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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
In reading the Gospels it is as well to bear in mind the process of selection which lies behind them; for the stories about Jesus which are included in the Gospels are, as Jn. 20.30, 21.25 remind us, only a small selection from a much larger mass of material. Quite often—and perhaps this is particularly true of the miracle-stories—the most effective approach to the question of an episode's message for ourselves is to ask what feature or features of it would have struck Christians of the fourth to seventh decades of the first century as specially significant and so contributed to its preservation, when so much was allowed to be forgotten. The purpose of this article is to indicate three such features of the episode recorded in Mk. 9.14-29 and to suggest that it is in them that we have also to recognise the significance of the passage for ourselves.
page 57 note 1 Selection took place, of course, at different stages—in the memory of eyewitnesses, the moulding of oral tradition, the compilation of any written sources the Evangelists had, and finally in the composition of the Gospels. The wealth of detail in Mk. 9.14–29 suggests that this story came to Mark directly from an eyewitness rather than via oral tradition.
page 57 note 2 Mt. 4.5–7, Mk. 8.12 (cf. Mt. 12.39; Lk. 11.29). Mk. 15.32.
page 57 note 3 Mt. 11.4 ff., cf. Jn. 2.11. cf. A. Richardson, The Miracle-Stories of the Gospels, pp. 48 f.; the whole book is extremely stimulating.
page 57 note 4 Mt. 11.20 ff.
page 58 note 1 Why were they amazed? Was Jesus' face still shining after the Transfiguration like Moses' face in Exod. 34.29 ff.? In support of this Hauck notes the word ίδόντες But, as Gould points out, if this were so, the command of secrecy (9.9) was useless. Or was it simply that they were surprised at His opportune arrival? But for this the intensive form (έκ-) would be very strong. A much more satisfactory answer is supplied by G. Bertram in Kittel's Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, III.3 ff. According to him the amazement of the multitude is Mk.'s means of representing the arrival of Jesus for the believer as an epiphany of the Lord. He cites a number of passages (Mk. 1.27, 10.24,32, 16.5 f.; Lk. 4.36, 5.8–10—we may perhaps add Mk. 12.17) where expressions of fear and amazement serve to emphasise the revelation-content (Offenbarungsgehalf) or Christological significance of a particular scene.
page 58 note 2 cf. E. Stauffer's art. in Kittel, 's T. W. z. N. T., II, 620 ffGoogle Scholar. The word έπιτιμάω has two meanings agreeing with the two meanings of the simple verb—to honour and to impose a punishment. The latter usage develops into that of “rebuke”, “reprimand”, in classical and hellenistic Greek. In the LXX the word obtains a special sense from the thought of the Word of God, which creates and destroys. The creating word of God calls into being (אךכ), the rebuking word brings to destruction (רעג). Έπιτιμάω became the technical term for the divine rebuke. See for example Ps. 104.7, 80.16, 106.9, 2 Sam. 22.16, Jb. 26.11. In Zech. 3.2 it is Satan who is rebuked—cf. the demon here. In the N.T. it is used of Jesus rebuking Peter (Mk. 8.33), John and James (Lk. 9.55), evil spirits, as here, the winds and sea (Mk. 4.39), a fever (Lk. 4.39), and of His strictly commanding secrecy about His Messiahship (Mk. 8.30). Used of Jesus it denotes His divine authority, His exercise of the “Herrenrecht” of the living God. It is abo used of men rebuking men; it then usually denotes a usurping of the divine right, and so a rebuke that is not allowed to stand (e.g. Mk. 10.13 f., 48, and 8.32). Only once in the Gospels according to Stauffer is a spontaneous rebuke of a man by a man allowed to stand unchallenged, and that is in Lk. 23.40, where it is not arrogance but humility which speaks (keine Zurechtweisung von oben herab, sondern vom Standpunkt des Bussfertigen aus), cf. the brotherly rebuke of the erring Church-member (Lk. 17.3, 2 Tim. 4.2, 2 Cor. 2.6).
page 58 note 3 Swete compares 10.38 f., 14.58, and Jn. passim for this emphatic έγώ of Christ.; cf. also Exod. 3.14.
page 58 note 4 See footnote on p. 64.
page 58 note 5 cf. Mk. 14.62, where “the power” stands for God.
page 59 note 1 cf. Aulen, G., Christus Victor, esp.99f.Google Scholar
page 59 note 2 cf. Barth, K., Kirchliche Dogmatik, III/2.252Google Scholar
page 59 note 3 Pace Richardson, A., op. cit., 29–34.Google Scholar
page 60 note 1 D and the Old Latin actually have προσχαίροντεѕ for προστρέχοντєѕ!
page 61 note 1 Better thus translated than as in R.V. For such private conversations between Jesus and His disciples cf. 4.10, 7.17, 10.10. It has been suggested that this is a way of introducing the early Church's interpretation. It is possible that this is so here (so F. Hauck and others), but it is not proved. It is, however, intrinsically probable that the disciples would have asked Jesus this question. We need not assume that 28 f. are an addition by the early Church added because the problem of such failures was troubling them; though we may readily admit that it was probably because such failures were not unknown to them and did in fact constitute a problem that they would be interested to preserve this bit of tradition. Lk. however omits this conversation altogether—perhaps because he wanted to spare the apostles (cf. his omission of Mk. 8.32b–33, 10.35–40, 14.31, 50, and of the reference to Peter's cursing and swearing in Mk. 14.71).
page 62 note 1 In verse 29 the words “and fasting” are omitted by the original scribe of א and by one of the correctors, by B, k (the chief representative of the African family of the Old Latin) and also by Clement; they are included by A, C, D, L, W, θ, ψ, Fam, 1, Fam. 13, the Byzantine text generally, Old Latin, Vulgate, Syriac (Sin., Pesh. and Harkl.), Egyptian (Sah. and Boh.), Ethiopic, Gothic and Armenian; and possibly we should add the Chester Beatty Papyrus which has a space for the words. Is it more likely that “and fasting”, if original, would be omitted, or, if not original, would be added? Apparently there was a tendency to add references to fasting, as is seen in Acts 10.30, 1 Cor. 7.5, in both of which the Byzantine text favours the addition (though in both instances the MS evidence for inclusion is weaker than in Mk. 9.29). We find also that this verse with the reference to fasting is added in the Byzantine and other authorities in the Mt. parallel. A motive for addition was near at hand in the interest of the early Church in fasting, which is indicated by Mk. 2.20, Acts 13.2, 14.23, Didache 7, Justin Apol. 1.61, etc. It is more difficult to think of a possible motive for omission. Hauck's suggestion that it would be omitted because it seemed to contradict Mk. 2.18 ff. is not very likely; for there it is assumed that the disciples will fast after Jesus has left them. Hauck's point is surely a more weighty reason for thinking the words “and fasting” intrinsically improbable than for thinking that a scribe would omit them, if he found them; for scribes' alterations are usually due to less subtle reasons than that which he suggests. The contemporary interest of the Church would more likely weigh with a scribe. Certainly the intrinsic probabilities are against the words being original; for there is no mention of Jesus fasting except during the forty days, and (as Hauck argues with opposite purpose) Jesus expressly sanctioned His disciples not fasting so long as He was with them. We conclude that “and fasting” is not part of the original text, and that behind this addition lies a radical misunderstanding of Jesus' point. Mt.'s form of Jesus' answer gives the true point. By “prayer” He means not merely prayer as a pious exercise, but rather the sense of complete dependence on God from which sincere prayer springs. But it was early misunderstood in the sense of a meritorious human pious activity, as though what the disciples needed was a greater “holiness” of an ascetic sort, a superlative measure of human spiritual attainments.
page 63 note 1 Wellhausen suggested that in verse 14 “scribes” γραματεîς) might be a false explicitum for the pronoun 
introduced into the text to explain “questioning” 
. There is no MS support for this in verse 14, but the fact that some MSS have substituted 
for in verse 16, and the variants 
and 
for (he second in that verse might seem to lend some support to Wellhausen. If he is right, then the disciples were arguing among themselves.
page 63 note 2 cf. Augustine, St.'s advice to the preacher: “Orel, ut Dominus sermonan bonum del in os eius” (de Doctrina Christiana, IV. 15)Google Scholar quoted by Barth, , The Doctrine of the Word of God, 111.Google Scholar
page 64 note 1 cf. Roux, H., L'Evangile du Royaume, pp. 220 f.Google Scholar (this is a commentary on Mt. which deserves to be more widely known in this country than it is), and also Barth, K., Kirchliche Dogmatik, I/2, pp. 356–397Google Scholar, which, though not concerned with this passage, is extremely interesting in this connexion.
page 64 note 2 In verse 23 it is best to read τ⋯ εἰ δ聙νῃ, π⋯ντα … with 
B, C (with the unimportant variant δ聙νασαι for δ聙νῃ), Fam. I, Egyptian (Sah. and Boh.), with which W also agrees (except that it has 
for τ⋯. The article τ⋯ is omitted by the Chester Beatty Papyrus, D,Θ, Fam. 13, the Old Latin, Vulgate, Syriac (Sin. and Pesh.); but this difficult τό is much more likely to have been omitted than inserted by a scribe. Some authorities (A, D,Θ, Fam. 13, the Byzantine text generally, the Old Latin, Vulgate, the Syriac (Pesh.)) insert 
after δ聙νῃ (or δ聙νασαι). Here it is likely that the word was added, to make the sentence easier. Blass' conjecture τ⋯ τ⋯ εἰ δ聙νῃ;—for which there is some support in one MS of the Old Latin which has “Quid est si quid …” and in the Bohairic— is unnecessary. Those who added the word must have understood the subject of δ聙νῃ here to be the father. If they were right in this, the sense would be: “The question is not whether I can do anything, but whether you can (sc. believe).” But, if this were the meaning, the article τό would be awkward, and one would abo rather have expected the personal pronoun σύ to be put in, seeing that the whole point would be in the fact that the subject of δ聙νῃ is now not Jesus but the father. So it is better to take the subject of δ聙νῃ to be Jesus, as it was on the father's lips. The explanation is then that Jesus quotes the father's words indignantly, in order to challenge them, and the article τό is the mark of quotation, which has the effect of making the words εἰ δ聙νῃ the equivalent of a noun. We can then either take τò εἰ δ聙νῃ as a nominativus pendens, and translate: “As to your ‘If you can’ …”; or we can put a full-stop (or exclamation mark) after it, and render: “You say, ‘If you can’, indeed! …”; or a question mark, and translate: “Do you say, ‘If you can’?” or “What is this ‘If you can’ of yours?” Of these the first is preferable.
page 65 note 1 Wellhausen pointed out that, although according to the sense of the passage so far one would expect the faith here referred to to be the faith of the Healer (the apostles failed because they lacked true faith, but One who has perfect faith in His Father can do what they failed to do), the following verse shows that this is not the sense, but the faith here referred to must be that of the one asking for healing. The father of the epileptic takes Jesus' words to be a rebuke of his own unbelief and a challenge to him to believe. The sentence might mean: “There is nothing which a man who has faith cannot do”; or “There is nothing which cannot be done (sc. by Jesus or by God) for a man who has faith”; or “There is nothing which is impossible for (i.e. in the view of—an ethic dative) a man who has faith” —in other words, “A man who has faith will not set any limit to what I (Jesus) can do”. At first sight, the first alternative would seem the most natural meaning of the words, and in support of it such passages as Mk. 11.23, Mt. 17.20, may be adduced. It is a possible interpretation—though we must object to expressions such as that of Gould ad loc. (“the omnipotence of faith, which places at man's disposal the divine power”, vide 3.a). On the other hand, Moffatt's interpretation—the second above—might seem to be supported by those passages which show Jesus requiring faith on the part of a sick man or of someone who is asking for healing on his behalf, before working a miracle; but vide 3.b. On the whole, it seems preferable to take the third possibility; for, though the others are both things which Jesus might conceivably have said, this fits the circumstances of the context better. We may compare Mk. 10.27.
page 67 note 1 cf. Barth, K., op. cit., 1/2, pp. 272, 441, 489 f.Google Scholar