Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.4
d. Purity
The Character ofDiscipleship
In the second half of the same sequence the subject returns to the issue of purity
— Mark7.14-23/Matt. 15.10-20: 130
Matt. 15.10-20
10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to
them, 'Listen and understand:
11 it is not what goes into the
mouth that defiles a person, but it is what
comes out of the mouth that defiles a person'. 12
Then the disciples
approached and said to him, 'Do you know that
the Pharisees took offence when they heard what
you said?' 13 He answered,'Every plant that my
heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.
14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the
blind. And if one blind person guides another,
both will fall into a pit'. 15 But Peter said to
him, 'Explain this parable to us'. 16 Then he
said, 'Do you also still fail to
understand? 17 Do you not see that whatever
goes into the mouth
enters the
stomach, and is expelled into the sewer?
18 But
what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the
heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For it is from
the heart come evil intentions,
murder, adultery, fornication, theft,
false witness,
slander.
20 These are what defile a person, but to
eat with unwashed hands does not defile'.
Mark 7.14-23
14 Then he called the crowd again and said to
them, 'Listen to me, all of you, and understand:
15 there is nothing from outside a person that by
going into him can defile him, but the things that
come out from a person are what defile a person'.
17 When he had left the crowd and entered the
house,
his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He
said to them, 'Then do you also fail to
understand? Do you not see that whatever goes
into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19
since it enters, not into the heart but into the
stomach, and goes out into the sewer?' (Thus he
declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, 'It is
what comes out of a person
that defiles the person. 21 For it is from
within, from the human heart, that intentions
come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery,
avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy,
slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things
come from within, and they defile a person'.
Freedom in handling the tradition is clear enough in Matthew's insertion of some
Q (and other) material (Matt. 15.13-14/Luke 6.39), and the free use of vice catalogues
in Mark 7.21-22/Matt. 15.19. 131 But the greatest interest for us here is the
subtle way Matthew has edited the key point of the pericope. For he restates the
teaching by omitting key words and phrases in Mark's account (7.15, 18-19, 21,
23 — in bold above). These are precisely the points which make it clear that
change the law for the 'smooth things' (bhlqot) which they teach (1QH 12[= 4].10-11)
(Westerholm, Jesus 18-19).
130. Matthew makes a point of tying the whole sequence together by adding at the end:
'but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person' (15.20). In what follows I draw on my
earlier study 'Jesus and Ritual Purity: A Study of the Tradition-History of Mark 7.15', A cause
de l'evangile, J. Dupont FS (LD 123; Saint-Andre: Cerf, 1985) 251-76, reprinted in my Jesus,
Paul and the Law (London: SPCK, 1990) 37-60.
131. For documentation and bibliography on vice-lists see my Theology ofPaul 662-63.
573