I came across a thought-provoking questioning of the authenticity of that Gospel detail describing the disciples carrying swords as they accompanied Jesus into Gethsemane while translating a famous nineteenth century work by Christian Gottlob Wilke. (“Famous” because it was in Der Urevangelist that Wilke established the case for the priority of the Gospel of Mark.) Wilke was unable to accept this scene of the sword wielding disciple (the Gospel of John attributes the action to the typically impulsive Peter) formed part of the original narrative. Here are his reasons:
Jesus expected that night, as the common account of Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27 tells us, only acts of cowardice from the disciples, and the same account follows through on this explicit expectation when it depicts all the disciples fleeing (Matt 26:56, Mark 14:50.) – evidence that the narrator had only planned to carry out the word of the prediction, and that therefore there was no question of an attempted resistance.
The sword is introduced to portray the disciples as resisting the arrest of Jesus — a detail that stands at odds with the theme of prophetic fulfilment that the author has been establishing.
Notice, too, how more naturally the narrative flows once this detail is removed. We begin with Jesus returning from his prayer and speaking to his disciples:
42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.
44 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” 50 Then everyone deserted him and fled.
Is it not strange that the author has Jesus addressing those who have arrested him while making no mention at all of the act that actually belies his words. Jesus implies that his own followers have not come “with swords and clubs” and have not performed any act of rebellion. So how could the author have managed to introduce this episode without any rebuke or explanation from Jesus?
The Jesus we find in the Gospel of Mark, Wilke points out, otherwise consistently addresses any specific act of his disciples. But here he seems not to have noticed what they have just done. Rather, his words indicate that his disciples have fearfully stood by before running to avoid the same fate as Jesus.
If a subsequent curator of the Gospel did add such a detail, one does wonder about the circumstances of their time. Were some Christians justifying armed resistance?
(Wilke makes his case with somewhat more technical detail by pointing to various emphases in the Greek words relating to the disciples fleeing and a more detailed discussion of the sequence of the phrases.)
Wilke, Christian Gottlob. Der Urevangelist oder exegetisch kritische Untersuchung über das Verwandtschaftsverhältniss der drei ersten Evangelien. Dresden ; Leipzig : Gerhard Fleischer, 1838. http://archive.org/details/derurevangelisto0000wilk. p. 495
Neil Godfrey
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“Rather, his words indicate that his disciples have fearfully stood by before running to avoid the same fate as Jesus.”
Except that Peter is caught, and the subsequent Peter/courtyard material is original (fulfilling Jesus’s prediction that Peter will deny him three times). So it is plausible that Peter does something that slows him down, enabling him to be captured.
If we hypothesize that the Gospel of Mark was a play–performed (in my view)–or at the least, imitating the storyline of a dramatic work, then a sequence of events based on Peter’s use of the sword makes for a thoroughly dramatic and internally consistent end of the story.
As I propose in my book *The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text*, Peter strikes THE slave of the high priest (who possibly was the high priest’s body double, entitled to the same respect). In turn, this impairment of the high priest’s holiness had consequences for the legitimacy of his decision, causing an uproar when this was discovered–and creating the tumultuous ending of the play.
I suggest that Mark’s readers/listeners would have immediately known that damage to THE slave of the high priest would have had consequences for the legitimacy of anything done subsequently by the high priest, within the plot.
No need to posit editing by Christians who were justifying armed resistance. Recall that GMark was apparently not used by any community for decades after writing. When and why would an editor change it for such a practical purpose?
If the Gospel Jesus is a personification of Israel, then hardly the original intent would have been pro-Roman, since the authorities would have never allowed the diffusion of a text where the secret hope was the destruction of paganism by the new cult (= Jesus casting out demons) or the resurrection of a nation just defeated by the legions. Hence the premise (that I share) implies that the original authors lied deliberately to their public.
If the passage of the ear was added to justify armed rebellion, then it reflects a trend to reveal the secret, i.e. to make it more and more explicit that the essential Gospel propaganda (Jesus as allegory of Israel) had an anti-Roman intent. The secret was going to be revealed as effect of an increased anti-Roman animosity. This may be reflected in the logion on the violent people who take the kingdom with the force (so WB Smith in Ecce Deus).
Was the increasing of the same anti-Roman animosity behind the choice of the sinister name of Pilate as Jesus’ executioner? To remember in definitive, despite of any pretence to the contrary, that the true enemy was the Roman empire?
If I may just add a couple of notes in response to both Danila and Giuseppe whose input I always appreciate….
The view that the gospels were composed for specific (local) communities is not uniformly held by the scholarship. But as for the Gospel of Mark, it is such a strange beast in so many ways, so un-what-later-became-orthodox, surely it had to have been used and embraced by enough Christians for long enough for it to have survived and been considered worthy of rewriting by the other two or three evangelists. I suspect it belongs to a “lost time” in the historical record, only later to have been associated with unorthodox groups like the Basilideans.
Is the Gospel of Mark really “anti-Roman”, though? Pilate is not depicted as keen to execute Jesus. He even tries to free Jesus — but in this gospel he is not the historical Pilate but a literary figure who wavers and succumbs to pressure from a Jewish mob. (Surely an opposite character to the real Pilate.) We have a Roman centurion at the cross uttering ambiguously “Truly this man was the son of God” (sarcastically or reverentially? typical Markan ambiguity!) and Jesus in this gospel is favourable to gentiles. Yes, he exorcises the “tenth legion pigs” from the possessed man, but demonstrating power over military might does not make Jesus against Romans themselves — his Via Dolorosa walk to Golgotha was in many ways a re-enactment of an inverted Roman Triumph, as I’m sure you also know.
“surely [GMark] had to have been used and embraced by enough Christians for long enough for it to have survived and been considered worthy of rewriting by the other two or three evangelists. I suspect it belongs to a “lost time” in the historical record, only later to have been associated with unorthodox groups like the Basilideans.”
I disagree. There’s a simpler explanation that fits into what we know of the Roman congregation that was the home of the popes. If, as I propose, Mark wrote for a congregation that was to some degree patronized by/favored by the wife of Titus Flavius Clemens (i.e., the Roman congregation later associated with Pope Clement), then the congregation would not have discarded any manuscripts Mark left behind. I propose that subsequent to the performance of his play, they kept his narrative in their library as evidence of Flavian patronage. They didn’t *use* it in services. It was a prestige object. Decades later, Luke (in my opinion, not Matthew) learned about GMark (?via Marcion, if he did indeed go to Rome), obtained a copy, and revised it for his own use, possibly in part contra-Marcion.
Whether the “support troops” were Romans or Temple Guards who had learned anything from the Romans they didn’t need to have Jesus fingered. (Well, and the fact that Jesus was a well-known recognizable public figure and would have responded to his name being called, etc.) They would have scooped up the whole group, taken them to somewhere private and beaten what they wanted to know out of them. The story goes on with Jesus’s posse being pursued as co-conspirators. The Romans wouldn’t have made that mistake. They would have had them all and had them all in custody from the get-go.
While people still debate the fine points of “sword or no sword” they miss the overall picture.
gJohn has Jesus walking around Jerusalem for weeks! The Romans would have gotten word of this almost instantly and Jesus would have been nailed up again lickity split. As I said, the story makes no sense whatsoever.