Ben C. Smith wrote:Parallels with Jewish Midrash.
But Mark 6.14-29 also has extensive parallels in various Jewish traditions about Esther. What are we to make of those?
1. Perplexity.
In Mark 6.20 it is said that the king, whenever he heard John the Baptist speak, was much perplexed (πολλὰ ἠπόρει) and heard him pleasurably. Translations sometimes try to sneak in an element of contrast here ("but he heard him pleasurably," or "and yet he heard him pleasurably") which is not in the original Greek. This is the only time the verb appears in the gospel of Mark, and it is not entirely clear in context why Herod is perplexed; one finds oneself venturing psychological explanations (Herod was baffled by John, and yet liked him anyway, with a strange fascination, et cetera). The scribes must not have understood it very well, either, since there is a variant reading: πολλὰ ἐποίει (he did it much/often). Now, in Esther 1.10 the king commands seven eunuchs to bring Vashti in to the banquet, on display, and the name of the first eunuch is Mehuman (מְהוּמָן). As Aus explains, "Judaic commentators could not resist a play on this word. They also maintained that the 'king' who spoke in 1:10 was not Ahasuerus, but God (the 'King of Kings'). Midrash Abba Gorion on this verse, for example, states: '"He (the King) spoke to Mehuman." This is the angel appointed over confusion (מְהוּמָה).' Leqash Tob on this verse also reads מְהוּמָה. Aggadat Esther on 1:10 is fuller: 'Mehuman': This is the angel appointed over confusion (מְהוּמָה) and over wrath (חֵמָה)." This pun on the name Mehuman from the story of Esther, imparting perplexity or confusion to Ahasuerus, would explain why Herod is also perplexed or confused in the story of John's beheading.
2. A birthday banquet.
In Mark 6.21 the occasion for the feast (δεῖπνον) is Herod's birthday (γενέσια). The Greek term for birthday appears only here and in the parallel in Matthew 14.6 in the entire Greek Bible. The Greek version of Esther itself calls the banquet a δοχή, but in the alpha text the dinner that Esther offers in 5.5 is called both a δοχή and a δεῖπνον. The occasion for Ahasuerus'/Artaxerxes' celebration is not given in the book of Esther. However, later Jewish commentators fill in this detail, some of them opting for the wedding feast for the king and Vashti, others for the king's birthday. Aus lists Midrash Abba Gorion, Panim Achérim B, Leqach Tob, Aggadat Esther, and Yalqut Shim'oni as opting for his birthday.
3. Lewd dancing.
In Mark 6.22 the daughter of Herodias dances for the guests. The book of Esther has nothing about dancing, but Aus writes, "Midrash Abba Gorion on Est 1:6, for example, states: 'And there was pure purple under the feet of the attendants, and they danced (מְרַ קְדִּין) before those reclining.'" He notes a similar detail about dancing in Panim Achérim 2 before going on to discuss Jewish views of Persian and Median attitudes toward feasting and dancing; he sums up: "This Persian/Median usage is reflected in Pirq. R. El. 49, which relates regarding Est 1:8, 10-12, and 19 the following: 'Rabbi Jose said: It was the universal custom of the kings of Media when they were eating and drinking to cause their women to come before them stark naked, playing and dancing..., in order to see the beauty of their figures. When the wine entered the heart of Ahasuerus, he wished to act in this manner with Vashti the queen. She was the daughter of a king, and was not willing to do this. He decreed concerning her, and she was slain.'"
4. The executioner/bodyguard.
The word for executioner/bodyguard in Mark 6.27 is σπεκουλάτωρ, a Latin loan word: speculator. Aus observes that this Greek word is found nowhere else in the New Testament, the LXX, Philo, or Josephus. It is quite rare. Interestingly, however, it also entered rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic as a loanword. Aus writes, "In Panim Achérim 2 on Est 6:1 Mordecai sees Haman coming, 'and the סְפִקְלָטוֹר with him.'" Here the bodyguard of the king is called by the same term as in Mark 6:27. ... The second targum on Est 5:2 relates that 'when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she found favor and grace in his sight. But the royal executioners (אִסְפַּקְלְטוֹרֵי) who stood there were ready to kill, to kill Esther.'" Again, the same Latin loan word is used of these men.
5. Head on a platter.
In Mark 6.25 the daughter of Herodias asks for, and in 6.28 receives, John's head on a platter (πίναξ). The word πίναξ appears only here, in the Matthean parallels in Matthew 14.8, 11, and in the unrelated Luke 11.39 in the entire Greek Bible. Aus writes of the Judaic parallels, "The most important rabbinic passages for the Marcan narrative are Est. Rab. 4/9 on Est 1:19, and 4/11 on Est 1:21. The first relates the offer of Memucan before the king in regard to Est 1:19, 'If it pleases the king, let there go forth a royal order': 'He said to him (the king), "My lord the king, say but a word and I will bring in her head on a platter."' .... The second passage in Esther Rabbah comments on Est 1:21, 'This advice pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed': 'He gave the order. And he brought in her head on a platter.'" As Aus points out a bit later, "the term translated 'platter' in the Vashti account above is the Greek loan word in Hebrew, דִּיסְקוֹס: diskos. .... It should be noted that the Old Latin translates the term for 'platter' in Mark 6:25 and 28, pinax, with the same word: discus. This is the most striking of the parallels to the Jewish midrashic texts.
6. Grief over innocence.
In Mark 6.26 the king is grieved (περίλυπος) at having to slay John, and we already know from 6.20 that Herod Antipas regards John as righteous and holy. In Esther 1.12 the king grieves (λυπέω) that Vashti will not come when summoned. But the midrashic material is even closer, with Esther Rabbah 5.2 stating: "After he had killed her he began to feel remorse, because he realized that she had acted properly." The Second Targum on Esther 2.1 says that "she herself did not deserve the punishment of death."
I want to bring the full raft of parallels back into focus a bit, since it can be all too easy to break them down and look at them one at a time.
Not all of these parallels are of equal merit, of course. I can, for example, easily imagine both Mark and the rabbinical commentators independently creating an occasion for the feast (of which marriage and birthdays would be the two most obvious choices) and adding lewd pagan dancing into the mix. Nor do I think that Herod's grief over John's innocence admits of a ready directional argument compared to Ahasuerus' grief over Vashti's,
other than the same weirdness I have already adduced in imagining Jewish commentators deliberately strengthening the connections between Mark and Esther for some reason (which argument would apply to all 6 connections, regardless of other considerations of internal logic).
But Herod's perplexity in Mark 6.20 has no obvious rationale in context (not without adding psychological interpretations that the text just does not give us), and its ultimate derivation from a pun on the name Mehuman in the Esther story would make more directional sense than rabbinical commentators importing it from Mark into Esther and chancing to find a suitable pun there to which to attach it; it would also make more sense than mere coincidence, especially since the word in question appears only here in Mark. A similar observation applies to the
speculator of Mark 6.27: this word is rare in the Greek of the time, yet it appears as a loanword in connection with Ahasuerus' personal bodyguard in the Esther materials; this makes more sense in one direction than in the other. The head on a platter is, as I have already argued, more at home as a cruelly appropriate punishment for Vashti failing to appear at the banquet than it is as a punishment for John.
I think that the internal arguments are definitively in favor of the Jewish traditions claiming priority over the Marcan story of Herod's banquet. The catch, of course, is the external evidence, which is lacking for the Jewish traditions until much, much later than the text of Mark is attested. My thoughts on this dilemma are pretty simple: we possess only a fraction of what was written in antiquity. A claim that the relevant Jewish traditions postdate Mark simply because their present attestation postdates Mark is an implicit claim that those relevant Jewish traditions appeared nowhere in any of the chronologically appropriate literature (or oral culture, for that matter) that is now (possibly forever) lost to us. Are we in a position to make such a claim? Of course, if there is no internal evidence of a connection or a direction of influence to assess, then the question never comes up in the first place. But, once we decide that we have internal evidence of a kind that suggests both a connection and a direction, what is there in the external evidence to inspire confidence that something did not exist at a certain date?
I am reminded of a recent thread that I posted about a variant reading in Luke 16.19:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2503. The naming of the rich man as Nineue is attested by the Sahidic translation, a scholion in two Greek minuscule manuscripts dated (respectively) to centuries XI and XII, and ƿ75. If we did not possess ƿ75, would we not be tempted to suspect that this name arose only much later, based on the other external evidence? Obviously, in that case I am aware of no internal evidence to suggest a time frame or a direction of influence, but the point is that,
if we find such internal evidence, it may be a mistake to overrule it based on our external evidence, most of which is lost to us.
Ben.
