1 Now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, with some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem,
Jesus is still doing his ministry work in Galilee and his healings and miracles have caused great attention to be drawn to him, news of his works have spread so far as Jerusalem and the Pharisees and their Scribes have come down from the Holy City to see him.
The Pharisees were the most populous and dominant group among first century Jews. Although within our modern context we might say “religious sect” or “political party” these terminologies do not encapsulate the divisions of Second Temple Judaism. The Law was the religious Law so there was no division between political and religious parties as Jews were beholden to God above all. They just had different groups that disagreed with each other yet were all within “The Book of Life” a supernatural and/or allegorical book of God’s chosen ones.
The Pharisees came out of the Exile period where the Priestly class lost their dominance with a lack of a Temple and the Davidic dynasty lost its influence without a Kingdom, leaving the pious well read Jews occupying the teaching Seat of Moses to be the most important. They, in their good meaning piety, started to apply the Levitical purity laws originally meant for the priesthood upon ordinary people, this led to the practices dominant in Jesus’ own time that he will critique in todays readings.
The Scribes were legal experts in the Mosaic Law, they did not align with any particular party but were essentially “hired” by different groups for consultations on applications of the Law. The Pharisees had their own Scribes, the Sadducees had theirs as did the Essenes along with independent minded Scribes. Their job was copying the Law, interpretation, application and consulting/teaching others on the Mosaic Law.
2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed.
3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders;
4 and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they purify themselves; and there are many other traditions which they observe, the washing of cups and pots and vessels of bronze.)
The Pharisees and their Scribes observe disciples of Jesus eating whilst their hands were “defiled”, Mark then clarifies that this simply means unwashed. This doesn’t imply that they were dirty physically. Mark is portraying the Pharisaic standards in contrast with those that do not keep them. He then continues this illumination of the rigid rules by explaining that they do not eat without ritually washing their hands, this is made obvious with the term “observing the tradition of the elders” this is not about physical cleanliness. This high standard is applied to themselves for simply going to public places like markets and also regards any goods they buy from those markets. Everything must go through a ritual washing. This rule comes from a good place, it is an extrapolation of the Laws in Leviticus that applied to the priests and their cultic paraphernalia.
5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?”
The Pharisees and the Scribes propose the question to Jesus, asking why they reject the tradition of their elders. This tradition again, by Jesus time was relatively modern, maybe only a few centuries old but to the Scribes and Pharisees it was necessary. It is curious that they ask a question, instead of outright leaving which is typically what they would do.
6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’
8 You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.”
9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition!
Jesus, as he does in such altercations, quotes from writings that his objectors accept. He quotes the Prophet Isaiah where God condemns the people of Judah for their outward religiosity but inward hardness of heart. It is in fact more of an insult to “fake it, till you make it” than to do all these outward expressions whilst internally rejecting his commandments. By Jesus’ time because of the reinforcement of the Pharisee’s teaching authority over the centuries, they had started to bind people with things that were far from what God actually required of them. They cling to the outward expressions because, as physical beings they are easier and more obvious, but do so in vain because they standards were invented by men and passed down as tradition.
Jesus calls out their hypocrisy and then tells them that their very keeping of these man made traditions were in fact the obstacle causing them to reject God’s commandments.
10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die’;
11 but you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is Corban’ (that is, given to God)—
12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother,
13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on. And many such things you do.”
A key commandment is to honour your father and mother. This would include taking care of them financially in their old age when they are unable to work. Jesus, quoting Moses, refers to this law and the punishment for not keeping it; death. He then pivots from the Law to the actions the Pharisees take. A manipulation of the act of Corban.
Qorban means offering or sacrifice in Hebrew, in the context of the Old Testament it referred to things consecrated or dedicated to God. In Jesus’ day many Pharisees (and others) abused this honourable notion. They would say “I can’t give my money to my mother and father because it is to be used for God”, whilst it somehow staying in their own coin purse. This was a way that people could retain wealth and think they were getting past God’s commands, because you aren’t being greedy, it is for God, so they say.
By taking this bastardisation of the Law to this level, the Jews made void the substance of what the Law was there to do. To teach them to love their neighbour, beginning with their parents and family. There are quite a few examples of this style hijacking the Law in the first century and MANY in modern day Judaism which would make the Jew’s of Jesus’ day shudder. Chicken wire and light switch timers come to mind.
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