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Mark

About this book
Chapter 7

1 Now the Pharisees and some of the experts in the law who came from Jerusalem gathered around him. 2 And they saw that some of Jesus’ disciples ate their bread with unclean hands, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they perform a ritual washing, holding fast to the tradition of the elders. 4 And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. They hold fast to many other traditions: the washing of cups, pots, kettles, and dining couches.) 5 The Pharisees and the experts in the law asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with unwashed hands?” 6 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written:⁠ “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.’ 8 Having no regard for the command of God, you hold fast to human tradition.” 9 He also said to them, “You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to set up your tradition. 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’⁠ and, ‘Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.’ 11 But you say that if anyone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you would have received from me is corban’ (that is, a gift for God), 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this.” 14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand. 15 There is nothing outside of a person that can defile him by going into him.⁠ Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles him.” 16 Now when Jesus had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 17 He said to them, “Are you so foolish? Don’t you understand that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him? 18 For it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and then goes out into the sewer.” (This means all foods are clean.)⁠ 19 He said, “What comes out of a person defiles him. 20 For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder,⁠ 21 adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly. 22 All these evils come from within and defile a person.” 23 After Jesus left there, he went to the region of Tyre. When he went into a house, he did not want anyone to know, but he was not able to escape notice. 24 Instead, a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him and came and fell at his feet. 25 The woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician origin. She asked him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 26 He said to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the dogs.” 27 She answered, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”⁠ 28 Then he said to her, “Because you said this, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.” 29 She went home and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. 30 Then Jesus went out again from the region of Tyre and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis. 31 They brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking, and they asked him to place his hands on him. 32 After Jesus took him aside privately, away from the crowd, he put his fingers in the man’s ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue. 33 Then he looked up to heaven and said with a sigh, “Ephphatha” (that is, “Be opened”). 34 And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue loosened, and he spoke plainly. 35 Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone. But as much as he ordered them not to do this, they proclaimed it all the more. 36 People were completely astounded and said, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Leviticus 20:9 and LXX Deuteronomy 5:16 and Mark 7:10

Septuagint · New Testament

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Summary

Mark draws on Leviticus, which is rarely used in the gospels or Acts, and pairs it with Deuteronomy in a legal debate between Jesus and Pharisees. The quote is unusual because it does not match the Greek translation of Leviticus.

Passages

LXX Leviticus 20:9

Septuagint
7 And you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. 8 And you shall observe my ordinances, and do them: I am the Lord that sanctifies you. 9 Every man who shall speak evil of his father or of his mother, let him die the death; has he spoken evil of his father or his mother? he shall be guilty. 10 Whatever man shall commit adultery with the wife of a man, or whoever shall commit adultery with the wife of his neighbor, let them die the death, the adulterer and the adulteress.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Leviticus

LXX Deuteronomy 5:16

Septuagint
15 And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand, and a high arm: therefore the Lord your God appointed you to keep the sabbath day and to sanctify it. 16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you; that it may be well with you, and that you may live long upon the land, which the Lord your God gives you. 17 You shall not commit adultery.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Deuteronomy

Mark 7:10

New Testament
9 He also said to them, “You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to set up your tradition. 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.’ 11 But you say that if anyone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you would have received from me is corban’ (that is, a gift for God), 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother.
60–75 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Mark

References

"... Despite the fact that the book of Leviticus is not frequently quoted among those from the Pentateuch by Mark, Matthew and the Lukan writings, at least one clear allusion and five explicit quotations from Leviticus are to be found in the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles ... Besides the quotation of the 5th commandment from LXX Deuteronomy 5:16 in Mark 7:10, the author of Mark’s gospel links it with καί to a second quotation in Mark 7:10. The gospel of Matthew utilizes the same Markan material and links the quotation of the 5th commandment from LXX Exodus 20:12 / Deuteronomy 5:16 in Matthew 15:4 to Mark’s second quotation in Matthew 15:4. Whereas the first quotation is a statement which expresses a positive command (τίμα), the second quotation is a statement which expresses a negative command and contains the punishment when the first is not executed or violated (θανάτῳ τελευτάτω). But the textual origin of this second quotation which “Moses said” (Mark 7:10; Matt 15:4), is unclear. There seem, however, to be two possibilities that closely resemble the wording of the quotation in Mark and Matthew, namely Exodus 21:15 / Leviticus 20:9, 56 on the one hand, and Exodus 21:16, on the other hand. The last possibility seems to be more likely and matches the wording the closest. Especially three striking differences between the versions of LXX Leviticus 20:9 / Exodus 21:15 and 21:16 are pointing in this direction ..."
Gert J. Steyn, “The Text Form of the Leviticus Quotations in the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles,” in The Text of Leviticus: Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Dominique Barthélemy Institute, ed. Innocent Himbaza (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 205–242.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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LXX Leviticus 20:9 and LXX Deuteronomy 5:16 and Mark 7:10

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