Mark and Mission: Mk 7:1-23 in Its Narrative and Historical Contexts

TLDR: In this paper, it is argued that the mainstream interpretation of the cardinal saying (Mk 7:15/Mt 15:11) can no longer be maintained, and a combination of both text-internal and text-external methods (biblical exegesis, rabbinics, patristics and belles lettres) are used to further understand both the literary and historical contexts of the pericope.

Abstract: Few passages in the New Testament Gospels can compete with Mk 7:1-23 when it comes to the history of influence in biblical scholarship. Generations of scholars have turned to this pericope in order to find the message of the historical Jesus, the theology of early Christianity or even the essence of Christianity. In this thesis it is argued that the mainstream interpretation of the cardinal saying (Mk 7:15/Mt 15:11) can no longer be maintained. Whereas Mk 7:1-23 has played an important role both in the quest for the historical Jesus and in literary critical studies on Mk, few scholars have studied the interaction between the two. This investigation is a combination of both text-internal and text-external methods (biblical exegesis, rabbinics, patristics and belles lettres), and seeks to further a better understanding of both the literary and historical contexts of the pericope. The four main sections of the book survey respectively (1) the interpretation of the pericope in New Testament scholarship during the last century (with focus on narrative criticism and the third quest), (2) the effect the pericope had on life in early Christianity (from earliest times to John Chrysostom), (3) the role that the pericope plays in Mk (being the first known narrative presentation of Jesus of Nazareth), and (4) the place of food laws in first-century Judaism and the emergence of a distinct metaphor in Jewish paraenetic literature which, it is argued, is instrumental in interpreting the cardinal saying in Mk 7:15/Mt 15:11.