On Line Bible Study - For the week December 1 - 7, 2008.

For the week December 1 – 7, 2008

Mark 1: ⁴⁰A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."

⁴¹Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" ⁴²Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

⁴³Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: ⁴⁴"See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." ⁴⁵Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

As the first chapter of Mark’s gospel comes to a conclusion we are faced with one of the more interesting textual challenges in the Bible. There are several guidelines for those who translate the Scriptures:

1. What is the extent and the reliability of the available manuscripts to support one translation over another?

2. When there are disagreements between reliable manuscripts, the more difficult (or unlikely) phrase is given extra weight, assuming that the only reason it would have been recorded as such in the first place is that the more difficult saying was what was actually said.

What makes this story in Mark such a challenge is that the more extensive manuscripts have one word; the smaller number of manuscripts have a different word - the more difficult language.

Mark 1:41 reads: “Filled with compassion . . .” That is how the New International Bible translates the verse. But Today’s New International Version translates the same verse as follows:

“Jesus was indignant . . .” It is difficult to imagine Jesus being “indignant”, or “angry” with a person who comes asking to be made clean. Why would any manuscript have recorded the scene that way?

And the plot thickens. Notice verse 43: Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning. That’s how the NIV translates it. But in his commentary on the Gospel of Mark, Daniel Harrington translates the verse this way: And with a deep groan, Jesus immediately dismissed him.

“Groan” – or “strong warning”? The Greek literally means “snorting” or “growling”. It is used with relation to exorcisms or “casting out”. Why would Jesus “cast out” this man who he had just cleansed?

Ponder this: If you chose the translation saying Jesus was indignant, how would you translate verse 43? Would Jesus give the man a “strong warning”, or might he be more apt to groan as if to cast the man away? In your mind’s eye, do you see Jesus in this setting as “compassionate” or “indignant”? Why might he be one or the other?

What might there have been in Jesus’ behavior that would cause one person to think of him as compassionate, and another person to think of him as indignant?

I’m leaving us with more questions than answers this week. This is a prelude to what is to come in this gospel. We will continually discover in Mark things that are unsettling. This presentation of Jesus is “in the rough”. It’s quick, and filled with mystery. It doesn’t provide easy answers; rather, Mark lays open the hard questions – about life, about God, about ourselves. It is difficult to read the Gospel of Mark and not soon come to the realization that we are going to have to make some decisions! Jesus’ words in Mark 1:15 keep bearing down on us – Repent! -- That is, we are going to have to turn around rather dramatically if we are going to catch up – and keep up – with this Jesus!

We will say a bit more about this next week as we wrap up this first chapter and head into the second.