Did the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 teach Jesus not to be racist?
The gospel lectionary reading for Trinity fourteen in Twelvemonth B is Mark 7.24-37, which includes the episode of Jesus' encounter with the Syrophoenician woman that frequently brings readers up short, containing as information technology does what appears to be a rather shocking insult. Jesus is seeking to withdraw from public attention, needing some time for residual and recuperation, but (as characteristic of his portayal in Mark'due south gospel) he is unable to proceed his presence secret. A woman approaches him to ask for deliverance for her girl and (Mark having emphasised her heathen gentile credentials), Jesus appears to insult her with a racial slur past calling her a 'dog'. Yet her stubborn organized religion persists, and her clever response to Jesus' 'insult' persuades him to deed, so her daughter is delivered and healed.
There seems to be quite a stiff tendency in 'progressive' readings of this text to draw a item point from this episode: Jesus was in fact fallible and racist; the adult female taught him something past her response; he changed and moved on from his narrow, exclusive view; and so nosotros should exist willing to do the same. Here is one example, which sees mainstream readings of this texts as 'workarounds' which are avoiding the awkward reality that nosotros find in the text:
It's one of the most unsettling passages in the New Attestation. This isn't the Jesus Christians like to call up well-nigh. This is Jesus apparently insulting and dehumanizing a drastic adult female seeking the health of her family. This is Jesus writing Gentiles off as second-tier citizens…Jesus' statement was full of prejudice and ethnocentrism.
This story calls united states of america to confront Jesus' humanity. Existence human ways being embedded in a civilization. It means growing upward with a certain worldview. Information technology means inheriting traditions and language and biases—biases that tin be wrongheaded and hurtful and alienating. Biases like the exclusion of Gentiles from the community of religion and the circle of those deserving compassion…
Y'all see, Jesus doesn't cling to his prejudice. He listens…Jesus listens. And he changes his mind…The hero of this story is non Jesus, but the Syrophoenician woman…Jesus had prejudices from his community that were magnified by his insulation from those who could claiming his views, only he listens when those views are challenged. He concedes his erroneous ethnocentrism and turns divine compassion toward all people everywhere. Jesus shows us in this story that inheriting bias is inevitable, but holding onto information technology is a option.
There is no end to the wonderful ironies in this reading, not least that information technology is actually Marker, the writer of the gospel, who is the real hero, since he can see more than clearly than Jesus did at the fourth dimension the importance of this lesson. Nosotros need to break to recognise which 'ethnocentric' and racist community Jesus belongs to hither, whose ingrained prejudices he inherits. And it is not as well difficult to read the agenda of this commentator: bourgeois Christians are like the ignorant, prejudiced Jesus at the beginning of the story, but progressive Christians like me are like the enlightened Jesus at the cease of the story. The goal here is less for usa to exist like Jesus so much every bit to be like the commentator. Nosotros tin mayhap forgive this approach, knowing that the author is a third-year undergraduate in law (not theology) at Harvard. But others accept a like line:
Jesus uttered an indigenous slur. To dismiss a desperate adult female with a seriously sick child…Jesus holdsallthe ability in this commutation. The adult female doesn't approach with arrogance or a sense of entitlement associated with wealth or privilege. Rather she comes to him in the virtually human way possible, desperate and pleading for her girl. And he responds by dehumanizing her with ethnic prejudice, if non discrimination. In our modern terms, we know that power plus prejudice equals racism…
Rather than existence part of the solution to ethnic prejudice, Jesus seems to be very much office of the problem, co-ordinate to this story. When confronted with the gentile pagan in this story, he explains that his bulletin and ministry building are for Israelites only, a comment of indigenous exclusion and prejudice that calls to mind a similar refrain from a more modernistic time – whites only – that reverberated throughout the South not too long ago.
This, I call up, is the corking lesson of the Syrophoenician woman. It teaches us the dynamics of power and prejudice, of how even the best of humanity — the Incarnation himself — can get caught up in systems of oppression, in a culture of supremacy. Like many of us today, Jesus would have been reared into a prejudiced worldview.
So don't tell me you aren't prejudiced or don't do your position of power through the lens of your prejudice. Even Jesus did that.
The more I think about it, the more alarming this reading is. Apart from its extraordinary historical ignorance (Jewish culture was in a position of power and dominance over against Graeco-Roman pagan civilisation—actually?!), the writer appears entirely unaware of his dangerous characterisation of Jewish first-century civilisation as racist, effectively likening Jesus the Jew to a member of the Ku Klux Klan. An editorial annotation at the cease of the piece suggests that author (ordained in the Episcopal Church in the US) is aware of some of the difficulties here. But he doesn't seem aware of his supposition that Jesus' humanity implies Jesus' prejudice and sin, or that that might have been debated by the early church, or that information technology contradicts some explicit claims of the NT about Jesus ('tempted similar us, but without sin' Heb iv.fifteen), or that knowing that Jesus livedwithin a particular time and culture demand not imply that Jesus wastrapped in that time and civilization.
A rather witty mail service from a Catholic priest picks upward some of the problems here:
Dear Rev. Know-it-all,
I heard some theologian or other say that in the Gospel a few weeks ago the Syrophoenician adult female who asked Jesus to heal her girl ended upwardly didactics Jesus to be more tolerant. Is this possible that Jesus was a narrow-minded bigot who had to learn a matter or two from a Lebanese lady? Please help!
Kay Nanite [see Matt fifteen.22]
Beloved Kay,
I wouldn't worry too much. Whoever said this must be merely a pop theologian. They come and become like the fins on a sixties' Buick. If he'southward Fr. WOW! today, he'll probably be Fr. Who? tomorrow… I don't hateful to sound fussy, but the reason I call the fellow a pop theologian is that he can't be much of scholar. He hasn't read the text. Pop theologians ever assume that their opinion is unquestionable, then they never question information technology themselves…
Jesus left the throne He shared with His Father, taking off the prerogatives of divinity like a garment which He left on the heavenly throne. He humbled himself for beloved of His Father and for love of the states. He never ceased to be God, the Son of God. He never ceased to be the eternal 2nd person of the Holy Trinity. He never ceased to be perfect, since the perfection of the God is sacrificial love. In his humanity, Jesus certainly learned. The creator of the earth learned carpentry form St. Joseph and Jesus, the Discussion of God learned Aramaic on His Blessed Female parent's lap. But he did not learn to exist less racist from a Canaanite woman. He did not larn moral truth from anyone. He was and is moral truth. The only didactics that Jesus needed was the Father's voice, and this He ever heard clearly, despite what yous may have heard to the contrary.
This final comment is perchance jumping too speedily from text to theology, so let'southward spend a few moments with the text itself. Commencement, every bit Ben Witherington notes in his socio-rhetorical commentary (Eerdmans, 2001, p 231), this passage is indeed challenging—and then much so that information technology is 'nearly incommunicable' to imagine that the story was invented by Mark'due south generally gentile community. In other words, this passage helps to accost a challenge from a previous generation, that the gospel stories are unreliable historically and largely a creation of the early Christian community.
Just (as R T France highlights in his first-class NIGTC commentary), the episode also exhibits many connections with early on and following parts of Marking. The episode begins in Mark 7.24 with the phrase 'he rose and went from that place', a phrase that beginning occurred in Mark 1.35 (though the parallel is obscured in some English language translations). In both cases Jesus is seeking solitude as a prelude to the widening of his missions into new regions. Secondly, information technology is a feature of this early part of Marking that Jesus is moving beyond and and so back into Jewish territory, which is part of the forcefulness of the eight occurrences of Jesus 'crossing the lake' (an attribute of Mark'southward 'fishy' gospel in which, probably under the influence of Peter as his heart-witness source, Marker gives prominent attention to fishing, boats, and sea crossings). Thirdly and more especially, Jesus has already been involved in deliverance ministry building amid non-Jewish pagans, in healing the Gerasene demoniac. If the woman is teaching Jesus something near traversing ethnic boundaries, it appears that neither Jesus nor the woman (nor apparently Marking) has read the episode from two chapters early. Or perhaps it is just the 'progressive' commentators who have forgotten to do so…
In fact, this episode fits with a number of themes in this section of Marker. 'Staff of life' is a repeated theme, showtime occurring in the feeding of the v thousand in Mark 6.35–44, then recurring in the feeding of the four g in Mark 8.ane–x, too as featuring in Jesus alarm to the disciples about the Pharisees, highlighting the disciples' own lack of understanding, in Marking 8.14–21. In each place, bread stands for the blessings of the Messiah'due south ministry, first to his ain people the Jews and then (secondly) to the Gentiles. The two feeding episodes role every bit (if you lot will pardon the pun) a sandwich to the encounter with the Syrophoenician adult female.
And so when we read the text carefully, and read information technology in the context of the wider arc of Mark'south narrative, what do we larn?
Misunderstandings of the pericope spring largely from the failure to read information technology every bit a whole. It is a dialogue within which the individual sayings part just as part of the whole, and are not intended to acquit the weight of independent exegesis on their own. The whole encounter builds up to the totally positive decision of verses 29 to 30, while the preceding dialogue serves to underline the radical nature of this new stage in Jesus's ministry into which he has allowed himself to be 'persuaded' past the woman's realism and wit. He appears similar a wise teacher who allows, and indeed incites, his pupil to mount a victorious argument against the foil of his own reluctance. He functions as what in a different context might be called a 'devil'south advocate', and is not 'disappointed' to be defeated in argument. Equally a result the reader is left more vividly aware of the reality of the problem of Jew-gentile relations, and of the importance of the step Jesus here takes to overcome it. (France, p 296).
Information technology is worth noting here that the core event—that of the nature of the gospel including both Jew and Gentile—remains every bit forceful as e'er, but without having to mangle the text and plow Jesus into a bigoted racist to make the bespeak. It turns out that Mark is a rather more compelling interpreter of Jesus' ministry that a number of 21st-century readers. And in this careful reading, it is neither Jesus nor the woman who are the 'hero' in contrast to the failure and obstinacy of the other, but both who are important and rounded characters in the narrative. Jesus' encounters with individuals are never a cipher-sum game.
Some like points are made in a much more detailed narrative-critical written report of the episode by David Rhoads (Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Summertime, 1994), pp. 343-375):
The episode of the Syrophoenician woman fits tightly into the overall story, peculiarly in relation to the presentation of the Kingdom of God. The establishment of God's rule over the world is the force which drives the whole plot of the narrative. Here are four means in which this episode relates to the kingdom of God in Mark.
Rhoads highlights the way in which the woman'south response is a mirrored foil to Jesus, cleverly continuing the riddle that he offers her.
In her response, the Syrophoenician woman extends Jesus' riddle. She does not oppose what Jesus has said. Rather, she develops the scenario of Jesus' allegory so that she and her girl take a place in it…Thus, in her response, the Syrophoenician woman not merely stays inside the Jewish perspective of Jesus' riddle; she fifty-fifty refers to the Jewish children with a term of endearment.
Information technology is perhaps worth noting how this pattern of 'to the Jew first, then to the Gentile' (Romans 1.16) might have been critically important if Marker's gospel was written in the context of Rome, where relations between Jew and gentile Christian might have been tense.
When we interpret the episode in lite of the themes of the whole story, we are as well able to run across more than conspicuously the rhetorical impact this story may have had on an ancient audience equally a boundary-crossing narrative.
And there are further points worth noting, some of detail and others of the broader context. First, Jesus calls the woman a κυνάριον, a pet, house or lap dog, who is part of the family, and not a κύων, a wild street dog. The first term occurs only here and in the parallel in Matt xv.26–27; the second occurs in the other well-known references, Matt vii.6, Luke 16.21, Phil 3.ii, 2 Pet two.22 and Rev 22.15, and can have the metaphorical significant of prostitute.
Secondly, although the woman is identified explicitly past Mark every bit a 'gentile' (literally, 'a Greek'), she does not appear to exist of depression social condition, and might well have seen herself as socially superior to Jesus, a Jew. Her status might be indicated by the fact that her daughter is lying on a κλίνη, which is sometimes translated equally 'couch', though the discussion is used flexibly (for example, in Luke v.eighteen, though not in Mark 2.iv), so I am not certain this is decisive.
Thirdly, we need to pay attention to the community context in which Jesus is operating. Colin Edwards commented on a previous posting of this analysis:
Kenneth Bailey does a good job in explaining that Jesus is a setting that is customs in action (as opposed to individualistic), and that Jesus usually has the disciples and his community to the fore of his attention. Therefore Bailey argues that Jesus is working with the woman to accept her assistance him teach the watching disciples that the kingdom is for all. He doesn't demand pursuading just his disciples and watching community do. This interaction is an object lesson that helps pursuade and teach them.
And Andrew Symes notes the importance of this in the parallel in Matthew 15:
If Mark'due south version is an abbreviation of Matthew 15:21-28, then Matthew's version helps with the estimation, because it shows the disciples seeing the woman as annoying, and trying to get Jesus to send her away. Is it likewise fanciful to imagine him making the comments about dogs looking at the disciples with a raised eyebrow, inviting them to concur with his pretend-racist and misogynistic cess, and so winking at the woman, who comes out with her brilliant line about crumbs from the table?
Again in Matthew'due south version, Jesus prefaces his annunciation of healing with "woman, y'all have smashing religion". Jesus honours a foreign woman and heals her daughter at a altitude; he is showing upward his disciples for xenophobia, lack of compassion and lack of faith; at the same time he demonstrates the intention of the kingdom for racial inclusivity and the blessing of all nations based around religion in Christ. All in an commutation which would have lasted less than a minute. The disciples come out badly, and someone can perhaps enlighten me as to why Marking's account isn't as articulate equally Matthew'south, but Jesus remains the perfect Lord and Saviour, preaching and demonstrating the kingdom in a very homo setting.
I think the respond to the terminal question might exist constitute in Matthew's strongly Jewish perspective, which makes the lesson even more than important.
Finally, Jesus' approach here fits well with God's dealings with his people, as Daniel Boehm commented previously:
To me it seems that in this passage Jesus uses a like pedagogical method to Jahweh allowing/challenging Abraham (Gen xviii:22-33) and Moses (Ex 32:7-fourteen; Num 14:5-20) to be "obnoxious" and persistent intercessors. It seems at outset reading that their patience and mercy is greater than God'due south, and even so it is God stretching and shaping them to stand in the gap between himself and his people…
In this I run into a connection to Lk 11:five-24 and Lk 18:1-8 where God allows himself to be compared to rather unpleasant chracters, because equally we intercede we wrestle with (our image of) God. Over again, not to 'convince' him to be merciful but to train the states to trust in his justice and mercy against all odds. To me it would be ane of the about joyful moments if one of my children told me – "Dad, I know yous ameliorate than that." … reminding me of who I aspire to be.
Does all this mean that Jesus is never 'learning and growing' in the accounts in the gospels? Later on all, isn't that part of what information technology means to be human? Jesus was conspicuously non omniscient ('no-ane knows the hour, not even the Son' Matt 24.36) and that was part of his finitude as fully homo in the incarnation. Only if 'in him the fulness of the godhead dwelt bodily' then I recollect we are getting into serious bug if we think he didn't empathize God'southward purposes for humanity, and in item if he was limited in his understanding by a certain kind of Jewish ethnocentricity which would equate to what we could consider 'racism'. Apart from some other else, it questions Jesus' own understanding of the OT, which includes some very clear critiques of such a narrow view.
Besides, a careful attending to what the text actually says here offers no grounds for assertive that Jesus was ignorant and racist, and that this incident taught him something about the kingdom of God that he did not already know.
Information technology is, perhaps, worth request why the 'progressive' readings of the story are and so pop, given that they don't actually pay attending to the details of the text, and given that they raise such serious theological problems in the agreement of the humanity of Jesus? Perchance they are only the manifestation of ignorance—of lack of awareness of lack of willingness to engage with scholars similar R T France. Over again, there is an irony writ large in commentating on a passage like this nearly purlieus crossing if commentators are non willing to cantankerous a few boundaries, to engage with theologians from other traditions, themselves. But such views are broadcast very effectively by social media, and take root in shallow soil where the reading of adept commentaries past church leaders is less and less mutual.
But there is perhaps also a more explicit agenda—to claiming 'orthodox' understandings of who Jesus is, by taking the 'risky' pace of thinking that the Jesus we detect in the New Testament isn't actually a model for us, but is frail, ignorant and sinful likewise. This then means that the teaching of the New Attestation is not bounden on us, but is function of the 'trajectory' of development which continues through history, so that we, now, represent the pinnacle of revelation, and our own understandings reveal the true wisdom of God.
Sadly, this 'gospel' doesn't actually plow out to be very persuasive. Equally 1 comment expressed is on the 2d weblog quoted above:
If I didn't already have nothing but utter contempt for Christ, the bible and Christianity this exposure of Christ's racism and bigotry surely would have rocked my world view.
If we are going to draw the crowds, perhaps we need to pay more attention to the real Jesus of the gospels.
If you would similar to larn more about how to read the New Testament well, why not option upwardly Exploring the New Testament which I have contributed to. Information technology explores bug of background, context, content and interpretation for the letters of the NT including the Book of Revelation.
(A previous, shorter version of this was posted in 2018. See also the commentary on the parallel passage in Matt 15.)
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