Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.7 The Character of Discipleship
mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, looking for you'. 33And he
replied, 'Who are my mother and my brothers?' 34 And looking around at
those who sat in a circle round him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my
brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God, that one is my brother and sister
and mother'.
It is clear that Mark has deliberately heightened the contrast between
those sitting round Jesus and his family. He opens the story with the account of
'those connected with him (hoi par' autou)' 22S concerned at Jesus' mental
stability (3.20-21). 22 9 At that point he inserts his sequence of Jesus in controversy
regarding his exorcisms (3.22-30), 230 thus associating the concerns of
Jesus' family with the outright opposition of the scribes down from Jerusalem
(3.22). The implication is that his family's fear concerning Jesus' mental stability
is similar to the accusation that Jesus is an agent of Beelzebul (3.22) and
causes them to seek to withdraw him from the public. 231 As already observed
earlier, Mark also heightens the contrast by repeating the description of his
family as 'outside (exö)' (3.31-32). Matthew and Luke both soften the contrast
by omitting 3.20-21, abandoning the Markan sandwich, and omitting one of
the exös. 232
Even when Mark's colouring of the episode has been discounted, however,
a disturbing scene remains. But does it amount to Jesus' disowning his family? If
Mark is right, their motivating concern was lest he was mentally disturbed, possibly
acting as a deranged false prophet. 233 In that situation, Jesus' implied re-
228. Hoi para tinos denotes those closely connected with a person and so can mean
'family, relatives' (BAGD/BDAG para A3b; Taylor, Mark 236; Marcus, Mark 1.270); the problem
is that no suitable single word for 'family' was available to Mark. That Mark intended to
refer to Jesus' family is put beyond reasonable doubt by the sequel in 3.31-35.
229. Hamerton-Kelly argues for the translation 'And when those who were with him
heard this [i.e., that the crowd was so thick that he had no chance to eat] they went out to restrain
it [the crowd], for they said, it is out of control' (God the Father 64-65); but while that
reading works with krateö ('restrain'), it is hardly plausible to refer exeste to the crowd ('it is
out of its mind'); 'out of control' is a highly tendentious rendering.
230. This is an example of the well-known feature of the Markan sandwich, where other
material is inserted between the two halves of the one story (as in Mark 5.21-43 and 11.12-25).
231. Barton, Discipleship 75.
232. Osiek and Balch think Luke has the most radical critique of marriage, though the
suggestion that the tax collectors at Levi's feast are 'potentially a new fictive family' pushes too
hard (Families 136-37), since Luke goes out of his way to portray Jesus dining with various
people, including Pharisees (n. 256 below). But the beatitude of Luke 1121-2%/GTh 79 closely
parallels Mark 3.33-35.
233. Existemi usually denotes extreme mental perturbation (e.g., Gen. 27.33; 42.28;
Exod. 19.18; 1 Sam. 13.7; Isa. 7.2; 13.8; 33.3; Ezek. 26.16, the LXX translating various Hebrew
terms; see HR). But Isa. 28.7 uses it to describe priest and prophet reeling from strong
595