Jeshua, Son of Mary
Reflections on the Gospel Ascribed to Mark
H. D. Kreilkamp
Jeshua, Son of Mary
Reflections on the Gospel Ascribed to Mark
Copyright © 2013 H. D. Kreilkamp. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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All scriptural quotations in this book, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the New American Bible, in The Catholic Study Bible, edited by Donald Senior and John J. Collins, Oxford University Press, New York, Copyright 2006.
Texts from the Scriptures in this book are taken from the Catholic Study Bible edited by Donald Senior and John J. Collins, Editors. The New American Bible. Oxford University Press: New York, Copyright 2006.
To Mary, Mother of Jeshua
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
—Luke 1:35
Foreword
It is a rare privilege for a student to introduce his former teacher to a wider circle of co-learners. It is a particular privilege when that audience is both willing and motivated to undertake a gospel trek led by a wise and gentle spirit. Professor Kreilkamp was such an intellectual and spiritual guide for me in the early days of my formation as a Capuchin Franciscan, several decades ago. His mentoring gift has only grown and matured over the years.
While there are many commentaries available on the various gospels—including that of Mark—this book is a distinctive contribution in many ways. While Dr. Kreilkamp does shape his commentary according to the design of Mark’s gospel, and appropriately leads us systematically from chapter to chapter, this is not a traditional exegetical work that explains the structure of each chapter or the linguistic distinctiveness of every passage. Rather, this quite accessible guide is more akin to an invitation to join an ongoing conversation.
True to its dialogic beginning, this deceptively modest publication is not so much the report of an encounter between one believer and one gospel; rather it is an invitation for the reader to join the author in the gospel circle he clears for us, so that the learning and believing, questioning and refraining might continue in an ever widening circle of gospel friends.
Dr. Kreilkamp has obviously engaged in a sustained dialogue with the gospel of Mark over many years. It is the gospel he finds personally most compelling. Therefore, as our guide, he poses questions for us that are similar to those that came to him while reading Mark, the very first gospel. For example, if Jesus (or Jeshua, as Dr. Kreilkamp prefers) was driven by the Spirit, as the opening of Mark’s text reveals, what drives us? What does Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenecian woman in Mark chapter 7 have to say about entering into tough dialogue with the very Son of God? Why does Jesus become so frustrated with his own disciples throughout this text, and what does that reveal about our own call to discipleship?
Dr. Kreilkamp stimulates such questions out of his own reflective retelling of this good news. He presents a series of inspired musings that are most contemporary, yet rooted in the very origins of the gospels themselves. There are tales here of God’s gentle inclusivity in Jesus, images for thinking about the challenges of marriage and divorce, and gospel wisdom in the face of clerical abuse and ecclesial neglect. Sometimes Dr. Kreilkamp recasts a well-known story in contemporary prose, but he never does so as a substitute for reading Mark. Rather, he offers the reader a fresh synoptic reframing that we can readily employ as we turn back to ponder Mark again and again. I would suggest that such a method is a key litmus test for discovering the trustworthiness of the guide, one who does not draw us away from the gospel but instead propels us both to read it and, more important, to live it.
The first evangelist has made an indelible impression on Dr. Kreilkamp, an impression that translates into passion for the common good and commitment to the Christian journey. By publishing this work, the author has invited us into this same passion and a similar commitment. For such witness and invitation we can only be grateful.
—Edward Foley, Capuchin
Preface
Thomas Merton stated forty years ago that we were just then “beginning to see even further that: the Bible is everybody’s best book, and the unbeliever can prove himself as capable as anyone else of finding new aspects of it which the believer would do well to take seriously” (Opening the Bible, p. 28). He then went on to prove it, citing many writers, dramatists, agnostics, and philosophers who drew much from it. I try to do as much, citing the gospel of Mark, which (Merton thought) portrayed Jesus as even tougher than the Jeshua portrayed by Matthew in his gospel.
The life of Jeshua, as Mark calls him in the sixth chapter (verse 3) of his gospel, is portrayed as truly Good News! There are many reasons why it is still so today, as I aim to show as much in this book. I call him Jeshua because that is what he was called by his fellow townsmen of Nazareth, where he was called the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary. Mark tells of Jeshua’s public life of preaching, healing, and reconciling sinners, especially those who were considered to be outsiders in society, people like many of us.
The stories Jeshua told were, to begin with, oral stories that were passed on from one person to the next for about forty years. The men Jeshua picked and called to be disciples to follow him, to help him proclaim the good news, began spreading the good news in Galilee, then in Judaea, while he lived among them. After Jeshua was condemned and executed under Pontius Pilate, the disciples continued to spread the good news of his life, death, and resurrection; they had now witnessed him alive, transformed, and risen from the dead. The good news spread like wild fire.
For my knowledge of the early Christian Church, I take and trust Irenaeus as the most reliable church father. From Irenaeus, and other writers with whom he was contemporary, we know that Mark was the companion of Peter in Rome, and that he had one purpose: to leave out nothing he had heard and to make no misstatements in his writing. Some of the stories Mark included in his account go back very far and give us important information about Jeshua.
The name Christ, which was added to that of Jeshua in the opening of Mark’s gospel, implies that when Mark wrote Jeshua was already called and considered Anointed by God, that is, the Messiah (the Hebrew word denoting a king). Since the days of Samuel the prophet, those so anointed were called and accepted as kings of the Jewish people: the first was Saul, then David, followed by Solomon. The title Christ was attributed to Jeshua by his disciples, and was accepted by Jeshua himself when he was on trial for his life and confronted by the Jewish high priest as to whether he was the prophesied King of the Jews (Mark 14:62). His followers accepted him as such, although his kingdom was not of this world but one of truth and justice. Then, as now, this is good news for all, and especially for those who accept his call to join him in proclaiming God’s love and compassion for all human beings.
Franz Overbeck considered the gospel (euaggelion in Greek) to be a new, Christian genre of writing that was centered on the good news of Jeshua’s life and death. However, Mark gives us no insight into Jeshua’s origins or his inner personal development. He is simply the evangelist who calls Jeshua the son of Mary. Nonetheless, Mark’s account is the first account