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Joseph Francis Alward
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In the book of Luke,
the writer tells us that Mary knows that Jesus is the son of God, but the
writer of the book of Mark makes it clear that Mary does not know Jesus
is God, because she thinks her son is a misguided nutcase who needs to be taken
care of. Either the first writer was mistaken, or the second one was, or both
were; whichever is the case, the Bible is in error.
Here are the
relevant verses:
Luke 1:26-35
In the sixth
month, God sent the angel to...a virgin [named] Mary...and said, "Do not
be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God....You will be with child and
give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus...the holy one to
be born will be called the Son of God.
Mark 3:14-21
He appointed
twelve--designating them apostles--that they might be with him and that he
might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons....When
his family [Jesus’ mother and brothers1] heard about this, they
went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."
(Mark 3:14-21)
Abandon Family to
Serve God
One of the more
important themes of Mark’s gospel is the need to abandon family to serve the
Lord. This teaching is articulated in Luke 14:26, where the writer has Jesus
tell his followers,
If anyone
comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his
brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. (Luke
14:26)
The first example of
abandonment of family is found in Mark 1:19, where at Jesus’ invitation, John
and James suddenly leave their father Zebedee to become his disciples. The next
occurs when Jesus family arrives at the house in Mark 3:31-35 to take charge of
him; rather than going outside to greet them, or inviting them inside, Jesus
instead explains that his real family are his followers inside the house with
him, the ones who do God’s will, not his unbelieving mother and brothers
outside. With this act, Mark has Jesus practicing what Luke said Jesus
preached: abandonment of family in order to serve God. Now we can better
understand why Mark had Jesus’ mother and brothers reject Jesus' divinity
earlier in Mark 3:21: It made it easier for the readers to accept Jesus’
rejection of his family waiting for him outside the house.
Rejection of Jesus
by Those Who Knew Him Best
Rejection of Jesus
by those who knew him best is another important theme in Mark’s gospel. It
occurs first with his mother and brothers, who declared him “out of his mind,”
and again three chapters later, when Jesus is rejected by the folks from his
hometown. There, the townspeople mock him as a simple “carpenter” who pretends
he can work miracles. (Mark 6:1-4) It occurs once again, of course, when one of
Jesus’ disciples--someone who obviously doesn’t believe he’s the son of
God--betrays him.
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1.
“Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived.” (Mark 3:31)
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Notes added later:
Let me
summarize my argument that Mark’s view of Jesus and his mother is different
than Luke’s:
1. Luke begins his
stories about Jesus by telling us that the virgin Mary was visited by God’s
angel, Gabriel, who told her she would give birth to the son of God (Luke
1:34-35).
2. Mark begins his
stories with an adult Jesus, and never has anything to say about Jesus’ birth.
If he knew that Mary was told by God’s angel that Jesus was the son of God, he
said nothing about it.
3. One of Mark’s
themes is the abandonment of job and family to serve God. Jesus enticed two
separate sets of brothers away from their families, and later set the example
for others to follow, by himself abandoning his mother and brother. These
events are recounted below:
The fishermen Simon
and Andrew left their trade and, presumably, their family, to follow Jesus
(Mark 1:16-18).
Later, James and
John did the same thing, leaving their father behind (Mark 1:19-20).
After his mother and
brothers had said that he was “out of his mind,” and appeared outside a house
to “take charge of him (Mark 3:21),” Mark does not have Jesus invite her
inside, nor does Mark have Jesus go outside to greet her. Instead, Mark has Jesus
makes it clear to his followers inside the house that he does not regard the
woman outside as his mother. He explains to his followers what his definition
of a “mother” is: A “mother” is whoever does the will of God, (Mark 3:31-35),
with the clear implication being that one who didn’t recognize Jesus as the son
of God was obviously not in tune with the will of God.
Thus, Jesus
effectively abandons his mother to serve God, thereby setting the example for
the readers of Mark’s gospel to follow should their families, too, not believe
that Jesus was the son of God. Thus, almost two thousand years before the
practice of shunning of unbelieving family members was put into practice by
Jehovah's Witnesses, the precedence for this behavior was established by Jesus
himself.
4. Mark loves to use
irony in telling his stories about Jesus. One of his ironies is the rejection
of Jesus by those who knew him best. Surely, readers would expect that those
closest to Jesus would be the first to recognize his divinity, but that was the
opposite of what Mark has happen; therein lies the irony.
The first instance
of rejection by those who knew him best is the one just described, in which
Jesus’ mother and brothers declared him to be out of his mind and in need of care.
It is obvious that if they knew he was God’s son, then they would have deferred
to him Jesus. It is virtually
absolutely clear that--according to Mark--Jesus’ mother and his brothers could not
have known that he was the son of God. Mark’s readers knew about God saying
that Jesus was his son (Mark 1:11), but his mother didn’t. More irony.
The failure of
Mark’s Mary to recognize that Jesus was the son of God is totally at odds with
Luke’s Mary, who knew even before Jesus’ birth that he was the son of God
because God’s angel told her so. Thus, either Mark’s “Mary” is the false Mary,
or else Luke’s is, or perhaps both are false Mary’s. Either way, the Bible is
in error.
The next instance of
rejection of Jesus by those who knew him best occurred in his hometown, where
he was ridiculed by those who referred to him as a common carpenter, and one
whose mother, sisters and brothers were ordinary townsfolk (Mark 6:3). How
could a god be related to mortal and quite ordinary common folk? Mark’s readers
knew that Jesus was God, but the people who rubbed shoulders with Jesus did not
know. More irony.
The final rejection
of Jesus by one of those who knew him best is the one best known to readers:
Judas, who dipped his bread into the same bowl as Jesus did (Mark 14:18-20),
betrayed him to the Romans.
Other irony by Mark
include his tongue-in-cheek naming of the man chosen by the crowd: As it was
customary at Feast time for a prisoner to be released, Mark had Pilate give the
crowd a chance to release Jesus, who the readers know is the son of the Father
in Heaven, but instead they choose to have released another man whose name
means, “the son of the father”--Barabbas (Mark 15:1-15). Mark just loved
inventing incidents which dripped with irony. But it was irony which he hoped
would serve him well: the message to the readers of his gospel was, Don’t you
be as foolish as those in the crowd.
Yet another
contrived irony occurs when the mocking soldiers pretend to crown a “king” by
putting a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head, and calling him “king of the Jews.”
Little did the foolish soldiers know that they actually were crowning
the greatest king of all time.
More notes:
It is very interesting that Mark has Jesus try to
hide his divinity, but the reason for this is less Mark's tendency to embellish
his stories with irony, and more for his need to have the readers believe that
Jesus determined that his life live out that life which Mark believed was
preordained for the savior written about in the scriptures. Repeatedly we find Mark having Jesus refer
to those things which were "written" about what would happen to the
son of God. When Mark has Jesus try to
keep his identity a secret (cautioning those he healed to tell no one), Mark is
having Jesus make sure that those who would reject him and kill him would have
the opportunity to do so: if they found
out he was God, they would love him, not kill him. But, that wasn't supposed to happen, according to Mark's view of
the scriptures. Thus, Mark has Jesus
talk in parables so that people who otherwise would be saved by his
words of salvation, would not be saved (Mark 4:12). That's a pretty bizarre theology, but evidently Mark believed
that God wanted some folks not to accept the word of God, so that they might
perish.