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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262 NATHAN EUBANK
Marcus’s interpretation conflates the story and the discourse
level, assuming that if the centurion’s words are revelatory, then
we must read them as a sincere confession. But Mark’s entire pas-
sion narrative is driven by the awful tension between the words and
deeds of the antagonists and the full meaning of those words and
deeds which are clear only to the readers 42. On the story level Jesus
is mocked and crowned as a messianic pretender even while readers
see in this mockery an actual crowning. The conventional term for
the palpable tension between these two levels is irony.
A summary of some of the most salient contrasts between the
story and discourse levels may illuminate the point. In 14,61 the
high priest scornfully asks Jesus if he is the Christ (“Are you the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”). Similarly, in 15,2 Pilate says “Are
you the King of the Jews?”. Readers of Mark know that Jesus had
connected his messiahship to his suffering, for after Peter confessed
him to be the Christ, Jesus told his disciples that the Son of Man
must suffer much (8,27-33; cf. 14,3-9). Thus, the jeering messianic
titles heaped on Jesus by the high priest, Pilate, the titulus (15,26),
and those witnessing the crucifixion (15,29-32) are for the reader
confirmations of Jesus’ messiahship. Indeed, Jesus gives a hint that
this is the case when he replies to Pilate’s mocking question, “You
say so” (15,2). In other words, Jesus’ persecutors are unwittingly
hailing him as the true king of the Jews 43.
and the Shrouding of Meaning in Mark”, JSNT 78 (2000) 3-22 and E.S. JOHN-
SON, JR., “Mark 15,39 and the So-Called Confession of the Roman Centu-
rion”, Bib 81 (2000) 406-413.
42
Marcus’s own research illuminates the origins of this interpretation of
Jesus’ death. In a JBL article (“Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation”, JBL 125
[2006] 73-87), Marcus shows that the Romans had a penchant for creatively
talionic punishments, and that crucifixion was intended to mock the political
arrogance of the victim. Occasionally, if the victim responded with surprising
courage or dignity, the mockery could be seen to point to the eminence of the
victim. Marcus concludes his essay by suggesting, “for many early Christians,
this reversal of a reversal, which turned penal mockery on its head, was prob-
ably the inner meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion” (87). If the Gospel of Mark is
any indication, Jesus did not display surprising courage when he died. Nev-
ertheless, it seems likely that the earliest Christians would have interpreted
the mockeries of Jesus’ pretensions as literal statements of his greatness,
thereby beginning the message of “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews
and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1,23).
43
MARCUS, “Parodic Exaltation”, 87.