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The context of Mark 7 is stated here:
Mark 7:3-4 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
The Pharisees had many traditions that they needed to follow or else food that was normally clean could become unclean. So their objection in verse 5 was not that the disciples were breaking dietary laws found in the Torah, but that they were becoming ceremonially unclean by eating bread with unwashed hands.
Mark 7:16 “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
This phrase in verse 16 was commonly used to indicate the end of a parable, and indeed the disciples asked Jesus about the meaning of the parable in verse 17, so the parable must have been verse 15.
Mark 7:15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
Being a parable, it does not have a literal meaning, but a figurative meaning that is use to give a moral teaching. Jesus explains in verses 18-23 that it is immoral thoughts and actions that make us unclean, rather than eating with unwashed hands.
Matthew 15:19-20 For out of the heart come evil thoughts-murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.
The conclusion of the parallel account in Matthew 15 makes it clear that Jesus was still talking in contrast to ceremonial hand washing and never switched topics to eating unclean meat. So the hypocrisy of the Pharisees was that they were more concerned with their own traditions concerning ceremonial purity than with what God said about spiritual purity. By adding their own traditions on top of what the Torah said they were obscuring it and completely missing the moral teaching. In verses 6-13, Jesus criticized them for setting aside the commands of God in favor of keeping their traditions, so it would have been very hypocritical if Jesus had turned around and set aside the commands of God a few verses later and declared everything was permissible to eat. That would have immediately disqualified him from being the Messiah and caused the Pharisees to try to kill him.
Deuteronomy 13:1-5 If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.
Any prophet who teaches God’s people to go against God’s commands is by definition a false prophet. Christians who claim that Jesus tried to turn the people from the way that God commanded them to follow are the number one reason why religious Jews reject him today.
Matthew 5:17-19 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Again, I have trouble reconciling these verses with the claim that Jesus was setting aside commands of God in Mark 7:19. Even if you think the Resurrection did away with the Law, this was said before that happened.
We still consider certain foods to be unclean, we just disagree about which ones they are. In Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, God told the Jews which things were permissible to eat as food and which things weren’t, so they didn’t even consider the things that weren’t to be in the same category as food, in a similar way that we don’t consider the meat of rats, bats, snakes, lizards, vultures, humans, etc. to be food. So when Jews talk about eating from the category of things that are food, it would be a mistake to think they are also talking about eating unclean animals, unless it is specifically mentioned. It’s important to note that the Greek word koinais (“common”) is used in reference to manmade traditions and does not connote the same thing as the Greek word for what God has declared to be “unclean”, so there is no indication the food mentioned in Mark 7 is anything other than what the Torah permits Jews to eat. I think Mark 7:19b could be fairly paraphrased as: Thus he declared all things given by God as food to be clean, regardless of ritual hand washing.
There is a lot of debate surrounding the proper translation of Mark 7:19b. Some translators say it is parenthetical by Mark or Jesus while others think it should say purging all food, and that Jesus is say that the impurities from eating with unwashed hands don’t make you unclean because they are purged as waste. However you interpret it, it’s important to keep the context in mind. Did Jesus, a devout Jew who was sinless and kept the Torah perfectly, make a radical statement that was against God’s commands that would have sent shock waves through his audience, but which no one seemed to notice? Or did Jesus simply point out that it doesn’t matter how much effort you put in to being ceremonially pure if they are not spiritually pure?
The context of Mark 7 is stated here:
Mark 7:3-4 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
The Pharisees had many traditions that they needed to follow or else food that was normally clean could become unclean. So their objection in verse 5 was not that the disciples were breaking dietary laws found in the Torah, but that they were becoming ceremonially unclean by eating bread with unwashed hands.
Mark 7:16 “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
This phrase in verse 16 was commonly used to indicate the end of a parable, and indeed the disciples asked Jesus about the meaning of the parable in verse 17, so the parable must have been verse 15.
Mark 7:15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
Being a parable, it does not have a literal meaning, but a figurative meaning that is use to give a moral teaching. Jesus explains in verses 18-23 that it is immoral thoughts and actions that make us unclean, rather than eating with unwashed hands.
Matthew 15:19-20 For out of the heart come evil thoughts-murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.
The conclusion of the parallel account in Matthew 15 makes it clear that Jesus was still talking in contrast to ceremonial hand washing and never switched topics to eating unclean meat. So the hypocrisy of the Pharisees was that they were more concerned with their own traditions concerning ceremonial purity than with what God said about spiritual purity. By adding their own traditions on top of what the Torah said they were obscuring it and completely missing the moral teaching. In verses 6-13, Jesus criticized them for setting aside the commands of God in favor of keeping their traditions, so it would have been very hypocritical if Jesus had turned around and set aside the commands of God a few verses later and declared everything was permissible to eat. That would have immediately disqualified him from being the Messiah and caused the Pharisees to try to kill him.
Deuteronomy 13:1-5 If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.
Any prophet who teaches God’s people to go against God’s commands is by definition a false prophet. Christians who claim that Jesus tried to turn the people from the way that God commanded them to follow are the number one reason why religious Jews reject him today.
Matthew 5:17-19 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Again, I have trouble reconciling these verses with the claim that Jesus was setting aside commands of God in Mark 7:19. Even if you think the Resurrection did away with the Law, this was said before that happened.
We still consider certain foods to be unclean, we just disagree about which ones they are. In Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, God told the Jews which things were permissible to eat as food and which things weren’t, so they didn’t even consider the things that weren’t to be in the same category as food, in a similar way that we don’t consider the meat of rats, bats, snakes, lizards, vultures, humans, etc. to be food. So when Jews talk about eating from the category of things that are food, it would be a mistake to think they are also talking about eating unclean animals, unless it is specifically mentioned. It’s important to note that the Greek word koinais (“common”) is used in reference to manmade traditions and does not connote the same thing as the Greek word for what God has declared to be “unclean”, so there is no indication the food mentioned in Mark 7 is anything other than what the Torah permits Jews to eat. I think Mark 7:19b could be fairly paraphrased as: Thus he declared all things given by God as food to be clean, regardless of ritual hand washing.
There is a lot of debate surrounding the proper translation of Mark 7:19b. Some translators say it is parenthetical by Mark or Jesus while others think it should say purging all food, and that Jesus is say that the impurities from eating with unwashed hands don’t make you unclean because they are purged as waste. However you interpret it, it’s important to keep the context in mind. Did Jesus, a devout Jew who was sinless and kept the Torah perfectly, make a radical statement that was against God’s commands that would have sent shock waves through his audience, but which no one seemed to notice? Or did Jesus simply point out that it doesn’t matter how much effort you put in to being ceremonially pure if they are not spiritually pure?
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