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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to lay down his life (10,18) has led many to see Jesus’ cry as a dis-
play of power rather than agony. Second, interpreters have tended
to confuse what Mark is saying ― that Jesus is the Son of God ―
with what the centurion is saying. The solution defended here
avoids these two pitfalls by offering a simple solution: 15,39 is like
the rest of Mark’s passion narrative in that Jesus’ enemy mockingly
says something the readers know is actually true. This reading in-
corporates the pre-modern attention to the repetition of evxe,pneusen
in v. 37 and v. 39 with the modern interest in Mark’s use of irony,
particularly his depiction of Jesus as the Son of God precisely in
and through his death.
One might still object that this proposal fails the test of exeget-
ical modesty: if the centurion’s remark was sarcastic, why has
everyone beginning with Matthew misunderstood it? One must
confess that the sarcastic interpretation of the centurion is distinct-
ively modern. Yet, as we have seen, relatively few interpreters of
Mark prior to modernity had access to the text of Mark 15,39 found
in Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and other Alexandrian witnesses — the
text printed by Westcott and Hort and now in the NA28. Ancient
Christians perceived a miracle in Jesus’ dying gasp, and they
changed the text of Mark to reflect this interpretation. Contempor-
ary scholars interpret a version of Mark shorn of these accretions,
but continue to assume that the centurion must have seen something
extraordinary 53. Indeed, though interpretive inertia makes the sar-
castic reading of 15,39 seem bold, it may be the most straightfor-
ward and obvious interpretation. The centurion’s remark would be
like every other insult hurled at Jesus from the foot of the cross: in-
tended to mock but unintentionally revelatory. It differs from these
other insults only because it is for the readers the final, climactic
confession to which the entire narrative builds.
Notre Dame Seminary Nathan EUBANK
New Orleans, LA
53
This objection also assumes that Matthew only changed Mark when he
misunderstood him. I would suggest that Matthew carefully expands and clar-
ifies the Markan passion narrative. It does not follow that redaction implies
misunderstanding.