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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 7:18 and Tosefta Oholot 12:3

New Testament · Rabbinic

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Summary

In Mark, Jesus contrasts food that enters the body and actions that come out of the body, arguing that food cannot cause impurity. This resembles Rabbinic debates in Tosefta Oholot which also discuss the boundaries of impurity and permitted foods.

Passages

Mark 7:18

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

Tosefta Oholot 12:3

Rabbinic · Tosefta
A se'ah measure overturned on the mouth of a barrel, or two domes placed one on top of the other, and a stone placed on top of the dome, bring impurity. A se'ah measure placed upright, a barrel placed upright, an inflated wineskin placed upright, a se'ah full of straw, a cushion full of feathers, or clothing full of handkerchiefs, two stones one on top of the other, or a dome on top of a stone, do not bring impurity. A dog that ate the flesh of a corpse and entered a house does not make the house impure, because anything swallowed by a person, an animal, a beast, or birds is pure. But if it vomits, the house becomes impure.
190–230 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tosefta Oholot

References

"... The reasoning of Galen and Aristotle, I think, is similar to the implicit reasoning of Mark’s Jesus in Mark 7:18–19. For Galen and Aristotle, the fact that food entering the body is qualitatively different from excrement that comes out of the body entails that the stomach enacts a qualitative change. For Mark’s Jesus, the fact that food entering the body – even if ritually contaminated by defiled hands – comes out of the body as ritually undefilable excrement entails that the stomach has a purifying effect on anything that enters it. We see precisely this kind of reasoning about purity, excrement, and the stomach in texts from the Tosefta. Tosefta Miqvaʾot 7:8–9 provides the following ruling ... A similar pattern of reasoning emerges in Tosefta Oholot 12:3 ... In the first passage, the corpse and impure liquids are made pure because, unlike something vomited up, that which is digested is ‘purified in the body’. Like Jesus’ argument, this view of the stomach arises from the assumption that excrement is impervious to impurity. Note also how the claim (appearing in both passages) that ‘everything that is swallowed by a human … is pure’ bears a striking resemblance to my proposed interpretation – the human body purifies any ingested food from ritual impurity ..."
Logan Williams, “The Stomach Purifies All Foods: Jesus’ Anatomical Argument in Mark 7.18–19,” NTS 70 (2024): 371–391.

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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Mark 7:18 and Tosefta Oholot 12:3

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