misunderstood

August 28, 2018

The reaction of Jesus’ family (Mk 3:21-3:21)

“When his family

Heard it,

They went out

To restrain Jesus.

People were saying.

‘He has gone

Out of his mind.’”

 

καὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐξῆλθον κρατῆσαι αὐτόν· ἔλεγον γὰρ ὅτι ἐξέστη.

 

This is another unique saying of Mark.  He said that when the family of Jesus, without being specific about which members of this family, heard about the crowds and Jesus (καὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ), they went out to restrain or get hold of him (ἐξῆλθον κρατῆσαι αὐτόν).  People were saying that Jesus had gone out of his mind or was astonishing (ἔλεγον γὰρ ὅτι ἐξέστη).  There is always a fine line between genius and madness.  His family must have felt that Jesus had gone too far.  In general, gospel writers indicate that the relatives and family of Jesus, seem to have misunderstood what his role was.

February 25, 2017

The false visions of the prophets (Lam 2:14-2:14)

Nun

“Your prophets

Have seen

False visions

For you.

They have seen

Deceptive visions.

They have not exposed

Your iniquity

In order to restore

Your fortunes.

But they have seen

False oracles,

Misleading oracles

For you.”

Now we have an element of guilt. This author blames their situation in Jerusalem on the false and deceptive visions of Yahweh’s prophets. Jeremiah often called them the happy prophets, who saw no harm coming. These prophets never challenged the people and their iniquity. They kept talking about restoration with their false and misleading oracles. It almost seems like this is an attempt to say that the prophets had the wrong visions or oracles from Yahweh, rather than the prophets misunderstood these visions or oracles of Yahweh. This verse starts with the Hebrew consonant letter Nun. Each verse after this will use the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet in this acrostic poem.