Tom de Bruin: Demonic Body Parts in the Synoptics

Tom de Bruin, “Excision as Exorcism: Some Possible Demonic Roots for Jesus’s Sayings in Mark 9:43-48,” Novum Testamentum 67 (2025), 18-19.

Mark 9 may not be the only place in the NT where the tradition of demonic body parts underlies the exhortation. Matt 6 and Luke 11 record a saying of Jesus about the eye and sinfulness, where a dichotomy is presented between a ἁπλοῦς eye and a πονηρός one. The NRSVUE , as most other translations, chooses to render this dichotomy medically, i.e. healthy vs. unhealthy. But it is much more likely that this is an ethical issue, between a “good” and an “evil” eye. While one might wonder why Matthew phrases this as ἁπλοῦςπονηρός, and not ἀγαθός–πονηρός as in Matt 20:15, the terms “simple” and “simplicity” (ἁπλοῦς/ἁπλότης) are “key terms in Jewish ethics.” The “evil eye” of Matt 6/Luke 11 is often taken as a generic reference to jealousy. While this certainly may be the case, taking the tradition highlighted in this article into account, it may also be the case that there is more nuance here. The eye that has become evil may well be a generic reference to someone who no longer sees simply and has allowed demonic influences into their eyes. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs give numerous examples of this—which T. 12 Patr. calls “double-aspected” or “two-faced” (διπρόσωπος). Reuben looked upon his father’s concubine Bilhah and couldn’t stop himself from raping her (T. Reu. 3.10–15), and Judah looked at a Canaanite women pouring wine and couldn’t help having sex with her (T. Jud. 11.1–2). They left behind “seeing things in simplicity” (T. Iss. 4.6) and once double-aspectedness had entered the picture, they were led inexorably to evil.