Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.4 The Character of Discipleship
is necessary only to cite Mark 7.1-8, again followed by Matthew in an abbreviated
version (Matt. 15.1-3):
!The Pharisees gathered together to him and some of the scribes come from
Jerusalem. 2 They saw that some of his (Jesus') disciples ate with hands defiled
(koinais), that is, unwashed. 3 For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not
eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and
when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they purify
themselves; and there are many other (traditions) which they have received
to observe, washings of cups and pots and bronze vessels. 5 And the Pharisees
and the scribes asked him: 'Why do your disciples not conduct themselves in
accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with hands defiled
(koinais) ?' 6 But he said, 'Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is
written, "This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from
me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men"
(Isa. 29.13 LXX). 8You leave the commandment of God, and observe the tradition
of men'.
Mark has obviously inherited an account which captures much authentic detail
from the period: it speaks of hands as 'defiled', where the word in Greek (koinos
- 'common') reflects the uniquely Jewish sense of 'profane, unclean, defiled'; 123
and again the account reflects the importance in Pharisaic circles of 'the tradition
(pamdosis) of the elders', faithfully handed down (paralambanö) to be observed
by succeeding generations. For his part Mark, or already the version which came
to him, has made efforts to clarify the potential confusion of koinos, by translating
it to give the Greek its Jewish sense ('that is, "unwashed"'), and by adding
the exaggerated ('all the Jews'?) explanation of vv. 3-4. 124 Here again Sanders
doubts whether Pharisaic concern for purity of hands had developed so far before
70 CE and thus questions the historical veracity of the report. 125 But once again
123. The special sense is given because koinos was used as equivalent to the biblical
tame'(e.g., Lev. 11.4-8; Deut. 14.7-10; Judg. 13.4; Hos. 9.3) or hoi (Lev. 10.10; Ezek. 22.26;
44.23). The step was taken subsequent to the LXX rendering of the Hebrew Bible but was established
in the Maccabean crisis (1 Mace. 1.47, 62; note also Josephus, Ant. 11.346) and is
well attested in relation to eating food by the mid-first century CE by Rom. 14.14 and Acts
10.14; 11.8, as well as by Mark 7.2, 5.
124. The fact that Mark cites the LXX of Isa. 29.13 need not mean that the episode was
first created in the Greek but only that when the episode was put into Greek the story-teller (not
unnaturally) used the LXX version of the quotation. The last line of the Hebrew ('their fear of
me is a commandment of men learned by rote') would have made Jesus' point equally well (see
also Pesch, Markusevangelium 1.372-73). Col. 2.22 looks like an echo of Mark 7.7/Matt. 15.9
(see my Colossians and Philemon 193).
125. Jesus and Judaism 185-86, 264-65. The argument is again weakened by Sanders's
resort to sarcasm: 'nor is it credible that scribes and Pharisees made a special trip to Galilee
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