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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 Mark 7:15 and Matthew 15:11 and Gospel of Thomas 14

New Testament · Nag Hammadi

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Summary

In Mark, Jesus contrasts what enters a person with what comes out. In Matthew and the Gospel of Thomas, he refers to the mouth in both halves, linking their versions through a detail absent from Mark's broader contrast.

Passages

Mark 7:15

New Testament
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?
60–75 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Mark

Matthew 15:11

New Testament
7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said, 8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, 9 and they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” 10 Then he called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What defiles a person is not what goes into the mouth; it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.” 12 Then the disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that when the Pharisees heard this saying they were offended?”
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

Gospel of Thomas 14

Nag Hammadi
13 Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me and tell me whom I am like.” Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous messenger.” Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.” Thomas said to him, “Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say whom you are like.” Jesus said, “I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring I have measured out.” And he took him and withdrew and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas said to them, “If I tell you even one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me, and fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.” 14 Jesus said to them, “If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves; if you pray, you will be condemned; if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and travel about in the countryside, if they receive you, eat what they set before you and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, what comes out of your mouth is what will defile you.” 15 Jesus said, “When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship him; that one is your Father.”
135–200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Gospel of Thomas

References

“... Granted this heavy and purposeful redaction that pervades Matthew’s reworking of Mark 7:1–23, it is difficult to maintain that the differences in Matt 15:11 vis-à-vis Mark 7:15 are due not to Matthew’s editorial hand but rather to a stray independent logion that suddenly pops up in the midst of a pericope that is otherwise simply and solely the product of Matthew’s recasting of Mark. This is all the more the case when we notice that Matt 15:11 exemplifies the same softening tone (i.e., avoiding as much as possible direct conflict with the heart of the Law) that we see elsewhere in Matthew and indeed in this pericope (e.g., the omission of Mark 7:19c). Within 15:11 itself, Matthew’s redactional hand is seen both in the introduction of the characteristically Matthean word “mouth” (stoma) and in the abbreviation of the Marcan logion in a way that creates greater balance between the two halves. Unless we are to forget suddenly all that redaction criticism has taught us about Matthew’s consistent redaction of Mark throughout his Gospel, the simplest and most natural explanation of Matthew 15:11 is that, like the rest of Matt 15:1–20, it is the theologically motivated rewriting of Mark 7:15 by Matthew. This conclusion carries an important corollary. If Matt 15:11 is nothing more than Matthew’s redactional rewriting of Mark 7:15—with the typically Matthean word “mouth” inserted into the saying—then G. Thom. 14 must be judged not an independent tradition but rather a slightly redacted version of Matt 15:11: “For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but what comes out of your mouth, that is what will defile you.” The use of “into [your] mouth” and “out of your mouth” in the two halves of the aphorism, the resumptive “this” (or: “that”) in the second half, and the carefully balanced parallelism all reveal Matthew’s fingerprints on logion 14 of the Gospel of Thomas. Once again, the academic dogma of Thomas’ independence of the Synoptics and its possession of a more primitive tradition does not hold up to close scrutiny. The results of this comparison of Mark, Matthew, and the Gospel of Thomas suggest the following conclusions about the authenticity of Mark 7:15: (1) Mark 7:15 represents the earliest available form of this saying. Matt 15:11 is simply Matthew’s reworked version of the logion, echoed by G. Thom. 14. ...”
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 4: Law and Love (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 390–391.

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Mark 7:15 and Matthew 15:11 and Gospel of Thomas 14

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