(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) (1) And he went in again into the synagogue. And a man was there having the hand withered. (2) And they were watching him, whether on the Sabbaths he would heal him, so that they might accuse him. (3) And he says the man with the withered hand, Arise into the midst. (4) And he says them, Is it authorized on the Sabbaths do or do evil, save or kill? But they were silent. (5) And looking around at them with anger, ... at the hardness of their heart, he says the man, Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. (6) And going out the Pharisees immediately gave counsel with the Herodians against him, how destroy him. (Mark 3:1-6; my literal translation)1 Traditional preaching typically presents Mark 3:1-6-probably the first extant Sabbath story-as articulating conflict between a new religion of grace and freedom (Christianity) and an old religion of hide-bound legalisms (proto-Judaism). Modern critical scholarship largely treats it in a similarly antinomian and supersessionist fashion, leaving unresolved a host of exegetical issues, including (a) the meaning of the withered hand; (b) the insistence on an ostensibly chronic, nonlethal affliction on the Sabbath; (c) the escalation, in Jesus' central challenge, of the classic choice between life and death (cf. Deut 30:15-19) one between saving and (especially perplexing in view of the ailment ostensibly at issue), and of that between good and evil one between or evil (especially provocative in a Sabbath context, where choices are conventionally framed in terms of doing versus doing); (d) the adveraries' silent response a provocation that is so clearly counterattack (see, e.g., Luke 13:14); and (e) numerous peculiarities in Mark's Greek usage not easily explainable as Semitism, Latinism or other interlanguage phenomena-especially the odd reference Jesus as a co-aggrieved party. A study of the passage's intertextuality provides cogent answers all these questions. It reveals two distinct but interwoven strands of allusion the Septuagint (LXX) version of Hebrew Scripture. The healing narrative's echoes of Exodus 14 suggest that it is be read as a haggadic midrash (or narrative riff ) on the story of the Reed Sea crossing, with the extended hand evoking the parting and subsequent restoration of the sea's waters. Depending on their response this challenge, participants (and listeners) align themselves typologically either as Israelites, moving toward liberation, or as Pharaonic retainers, fighting maintain an oppressive status quo. An explanation for this typology emerges from a second strand of echoic allusions, woven into the controversy portion of the story. Referencing halakic (legalparenetic) material in the book of Deuteronomy, these allusions imply a choice for or against covenant fidelity, cast as a decision to save or kill. The story's Sabbath theme points toward Deuteronomy's Sabbath-year release provisions (15:1-15) as the key issue. The withered hand embodies covenant curses invoked against those refusing open [their] hands in liberal lending, instead killing the poor by freezing credit in view of an impending sabbatical debt amnesty. Conversely, the command stretch out the hand challenges addressees act so as reclaim the blessings promised those who practice covenantal justice. Unlike conventional anti-Judaic or antinomian interpretations, this reading shows Mark's Jesus advocating comparatively stringent observance of Jewish sabbatarian halakah-at least where provisions meant vouchsafe the life-and-death economic interests of the poor are concerned. I shall argue that Mark's techniques for elaborating these themes involve the sorts of echoic intertextuality identified in the Pauline corpus by Richard B. …
Read full abstract
Dec 6, 2012
Geoffrey Turner 
Open Access