Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

Post by Stephen Carlson »

D Ryan Lowe wrote:It seems strange to put the participle at the end of a long quotation like that. Are there other clear examples that we know of where a participle is used at the end of a quotation with λεγω?
It is certainly strange, but I think it's still within the bounds of intelligibility. Gundry's commentary on Mark has this to say about it:
R. Gundry, Mark, pp.367-8, wrote:But the distance of καθαρίζων from -ει and the intervention of verbs with a different subject suffice to engender the vv.ll. [variant readings]. J. A. Kleist (209) notes that in Eur.IT a participle in line 23 modifies the subject of λέγει as far back as line 16, with an intervening direct quotation, just as in Mark.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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George F Somsel
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Re: Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

Post by George F Somsel »

Stephen C. Carlson wrote:
I'm trying to think what masculine noun would be implicit and I am drawing a blank. Maybe you know one, since you're expecting one.
You need to look all the way back to 6.4 where an identification other than a pronoun is given. There it says
καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι
Thereafter it continues
Καὶ περιῆγεν
Καὶ προσκαλεῖται
καὶ ἔλεγεν
Our passage has
Καὶ συνάγονται πρὸς αὐτὸν
καὶ ἐπερωτῶσιν αὐτὸν
Ὁ δὲ εἶπεν
καὶ ἔλεγεν


It is one continuous catena of the sayings of Jesus. It is thus Jesus who by what he says is
καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα
george
gfsomsel



… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.



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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

Post by Stephen Carlson »

George F Somsel wrote:It is one continuous catena of the sayings of Jesus. It is thus Jesus who by what he says is
καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα
Yeah, that's what I thought I said, so what's our disagreement then?
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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George F Somsel
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Re: Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

Post by George F Somsel »

Stephen C Carlson wrote
Yeah, that's what I thought I said, so what's our disagreement then?


Expected gender.
george
gfsomsel



… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.



- Jan Hus
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

Post by Stephen Carlson »

George F Somsel wrote:Stephen C Carlson wrote
Yeah, that's what I thought I said, so what's our disagreement then?


Expected gender.
For a process. You gave me a person.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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RandallButh
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Re: Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

Post by RandallButh »

Stephen Carlson wrote:With the critical text, with καθαρίζων, the antecedent of this participle is the subject of the λέγει (Jesus) at the beginning of v.18. It is probably to be understood as an editorial comment on the part of the narrator that Jesus cleansed (i.e. declared clean) all foods, although subsequent Christian history (e.g. Peter in Acts) suggests that this was not fully understood at the time.
A little Relevance Theory on the Greek text might put Peter and Jesus in a much better light. The question in Mark 7 was whether a piece of bread or a fig became unclean by being touched by unwashed hands. Jesus declared them all clean. He rejected a secondary-level uncleanness of unwashed hands. See Yair Furstenberg. Eating in a State of Purity during the Tannaitic Period: Tractate Teharot and its Historical and Cultural Contexts.
Peter got that right, then and in Acts.

So the Alexandrian text has the Gospel writer explaining Jesus' halakic implications, pointing out that Jesus is the one καθαρίζων all the foods under suspicion of transferred uncleanness.
The Byzantinan text καθαρίζον refers back to παν το εξωθεν. That text becomes part of the quotation of Jesus. It may be seen as a 'more difficult reading' because the logic may be blurred or confusing. The 'external food (touched by unwashed hands)' does not defile a person and the example of this case cleanses other such cases. That 'food' cleanses all the other 'foods' by not making a person unclean. No handwashing is necessary and no secondary uncleanness is meaningful.
The compact nature of the Byzantine reading is more complicated than the more direct and simple reading of the Alexandrian reading.
However, the halakhic background is the same to either reading.
George F Somsel
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Re: Mark 7:19 καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα;

Post by George F Somsel »

Stephen C Carlson wrote:
For a process. You gave me a person.
Well, it was a person doing the declaring, was it not? The process agrees in gender with the declarer.
george
gfsomsel



… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.



- Jan Hus
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