Nathan Eubank, «Dying with Power. Mark 15,39 from Ancient to Modern Interpretation», Vol. 95 (2014) 247-268
This article examines the reception-history of Mark 15,39 to shed new light on this pivotal and disputed verse. Mark's earliest known readers emended the text to clarify the centurion's feelings about Jesus and to explain how the centurion came to faith. Copyists inserted references to Jesus' final yell around the same time that patristic commentators were claiming that this yell was a miracle that proved Jesus' divinity, an interpretation which was enshrined in the Byzantine text and the Vulgate. The article concludes that a 'sarcastic' reading is a more adequate description of 15,39 as found in B, NA28 etc.
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260 NATHAN EUBANK
II. The Centurion Who Stood Against Him
In recent years a number of scholars have suggested that the cen-
turion’s cry should be taken as a sarcastic comment much like the
soldiers’ mocking acclamation “Hail, King of the Jews” (15,18).
Donald Juel writes,
Though [a true confession] is possible, in view of the rest of the nar-
rative it is unlikely… Elsewhere in the narrative, the role of Jesus’
enemies, Jews and Romans alike, is to speak the truth without un-
derstanding 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.
It would seem more appropriate to read the statement of the centu-
rion in such light 37.
Perhaps the centuries of exegetical confusion surrounding 15,39
are an indication that interpreters have been forcing the centurion to
speak for them. That is, perhaps readers have heard their own con-
fession in the centurion’s words. Instead of being the first person to
understand that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God, perhaps the
centurion is, like the other bystanders in the narrative, mocking Jesus’
divine pretensions, even while ― in a classic instance of Markan
irony ― the readers understand that Jesus is in fact the Son of God.
In his recent commentary, Joel Marcus marshals three arguments
against the sarcastic reading of the centurion. First, Marcus argues
that “the linkage that the narrative forges between him and the
watching women” suggests the centurion is, like the women, sym-
pathetic to Jesus: “The story places the centurion alongside the
women after Jesus’ death, not alongside the mockers before that
event” 38. Yet, the centurion is not “alongside” the women at all.
Rather, the centurion is standing near the cross along with Jesus’
mockers while the women are “looking on from afar” (15,40). The
only narrative link between the centurion and the women is the fact
that they are mentioned after Jesus’ death.
Marcus’ other objections are weightier: “With regard to the mes-
sianic secret, its disclosure at Jesus’ death is consonant with Markan
37
JUEL, Mark, 227-228.
38
MARCUS, Mark 8–16, 1059.