Mark 3:20-35

The Answer of Jesus to the Verdict of the Jerusalem Scribes and the Intervention of His Family. The introduction of this section would naturally link with Mark 3:6. Jesus returns home (presumably, to the house of Simon in Capernaum) after the second scene in the synagogue in Mark 3:1. Mk. has broken the thread of the original tradition in order to insert the list of the apostles. He certainly divides Mark 3:20 f. from Mark 3:31 in order to associate with the judgment of the relatives of Jesus the still more outrageous verdict of the scribes from Jerusalem. The statement that the relatives of Jesus thought Him beside Himself (perhaps in a state of unbalanced ecstacy), is peculiar to Mk:. It is, however, necessary as leading up to the closing incident of the chapter. The incident in which Jesus disowns His family is only intelligible in Mk. On the other hand, Mk. does not, like Matthew 12:22, cite a particular miracle as the occasion of the charge that Jesus was in league with the Evil One. He may regard the saying as a deliberate verdict of the official leaders of religion on the whole activity of Jesus. The relatives of Jesus doubted His sanity: the scribes denied His moral sincerity. [74] The reply to the scribes is given in parables (mentioned now for the first time). The scribal theory of exorcism was easy and convenient, but it implied an illogical division in the Satanic power. Since the overthrow of the spirits of evil is obvious, the advent of the higher power must be presupposed. Like one of the OT prophets, Jesus repudiates passionately the thoughtless denial of the purity of His inspiration. The sin against the Holy Ghost seems to lie in the intellectual laziness and moral insincerity which prefers to confound black and white, rather than recognise the coming of God in a new and unexpected quarter. Mk. may derive his version of the utterance of Jesus from Q (pp. 672, 675, 678). But it differs from the parallels in Mt. and Lk. at one or two points especially in Mark 3:28, sons of men, where Mt. and Lk. have a reference to the Son of Man. It is difficult to decide the question of priority (see Montefiore, i. 117). It is more important to recognise that Mk. seems to know some record or records of the teaching of Jesus from which he inserts sayings that bear on the points of special interest to himself and his readers. What Jesus said about exorcism concerns one of these points.

[74] [Spitta suggests (a) that his friends (21) means not his relatives but his disciples, (b) that the subject of the verb rendered is beside himself is the crowd, which has fallen out of the text together with the miracles recorded by Mt. and Lk. A. J. GJ

Mark 3:22. Beelzebub lord of flies (cƒ. 2 Kings 1:2 *). The better reading is Beelzebul, the meaning of which is doubtful, perhaps Lord of dung or Lord of the habitation (see Swete).

Mark 3:31. The crowd that gathered in Mark 3:20 is still round Jesus, so His mother and brethren can reach Him only by sending a message. Jesus refuses to recognise their claim to interfere, and enlarges the bounds of the Holy Family to include as His kinsfolk all who do God's will. This incident, undoubtedly historic, is difficult to reconcile with the story of the Virgin Birth. The silence as to Joseph is sometimes attributed to dogmatic reasons, but is better explained by the probability that he was already dead.