Episode 61: Gospel of Mark Part 6–The Sabbath, the Synagogue and the Unclean Spirit
Okay, no more mister nice guy! This week Yeshua/Jesus moves on from his commissioning and calling of disciples in order to start fulfilling His mission as the Yahweh-Warrior, Israel’s Savior, by delivering a man of a demon right in the middle of the local Synagogue–resulting in the amazement and approval of the gathered worshippers. We’re going to talk about the Sabbath, early synagogues and where they did (and did not) originate, and ancient naming magic–which is what I think the demon was trying unsuccessfully to leverage against Yeshua here.
Transcript below. Editing is worse than usual but not as bad as it could be!
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Part 6—The Sabbath, the Synagogue and the Unclean Spirit
This week we’re going to backtrack a bit to cover something I forgot to mention two weeks ago and we’ll be talking about the Sabbath, which might not be familiar to everyone and I want to all be on the same page, Synagogues in first-century Israel and what they were and were not. We’ll review Scribes a bit but if you want a larger teaching on that I covered it in episode thirteen last year, which I will link when I put up the transcript on my blog or can be found on my podbean site. But the real exciting thing this week is the whole idea between the unclean spirit’s challenge of Yeshua/Jesus in the synagogue and the ancient pagan concept of name-based control magic because I think that’s what the demon was trying to accomplish here.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. I’m not prejudiced. You know what? I say this a lot. If your goal is to become more conformed to the image of Messiah, which is our primary job in life, then it doesn’t matter which Bible you use because they all say the same thing about what that looks like!
Okay, backtracking to last week, Mark chapter one, starting in verse 16:
16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
This was last week’s section and I want you to notice what the author does and does not say. One, he talks about what Yeshua/Jesus does but he doesn’t fill in a lot of background material about the supporting characters or even a lot of background stuff about Yeshua. No infancy narrative (protoevangelium)—it’s like he pops into the world out of nowhere and we would have like nothing on all that if Matthew didn’t give Joseph’s back story and Luke didn’t give the back story of Mary’s side of the family, including her cousin Elizabeth’s story. And by just popping into the world, I am not talking about like Mithras did it, springing, as an adult, full-grown out of a rock. Mark is concerned with one main theme overall, and that is to portray Yeshua as the new Moses inaugurating the Greater Exodus out of slavery to death and sin at the Cross, and on the way to that ending/new beginning, to paint Him as a warrior king. This week He starts looking like that mighty warrior king, vanquishing His enemies—that’s exactly how this would have looked to his ancient audience. So, he doesn’t tell us why on earth Peter and Andrew would just get up and leave their net—but John does. I am not going to read from that because we have too much to cover today, but John tells us in chapter one that Andrew was already a follower of John the Baptist and got his brother Peter interested in Yeshua after John pointed Yeshua out as the Lamb of God. So, this right here (despite appearances) is not the first meeting between Yeshua and Peter and Andrew, they had met before. However, it is at this point that Yeshua extended the formal invitation to be His disciples and they eagerly accepted. With Andrew, when John the Baptist made his announcement, was another follower as well who we can safely assume was probably John the brother of James and son of Zebedee. So, Mark leaves out a lot of back story but we have to be careful about assuming he’s saying all there is to say because he isn’t, and he isn’t meaning to either. It isn’t as important as what he is trying to communicate about the Greater Exodus and Yeshua as the new Moses/Elisha.
Let’s keep going:
21 And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching.
Who is “they”? Presumably, Yeshua, Peter, Andrew, James, and John. They went into Capernaum where we know from other accounts that Peter had a home where he lived with his mother-in-law. Capernaum is almost at the northernmost tip of the Sea of Galilee, maybe three miles away, but is it to the west of the Jordan River. We talked about the great fishing in this area in the winter months, so this was a thriving fishing community and a major hub of activity in Yeshua’s ministry. In fact, Capernaum becomes His home base, and while there He probably lives with Peter’s family. I have my reasons for believing He did not have His own home here but we will get to that when we get to that.
They went into Capernaum, and “immediately” on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and was teaching. There is a whole lot more here than meets the eye. “Immediately” means they went to the synagogue after sunset on Friday, by our reckoning, but they would have called Friday preparation day or the sixth day or erev shabbat. The biblical day begins at evening, following the pattern in Genesis and many other places, and so the Sabbath begins when the sun goes down on Friday night. So, immediately after the sun went down these hard-working former fishermen and their master went over to the synagogue. This, of course, would be after they spent the bulk of the day asleep after a long night of fishing. As you remember if you caught last week’s teaching, cotton or linen fiber nets could easily be seen by fish during the day so, before the invention of nylon fishing line, all fishing in the Sea of Galilee was performed at night. In ancient Israel, at least in Jerusalem, the priests blew a trumpet at the SW corner of the Temple Mount to warn people that the Sabbath was about to begin and work needed to cease–so it is likely that they did this in towns as well but I do not know for certain. Anyway, these guys didn’t just show up straight from their nets all sweaty and gross. They were well-rested and cleaned up and eager to begin a well-earned rest day.
So, what kind of synagogue are we talking about here in the first half of the first century? First of all, I want to combat a terrible and unfounded rumor out there that the Synagogues are of Babylonian origin. One, the word synagogue is actually GREEK– συναγωγή. I simply do not understand the desire of people to label everything as Babylonian when, by the first century, the Babylonians were all but defunct as a culture for hundreds of years. They were defeated by the Persians, the Medes, then the Greeks and then became part of the Parthian Empire that Rome could never manage to conquer. They weren’t just yesterday’s news by the first century, they were just nobodies at this point and their gods were ineffectual and irrelevant. The oldest excavated synagogue in Israel is in Gamla and dates to at least the first century but was destroyed along with the city in 67 CE by the Romans as recorded by Josephus. Like other early formal synagogues, it was rectangular with only one entrance/exit and flanked on the sides by two and three-tiered stone benches arranged somewhat like bleachers. I encourage you to check out Donald D Binder’s website which has pictures of many synagogue excavations and I will post that link on the podcast channel on Friday as well as in the transcript on my website which will also go up on Friday. http://www.pohick.org/sts/index.html and also https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-2000-year-old-synagogue-at-gamla-the-oldest-yet-found-in-israel/ But I can tell you that synagogues have been excavated in Masada, at the Herodium, Gamala/Gamla and Magdala.
Israel doesn’t have the oldest synagogues, however, because they had the Temple and the Temple was the official center of prayer and worship. The oldest synagogues were in Egypt in Alexandria and there exist quite a few inscription stones attesting to the fact. People often are not aware of how many Jews were living in Egypt at this time, having forcibly been removed there by the Ptolemies during the time of the Greek occupation of the Holy Land. According to Josephus, they were taken in bondage to Egypt, 120,000 of them, and when they were later freed by Philadelphus, they remained. Remember the verses in Isaiah 19 where the Lord was telling Isaiah that Egypt would one day be a center of worship to Him? Likely they saw themselves as a fulfillment of that and the community even gained permission to build their own Temple later.
Philo, an Alexandrian Jew of the first century CE, claimed synagogues in existence for the previous 300 years—so dating back to the 200’s BCE. But what has never been excavated are ancient synagogues in Babylon or thereabouts. These synagogues, first in Egypt and then later in Israel, formed as centers of prayer and study—in Hebrew, such a place is called a Beit Midrash (House of Learning).
Now, in Capernaum, it is not likely that the synagogue there was very large or formal and might have been the more typical “house-church” for lack of a better term where people met in the common courtyard that existed between homes during the warmer months. Capernaum was small, according to Josephus, a fishing village. There has been uncovered a black basalt synagogue dating to the last half of the first century and almost 5000sq ft in size, and some legend has it that it was built on the foundation of Peter’s house. A later and much grander formal synagogue was built on the ruins of the black basalt synagogue in the fourth of fifth century—excavated by the famous Charles Wilson who, if you know your Temple archaeology, is very famous. That synagogue is also on the website I will be posting for you. In Yeshua’s day, however, we are probably talking about a courtyard between houses, or a private room in a home, or a rented building. It would not have been a dedicated synagogue building. A meeting place could be termed a synagogue if ten Jewish men were in attendance. That is, assuming that later Rabbinic rulings were already in effect at this early of a time.
So, it’s Friday night, the Sabbath has started, the men have gathered at the synagogue while the women finish the Sabbath preparations and Yeshua is teaching. That means, by the way, that He was invited to teach. No one would disrespect the Sabbath by teaching uninvited. As a guest in town, someone who has been recently endorsed by John the Baptist (if word had gotten out, it’s debatable), the men of Capernaum would want to hear what He had to say (women attended the next day, by the way).
22 And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.
Now, if this was Matthew or Luke, we might know what He was teaching—but Mark never says. I find that amusing. Oh, we can guess and certainly, a lot of His teachings are recorded elsewhere but as far as Mark is concerned, all we need to know is that the men gathered that night were astonished, which is a word Mark will use a lot. But, what can we gather from the different Gospels? If you really need to know, He probably would have been (1) announcing the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, (2) that you must repent in order to receive it, and (3) that you must believe and realign your loyalties accordingly.
That would be an astonishing message. These guys were faithful Jews—they would be thrilled to hear that the Kingdom was on its way, and of course, to them that meant that God was going to break into the world of human affairs again, at last, to save them from the Romans. But—they need to repent? Surely, He means those sinners who didn’t show up, and who had better not even think of showing up, or the Am ha’aretz (people of the land, who were uneducated) who couldn’t be counted on to tithe properly. Oh yes, the tax collectors and prostitutes. Not the people who show up at the synagogue. And He was commanding them to believe His message. Hold on a second.
This guy—not a priest, not a scribe—was telling them to believe His message? Now that’s astonishing. The Scribes had authority on account of their having professional training and learning—they had earned a voice within the community. You listened to them because they were educated. You knew it and they knew it. They taught what others had taught them—they weren’t acting on their own as seemingly independent agents, accountable to no man. But Yeshua was claiming independent authority answerable only to God. Astonishing? Yeah, just a bit. And not a recorded miracle to His name yet (according to Mark’s account)—in fact, right now the only thing He has going for Him is that John the Baptist said (and I paraphrase) “He’s the one Isaiah was talking about, the one who would fill the descendants of the exiles with the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit.” Now, do you begin to see why I spent seventeen weeks in Isaiah? Things are continuing to connect between Mark and Isaiah 40-55, aka Deutero-Isaiah.
So this guy was teaching in a new way with a new authority. But exactly how much authority are we talking about here? This will become a bone of contention later on once the scholars show up. Right now they are nowhere to be seen.
23 And immediately
There’s that “immediately” again. Immediately is a point in time, as I have pointed out many times. Immediately after what? After He taught astonishing things in an astonishing way—after He claimed no other authority behind His words but God and claimed that everyone needed to align themselves with Him to receive the Kingdom. Make no mistake, that was an unmistakable throwdown, challenging not primarily the people in the synagogue but the ruler of this world. And immediately there was going to be a response. There had to be—this was straight up an honor challenge from the king-claimant to the existing ruler. Think of how King Saul reacted to David once it became plain that David would, in fact, be the next king. Think about how David could send away or at least soothe the demons who had taken up residence within Saul. That’s the foundational material we are to think of when we read this:
…there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”
Lots going on in here. First, there was a man with an unclean spirit—akatharto pneumati. He was in the synagogue, and we are supposed to pick up on the irony here. Ritual purity was not required for synagogue attendance, in fact there is a letter that I read in a Jerusalem Perspective article about a synagogue leader railing that women who are in niddah, having their menstrual cycle, weren’t coming to synagogue. He wasn’t happy about it, so obviously they didn’t have the same sort of ritual purity concerns as the Temple going at least into the second century. Unclean people could come and could pray—ritual impurity barred people from the Temple, not the synagogue, not even tzara’at, what’s called leprosy in the translations, which we will talk about in two more weeks. So, we don’t know about the man’s ritual purity level here. It wasn’t important. But there was a spirit within him that was unclean. It’s a different thing entirely. You can be ritually clean and have a demon, okay? And you can be ritually unclean and not have demons.
So, pay attention to singular and plural pronouns here: he (singular) cried out, “What have you to do with us (plural), Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us (plural)? I (singular) know who you are—the Holy One of God.”
Now, there are people who say this means that the synagogue was loaded with demons and demon-tormented people, but that’s a stretch, in my opinion. The man has one demon speaking through him, but he is talking about a collective “us.” That can be him defending the entire legions of the enemy—acting as their spokesman, or it might be that there are other demons there in people disrupting the preaching of God’s Word. No way to know for sure, although if it were the latter, I believe the next verses would play out differently. Back to that in a bit.
What does the demon do? Calls Him by Name and this is where we get this week’s bit of fun context although it might make you cringe a bit, not because it is gross but because it might strike a bit close to home so bear with me here. In the ancient world of gods and goddesses and demonic entities and ghosts and all that, we have mythologies and magical texts detailing the “fact” that you can use the true name of a god to control them. I did a teaching years ago about abraxas amulets the use of sacred names on them in order to work magic—and on these amulets you will find the names (in Greek) of angels named in the Bible and in pseudepigraphic apocalyptic literature, and even the Greek tetragrammaton Ia, Iao, Iawe—because remember they had no Y sound so they had to improvise. But the earliest story I am aware of is the tale of Isis and Ra, where Isis tricks Ra into revealing his super-secret name and once he does, she has control over him. This is called “naming magic” and we see it popping up within the sacred name movement as well—you will see people claiming that if you do not call on the one true name, that God will not hear you. That’s ancient naming magic doctrine based partially on paganism and partially on a misunderstanding of the idiom “call upon my Name” which means to call upon God’s authority.
So, the demon here, he might actually be trying to pull this sort of thing on the “Holy One of God.” Hey, give him points for at least trying. He must have been pretty desperate! This has never happened before. He knows who Yeshua is—he is identifying Him. We also don’t know the tone. Was it fearful? Was is respectful? Was it mocking Him and trying to catch Him by using His Name? Honestly, there is no way to know for sure but it is a really cool thing to discuss in context. What we do know is that this is being painted as a cosmic battle between the forces of the ruler of this world and God’s Messiah, the Son of Man, the Yahweh Warrior whom we will discuss in three weeks. Mark goes to great lengths throughout his Gospel account to paint Yeshua as a mighty warrior on behalf of God against the spiritual forces of the enemy.
25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”
Remember I said that people sometimes say the synagogue was full of demons? I doubt it because of Yeshua’s response here. He only addresses one and tells it to be silent and depart. It’s my belief that if there were a whole lot of them that Yeshua would have addressed them all and tossed them all out in a massive show of force. I believe that the presence and authority of Yeshua would have sent every demon in the place into an uproar and not just one. But you know what else is cool here? Yeshua tells the demon to shut up. As opposed to having the demon honor Him. Yeshua could have allowed the demon to keep on playing Chatty Cathy but it was time for it to leave. Yeshua is (1) more concerned with the man being free of this demon than He is with being exalted, which is totally awesome, and (2) perhaps Yeshua is not really very interested in being proclaimed by a demon. Reminds me of that little gal who was following Paul and Silas around, proclaiming that they were teaching the truth about God. After a few days, Paul had just had enough and cast it out of her. Might have taken him a few days to figure out her testimony wasn’t exactly kosher, we don’t know why it took him so long to act.
But there’s more here than meets the eye. Yeshua rebuked the demon—He didn’t do any of the things that modern exorcists and even Jewish exorcists were doing. In PGM IX.4,9—that’s Papyri Graecae Magicae–which are a collection of magical texts that came out of Greek Egypt from about 100 BCE to 400 CE—and also IV. 1243, 5, 3013—we see the incantations and magical antics of exorcists trying to expel evil spirits. But we see none of that with Yeshua. He simply rebukes. BOOM. Now, Josephus has an interesting account of Jewish exorcism rituals dating to just about fifty years after the time of Yeshua. They were attributing their rituals to Solomon. Remember that Josephus, although a solid historian of events fairly close to his times, incorporated a lot of legendary fictional material into his accounts of Biblical events long past. BUT it’s important that he did this because it teaches us a lot about first-century beliefs. This is from Antiquities VIII.ii.5:
Now the sagacity and wisdom which God had bestowed on Solomon was so great, that he exceeded the ancients; insomuch that he was no way inferior to the Egyptians, who are said to have been beyond all men in understanding; nay, indeed, it is evident that their sagacity was very much inferior to that of the king’s. He also excelled and distinguished himself in wisdom above those who were most eminent among the Hebrews at that time for shrewdness; those I mean were Ethan, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. He also composed books of odes and songs a thousand and five, of parables and similitudes three thousand; for he spake a parable upon every sort of tree, from the hyssop to the cedar; and in like manner also about beasts, about all sorts of living creatures, whether upon the earth, or in the seas, or in the air; for he was not unacquainted with any of their natures, nor omitted inquiries about them, but described them all like a philosopher, and demonstrated his exquisite knowledge of their several properties. God also enabled him to learn that skill which expels demons, (4) which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never return; and this method of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this: He put a ring that had a Foot of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils; and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return into him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. And when Eleazar would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man; and when this was done, the skill and wisdom of Solomon was shown very manifestly: for which reason it is, that all men may know the vastness of Solomon’s abilities, and how he was beloved of God, and that the extraordinary virtues of every kind with which this king was endowed may not be unknown to any people under the sun for this reason, I say, it is that we have proceeded to speak so largely of these matters.
So, you know, with Yeshua, no magical foot rings required. The first century through medieval times was a time of great superstition within Judaism and so we also see it in Christianity, let’s just call it something that both faiths had to grow out of and science actually really helped with that as things became less mysterious. Likely had we been born then we would believe it all too, so let’s go easy on them. The RAMBAM, Maimonides, in the 12th century, being a medical doctor and a scholar, really brought in a lot of sanity and expelled quite a bit of nonsense.
26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.
And just like that, it came out of him. What it cried out, we have no idea. Doesn’t matter. It exited the poor man and was gone. Praise God. This is what Yeshua came to do—deliver people from slavery and this is just a small taste in the Capernaum synagogue. David had to play the harp to get Saul’s demons to back down yet even that wasn’t enough when they got enough hold over Saul to try and kill David through him, and David was on the run for years. Yeshua sent them out with a word and they never got the upper hand until the final showdown at the cross—the time of God’s own choosing and for His greater purpose. Really, they never got the upper hand at all but fell into the trap of killing the Son of Man through their agents—the Sadducean Chief Priests and the Romans under Pontius Pilate.
27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
Amazed. So far, we have seen astonished and amazed. We will also see Greek words that mean awe, fear, wonder and etc.… He doesn’t teach what anyone else teaches. He doesn’t teach like anyone else teaches. He claims a greater authority—and He backs it up with action when challenged by the demons! Within our own synagogue even! How did we not even know about that?
Okay, they might have known or at least wondered about this guy, but you get the drift of what I am saying. Yeshua wasn’t like anyone else. And He certainly wasn’t like past Messianic claimants who talked a good game but never did anything like this! Who led failed revolts against the Romans and got their people killed. They knew everything in the ancient world was about authority and either rebellion or obedience. Someone who could effortlessly get evil spirits to obey Him had an insane level of authority in the spirit realm. The sages and exorcists of the day had to actually do a lot of verbal wrangling to get a demon to agree to leave. But Yeshua’s command is more than enough here and the demon recognized His position in the cosmic hierarchy when it addressed Him.
28 And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
Ya think? But as we are going to see starting next week, this was not the blessing it would appear to be. Fame and doing the work of God don’t always mesh well together. Miracles, as we will see, are a real double-edged sword.
Now the trouble is about to begin and the opposition along with it. With fame always comes opposition and especially in religion. Those in authority will begin to show up, will begin to question, will begin to challenge, and will also begin to try to undermine Him and call the source of His teachings, His authority, His miracles, His healings, and His exorcisms into question. But that’s just the authorities—we also have the flip side of being a miracle worker in an age without modern medical science, when treatments were for the rich and even then largely ineffective. In an age where 30% of babies died before their first birthday and 70% of people never made it past their 16th birthday, a time of desperation that we cannot imagine—just imagine what people will do when a miracle worker is operating, free of charge.