Who was “hungry”, the disciples or Jesus? (Separationism, again)

[Giuseppe]

In Mark 2 there is no apparent mention of the why the disciples "began to pick some heads of grain", differently from Matthew 12:1 (“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them”):

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
25 He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

I think that Matthew was correcting a version of Mark (call it proto-Mark) where Jesus was hungry, and not, or not only, the his disciples. This is expected by proto-Mark, insofar in proto-Mark there is in action a demiurgist and separationist christology, basically the Cerinthus ideology: the mere man Jesus, being a mere man, suffered the need of any human being. Just as David. But the “Son of Man”, a cryptical allusion to the spiritual Christ possessing the mere man Jesus, was “Lord even of the Sabbath”, i.e. he was more powerful than the demiurge.

hence, while Mark (editor) omitted the reference to Jesus being hungry, Matthew specified that the disciples were hungry, not Jesus. Too much emphasis and/or embarrassment is betrayed, here.

[Martin Klatt]

. . .

[Giuseppe]

The picking of the heads of grain is in itself enough indication that the disciples were hungry or at least peckish. The false analogy Jesus makes to David who makes a bid for the bread of presentation from the priest is then a better argument for your notion. David is deceiving the priest telling him he needs the bread to feed his soldiers who are nearby, and tells him he is on a secret mission for king Saul, but there are no companions and he is not on mission but alone fleeing for Saul's wrath. So David was in fact the hungry one. By analogy then Jesus could be the hungry one too, but foremost he is a deceiver like David was because he tells the story wrong.

Perfect. I agree fully.

And I think that Mark was moved to show Jesus (or better, the Christ possessing him) as de facto a liar, to parody the Jewish-Christian accusation in Revelation 3:9:

...the synagogue of Satan, which say that they be Jews, and be not, but lie

[Martin Klatt]

. . .

[Giuseppe]

Interesting you seem to think Jesus was possessed by Christ and next you move to a synagogue of Satan. What a coincidence with the following:

If you look carefully at Mark 1:10-13 you will notice Jesus was first invaded by τὸ πνεῦμα, meaning the spirit, not necessarily a holy spirit.

better: not necessarily the spirit of YHWH.

Now this mention of Satan comes out of the blue without any introduction or explanation. I put it to you that Mark here identified the spirit that possessed Jesus. It's the most logical explanation of those lines in Mark we looked at.

Here I agree only partially. Also the Baptism of Jesus by John comes out of the blue without any apology in our current Mark. Hence I think that the potential embarrassment of the reader was already sanitized in advance by the reader's knowledge of the apology for a Jesus baptized by John being found in later gospels. In other terms, the baptism episode was totally absent in proto-Mark, while there was only the John's prophecy about the imminent coming of one more strong than him.

Hence the original incipit of proto-Mark is the following :

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Note that the internal evidence for Jesus coming immediately after the arrest of John (and not before it) is in the Parable of the Strong Man, where the "Strong Man" is precisely John the Baptist:

22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

23 So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. 28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

30 He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”

the sense is: only after the arrest of John the Baptist, the unknown Son of Father can descend on the earth. Not before because otherwise this would mean that the Jesus and John adore the same god, which is precisely the point denied by the Parable, since:

• Jesus is the Son of the Good God;

• John adores YHWH.

Hence Satan is just... ..YHWH.

[Martin Klatt]

. . .

[Giuseppe]

There is a baptism of Jesus in Mark because it is crucial to the plot.

where is the apology for it? The reader knows already it from later Gospels.


The Transfiguration is the celestial Crucifixion, with Moses and Elijiah allegory of the two crucified thieves.

[Martin Klatt]

. . .

[Giuseppe]

I would like a more transparent "Mark" than the Mark so much loved for the his irony only-for-insiders. Yourself are assuming that the presumed embarrassment for a Jesus baptized in our Mark has to be debtly neutralized in advance by some implicit irony in the episode. Excuse me if my only "sin" here is not to see this presumed irony or remedy in our Mark.

In reward, I see a beautiful irony in the Parable of the Strong Man: if Jesus is allied with the Strong Man and he is even baptized by the Strong Man, not only he is not "more strong than" the Strong Man (hence how can he be predicted by the Strong Man?), but he would adore the same god adored by the Strong Man, too. The same god adored by the scribes who accuse Jesus of satanism. When really those scribes adore Satan.

I like a lot this exegesis.