition and the skill with which the au-
thor has interwoven Mark’s narrative with Jesus’
discourses (from Q and M), it is diffi cult to re-
duce Matthew to a clear-cut outline. Separating
the book into convenient divisions and subdivi-
sions in conventional outline form tends to dis-
tort and oversimplify its interlocking themes.
One can, however, identify some of the major
parts that make up the Gospel whole.
The following gives a rough idea of Matthew’s
general structure:
1. Introduction to the Messiah: genealogy and
infancy narratives (1:1–2:23)
2. The beginning of Jesus’ proclamation: bap-
tism by John; the temptation by Satan; inau-
guration of the Galilean ministry (3:1–4:25)
3. First major discourse: the Sermon on the
Mount (5–7)
4. First narrative section: ten miracles (8:1–9:38)
5. Second major discourse: instructions to the
Twelve Apostles (10)
Gerasene demoniac (8:28–34; Mark 5:1–20),
and the resuscitation of Jairus’s daughter and
the curing of the woman with a hemorrhage
(9:18–26; Mark 5:21–43). In abbreviating
Mark’s version of events, Matthew typically
omits much physical detail, as well as Jesus’
emotional responses to the situation.
Emphasis on the Miraculous and Supernatural At
the same time that he shortens Mark’s descrip-
tion of Jesus’ miracles, Matthew heightens
the miraculous element, stressing that Jesus
effected instant cures (9:22; 15:28; 17:18).
In recounting Jesus’ unfriendly reception in
Nazareth, Matthew changes Mark’s observation
that Jesus “could work no miracle there” (Mark
6:5) to the declaration that “he did not work
many miracles there,” eliminating the implica-
tion that the human Jesus could be weakened
by others’ unbelief (13:58) (see Box 8.2). He
similarly omits Mark’s defi nition of John’s bap-
tism as a rite “in token of repentance, for the
forgiveness of sins” (3:2, 6, 11; Mark 1:4).
Mark’s exact phrase, “for the forgiveness of
sins,” does appear in Matthew, but it is trans-
ferred to the Matthean Jesus’ explanation of
the ceremonial wine at the Last Supper (26:26–
28). The author may have effected this transpo-
sition to make sure his readers understood that
“forgiveness of sin” comes not from John’s bap-
tism but from Jesus’ expiatory death.
Matthew’s edition of the Passion narrative
also intensifi es the supernatural element. In
Gethsemane, the Matthean Jesus reminds his
persecutors that he has the power to call up
thousands of angels to help him (26:53), a claim
absent from Mark. Matthew’s Christ allows him-
self to be arrested only to fulfi ll Scripture (26:54).
Matthew also revises Mark’s crucifi xion ac-
count, inserting several miracles to highlight the
event’s cosmic signifi cance. To Mark’s plague of
darkness and the rending of the Temple cur-
tain, Matthew adds a violent earthquake, severe
enough to open graves and permit suddenly re-
suscitated “saints” (holy persons) to rise and
walk the streets of Jerusalem (27:50–53). (This
mysterious raising of saints is not mentioned
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12. Fifth and fi nal narrative section: the Passion
story and post resurrection appearances
(26:1–28:20)
Except for the birth narratives and fi nal post
resurrection apparitions, even a minimal out-
line makes clear that Matthew tells essentially
the same story that we fi nd in Mark and Luke
(see Box 6.1). Only by carefully scrutinizing
Matthew’s handling of his sources, the Hebrew
Bible, Mark, M, and (presumably) Q can we ap-
preciate the ways in which his Gospel is distinc-
tive (see Boxes 8. 3 and 8. 4 ).
6. Second narrative section: the Baptist’s ques-
tions about Jesus; controversies with Jewish
authorities (11:1–12:50)
7. Third major discourse: parables on the king-
dom (13:1–52)
8. Third narrative section: from the rejection in
Nazareth to the Transfi guration (13:53–17:27)
9. Fourth major discourse: instructions to the
church (18)
10. Fourth narrative section: the Jerusalem minis-
try (19:1–22:46)
11. Fifth major discourse: warnings of Final
Judgment (23–25)
A “Table of Descent” [genealogy] listing Jesus’
ancestors (1:1–17)
Matthew’s distinctive version of Jesus’ miraculous
conception and birth at Bethlehem (1:18–2:23)
Some parables, sayings, and miracles unique to
Matthew:
The dumb demoniac (9:32–34)
Wheat and darnel [weeds] (13:24–30)
Buried treasure (13:44)
The pearl of “special value” (13:45)
Catching fi sh in a net (13:47–50)
A learner with treasures old and new (13:51–52)
Earthly rulers collecting taxes (17:25–26)
Finding a coin in a fi sh’s mouth to pay Temple
taxes (17:27)
The unforgiving debtor (18:23–35)
Equal wages for all vineyard laborers (20:1–16)
The two sons and obedience (21:28–32)
The improperly dressed wedding guest (22:11–14)
The wise and foolish virgins (25:1–13)
The judgment separating sheep from goats
(25:31–46)
Judas and the chief priests (27:3–10)
The dream of Pilate’s wife (27:19)
The resurrection of saints (27:52–53)
The Easter morning earthquake (28:2)
The chief priests’ conspiracy to deny Jesus’
resurrection (28:11–15)
b o x 8 .3 Representative Examples of Material Found Only in Matthew
Joseph, husband of Mary (1:16, 18–25; 2:13–14,
19–23)
Herod the Great, Roman-appointed king of
Judea (ruled 40–4 bce) (2:1–8, 16–19)
The Magi (astrologers or “wise men” from the
east) (2:1–12)
Satan, the devil (as a speaking character) (4:1–11)
Two blind men (9:27–31)
A dumb demoniac (9:32–34)
Revised list of the Twelve (10:1–4)
The mother of James and John, sons of Zebedee
(20:20–21)
b o x 8 . 4 New Characters Introduced in Matthew
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“the king of the Jews” to be born. Astrology was
extremely popular with all classes of society in
Greco-Roman times, and it was commonly be-
lieved that the appearance of unusual celestial
bodies, such as comets or “falling stars,” her-
alded the occurrence of major events on earth
( Isa . 14:12–23; Job 38:23; Judg . 5:20).
Matthew’s reference to the “star” that guides
the Magi to Jesus’ birthplace is puzzling. Modern
scientists do not know what astronomical phe-
nomenon Matthew has in mind, but a conjunc-
tion of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the
constellation Pisces (7 bce ) may have been seen
as a divine “sign” or portent. (No other New
Testament writer or contemporary historian al-
ludes to the “star of Bethlehem.”) Noting that
the star “stops” to hover over Jesus’ birthplace
(2:10)—behavior impossible for a genuine ce-
lestial body—some commentators suggest that
Matthew invites his readers to believe that an
angel (traditionally likened to a star [ Isa . 40:26;
Rev. 12:4, 9]) actually directs the Magi.
In the Evangelist’s account, the unnamed
heavenly body leads the traveling astrologers
to create a situation in which several biblical
prophecies can be fulfi lled. On reaching
Jerusalem, the astrologers are brought before
King Herod, who recognizes that their inquiry
about a new Jewish king refers to the Messiah’s
birth in Bethlehem, King David’s home city,
foretold in Micah 5:2.
Herod’s jealous attempt to kill the child
(2:1–18) fulfi lls prophecy ( Jer . 31:15), as does
the holy family’s fl ight into Egypt ( Hos . 11:1).
Matthew structures the entire episode to paral-
lel the biblical story of Moses’ infancy ( Exod .
1:8–2:25). As the baby Moses survived the
Egyptian pharaoh’s murderous schemes, so the
infant Jesus escapes another ruler’s plot to kill
God’s chosen one. The analogy between the
two fi gures is also intended to apply to Jesus’
adult life. Like Moses, Jesus will be summoned
from Egypt to deliver his people. Moses led
Israel from Egyptian slavery to a covenant rela-
tionship with God; Jesus will free believers from
sin and establish a New Covenant (2:13–15,
19–21; 19:27–29).
Introduction to the Messiah:
The Infancy Narrative
Except for Matthew and Luke, no New Testament
writers refer even briefl y to the circumstances
of Jesus’ birth. Nor do Matthew and Luke al-
lude to Jesus’ infancy in the main body of their
Gospels. In both cases, the infancy narratives
are self-contained units that act as detachable
prefaces to the central narrative of Jesus’ public
ministry.
Matthew constructs his account (1:18–
2:23) with phrases and incidents taken from a
Greek edition of the Hebrew Bible. To him, the
infant Messiah’s appearance gives new mean-
ing to ancient biblical texts, fulfi lling prophecy
in many unexpected ways. The child is born to
a virgin made pregnant by the Holy Spirit
(1:18–19). To the author, this fulfi lls a passage
from Isaiah 7:14, which in Hebrew states that “a
young woman is with child, and she will bear a
son.” Matthew, however, quotes not the origi-
nal Hebrew-language version of the text, but an
Old Greek translation in which “young woman”
is rendered as parthenos , or “virgin.” Historians
believe that Isaiah’s words originally referred to
the birth of an heir to the then-reigning Davidic
king, but Matthew sees them as forecasting the
Messiah’s unique manner of birth. Like other
New Testament writers, Matthew reads the
Hebrew Bible from an explicitly Christian view-
point, consistently giving the Jewish Scriptures
a Christological interpretation. By making al-
most the entire Hebrew Bible foreshadow the
Christ event, Matthew transforms it retroac-
tively into a Christian document.
Matthew’s concern to anchor Jesus’ en-
trance into life fi rmly in the context of Scripture
fulfi llment is evident in his account of the mys-
terious Magi, or “wise men” from the east who
come to pay homage to the infant Jesus.
Traditionally three in number (although
Matthew does not say how many they were), the
Magi were probably Babylonian or Persian as-
trologers who had studied the horoscope of
Judah and concluded that it was then time for
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178 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
As Matthew and Luke (4:1–13) present it,
the confrontation with Satan serves to clarify
Jesus’ concept of his messianic role. Representing
false notions of the Messiah, Satan prefaces his
fi rst two challenges with the phrase “If you are
the Son of God,” a mean-spirited attempt to
capitalize on any doubts that the human Jesus
may have experienced about his origins or his
future authority as God’s agent. The fi rst temp-
tation involves Jesus’ personal hunger: Satan
calls for Jesus to test the extent of his miracu-
lous power by turning stones into bread, a ploy
Jesus refutes by quoting the Torah principle
that one lives spiritually on the word of God
(Deut. 8:3). Some modern commentators have
suggested that Jesus thereby rejects the tempta-
tion to undertake a messiahship exclusively fo-
cused on material good works, although he
makes feeding the hungry and destitute an im-
portant part of his ministry.
The second temptation is a profound chal-
lenge to Jesus’ consciousness of his own messianic
identity. “If you are the Son of God,” Satan de-
mands, show that you can fulfi ll the terms of Psalm
91, a poem that unconditionally asserts that God
will save from all harm the man he has chosen.
The Beginning
of Jesus’ Proclamation
Matthew gives no information about Jesus’ life
from the time of his family’s settling in Nazareth
(2:22–23) to the appearance of John the Baptist,
a gap of approximately thirty years (Luke 3:1,
23). Although he starts his account of Jesus’
adult career (3:1–4:25) at exactly the same
point as Mark (1:1–13), Matthew edits Mark’s
baptism narrative to emphasize Jesus’ superior-
ity to John and to avoid any implication that
Jesus needed forgiveness of previous sins (3:1–
17). (See Figures 8. 1 and 8. 2 for two distinctly
different interpretations of the young Jesus.)
The Temptation
Mark (1:12–13) briefl y alludes to Satan’s tempting
Jesus, but Matthew expands the scene to include
a dramatic dialogue between Jesus and the Evil
One (4:1–11). Whether he is viewed as an objec-
tive reality or a metaphor signifying human failure
to obey God, Matthew’s Satan attempts to defl ect
Jesus from the true course of his messiahship .
f i g u r e 8 . 1 The Holy Family. In depicting Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as indigenous Americans, the
twentieth-century painter Fr. John B. Giuliani emphasizes both the archetypal sacredness of the family
and the tradition of spirituality attained by pre-Columbian peoples of North America.
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 179
The poem continues to reassure God’s favorite
that Yahweh will “lift him beyond danger” and
“rescue him and bring him to honour ” (Ps.
91:14–16). In Matthew’s time, many Jews must
have pointed out to Christians that Jesus’ death
on the cross was entirely contrary to the prom-
ises of divine protection given in this well-
known psalm. In Matthew 4:6, the devil quotes
this Scripture, and Jesus counters this “de-
monic” use of the Bible by citing the general
Torah principle of not putting God to the test
(Deut. 6:16).
In a third and fi nal attempt to subvert
Jesus’ understanding of his messianic role,
Satan offers him worldly power on a vastly
grander scale than King David, the Messiah’s
prototype, had enjoyed. All Jesus must do in
return is “pay homage” to Satan, a demand that
Jesus recognizes as undermining the essence of
Judaism’s commitment to one God (Deut.
6:13). A thousand years earlier, David had
gained his kingdom through war and blood-
shed, a procedure that Jesus recognizes as un-
suitable to the Messiah, who will not impose his
rule by cruelty and violence. Satan is not to be
“worshiped” by imitating his methods.
First Major Discourse:
The Sermon on the Mount
In the temptation scene (4:1–11), Matthew
shows Jesus repudiating some of the functions
then popularly associated with the Messiah. In
the Sermon on the Mount ( chs . 5–7), Matthew
demonstrates how radically different Jesus’
concept of this messiahship is from the popular
expectation of a conquering warrior-king. This
long discourse, in which Jesus takes his seat on
a Galilean hill, reminding the reader of Moses
seated on Mount Sinai, is the New Testament’s
most extensive collection of Jesus’ teachings.
Matthew’s “sermon” is not the record of a sin-
gle historical speech by Jesus, but a compilation
of Jesus’ sayings from several different sources.
Some of the same teachings appear in Luke’s
For you the L ord [Yahweh] is a safe retreat;
you have made the Most High your refuge.
No disaster shall befall you,
no calamity shall come upon your home.
For he [Yahweh] has charged his angels
to guard you wherever you go,
to lift you on their hands
for fear you should strike your foot
against a stone.
(Ps. 91:9–12)
f i g u r e 8 . 2 The Good Shepherd. This early Christian
painting of Christ can be found on the ceiling of a crypt in
the catacombs of Saint Priscilla in Rome. Note that the art-
ist portrays Jesus in a pose that would be familiar to a
Greco-Roman audience. Like earlier renditions of Apollo,
the Greek god of prophecy, intellect, music, and shep-
herds, the youthful Jesus carries a lamb on his shoulders
to demonstrate his concern for his human fl ock. Compare
John 10:1–18, Matthew 18:12–14, and Luke 15:4–7.
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180 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
the Mosaic Law. In a statement probably aimed
at Pauline churches that did not observe Torah
commandments (see Chapters 15 and 17)—and
which appears only in Matthew’s Gospel—the
Matthean Jesus declares:
Do not suppose that I have come to abolish
the Law and the prophets; I did not come to
abolish [as Paul maintains in Galatians], but to
complete. I tell you this: so long as heaven and
earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will
disappear from the Law until all that must
happen has happened.
(5:17–18)
Aware that Paul’s churches did not share a con-
viction that the Torah was eternally binding,
Matthew concedes that nonobservant believers
may still belong to the kingdom (the church),
although they will rank signifi cantly below
Torah loyalists:
If any man therefore sets aside even the least of
the Law’s demands, and teaches others to do
the same, he will have the lowest place in the
kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone who
keeps the Law, and teaches others so, will
stand high in the kingdom of Heaven.
(Matt. 5:19)
The Antitheses
For Matthew’s Jewish Christian community,
Jesus’ teachings did not replace the Mosaic
Law; they intensifi ed it. Rather than serving as a
refutation of Jewish tradition, Jesus’ Torah pro-
nouncements illustrate how his disciples should
observe it, emphasizing the essential core of
ethical meaning that lies behind each com-
mandment. Immediately after his declaration
of the Law’s unchanging validity, Matthew in-
troduces a set of Jesus’ sayings, known as the
antitheses, that are found only in his Gospel.
Employing a rhetorical formula, Jesus makes
an initial statement (the thesis), which he then
follows with an apparently opposing idea (the
antithesis). In this series, he appears to contrast
biblical tradition with his own authoritative
opinion; as scholars have pointed out, however,
Sermon on the Plain, the Third Gospel’s equiv-
alent version of the discourse (Luke 6:17–7:1).
Matthew collects the sayings in one place (5:1–
8:1); Luke scatters them throughout his Gospel
narrative (see Chapter 9).
In Matthew’s opening discourse, Jesus ad-
dresses both the undifferentiated “crowds” that
gather to hear him and a much smaller group
of disciples who sit at his feet. Challenging his
audience to practice a “higher righteousness,”
exceeding even that of the most scrupulous
Pharisees (5:20), he calls on them to express
God-like love, radiating “light for all the world”
(5:15–16, 43–48). Jesus begins by summoning
those who will most benefi t from his teaching—
the needy, the unsatisfi ed, the grieving, and the
persecuted—many of whom now seem perma-
nently excluded from the “good things” God’s
world provides. In the sermon’s fi rst section,
known as the Beatitudes, Matthew’s Jesus pro-
nounces a blessing on “those who know their
need of God,” “those who hunger and thirst to
see right prevail,” and “those who show mercy”
(5:3, 6, 7). Because Luke’s version of the
Beatitudes applies Jesus’ blessings to the liter-
ally poor and hungry (see Box 9.4), many schol-
ars think that Matthew has modifi ed the original
import of these sayings by “spiritualizing” them.
For both Matthew and Luke, however, the
Beatitudes express a radical reversal of the
world’s social values that will prevail in God’s
kingdom (which, in Matthew, is represented by
the church). Whereas society presently exalts
the rich, the powerful, and the successful, par-
ticularly military conquerors victorious in war,
Jesus reverses these common value judgments,
congratulating those who seek divine justice
rather than material acquisitions, “those of a
gentle spirit,” and those who are “peacemak-
ers.” These are the citizens of God’s dominion,
who will inherit both the earth (5:5) and the
“kingdom of Heaven” (5:3), people whom God
calls his children (5:9).
Immediately after the Beatitudes and his
designation of Christians as the “salt of the earth”
and “light” to the world, Matthew emphasizes
Jesus’ crucial role as upholder and interpreter of
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 181
Recognizing that the law’s intent was to curb
violence, Jesus goes beyond its literal applica-
tion to demand that his listeners give up their
traditional right to retaliate in kind. Is Jesus,
then, urging people to submit passively to those
who wrong them?
Although many commentators have inter-
preted Jesus’ emphasis on nonviolence as tanta-
mount to accepting injustice, some interpreters,
such as Walter Wink, suggest an alternative read-
ing. Instead of advocating a “slave morality” that
would make it easier for the strong to abuse the
weak, Wink argues that Jesus was instructing his
audience on how to deal with people who exer-
cised power over them. Jesus’ remark on slap-
ping is directed to classes of people who
customarily receive demeaning treatment: slaves
who are struck by masters; wives, by their hus-
bands; children, by their parents; or a conquered
people, such as the Jews, by their Roman over-
lords. According to Wink, Jesus advised a simple
technique by which mistreated people could re-
act without violence and yet retain their human
dignity. Because it was customary to strike a so-
cial inferior with the back of the right hand,
turning the other cheek made it diffi cult for the
aggressor to repeat the blow in the same way.
(Hitting with the fi st was supposedly ruled out,
since it implied that one was striking an equal.)
Jesus’ advice to a poor person whom a
wealthy creditor sues in court similarly offers a
means to shame the exploiter. When a creditor
demands the outer garment (here translated as
“shirt”) to pay off a debt, the debtor should strip
off the inner tunic (“coat”) as well. Standing
naked before the debt collector in full public
view would, according to social standards of the
era, have been more humiliating to the credi-
tor than to his victim, who had dramatically
illustrated the other’s excessive avarice. Jesus’
counsel to go an “extra mile” refers to the legal
practice that entitled a Roman soldier to force
a peasant to carry his pack for a mile—but no
farther. By voluntarily carrying the pack beyond
the legally stipulated distance, the carrier would
place his oppressor in an awkward position,
causing the soldier to exceed his legal mandate
he does not contradict Torah rules, but rather
interprets them to reveal the human motiva-
tion that often causes them to be broken:
You have learned that our forefathers were
told, “Do not commit murder: anyone who
commits murder must be brought to
judgment.” But what I tell you is this: Anyone
who nurses anger against his brother must be
brought to judgment. If he abuses his brother,
he must answer for it to the court; if he sneers
at him he will have to answer for it in the fi res
of hell [ Gehenna ].
(5:21–22)
Anger, the emotion triggering murderous ag-
gression, must be rooted out, for if it leads to
overt behavior, it will be punished by both hu-
man courts and divine judgment.
In another antithesis, Jesus looks beyond
the literal application of a Torah command to
seek a more effective way to obey the principle
it embodies:
You have learned that they [the biblical
Israelites] were told, “Eye for eye, tooth for
tooth.” But what I tell you is this: Do not set
yourself against the man who wrongs you. If
someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and
offer him your left. If a man wants to sue you
for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. If
a man in authority makes you go one mile, go
with him two.
(5:38–41)
The lex talionis , or law of retaliation, that Jesus
quotes before giving his three examples of rec-
ommended behavior is central to the Mosaic
concept of justice and appears in three differ-
ent Torah books ( Exod . 21:23–25; Lev. 24:19–
20; Deut. 19:21). Although it may seem harsh
by today’s standards, in ancient society the lex
talionis served to limit excessive revenge: Simply
receiving an injury did not entitle one to kill
the offending party. In the world inhabited by
the (generally poor and powerless) members of
Jesus’ audience (the “you” whom he addresses),
however, retaliatory actions of any kind against
those who exploited them automatically led to
severe reprisals, including torture and death.
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182 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Jesus’ Authority
The sermon ends with Jesus’ parable about
the advantages of building one’s life fi rmly on the
rock of his teachings (7:24–27), after which,
Matthew reports, the crowds “were astounded”
because “unlike their own teachers he taught with
a note of [his personal] authority” (7:28). Matthew’s
phrase “when Jesus had fi nished this discourse,”
or a variation thereof, marks the conclusion of
each of the four other blocks of teaching material
in his Gospel (11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1).
First Narrative Section:
Ten Miracles
In the fi rst long narrative section of his Gospel
(8:1–9:38), based largely on Mark, Matthew con-
centrates on depicting Jesus’ miraculous heal-
ings and exorcisms. To Mark’s account of the
cleansing of a leper (Mark 1:40–45), Matthew
adds the story of a centurion, the highest-ranking
noncommissioned Roman army offi cer (8:5–13;
see also Luke 7:1–10). Matthew connects this ep-
isode with references to the practice of convert-
ing Gentiles that existed in the author’s own day.
After expressing Jesus’ astonishment that the
Gentile soldier reveals a faith stronger than that
of any Israelite, the author makes his point: Non-
Jews like the centurion will come to feast with
Abraham and the other patriarchs, and Jews,
once the favored people, will be left outside.
Throughout his Gospel, Matthew pictures the
Christian community as the “true Israel,” inheri-
tors of the divine promise made to the ancient
Israelites.
Second Major Discourse:
Instructions to the Twelve
Apostles
In his second major collection of ethical teach-
ings, Matthew presents Jesus’ instructions to the
twelve chief disciples (listed by name in 10:2–4).
and thus blurring the distinction between the
“man in authority” and the servant he had con-
scripted (see Wink in “Recommended Reading”).
Other commentators suggest that Jesus’
main objective was probably to discover and
apply the essential precepts contained in the
Mosaic tradition. Matthew’s version of the
“golden rule” most succinctly expresses this
view: His Jesus states that treating others as one
would like to be treated by them encapsulates
the biblical message, succinctly embodying “the
Law and the prophets” (7:12; cf. Luke 6:31).
Similarly, after reciting the Torah injunctions
to love God and neighbor wholeheartedly,
Jesus states, “Everything in the Law and the
prophets hangs on these two commandments”
(22:34–40; cf. Mark 12:28–34).
In Matthew’s fi nal antithesis, Jesus expands
on this fundamental perception, contrasting
the command to love one’s neighbor (Lev.
19:18) with the apparently common assump-
tion that it is permissible to hate an enemy
(5:43–48). Again, he demands a “higher righ-
teousness” that will imitate God’s own charac-
ter, revealed in the daily operation of physical
nature, where he lavishes his gifts equally on
both deserving and undeserving people:
But what I tell you is this: Love your enemies
and pray for your persecutors; only so can you
be children of your heavenly Father, who
makes his sun rise on good and bad alike, and
sends the rain on the honest and dishonest. If
you love only those who love you, what reward
can you expect? . . . There must be no limit to
your goodness, as your heavenly Father’s
goodness knows no bounds.
(5:44–48)
“Boundless” in loving generosity, the Father
provides the supreme model for Jesus’ disciples
to emulate, refashioning them in his image. In
seeking fi rst the kingdom and God’s “justice”
(6:33), they personally “pass no judgment” on
others, for judgmental attitudes blind people
to their own defects (7:1–5). Instead, disciples
must focus on the infi nite graciousness of the
Father, who endlessly “gives good things to
those who ask him” (7:9–11).
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 183
the church. If so, this suggests that many of
Matthew’s other references to “the end of the
age” and Jesus’ Parousia ( chs . 24 and 25) are
also to be understood metaphorically.
Second Narrative Section:
Questions and
Controversies
Jesus and John the Baptist
Matthew opens his second extended narrative
(11:1–12:50) by discussing the relationship of
Jesus to John the Baptist, whose fate foreshadows
that of Jesus. Locked in Herod Antipas’s prison
and doomed to imminent martyrdom, John
writes to inquire if Jesus is really God’s chosen
one (11:2–3). The Baptist’s question contrasts
strangely with his earlier proclamation of Jesus’
high status (3:11–15) and may refl ect a later
competition between the disciples of Jesus and
John in Matthew’s day.
Matthew uses the incident to place the two
prophets’ roles in perspective, highlighting
Jesus’ superiority. Without answering John’s
question directly, Jesus summarizes his miracles
of healing that suggest God’s presence in his
work (11:4–6). Matthew then contrasts the func-
tion and style of the two men, emphasizing
Jesus’ far greater role. Although John is the “des-
tined Elijah” whose return to earth was to inau-
gurate the time of Final Judgment, he does not
share in the “kingdom.” Perhaps because
Matthew sees John operating independently of
Jesus, he does not consider him a Christian.
(Box 8. 6 indicates the four Gospel authors’
strikingly different views of John’s role.)
John is a wild and solitary fi gure; Jesus is
gregarious, friendly with Israel’s outcasts, pros-
titutes, and “sinners.” Enjoying food and wine
with socially unrespectable people, Jesus pro-
vokes critics who accuse him of gluttony and
overdrinking (11:7–19). In Matthew’s evalua-
tion, neither John nor Jesus, representing two
very different approaches to the religious life,
can win the fi ckle public’s approval.
The author specifi es that the Twelve are sent
exclusively to Jews and forbidden to preach to
Gentiles or Samaritans (10:5–6), an injunction
found only in Matthew. (In contrast, both Luke
and John show Jesus leading his disciples on a
brief Samaritan campaign [Luke 9:52–56; John
4:3–42].) The Twelve are to preach the king-
dom’s imminent appearance, the same apoca-
lyptic message that the author attributes to both
the Baptist (3:2) and Jesus at the outset of his
career (4:17). While healing the sick, cleansing
lepers, and raising the dead—thus replicating
Jesus’ spectacular miracles—the disciples are to
expect hostility and persecution. This extended
warning (10:16–26) seems to apply to condi-
tions that existed in the author’s generation,
rather than in the time of Jesus’ Galilean minis-
try. Matthew’s apparent practice of combining
Jesus’ remembered words with commentary re-
lating them to later experiences of the Christian
community is typical of all the Gospel writers.
A strong eschatological tone pervades the
entire discourse. Followers are to be loyal at the
time of testing because destruction in Gehenna
awaits the unfaithful. The New Testament
name for a geographical location, the “Valley
of Hinnom ,” Gehenna is commonly rendered
as “hell” in English translations, although it is
uncertain that the later Christian notion of a
metaphysical place of punishment accurately
expresses the original meaning of Gehenna
(see Box 8. 5 ). A site of human sacrifi ce in Old
Testament times ( Jer . 7:32; 1 Kings 11:7, etc.),
the Valley of Hinnom later housed a garbage
dump that was kept permanently burning, a lit-
eral place of annihilation for “both soul and
body” (Matt. 10:28; 18:8; 25:30, 46, etc.).
Equally arresting is the statement that be-
fore the Twelve have completed their circuit of
Palestine “the Son of Man will have come”
(10:23). Writing more than half a century after
the events he describes, Matthew surprisingly
retains a prophecy that was not fulfi lled, at least
not in historical fact. The author’s inclusion of
this apocalyptic prediction indicates that he
may not have understood it literally. Matthew
may have regarded the “Son of Man” as already
spiritually present in the missionary activity of
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184 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
The term that many English-language Bibles
translate as “hell” is Gehenna (ge– hinno–m) (Matt.
5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 23:15, 33), which originally re-
ferred not to a place of posthumous torment but
to a specifi c geographical location, a ravine near
Jerusalem. A valley bordering Israel’s capital city
on the southwest, Gehenna was named for the
“sons of Hinnom (ge– ben(e) hinno–m),” the biblical
designation of an ancient Canaanite group that
occupied the site before King David captured it
about 1000 bce. Gehenna had an evil reputation
as the place where humans were sacrifi ced and
burned as offerings to false gods, a practice that
Israelite prophets vehemently condemned ( Jer.
7:31; 19:11; 32:35; cf. 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chron.
28:3; 33:5).
In time, perhaps infl uenced by Persian ideas
about afterlife punishments in fi re, some Jewish
writers made Hinnom’s valley (Gehenna) the sym-
bol of God’s eschatological judgment, where the
wicked would suffer after death (1 Enoch 26:4;
27:2–3). A potent image of alienation from God,
the earthly Gehenna was eventually associated
with mythical concepts of an Underworld “lake of
fi re,” the future abode of unrepentant sinners
(2 Esd. 7:36; Rev. 20).
sheol and hades
The concept of eternal punishment does not oc-
cur in the Hebrew Bible, which uses the term
Sheol to designate a bleak subterranean region
where the dead, good and bad alike, subsist only
as impotent shadows. When Hellenistic Jewish
scribes rendered the Bible into Greek, they used
the word Hades to translate Sheol, bringing a
whole new mythological association to the idea of
posthumous existence. In ancient Greek myth,
Hades, named after the gloomy deity who ruled
over it, was originally similar to the Hebrew
Sheol—a dark place underground in which all the
dead, regardless of individual merit, were indis-
criminately housed (see Homer’s Odyssey, book
11). By the Hellenistic period, however, Hades
had become compartmentalized into separate re-
gions: These included Elysium, a paradise for the
virtuous, and Tartarus, a place of punishment for
the wicked. Infl uenced by philosophers such as
Pythagoras and Plato and by the Orphic mystery
religions (see Chapter 4), Greek religious thought
eventually posited a direct connection between
people’s behavior in this life and their destiny in
the next: Good actions earned them bliss, whereas
injustices brought fearful penalties.
hell
Popular concepts of hell derive from a variety of
sources extending back in time to the earliest
Mesopotamian and Egyptian speculations about
the terrors of the next world. Although the con-
cept is absent from the Hebrew Bible and most of
the New Testament, a few scattered references to
it (primarily involving Gehenna or a fi ery lake)
appear in the Synoptic Gospels and the Book of
Revelation, as well as some noncanonical Jewish
and Christian books, such as 1 and 2 Enoch and
the Apocalypse of Peter. In general, pre-Christian
mythologies and other extrabiblical sources sup-
ply most of the frightening imagery for such cele-
brated literary works as Dante’s Inferno and
Milton’s Paradise Lost, as well as the “hellfi re” ser-
mons of many Puritan divines and their modern
successors. The word itself, not found in the Bible,
commemorates Hel, the fi erce Norse goddess who
reigned over the netherworld.
b o x 8 . 5 Matthew’s Use of Hell: Some Biblical Concepts
of the Afterlife
Harsh Sayings
At the same time that he shows Jesus perform-
ing works of mercy and forgiveness (11:28–30),
Matthew also includes harsh sayings very simi-
lar to the denunciations and threats of divine
judgment uttered by the Baptist. When the
towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida fail to repent
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 185
matthew
He is the man of whom Scripture says, “Here is my
herald, whom I send on ahead of you, and he will
prepare your way before you.” I tell you this: never
has there appeared on earth a mother’s son
greater than John the Baptist, and yet the least in
the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.
Ever since the coming of John the Baptist the
kingdom of Heaven has been subject to violence
and violent men are seizing it. For all the prophets
and the Law foretold things to come until John
appeared, and John is the destined Elijah, if you
will but accept it. If you have ears, then hear.
(Matt. 11:10–14)
b o x 8 . 6 John the Baptist as the Eschatological Elijah Figure
mark
[Popular speculations about John’s return to life after his
beheading by Herod Antipas:]
Now King Herod heard of it [Jesus’ miracles], for
the fame of Jesus had spread; and people were say-
ing, “John the Baptist has been raised to life, and
that is why these miraculous powers are at work in
him.” Others said, “It is Elijah.” (Mark 6:14–15)
luke
He is the man of whom Scripture says, “Here is my
herald, whom I send on ahead of you, and he will
prepare your way before you.” I tell you, there is
not a mother’s son greater than John, and yet the
least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
(Luke 7:27–28)
Until John, it was the Law and the prophets; since
then, there is the good news of the kingdom of
God, and everyone forces his way in. (Luke 16:16)
john
This is the testimony which John gave when the
Jews of Jerusalem sent a deputation of priests
and Levites to ask him who he was. He confessed
without reserve and avowed, “I am not the
Messiah.” “What then? are you Elijah?” “No,” he
replied. “Are you the prophet whom we await?”
He answered “No.”* “Then who are you?” they
asked. “We must give an answer to those who sent
us. What account do you give of yourself?” He
answered in the words of the prophet Isaiah: “I
am a voice crying aloud in the wilderness, ‘Make
the Lord’s highway straight.’” (John 1:19–23)
*Note that John’s Gospel denies the Baptist the roles
of prophet and latter-day Elijah that the Synoptics
accorded him.
after witnessing Jesus’ miracles there, Jesus
makes a sweeping statement that Sodom,
which Yahweh destroyed by fi re, would fare
better on Judgment Day than they (11:20–24).
Castigating his opponents as poisonous snakes
(12:33–37), Jesus seems to echo the ferocity
of John’s earlier diatribes (3:7–13; cf. Luke
3:7–9).
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186 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Gospel. Recounting Jesus’ rejection by his
fellow citizens of Nazareth, Matthew subtly
modifi es Mark’s older account, calling Jesus
“the carpenter’s son” rather than the Markan
“son of Mary” (Mark 6:3) and changing Mark’s
statement that Jesus “could work no miracle
there” (Mark 6:5) to “did not work many mira-
cles there” (13:54–58) (see Box 8. 2 ).
With minor changes, Matthew generally
follows Mark’s account of the Baptist’s execu-
tion, the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people,
and the stilling of the Galilean storm (14:1–27;
Mark 6:14–52). Matthew’s editing of this part
of the Markan narrative, however, entails a ma-
jor change in Mark’s order of events. The epi-
sode in which Jesus sends the Twelve on a
missionary journey (Mark 6:7–13) does not
appear in Matthew’s third narrative section
because he has already incorporated it into
his version of Jesus’ instructions to the Twelve
( ch . 10). Matthew also revises other Markan
passages dealing with the disciples. He embel-
lishes Mark’s account of Jesus’ striding across
the Sea of Galilee by adding that Peter also at-
tempted to walk on water. More signifi cantly,
Matthew deletes Mark’s reference to the disci-
ples’ “closed” minds, or “hard-heartedness,”
and replaces it with their positive recognition
of Jesus as “Son of God” (14:28–33; Mark 6:52).
He further modifi es Mark’s theme of the
disciples’ obtuseness by insisting that the
Twelve fully comprehend the miracle of loaves
and fi shes (15:5–12; Mark 8:1–21). Most of
these revisions to Mark’s account—especially
Matthew’s deletion of Mark’s criticisms of the
Twelve—serve to enhance the disciples’ role
and reputation.
Describing Jesus’ dispute with the Pharisees
over ritual hand washing (taken from Mark
7:1–23), Matthew gives the debate a meaning
signifi cantly different from that in his Markan
source. In Mark, the episode’s climax is
reached when the author interprets Jesus’
words to mean that all foods are clean, includ-
ing those the Torah forbids Jews to eat (7:19).
Believing that dietary laws remain in effect,
Matthew drops Mark’s climactic interpretation
(15:1–11).
Third Major Discourse:
Parables on the Kingdom
Matthew frames Jesus’ third discourse with his
version of Jesus’ alienation from his family
(12:46–50; Mark 3:31–35) and Jesus’ rejection
by the citizens of Nazareth (13:54–58; Mark
6:1–6). The author divides Jesus’ parable teach-
ings into two distinct episodes, the fi rst public
and the second private (13:10–23). Although
only the Twelve are initiated into the secrets of
God’s rule, Matthew softens Mark’s explana-
tion of Jesus’ reasons for using parables in pub-
lic. Instead of employing fi gures of speech
to  prevent understanding (Mark 4:11–12),
Matthew states that Jesus speaks metaphorically
because most people have the wrong attitude
and unconsciously shut their mental eyes and
ears (13:11–15; Isa . 6:9–10). Matthew’s version
of the parable lesson explicitly states that the
Twelve do understand and appreciate Jesus’
teaching (13:16–17, 51–52), thus eliminating
Mark’s view of the disciples’ chronic stupidity.
To Mark’s original collection of kingdom
parables, Matthew adds several comparisons in
which the kingdom is likened to a buried trea-
sure, a priceless pearl, a harvest of fi sh, and a
fi eld in which both grain and “darnel” (weeds)
grow (13:24–30, 36–50). The last two introduce
a distinctly Matthean concept: The kingdom
(church) consists of a mixture of good and bad
elements that will not be separated completely
until the last day. The same theme reappears in
Matthew’s version of the parable about un-
grateful guests (22:1–13; cf. Luke 14:16–23).
Third Narrative Section:
From the Rejection in
Nazareth to the
Transfi guration
Revisions of Mark’s Narrative
Matthew’s third narrative section (13:53–17:27)
slightly revises many incidents related in Mark’s
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 187
(18:15–17), prophetic promises (18:10, 18–20),
and direct commands (18:22). In Matthew’s
view of the church, service, humility, and end-
less forgiveness are the measure of leadership.
Practicing the spirit of Torah mercy, the church
is the earthly expression of divine rule (18:23–
35), a visible manifestation of the kingdom.
In regulating the community, Matthew
gives the individual “congregation” the right to
exclude or ostracize disobedient members
(18:15–17). During later centuries, this power
of excommunication was to become a formida-
ble weapon in controlling both belief and be-
havior. The same authority accorded Peter in
Jesus’ famous “keys of the kingdom” speech
(16:16–20) is also given to individual congrega-
tion leaders (18:18).
Fourth Narrative Section:
The Jerusalem Ministry
In this long narrative sequence (19:1–22:46),
Matthew arranges several dialogues between
Jesus and his opponents, interspersed with inci-
dents on the journey south from Galilee to
Jerusalem. The section opens with “some
Pharisees” challenging Jesus on the matter of
divorce. In Mark’s version of the encounter,
Jesus revokes the Torah provisions for divorce
and forbids remarriage (Mark 10:1–12).
Matthew modifi es the prohibition, stating that
“ unchastity ” or sexual unfaithfulness provides
grounds for lawful divorce (19:3–9). He also
adds a discussion with the disciples in which
Jesus mentions several reasons for not marry-
ing, including a commitment to remain single
for “the kingdom” (19:10–12).
Discipleship and Suffering
After the third prediction of Jesus’ impending
death in Jerusalem (20:17–19), Matthew again
emphasizes that suffering must precede the dis-
ciples’ heavenly reward, as it does Jesus’. In Mark,
the sons of Zebedee , James and John, directly ask
Jesus for positions of honor in his kingdom,
Peter and the Church
One of Matthew’s most celebrated additions to
Mark’s narrative appears in his version of
Peter’s recognition of Jesus’ identity (16:13–
29). Matthew’s Peter not only acknowledges
Jesus as the Messiah but also identifi es him as
the Son of God (an element absent in Mark).
Jesus’ declaration that Peter is the rock upon
which Jesus will build his church appears only
in Matthew, as does the promise to award Peter
spiritual powers that are honored in heaven
and on earth. Matthew’s Jesus, however, makes
no provision for the transmission of ecclesiasti-
cal authority to Peter’s successors.
Despite his singling Peter out as foremost
among the apostles (“ones sent out [by Jesus]”),
Matthew retains Mark’s tradition that Peter
fundamentally misunderstands the nature of
Jesus’ messiahship . When Peter attempts to dis-
suade Jesus from a decision that will lead to his
death in Jerusalem, Jesus again ironically ad-
dresses the apostle as “Satan” (16:21–23).
Fourth Major Discourse:
Instructions to the Church
In chapter 18, Matthew assembles disparate say-
ings of Jesus and applies them to the Christian
community of the writer’s generation. Taken
together, chapters 10 and 18 form a rudimen-
tary instruction manual for the early church.
The author skillfully combines numerous small
literary units to achieve his intended effect. A
brief glimpse of the disciples’ squabbling for
power (18:1–2) introduces opposing images of
a powerless child and a drowning man (18:2–
7), which are quickly followed by pictures of
self-blinding and the fl ames of Gehenna (18:8–
9). The variety of literary forms gathered here
makes the author’s prescription for an ideal
Christian community intensely vivid. The writ-
er’s devices include hyperbole (exaggeration
for rhetorical effect), parable (the lost sheep
and the unforgiving debtor [18:12–14, 23–35]),
advice on supervising troublesome people
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188 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
“Son of David,” one of Matthew’s chief designa-
tions for his hero (1:1; 20:30; 21:9, 16). Matthew
reproduces many of the Markan debates between
Jesus and Jewish Torah experts on matters such
as payment of taxes to Rome (22:16–22), the res-
urrection (22:23–33), and the law of love (22:34–
40). However, he signifi cantly edits Mark’s report
on Jesus’ encounter with a friendly Torah in-
structor (Mark 12:28–34). Whereas Mark states
that this congenial exchange prevented further
attacks on Jesus, Matthew transfers Mark’s com-
ment to the conclusion of Jesus’ remarks about
the Messiah as David’s “son” (22:46; Mark 12:35).
Matthew has only harsh words for the Jerusalem
authorities and declines to show Jesus on good
terms with rival Jewish teachers.
The Church as the True Israel
While studying Matthew’s account of Jesus’ last
days, readers will discover that most of the au-
thor’s changes and additions to Mark serve to
express his extreme hostility toward Jewish
leaders. In the author’s bitter view, prostitutes
and criminals stand a better chance of winning
divine approval than do the Temple priests,
Pharisees, or their associates (21:31).
The three parables that Matthew inserts into
the Markan narrative serve to condemn the
Jewish establishment. In the parable of the two
sons, the disobedient youth represents Jewish
leaders (21:28–32). In a second parable, the
“wicked tenants” who kill a landlord’s son are the
Jerusalem offi cials who reject Jesus (21:42–46).
To Matthew, the vineyard owner’s transfer of his
estate to more deserving tenants means that God
now regards the church as his covenant people.
Matthew replays the same theme in the
parable featuring guests who ungratefully ig-
nore their invitations to a wedding party (the
messianic banquet). Matthew’s statement that
the outraged host then burns down the in-
grates’ city probably refers to the Romans’
burning Jerusalem in 70 ce . As in the wicked
tenant parable, newcomers replace the for-
merly chosen group—the Jewish Christian
church becomes the true Israel (22:1–10).
presumably to satisfy personal ambition (Mark
10:35–40). In Matthew’s version of the episode,
it is the apostles’ mother who makes the request
on their behalf (20:20–21). (Jesus had already
promised his followers that he would share his
heavenly rule with them [19:27–29].) The pre-
diction that the two sons of Zebedee will follow
their leader to a martyr’s death indicates that
Matthew wrote after both apostles had died
(20:23). According to Acts (12:1–2), James was
beheaded by Herod Agrippa I, who reigned
as king of Judea 41–44 ce . It may be that John
was also executed at about that time.
Entrance into Jerusalem
Matthew prepares his readers for the signifi –
cance of Jesus’ Jerusalem experience by prefac-
ing his account with a miracle found only in his
Gospel. After Jesus restores sight to two blind
men, they immediately become his followers—
in contrast to the “blind” guides of Jerusalem
(20:29–34). The author’s determination to
show that Jesus’ actions match biblical prophecy
in every detail causes him to create a somewhat
bizarre picture of his hero’s entrance into the
holy city. Matthew quotes Zechariah’s prophecy
about the Messiah’s arrival in full and inserts an
additional phrase from Isaiah. However, he ap-
parently misunderstands Zechariah’s poetic use
of parallelism. In Zechariah’s poetic structure,
“the foal of a beast of burden” on which the
Messiah rides is parallel to and synonymous
with the prophet’s reference to “an ass” (Zech.
9:9; Isa . 62:11). To make Jesus’ action precisely
fi t his concept of the prophecy, Matthew has
Jesus mount not one but two animals simultane-
ously, “the donkey and her foal,” for his trium-
phant ride into Jerusalem (21:1–11).
In his account of Jesus’ Jerusalem ministry,
Matthew generally adheres to Mark’s narrative,
although he adds some new material and edits
Mark, usually to enhance his portrait of Jesus.
After driving the moneychangers from the
Temple, Jesus heals some blind men and crip-
ples (21:14), miracles absent in Mark. During
this brief period, Jesus is repeatedly hailed as
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 189
infi nite forgiveness (6:12, 14–16; 18:21–35) and
exercising mercy (5:7). In dealing with his
church’s opponents, however, Matthew judges
without compassion, apparently regarding
Jewish rejection of his Messiah as falling beyond
the tolerable limits of charity. The author, in ef-
fect, reintroduces the old law of retaliation that
Jesus himself rejected. Historically, the conse-
quences of New Testament writers attributing
collective guilt to the Jewish people helped fuel
the waves of anti-Semitism that repeatedly swept
through the Western world for centuries after-
ward. Throughout Europe, Jews were indiscrimi-
nately persecuted as “Christ-killers,” often with
the blessing of ecclesiastical authorities.
Since the Holocaust of World War II, when
Nazi Germany led a campaign of genocide
against European Jews, killing approximately
6 million men, women, and children, a number
of church leaders—Catholic, Protestant, and
Greek Orthodox—have publicly condemned
the practice of anti-Semitism. In 1974, the
Roman Catholic Church offi cially reminded
Christendom that modern Jews are not respon-
sible for Jesus’ crucifi xion.
To place Matthew’s negative verdict on the
fi rst-century Jewish establishment in historical
perspective, we must remember that he con-
demns only the Jerusalem leadership, not
Judaism itself. Despite his dislike of Pharisaic
customs, the author agrees with Pharisaic
teaching. He reminds his readers to “pay atten-
tion to their words” and “do what they tell you,”
for they occupy “the seat of Moses” and their
teachings are authoritative (23:1–3).
The Fall of Jerusalem and the Parousia
Signs of the Times The second part of Jesus’ fi fth
discourse is based largely on Mark 13, the pre-
diction of Jerusalem ’s impending destruction.
Whereas Mark states that the disciples asked
only about when the Temple would fall (Mark
13:1–4), Matthew expands the disciples’ ques-
tion to include an eschatological inquiry into
Jesus’ Second Coming (the Parousia ) and the
“end of the age,” the close of human history as
Fifth Major Discourse:
Warnings of Final
Judgment
Hostility Toward the
Jewish Establishment
This fi fth and fi nal block of teaching material
summarizes the Matthean Jesus’ adverse judg-
ment on Jerusalem, particularly its Temple and
religious hierarchy ( chs . 23–25). It opens with a
blistering denunciation of the scribes and
Pharisees —professional transmitters and inter-
preters of the law—upon whom Jesus is pic-
tured as heaping “seven woes,” perhaps
corresponding to the curses on a disobedient
Israel listed in Deuteronomy 28. According to
Matthew, Jesus blames the Pharisees and their
associates for every guilty act—every drop of in-
nocent blood poured out—in Israel’s entire
history. He condemns the religious leadership
to suffer for their generation’s collective wrong-
doing, as well as that of their distant ancestors.
Matthew implies that the Roman devastation
of Jerusalem in 70 ce , an event that occurred
during the author’s lifetime, is tangible proof of
God’s wrath toward Israel (23:35–36). Matthew
intensifi es this theme in his version of Jesus’ trial
before Pilate ( ch . 27); only in Matthew does a
Jerusalem crowd, demanding the Messiah’s cru-
cifi xion, hysterically invite the Deity to avenge
Jesus’ blood upon them and their children
(27:25). Matthew further revises Mark’s Passion
narrative by adding that Pilate, symbol of impe-
rial Rome, washed his hands of responsibility for
Jesus’ death—even while ordering Jesus’ execu-
tion (27:24). All four Gospel writers shift the
blame from the Roman government to the Jewish
leadership, but only Matthew extends responsi-
bility to the Jews’ as-yet-unborn descendants.
Many commentators fi nd an ethical paradox
in Matthew’s vindictive attitude toward his fellow
Jews who did not accept Jesus as the national
Messiah. Earlier in his Gospel, Matthew presents
Jesus as repudiating the lex talionis (5:38–40),
stressing instead the necessity of practicing
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190 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
the Parousia (Mark 13:32; Matt. 24:36).
Matthew adds that when the Son does return,
his coming will be unmistakable in its universal-
ity, “like lightning from the east, fl ashing as far
as the west” (24:27).
Matthew preserves the “double vision” na-
ture of the Parousia found in Mark. Jesus’ super-
natural coming will be preceded by unmistakable
“signs” that it is near (24:21–22, 29–35); at the
same time, he will come without warning and
when least expected (24:42–44). Although con-
tradictory, both concepts apparently existed
concurrently in the early church, which was
deeply infl uenced by eschatological thinking.
Although the author of Revelation connects
End time with cosmic catastrophe, other New
Testament writers (perhaps aware of the re-
peated failure of attempts to calculate the date of
the Parousia ) state that the Son’s return is essen-
tially unheralded (1 Thess . 5:1–5; 2 Peter 3:10).
Matthew probably wrote almost two decades
after Mark’s Gospel was composed, but he re-
tains the Markan tradition that persons who
knew Jesus would live to see his predictions come
true (24:34; Mark 13:30). To Matthew, the
Roman annihilation of the Jewish state, which
coincided with the emergence of the Christian
church as an entity distinct from Judaism, may
essentially have fulfi lled Jesus’ words, or at least
an important part of his prophecy. From the writ-
er’s perspective, the “New Age” had already
dawned with Jerusalem’s fall and the church’s
new role in future human history (28:19–20).
Parables of Jesus’ Return Chapters 24 and 25 con-
tain three parables and a prophetic vision of
Jesus’ unannounced Parousia . Whatever their
original meaning to Jesus, in Matthew they serve
to illustrate believers’ obligation to await faith-
fully and patiently their absent Lord’s return. The
fi rst parable contrasts two servants, one of whom
abuses his fellow employees until the master sud-
denly reappears to execute him (24:45–51)—a
clear warning to church members to treat others
honorably. The parable about a delayed bride-
groom similarly contrasts two kinds of believers:
those who are alert and prepared for the wed-
ding event and those who are not. Because the
we know it (24:1–3). Jesus’ reply is a good illus-
tration of how fi rst-century Jewish eschatology
was incorporated into the Christian tradition.
Matthew’s presentation of the “signal” or
“signs” leading to Jesus’ return is a complex
mixture of fi rst-century historical events, such
as the Jewish War, and prophetic images from
the Hebrew Bible, particularly Daniel, Joel,
Zechariah, and the pseudepigraphical 1 Enoch.
All three Synoptic writers link the Jewish Revolt
against Rome (66–73 ce ) with supernatural
portents of End time and Jesus’ reappearance.
Mark, the fi rst to make this association of
events, seems to have written at a time when the
revolt had already begun (note the “battles”
and “wars” in 13:7–8) and Jerusalem was about
to fall. These cataclysmic events he called “the
birth pangs of the new age.” Both Matthew and
Luke follow Mark’s lead and connect these po-
litical upheavals with persecution of believers,
perhaps allusions to Nero’s cruel treatment of
Roman Christians (c. 64–65 ce ) or Zealot vio-
lence against Jewish Christians who refused to
support the revolt. The Synoptic authors con-
cur that attacks on the church, then a tiny mi-
nority of the Greco-Roman population, are of
critical importance. The sufferings of the
Christian community will bring God’s ven-
geance on all humanity.
Matthew follows Mark in referring to the
mysterious “abomination of desolation” as a
warning to fl ee Judea (24:15), perhaps echoing
a tradition that Jewish Christians had escaped
destruction by leaving the holy city and seeking
refuge in Pella, east of Jordan (see Box 7.6). In
his version of Mark’s eschatological prediction,
however, Luke omits the “abomination” sign
and substitutes an allusion to Roman armies be-
sieging Jerusalem (Luke 21:20–24).
Both Mark and Matthew are aware that in
the white heat of eschatological expectation
there were “many” false reports of the Messiah’s
return (Mark 13:21–23; Matt. 24:23–27). Some
Christians must have experienced crushing dis-
appointment when their prophets’ “inspired”
predictions of Jesus’ reappearance failed to ma-
terialize. Thus, both Evangelists caution that
even “the Son” does not know the exact date of
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 191
“bridegroom” is “late in coming,” Matthew im-
plies that Christians must reconcile themselves to
a delay in the Parousia (25:1–13).
The parable of the talents, in which a mas-
ter’s servants invest huge sums of money for
him, probably had a quite different meaning be-
fore Matthew used it as a warning illustration of
Jesus’ delayed return. The master in the parable
is a “hard man” who reaps what he does not sow
and who inspires terror in his servants. In the
context of Jesus’ original telling, he was most
likely an absentee landowner who amassed enor-
mous profi ts from his slaves’ labor and who pun-
ished them severely if they failed to make him
enough money. For Matthew, Jesus’ parable dra-
matizing the Palestinian aristocracy’s economic
f i g u r e 8 . 3 Christ Separating Sheep from Goats. This early-sixth-century mosaic illustrates Matthew’s para-
ble of eschatological judgment (Matt. 25:31–46). At his Parousia (Second Coming), an enthroned Jesus,
fl anked by two angels, divides all humanity into two mutually exclusive groups. The sheep are gathered in
the favored position at Jesus’ right hand, whereas the goats, at Jesus’ left, are condemned to outer darkness
for their failure to help others.
exploitation translates into a reminder that the
master’s servants (transformed into Christian
workers) must be productive while awaiting the
Parousia , increasing Jesus’ treasure (recruiting
new members for the church) (25:14–30).
The fourth and fi nal judgment parable con-
cerns not only the church but also “the nations.”
The term nations refers primarily to Gentiles liv-
ing without the Mosaic Law, but it may be in-
tended to include all humanity—Jews, Christians,
and those belonging to other world religions as
well. In the parable about separating worthy
“sheep” and unworthy “goats,” all are judged ex-
clusively on their behavior toward Jesus’ “little
ones,” Matthew’s favored term for Christian dis-
ciples (25:31–46) (see Figure 8. 3 ).
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192 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
passage in Jeremiah, although the relevant text
actually appears in Zechariah (Matt. 26:14–15,
20–25, 47–50; 27:3–10; Jer . 32:6–13; Zech.
11:12–13). The theme of a warning dream,
used frequently in the birth story, is reintro-
duced when Pilate’s wife, frightened by a dream
about Jesus, urges her husband to “have noth-
ing to do with that innocent man” (27:19).
Miraculous Signs
To emphasize that the very foundations of the
world are shaken by the supreme crime of cru-
cifying God’s son, Matthew reports that an
earthquake accompanies Jesus’ last moment
and triggers a resurrection of the dead (27:50–
53), an eschatological phenomenon usually as-
sociated with the Final Judgment. Although the
author presumably includes the incident to
show that Jesus’ death opens the way for hu-
manity’s rebirth, neither he nor any other New
Testament writer explains what eventually hap-
pens to the reanimated corpses that leave their
graves and parade through Jerusalem.
The Centurion’s Reaction
Whereas Mark reports that only one Roman
soldier recognizes Jesus as God’s son, Matthew
states that both the centurion and his men con-
fess Jesus’ divinity (27:54). Perhaps Matthew’s
change of a single man’s exclamation to that of
a whole group expresses his belief that numer-
ous Gentiles will acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
The Empty Tomb
Despite some signifi cant differences, all three
Synoptic Gospels agree fairly closely in their ac-
count of Jesus’ burial and the women’s discov-
ery of the empty tomb. Matthew, however, adds
details about some Pharisees persuading Pilate
to dispatch Roman soldiers to guard Jesus’
tomb. According to Matthew, the Pharisees are
aware of Jesus’ promise to rise from the grave
“on the third day” and so arrange for a Roman
guard to prevent the disciples from stealing the
Matthew’s eschatological vision makes
charitable acts, rather than “correct” religious
doctrines, the standard in distinguishing good
people from bad. In such passages, Matthew
refl ects the ancient Israelite prophets, who re-
garded service to the poor and unfortunate as
acts of worship to God. The Book of James,
which defi nes true religion as essentially hu-
manitarian service to others ( James 1:27), es-
pouses a similar view.
The Author’s Purpose in the Judgment Parables
By adding the four parables of judgment to his
expansion of Mark 13 and by linking them to
“the kingdom” (25:1, 14), Matthew shifts the
apocalyptic emphasis from expectations about
the Parousia to the function and duties of the
church. Matthew links the parables of the alert
householder, the trustworthy servant, and the
talents with Jesus’ predictions of the eschaton . In
contrast, Luke, who uses the same parables,
places them among the general teachings of
Jesus’ pre-Jerusalem ministry (cf. Matt. 24:43–
44 with Luke 12:39–40; Matt. 24:45–51 with
Luke 12:42–46; and Matt. 25:14–30 with Luke
19:12–27).
Fifth and Final Narrative
Section: The Passion Story
and Resurrection
Matthew retells the story of Jesus’ last two days
on earth (Thursday and Friday of Holy Week)
with the same grave and solemn tone we fi nd in
Mark. To the Gospel writers, Jesus of Nazareth’s
suffering, death, and resurrection are not only
the most important events in world history but
also the crucial turning point in humanity’s re-
lation to God. Although Matthew’s Passion nar-
rative (26:1–28:20) closely follows Mark’s
sequence of events, he adds a few new details,
probably drawn from the oral tradition of his
community. The treachery of Judas Iscariot is
emphasized and linked to the fulfi llment of a
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 193
Galilee. Matthew observes that some disciples
had doubts about their seeing Jesus, as if mis-
trusting the evidence of their own senses. The
author seems to imply that absolute proof of an
event so contrary to ordinary human experi-
ence is impossible.
Even though some disciples doubt, all pre-
sumably accept the fi nal command of the One
whose teachings are vindicated by his resurrec-
tion to life: They, and the community of faith
they represent, are to make new disciples
throughout the Gentile world (28:16–20). This
commission to recruit followers from “all na-
tions” further expresses Matthew’s theme that
the church has much work to do before Jesus
returns. It implies that the author’s tiny com-
munity had only begun what was to be a vast
undertaking—a labor extending into the far-
distant future.
Summary
In composing a new edition of Jesus’ life, Matthew
provides his community with a comprehensive
survey of Jesus’ teaching. The unknown author,
who may have lived in Antioch or some other part
of Syria in the 80s ce , was a Jewish Christian who
used scribal techniques to place Jesus’ life and
death in the context of ancient Jewish prophecy.
Writing to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth is
the expected Messiah foretold in the Hebrew
Bible, Matthew repeatedly quotes or alludes to
specifi c biblical passages that he interprets as be-
ing fulfi lled in Jesus’ career.
The author’s concurrent emphasis on scrip-
tural fulfi llment and on Jesus’ authoritative rein-
terpretation of the Mosaic Torah (Matt. 5–7)
suggests that his work is directed primarily to an
audience that sees itself, at least in part, still
bound by Torah regulations. Jesus’ comments on
such matters as Sabbath observance (12:1–14)
and divorce (19:3–12) can be seen as examples of
Halakah characteristic of fi rst-century Palestinian
rabbinic teaching.
By incorporating a large body of teaching ma-
terial into Mark’s narrative framework, Matthew bal-
ances Mark’s emphasis on Jesus’ deeds—miracles
body and creating the false impression that
Jesus still lives. In Matthew’s account, the
Romans guarding the tomb on Sunday morn-
ing actually see an angel descend from heaven,
a sight that paralyzes them with terror. (See
Chapter 20 for a discussion of the noncanoni-
cal Gospel of Peter, which describes Jesus’ ac-
tual resurrection.)
The Plot to Discredit the Resurrection
After the women discover the empty gravesite
and then encounter Jesus himself, some guards
report what has happened to the Jerusalem
priests. According to Matthew, the Sadducean
priests then plot to undermine Christian claims
that Jesus has risen by bribing the soldiers to say
that the disciples secretly removed and hid
Jesus’ corpse (27:62–66; 28:11–15).
Matthew implies that the Jews of his day
used the soldiers’ false testimony to refute
Christian preaching about the Resurrection.
However, his counterargument that the Roman
soldiers had admitted falling asleep while on
duty is not convincing. Severe punishment, in-
cluding torture and death, awaited any Roman
soldier found thus derelict. In 79 ce , only a few
years before Matthew wrote, soldiers guarding
the gates of Pompeii preferred being buried
alive during the cataclysmic eruption of Mount
Vesuvius to facing the consequences of leaving
their posts without permission. Some commen-
tators believe that a rumor about the possible
theft of Jesus’ body may have circulated, but
probably not for the reasons that Mat thew
gives. (For a different view, see Wright in
“Recommended Reading.”)
Post Resurrection Appearances and the
Great Commission
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus promises that after his
death he will reappear to the disciples in Galilee
(Mark 14:28; 16:7). After recording the wom-
en’s dawn encounter with the risen Lord,
Matthew then reports that Jesus also appeared
to the Eleven at a prearranged mountain site in
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194 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
themes, what kinds of changes does he make
in editing Mark’s account?
4. In adding fi ve blocks of teaching material to
Mark’s framework, how does Matthew empha-
size Jesus’ role as an interpreter of the Mosaic
Torah? How does Matthew present Jesus’
teachings as the standard and guide of the
Christian community?
5. In what ways does Matthew follow standards of
his day in interpreting the Hebrew Bible? How
does the author’s emphasis on the supernatu-
ral affect his portrait of Jesus?
6. Although he emphasizes that Jesus’ personal re-
ligion is Torah Judaism, Matthew also presents
his hero as founder of the church ( ekklesia ).
How “Jewish” and Torah abiding did Matthew
intend the church to be?
7. In editing and expanding Mark’s prophecy of
Jerusalem’s fall and the eschaton , Matthew in-
terpolates several parables of judgment. How
do these parables function to stretch the time
of the End into the far-distant future?
Questions for Discussion and Refl ection
1. Highlighting Jesus’ kingdom message, Matthew
devotes long sections to presenting a “kingdom
ethic,” which involves ending the cycle of retal-
iation and returning good for evil. If practiced
fully today, would Jesus’ teaching about giving
up all possessions and peacefully submitting to
unfair treatment change modern society for
the better?
Can Jesus’ policy of turning the other cheek
be applied to relations among nations, or does
it apply to individual relationships only? Did
Jesus intend his ethic for a future ideal time,
for dedicated members of the church, or for
this imperfect world? Do you think that he ex-
pected everyone eventually to follow the prin-
ciples in the Sermon on the Mount and thus
bring about God’s rule on earth?
2. With his frequent allusions to Gehenna’s fi res
and a place of “outer darkness” where there is
“wailing and grinding of teeth,” Matthew makes
more references to sinners’ punishment in the
afterlife than any other Gospel writer. As shown
in chapters 10 and 18, he also seems more in-
terested in maintaining church order and exer-
cising control over church members than do
of healing and exorcism—with a counterstress on
the ethical content of Jesus’ preaching. Instructions
to the original disciples ( chs . 10 and 18) are applied
to conditions in the Christian community of
Matthew’s day.
Matthew retains the apocalyptic themes
found in Mark, but he signifi cantly modifi es them.
He links the eschatological “kingdom” to mission-
ary activities of the early church, a visible manifes-
tation of divine rule. Matthew’s Gospel typically
shifts the burden of meaning from speculations
about the eschaton to necessary activities of the
church during the interim between Jesus’ resur-
rection and the Parousia . Thus, Matthew expands
Mark’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction to
include parables illustrating the duties and obli-
gations of Jesus’ “servant,” the church (cf. Mark
13 and Matt. 24–25). The shift from eschatologi-
cal speculation to concern for the indefi nitely ex-
tended work of the church will be even more
evident in Luke-Acts.
By framing Mark’s account of Jesus’ ministry
and Passion with narratives of the Savior’s birth
and resurrection, Matthew emphasizes the di-
vinely directed, supernatural character of Jesus’
life. In Matthew, Jesus becomes the Son of God at
conception and is the inheritor of all the ancient
promises to Israel. He is the “son” of Abraham,
heir to the Davidic throne, successor to the au-
thoritative seat of Moses, and the embodiment of
divine Wisdom. A guidebook providing instruc-
tion and discipline for the community of faith,
Matthew’s Gospel became the church’s premier
source of wise counsel to the faithful.
Questions for Review
1. Even if Mark’s Gospel is an older work, what
features of Matthew’s Gospel can account for
its standing fi rst in the New Testament canon?
How does Matthew connect his account with
the Hebrew Bible?
2. Why do scholars believe it unlikely that one of
the Twelve wrote Matthew’s Gospel? From the
content of the Gospel, what can we infer
about its author and the time and place of its
composition?
3. In his apparent use of Mark, Q, and other
sources unique to his account, how does
Matthew reveal some of his special interests
and purposes? To underscore his individual
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c h a p t e r 8 m a t t h e w ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 195
Carter, Warren. Matthew: Storyteller, Interpreter,
Evangelist, 2nd ed. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson,
2004. Analyzes Matthew’s implied original audi-
ence in Antioch to explain the Jewish-Christian
tensions in his Gospel.
Clarke, Howard. The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers:
A Historical Introduction to the First Gospel. Bloom-
ington: Indiana University Press, 2003. A com-
mentary focusing on Christian ethics.
Kingsbury, J. D. Matthew as Story. Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1986. A more advanced analysis
of the Gospel.
Meier, John P. “Matthew, Gospel of.” In D. N.
Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4,
pp. 622–641. New York: Doubleday, 1992. A lucid
survey of important scholarship on the origin and
purpose of Matthew’s Gospel.
Miller, Robert J. Born Divine: The Births of Jesus and
Other Sons of God. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge
Press, 2003. Places the Gospel infancy stories
fi rmly in the context of other Greco-Roman tales
of miraculous births.
Overman, J. A. Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism:
The Social World of the Matthean Community.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991. Examines the
social and religious milieu of the Jewish-Christian
group that produced Matthew.
Peabody, David; Cope, Lama; and McNicol, Allan J.
One Gospel from Two: Mark’s Use of Matthew and Luke:
A Demonstration of the Research Team of the International
Institute for Gospel Studies. Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity
Press International, 2002. Argues that Mark is an
abridgment of the two other Synoptics.
Runesson, Anders. “Matthew, Gospel According to.”
In M. D. Coogan, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the
Boo k s of the Bible , Vol. 2, pp. 59–78. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2011. Examines the
Gospel’s structure and theological purpose.
Senior, D. P. What Are They Saying About Matthew?
Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Paulist
Press, 1995. A survey of critical approaches to in-
terpreting Matthew.
Sim, David. The Gospel of Matthew and Christian
Judaism: The History and Social Setting of the Matthean
Community. Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1998.
Argues for an exclusively Christian Jewish envi-
ronment as the Gospel’s source.
Stern, David H. Jewish New Testament Commentary .
Clarksville, Md.: Jewish New Testament Publica-
tions, Inc., 1992. An important contribution to rec-
ognizing the Jewish cultural context of the early
Christian writings.
Talbert, Charles H. Matthew . Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker Academic, 2010. Examines the Gospel’s
cultural environment and the author’s theologi-
cal concerns.
the other Evangelists. Do you see any connec-
tion between these two concerns? Historically,
does a religious institution attain greater power
if it promotes the belief that it alone offers the
means of escaping eternal torment? How large
a role does fear of damnation play in eliciting
obedience to ecclesiastical authority?
Recommended Reading
Boring, M. Engene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” In The
New Interpreter’s Bible , Vol. 8, pp. 89–105. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1995. Extensive scholarly com-
mentary on the origin, purpose, and text of
Matthew.
Brown, Michael J. “Matthew, Gospel of.” In K. D.
Sakenfeld, ed., The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the
Bible, Vol. 3, pp. 839–852. Nashville: Abington
Press, 2008. A scholarly analysis of the Gospel’s
probable origins, structure, and theological
content.
Brown, R. E. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on
the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, 2nd ed.
New York: Doubleday, 1993. A thorough analysis
of traditions surrounding Jesus’ birth.
———. The Death of the Messiah, Vols. 1 and 2. New
York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1994. An exhaustive
analysis of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ arrest,
trial, and execution by a leading Roman Catholic
scholar.
Bryan, Christopher. The Resurrection of the Messiah .
New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Examines earliest recoverable beliefs about the
nature of Jesus’ resurrection.
antitheses
apostle
Beatitudes
Bethlehem
centurion
church
ekklesia
Gehenna
great commission
Haggadah
Halakah
Herod Agrippa I
lex talionis (the law of
retaliation)
M (Matthew’s special
source)
Magi
midrash
Parousia
Peter
saints
scribes and Pharisees
Sermon on the Mount
seven woes
Sheol
Sodom
Valley of Hinnom
Terms and Concepts to Remember
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196 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God
(Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol.
3). Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2003.
Probably the most cogently argued work defend-
ing the historicity of Jesus’ physical resurrection.
Wink, Walter. The Powers That Be: Theology for a New
Millennium. New York: Galilee/Doubleday, 1998.
Includes a chapter, “Jesus’ Third Way” (between
the extremes of violence and passivity), that percep-
tively interprets Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.
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197
Key Topics/Themes The fi rst part of a two-volume
work (Luke-Acts), Luke’s Gospel presents Jesus’
career not only as history’s most crucial event but
also as the opening stage of an indefi nitely
extended historical process that continues in the
life of the church (Acts 1–28). Writing for a Greco-
Roman audience, Luke emphasizes that Jesus
and his disciples, working under the Holy Spirit,
are innocent of any crime against Rome and that
their religion is a universal faith intended for all
people. The parables unique to Luke’s Gospel
depict the unexpected ways in which God’s
approaching kingdom overturns the normal social
order and reverses conventional beliefs. After a
formal preface and extended nativity account
( chs . 1 and 2), Luke generally follows Mark’s
order in narrating the Galilean ministry ( chs . 3–9);
he then inserts a large body of teaching material,
the “greater interpolation” (9:51–18:14), suppos-
edly given on the journey to Jerusalem, returning
to Mark for his narration of the Jerusalem minis-
try and Passion story (18:31–23:56). Luke’s fi nal
chapter reports post resurrection appearances in
or near Jerusalem ( ch . 24).
The author of Luke-Acts is unique among New
Testament writers, manifesting a breadth of histor-
ical vision comparable to that shown in the sweep-
ing narrative of Israel’s history from the conquest
of Canaan to the fi rst destruction of the Jewish
state (the Hebrew Bible books of Joshua through
2 Kings). Like the fi nal editors of Israel’s histori-
cal books (sixth century bce ), the writer of Luke-
Acts lived at a time when Jerusalem and its
Temple lay in ruins and Jews were enslaved to
Gentiles. Babylon had demolished Solomon’s
Temple in 587 bce , and Rome (labeled the new
Babylon in Revelation) had obliterated its succes-
sor in 70 ce . In both of these national disasters,
the people of Israel lost their sanctuary, priest-
hood, and homeland. Both catastrophes raised
similar questions about God’s loyalty to his cove-
nant people. In the bleak decades after 587 bce ,
the authors of Psalm 89 and of Lamentations
questioned their God’s faithfulness to his prom-
ises, while the author of Job demanded that
Yahweh, the Lord of history, justify his permitting
the righteous and innocent to suffer as if they
were guilty of unpardonable crimes.
c h a p t e r 9
Luke’s Portrait of Jesus
A Savior for “All Nations”
But [Jesus] said, “In the world kings lord it over their subjects; and those in authority are called
‘Benefactors.’ Not so with you: on the contrary, the highest among you must bear himself like the
youngest, the chief of you like a servant. . . . Here I am among you like a servant.” Luke 22:25–27
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198 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Israel and the Church:
Luke’s Theology of History
About thirty years before Luke compiled his ac-
counts of Jesus and the early church, Paul had
insisted that his fellow Jews were still God’s cove-
nant people: “They are Israelites: they were made
God’s sons; theirs is the splendour of the divine
presence, theirs the covenants, the law, the tem-
ple worship, and the promises” (Rom. 9:4). Paul
was executed several years before the cataclysm
of 70 ce ; we do not know how he would have in-
terpreted the event to other Jews. Luke, however,
who was thoroughly acquainted with God’s
promises to Israel, attempted to place the Jews’
seemingly inexplicable fate in historical and
theological perspective. As L. T. Johnson notes in
his essay on Luke-Acts (see “Recommended
Reading”), Luke’s two-volume narrative func-
tions in part as a theodicy, a literary work that
tries to reconcile beliefs about divine goodness
with the irrefutable fact that evil and undeserved
suffering permeate human experience.
As he indicates in his formal preface to the
Gospel, Luke has pondered long over “the whole
course of these events” and is determined to
provide “a connected narrative” that will give
readers “authentic knowledge” (1:3–4) about the
interlocking stories of Judaism and nascent
Christianity. Luke’s wish to convey “authentic” in-
formation (a reliable meaning) through kathexes
(proper sequential order) in writing his ac-
count suggests his moral purpose: Luke-Acts will
demonstrate that God did indeed fulfi ll his
promises to Israel before giving his new revela-
tion to the Gentiles. Assured that God has been
faithful to Israel, Gentiles can now rely on his
promises made through the church, a renewed
Israel that includes both Jews and Greeks.
Luke thus begins his double volume—in
length Luke-Acts makes up a full third of the New
Testament—with a narrative about the concep-
tion of John the Baptist. As Luke presents John’s
nativity, the future baptizer of Jesus is the culmi-
nating prophetic fi gure in Israel’s history. The
author makes John’s parents resemble Abraham
and Sarah in Genesis: Like their biblical pro-
totypes, the Baptist’s parents, Zechariah and
Elizabeth, are aged and childless—until an angel
appears to announce that the hitherto barren
wife will conceive a son destined to be an agent of
God’s plan for humanity. As the son of Abraham
and Sarah— Isaac —is the precious “seed” through
whom the promised benefi ts to Israel will fl ow, so
John is the connecting link between Israel’s past
and the future blessings bestowed by Jesus. John
will fi ll the prophesied role of a returned Elijah,
messenger of a New Covenant and precursor of
Jesus (1:5–21). Because John’s father, Zechariah,
is a priest who devotedly offi ciates at the Temple—
the location of Zechariah’s angelic visitation—
the Baptist’s heritage is fi rmly planted at the exact
center of Israel’s religious tradition.
Midway through his Gospel, Luke makes
John’s transitional function explicit: “Until
John, it was the Law and the prophets; since
then there is the good news of the kingdom of
God, and everyone forces his way in” (16:16).
As the last of Israel’s long line of prophets,
John represents the First Covenant (Torah and
prophets). As the fi gure who introduces the
new era of God’s kingdom, John’s successor—
Jesus of Nazareth—stands at the precise center
The Gospel According to Luke
Author: Traditionally Luke, a traveling compan-
ion of Paul, not an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry.
Because the writer, who also composed the
Book of Acts, rarely shows Paul promoting his
distinctive ideas and never mentions Paul’s let-
ters, scholars think it unlikely that he was an inti-
mate of the apostle. Luke-Acts is anonymous.
Date: About 85–90 ce , signifi cantly after the
destruction of Jerusalem and the church’s
transformation into a primarily Gentile movement.
Place of composition: Unknown. Suggestions
range from Antioch to Ephesus.
Sources: Mark, Q, and special Lukan material (L).
Audience: Gentile Christians dispersed through-
out the Roman Empire. The person to whom both
Luke and Acts are dedicated, Theophilus, may
have been a Greco-Roman government offi cial, or,
because his name means “beloved [or lover] of
God,” he may be a symbol for the Gentile church.
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 199
of time, the pivot on which world history turns.
Beginning his ministry with John’s baptism, the
Lukan Jesus completes it with extensive post
resurrection appearances in which he interprets
the Hebrew Bible as a christological prophecy,
declaring that “everything written about me in
the Law of Moses and in the prophets and
psalms . . . [is now] fulfi lled” (Luke 24:36–53).
Jesus then commands his disciples to recruit
followers from “all nations,” creating a multi-
cultural Gentile community (24:47; Acts 1:8).
In Luke’s view, God has kept his biblical
promises to Israel; the divine advantages that for-
merly were Israel’s exclusive privilege can now be
extended to others as well. Accordingly, Luke
ends his account of the early church with Paul’s
declaration that “this salvation of God has been
sent to the Gentiles; the Gentiles will listen ” (Acts
28:28; emphasis added). It is signifi cant that Paul
is in Rome, the Gentile center of imperial power,
when he asserts that henceforth he and his fellow
missionaries will focus their efforts on Gentiles.
After showing Paul preaching “without [legal]
restraint” in Rome, Luke abruptly ends his ac-
count. He does not continue the story with Paul’s
execution for sedition or Jerusalem’s destruc-
tion, twin blows to the church that effectively
eliminated both the chief missionary to the
Gentiles and the original Jewish nerve center of
Christianity. For Luke’s purpose, it is enough to
imply that Christianity metaphorically has out-
grown its Jewish roots and has been transplanted
abroad in order to thrive on Gentile soil.
Luke-Acts thus traces the course of a new
world religion from its inception in a Bethlehem
stable to its (hoped-for) status as a legitimate
faith of the Roman Empire. By making Jesus’
life the central act of a three-part drama that
begins with Israel and continues with the
Christian church, Luke offers a philosophy of
history vital to Christianity’s later understand-
ing of its mission. Instead of bringing the world
to an apocalyptic end, Jesus’ career is a new be-
ginning that establishes a heightened aware-
ness of God’s intentions for all humanity. The
Lukan Jesus’ triumph over death is closely tied
to the disciples’ job of evangelizing the world
(24:44–53; Acts 1:1–8). In revising Mark’s
Gospel (Luke’s principal source), the author
creatively modifi es the Markan expectation of
an immediate End to show that Jesus’ essential
work is continued by the believing community.
Acts portrays the disciples entering a new his-
torical epoch, the age of the church, and
thereby extends the new faith’s operations in-
defi nitely into the future. Acts concludes, not
by drawing attention to the Parousia , but by
recounting Paul’s resolve to concentrate on
ministering to Gentiles (28:27–28).
The Author and His Sources
Dedication to Theophilus
Luke addresses his Gospel to Theophilus , the oth-
erwise unknown person to whom he also dedi-
cates his sequel, the Book of Acts (1:1; Acts 1:1).
Bearing a Greek name meaning “lover of
God,” Theophilus —whom Luke calls “your
Excellency”—may have been a Greek or Roman
offi cial, perhaps an affl uent patron who under-
wrote Luke’s composition and publication.
Authorship and Date
The most important early reference to the
author of Luke-Acts confi rms that, like Mark, he
was not an eyewitness to the events he narrates.
In the Muratorian list of New Testament books
(usually dated at about 200 ce , although some
recent scholarly studies place it in the fourth
century), a note identifi es the author of this
Gospel as Luke, “the beloved” physician who ac-
companied Paul on some of the apostle’s mis-
sionary journeys. The note also states that Luke
did not know Jesus. In the late second century
ce , Irenaeus , a bishop of Lyon in Gaul (modern
France), also referred to the author as a com-
panion of Paul’s, presumably the same Luke
named in several Pauline letters (Col. 4:14;
Philem . 24; 2 Tim. 4:11). If the author of Luke-
Acts is Paul’s friend, it explains the “we” pas-
sages in Acts in which the narration changes
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and Matt. 24), Luke reveals detailed knowledge
of the Roman siege:
But when you see Jerusalem encircled by armies,
then you may be sure that her destruction is near.
Then you who are in Judea must take to the hills;
those that are in the city itself must leave it . . . be-
cause this is the time of retribution. . . . For there
will be great distress in the land and a terrible
judgment upon this people. They will fall at the
sword’s point; they will be carried captive into all
countries; and Jerusalem will be trampled down
by foreigners until their day has run its course.
(21:20–24)
In this passage, Luke substitutes a description
of Jerusalem’s siege for the cryptic “sign” (the
“abomination of desolation”) that Mark and
Matthew allude to at this point in their accounts
(see Mark 13:13–19; Matt. 24:15–22). Luke also
refers specifi cally to the Roman method of en-
circling a besieged town, a military technique
used in the 70 ce assault on Jerusalem:
Your enemies will set up siege-works against
you; they will encircle you and hem you in at
every point; they will bring you to the ground,
you and your children within your walls, and
not leave you one stone standing on another.
(19:43–44)
It would appear, then, that the Gospel was written
at some point after the Jewish War of 66–73 ce
and before about 90 ce , when publication made
Paul’s letters accessible to Christian readers.
Many scholars place Luke-Acts in the mid-to-late
80s ce and favor Ephesus, a Greek-speaking city
in Asia Minor with a relatively large Christian
population, as the place of composition.
Luke’s Use of Sources
As a Christian living two or three generations af-
ter Jesus’ time, Luke must rely on other persons’
information, including orally transmitted recol-
lections about Jesus and traditional Christian
preaching. Besides using memories of “eyewit-
nesses” and later missionary accounts, the author
depends on his own research skills—the labor he
expends going “over the whole course of these
events in detail” (1:1–4).
from the third to the fi rst person in describing
certain episodes; presumably, he was a partici-
pant in these events (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15;
21:1–18; 27:1–28:16). Some commentators also
argue for Lukan authorship on the basis of the
writer’s vocabulary, which includes a number of
medical terms appropriate for a physician.
Other scholars, however, point out that the
writer uses medical terms no more expertly
than he employs legal or maritime terminology.
The author nowhere identifi es himself,
either in the Gospel or in Acts. His depiction of
Paul’s character and teaching, moreover, does
not always coincide with what Paul reveals of him-
self in his letters. To many contemporary schol-
ars, these facts indicate that the author could not
have known the apostle well. Perhaps the most
telling argument against Luke’s authorship is that
the writer shows no knowledge of Paul’s letters.
Not only does he never refer to Paul’s writing, but
he alludes to none of Paul’s characteristic teach-
ings in any of the Pauline speeches contained in
Acts. At the same time, critics who uphold Lukan
authorship point out that the physician associ-
ated with Paul for only brief periods and wrote
long after Paul’s death, when the theological is-
sues argued in Paul’s letters were no longer as
immediate or controversial as they had been.
Luke’s concern in Acts is not to reopen theologi-
cal disputes but to smooth over differences that
divided the early church and depict apostles and
missionaries united in spreading the faith. Al-
though many experts regard the writer of Luke-
Acts as anonymous, others retain the traditional
assumption that the historical Luke is the author.
Although the author’s identity is not con-
clusively established, for convenience we refer
to him as Luke. Based on his interest in a
Gentile audience and his facility with the Greek
language (he has the largest vocabulary and
most polished style of any Evangelist), the
writer may have been a Gentile, perhaps the
only non-Jewish biblical writer.
According to most scholars, Luke-Acts was
written after 70 ce , when Jerusalem was destroyed
by the Roman armies under General (and later,
Emperor) Titus. In his version of Jesus’ predic-
tion of the holy city’s fall (paralleling Mark 13
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 201
Like the other Synoptic writers, Luke pre-
sents Jesus’ life in terms of images and themes
from the Hebrew Bible, which thus constitutes
another of the author’s sources. In Luke’s pre-
sentation, some of Jesus’ miracles, such as his
resuscitating a widow’s dead son, are told in such
a way that they closely resemble similar miracles
in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus’ deeds clearly
echo those of the prophets Elijah and Elisha (1
Kings 17–19; 2 Kings 1–6). Luke introduces the
Elijah– Elisha theme early in the Gospel (4:23–28),
indicating that for him these ancient men of
God were prototypes of the Messiah.
Although he shares material from Mark, Q,
and the Hebrew Bible with Matthew, Luke gives
his “connected narrative” a special quality by
including many of Jesus’ words that occur only
in his Gospel (the L source). Only in Luke do
we fi nd such celebrated parables as those of the
prodigal son (15:11–32), the lost coin (15:8–10),
the persistent widow, the good Samaritan
(10:29–32), and Lazarus and the rich man
(16:19–31) (see Box 9.2 ). These and other par-
ables embody consistent themes, typically high-
lighting life’s unexpected reversals and/or
God’s gracious forgiveness of wrongdoers.
Despite the inclusion of some of Jesus’ “hard
sayings” about the rigors of discipleship, Luke’s
special material tends to picture a gentle and lov-
ing Jesus, a concerned shepherd who tenderly
cares for his fl ock (the community of believers).
Luke has been accused of “sentimentalizing”
Jesus’ message; however, the author’s concern
for oppressed people—the poor, social outcasts,
women—is genuine and lends his Gospel a
distinctively humane and gracious ambience.
Some Typical Lukan Themes
Luke makes his Gospel a distinctive creation by
sounding many themes important to the
self-identity and purpose of the Christian com-
munity for which he writes. Many readers fi nd
Luke’s account especially appealing because it
portrays Jesus taking a personal interest in
women, the poor, social outcasts, and other pow-
erless persons. In general, Luke portrays Jesus as
a model of compassion who willingly forgives
Luke is aware that “many” others before him
produced Gospels (1:1). His resolve to create yet
another suggests that he was not satisfi ed with his
predecessors’ efforts. As Matthew did, he chooses
Mark as his primary source, but he omits several
large units of Markan material (such as Mark
6:45–8:26 and 9:41–10:12), perhaps to make
room for his own special additions. Adapting
Mark to his creative purpose, Luke sometimes
rearranges the sequence of individual incidents
to emphasize his particular themes. Whereas
Mark placed Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth midway
through the Galilean campaign, Luke sets it at
the beginning (4:16–30). Adding that the
Nazarenes attempted to kill Jesus to Mark’s ac-
count, he uses the incident to foreshadow his he-
ro’s later death in Jerusalem (see Box 9.1 ).
In addition, Luke frames Mark’s central ac-
count of Jesus’ adult career with his own unique
stories of Jesus’ infancy ( chs . 1 and 2) and resur-
rection ( ch . 24). Luke further modifi es the ear-
lier Gospel by adding two extensive sequences of
teaching material to Mark’s narrative. The fi rst
section inserted into the Markan framework—
called the “lesser interpolation” (6:20–8:3)—in-
cludes Luke’s version of the Sermon on the
Mount, which the author transfers to level
ground. Known as the Sermon on the Plain
(6:20–49), this collection of Jesus’ sayings is ap-
parently drawn from the same source that
Matthew used, the hypothetical Q ( Quelle ,
“source”) document. Instead of assembling Q
material into long speeches as Matthew does,
however, Luke scatters these sayings throughout
his Gospel. Scholars believe that he observes Q’s
original order more closely than Matthew.
Luke’s second major insertion into the Markan
narrative, called the “greater interpolation,”
is nearly ten chapters long (9:51–18:14). A miscella-
neous compilation of Jesus’ parables and pro-
no uncements, this collection supposedly rep-
resents Jesus’ teaching on the road from Galilee to
Jerusalem. It is composed almost exclusively of Q
material and Luke’s special source, which scholars
call L ( Lukan ) . After this interpolation section,
during which all narrative action stops, Luke re-
turns to Mark’s account at 18:15 and then repro-
duces an edited version of the Passion story.
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202 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Luke generally follows Mark’s narrative
sequence, though he uses less of Mark’s Gospel
(about 35 percent) than Matthew. Besides omit-
ting large sections of Mark (Mark 6:45 – 8:26 and
9:41 – 10:12), Luke also typically deletes Markan
passages that might refl ect unfavorably on Jesus’
family or disciples. Consistent with his exaltation
of Mary in the birth stories (1:26, 56; 2:1, 39), he
omits Mark’s story of Jesus’ “mother and brothers”
trying to interfere in his ministry (Mark 3:21, 33, 34)
and rewrites the Markan Jesus’ statement about
not being respected by his “family and kinsmen”
(cf. Mark 6:4; Luke 4:22, 24). Several of Luke’s
representative changes to his Markan source—
apparently made for thematic or theological
reasons—are given below.
b o x 9 . 1 Luke’s Editing and Restructuring of Mark
jesus’ baptism
Mark: It happened at this time that Jesus came
from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the
Jordan by John. (1:9)
Mark: “You know that in the world the recognized
rulers lord it over their subjects, and their great
men make them feel the weight of authority. That
is not the way with you; among you, whoever wants
to be great must be your servant, and whoever
wants to be fi rst must be the willing slave of all. For
even the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve, and to give up his life as a ransom for
many.” (Mark 10:42–45)
[Luke changes the setting of Jesus’ words from the road to
Jerusalem to the scene of the Last Supper and omits the
Markan declaration that Jesus’ death is a “ransom for
many,” perhaps suggesting that he viewed Jesus’ death as
an act of heroic service rather as a sacrifi ce that “ ransoms”
Mark: Then Jesus gave a loud cry and died . . . And
when the centurion who was standing opposite
him saw how he died, he said, “Truly this man was
a son of God.” (Mark 15:37, 39)
Luke: During a general baptism of the people,
when Jesus too had been baptized, heaven opened
and the Holy Spirit descended. (Luke 3:21)
Luke: “In the world, kings lord it over their sub-
jects; and those in authority are called their
country’s ‘Benefactors.’ Not so with you: on the
contrary, the highest among you must bear him-
self like the youngest, the chief of you like a ser-
vant. For who is greater—the one who sits at table
or the servant who waits on him? Surely the one
who sits at table. Yet here am I among you like a
servant.” (Luke 22:25 – 27)
humanity. In Acts, where Luke consistently depicts
Jesus’ followers as imitating his example of service, the
author briefl y cites Isaiah’s “suffering servant” passage
( Isa . 53:7–8), but excludes any reference to vicarious
atonement (Acts 8:30–35).]
Luke: Then Jesus gave a loud cry and said, “Father,
into thy hands I commit my spirit”; and with these
words he died. The centurion saw it all, and gave
praise to God. “Beyond all doubt,” he said, “this
man was innocent.” (Luke 23:46–47)
[Luke deletes Mark’s statement that John baptized Jesus,
perhaps to avoid any implication that the Baptist was
Jesus’ superior.]
j esus as servant
at the cross
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 203
[Instead of perceiving Jesus as worthy of divine honor, as
in Mark, the Lukan centurion declares that Jesus is legally
Mark: “Nevertheless, after I am raised again I will
go on before you into Galilee.” (14:28)
[At the empty tomb, a youth “wearing a white robe”
instructs the frightened women disciples to “give this
message to his disciples and Peter: ‘He is going on before
you into Galilee, and there you will see him, as he told
you’ ” (16:7).]
innocent of treason against Rome, a theme prominent in
Acts’ description of the disciples’ trials before Roman law
courts.]
Luke: The risen Jesus instructs the disciples: “I am
sending upon you my Father’s promised gift [the
Holy Spirit], so stay here in this city [Jerusalem] until
you are armed with the power from above.” (24:49)
[Whereas Mark directs the disciples to fi nd their risen
Lord in Galilee (as does Matthew 28:7, 10, 16–17),
Luke insists that they remain in Jerusalem, where all the
Lukan post resurrection appearances take place and where
the Holy Spirit anoints the early church (Acts 1:8–2:47).]
seeking the risen jesus
A formal preface and statement of purpose (1:1–4)
A narrative about the parents of John the Baptist
(1:5–25, 57–80)
Luke’s distinctive story of Jesus’ conception and
birth (1:26–56; 2:1–40)
Jesus’ childhood visit to the Jerusalem Temple
(2:41–52)
A distinctive Lukan genealogy (3:23–38)
The Scripture reading in the Nazareth synagogue
and subsequent attempt to kill Jesus (4:16–30)
Jesus’ hearing before Herod Antipas (23:6–12)
The sympathetic criminal (23:39–43)
Jesus’ post resurrection appearances on the road to
Emmaus (24:13–35)
Some parables, sayings, and miracles unique to Luke:
Raising the son of a Nain widow (7:11–17)
Two forgiven debtors (7:41–43)
Sat an falling like lightning from heaven
(10:18)
The good Samaritan (10:29–37)
The rich and foolish materialist (12:13–21)
The unproductive fi g tree (13:6–9)
He aling a crippled woman on the Sabbath
(13:10–17)
A d istinctive version of the kingdom banquet
(14:12–24)
The parable of the lost coin (15:8–10)
The prodigal (spendthrift) son (15:11–32)
The dishonest manager (16:1–13)
Lazarus and the rich man (16:19–31)
The Pharisee and the tax collector (18:9–14)
b o x 9 . 2 Representative Examples of Material Found Only in Luke
sinners, comforts the downtrodden, and heals the
affl icted. Luke’s Jesus is particularly attentive to
issues of social and economic justice. In numerous
parables unique to his Gospel, Luke demonstrates
that Jesus’ kingdom ethic demands a radical
change in society’s present social and religious
values. Some major themes that strongly color
Luke’s portrait of Jesus are described next.
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204 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Mary responds affi rmatively to the Holy Spirit,
conceiving and nurturing the world-savior (see
Figure 9.1 ). During his adult ministry, Jesus ac-
cepts many female disciples, praising those
who, like Mary, the sister of Martha, abandon
domestic chores to take their places among the
male followers—a privilege Jesus declares “will
not be taken from [them]” (10:38–42) (see
Figure 9.2 ). Galilean women not only follow
Jesus on the path to Jerusalem but also fi nancially
support him and his male companions (8:2–3).
The Holy Spirit Luke is convinced that Jesus’ ca-
reer and the growth of Christianity are not his-
torical accidents, but the direct result of God’s
will, which is expressed through the Holy Spirit.
Luke uses this term more than Mark and
Matthew combined (fourteen times). It is by the
Spirit that Jesus is conceived and by which he is
anointed after baptism. The Spirit leads him
into the wilderness (4:1) and empowers his min-
istry in Galilee (4:14). The Spirit is conferred
through prayer (11:13), and at death, the Lukan
Jesus commits his “spirit” to God (23:46).
The Holy Spirit reappears with overwhelm-
ing power in Acts 2 when, like a “strong driving
wind,” it rushes upon the 120 disciples gath-
ered in Jerusalem to observe Pentecost.
Possession by the Spirit confi rms God’s accep-
tance of Gentiles into the church (Acts 11:15–18).
To Luke, it is the Spirit that is responsible for
the faith’s rapid expansion throughout the
Roman Empire. Like Paul, Luke sees the
Christian community as charismatic, Spirit led,
and Spirit empowered.
Prayer Another of Luke’s principal interests is
Jesus’ and the disciples’ use of prayer. Luke’s in-
fancy narrative is full of prayers and hymns of
praise by virtually all the adult participants. In his
account of John’s baptizing campaign, the Holy
Spirit descends upon Jesus not at his baptism, as
in Mark, but afterward while Jesus is at prayer
(3:21). Similarly, Jesus chooses the disciples after
prayer (6:12) and prays before he asks them who
he is (9:18). The Transfi guration occurs “while
he is praying” (9:29). Jesus’ instructions on
prayer are also more extensive than in other
Gospels (11:1–13; 18:1–14). The Lukan emphasis
on prayer carries over into Acts, in which the
heroes of the early church are frequently shown
praying (Acts 1:14, 24–26; 8:15; 10:1–16).
Jesus’ Concern for Women From the beginning
of his account, Luke makes it clear that women
play an indispensable part in fulfi lling the di-
vine plan. Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, is chosen
to produce and raise Israel’s fi nal prophet, the
one who prepares the way for Jesus. Her cousin
f i g u r e 9 . 1 Virgin and Child. This wooden sculpture
from Africa shows the infant Jesus with Mary, a rendition
illustrating the archetypal image of mother and child,
nurturer and bearer of new life, as well as an image of
black holiness.
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dinner party and seats herself next to Jesus,
bathing his feet with her tears, much to his
host’s indignation (7:37–50). Luke alone pre-
serves one of Jesus’ most provocative stories, in
which the central character is an ungrateful son
who consorts with prostitutes and sinks to grov-
eling with swine—but whom his father loves un-
conditionally (15:11–32). In Luke, Jesus not
only conducts a brief ministry in Samaria (tradi-
tionally viewed as a center of religious impurity
[9:52–56]) but also makes a Samaritan the
embodiment of neighborly love (10:30–37).
Accused of being “a glutton and a drinker,”
Jesus personally welcomes “tax-gatherers and
other bad characters” to dine with him, refusing
As in Mark, it is these Galilean women who pro-
vide the human link between Jesus’ death and
resurrection, witnessing the Crucifi xion and re-
ceiving fi rst the news that he is risen (23:49;
23:55–24:11).
Jesus’ Affi nity with the Unrespectable Closely
linked to Jesus’ concern for women, who were
largely powerless in both Jewish and Greco-
Roman society, is his affi nity for many similarly
vulnerable people on the margins of society. “A
friend of tax-gatherers and sinners” (7:34), the
Lukan Jesus openly accepts social outcasts, in-
cluding “immoral” women, such as an appar-
ently notorious woman who crashes a Pharisee’s
f i g u r e 9 . 2 The Holy Family. The unknown years of Jesus’ boyhood are given a Japanese setting in this
twentieth-century painting on silk. Shouldering his share of the family’s work, the young Jesus carries wood to
help Joseph, his carpenter father, while Mary, his mother, is busy at her spinning wheel. The themes of productive
labor, mutual assistance, and familial harmony dominate the domestic scene in Nazareth, providing a contrast
to the adult Jesus’ later rejection of family ties and obligations (Mark 3).
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206 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
hearings before various other Roman offi cials,
Luke is careful to mention that in each case the
accused is innocent of any real crime. Although
Pilate condemns Jesus for claiming to be “king of
the Jews,” an act of sedition against Rome, in
Luke’s Gospel, Pilate also affi rms Jesus’ inno-
cence, explicitly stating that he fi nds the prisoner
“guilty of no capital offence” (23:22). In Acts,
Luke creates parallels to Jesus’ trial in which the
apostles and others are similarly declared inno-
cent of subversion. Convinced that Christianity is
destined to spread throughout the empire, Luke
wishes to demonstrate that it is no threat to the
peace or stability of the Roman government.
The Importance of Jerusalem More than any
other Gospel author, Luke links crucial events
in Jesus’ life with Jerusalem and the Temple. He
is the only Evangelist to associate Jesus’ infancy
and childhood with visits to the Temple and the
only one to place all of Jesus’ post resurrection
appearances in or near Jerusalem. Jerusalem
is the place where his Gospel account begins
(1:8–22), where Jesus’ parents take their eight-
day-old son for circumcision (2:31–39), and
where the twelve-year-old Jesus astonishes
“teachers” in the Temple with the profundity of
his questions (2:41–51).
Near the conclusion of his ministry, the
adult Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” the
city where he would endure a fatal confronta-
tion with priestly and Roman authorities (9:51).
As the Lukan Jesus insists, “It is impossible for a
prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem”—a
statement that occurs only in Luke (13:33).
In Mark, the youth at Jesus’ empty tomb di-
rects the bewildered female disciples to seek
their risen Lord “in Galilee” (Mark 16:7), an or-
der that Matthew says the male disciples eventu-
ally obeyed (Matt. 28:16–20). In contrast, the
Lukan Jesus commands his followers to remain
in Jerusalem (24:49), where they will receive the
Holy Spirit. Luke’s insistence that Jerusalem
and its environs—not Galilee—were the sites of
all Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection ex-
presses his view that Jerusalem and the Temple
were central to God’s plan. For Luke, not only is
Jerusalem the place where Jesus dies, is buried,
to distinguish between deserving and undeserv-
ing guests (7:29–34; 15:1–2). In Luke’s version
of the great banquet, the host’s doors are thrown
open indiscriminately to “the poor, the crippled,
the lame, and the blind,” people incapable of
reciprocating hospitality (14:12–24). To Luke, it
is not the “poor in spirit” who gain divine bless-
ing, but simply “the poor,” the economically de-
prived for whom productive citizens typically
show little sympathy (cf. 6:20–21 and 6:24–25).
Christianity as a Universal Faith The author de-
signs Luke-Acts to show that, through Jesus and
his successors, God directs human history to
achieve humanity’s redemption. Luke’s theory of
salvation history has a universalist aspect: From its
inception, Christianity is a religion intended for
“all nations,” especially those peoples who have
hitherto lived without Israel’s Law and prophets.
As Simeon prophesies over the infant Jesus, the
child is destined to become “a revelation to the
heathen [Gentiles]” (2:32). Luke’s emphasis on
Jesus’ universality also appears in his genealogy,
which, like that in Matthew, traces Jesus’ descent
through Joseph (Luke 3:23). Unlike Matthew,
however, who lists Jesus’ ancestors back to
Abraham, “father of the Jews,” Luke takes Jesus’
family tree all the way back to the fi rst human,
Adam, whom he calls “son of God” (Luke 3:23–38).
By linking Jesus with Adam, the one created in
God’s “image” and “likeness,” Luke presents Jesus
as savior of the whole human race. Whereas
Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ heritage as Jewish
Messiah, Luke shows him as the heir of Adam,
from whom all of humanity is descended. In Acts,
therefore, the risen Christ’s fi nal words commis-
sion his followers to bear witness about him from
Jerusalem “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8),
conveying his message to all of Adam’s children.
Christianity as a Lawful Religion Besides present-
ing Christianity as a universal faith, Luke works to
show that it is a peaceful and lawful religion.
Both the Gospel and its sequel, the Book of Acts,
function as an apology ( apologia ), a form of liter-
ature written to defend or explain a particular
viewpoint or way of life. In reporting Jesus’ trial
before the Roman magistrate and Paul’s similar
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judges of ancient Israel “saved” or delivered their
people from military oppressors. (The NEB trans-
lators therefore use the English noun deliverer for
so–ter in Luke [1:24, 69; 2:11].)
Organization of Luke’s Gospel
A simple outline of Luke’s structure follows:
1. Formal preface (1:1–4)
2. Infancy narratives of the Baptist and Jesus
(1:5–2:52)
3. Prelude to Jesus’ ministry: baptism, geneal-
ogy, and temptation (3:1–4:13)
4. Jesus’ Galilean ministry (4:14–9:50)
5. Luke’s travel narrative: Jesus’ teachings on
the journey to Jerusalem (the “greater inter-
polation” [9:51–18:14])
6. The Jerusalem ministry: Jesus’ challenge to
the holy city (18:31–21:38)
7. The fi nal confl ict and Passion story (22:1 –
23:56)
8. Epilogue: post resurrection appearances in
the vicinity of Jerusalem (24:1–53)
In examining Luke’s work, we focus primarily
on material found only in his Gospel, especially
the narrative sections and parables that illus-
trate distinctively Lukan themes (see Box 9.3
for new characters introduced in Luke).
Because we have already discussed the preface,
we begin with one of the most familiar and best-
loved stories in the entire Bible—the account
of Jesus’ conception and birth.
rises from the tomb, appears to his followers,
and ascends to heaven, it is also the sacred
ground on which the Christian church is
founded. In Luke’s theology of history, God
thus fulfi lls his ancient promises to Israel, focus-
ing his divine power on the holy city where King
David once reigned and where David’s ultimate
heir inaugurates an everlasting kingdom.
Jesus as Savior Finally, Luke also presents Jesus
in a guise that his Greek and Roman readers will
understand. Matthew had labored to prove from
the Hebrew Bible that Jesus was the Davidic
Messiah. In the account of Jesus’ infancy, Luke
also sounds the theme of prophetic fulfi llment.
But he is aware as well that his Gentile audience
is not primarily interested in a Jewish Messiah, a
fi gure traditionally associated with Jewish nation-
alism. Although Mark and Matthew had declared
their hero “Son of God,” Luke further universal-
izes Jesus’ appeal by declaring him “Savior” (1:69;
2:11; Acts 3:13–15). He is the only Synoptic writer
to do so. Luke’s term (the Greek so–ter) was used
widely in the Greco-Roman world and was ap-
plied to gods, demigods, and human rulers alike.
Hellenistic peoples commonly worshiped savior
deities in numerous mystery cults and hailed em-
perors by the title “god and savior” for the mate-
rial benefi ts, such as health, peace, and prosperity,
that they conferred (see the discussion of the em-
peror cult in Chapter 5). For Luke, Jesus is the
Savior of repentant humanity, one who delivers
believers from the consequences of sin, as the
Elizabeth and the priest Zechariah, parents of the
Baptist (1:5–25, 39–79)
Gabriel, the angel who announces Jesus’ virginal
conception (1:26–38)
Augustus, emperor of Rome (2:1–2)
Simeon, who foretells Jesus’ messiahship (2:25–35)
Anna, an aged prophetess (2:36–38)
The widow of Nain (7:11–16)
The unidentifi ed sinful woman whom Jesus
forgives (7:36–50)
The sisters Mary and Martha (10:38–39)
Zacchaeus , the wealthy tax collector (19:1–10)
Herod Antipas, as one of Jesus’ judges (22:7–12; also
9:7–9)
Cleopas and an unidentifi ed disciple (24:13–35)
b o x 9 . 3 New Characters Introduced in Luke
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208 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Bible. The effect is akin to that of reading the
birth stories in the archaic language of the King
James Version and most of the rest of the Gospel
in more contemporary English. Luke’s purpose
here, however, is more than merely stylistic: He is
echoing the ancient Scriptures, both by his style
and by extensive quotations from the Hebrew
prophets, because what he relates in these pas-
sages is the climactic turn of history: “Until John,
it was the Law and the prophets, since then there
is the good news of the kingdom” (16:16).
Whereas the Baptist will serve as the capstone of
Israel’s ancient prophetic tradition, in Jesus, God
will both fulfi ll his promises to Israel and begin
the climactic process of human salvation.
Infancy Narratives of the
Baptist and Jesus
We do not know Luke’s source for his infancy
narratives (1:5–2:52), but he apparently drew on
a tradition that differed in many details from
Matthew’s account. The two writers agree that
Jesus was born in Bethlehem to Mary, a virgin, and
Joseph, a descendant of David (see Figure 9.3).
Apart from that, however, the two Evangelists
relate events in strikingly different manners.
In composing his parallel infancy narratives,
Luke adopts a consciously biblical style, writing
in the old-fashioned Greek of the Septuagint
figure 9.3 Our Lady of Colombia.
In this conception of Mary and the
infant Jesus, the artist pictures
the Madonna as an archetypal image
of abundance and fertility, giving
her a crown to depict her queenly
status and surrounding her with fl ow-
ers to suggest her association with
natural fecundity. This twentieth-
century rendition of the Virgin by F.
Botero of Colombia effectively
demonstrates her thematic connec-
tion with nurturing goddesses of
pre-Christian antiquity.
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 209
Jesus’ signifi cance and the babe’s ultimate des-
tiny to rule all humanity.
For Luke, Jesus’ humble arrival on earth
shows that God is henceforth actively intervening
in Roman society. A Lukan angel proclaims “good
news” that contrasts markedly with Rome’s impe-
rial propaganda. Although Augustus, divine “son”
of the deifi ed Caesar, reigned “throughout the
Roman world,” the real “deliverer [savior]” is the
infant lying “in a manger” (2:1–14). (For a discus-
sion of the Roman emperor cult, see Chapter 5.)
In telling of Jesus’ circumcision and Mary’s
ritual purifi cation (2:21–24), Luke emphasizes
another theme important to his picture of
Jesus’ Jewish background: Not only relatives
like Elizabeth and Zechariah but also Jesus’ im-
mediate family observe the Mosaic Law scrupu-
lously. His parents obey every Torah command
(2:39), including making a yearly pilgrimage to
the Jerusalem Temple for Passover (2:41–43).
The author’s own view is that most of the Torah’s
provisions no longer bind Christians (Acts 15),
but he wishes to emphasize that from birth
Jesus fulfi lled all Torah requirements.
Luke’s Use of Hymns
Throughout the infancy stories of Jesus and the
Baptist, Luke follows the Greco-Roman biogra-
pher’s practice of inserting speeches that illus-
trate themes vital to the writer’s view of his
subject. The long poem uttered by Zechariah—
known by its Latin name, the Benedictus
(1:67–79)—combines scriptural quotations
with typically Lukan views about Jesus’ signifi –
cance. The same is true of the priest Simeon’s
prayer, the Nunc Dimittis (2:29–32), and ensu-
ing prophecy (2:23–25). Some of the speeches
ascribed to characters in the nativity accounts
may be rewritten songs and prayers fi rst used in
Christian worship services. These liturgical
pieces include the angel Gabriel’s announce-
ment to Mary that she will bear a son, the Ave
Maria (1:28–33), and Mary’s exulting prayer,
the Magnifi cat (1:46–55). Mary’s hymn closely
resembles a passage from the Hebrew Bible,
the prayer Hannah recites when an angel
The Birth of John the Baptist
In depicting John’s aged parents, Elizabeth and
Zechariah, Luke highlights their exemplary pi-
ety and devotion to the letter of Israel’s religion.
Described as “upright and devout, blamelessly
observing all the commandments and ordi-
nances of the [Torah]” (1:6), Zechariah and
Elizabeth represent the best in Judaism.
Luke is the only New Testament writer to
state that the respective mothers of John and Jesus
are blood relatives (1:36). The later adult associa-
tion between John and Jesus is thus foreshadowed
by their physical kinship, their mothers’ friend-
ship, and the similar circumstances of their births.
The Role of Mary
Luke interweaves the two nativity accounts, jux-
taposing Gabriel ’s visit to Mary (1:26–38) (the
Annunciation ) with Mary’s visit to her cousin
Elizabeth, a meeting that causes the unborn
John to stir in his mother’s womb at the ap-
proach of the newly conceived Jesus. As Mary
had been made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, so
Elizabeth at their encounter is empowered by
the Spirit to prophesy concerning the superior-
ity of Mary’s child. This emphasis on women’s
role in the divine purpose (note also the proph-
etess Anna in 2:36–38) is a typical Lukan con-
cern. Also signifi cant is Luke’s hint about
Mary’s family background. Because Elizabeth is
“of priestly descent,” which means that she be-
longs to the tribe of Levi, it seems probable that
Mary also belongs to the Levitical clan rather
than the Davidic tribe of Judah. Like that of
Matthew, Luke’s genealogy traces Jesus’ Davidic
ancestry through Joseph (1:5; 3:23–24).
In relating the two infancy stories, Luke
subtly indicates the relative importance of the
two children. He dates John’s birth in King
Herod’s reign (1:5). In contrast, when introduc-
ing Jesus’ nativity, the author relates the event
not to a Judean king, but to a Roman emperor,
Augustus Caesar (2:1). Luke thus places Jesus
in a worldwide (as opposed to a local Jewish)
context, suggesting both the universal scope of
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210 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
beginning of his career: He wants his readers to
understand the event’s thematic or theological
meaning. (See Chapter 1 0 for a discussion of
John’s probable motives in repositioning the
Temple incident.)
In this highly dramatic scene of confl ict be-
tween Jesus and the residents of his hometown,
Luke extensively rewrites Mark’s account.
Besides eliminating Mark’s implication that
Jesus’ family failed to recognize his worth and
inserting a quotation from Isaiah that expresses
Luke’s view of Jesus’ prophetic role, the author
creates a speech for Jesus that outrages the peo-
ple of Nazareth. Taking full authorial advan-
tage of his fi rst opportunity to show the adult
Jesus interacting with his contemporaries, Luke
uses the occasion of Jesus’ visit to the Nazareth
synagogue to give readers a thematic preview of
his entire two-volume work. By adding that
Jesus’ former neighbors try to kill him (an ele-
ment absent in Mark and Matthew, who merely
report that Nazareth’s residents showed him
little respect), Luke foreshadows Jesus’ later re-
jection and death in Jerusalem. By having Jesus
deliver a sermon in which two of Israel’s great-
est prophets, Elijah and Elisha , perform their
most spectacular miracles to benefi t Gentiles,
not native Israelites, Luke anticipates the
church’s future mission to Gentile nations, de-
velopments he will narrate in the Book of Acts.
Even more important to Luke is his vision of
Jesus’ essential calling, which he evokes in the
quotation from Isaiah: Jesus is empowered by
the same divine Spirit that motivated Israel’s
prophets, and he will pursue the same kind of
work they did, offering aid and comfort to peo-
ple suffering the harsh realities of economic and
political oppression, explicitly “the poor” and
downtrodden. Restoring vision to persons meta-
phorically imprisoned or blind and helping “bro-
ken victims go free,” Jesus proclaims God’s favor
to those whom society typically ignores or ex-
ploits. Characteristically, Luke omits Isaiah’s ref-
erence to divine “vengeance” ( Isa . 61:1–2; 58:6).
Luke’s implicit critique of the Roman status quo,
then, includes neither the threat of armed rebel-
lion nor a promise of divine retribution.
foretells the birth of her son, Samuel (1 Sam.
2:1–10). In its present form, this hymn may be
as much a composition of the early church,
conceived as an appropriate biblical response
to the angel’s visit, as a memory of Mary’s literal
words. Nonetheless, Luke implies that Jesus’
mother may have been a source of this tradi-
tion, noting that she refl ected deeply on the
unusual circumstances surrounding her son’s
birth (2:19; see also 2:51).
Luke includes the only tradition about
Jesus’ boyhood contained in the New Testament,
an anecdote about the twelve-year-old boy’s visit
to the Temple in which he impresses some
learned scribes with the acuteness of his ques-
tions and understanding (2:41–52). The state-
ment that Jesus “advanced in wisdom and in
favor with God and men” (2:52) almost exactly
reproduces the Old Testament description of
young Samuel (1 Sam. 2:26) and is probably a
conventional observation rather than a histori-
cally precise evaluation of Jesus’ youthful char-
acter. For Luke, this Temple episode serves
primarily to anticipate Jesus’ later ministry at
the Jerusalem sanctuary.
Jesus’ Galilean Ministry
Jesus’ Rejection in Nazareth
After describing John’s baptism campaign and
Jesus’ temptation by Satan (3–4:13), Luke in-
troduces Jesus’ public career in a way that
signifi cantly revises Mark’s order of events.
Whereas Matthew closely follows Mark in plac-
ing Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth after the
Galilean campaign is already well under way
(cf. Mark 6:1–6; Matt. 13:53–58), Luke transfers
this episode almost to the beginning of Jesus’
ministry (4:16–30). The Evangelist makes this
change in his source not to provide a more fac-
tually accurate biography, but probably for the
same reason that the author of John’s Gospel
switches his account of Jesus’ assault on the
Temple from the time of Jesus’ fi nal entry into
Jerusalem (as all three Synoptics have it) to the
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 211
does not specify his objections to the wealthy as
a class, but in material exclusive to his Gospel,
he repeatedly attacks the rich, predicting that
their present affl uence and luxury will be ex-
changed for misery.
Reversals of Status for Rich and Poor In plead-
ing the cause of the poor against the rich, Luke
also includes his special rendering of Jesus’
command to love one’s enemies (6:32–36; cf.
Matt. 5:43–48). One must practice giving unself-
ishly because such behavior refl ects the nature
and purpose of God, who treats even the wicked
with kindness (6:32–36). As the Lukan parables
typically illustrate unexpected reversals of status
between the rich and poor, so do they teach
generosity and compassion— qualities that to
Luke are literally divine (6:35–36).
To Luke, Jesus provides the model of com-
passionate behavior. When Christ raises a wid-
ow’s son from the dead (7:11–17), the miracle
expresses the twin Lukan themes of God’s special
love for the poor and unfortunate (especially
women) and Jesus’ role as Lord of the resurrec-
tion. (Luke imparts a particularly awe-inspiring
quality to this scene, highlighting Jesus’ empathy
for the grieving mother.) By including this epi-
sode (unique to his Gospel), the author reminds
his readers of the joy they will experience when
Jesus appears again to restore life to all.
The Importance of Women Luke commonly uses
Jesus’ interaction with women to reveal his con-
cept of Jesus’ character, emphasizing his hero’s
combination of authority and tenderness. After
providing ultimate comfort to the grieving
widow at Nain , Jesus reveals similar compassion
for a prostitute, to whom he imparts another
form of new life. All four Gospels contain an
incident in which a woman anoints Jesus with
oil or some other costly ointment (Mark 14:3–9;
Matt. 26:6–13; John 12:1–8). In Luke (7:36–50),
however, the anointing does not anticipate
preparation for Jesus’ burial, as it does in the
other Gospels, but is an act of intense love on
the unnamed woman’s part. Set in the house
of a Pharisee where Jesus is dining, the Lukan
Luke’s Version of Jesus’ Teaching
For the next two chapters (4:31–6:11), Luke re-
produces much of the Markan narrative deal-
ing with Jesus’ miracles of healing and exorcism.
Despite violent opposition in Nazareth, Jesus
draws large crowds, healing many and preach-
ing in numerous Galilean synagogues. Luke
transposes the Markan order, however, placing
Jesus’ calling of the Twelve after the Nazareth
episode (6:12–19). This transposition serves as
an introduction to Jesus’ fi rst public discourse,
the Sermon on the Plain (6:20–49). The
Sermon begins a long section (called the “lesser
interpolation”) in which the author interweaves
material shared with Matthew (presumably
from Q) with material that appears only in his
own Gospel (6:20–8:3).
Luke’s Sermon on the Plain Resembling an ab-
breviated version of Matthew’s Sermon on the
Mount (see Box 9.4 and Figure 9.4 ), the Lukan
discourse begins with briefer forms of four
Beatitudes, all of which are in the second per-
son and hence directed at “you” (the audience/
reader). Matthew had phrased the Beatitudes
in the third person (“they”) and presented
them as blessings on people who possessed the
right spiritual nature, such as “those who hun-
ger and thirst to see right prevail” (Matt. 5:6).
In contrast, Luke “materializes” the Beatitudes,
bluntly referring to physical hunger: “How
blest are you who now go hungry; your hunger
shall be satisfi ed” (6:21). His “poor” are the
fi nancially destitute, the powerless who are to
receive the “kingdom of God.”
Luke follows the Beatitudes with a list of
“woes” (“alas for you”) in which the “rich” and
“well-fed” are cursed with future loss and hun-
ger. Persons happy with the present Roman so-
cial order are destined to regret their former
complacency (6:24–26). This harsh judgment
on people whom society generally considers
fortunate occurs only in Luke and represents
one of Luke’s special convictions: The king-
dom will bring a radical reversal of presently
accepted values and expectations. The author
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212 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
matthew
How blest are these who know their
need of God [the “poor in spirit”];
the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
How blest are those of a gentle spirit;
they shall have the earth for
their possession.
How blest are those who hunger and
thirst to see right prevail;
they shall be satisfi ed.
How blest are those who show mercy;
mercy shall be shown to them.
How blest are those whose hearts
are pure;
they shall see God.
How blest are the peacemakers;
God shall call them his [children].
How blest are those who have suffered
persecution for the cause of right;
the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
How blest you are, when you suffer insults and
persecution and every kind of calumny for my
sake. Accept it with gladness and exultation, for
you have a rich reward in heaven; in the same
way they persecuted the prophets before you.
(Matt. 5:3–12)
luke
How blest are you who are in need [“you poor”];
the kingdom of God is yours.
How blest are you who now go hungry;
your hunger shall be satisfi ed.
How blest you are when men hate you, when
they outlaw you and insult you, and ban your very
name as infamous, because of the Son of Man.
On that day be glad and dance for joy; for assur-
edly you have a rich reward in heaven; in just the
same way did their fathers treat the prophets.
[The “Woes”]
But alas for you who are rich; you have had your
time of happiness.
Alas for you who are well-fed now; you shall go
hungry.
Alas for you who laugh now; you shall mourn and
weep.
Alas for you when all speak well of you; just so
did their fathers treat the false prophets.
(Luke 6:20–26)
b o x 9 . 4 Comparison of the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke
version focuses on the woman’s overwhelming
emotion and on the typically Lukan theme of
compassion and forgiveness. To Luke, the “im-
moral” woman’s love proves that “her many sins
have been forgiven.”
In John, the woman is identifi ed as Mary,
sister of Martha and Lazarus, but there is no
hint of her possessing a lurid past. It would ap-
pear that Jesus’ emotional encounter with a
woman who lavished expensive unguents upon
him impressed onlookers enough to remember
and transmit it orally to the early Christian
community, but—as in the case of many other
of Jesus’ actions and sayings—the precise con-
text of the event was forgotten. Each Gospel
writer provides his own explanatory frame for
the incident (cf. Luke 7:36–50; Mark 14:3–9;
Matt. 26:6–13; John 12:1–8).
Fittingly, the fi rst extensive interpolation of
Lukan material concludes with a summary of the
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 213
journey from Galilee to Judea, this part of the
Gospel (traditionally known as the “greater
interpolation”) contains little action or sense of
forward movement. Emphasizing Jesus’ teach-
ing, it is largely a miscellaneous collection of
brief anecdotes, sayings, and parables. Here
the author intermixes Q material with that of
his individual source (L), including most of the
parables unique to his Gospel.
At the beginning of this section, Luke re-
cords two incidents that preview later develop-
ments in Acts. On his way south to Jerusalem,
Jesus passes through Samaria, carrying his mes-
sage to several villages. In Matthew (10:5–6),
Jesus expressly forbids a mission to the
Samaritans, bitterly hated by Jews for their in-
terpretation of the Mosaic Law. Luke, however,
shows Jesus forbidding the disciples to punish
part women play in Jesus’ ministry. Accompany-
ing him are numerous female disciples, Galilean
women whom he had healed and who now sup-
port him and the male disciples “out of their
own resources” (8:1–3).
Luke’s Travel Narrative:
Jesus’ Teachings on the
Journey to Jerusalem
Luke begins this long section (9:51–18:14) with
Jesus’ fi rm resolution to head toward Jerusalem,
a distance of about sixty miles, and the fi nal
confl ict that will culminate in his death and res-
urrection. Although ostensibly the record of a
f i g u r e 9 . 4 Traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount. According to tradition, it was on this hill
overlooking the Sea of Galilee that Jesus delivered his most famous discourse, the teachings compiled in
Matthew 5–7. The Gospel of Luke, however, states that Jesus spoke to his Galilean audience on “level
ground” (Luke 6:17).
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214 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Temple and emphasizes Jesus’ approval of the
speaker’s view that the “law of love” is the epitome
of Judaism (Mark 12:28–31). Luke changes the
site of this encounter from the Temple to an un-
identifi ed place on the road to Jerusalem and
uses it to introduce his parable of the good
Samaritan. The author creates a transition to the
parable by having the instructor ask Jesus to ex-
plain what the Torah means by “neighbor.”
Instead of answering directly, Jesus re-
sponds in typical rabbinic fashion: He tells a
story. The questioner must discover his neigh-
bor’s identity in Jesus’ depiction of a specifi c
human situation. In analyzing the tale of the
good Samaritan (10:29–35), most students will
fi nd that it not only follows Luke’s customary
theme of the unexpected but also introduces
several rather thorny problems.
Ethical Complexities Jesus’ original audience
would have seen enormous ethical complexi-
ties in this parable. The priest and Levite face a
real dilemma: When they fi nd the robbers’ vic-
tim, they do not know whether the man is alive
or dead. If they so much as touch a corpse, the
Torah declares them ritually unclean, and they
will be unable to fulfi ll their Temple duties. In
this case, keeping the Law means ignoring the
claim of a person in need. The priest’s decision
to remain faithful to Torah requirements ne-
cessitates his failure to help.
By making a Samaritan the moral hero of
his story, Jesus further complicates the issue. In
Jewish eyes, the Samaritans, who claimed guard-
ianship of the Mosaic Law, were corrupters of
the Torah from whom nothing good could be
expected. (Note that a Samaritan village had
refused Jesus hospitality because he was making
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, site of the Temple
cult that the Samaritans despised [9:52–56].)
Finally, Jesus’ tale underscores a typical Lukan
reversal: The religious outsider, whom the righ-
teous hold in contempt, is the person who
obeys the Torah’s essential meaning—to act as
God’s agent by giving help to persons in need.
When Jesus asks the Torah expert which
person in the tale behaves as a neighbor, the
an inhospitable Samaritan town and conduct-
ing a short campaign there (9:52–56).
Along with the celebrated story of the “good
Samaritan,” this episode anticipates the later
Christian mission to Samaria described in Acts 8.
Jesus’ sending forth seventy-two disciples to
evangelize the countryside (10:1–16) similarly
prefi gures the future recruiting of Gentiles.
In Jewish terminology, the number seventy or
seventy-two represented the sum total of
non-Jewish nations. As the Twelve sent to prose-
lytize Israel probably symbolize the traditional
twelve Israelite tribes (9:1–6), so the activity of
the seventy-two foreshadows Christian expan-
sion among Gentiles of the Roman Empire.
Luke’s Jesus experiences a moment of
ecstatic triumph when the seventy-two return
from conducting a series of successful exor-
cisms. Possessed by the Spirit, he perceives the
reality behind his disciples’ victory over evil. In a
mystical vision, Jesus sees Satan, like a bolt of
lightning, hurled from heaven. Through the
disciples’ actions, Satan’s infl uence is in decline
(although he returns to corrupt Judas in 22:23).
In this context of defeating evil through
good works, Jesus thanks God that his unedu-
cated followers understand God’s purpose
better than the intellectual elite. In this pas-
sage, Luke expresses ideas that are more com-
mon in John’s Gospel: Only Christ knows the
divine nature, and only he can reveal it to those
whom he chooses (10:17–24; cf. Matthew’s
version of this prayer in Matt. 11:25–27).
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
Luke is aware, however, that “the learned and
wise” are not always incapable of religious insight.
In 10:25–28, a Torah expert defi nes the essence
of the Mosaic Law in the twin commands to love
God (Deut. 6:5) and neighbor (Lev. 19:18).
Confi rming the expert’s perception, Jesus replies
that, in loving thus, the man “will live.” In this
episode, Luke provides a good example of the
way in which he adapts Markan material to his
theological purpose. Mark places this dialogue
with the Torah instructor in the Jerusalem
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 215
to pestering a friend until he grants what is
asked (11:5–10). The same theme reappears in
the parable of the importunate or “pushy”
widow (18:1–8) who seeks justice from a cynical
and corrupt judge. An unworthy representative
of his profession, the judge cares nothing about
God or public opinion—but he fi nally grants
the widow’s petition because she refuses to give
him any peace until he acts. If even an unre-
sponsive friend and unscrupulous judge can be
hounded into helping someone, how much
more is God likely to reward people who do not
give up talking to him (18:7–8)?
Luke contrasts two different kinds of
prayers in his parable of the Pharisee and a
“publican” (offi cially licensed tax-gatherer for
Rome) (18:9–14). In Jesus’ day, the term tax-
gatherer was a synonym for sinner, one who be-
trayed his Jewish countrymen by hiring himself
out to the Romans and making a living by ex-
torting money and goods from an already-op-
pressed people. The parable contrasts the
Pharisee’s consciousness of religious worth with
the tax collector’s confession of his failings. In
Luke’s reversal of ordinary expectations, it is
the honest outcast—not necessarily the conven-
tionally good person—who wins God’s approval.
Luke’s Views on Riches and Poverty
More than any other Gospel writer, Luke em-
phasizes forsaking worldly ambition for the
spiritual riches of the kingdom. The Lukan
Jesus assures his followers that, if God provides
for nature’s birds and fl owers, he will care for
Christians. He urges his disciples to sell their
possessions, give to the poor, and thus earn
“heavenly treasures” (12:22–34).
Luke’s strong antimaterialism and apparent
bias against the rich is partly the result of his con-
viction that God’s judgment may occur at any
time. The rich fool dies before he can enjoy his
life’s work (12:13–21), but Christians may face
judgment even before death. The Master may re-
turn without warning at any time (12:35–40).
Rather than accumulating wealth, believers must
share with the poor and with social outcasts
expert apparently cannot bring himself to utter
the hated term Samaritan. Instead, he vaguely
identifi es the hero as “the one who showed [the
victim] kindness.” Jesus’ directive to behave as
the Samaritan does—in contrast to the priest
and the Levite—contains a distinctly subversive
element. When the Samaritan helps a Jew (the
victim had been traveling from Jerusalem), he
boldly overlooks ethnic and sectarian differ-
ences in order to aid a religious “enemy.”
By constructing this particular scenario,
Jesus forces the Torah instructor (and Luke,
his reader) to recognize that a “neighbor” does
not necessarily belong to one’s own racial or
religious group but can be any person who
demonstrates generosity and human kindness.
(From the orthodox view, the Samaritan be-
longs to a “false” religion; he is not only a for-
eigner but a “heretic” as well.) An even more
subversive note is sounded when the parable
implies that the priest’s and Levite’s faithful ad-
herence to biblical rules is the barrier that pre-
vents them from observing religion’s essential
component, which the Torah expert had cor-
rectly defi ned as the love of God and neighbor.
Mary and Martha
Luke follows the Samaritan parable with a brief
anecdote about Jesus’ visit at the house of two
sisters, Mary and Martha (10:38–42). In its own
way, this episode draws a similar distinction be-
tween strict adherence to duty and a sensitivity
to “higher” opportunities. The Lukan Jesus
commends Mary for abandoning her tradi-
tional woman’s role and joining the men to
hear his teaching. The learning experience will
be hers to possess forever.
Instructions on Prayer
Luke places a greater emphasis on prayer than
any other Synoptic author. Although his ver-
sion of the Lord’s Prayer is much shorter than
Matthew’s, he heightens its signifi cance by add-
ing several parables that extol the value of per-
sistence. Petitioning God is implicitly compared
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216 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Luke modifi es his severe criticism of great
wealth, however, by including Mark’s story of
Jesus’ advice to a rich man. (He returns to the
Markan narrative again in 18:15.) If wealth dis-
qualifi es one from the kingdom, who can hope
to please God? Jesus’ enigmatic reply—all things
are possible with God (18:18–27)—leads to the
concept of divine compensation. Persons who
sacrifi ce family or home to seek the kingdom will
be repaid both now (presumably referring to the
spiritual riches they enjoy in church fellowship)
and in the future with eternal life (18:28–30).
Jesus’ Love of the Unhappy
and the Outcast
All the Gospel authors agree that Jesus sought the
company of “tax-gatherers and sinners,” a catchall
phrase referring to the great mass of people in
ancient Palestine who were socially and religiously
unacceptable because they did not or could not
keep the Torah’s requirements. This “unrespect-
able” group stood in contrast to the Sadducees,
the Pharisees, the scribes, and others who consci-
entiously observed all Torah regulations in their
daily lives. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus ignores
the principle of contamination by association. He
eats, drinks, and otherwise intimately mixes with a
wide variety of persons commonly viewed as both
morally and ritually “unclean.” At one moment we
fi nd him dining in the homes of socially honored
Pharisees (7:36–50) and at the next enjoying the
hospitality of social pariahs like Simon the leper
(Matt. 26:6–13) and Zacchaeus the tax collector
(19:1–10). Jesus’ habitual associations lead some
of his contemporaries to regard him as a plea-
sure-loving drunkard (7:34). According to Luke,
Jesus answers such criticism by creating parables
that illustrate God’s unfailing concern for persons
the “righteous” dismiss as worthless (see Box 9.5 ).
Parables of Joy at Finding
What Was Lost
One of the ethical highlights of the entire New
Testament, Luke 15 contains three parables
dramatizing the joy humans experience when
(14:12–14). Luke also emphasizes that the de-
formed and unattractive, rejects and have-nots of
society, must be the Christian’s primary concern
in attaining Jesus’ favorable verdict (14:15–24).
Lazarus and the Rich Man
Reversals in the Afterlife The Lukan Jesus makes
absolute demands upon his disciples: None can
belong to him without giving away everything he
owns (14:33). In his parable of Lazarus and the
rich man, Luke dramatizes the danger of hanging
onto great wealth until death parts the owner
from his possessions (16:19–31). Appearing only
in Luke’s Gospel, this metaphor of the afterlife
embodies typically Lukan concepts. It shows a
rich man experiencing all the posthumous misery
that Jesus had predicted for the world’s comfort-
able and satisfi ed people (6:24–26) and a poor
beggar enjoying all the rewards that Jesus had
promised to the hungry and outcast (6:20–21).
Demonstrating Luke’s usual theme of reversal,
the parable shows the two men exchanging their
relative positions in the next world.
In recounting Jesus’ only parable that deals
with the contrasting fates of individuals after
death, Luke employs ideas typical of fi rst-cen-
tury Hellenistic Judaism. The author’s picture
of Lazarus in paradise and the rich man in fi ery
torment is duplicated in Josephus’s contempo-
rary description of Hades (the Underworld).
Signifi cantly, Luke charges the rich man with
no crime and assigns the beggar no virtue. To the
author, current social conditions—the existence
of hopeless poverty and sickness alongside the
“magnifi cence” and luxury of the affl uent—ap-
parently will undergo a radical change when God
rules the world completely. The only fault of
which the rich man is implicitly guilty is his toler-
ation of the extreme contrast between his own
abundance and the miserable state of the poor.
For Luke, it seems to be enough. The author’s
ideal social order is the commune that the disci-
ples establish following Pentecost, an economic
arrangement in which the well-to-do sell their
possessions, share them with the poor, and hold
“everything in common” (Acts 2:42–47).
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 217
Three Gospels—the canonical Matthew
and Luke and the apocryphal Thomas—preserve
three strikingly different versions of a parable in
which guests who are fi rst invited to a great dinner
party fail to respond and are unexpectedly replaced
by strangers recruited from the streets. Each of the
three versions is distinguished by the distinctive
concerns of the individual Gospel writer.
b o x 9 . 5 The Parable of the Great Banquet: Three Authorial Interpretations
matthew
Then Jesus spoke to them again in
parables: “The kingdom of Heaven
is like this. There was a king who pre-
pared a feast for his son’s wedding;
but when he sent his servants to
summon the guests he had invited,
they would not come. He sent others
again, telling them to say to the
guests, ‘See now! I have prepared
this feast for you. I have had my bull-
ocks and fatted beasts slaughtered;
everything is ready; come to the
wedding at once.’ But they took no
notice; one went off to his farm, an-
other to his business, and the others
seized the servants, attacked them
brutally, and killed them. The king
was furious; he sent troops to kill
those murderers and set their town
on fi re. Then he said to his servants,
‘The wedding-feast is ready; but the
guests I invited did not deserve the
honour . Go out to the main thor-
oughfares, and invite everyone you
can fi nd to the wedding.’ The ser-
vants went out into the streets, and
collected all they could fi nd, good
and bad alike. So the hall was
packed with guests.
“When the king came in to see
the company at the table, he observed
one man who was not dressed for a
wedding. ‘My friend,’ said the
king,‘how do you come to be here
without your wedding clothes?’ He
had nothing to say. The king then
said to his attendants, ‘Bind him
hand and foot; turn him out into the
dark, the place of wailing and grind-
ing of teeth.’ For though many are
invited, few are chosen.”
(Matt. 22:1–14)
luke
One of the company, after hearing
all this, said to him, “Happy the
man who shall sit at the feast in the
kingdom of God!” Jesus answered,
“A man was giving a big dinner
party and had sent out many invita-
tions. At dinner-time he sent his
servant with a message for his
guests, ‘Please come, everything is
now ready.’ They began one and
all to excuse themselves. The fi rst
said, ‘I have bought a piece of land
and I must go and look over it;
please accept my apologies.’ The
second said, ‘I have bought fi ve
yoke of oxen, and I am on my way
to try them out; please accept my
apologies.’ The next said,‘I have
just got married and for that rea-
son I cannot come.’ When the ser-
vant came back he reported this to
his master. The master of the
house was angry and said to him,
‘Go out quickly into the streets
and alleys of the town, and bring
me in the poor, the crippled, the
blind, and the lame.’ The servant
said, ‘Sir, your orders have been
carried out and there is still room.’
The master replied, ‘Go out on to
the highways and along the hedge-
rows and make them come in;
I want my house to be full. I tell
you that not one of those who were
invited shall taste my banquet.’”
(Luke 14:15–24)
thomas
Jesus said, “A person was receiving
guests. When he had prepared the
dinner, he sent his slave to invite
the guests. The slave went to the
fi rst and said to that one, ‘My mas-
ter invites you.’ That one said,
‘Some merchants owe me money;
they are coming to me tonight. I
have to go and give them instruc-
tions. Please excuse me from din-
ner.’ The slave went to another
and said to that one, ‘My master
has invited you.’ That one said to
the slave, ‘I have bought a house,
and I have been called away for a
day. I shall have no time.’ The
slave went to another and said to
that one, ‘My master invites you.’
That one said to the slave, ‘My
friend is to be married, and I am
to arrange the banquet. I shall not
be able to come. Please excuse me
from dinner.’ The slave went to an-
other and said to that one, ‘My
master invites you.’ That one said
to the slave, ‘I have bought an
estate, and I am going to collect
the rent. I shall not be able to
come. Please excuse me.’ The slave
returned and said to his master,
‘Those whom you invited to din-
ner have asked to be excused.’ The
master said to his slave, ‘Go out on
the streets and bring back whom-
ever you fi nd to have dinner.’
“Buyers and merchants [will]
not enter the places of my Father.”
(G. Thom. 64)
(continued)
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218 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
In Matthew’s version of the parable, a king is-
sues invitations to a sumptuous wedding feast for
his son. Not only are the ruler’s supposed friends
indifferent to his hospitality, but some kill the ser-
vants who invited them. Furious, the ruler then dis-
patches armies to destroy those who murdered his
emissaries and “burn their city.” The king’s overreac-
tion to his spurned generosity is even more extreme
when one of the rabble brought in to replace the
ungrateful guests shows up without the proper fes-
tal garments, a social faux pas for which he is tied
up and thrown into a frighteningly “dark” prison.
Setting the parable in the narrative context of
Jesus’ rejection by the Jerusalem authorities,
Matthew transforms it into a historical allegory of
God’s relationship with Israel. When the covenant
people reject the invitation to his son’s (Jesus’)
messianic banquet, God’s anger results in the
Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the replace-
ment of his former people by a new crowd that in-
cludes “good and bad alike,” the Matthean
religious community. The divine host’s arbitrary
rejection of the improperly dressed guest—who
could not reasonably have been expected to be car-
rying a set of formal attire when he was suddenly
dragged to a stranger’s wedding—may derive from
another (otherwise lost) parable. The supernatu-
ral darkness to which the fashion felon is con-
signed is one of Matthew’s characteristic images.
Luke introduces the parable as simply a “big din-
ner party” given by an ordinary (but presumably
rich) host whose prospective guests all turn down
his last-minute invitation. The three guests’ stated
excuses for not attending are entirely reasonable:
All are busily engaged in life’s ordinary pursuits,
tending to their farms, their animals, and their mar-
riages. The spurned host then invites a typically
Lukan category of guests—the poor, crippled, lame,
and blind, precisely the kind of commonly devalued
people that Jesus had already instructed his follow-
ers to include in their feasts (cf. Luke 14:12–14). As
Matthew had turned a parable involving ungrateful
guests into a polemic against the Jerusalem estab-
lishment and a justifi cation for Jerusalem’s destruc-
tion, so Luke makes it into a plea for the social
outcasts—those who can’t repay one’s hospitality—
whose cause he espouses throughout his Gospel.
Whereas most traditional folk narratives feature
a set of three actions, as does Luke’s story of three
rejected invitations in his version of the parable,
that contained in Thomas breaks the usual pattern
by including four guests and their reasons for not
attending. All four invited guests are people of
property, homeowners, landlords, and fi nanciers—
members of the economically successful class of
whom most early Christian writers are profoundly
suspicious. Thomas’s bias is clearly apparent in the
parable’s fi nal line: The commercial class—“buyers
and merchants”—are not God’s kind of people.
In its three variations, the banquet parable has
one consistent theme: The host has everything
ready and, without warning his chosen guests in
advance, suddenly demands that they drop every-
thing and come to enjoy his good things. When,
busily employed elsewhere, they fail to appreciate
his offer, the disappointed host unexpectedly
opens his house to people who could not previ-
ously consider themselves eligible—loiterers in the
marketplace, social pariahs, and anybody else who
had no better place to go. Despite the Gospel writ-
ers’ editorial revisions, themes characteristic of
Jesus’ authentic parables, including God’s incalcu-
lable ways of intervening in human lives and the
reversals of normal expectations his appeals cre-
ate, are embedded in the “sweet unreasonable-
ness” of this tale.
they recover something precious they had
thought forever lost.
The Lost Sheep The parable of the lost sheep
(also in Matt. 18:10–14) recounts a shepherd’s
delight in fi nding a stray animal. In Luke’s
version, the focus is on the celebration that fol-
lows the shepherd’s fi nd: “friends and neigh-
bors” are called together to rejoice with him
(15:1–7).
b o x 9 . 5 continued
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 219
punishment. Ignoring the youth’s contrite re-
quest to be hired as a servant, the parent instead
orders a lavish celebration in his honor.
The conversation between the father and
his older son, who understandably complains
about the partiality shown to his sibling, makes
the parable’s theme even clearer. Acknowledging
the older child’s superior claim to his favor, the
father attempts to explain the unlimited quality
of his affection (15:11–32). The father’s nature
is to love unconditionally, making no distinc-
tion between the deserving and the undeserv-
ing recipients of his care. The parable expresses
the same view of the divine Parent, who “is kind
to the ungrateful and wicked,” that Luke pic-
tured in his Sermon on the Plain (6:35–36).
Like many of Jesus’ authentic parables, this
tale ends with an essential question unan-
swered: How will the older brother, smarting
with natural resentment at the prodigal’s un-
merited reward, respond to his father’s implied
invitation to join the family revel? As Luke views
the issue, Jesus’ call to sinners was remarkably
successful; it is the conventionally religious who
too often fail to value an invitation to the messi-
anic banquet.
The Parable of the Dishonest Steward
Not only do Luke’s parables surprise us by
turning accepted values upside down, consign-
ing the fortunate rich to torment and celebrat-
ing the good fortune of the undeserving, but
they can also puzzle us. Luke follows the para-
ble of the prodigal son with a mind-boggling
story of a dishonest and conniving business-
man who cheats his employer and is com-
mended for it (16:1–9).
Teaching none of the conventional princi-
ples of honesty or decent behavior, this parable
makes most readers distinctly uncomfortable.
Like the prodigal son, the steward violates the
trust placed in him and defrauds his benefac-
tor. Yet, like the prodigal, he is rewarded by the
very person whom he has wronged. This unex-
pected twist upsets our basic notions of justice
and fair play, just as the prodigal’s elder brother
was upset by having no distinction drawn between
The Lost Coin A second parable (15:8–10) in-
vites us to observe the behavior of a woman
who loses one of her ten silver coins. She lights
her lamp (an extravagant gesture for the poor)
and sweeps out her entire house, looking in
every corner, until she fi nds the coin. Then,
like the shepherd, she summons “friends and
neighbors” to celebrate her fi nd. Although
Luke sees these two parables as allegories sym-
bolizing heavenly joy over a “lost” sinner’s re-
pentance (15:7, 10), they also reveal Jesus’
characteristic tendency to observe and de-
scribe unusual human behavior. Both the
shepherd and the woman exhibit the intense
concentration on a single action—searching
for lost property—that exemplifi es Jesus’ de-
mand to seek God’s rule fi rst, to the exclusion
of all else (6:22; Matt. 6:33). For the Lukan
Jesus, they also demonstrate the appropriate
response to recovering a valued object—a
spontaneous celebration in which others are
invited to participate.
The Prodigal Son One of the most emotionally
moving passages in the Bible, the parable of
the prodigal son might better be called the
story of the forgiving father, for the climax of
the narrative focuses on the latter’s attitude to-
ward his two very different sons. Besides squan-
dering his inheritance “with his women”
(15:30), the younger son violates the most ba-
sic standards of Judaism, reducing himself to
the level of an animal groveling in a Gentile’s
pigpen. Listing the young man’s progressively
degrading actions, Jesus describes a person
who is utterly insensitive to his religious heri-
tage and as “undeserving” as a human being
can be. Even his decision to return to his fa-
ther’s estate is based on an unworthy desire to
improve his diet.
Yet the parable’s main focus is not on the
youth’s unworthiness, but on the father’s love.
Notice that when the prodigal (spendthrift) is
still “a long way off,” his father sees him and,
forgetting his dignity, rushes to meet the return-
ing son. Note, too, that the father expresses no
anger at his son’s shameful behavior, demands
no admission of wrongdoing, and infl icts no
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220 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Luke’s Modifi cations
of Apocalyptic Expectation
Luke deftly intermingles Markan prophecies
about the appearance of the Son of Man with
passages from Q and his own special material,
suggesting that the kingdom is, in some sense,
a present reality in the presence and miracu-
lous deeds of Jesus. When the Pharisees ac-
cuse Jesus of exorcising demons by the power
of “Beelzebub [Satan],” he answers, “If it is by
the fi nger of God that I drive out the devils,
then be sure the kingdom of God has already
come upon you” (11:20; cf. Matt. 12:28). The
Lukan Jesus equates his disciples’ success in
expelling demons with Satan’s fall from
his own moral propriety and his younger broth-
er’s outrageous misbehavior. The meaning
Luke attaches to this strange parable—worldly
people like the steward are more clever than
the unworldly—does not explain the moral
paradox. We must ask: In what context, in re-
sponse to what situation, did Jesus fi rst tell this
story? Is it simply another example of the unex-
pected, or is it a paradigm of the bewilderingly
unacceptable that must happen when the king-
dom breaks into our familiar and conven-
tion-ridden lives? Clearly, Luke’s readers are
asked to rethink ideas and assumptions previ-
ously taken for granted.
The Jerusalem Ministry:
Jesus’ Challenge to
the Holy City
In revising Mark’s account of the Jerusalem
ministry (see Figure 9.5 ), Luke subtly mutes
Mark’s apocalyptic urgency and reinterprets
Jesus’ kingdom teaching to indicate that many
eschatological hopes have already been real-
ized (18:31–21:38). While he preserves ele-
ments of traditional apocalypticism —urging
believers to be constantly alert and prepared
for the eschaton —Luke also distances the fi nal
consummation, placing it at some unknown
time in the future. Aware that many of Jesus’
original followers assumed that his ministry
would culminate in God’s government being
established on earth, Luke reports that “be-
cause he [Jesus] was now close to Jerusalem . . .
they thought the reign of God might dawn at
any moment” (19:11), an expectation that per-
sisted in the early church (Acts 1:6–7). Luke
counters this belief with a parable explaining
that their Master must go away “on a long jour-
ney” before he returns as “king” (19:12–27).
(Matthew also uses this parable of the “talents,”
in which slaves invest money for their absent
owner, for the same purpose of explaining the
delayed Parousia .)
f i g u r e 9 . 5 Bust of the emperor Tiberius
(ruled 14–37 ce ). According to Luke, Jesus was “about thirty
years old” when he began his Galilean campaign during the
fi fteenth year of Tiberius’s reign (c. 27–29 ce ) (Luke 3:1,
23). In Acts, Luke notes that Jesus is “a rival king” (Acts 17:8).
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church to grow and expand throughout the
Roman Empire, the subject of his Book of
Acts (see Chapter 1 2 ).
Luke’s editing of Mark 13 indicates that
the author divides apocalyptic time into two
distinct stages. The fi rst stage involves the
Jewish Revolt and Jerusalem’s fall; the second
involves the Parousia . To describe the second
phase, Luke invokes mythic and astronomical
language to characterize events: Cosmic phe-
nomena, such as “portents in sun, moon and
stars,” will herald the Son of Man’s reappear-
ance. Although he had previously stated that
there will be no convincing “sign” of the End
(17:21), Luke nonetheless cites Mark’s simile
of the fi g tree. As the budding tree shows sum-
mer is near, so the occurrence of prophesied
events proves that the “kingdom” is imminent.
Luke also reproduces Mark’s confi dent asser-
tion that “the present generation will live to see
it all” (21:32). In its revised context, however,
the promise that a single generation would wit-
ness the death throes of history probably ap-
plies only to those who observe the celestial
“portents” that immediately precede the Son’s
arrival. Luke’s muted eschatology does not re-
quire that Jesus’ contemporaries who heard his
teaching and/or witnessed Jerusalem’s destruc-
tion be the same group living when the Parousia
takes place.
Luke does suggest, however, that the astro-
nomical phenomena he predicts may have al-
ready occurred. In Acts 2, the author describes
the Holy Spirit’s descent on Jesus’ disciples
gathered in Jerusalem, a descent symbolized by
rushing winds and tongues of fi re. Interpreting
this spiritual baptism of the church at Pentecost
as a fulfi llment of apocalyptic prophecy, Peter
is represented as quoting from the Book of
Joel, the source of many of the cosmic images
Luke employed (Luke 21:25–28):
No, this [the Pentecost event] is what the
prophet spoke of: God says, “This will happen
in the last days: I will pour out my spirit upon
everyone. . . . And I will show portents in the
sky above, and signs on the earth below—
blood and fi re and drifting smoke. The sun
heaven (10:18–20), a sign that evil has been
overthrown and that God’s rule has begun. In
another saying unique to Luke, Jesus tells the
Pharisees: “You cannot tell by observation
when the kingdom of God comes. There will
be no saying, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘there it is!’;
for in fact the kingdom of God is among you
[or in your midst]” (17:20–21).
While Luke implies that in Jesus’ healing
work the kingdom now reigns, the author
also includes statements that emphasize the
unexpectedness and unpredictability of the
End. Readers are told not to believe prema-
ture reports of Jesus’ return, for the world
will continue its ordinary way until the
Parousia suddenly occurs. Although (in this
tradition) arriving without signs, it is as un-
mistakable as “the lightning fl ash that lights
up the earth from end to end” (17:30). While
retaining the Markan Jesus’ promise that
some of his contemporaries “will not taste
death before they have seen the kingdom of
God,” Luke omits the phrase “already come
in power” (9:27; cf. Mark 9:1). For Luke, the
mystical glory of Jesus’ Transfi guration,
which immediately follows this declaration,
reveals his divine kingship.
The Fall of Jerusalem and the Parousia
In his edited version of Mark 13, the proph-
ecy of Jerusalem’s destruction, Luke distin-
guishes between the historical event, which
he knows  took place in the recent past, and
the Parousia , which belongs to an indefinite
future (21:5–36). The author replaces Mark’s
cryptic allusion to the “abomination of deso-
lation” (cf. Mark 13:14; Matt. 24:15) with
practical advice that warned Christians to fl ee
the city when Roman armies begin their siege
(21:20–24). In Luke’s modifi ed apocalypse, a
period of unknown length will intervene be-
tween Jerusalem’s fall in 70 ce and the
Parousia . The holy city “will be trampled
down by foreigners until their day has run its
course” (21:24). In Luke’s view, this interim
of “foreign” domination allows the Christian
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222 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Only when pressured by a Jerusalem mob does
Pilate consent to Jesus’ crucifi xion.
Besides insisting on Jesus’ innocence, Luke
edits the Markan narrative (or another tradition
parallel to that contained in Mark) to present
his own theology of the cross. Mark had stated
that Jesus’ death was sacrifi cial: His life is given
“as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). In the
Lukan equivalent of this passage (placed in the
setting of the Last Supper), Jesus merely says
that he comes to serve (cf. Mark 10:42–45; Luke
22:24–27). Unlike some other New Testament
writers, Luke does not see Jesus’ Passion as a
mystical atonement for human sin. Instead,
Jesus appears “like a servant,” providing an ex-
ample for others to imitate, the fi rst in a line of
Christian models that includes Peter, Stephen,
Paul, and their companions in the Book of Acts.
The Last Supper
Mark’s report of the Last Supper (Mark 14:
17–25) closely parallels that found in Paul’s
fi rst letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor . 11:23–26).
Luke’s version introduces several variations: In
the Lukan ceremony, the wine cup is passed
fi rst and then the unleavened bread. The au-
thor may present this different order in the rit-
ual because he wants to avoid giving Jesus’
statement about drinking wine again in the
kingdom the apocalyptic meaning that Mark
gives it. Luke also omits the words interpreting
the wine as Jesus’ blood, avoiding any sugges-
tion that Jesus sheds his blood to ransom hu-
manity from sin or that he gives his blood to
establish a New Covenant. In Luke, Jesus’ only
interpretative comment relates the bread
(Eucharist) to his “body” (22:17–20). The au-
thor also inverts Mark’s order by having Jesus
announce Judas’s betrayal after the ritual meal,
implying that the traitor was present and par-
ticipated in the communion ceremony.
Jesus’ Final Ordeal
In his report of Jesus’ arrest, trials, and crucifi x-
ion, Luke makes several more inversions of the
shall be turned to darkness and the moon to
blood, before that great, resplendent day, the
day of the Lord shall come. And then every
one who invokes the name of the Lord shall
be saved.”
(Acts 2:16–21)
For the Lukan Peter, Joel’s metaphors of divine
action were fulfi lled when the same Spirit that
had guided Jesus infused his church, opening
the way to salvation for Jew and Gentile alike.
After describing Peter’s speech, Luke rarely
again mentions apocalyptic images or expecta-
tions, nor does he show Peter, James, Stephen,
Paul (contrary to Paul’s own letters), or any
other Christian leader preaching Jesus’ immi-
nent return. Did he believe that the fi gurative
language of apocalypse is fulfi lled primarily in
symbolic events of great spiritual signifi cance,
such as the birth of the church and the estab-
lishment of a community that lived by Jesus’
kingdom ethic? (For a discussion of the “real-
ized eschatology”—a belief that events usually
associated with the End have already been
fulfi lled in Jesus’ spiritual presence among his
followers—that Luke at times seems to antici-
pate, see Chapter 1 0 , “John’s Reinterpretation
of Jesus.”)
The Final Confl ict
and Passion Story
Luke’s Interpretation of the Passion
Although Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days in
Jerusalem roughly parallels that of Mark (14:1–
16:8), it differs in enough details to suggest that
Luke may have used another source as well. In
this section (22:1–23:56), Luke underscores a
theme that will also dominate Acts: Jesus, like
his followers after him, is innocent of any sedi-
tion against Rome. More than any other Gospel
writer, Luke represents Pilate as testifying to
Jesus’ political innocence, repeatedly declaring
that the accused is not guilty of a “capital offence.”
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 223
anything in Jesus’ case to support the Jews’
charge of “subversion” (23:13–15).
Twice Luke’s Pilate declares that the pris-
oner “has done nothing to deserve death”
(23:15) and is legally “guilty of [no] capital of-
fence” (23:22). The Roman prefect, whom
other contemporary historians depict as a ruth-
less tyrant contemptuous of Jewish public opin-
ion, is here only a weak pawn manipulated by a
fanatical group of his Jewish subjects.
Last Words on the Cross In recounting Jesus’
crucifi xion, Luke provides several “last words”
that illustrate important Lukan themes. Only
in this Gospel do we fi nd Jesus’ prayer to for-
give his executioners because they do not un-
derstand the meaning of their actions (23:34).
Because Luke regards both Jews and Romans
as acting in “ignorance” (see Acts 2:17), this
request to pardon his tormentors encompasses
all parties involved in Jesus’ death. Besides il-
lustrating Jesus’ heroic capacity to forgive, this
prayer shows Luke’s hero vindicating his
teaching that a victim must love his enemy
(6:27–38) and end the cycle of hatred and re-
taliation that perpetuates evil in the world. To
Luke, the manner of Jesus’ death represents
the supreme parable of reversal, forgiveness,
and completion.
Even in personal suffering, the Lukan Jesus
thinks not of himself, but of others. Carrying
his cross on the road to Calvary, he comforts
the women who weep for him (23:26–31). He
similarly consoles the man crucifi ed next to
him, promising him an immediate reward in
paradise (23:43), perhaps because this fellow
sufferer has recognized Jesus’ political inno-
cence (23:41). The Messiah’s fi nal words are to
the Father whose Spirit he had received follow-
ing baptism (3:21; 4:1, 14) and to whom in
death he commits his own spirit (23:46–47).
Except for the symbolic darkness accompa-
nying the Crucifi xion (23:44–45), Luke men-
tions no natural phenomenon comparable to
the great earthquake that Matthew describes.
Consequently, the Roman centurion does not
recognize in Jesus a supernatural being, “a son
Markan order and adds new material to empha-
size his characteristic themes. Softening Mark’s
harsh view of the disciples’ collective failure,
Luke states that they fell asleep in Gethsemane
because they were “worn out by grief” (22:45–
46). In this scene, the author contrasts Jesus’
physical anguish with the spiritual help he re-
ceives from prayer. (The assertion that Jesus
“sweats blood” may be a later scribal interpola-
tion.) After asking the Father to spare him,
Jesus perceives “an angel from heaven bringing
him strength,” after which he prays even more
fervently. In this crisis, Jesus demonstrates the
function of prayer for those among the Lukan
community who suffer similar testing and per-
secution (22:39–44).
In describing Jesus’ hearing before the
San hedrin , Luke makes several changes in
the Markan sequence of events. In Mark, the
High Priest questions Jesus, Jesus is then phys-
ically abused, and Peter denies knowing him
(Mark 14:55–72). Luke places Peter’s denial
fi rst, the beating second, and the priest’s in-
terrogation third (22:63–71). Instead of an-
nouncing his identity as Messiah, as in Mark,
the Lukan Jesus makes only an ambiguous
statement that may or may not be an admis-
sion. Luke also rephrases Jesus’ allusion to
the “Son of Man” to show that with Jesus’ min-
istry the Son’s reign has already begun
(22:67–71).
Herod Antipas In Luke, the Sanhedrin can pro-
duce no witnesses and cannot support charges
of blasphemy. Its members bring Jesus to Pilate
strictly on political terms: The accused “sub-
verts” the Jewish nation, opposes paying taxes
to the Roman government, and claims to be
the Messiah, a political role. When Pilate, eager
to rid himself of this troublesome case, learns
that Jesus is a Galilean, and therefore under the
jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, he sends the
prisoner to be tried by Herod, who is in
Jerusalem for the Passover (23:6–12). Found
only in Luke, the Herod episode serves to rein-
force Luke’s picture of an innocent Jesus. Pilate
remarks that neither he nor Herod can fi nd
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224 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
fi nal farewell, but a preparation for what fol-
lows in Luke’s second volume, the Book of
Acts. Because Luke wishes to show that Jesus’
presence and power continue unabated in the
work of the early church, he describes Jesus’
last instructions in terms that directly relate to
the ongoing practices of the church. For Luke,
the disciples’ original experience of their risen
Lord is qualitatively the same spiritually renew-
ing experience that believers continue to enjoy
in their charismatic community. Even after as-
cending to heaven, Jesus remains present in
the church’s characteristic activities: sharing
sacramental meals, studying Scripture, and
feeding the poor.
In narrating Jesus’ fi rst appearance, on the
road to Emmaus (a few miles from Jerusalem),
Luke emphasizes the glorifi ed Lord’s relation-
ship to followers left behind on earth. The two
disciples, Cleopas and an unnamed companion
(perhaps a woman), who encounter Jesus do
not recognize him until they dine together.
Only in breaking bread—symbolic of the
Christian communion ritual—is Jesus’ living
presence discerned.
In Luke’s second post resurrection account,
the disciples are discussing Jesus when he sud-
denly appears in their midst, asking to be fed—
it has been more than three days since the Last
Supper, and he is hungry. The Lukan disciples’
offering Jesus a piece of cooked fi sh makes sev-
eral points: Their job is to care for the poor and
hungry whom Jesus had also served; they have
fellowship with Jesus in communal dining; and
they are assured that the fi gure standing before
them is real—he eats material food—and not a
hallucination. By insisting on Jesus’ physicality,
Luke also fi rmly links the heavenly Christ and
the human Jesus—they are one and the same.
Perhaps most important for Luke’s under-
standing of the way in which Jesus remains
alive and present is the author’s emphasis on
studying the Hebrew Bible in order to discover
the true signifi cance of Jesus’ career. At
Emmaus, Jesus explains “the passages which
referred to himself in every part of the scrip-
tures” (24:27), thus setting his listeners’
of God,” as in Mark and Matthew (Mark 15:39;
Matt. 27:54). The centurion’s remark refers not
to Jesus’ divinity, but to the political injustice of
his execution. “Beyond all doubt,” he says, “this
man was innocent” (23:47). This account of
Jesus’ death dramatizes two major Lukan
themes: Jesus, rather than being a sacrifi ce for
sin, is an example of compassion and forgive-
ness for all to emulate; he is also, like his follow-
ers, innocent of any crime against Rome.
Like Matthew, Luke generally follows
Mark’s order through Jesus’ burial and the
women’s discovery of the empty tomb.
Omitting any Matthean reference to supernat-
ural phenomena such as an Easter morning
earthquake or the appearance of an angel that
blinds the Roman guards, Luke diverges from
Mark only in that the women report what they
have seen to the Eleven, who do not believe
them (23:49–24:11). (No Gospel writer except
Mark has the women keep silent about their
observation.)
Epilogue: Post Resurrection
Appearances in the Vicinity
of Jerusalem
Because early editions of Mark contain no
resurrection narrative, it is not surprising
that Matthew and Luke, who generally ad-
here to Mark’s order through the discovery
of the empty sepulcher, differ widely in their
reports of Jesus’ post resurrection appear-
ances. Consistent with his emphasis on
Jerusalem, Luke omits the Markan tradition
that Jesus would reappear in Galilee (Mark
16:7; Matt. 28:7, 16–20) and places all the dis-
ciples’ experiences of the risen Jesus in or
near Jerusalem.
In concluding his Gospel, the author cre-
ates two detailed accounts of Jesus’ posthumous
teaching that serve to connect Jesus’ story with
that of the community of believers for whom
Luke writes. The risen Jesus’ words are not a
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c h a p t e r 9 l u k e ’ s p o r t r a i t o f j e s u s 225
Questions for Review
1. Describe some of Luke’s major themes and
concerns. How do parables that appear only in
Luke’s Gospel, such as Lazarus and the rich
man and the prodigal son, illustrate typically
Lukan ideas?
2. Describe the roles that women play in Luke’s
account. Which women, absent in Mark and
Matthew, appear in Luke’s version of Jesus’
ministry? What qualities of Jesus does their
presence elicit?
3. Evaluate the evidence for and against the tradi-
tion that Luke, Paul’s traveling companion,
wrote the Gospel bearing his name. Because
the author was aware that “many” other ac-
counts of Jesus’ life and work had already been
composed, why did he—who was not an eyewit-
ness to the events he describes—decide to write
a new Gospel? Does the fact that the writer
added the Book of Acts as a sequel to his Gospel
narrative suggest something about his purpose?
4. In the Greco-Roman world, historians and
biographers often composed long speeches to
illustrate their characters’ ideas, ethical quali-
ties, and responses to critical events. Do you
fi nd any evidence that Luke uses this method in
the Gospel and/or Acts?
5. Show some of the specifi c ways that Luke’s ver-
sion of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution refl ects
an awareness of the political realities with which
the Christian community had to deal. How
does Luke take pains to show that Jesus is inno-
cent of sedition against Rome?
Questions for Discussion and Refl ection
1. Much of the material that appears only in
Luke’s Gospel highlights Jesus’ concern for
women, the poor, and social outcasts. The par-
ables unique to his account—such as the prod-
igal son, the good Samaritan, and Lazarus and
the rich man—emphasize unexpected rever-
sals of society’s accepted norms. What view of
Jesus’ character and teaching do you think
Luke wishes to promote?
2. Compare Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount
(Matt. 5–7) with Luke’s similar Sermon on the
Plain (6:20–49). When Luke’s version of a say-
ing differs from Matthew’s, which of the two
do  you think is probably closer to Jesus’ own
“hearts on fi re” (24:32). In Jerusalem, he re-
peats these lessons in biblical exegesis, inter-
preting the Torah, Prophets, and Writings as
C hristological prophecies (24:44), an innova-
tive practice that enabled Christians to recog-
nize Jesus in the Mosaic revelation. Luke also
connects these post resurrection teachings
with the church’s task: Jesus’ death and resur-
rection, foretold in Scripture, are not history’s
fi nal act but the beginning of a worldwide
movement. The disciples are to remain to-
gether in Jerusalem until Jesus sends the
Holy Spirit, which will empower them to pro-
claim God’s new dispensation to “all nations”
(24:46–49; fulfi lled in Acts 1–2).
Summary
The author of the Gospel traditionally ascribed
to Luke, traveling companion of the apostle
Paul, wrote primarily for a Gentile audience.
His portrait of Jesus reveals a world s o– ter (savior
or deliverer), conceived by the Holy Spirit, who
launches a new era in God’s plan for human
salvation. As John the Baptist represents the
culmination of Israel’s role in the divine plan,
so Jesus—healing, teaching, and banishing
evil—inaugurates the reign of God, the “king-
dom,” among humanity.
Emphasizing God’s compassion and will-
ingness to forgive all, the Lukan Jesus provides
a powerful example for his followers to imitate
in service, charity, and good works. An ethical
model for Jews and Gentiles alike, Jesus estab-
lishes a Spirit-led movement that provides a
religion of salvation for all people. The
eschatological belief that the Son of Man would
return “soon” after his resurrection from the
dead is replaced with Luke’s concept of the dis-
ciples’ role in carrying on Jesus’ work “to the
ends of the earth,” a commission that extends
the time of the End indefi nitely into the future.
In the meantime, a law-abiding and peaceful
church will convey its message of a Savior for all
nations throughout the Roman Empire—and
beyond.
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226 p a r t t h r e e d i v e r s e p o r t r a i t s o f j e s u s
Simeon
Simon
theodicy
Theophilus
Terms and Concepts to Remember
Abraham
Annunciation
apocalypticisim
apology
Benedictus
Calvary
Elijah
Elizabeth and
Zechariah
Emmaus
Gabriel
“greater interpolation”
Issac
Joseph
“lesser interpolation”
Levite
L (Lukan) source
Luke
Magnifi cat
Martha
Mary
Nunc Dimittis
paradise
Pentecost
publican
Samaria
Samaritan
Sarah
Savior ( s o– ter )
Sermon on the Plain
words? Do the different versions of the same
saying—such as Jesus’ blessing of the poor—
also illustrate the individual Gospel writer’s
distinctive viewpoint?
3. Luke’s Gospel emphasizes such themes as
prayer, the activity of the Holy Spirit, the king-
dom’s reversal of normal expectations, the
rejection of wealth and other material ambi-
tions, Jesus’ compassion, and the divine joy in
human redemption. How do these themes
relate to the author’s belief that Jesus’ ministry
completes the purpose of Israel’s revelation and
begins a “new age” leading to the kingdom?
4. Luke consistently shows Jesus gravitating toward
economically and politically powerless persons,
including women, social outcasts, and the poor.
Do you think that the Lukan Jesus’ concern for
socially marginal and “unrespectable” people—
such as prostitutes, notorious sinners, and tax
collectors who collaborated with the “evil em-
pire” of Rome—is suffi ciently recognized or
honored by today’s political and religious lead-
ers? Can someone be a Christian and not follow
Jesus’ example of siding with the poor and
oppressed? Explain your answer.
5. In editing Mark’s prophecy of Jerusalem’s fall
and Jesus’ Second Coming, how does Luke
modify his predecessor’s emphasis on the near-
ness of End time? Are Luke’s changes to Mark’s
apocalyptic viewpoint consistent with his writing
a second book about the purpose and goals of
the early Christian church (the Book of Acts)?
Recommended Reading
Borgman, Paul C. The Way According to Luke: Hearing
the Whole Story of Luke-Acts. Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2006. Offers a competent literary analysis
of the two-volume work.
Carroll, John T. “Luke, Gospel of.” In K. D. Sakenfeld,
ed., The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 3,
pp. 720–734. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008.
Surveys questions of authorship, circumstances of
composition, theological issues, and recent history
of critical interpretation.
Fitzmyer, J. A., ed. The Gospel According to Luke, Vols.
1 and 2 of the Anchor Bible. Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1981, 1985.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. “Luke-Acts, Book of.” In
D.  N. Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary,
Vol. 4, pp. 403–420. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
A lucid analysis of Luke’s concept of divine justice
both to Israel and to the church.
Johnson, Luke Timothy, and Harrington, Daniel J.
The Gospel of Luke. Sacra Pagina Series. Collegeville,
Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2006. A scholarly com-
mentary.
Karris, Robert J. “The Gospel According to Luke.” In
R. E. Brown et al., eds., The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary, pp. 675–721. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1990. Provides detailed commen-
tary on Lukan accounts.
Patterson, Stephen. “Luke, Gospel According to.”
In M. D. Coogan, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia
of  the Books of the Bible , Vol. 1, pp. 587–600.
New  York: Oxford University, Press, 2011.
Offers clear discussion of the Gospel’s compo-
sitional history, sources, and current critical
interpretation.
Powell, M. A. What Are They Saying About Luke? New
York: Paulist Press, 1989. A good place to begin a
study of current scholarship on Luke’s Gospel.
Schaberg, Jane. “Luke.” In Carol Newsom and
Sharon Ringe, eds., Women’s Bible Commentary, pp.
363–380. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox,
1998. A thoughtful analysis of Luke’s treatment
of his women characters, concluding that despite
his sensitivity to their condition, he espouses typi-
cally Greco-Roman male attitudes.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. In Memory of Her: A
Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian
Origins. New York: Crossroads/Herder & Herder,
1983 (reprint 1994). An important contribution
to understanding women’s roles in the formation
of early Christianity.
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Smyth & Helwys, 2002. An informative study of
Luke’s historical sweep.
Tannehill, Robert. Abingdon New Testament Commen-
tary: Luke. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996. Offers
helpful historical/cultural context for Luke’s
writings.
Shillington, V. George. An Introduction to the Study of
Luke-Acts. Edinburgh: T and T Clark International,
2007. A concise survey of different critical ap-
proaches to studying Luke’s narratives.
Talbert, Charles H. Reading Luke: A Literary and
Theological Commentary, rev. ed. Macon, Ga.:
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