Sárospataki Füzetek 20. (2016)

2016 / 2. szám - ARTICLES / STUDIEN - Jaap Doedens: Lierary Wormholes: Wild Animals and Angels in Mark 1:13

Literary Wormholes: Wild Animals and Angels in Mark 1:13

Kai ttöv Oipiov KaiaKupieCiaei aim!)

Kai ó Kúpioq piaijáéi aÚTÓv.9

4. If you achieve the good, my children, men and angels will bless you;

and God will be glorified through you among the gentiles.

The devil will flee from you; wild animals will be afraid of you, and the angels will stand by you.

(...)

6. The one who does not do the good, men and angels will curse,

and God will be dishonoured among the gentiles because of him; the devil will inhabit him as his own instrument.

Every wild animal will dominate him, and the Lord will hate him.10 11

In this passage, ethical behaviour leads to being blessed by men and angels. This is an imaginable statement; even modern readers of the passage will acknowledge at least the part of the human blessing. The passage about gentiles who glorify God because of good deeds or blaspheme his name because of the lack of it, is a thought which fits nicely into the Jewish worldview." The same is true for the belief that resisting the devil will make him flee.12 But why will animals be dominated by humans who do noble deeds? Or why will bad people be dominated by wild animals? This looks like a nice — but probably not so effective — advice for a safari-trip. But what if these cryptic references connecting ethical conduct to the taming of wild beasts were a way of evoking a larger picture?

Literary Wormholes

It is widely recognized that Mark uses the Old Testament in a “cryptic, enigmatic, and allusive manner that provokes the reader’s imagination to uncover intertextual connections with those scriptures.”13 This means that the Gospel of Mark is far more complicated than usually perceived; his work is bristling with secrets and riddles, challenging its readers to understand, as indicated by the exhortation in Mark 13:14, Ó dvayivdoaKtov voeítoo, “let the reader understand!”14 In its context, this short ad9 Charles, R. H.: The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Oxford, Clarendon, 1908,156-157. For textual variants within the passage, see this critical edition.

10 T. Naph. 8:4.6. Translation: Kee: Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, OTP 1,813-814.

11 See LXX Isa 52:5, quoted in Rom 2:24. See also Ezek 36,20.

12 Jas 4:7, cf. 1 Pet 5:9.

13 Caneday, A. B.: Mark's Provocative Use of Scripture in Narration: "He Was with the Wild Animals and Angels Ministered to Him", BBR 9,1999,19.

14 Wright, N.T.: The New Testament and the People of God, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1992,390-396, referring to Mark4:11 -12; 6:51-52; 7:19; 8:17-21; 13:14. Wright even calls Mark's gospel a "new-style apocalypse"(393).

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