Mark 7 Revisited: Should Christians Follow the Dietary Laws? [Part 3b]

 Mark 7 and Matthew 15 Revisited

 

Introduction

Recently I received a comment about my article ‘Jesus Declared all Foods Clean – or did He?’ which made me realise that I had failed to address Jesus’ own teaching to His disciples explaining what had occurred. In that earlier article, I had endeavoured to show that Jesus did not in fact declare that all types of animal meat was now on the menu and you could eat anything you wanted with a clear conscience, but rather the issue at hand was ritual cleansing of the hands before eating.

However, in both Mark 7 and Matthew 15, Jesus does not stop after rebuking the Pharisees, but goes on to explain the matter to His disciples: it is not what you eat that makes you unclean, but rather it is the sinfulness of the human heart that defiles people, for “nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean (Gk. koinoi – see below for an explanation of this word), for it does not go into his heart but into his stomach” [Mark 7v18-19]. From this, it is inferred that ‘nothing that enters from the outside’ refers to unclean meats. How then can this only refer to unwashed hands when Jesus makes it a spiritual matter and not just the physical issue of unwashed hands? In this article I hope to address that omission and explain how it fits in with what I said earlier.

So let’s look at the whole passage in Mark 7 in parallel with the one in Matthew 15.

Firstly, Mark gives the background to the issue at hand:

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.  (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly (literally ‘with a fist’; NIV uses the word ‘ceremonially’), holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) [Mark 7v1-4]

Tradition!

While washing one’s hands after being outside and before eating is basic good hygiene, there is more to it in this passage. It is the ceremonial nature of the washing the Pharisees were saying the disciples had ignored. But where did this idea come from?

In Mark 7v5 and Matthew 15v1-2 the origin is made clear: ‘’Why do your disciples not keep the tradition of the elders?”  

“The Pharisees confronted Jesus not because his disciples disregarded the Torah but because they disregarded “the tradition of the elders” (7:5). One of the traditions of the elders was that a person must ritually wash his hands before eating regular meals” David Wilber https://davidwilber.com/articles/did-jesus-reject-the-torahs-dietary-laws-mark

Clearly, this is not a question about the law of God, but about the traditions the Jews had added to God’s commands. And there were a lot of those! These traditions were the ‘oral law’ or ‘oral Torah’. They were eventually written down and collated in the Talmud and the Mishnah. These are two Jewish texts that are usually found together as a single bundle. The Mishnah contains all the rules and regulations, the legal aspects if you like, while the Talmud is a commentary, discussion, debate and interpretation of those rules. The rules about handwashing are found in the Mishnah tractate (a section) called Yadayim, which literally means ‘hands’. This section of the Mishnah explains that one could touch something that was ceremonially impure, for example in the marketplace, and this would then lead to your hands being ritually impure. This impurity could be removed by ceremonially pouring water over your hands up to the wrist, (usually three times). The oral torah claimed a person had to be ritually pure before eating a meal, otherwise you could eat something impure (contaminated by your hands that had touched something impure) and then you yourself would become impure. [Note: being ‘unclean’ does not mean you have committed a sin, but simply that you are ritually unfit]

The Pharisees held these rules as more binding than the Torah itself. Modern Judaism still holds these traditions higher than the Torah and is the essence of Rabbinical Judaism. The claim was that God gave Moses a second Torah, an oral Torah, that he (Moses) did not write down. But the Torah itself says that “Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said”. (Exodus 24v4). They also believed that the Torah gave them the same authority that Moses had held – that of deciding what is and is not Torah/law. Jesus did not agree with them and often spoke out, not against the law of God, but against these rules and regulations that formed the ‘traditions of the elders’. However, He did not speak against all of them – just those that overrode the law God had given.

In relation to handwashing, ritual purity was required by these additional laws before you could enter the Temple for prayers or sacrifices and before you could eat a meal.  Many of the rules were based on Scripture, but had been extended: the priests were commanded to wash ceremonially before attending to their duties; the Jews had extended that to apply to all hands and outside the context of the Temple:

 “The Pharisees were Jews who believed one must keep the purity laws outside of the Temple. Other Jews, following the plain sense of Leviticus, supposed that purity laws were to be kept only in the Temple, where the priests had to enter a state of ritual purity in order to carry out such requirements as animal sacrifices. They likewise had to eat their Temple food in a state of ritual purity, while lay people did not. To be sure, everyone who went to the Temple had to be ritually pure. But outside of the Temple the laws of ritual purity were not observed, for it was not required that noncultic activities be conducted in a state of Levitical cleanness. But the Pharisees held that even outside of the Temple, in one’s own home, the laws of ritual purity were to be followed in the only circumstance in which they might apply, namely, at the table. Therefore, one must eat secular food (ordinary, everyday meals) in a state of ritual purity as if one were a Temple priest.” [Jacob Neusner, From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism  (Prentice-Hall, 1973)]

They treated the home as an extension of the Temple, the dinner table as an extension of the altar in the Temple and every meal as a sacred act. Therefore, in order to eat at the table, one had to be ritually pure first, hence the ceremonial washing of hands:

“Although the Torah does command priests to wash their hands when serving in the tabernacle (Exodus 30:17-21), there is no commandment for non-priests outside of the tabernacle to wash their hands. Indeed, Mark explicitly identifies the Pharisees’ ritual as “tradition,” in contrast to God’s commandments. In any case, the context of this conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees in Mark 7 gives no indication that the Torah’s dietary laws are in view. The controversy concerned ritual handwashing. Thus, there is no textual basis for importing the Torah’s dietary laws into this passage.” David Wilber https://davidwilber.com/articles/did-jesus-reject-the-torahs-dietary-laws-mark

Of course, Jews only ate that which was deemed ‘clean’ as defined by Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14; if it was unclean then it was not food; God had stated that they were not to eat it at all. Eating unclean things was an ‘abomination’ and made the person an abomination too:

For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. [Deuteronomy 14v2-3]

A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; ....which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels [Isaiah 65v3-4]

Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. [Leviticus 20v25]

The word translated ‘abominable’ is shaqats and means ‘to be filthy, to loathe (intensly), pollute, abhor, make abominable, detest utterly’ [Strong’s]. It is a very strong word and is used throughout Scripture for several things that God abhors, detests, loathes and considers filthy – including people in certain circumstances. The Jews therefore took God’s laws very seriously and made the additional rules to make sure God’s commandments were harder to disobey – they were designed to protect people from breaking God’s law, but had become a sign of righteousness in themselves and a burden to the people.

But these additional laws were also in violation of God’s Torah. When God gave His laws, adding and taking away from those laws was expressly forbidden:

In order to obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I am giving you, do not add to what I am saying, and do not subtract from it. [Deuteronomy 4v2]

Everything I am commanding you, you are to take care to do. Do not add to it or subtract from it. [Deuteronomy 12v32]

Every word of God’s is pure; he shields those taking refuge in him. Don't add anything to his words; or he will rebuke you, and you be found a liar. [Proverbs 30v5-6]

Not only was this tradition of handwashing over and above the laws given by God, but it actually contradicted them: food that was permitted and declared by God to be clean (thus fit to eat) became ceremonially impure (and therefore unfit to eat) if you didn’t wash your hands in the prescribed manner. Thus you became defiled/impure by eating it. Nowhere will you find this in the written Torah.

Rebuked: Traditions vs the Commandments of God

The Pharisees asked, “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” [Matthew 15v1-2]. Jesus replied, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your traditions?...for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God” [Matt 15v3, 6]

If Jesus was rebuking them for making void the laws of God, it stands to reason He did not then make void the laws of clean and unclean immediately after telling them off for doing that very thing.

To drive His point home, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29v13:

“Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying,
These people draw near to Me with their mouth
But their heart is far from Me
And in vain they worship Me
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” [Matthew 15v7-9, Mark 7v6-7]

Tradition and commandments are here juxtaposed, as polar opposites. The Jews held their traditions more dearly than the very words of God! Back in Isaiah’s day, the people were guilty of adding manmade traditions to the practice of the Jews – they had added elements of false religions to the worship of God, a practice known as syncretism, that was forbidden:

“When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods” [Deuteronomy 12v29-31]

In quoting this reference and applying it to the Pharisees of His day, Jesus was saying that they were the same as in the days of Isaiah, hypocrites who were far from God, even though they appeared outwardly to be faithful and righteous. Their human additions had ousted the very commands of God.

The issue then was the traditions of men vs the commands of God, in particular, ritual contamination necessitating the ceremonial washing of hands vs the law of God which declared certain meats were clean and fit to be eaten. There is no room here for this to be transposed to be determining if Jesus was abrogating the laws of clean and unclean, one of the distinctive marks of God's people. The Pharisees had already made God’s laws void, declaring clean food to be unfit to eat because of some perceived ceremonial contamination. Had Jesus been stating as baldly as many Christians believe that unclean meat was now fit for consumption, the Pharisees would have stoned Him on the spot. Not only that, He would have been contradicting His Father’s word (which God said was irrevocable and which Jesus Himself said He had NOT come to destroy and declared that not the least jot or tittle would vanish from the law until ALL is accomplished and heaven and earth pass away), thus making Him a false prophet for speaking against the Torah and therefore NOT the Messiah! No wonder Jews want nothing to do with Christianity! Based on Deuteronomy 13v1-5, the Jews believe if someone tries to lead them away from Torah, then God is simply testing them to see if they will remain true to Him and His laws or not:

 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’  you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. [Deuteronomy 13v1-5]

Jesus’ Explanation

In Mark 7v17-23 and Matthew 15v16-20, Jesus gives His disciples an explanation of what had just occurred. Mark calls it a ‘parable’ but I believe that word refers to the words Jesus said to the crowd before He addressed His disciples rather than the discussion between Himself and the Pharisees:

“He called all the multitude to himself and said to them, Hear me all of you, and understand, There is nothing from outside of the man that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear” [Mark 7v14-16; see also Matthew 15v10]

It is this that the disciples asked Jesus to explain to them.

The Pharisees were concerned more with outward appearances than they were about inward defilement. In Matthew 5, Jesus tells His disciples that their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matthew 5v20). He went on to explain that the law was not only about outward compliance, but was a matter of the heart (Matthew 5v21-22, 27-28). Here in Mark 7 and Matthew 15, He is reiterating that true defilement comes not from external factors but from within. In so doing, He was rejecting the elevation of human traditions above God’s commandments, not the laws of food purity. He was also showing His disciples that the apparent righteousness of the Pharisees was mere outward appearance. When addressing the Pharisees later, He condemned them for this show of outward righteousness:

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” [Matthew 23v27]

There are three words in Scripture that are important for understanding this passage. They are translated ‘clean’, ‘unclean’ and ‘common, or defiled’. [Not all of them appear here, but bear with me]. The Jews of Jesus’ day had taken this to extremes and declared mixing with Gentiles (who they deemed ‘unclean’) would make you defiled; or eating without ritually washing beforehand would make you defiled. This is far over and above God’s laws in the Torah and is even contradictory.

Now the word for ‘defile’ in Matthew 15 and Mark 7 is the Greek word koinoi, the plural form of the word koinos (an adjective). If you haven’t read my other articles on this blog, you might not be familiar with the Greek words akathartos and koinos. In brief, akathartos is the word used when God declares something ‘unclean’; koinos is the word used to describe something man has deemed unfit, usually translated ‘common’, though some modern translations confuse the matter and use ‘unclean’ to refer to both. If you want to read more about unclean (akathartos) and common (koinos), please see my article on Acts 10: Rise upPeter, kill and Eat.

Conclusion

The issue at hand was man’s tradition vs God’s laws. The Pharisees had added extra rules and regulations for purity and holiness – the ‘tradition of the elders’ which morphed into the oral torah before eventually being written down in the Mishnah and Talmud. They claimed these laws were at least as binding as the written Torah – those laws given by God through Moses. In many cases, the oral laws were deemed of more importance than the written laws and the Pharisees often overrode the written laws with their traditions. It was this issue that Jesus was addressing.

Finally, and this should settle the matter, Matthew makes it explicit that the controversy was about the ritual washing of hands. At the end of His explanation to the disciples, Jesus concludes:

“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” [Matthew 15:18-20]

As David Wilber states:

“As we can see, Matthew’s version of this conflict plainly tells us that he understood Mark’s account to concern only ritual handwashing, not the Torah’s dietary laws....Jesus states that (biblically clean) food that has been touched with ritually impure hands cannot ritually defile anyone because it is not what goes into the body that defiles a person but rather what comes out of their body" https://davidwilber.com/articles/did-jesus-reject-the-torahs-dietary-laws-mark

Eating with unwashed hands was, as the Pharisees helpfully pointed out, simply a ‘tradition of the elders’ The things that really defile a person are not the (clean – obviously Jews only ate what God had deemed clean) foods, contaminated by unwashed hands, but that which comes out of a person, from their heart, thus showing that the Pharisees were not as pure and righteous as they thought they were. The Pharisees were concerned with external habits and public appearances; they were less concerned with the inward attitudes and thoughts.

So once again we see that Jesus is saying that all clean meats are still clean regardless of whether you have ritually washed your hands or not. The entire passage in both Matthew and Mark is about ritual purity as taught by the Pharisees in their traditions and particularly about ritual cleanliness of the hands before eating (clean) food (remember, if it’s not clean, it’s not food, by God’s definition). Jesus was explaining that ritual purity is not primarily about such things as washings, but about the spiritual state of the heart – your actions, whether good or bad, show what is really in your heart. Thus the entire discourse is not about whether pork can be added to the menu, but whether you need to be ritually pure (to Temple standards) before you can eat.

From David Wilber again:

“As we can see, Matthew’s version of this conflict plainly tells us that he understood Mark’s account to concern only ritual handwashing, not the Torah’s dietary laws.... How did Jesus’s teaching undermine the Pharisees’ tradition? Jesus states that (biblically clean) food that has been touched with ritually impure hands cannot ritually defile anyone because it is not what goes into the body that defiles a person but rather what comes out of their body.” https://davidwilber.com/articles/did-jesus-reject-the-torahs-dietary-laws-mark

 

Further reading:

https://davidwilber.com/articles/did-jesus-reject-the-torahs-dietary-laws-mark