. . . birds came along and devoured it . . . it withered away . . . it yielded no grain . . .”
-Mark 4:4, 6, 7.

Parables are usually connected to a scripture text or several of them. They often explain something puzzling about God and his relation to his people, or something unstated or mysterious in a text.

Yeshua understood a startling truth found in Isaiah 6, one that naturally leads any thoughtful reader to ask questions. Modern readers of the Sower parable (Mk 4; Mt 13; Lk 8) tend not to realize that the parable is commenting on a text. The text is Isaiah 6. It is not a randomly chosen or obscure passage. It is the chapter in which Isaiah saw God’s Throne above with his kingly robes coming down and filling the Temple (Isa 6:1). It is the “holy, holy, holy” passage with the Seraphim (the burning ones). It is the commission of the prophet Isaiah.

Yeshua, prophet and Messiah, has a mission which can be compared to Isaiah’s. Yet the puzzling thing about Isaiah’s commission is that he was sent to tell the people about God’s desire for them in that moment in history and yet his words would paradoxically cause greater judgment. God said to Isaiah:

Go, say to that people: ‘Hear, indeed, but do not understand; see, indeed, but do not grasp.’ Dull that people’s mind, stop its ears, and seal its eyes — lest, seeing with its eyes and hearing with its ears, it also grasp with its mind, and repent and save itself.
-Isaiah 6:9-10, JPS.

These words are so surprising, so ironic, many readers need to give them multiple readings to understand what they are saying.

Isaiah was a kingdom prophet. Yeshua was a kingdom prophet. The kingdom is God’s rule over his people and all the cosmos. Isn’t telling people about the kingdom good news? On the contrary, in many cases it is bad news. The simple in understanding think that true instruction will be easily recognized and that great promises will be believed and acted upon.

The easiest criticism of Yeshua is that his message was so little heeded. If he was Messiah, or even a true prophet, why didn’t he bring about the renewal of Israel? Why wasn’t the earth redeemed? Why didn’t the world to come start in his day? Where is the messianic redemption with all the promises of every person under their vine and fig tree?

Parables, according to the early rabbis in the land of Israel, were especially founded in Israel as a way of teaching by Solomon (see Song of Songs Rabbah, first chapter). They interpreted Mishlei (Proverbs) and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) as illustrations of Torah truths. They saw Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs/Solomon) as figures of God’s dealings with Israel at the Exodus and Sinai. The figure or simile or parable (mashal) explains something about a scripture text.

The Sower parable is about good news that is bad news. It explains first and foremost how a true prophet (Isaiah, Yeshua) can speak what is good and yet he will not be heard. It explains how a generation can be so close to devastation (Isaiah’s in the Assyrian and Babylonian crises and Yeshua’s in the coming war with Rome) even though the kingdom is proclaimed. It explains how disciple circles can form and preserve the teaching for the future.

Isaiah’s words did not prevent Israel and Judah from collapsing, nor did Yeshua’s. But Isaiah’s words and Yeshua’s words did lead to the formation of disciple circles. They were passed down generation to generation.

The Sower parable is rich. To begin to understand it, realize it is a commentary on Isaiah 6. Realize first that it is about our human tendency not to receive the message. It is not our responsibility to bring the messianic era. The king will bring the kingdom. But he who has ears to hear will understand why it is delayed. We bear fruit while we wait.

If you would like to follow this series, here is Part 1.

Lamb of God #2

One of the two weirdest (there is one that is even weirder) is Matthew 2:15. Is Matthew able to read and understand the Hebrew Bible? Is he guilty of a strange and arbitrary reading simply to justify his belief in Yeshua of Nazareth? Of course the author of Matthew knows what he is doing. It is the modern reader who must make the adjustment into the world of midrashic use of scripture. Midrash is a kind of teaching using the scriptures in a homiletic manner (a sermon, a talk on a religious or moral subject). Midrash is interested in going beyond the plain meaning — but it is not intended to replace the plain meaning. Midrash is looking for something hinted at. And Midrash always has a justification. It is never arbitrary. It is always based on some technical detail about the words, grammar, or interconnections between the verse in question and other verses on the same theme.

One aspect of the art of midrash is to say something that seems a tad outrageous. But on closer investigation the outrageous statement can be justified and also can be shown relevant. The sages and rabbis of old loved to discuss halakhah (detailed investigations of categories and practices for keeping the commandments of Torah). But the public preferred to hear from them midrashes — sermons and parables with moral, theological, and narrative interest.

So, let’s look at the great midrash of Matthew on Hosea 11:1 and learn as students.

Matthew’s citation of Hosea 11:1 is much closer to the Hebrew than the Greek translation (LXX, Septuagint). The Hebrew text of Hosea 11:1 rendered in as literal a form as possible looks something like this:
When a youth [was] Israel, I loved him; and out of Egypt I called my son.
The LXX has: out of Egypt have I called his children.
Matthew has: out of Egypt I called my son.

Although Matthew wrote in Greek, his midrash on Hosea depended on the Hebrew text (or if not, a Greek text that was based on the proto-Masoretic text).

It is quickly obvious if you look up Hosea 11:1 that the verse is not about Messiah, but about Israel. Vs.2 says, “As they [prophets] called to them they went away from them; to the Baals they would sacrifice and to images they would burn offerings.” (Note: Most modern translations deviate from the Masoretic text, but I am not persuaded of their reasons regarding this verse and so offer my own translation based on the Delitzsch commentary).

What facts of the situation did Matthew have in front of him that led to this connection between Yeshua the son and Israel the son?

First, Matthew had the gospel accounts from eyewitnesses that the heavenly voice twice called Yeshua “son,” once at the baptism and once at the transfiguration. Second, he had the unusual manner of Yeshua’s speaking, which was frequent, about his Father. The sonship of Yeshua was a major theme of Yeshua’s teaching and God was “Abba” to him. Third, he knew the deep theme of Israel’s sonship in the Hebrew Bible. In Deuteronomy 32 (a key chapter), Israel is the son who disappointed God who gave him birth. In the Exodus tradition, God said to Pharaoh, “Let my son go” (Exod 4:23). God promised to be a father the Davidic king (Messiah) who would be a son to him. In the Psalms about the Davidic king (Messiah) the king is called son and it is even said, “you are my son; today I have begotten you” (Psa 2:7).

Matthew is saying that Yeshua is the son like Israel is the son and like the Davidic-messianic king is the son. He is defining the meaning of Yeshua’s sonship. The specific event that brought this comparison to mind is Yeshua’s family coming back into Galilee out of Egypt, where they had been hiding from Herod.

Comparisons between contemporary events and ancient biblical events were a poetic Hebrew way of thinking. A similar famous text is also used in this section about Rachel weeping for her children. The event that inspired Jeremiah the prophet to speak of Rachel weeping was when exiles to Babylon, terribly treated Judeans being taken away from everything they held dear, passing nearby the place where Genesis had indicated Rachel was buried. It was not unusual for Jeremiah to relate geography — the place Rachel was buried — to events in his time — exiles being tragically marched away.

The problem a modern reader has is simple: we look for the plain meaning, the literal. We tend to be bothered by poetic, symbolic, homiletical connections. If Matthew doesn’t have a prophecy-fulfillment connection to Hosea 11:1, how dare he cite the verse!

But Matthew has done something much deeper. He has related Yeshua (not only here, but in dozens of places) firmly to the sonship of Israel and the sonship of the Davidic-messianic kings.

In Matthew’s day, the movement of Yeshua-followers was expanding. Certain elements already wanted to remove Yeshua in some ways from his Jewish context. Matthew famously represents the interest of keeping the image of Yeshua within a Jewish framework. Yeshua is Ideal Israel and Yeshua is the New Moses. The midrash on Hosea 11:1 is a masterful example of the art of teaching Yeshua’s life from within Jewish thought.

And another of my pointers, which forms the basis for this post: “Understand the genre of parables in rabbinic literature.” And the golden text for learning about this subject: David Stern, Parables in Midrash (note: this is not the David Stern who is famous in the Messianic Jewish community, but the Professor of Classical Hebrew Literature at the University of Pennsylvania).

WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN RABBINIC PARABLES AND YESHUA’S?
This is a tricky question that needs to be addressed. Rabbinic parables started being written down in the fourth century in the land of Israel. That’s quite a long time after Yeshua. Some books and studies have unwisely blurred the lines between the first and fourth century.

Stern sums it up simply: “They were both part of a single genre” (188). This conclusion is based on the work of David Flusser (a scholar whose work, in my opinion, has flaws, but on this specific issue he must have made his point well) who demonstrated that literary characteristics of rabbinic parables have much in common with parables in the gospels.

People were telling parables already before Yeshua’s time and the genre continued with much similarity for hundreds of years.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF PARABLES IN RABBINIC WRITINGS?
Rabbinical parables in most cases originated “in public contexts (sermons or preaching), and as an instrument for praise or blame, often directed at persons in the audience” (200). They “tend to be phrased in terms of praise or blame, or as a variation upon these opposites: approbation or disapproval, appreciation or disappointment, pleasure or pain” (52).

Among the purposes mentioned by Stern for parables are apologetics (defending the idea of faith against ideas that undermine it) and polemics (urging a point of view in opposition to others).

WHAT PARABLES ARE NOT
They are not primarily about doctrine. They may reflect on doctrinal themes. But they are primarily about praise or blame.

They are not riddles intended to confuse outsiders. Stern argues this in spite of Yeshua’s sayings about “to you has been given the secret of the kingdom” and “in order that they might not see” in Mark 4:11-12 (and parallels in Matthew 13:11-13 and Luke 8:10).

Stern thinks Yeshua (or Mark) has been misunderstood. The point is not that the parables were too hard to understand rationally. The point is that outsiders, those who do not remain near to Yeshua and ask questions and learn from him, will not be able to apply them. They will not penetrate the deeper message of the parables, which are mysteries, truths of a complex nature, involving more than interpretation: “To understand correctly, one must be a member of the community” (204).

TIPS FOR READING PARABLES
Who is Yeshua praising and why?

Who is he blaming and why?

How does the praise and blame from the parable receive added information from Yeshua’s teaching and actions with the disciples?

In other words, the parables are persuasive pieces of rhetoric designed to encourage action or belief in a certain direction. They are not primarily about information or revealing doctrine. The rabbinic parables may be later, but they provide a wealth of additional contexts in which we can see the same patterns as in Yeshua’s parables. They confirm for us the way parables were used in public speaking to persuade hearers to a new course of action or to stand firm in a good course of action or belief. We should look for Yeshua’s parables to function the same way.

This will largely keep us from reading too much later Christian theology into the parables, to imagine that they are about a timeline for the last days or a foretelling of Christendom or anything of the kind. They are persuasive sermons delivered to Jews in Galilee and Judea about Jewish life and faith.

Mark 4:21-34 is an important sequence of sayings whose meaning in the context of Mark is often obscured by readers who are more familiar with the sayings from Matthew. That is to say, the order in which we read the gospels sometimes affects our interpretation. How does this happen?

The different synoptic evangelists (Mark, Matthew, Luke) often include the same sayings in different contexts. The context of the saying often influences interpretation. The modern reader might wonder if: (a) the sayings are all given in arbitrary contexts with the evangelists rarely if ever knowing what context they may have been uttered in, (b) if the sayings were often repeated again and again so that they occurred in multiple contexts, (c) if each evangelist had his own literary reasons for including the sayings in the contexts where they show up. I choose (c), which does not mean there are no cases where the context and the saying are matched to “what actually happened.” It is quite possible that sometimes the evangelists give us a saying in the actual context of events in which Yeshua uttered the words. But the gospels as we have them are literary compositions and we can get far more out of them by regarding them as such without inserting historical questions into the details.

Remember that Mark’s gospel is the first to be written down and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. Therefore, it is useful to view the lamp, measure, seed, and mustard weed sayings first as Mark used them. And it turns out the context and the sequence of these sayings in Mark is very meaningful.

How Matthew Influences a Reader’s View of These Sayings

The “lamp under a bushel” saying in Matthew is in the Sermon on the Mount (5:15) and its meaning there is about the disciples shining their “lamp” to reveal God’s glory to the world. As I will argue in Part 2, Mark puts this saying in a different context and the one shining his “lamp” is Yeshua, lifted up on the cross.

The “measure” saying in Matthew is in the Sermon on the Mount (7:2). There it refers to the measure or standard of judgment a person uses for another. God will judge us with the same measure we judge others. In Mark (as also in Luke), the measure saying is about giving (giving love, giving money, giving service).

The “to him who has more will be given” saying in Matthew 13:12 is about having the mystery of revelation of the kingdom. Those who learn the kingdom’s mysteries will be given more. In Mark, it seems that what the disciple has is reward, not revelation (God’s reward for the deeds of service).

The “scatter seed” saying from Mark 4:26 is unique, not found in Matthew or Luke. It is a rare case of material unique to Mark.

The “mustard seed” parable is used in Matthew in a very similar context to Mark’s use of it, but in a different sequence of sayings about the kingdom. Probably both Matthew’s use and Mark’s use of the saying is about the remarkable growth. Still, I will argue in Part 2 that Mark’s context for the “mustard seed,” and also Mark’s unique “scattered seed” parable, is about Yeshua sowing the seed more so than the disciples sowing it.

Readers who are used to the traditional order of the gospels (Matthew first) tend to give priority to Matthew’s setting for the sayings. Thus, when reading Mark 4, many readers have a pre-formed opinion about the “lamp” and the “measure” and the “seed.” It is easy to miss how Mark uses them.

Preview: Multi-Use Sayings

If a saying like the lamp and bushel could possibly, as I will try to demonstrate in Part 2, have two meanings as diverse as “disciples shine your light” and “Yeshua’s light will shine from the cross,” should we conclude that the evangelists had no understanding of the meaning of Yeshua’s words?

Not at all. First, it is more than likely that Yeshua himself used the same or similar sayings not only in different contexts, but with different meanings at times for the key terms. Second, many of Yeshua’s sayings are images with multiple layers of meaning. It is possible that multiple traditions of interpretation of a saying like the “lamp under a bushel” developed by the time the gospels were written. Is Matthew right and Mark wrong? They truly could both be right.

Next part: Interpreting Mark 4:21-34 in context.

Gematria is the rabbinic term for finding numerical patterns in the biblical text. It is not a term that was used in the time the New Testament was written. But numerical patterns are definitely part of the biblical style. Umberto Cassutos commentary on Genesis, for example, notes the extensive use of numerical patterns there. In many sections, words are used either seven times or in multiples of sevens, and numerous other patterns emerge for those who like to find them. It was in some biblical texts part of the literary art of writing.

Triangular numbers, which are relatively rare, are the sum of all the numbers in sequence that lead up to them. 28, for example, is a triangular number (1+2+3+4+5+6+7) and so on with 36, 45, 55, 66, 78, 91, 105, 120, 136, and 153.

What does this all have to do with the Gospel of John?

Well, the observation of Bauckham began with John 21:11, “So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and although there were so many, the net was not torn.”

Yes, 153 is a triangular number. M.J.J. Mencken wrote a dissertation on it in 1985 (Numerical Literary Techniques in John). Bauckham lists three examples from Mencken’s work:

(1) The Prologue of John (1:1-18) has 496 syllables, a triangular number (and also a “perfect” number, meaning it is equal to the sum of its divisors). And 496 is the numerical value (Greek letters, as well as Hebrew, have numerical values) of the important Johannine word monogenes (μονογενης, only, as in John 1:14).

(2) The next section (1:9 – 2:11) has 1,550 syllables (triangular would be 1,540) which is the value of ho christos (ο χριστος, the Messiah or the Christ).

(3) Yeshua’s prayer to the Father in 17:1b-26 has 486 (triangular would be 496) words which is the value of pater (πατερ, father).

Bauckham had another example suggested to him in a personal conversation with Asher Finkel: the longer form of Yeshua’s name is Yehoshua, which in Hebrew has the same numerical value as “lamb of God” (שה האלהים). Hmm, John 1:29, 35-36).

So, what is up with 153, the triangular number found in John 21:11? It is the value of “sons of God” in Hebrew (בני האלהים). Why not the Greek numerical equivalent (τεκνα θεου)? That has a value of 860, which is not triangular and which would be too large a catch of fish to be believable.

Furthermore, Bauckham suggests that the author of John (the Beloved Disciple, a.k.a. the Elder John, not the son of Zebedee who was one of the twelve) may have known the gematria in Ezekiel 47 (the river of life passage). People there will fish from En-Gedi to En-Egla’im, which have the numerical values of 17 and 153 respectively (גדי, עגלים), both triangular numbers. And the obvious comparison is the issue of fishing in the world to come in John 21 as well as Ezekiel 47.

How cool is all that?

Oh, and the most famous triangular number that also has bearing on the New Testament? Yep, 666.

Here is a list of triangular numbers for enthusiasts: 0, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55, 66, 78, 91, 105, 120, 136, 153, 171, 190, 210, 231, 253, 276, 300, 325, 351, 378, 406, 435, 465, 496, 528, 561, 595, 630, 666, 703, 741, 780, 820, 861, 903, 946, 990, 1035, 1081, 1128, 1176, 1225, 1275, 1326, 1378, 1431…

What I mean is this: in Mark’s gospel, we see the theme of the identity of the veiled Son of Man. He is much more than he appears to be. Those who remain close to him see this gradually more and more. The coming Son of Man (Yeshua in his Second Coming) will bring all of that future hope to reality. So Mark is apocalyptic (interested in showing how the Eternal breaks through into the Present).

In Luke’s gospel, the reality of a disciple-community spread throughout the empire dealing with the problems of an absent Lord and an unbelieving Roman populace, is more obviously in the background. So Luke emphasizes the present need for faith and the Spirit. While we wait, we are in distress and our gospel seems impossible to believe.

This difference (not contradiction) in emphasis was clarified for me this morning as I considered how Luke follows up the Sower parable with a series of illuminating stories.

In presenting this outline, I am saying that Luke has taken the same stories from Mark’s gospel, and ordered them in a way that emphasizes the present situation of disciples: in need of faith and the Spirit while the current crisis of Yeshua’s absence is going on. If you are not used to the idea that a storyteller shapes a message in the order and details of the story, please let me be clear: I am not saying that Luke has distorted the stories or that his version contradicts Mark’s or Matthew’s.

SOWER PARABLE – Luke 8:4-15
As I have said in Yeshua in Context chapter 11 and in other commentary on the Sower parable, the issue of the whole parable is the word Yeshua is spreading about the kingdom’s arrival and the way the delay of the kingdom causes people to fall away, except for disciples who bear fruit like Yeshua.

THE LAMP ON A STAND – Luke 8:16-18
Yeshua is the lamp who will be put up on a stand (you know, the cross). Much will be revealed when the kingdom does not come as expected but when the hoped for king dies instead. Blessed is the disciple who grasps the truth. God will give much to those who have faith.

YESHUA’S TRUE FAMILY – Luke 8:19-21
Those who are scandalized by Yeshua are not his true family. But those who believe even in crisis will hear and do what the word teaches. The word means the specific word Yeshua is teaching about the kingdom (that he will bring it and while waiting, his disciples are to bear the fruit of the kingdom–healing, serving, redeeming).

STILLING THE STORM – Luke 8:22-25
In a crisis, Yeshua asks, “Where is your faith?” Luke is asking the disciples in his generation the same question: the Second Coming is delayed and our message seems to be in crisis, but in this situation, do we have faith to keep going?

THE GERASENE DEMONIAC – Luke 8:26-39
The story is a parallel to the Yeshua story. The demoniac is virtually a dead man who returns to life. His story is spreading in a gentile region. The people of the region are distrustful of the message and want nothing to do with Yeshua. The man tells his death-to-life story all over the gentile region. Isn’t Luke mirroring what is happening in his time? The basis of the faith the Yeshua-community is spreading is a story about a man who passed from death to life. And the eyewitness accounts that informed the gospel are the only reason the disciples can give a resistant people to believe.

TWO HEALINGS: THE BLEEDING WOMAN AND JAIRUS’ DAUGHTER – Luke 8:40-56
Yeshua says to the woman, “Your faith has saved you.” He says to those who doubt he can raise Jairus’ daughter, “Do not fear; only believe.”

This whole section is stories reflecting on the meaning of the Sower parable. The word has been planted, Yeshua’s word that the exile is over and the kingdom is arriving, but is also delayed. The kingdom is present and future. Its present aspect is faith and fruit. Its future aspect is the Second Coming and the time of God’s direct reign. Luke’s way of presenting it all emphasizes what we, in this present distress, are to do: believe and teach. Our strength is in the witness of the past (Yeshua rose) and reminding ourselves of this belief is what will get us through this long crisis.

John 14:30-31 (RSV)
I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence.

Did you notice anything? Most people don’t without first being tipped off that there is something unusual to notice.

What happens after John 14:31? We get three more chapters of Yeshua talking to his disciples (chapters 15-17).

Now does something seem odd?

Now look at John 18:1 (RSV):
When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron valley, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

Hmm, seems like chapters 15-17 are sort of out of place or something. Yeshua says, “Rise, let us go hence,” but then goes on for a long time with more talking and a prayer so that the rising and going hence doesn’t happen until 18:1. How do we account for this?

Many scholars think — and I know many readers are resistant to such a suggestion — that chapters 15-17 are a later addition. I don’t mean (and neither do they) that chapters 15-17 are a late addition that should not be part of John. I mean that John may have been written in layers.

There are plenty of other evidences that John is written in layers (two editions of John is one of the leading theories — the earlier short version and the later full version with the following additions: 1:1-18, chapters 6, 15-17, and 21 added — see Paul Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, 32-33).

I’ll give just one more example for the unconvinced. John 20:30-31 (RSV):
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Sounds like the end of the book, doesn’t it? But then we have chapter 21.

Hopefully most readers (and movie viewers) understand that the way you tell a story shapes the message. That is, the same events can be told by different storytellers and different morals and themes can be emphasized. Everyone reporting an event or telling a story must choose things like what to include and exclude, what order to tell it in, what parts to emphasize, and how to comment on the story beyond simple reporting.

The call of the first disciples is a perfect example of the difference the storytelling can make. You’d almost think Mark and the Fourth Gospel are telling of completely different events.

Mark and John have very different versions of the calling of the initial disciples. It is not that the two ways of telling the story cannot be harmonized (they can, in basic outline). It is, rather, that they give different backgrounds and make different points. In John, the initial call story is about evidence for the exalted identity of Yeshua. In Mark, the initial call story is about Yeshua’s dramatic authority and the model of disciples leaving all kinships and vocations to follow.

Most readers are more familiar with the story as told in Mark and followed in Matthew and Luke. It is about Yeshua coming to the Lake in Galilee and saying to Andrew and Simon, “Come with me and I will make you catchers of men.” He then goes to another place on the lake and says to James and John, sons of Zebedee, and calls them away from their boat.

Mark has just narrated the message of Yeshua that the kingdom of God is drawing near and people should repent and believe. Mark is just about to show Yeshua on a mission to heal and defeat demonic powers. The call of the disciples comes in between.

People in a synagogue are about to be astounded in Mark’s account by the strange authority with which Yeshua speaks. His authority forces demonic powers to listen. It drives out illness and disability. It declares the kingdom with certainty. This Yeshua knows and has miraculous authority to back up his knowledge.

So, when Yeshua says to a person, “Follow me,” it has an authority than cannot be denied. You can bet that Mark wants his contemporaries, the people in his time a generation after Yeshua, to know that authority.

I have argued elsewhere that Mark’s gospel presents Yeshua in a way that speaks both to the Jewish and Greco-Roman world. Mark’s thesis is in the first verse of his gospel: the beginning of the gospel of Messiah Yeshua, the Son of God. Roman emperors were referred to as sons of deity. To Jewish ears, Son of God suggested Davidic kingship quite possibly.

Mark is saying to his generation, “The actual Son of God calls you to expand your idea of vocation and kinship. Do not cling to your family and job. Serve the real king.”

The story in the Fourth Gospel is quite different. It starts during the career of John the Baptist. The Baptist bears witness to the identity of the True Light, that all might believe in him. The Baptist proclaims the Coming One who is much greater. The Baptist points to Yeshua and cries out that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Then, in 1:35 and following, the Baptist points Yeshua out specifically to two disciples. One of them is Andrew. The other is not named. Some speculate that the other is John, son of Zebedee.

Andrew then goes to his brother, Simon also called Peter, and tells him about Yeshua. Andrew and Peter have a powerful encounter with Yeshua.

Next, Yeshua goes into Galilee and finds Philip. Philip is from the same small town as Andrew and Peter. All the personal relationships are connected. Then Philip finds Nathanael and the circle grows.

We find in the Fourth Gospel that the Baptist’s work was still going on in the early days of Yeshua’s work. The Baptist’s disciples worry that all the disciples are now going over to Yeshua. The Baptist explains that this is fitting, that he must decrease and the Coming One increase.

So, in the Fourth Gospel, the formation of Yeshua’s disciple group is an outgrowth of the work of John the Baptist. The prophetic movement of the Baptist is passing to a new and greater teacher. And the disciples who come to Yeshua have already learned from the Baptist who Yeshua is.

The Fourth Gospel emphasizes the exalted identity of Yeshua. Mark emphasizes the authority of Yeshua. The Fourth Gospel waxes long about the mysterious transcendence of the Son. The gospel of Mark shows rather than tells and shows Yeshua commanding illness and evil to flee.

So, in the Fourth Gospel, the disciples are drawn to Yeshua by what? They are drawn by their knowledge of who he is.

And in Mark, the disciples are drawn by what? They are drawn by his irresistible authority.

Now the two version can be basically reconciled. There are some difficulties to work out. When did Yeshua’s group start baptizing and how long did they continue? Did Yeshua’s movement start in Judea or Galilee? Reconciling the two accounts is not without problems.

But we can suggest that when Yeshua came to the Lake of Galilee, Andrew and Peter already knew Yeshua. They responded as they did because of who Yeshua was. But Mark did not wish to emphasize this aspect. He emphasized the equally valid perspective that Yeshua’s authoritative call persuaded them. The one who speaks and demons listen also calls people to lay aside their interests and join in the work.

Those of us who are predisposed, unlike historians and secular biblical scholars, to take the reporting in all four gospels as true stories, can see how they may be reconciled.

Yet even so, we can see how the same events can be made to serve different messages. And for those of us who accept both messages, we can see more than one reason to be disciples. We follow because we are persuaded Yeshua is the True Light who will conquer the darkness. And we follow because Yeshua is the One with all authority, who will dispel the forces of evil and suffering. Following him in the Fourth Gospel means knowing who he is and through him having union with God. Following him in Mark means joining in the work of defeating evil and suffering.

C. Myers (Binding the Strong Man, Orbis, 1988) calls the baptism event one of three “pillar stories” around which Mark organizes his gospel. The other two are the transfiguration (9:2-8) and crucifixion (15:33-41). What do these stories have in common and how to they organize Mark’s gospel?

At the baptism the heavens split and a dove descends. At the transfiguration Yeshua’s garment turns white and a cloud descends. At the crucifixion the veil is rent and darkness spreads. The voice from heaven calls out about Yeshua’s sonship at the baptism and transfiguration, but at the crucifixion there is only Yeshua’s anguished shout. The voice from heaven calls Yeshua Son in the first two, but a centurion affirms that he is the Son at the crucifixion. All three incidents mention Elijah as well.