tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post5193344352967926898..comments2024-03-12T17:34:02.225-04:00Comments on NT Blog: The Centurion's Sarcastic Cry in Mark 15.39Mark Goodacrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05115370166754797529noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-58644077523903403752019-03-07T09:24:57.804-05:002019-03-07T09:24:57.804-05:00Luke 23:47 states the centurion glorified God with...Luke 23:47 states the centurion glorified God with his comment. How can an utterance in glory to God be sarcastic?D.I.D.A.C.T.I.C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/09805362977169476081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-50382350744978338032016-05-26T16:42:21.239-04:002016-05-26T16:42:21.239-04:00Since we have difficulty discerning irony, sarcasm...Since we have difficulty discerning irony, sarcasm, humor and plain speech in contemporary speakers where we have 24/7/365 video coverage, it is highly improbable that we can speak with anything approaching certainty about an ancient speaker in a different culture. I suspect that Juel and other contemporary academics and preachers are reading their own sarcastic viewpoint into the centurion. Proud Dadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05530756370081342055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-81324665961798983062015-12-13T12:31:24.357-05:002015-12-13T12:31:24.357-05:00That does not jive with Matt 27:54: When the centu...That does not jive with Matt 27:54: When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”Brother Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03760765427907160978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-12230424167985092722013-06-21T14:59:39.421-04:002013-06-21T14:59:39.421-04:00Contrary to Steph's comment above, there is qu...Contrary to Steph's comment above, there is quite a lot of contemporary documentation mentioning the tearing of the veil.Ian Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08440727613424469331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-43998159433255264042009-06-26T01:10:53.206-04:002009-06-26T01:10:53.206-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02958985129591404494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-80651770937120018452009-04-19T22:12:00.000-04:002009-04-19T22:12:00.000-04:00I would view the confession in light of Luke's rec...I would view the confession in light of Luke's recording of the event as stated in The Paradox of the Cross.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-54747895496206957352009-04-18T18:55:00.000-04:002009-04-18T18:55:00.000-04:00All my books are once again on a ship right now .....All my books are once again on a ship right now ... I read John Donahue's weird book on the trial narrative in Mark (1971ish) years ago and I'm wondering if that was where I first read about the idea of sarcasm in 15.39. I remember thinking about it around the time I read that book and it wasn't any of the authors above who brought it to my attention.stephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10858881710490476607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-54394873102486062372009-04-18T06:21:00.000-04:002009-04-18T06:21:00.000-04:00Apparently, although I cannot confirm this just ye...Apparently, although I cannot confirm this just yet, Juel's essay "The strange silence of the Bible" in Interpretation (51/1|5-19) claims that the confession of the centurion in 15.39 should be understood as sarcasm.Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15155789202261126090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-62708408500540114412009-04-18T06:11:00.000-04:002009-04-18T06:11:00.000-04:00Ben Witherington's commentary on the Gospel of Mar...Ben Witherington's commentary on the Gospel of Mark has the footnote to Juel. I think it's to his work: Messianic Exegesis, but I'm not sure. I'm currently in transit, so all this is from memory. But I know the Juel reference is in Witherington, I think on page 400. Check it out.Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15155789202261126090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-50059590583462815842009-04-18T05:08:00.000-04:002009-04-18T05:08:00.000-04:00In response to Steph's interesting argument - does...In response to Steph's interesting argument - does not 'houtos exepneusen' draw at least as much attention to the manner of death and to what Jesus himself did as the attendant circumstances (darkness and temple)? The echo of v37 and the fact that Mark draws attention to the centurion's position in respect of Jesus encourages me to read v39 as another response to the death of Jesus, more parallel than successive to v38. Cranfield p460notes 'it is, according to Mk (contrast Mt.), the manner of Jesus' death (not any accompanying event) that compels the centurion's exclamation'Keithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-18560531075036981162009-04-18T04:01:00.000-04:002009-04-18T04:01:00.000-04:00Kia Ora to you NT and exactly! Anyway 'son of God...Kia Ora to you NT and exactly! Anyway 'son of God' is such an important theme for Mark and 15.39 is a fitting climax - from the 'tearing apart' of the clouds in 1.11 to the tearing apart of the temple curtain in 15.38. The Roger Aus reference is in chapter 3 of Samuel, Saul and Jesus: Three Early Palestinian Jewish Christian Gospel Haggadoth (Atlanta: Scholars, 1994).<br /><br />I'm looking forward to you forthcoming publication btw... :-)stephnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-75359589014993973712009-04-17T20:49:00.000-04:002009-04-17T20:49:00.000-04:00It's also nice to see the odd reason being put for...It's also nice to see the odd reason being put forward - in amongst the great muster of Names and Authorities.N T Wronghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128282430404746717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-70089201621118304592009-04-17T20:45:00.000-04:002009-04-17T20:45:00.000-04:00Hi Steph!
You've convinced me that's the more pro...Hi Steph!<br /><br />You've convinced me that's the more probable meaning. The whole darkness, death, temple-ripping scenario changes the tone from the earlier mocking to one of awe and wonder. So - odds on the sincere confession, for me.N T Wronghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128282430404746717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-49424734475236545302009-04-17T18:56:00.000-04:002009-04-17T18:56:00.000-04:00Roger Aus sorted this out, I think convincingly, a...Roger Aus sorted this out, I think convincingly, and so has Maurice Casey since. Mark creatively reports that the Curtain of the Temple was split in two from top to bottom (Mark 15.38). The outer curtain was huge and very beautiful tapestry with embroidery as Josephus describes it. If it had really suddenly split in two, Jewish sources could not have failed to mention this dramatic portent: but they did. There are however many stories of prodigies occurring to mark the deaths of important people. These stories were intended to be taken symbolically, and this one has been sorted out by Roger Aus. It presents God mourning for his son, when normal human mourning was not possible. One mourning custom was to put out the lights... such as making darkness over the whole land from midday till 3 o’clock (Mark 15.33) like for example Amos 8.9-10. The original author of Mark 15.39 envisaged the crucifixion taking place on the Mount of Olives, from where this centurion could see the outer curtain of the Temple torn in two. He is portrayed as drawing the correct conclusion from three hours’ darkness and the tearing of God’s garment: the dead man must be a son of God.stephnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-54133543238251546582009-04-17T11:34:00.000-04:002009-04-17T11:34:00.000-04:00Mc 15:36 "And one ran and filled a spunge full of ...Mc 15:36 "And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down."<br /><br />May have been a sick joke as well. Romans used a spunge on a reed soaked in vinegar to wipe their behinds after going to the toilet.shirhashirimhttp://shirhashirim.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-47077479181943480192009-04-17T09:49:00.000-04:002009-04-17T09:49:00.000-04:00Alexander Roberts, Discussions on the Gospels (186...Alexander Roberts, Discussions on the Gospels (1862) 129 addresses the possibility: "As well might it be argued, that the centurion...intended to be sarcastic when he said (ver. 54)...." Roberts refers to Dean [Henry] Alford has having asserted the reading of mockery.<br /><br />Stephen Goranson<br />http://www.duke.edu/~goransonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-28313604528573564432009-04-17T06:19:00.000-04:002009-04-17T06:19:00.000-04:00No-one seems to have mentioned the possibility tha...No-one seems to have mentioned the possibility that the centurion said nothing of the sort, but Mark added it in as an artistic way of making a point. Salvation comes to the Jews (tearing of the temple curtain) and the gentiles (centurion's confession). Or something.<br /><br />Of course if he knew how John Wayne would murder the line 1900 years later he might have thought twice about it..Matt Pagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05113670876288157267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-47189146317840378952009-04-17T05:21:00.000-04:002009-04-17T05:21:00.000-04:00Mark, perhaps the centurion's words in Mark are re...Mark, perhaps the centurion's words in Mark are related to the tradition behind the epistle of Barnabas:<br /><br />Barnabas 7:9 ...For they<br />shall see Him in that day wearing the long scarlet robe about His<br />flesh, and shall say, Is not this He, Whom once we crucified and set<br />at nought and spat upon; verily this was He, Who then said that He<br />was the Son of God.<br /><br />If this is correct it is indeed a confession and is not meant to be ironic.Richard Godijnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10933173600278278258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-48770483274646127492009-04-16T22:46:00.000-04:002009-04-16T22:46:00.000-04:00No help on the attribution question at the moment,...No help on the attribution question at the moment, I’m afraid, but some thoughts on others' comments:<br /><br />I wonder (in response to Jim West) if the “confessional” interpretation is not equally as dependent on the matter of “tone” as the “sarcastic” interpretation. Surely the reader can connect the rhetorical dots to see the inclusio on either reading. Taking the statement as an inclusio also probably won’t settle the matter because the more immediate narrative context can be read to support the sarcastic interpretation, as others noted above. Narrative context supports either reading it seems. The fact that the centurion is not explicitly said to deride, mock, or taunt Jesus like the others at the cross, however, does complicate the sarcastic reading. If the centurion intended to mock Jesus like everyone else at the cross, why not say so?<br /><br />That said, sarcasm is not necessarily the same thing as irony (as Mikeal Parsons notes), but in this case I think they are, or certainly belong together at least. Taken as sarcasm, the centurion’s statement says more than he intends because the reader knows the opposite of his slander to be true, which is to say the centurion speaks ironically, the point Cranfield (and others) seem to make. And did the exegetical tradition, beginning with Matthew, misunderstand the statement, or simply alter, and “improve,” it? I’m wary of turning to Matthew to determine “what Mark meant.”Eric Thurmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-47139999305608470622009-04-16T21:12:00.000-04:002009-04-16T21:12:00.000-04:00I like it. It fits with the attitude of the soldie...I like it. It fits with the attitude of the soldiers (vv. 16ff), the 'passers by' (v.29f), the chief priests and scribes (v.31f), and those crucified with him - both on the left and the right! (v. 32b).<br /><br />It also means that the centurion's words are both untruthful in their sarcasm and truthful in their plain meaning - the sort of two-level plain meaning and mystery we'd expect Mark to get up to. So there is still room for treating the words as a framing confession of faith in Jesus within the Gospel of Mark - although, in a tricky way.<br /><br />However, alternatively... <br /><br />The centurion <I>was</I> a witness of the spooky darkness which came over the land, and ended at the moment of Jesus' death (vv. 33-34a). This preternatural cessation of darkness coincided with the tearing of the Temple curtain (vv. 37-38). And whether or not the centurion could have been aware of the curtain 'in reality' at that time, maybe the narrator is building on his presentation of overwhelming spookiness and mystery of which the centurion was at least in part a witness, which immediately compels... the centurion's words in v. 39. Which would mean they are a sincere confession of faith.<br /><br />What an curious thing to ponder, Mark!<br /><br />Ambivalently yours,N T Wronghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128282430404746717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-71571479247490842602009-04-16T09:51:00.000-04:002009-04-16T09:51:00.000-04:00I should add that sarcastic (Juel) is not necessar...I should add that sarcastic (Juel) is not necessarily the same as ironic (Cranfield). Dowd also preserves the 'confessional' interpretation by reading the saying not only as sarcastic but also ironic:<br />"Ironically, however, the centurion represents all the gentiles who will hear the gospel and make a sincere confession as a result of Jesus’ death (13:10; cf. Isa 52:15; 2:1-4; 56:6-8)." (Reading Mark p. 163)<br />mikeal parsonsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-8943954662119921742009-04-16T09:36:00.000-04:002009-04-16T09:36:00.000-04:00Sharyn Dowd, Reading Mark, 2001, p. 162-63 adopts ...Sharyn Dowd, Reading Mark, 2001, p. 162-63 adopts the sarcastic reading, citing Fowler.<br />If sarcastic, wouldn't one have to say also that it was rather uniformly<br />misunderstood in the exegetical tradition, beginning with Matthew?<br />mikeal parsonsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-39214652646431765342009-04-15T21:14:00.000-04:002009-04-15T21:14:00.000-04:00Stephen D. Moore, "DECONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM T...Stephen D. Moore, "DECONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM Turning Mark Inside Out" (Mark & Method, Ed. by Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008, pp. 95-110), p. 107:<br /><br />What does the centurion's utterance actually amount to? In declaring the bloody, lacerated corpse dangling on the cross before him to have "truly [been] a Son of God" (alethes houtos ho anthropos huios theou en), is he really, in good crypto-Christian fashion, as we have been assuming all along, succeeding spectacularlry where Jesus' elite hand-picked disciples have so singularly failed, effortlessly coupling the concepts of divine sonship and dishonorable death where they could not, and thereby giving climactic and definitive expression to Mark's theology of the cross? Or is he merely engaging in grim gallows humor instead, the tone inflecting his "Truly this man was a Son of God" actually being one of scathing sarcasm rather than awed reverance (footnote 24 at this point is found on p. 254, "A suggestion made in passing by Richard A. Horsley; see his *Hearing the Story: The Politics of Plot in Mark's Gospel* (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 252"), so that the Greek might better be rendered in colloquial American English by "Some Son of God!" or some equally dismissive phrase.<br /><br />This alternative reading of the centurion's pronouncement finds support from the immediate context. On this reading, the centurion would simply be parroting the derision of everybody else in the vicinity of the cross, not least the Judean religious leadership with whom his commander, Pontus Pilate, is in cahoots: "Those who passed by derided him....In the same way, the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying '...Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now...' Those who were crucified with him also taunted him" (15:29-32).<br /><br />Thus complicated and counter-read, the centurion's utterance seems to oscillate undecidedly between confession and oppression.Frank McCoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16977985447972987579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-85404203425829255032009-04-15T19:26:00.000-04:002009-04-15T19:26:00.000-04:00Donald H. Juel, Augsburg Commentary on the New Tes...Donald H. Juel, Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament Mark, Augsburg Fortress, Mpls., MN, 1990, pp. 227-28:<br /><br />Elsewhere in the narrative, the role of Jesus' enemies, Jews and Romans alike, is to speak the truth without understanding what they say. "You are the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" says the high priest. "You are the King of the Jews?" asks Pilate. "Hail, King of the Jews," the soldiers taunt. "So you are the Christ, the King of Israel, are you?" say the bystanders at the cross. <br /><br />It would seem appropriate to read the statement of the centurion in such light. The grammatical ambiguity makes it possible to hear the statement in two ways. The first would be to regard the 'confession' as a purely human estimate. The centurion, impressed perhaps by Jesus' utter collapse, offers an estimate: "Truly this man was [note the past tense!] a son of God." That might mean "a religious man," i.e., hardly a criminal. Luke takes the statement in that sense: the centurion says, "He was innocent." The statement might also be read read sarcastically in line with the earlier cynicism of the Roman soldiers who mock Jesus as "King of the Jews."Frank McCoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16977985447972987579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5759844.post-13660909093378204922009-04-15T16:48:00.000-04:002009-04-15T16:48:00.000-04:00Timothy J. Geddert offers the possibility of an 'i...Timothy J. Geddert offers the possibility of an 'ironic' rendering in his commentary on Mark (2001, appearing the Believers Church Bible Commentary series) referencing Robert M. Fowler, Let the Reader Understand (1991, p208).<br /><br />This particular page of Fowler's book is available for preview on google books (if you want a look). In his discussion, he includes the following footnote: "Another scholar who has recognized that 15:39 functions simultaneously on 'two levels' is Donald Juel, with James S. Acherman and Thayer S. Warshaw, An Introductino to New Testament Literature (Nashville: Abingdon Pres, 1978), 146."<br /><br />It seems by 1959, Cranfield noted in passing that the centurion may have been guilty of an 'unwitting proclamation of the truth' (The Gospel According to St Mark, 460.) Cranfield parallels this with other 'unwitting' proclamations in Mark, implying the possibility that irony throughout the book of Mark might support an ironic reading of 15:39.Joshua Mannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07333501583868406489noreply@blogger.com