Bible Study for Amateurs #75 – Elizabeth Shively’s “Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,” part 9

Hey, everyone! I’m Ben – the Amateur Exegete, and this is episode seventy-five of Bible Study for Amateurs. Today’s episode is, “Elizabeth Shively’s ‘Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,’ part 9.”¹

In her 2020 piece “Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,”² Elizabeth Shively makes the case that the Evangelist “portrays Jesus’ activities of healing people from disease and disability and his exorcisms of impure spirits as evocative of resurrection from the dead” (p. 63). This is accomplished, in part, by the way that Mark understands impurity. In the last episode, we looked at ritual impurity and the way in which Jesus, by virtue of his status as God’s holy one (cf. Mark 1:24), is able to reverse the major sources of impurity. In this episode, we turn our attention to various natural disabilities and their connection to ceremonial impurity. Writes Shively, “With three exceptions [i.e., healing Peter’s mother-in-law from fever in Mark 1:30-31, the healing of the one with skin disease in Mark 1:40-44, and the healing of the woman with the abnormal genital discharge in Mark 5:25-34], Jesus’ healings correspond to the eradication of natural disabilities at the time of God’s eschatological reign, according to the prophet Isaiah” (p. 75).³

The first two texts Shively mentions are from Isa 35:5-6: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”⁴  In context, the Isaian author⁵ prophesies a period of growth and prosperity for God’s people, opening with language that, wrote Brevard Childs, “immediately launches into an elaborate portrayal of the salvation of Israel.”⁶ It is not merely that God’s people will return to Zion, but that even nature itself will reap the benefits of the return of Israel’s vengeful god: the desert will blossom (vv. 1-2) for there will be “streams in the desert” that turn sand into pools and “the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp” (vv. 6-7).⁷ It is in this setting that we read that at the deity’s coming blind eyes will see, deaf ears will hear, lame legs will leap, and mute tongues will sing. Writing on this passage, Hyun Chul Paul Kim comments, “The central piece of this oracle underscores the most socially ostracized group, announcing their renewal (vv. 5-6). Echoing and reversing the hardening of the hearts of recalcitrant people (6:9-10), this oracle proclaims the intensified transformation of the blind, deaf, lame, and mute.”⁸

Shively connects to these two verses in Isaiah a number of healing stories. To v. 5 she connects three healings: that of a man with hearing loss and a speech impediment in Mark 7:31-37; of a man with vision impairment in Mark 8:22-26; and of Bartimaeus, a beggar with blindness in Mark 10:46-52.⁹ To v. 6 she connects four healings: that of a man suffering from paralysis in Mark 2:1-12; of a man with, in the words of the NRSVue, “a withered hand”¹⁰ in Mark 3:1-8; of the man with hearing loss and a speech impediment in Mark 7:31-37; and of the boy afflicted by a spirit that caused muteness in Mark 9:14-29. 

The third text Shively mentions is that of Isa 26:19: “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise.¹¹ Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.” This chapter in Isaiah is part of a section scholars refer to as the “Isaiah Apocalypse.”¹² It is so called because in chs. 24-27 of Isaiah we read language reminiscent of later apocalyptic discourse.¹³ Here in ch. 26, there is a contrast made between the dead of the wicked who, v. 14 reports “do not live” and whose “shades do not rise” and that of God’s people whose “dead shall live” and whose “corpses shall rise.” Shively connects to Isa 26:19 to the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5:1-20,¹⁴ the raising of Jairus’s daughter back to life in Mark 5:35-43, and the exorcism of the boy afflicted by a spirit in Mark 9:14-29.¹⁵ What to our author is the significance of all this?

Shively turns her readers’ attention to the Torah, especially those texts wherein we read that Aaronic priests are prohibited from serving in the tabernacle if they have certain disabilities. Yahweh tells Moses in Lev 21:18-21, 

[N]o one who has a blemish shall draw near, one who is blind or lame, or one who is mutilated or deformed, or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a defect in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. No descendent of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the LORD’s offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the food of his God.

The same is true of blemished and disabled animals, as Lev 22:17-25 reveals. 

Setting aside the ableism endemic to these texts,¹⁶ Shively is no doubt correct when she writes that “such disabilities are sources of ceremonial defilement” and these laws suggest “that everything that approaches the altar must be blemish-free as a symbol of God’s holiness and perfection” (p. 76). Additionally, as we’ve already seen, the Isaian author envisions a time when physical disabilities will be rectified when the deity commences his reign. And here we find a connection to the Markan Gospel. Not only does the Evangelist begin by giving his account of Jesus’s ministry an Isaian flavor (cf. Mark 1:2-3),¹⁷ but the first words uttered by his protagonist are about God’s reign: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). Writes Shively, “It is plausible that an informed audience might infer that Jesus’ announcement of the nearness of God’s reign (1:14-15) and his subsequent acts of healing and exorcisms signal the rectification of impurity that the Torah anticipates and the prophet promises” (p. 77). 

To further the discussion, Shively offers a few examples in Mark wherein the Evangelist makes use of language and imagery of purity in stories of Jesus’s healings and exorcisms. The first is one I brought up in episode 67 as we began this series on Shively’s piece, namely the exorcism at Capernaum in Mark 1:21-28. Recall that in that pericope there is an implicit contrast made between Jesus and the possessed man. The spirit controlling the man is akathartos (ἀκάθαρτος), “unclean” (v. 23). Jesus, on the other hand, is ho hagios tou theou (ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ), “the holy one of God” or “God’s holy one” (v. 24). For Shively, this scene is important because of its placement in the Gospel itself. “Mark introduces Jesus’ public ministry as a contest between holiness and impurity at the outset of his narrative,” she writes (p. 77). 

The next example is related to the first, specifically that over and again “Jesus’ exorcisms are cast in terms of purity.” As our author notes, the phrase “unclean [or, “impure”] spirits” shows up eleven times, more than Matthew and Luke combined. Shively writes, “This usage suggests that Mark is interested in featuring demons as impure spirits, that is, as spirits that defile” (p. 78, author’s emphasis). 

The final example is an observation about the structure of the Markan narrative, specifically from Mark 2:1 to 3:6. Drawing on the work of Clinton Wahlen, she notes the presence of multiple clusters of healing stories. Taken together, they have the effect of connecting exorcism and healing, exposing to the reader a world wherein evil spirits can affect human health. Jesus’s ministry of expelling unclean spirits and healing various ailments is therefore indicative of his “assault on Satan’s reign.”¹⁸

But what does any of this have to do with resurrection from the dead? Shively notes that Jesus announces the nearness of God’s reign and not its consummation. That comes later. But in the meantime, Jesus’s healings and exorcisms anticipate that future reign, a time when the forces of impurity are vanquished, especially death itself. And so, our author writes, “Jesus’s healings and exorcisms anticipate his bodily resurrection whereby he overcomes death and experiences the purification that expresses the reality of and the ultimate inauguration of God’s reign” (p. 80). 

Shively spends considerable space looking at the idea of resurrection in texts from the Hebrew Bible, the so-called Deuterocanonical books, and even from Qumran. There is no need here to go over the data as it suffices to say that many Jews expected a bodily resurrection from the dead.¹⁹ But this hope for future resurrection is background for the Markan Evangelist’s narrative strategy, for, as Shively seeks to argue, “Mark both anticipates the bodily resurrection of Jesus and ties it to that of human beings by evoking the idea of bodily resurrection in healings and exorcisms throughout the narrative” (p. 83). This is a topic we will explore in the next and final episode of our series on Shively’s article. That’s all the time we’ve got this episode. I’ll see you next time! And remember, in the words of Richard Elliot Friedman, “One does not need to deny what is troubling [about the Bible] in order to pay respect to what is heartening.”²⁰

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1. Throughout the endnotes readers will find various abbreviations. For a list of what abbreviations I use and the works to which they refer, please see the page “Commonly Used Abbreviations.” ↩︎
2. Elizabeth E. Shively, “Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark,” JTS 71 part 1 (April 2020), 62-89. ↩︎
3. On Mark’s affinity for the book of Isaiah, see, e.g., Elizabeth Evans Shively, “Israel’s Scriptures in Mark,” in Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings: The Use of the Old Testament in the New, edited by Matthias Henze and David Incicum (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2023), 237-239; Rikki E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark (Baker Academic, 1997), Sharyn Dowd, Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel (Smyth & Helwys Publishing Inc., 2000), 3-6; Morna D. Hooker, “Isaiah in Mark’s Gospel,” in Isaiah in the New Testament, edited by Steve Moyise and Maarten J.J. Menken (T&T Clark, 2005), 35-49. ↩︎
4. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations of biblical texts are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. ↩︎
5. While the material in chs. 1-39 of Isaiah are attributed in part to the prophet himself, there are clear exceptions. Chapter 36, for example, seems to have been lifted from the work of the Deuteronomistic Historian (cf. 2 Kings 18:13; 18:17 – 20:19). Chapter 34, an oracle of judgment, likely belongs to the postexilic period and fits better with material found in Isaiah 55-66. Chapter 35 is in all likelihood from the exilic period and resembles material from Deutero-Isaiah (i.e., Isaiah 40-55). For more on the composition of the book of Isaiah, see Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, third edition (Oxford University Press, 2014), 332-337, 406-413, 425-426. On Isaiah 34-35, see, e.g., R.E. Clements, Isaiah 1-39, NCB (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980), 271-272; Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 13-39: A Commentary, translated by R.A. Wilson, OTL (The Westminster Press, 1974), 353-354, 361-362; Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature, FOTL 16 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 441-444. ↩︎
6. Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, OTL (Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 257. J.J.M. Roberts (First Isaiah: A Commentary, Hermeneia [Fortress Press, 2015], 441) notes that the “transformation of the Judean landscape is a direct reversal of the transformation of the landscape of its enemy Edom (Isa 34:9-15).” ↩︎
7. Thus .J.M. Roberts, First Isaiah: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Fortress Press, 2015), 441: “This transformation of the Judean landscape is a direct reversal of the transformation of the landscape of its enemy Edom (Isa 34:9-15).” ↩︎
8. Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Reading Isaiah: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Smyth & Helwys Publishing Inc., 2016), 164. ↩︎
9. While the Gerasene demoniac is not dead in a literal sense, he is depicted nonetheless as one subsumed by the unclean spirit and as dwelling among the dead.  ↩︎
10. “Withered” in the NRSVue is exērammenēn (ἐξηραμμένην) and comes from a root that, in the passive, refers to immobilization. See BDAG s.v., “ξηραίνω,” 2. Shively thinks this is a reference to palsy, though this is by no means certain. In 3 Kgdms 13:4 (=1 Kgs 13:4) the passive form of the verb is used to describe Jeroboam’s hand after he stretched it out to order the arrest of a prophet: “And the king stretched out his hand from the altar saying, ‘Arrest him!’ And see, his hand dried up [exēranthē (ἐξηράνθη)] as it was stretched out from him, and he was not able to return it to himself” (my translation). ↩︎
11. The MT reads nǝbēlātî (נְבֵלָתִ֖י) which literally means “my corpse.” The NRSVue includes a footnote that both alerts readers to the original reading of the Hebrew text as well to the corrected reading offered in its rendering of the verse. Kaiser (Isaiah 13-39, 215-220) is attentive to the issues in this section, writing, “One has to read this short passage several times in order to become really aware of the irritation caused by the change of possessive pronouns. The attempt to work out who is speaking and to identify the literary category is like solving a puzzle” (p. 215). He discusses in brief possible avenues with which to deal with the textual issue as well as the interpretation of the text itself in Isaiah 26. See also Jan de Waard, A Handbook on Isaiah, Textual Criticism and the Translator 1 (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 113. Cf. 1QIsa^a 26.19: nblty yqwmwn (נבלתי יקומון) = “my corpse will rise.” ↩︎
12. For an overview, see Coogan, The Old Testament, 436; Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature, 313-314. ↩︎
13. John J. Collins, Daniel with an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature, FOTL 20 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984), 20: “The so-called Apocalypse of Isaiah (Isaiah 24-27) is closer to the apocalypses in its highly mythological language, but even here the material is presented in the form of oracles and cannot be regarded as an apocalypse.” ↩︎
14. While the Gerasene demoniac is not dead in a literal sense, he is depicted nonetheless as one subsumed by the unclean spirit and as dwelling among the dead. ↩︎
15. The boy does not seem to die in any real sense, but the Evangelist does describe him as becoming “like a corpse” after the exorcism such that those who witnessed the miracle say, “He is dead” (Mark 9:26).  ↩︎
16. On the stigmatizing language inherent in texts like these, see Saul M. Olyan, “The Ascription of Physical Disabilities as a Stigmatizing Strategy in Biblical Iconic Polemics,” in Disability Studies and Biblical Literature, edited by Candida R. Moss and Jeremy Schipper (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 89-102. ↩︎
17. See Chris Keith, The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early History of the Jesus Tradition as Material Artifact (Oxford University Press, 2020), 112-114. ↩︎
18. Or, in the words of Joel Marcus (Mark 1-8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYB 27 [Yale University Press, 2000], 195), Jesus is engaged in an “eschatological holy war.” ↩︎
19. Tucker Ferda, Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2024), 350: “As far as we can tell, the resurrection of the dead was a common hope in Second Temple Judaism – by no means universal but certainly entertained by more than a sliver of the population.” See further E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Fortress Press, 1985), 237; Heikki Räisänen, The Rise of Christian Beliefs: The Thought World of Early Christians (Fortress Press, 2010), 82-86; Bart D. Ehrman, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster, 2020), 103-126. ↩︎
20. Richard Elliot Friedman, The Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters (HarperOne, 2017), 214. ↩︎