14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”(Thus he declared all foods clean.) (Mark 7:14-19; ESV; emphasis mine)
Mark 7:19 is one of the texts which has been used to argue that Mark’s Jesus either directly or indirectly nullified portions of Torah, yet such an interpretation goes beyond what the context itself would allow. When reading Matthew’s re-telling of the Markan account, it becomes all the more apparent that Jesus’ rebuke is to be viewed as a critique towards the halacha concerning the washing of hands. The text suggests nothing more than that Jesus did not think eating with unwashed hands defiled the food or the person eat it. The problem of defilement lies in having an unclean heart. Neither Mark, Matthew nor Luke frames the topic as to be dealing with kashrut or laying down new definitions for what is food and what is not food (same goes for Romans 14). In addition, the placement of the text in Mark after Jesus rebuke of the abuse of certain Pharisaic halachot, also aids us in achieving a contextual understanding.
“Thus he declared all foods clean” as the ESV along with many other translations reads, is saying more than what text allows for. The text simply literally reads: “(he) cleaning all foods”. The verse is far more ambiguous than what some translations make it out to be. There is no emphatic “declaring”. The syntactical relationship between the clauses is not fully evident, nor is it even clear that “he” refers back to Jesus. In fact, the masculine participle is somewhat problematic. For whom is its antecedent and which finite verb does it modify? To make Jesus the antecedent, one needs to connect the participle with the implied subject of λεγει back in the beginning of v. 18. Jesus is not mentioned though. He is merely the implied subject of the verb. This seems odd if the declarative action is rooted in the authority of Jesus himself. A more explicit subject is found wanting. Mostly likely — assuming the masculine participle to be the better reading (see below) — the implied “he” refers to ο ανθρωπος in the previous verse. The person eating with unwashed hands cleans the *kosher* food through the body’s natural functions.
The final colon of Mark 7:19 has a significant variant, which could be taken as evidence of its later inclusion into the Markan textual tradition. In place of the masculine participle, the Byzantine Κ and Γ together with miniscules 33, 700, 2542 and a few other, read in favour of the neuter: καθαριζον. The Western Codex D instead has a finite verb καθαριζει, which can be understood as having either a neuter or masculine subject. It is however a secondary reading, solving the difficulty of not having a finite verb in the clause. καθαριζων is the more difficult reading and the neuter has overall poor external attestation. The variants witness to the fact that the masculine participle made for an awkward read for some ancient scribes as well.
Even though the incident itself is recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels, it is only Mark’s version that contains the disputed words: “thus he declared all foods clean”. It is true that Luke 11:39 has a similar statement (και ιδου παντα καθαρα υμιν εστιν/εσται), but nothing shows dependence or even awareness of the Markan gloss. The clause would have strengthened Matthew’s case, so there would have been no ideological reason to omit it. So why is it not in Matthew’s version? Could it be that Mark 7:19d was not present in the copies belonging to Matthew and Luke?
It could well be that all these things indicate that Mark’s point was not easily understood by some, hence why Luke and Matthew ignored it. It would not be the first time that more puzzling Markan statements lack a parallel in the other Synoptic Gospels (cf. Mark 6:48; 14:51). One could argue that they had no reason to include the author’s own clarifying statement on the Jesus logia; but on the other hand, Matthew includes Mark’s gloss in Matt 24:15 (Mark 13:14). If the verse is read as having its antecedent in ανθρωπος rather than in Jesus, it no longer is a gloss but a continuation of Jesus speech. Maybe Matthew excluded this part because it could be misunderstood? Who knows. I cannot mind read people who have been dead for 2000 years. 🙂
I will have to ponder this issue further…
ΝΟΜΟΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ 