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Matthew

About this book
Chapter 15

1 Then Pharisees and experts in the law came from Jerusalem to Jesus and said, 2 “Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you disobey the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘If someone tells his father or mother, “Whatever help you would have received from me is given to God,” 6 he does not need to honor his father.’ You have nullified the word of God on account of your tradition. 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?” 13 And he replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted.⁠ 14 Leave them! They are blind guides. If someone who is blind leads another who is blind, both will fall into a pit.”⁠ 15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 16 Jesus said, “Even after all this, are you still so foolish? 17 Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are the things that defile a person; it is not eating with unwashed hands that defiles a person.” 21 After going out from there, Jesus went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that area came and cried out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!” 23 But he did not answer her a word. Then his disciples came and begged him, “Send her away because she keeps on crying out after us.” 24 So he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”⁠ 25 But she came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!” 26 “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” he said.⁠ 27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”⁠ 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! Let what you want be done for you.” And her daughter was healed from that hour. 29 When he left there, Jesus went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up a mountain, where he sat down. 30 Then large crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others. They laid them at his feet, and he healed them. 31 As a result, the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel.⁠ 32 Then Jesus called his disciples and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have already been here with me three days and they have nothing to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry since they may faint on the way.” 33 The disciples said to him, “Where can we get enough bread in this desolate place to satisfy so great a crowd?” 34 Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven—and a few small fish.” 35 After instructing the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks, he broke them and began giving them to the disciples, who then gave them to the crowds. 37 They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 38 Not counting children and women, there were 4,000 men who ate. 39 After sending away the crowd, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.

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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