The Gospel of Mark Through Jewish Eyes - Introduction

Shalom, folks. That's me in the photo so you know whose writings you're reading.  In response to those of you who have indicated an interest in this study of The Gospel of Mark Through Jewish Eyes, I thank you for your interest and look forward to sharing insights with you as we look into what appears to be the first written story of Yeshua’s life on earth. Allowing for exceptions, it is my intention to post a weekly blog entry here on Friday afternoons in time for Shabbat. Or whenever you choose to read it. I'd appreciate you adding your comments at the bottom if you feel so inclined. First, some introductory thoughts to ponder.  

My expectation is that Yeshua is not returning for a bride with whom He is unequally yoked – who does not intrinsically share His commitment to His Father, His values, His priorities, His compassion, His love for all people, His overarching forgiveness, His kindness, His mercy, and His single-mindedness to be obedient to the Word of God….. You get the picture, I'm sure.  And what about His last prayer to His Father, “that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, ” (John 17:22, 23). His prayers do not go unanswered, but that oneness has yet to be fulfilled. There are still ungodlike divisions among us, in our personal relationships and throughout the body. We have yet to grasp His heart for people, to see one another as He did, no matter who we are, as outside of The Fall by which we have all been victimized, 

 

If indeed we are approaching the end of this age, then we can assume that there must be a people who are sufficiently conformed to the likeness of Yeshua so as to be “one” with each other and equally yoked with Him in all matters of heart and mind.  As Yeshua was entirely reliant upon His Father and the Holy Spirit, doing nothing independently, it would seem we need to learn to be as He was. But we don’t know how! If God is preparing the bride for Yeshua today, then it is His doing. Our part, as I see it, is to learn of Him so as to yield to Him, and, as the Amplified Bible says, to lean the weight of our being upon Him, as we “trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5), meaning understanding according to our own ideas, ways and intentions, independent of God.  I don’t know how to tell you how to do that.  It’s something that happens between each of us and the Spirit of God.  But I do believe He is teaching us today, those whose hearts are open to Him and who want God’s will more than anything else in their lives. Or at least we want to want that! It has a lot to do with falling in love with Yeshua (Jesus) as we see Him perhaps in some ways we’ve not seen Him before. Perhaps a Jewish Jesus will touch our hearts anew, not because He's Jewish, but because of understanding Him, His words and His heart a bit more.   If you are taking the time to read this, I am assuming God has you on His heart and His Spirit is at work in your life.What joy there is knowing this.

We begin with some background. The Gospel stories were first transmitted orally, long before they were written down. These stories were told by those who first knew Him, and then passed down orally in the context of their own culture, which is to say, Yeshua's own Hebrew or Jewish culture with its stories and idioms, expressions and expectations. Eventually the stories were written down and what we have today are English translations of Greek manuscripts. Many linguists now think that the stories were all transmitted initially in Hebrew, not Greek, and only later were translated into Greek. 

I expect that you’ve noticed that sometimes you read something in the Gospels that sounds a bit ‘out there’ or detached from what’s going on. Take some of those very expressions in Greek that don’t really seem to fit in with what's being said and put them back into Hebrew and suddenly they make sense and are understood. In other cases, there were translation errors. Words rarely have one meaning, but several, and a translator has the job of choosing what word or words he thinks fits best. But not being familiar with Hebrew dialects or culture, especially in the 1800 centuries when Israel appeared to no longer be a nation, with no one to consult, what seems like a literal choice could skew the whole meaning. We will come across a number of them as we go along and you’re likely to find Yeshua being more logical and realistic in what He says than what appears to be somewhat ethereal.  As we become aware of these corrections you will see how they will help you to understand more what was going on and what He was saying. 

One example comes to mind. In Matthew 6:19-24, right in the middle of talking about attitudes toward money Yeshua makes what seems like a strange and unrelated statement:  "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (:22, 23).  But when you know that a "bad eye" was an expression in His culture for being stingy, then it now fits into what He's talking about. Consider the ways that being stingy (another word could be selfish) is contrary to the generous heart of God.   

It is my prayer that this study will help you to not only understand certain Scriptures more clearly but that it will enable you to come to know Yeshua more deeply. So let’s see what we find that we didn’t know before when we see and hear Yeshua more like the Jews who first encountered Him would have.  And so we begin.

 

The time of Mark’s writing is at least 65 C.E. It is also possible that it was written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.  Either way it was a time of great suffering for the Jewish people under Roman occupation. Peter, to whom Mark was a companion, has just been crucified – upside down in fact, by his own choice, declaring he was not worthy to suffer and die as His Lord did. His wife was crucified along with him so she was evidently Peter’s partner in ministry. Paul also was murdered around the same time which left an apostolic gap in the testimony of Yeshua.  Now that Peter’s eye witness account of Yeshua was no longer available, Mark responded to the need by writing some of what he had heard Peter say in his testimony of Yeshua.  

Earlier, on that memorable day of Shavuot we call Pentecost, Peter proclaimed among other things that “Yeshua is withheld in heaven until the restoration of all things as spoken by the prophets from the beginning” (Acts 3:21). Since Yeshua isn’t here yet, it would seem that we can assume there are yet things that still need restoring. Some commentaries say this means that when He comes He will restore all things, but I believe they say that because it lines up with their doctrine, but doesn’t really line up with what Peter said. “Until” means the likes of “You can’t have dessert until you eat your vegetables.” Something has to take place before the event occurs. In this case, Yeshua isn’t coming back until things that need to be restored are restored. I know this challenges a good bit of the “return” doctrines that exists today. We may find that several of our views are challenged as we move on through Mark. 

Mark’s gospel is thought to be the first account of Yeshua’s life during His ministry and it is thought that Matthew and Luke took Mark as the foundation and added what they knew.  Mark’s motive to write and tell the story was to bring hope that what life looked like in the difficult days they were in was not the only reality. God had intervened and though life looked like evil was all around, there was another reality, a more powerful reality in which even death was overcome.  Mark presented a Yeshua who was devoid of any royalty, try as the people might to impose it upon Him. Rather, He was a Man they could relate to in His humanity, who could lift them above the limitations of all they had come to know. There was more; God hadn’t abandoned them. He was doing something far greater in their midst than any had ever imagined of God, or in their own lives.   

God had Mark write what He did to bring us the same assurance, the same wonder, the same expectations that there is a life in God that is far above what life is like without Him, or even what we know of Him so far.  There is always more. So let’s see what God will say to us as we continue on to seek His truths as Mark and the other Gospel writers attempted to convey them. 

As a side note, in considering reading Scripture through a Jewish lens, there was a high priest by the name of Theophilus, who may have been the man to whom Luke wrote his gospel and Acts. Luke will give you a somewhat different spin when you read it as if it was written to a Jewish high priest and not to a Gentile, understanding that the writings were what was shared “within the family” and not outside of it. To read my article on this possibility go to:  Was Acts Written To The High Priest?

See you next week right here.

Shabbat Shalom,

Lonnie