a few weeks of preaching here and there in Galilee and the few days of His sojourn in Jerusalem. [1]
But in that case the public life of Jesus becomes practically unintelligible. The explanation that His cause in Galilee was lost, and that He was obliged to flee, has not the slightest foundation in the text. [2] That was recognised even by Keim, the inventor of the successful and unsucessful periods in the life of Jesus, as is shown by his suggestion that the Evangelists had intentionally removed the traces of failure from the decisive period which led up to the northern journey. The controversy over the washing of hands in Mark vii. 1-23, to which appeal is always made, is really a defeat for the Pharisees. The theory of the "desertion of the Galilaeans," which appears with more or less artistic variations in all modern Lives of Jesus, owes its existence not to any other confirmatory fact, but simply to the circumstance that Mark makes the simple statement: "And Jesus departed and went into the region of Tyre" (vii. 24) without offering any explanation of this decision.
The only conclusion which the text warrants is that Mark mentioned no reason because he knew of none. The decision of Jesus did not rest upon the recorded facts, since it ignores these, but upon considerations lying outside the history. His life at this period was dominated by a "dogmatic idea" which rendered Him indifferent to all else . . . even to the happy and successful work as a teacher which was opening before Him. How could Jesus the "teacher" abandon at that moment a people so anxious to learn and so eager for salvation? His action suggests a doubt-whether He really felt Himself to be a "teacher." If all the controversial discourses and sayings and answers to questions, which were so to speak wrung from Him, were subtracted from the sum of His utterances, how much of the didactic preaching of Jesus would be left over?
But even the supposed didactic preaching is not really that of a "teacher," since the purpose of His parables was, according to Mark iv. 10-12, not to reveal, but to conceal, and of the Kingdom of God He spoke only in parables (Mark iv. 34).
Perhaps, however, we are not justified in extending the theory
- ↑ The statement of Mark that Jesus, coming out of the north, appeared for a moment again in Decapolis and Capernaum, and then started off to the north once more (Mark vii. 31-viii. 27), may here provisionally be left out of account since it stands in relation with the twofold account of the feeding of the multitude. So too the enigmatic appearance and disappearance of the people (Mark viii. 34-ix. 30) may here be passed over. These statements make no difference to the fact that Jesus really broke off his work in Galilee shortly after the Mission of the Twelve, since they imply at most a quite transient contact with the people.
- ↑ On the theory of the successful and unsuccessful periods in the work of Jesus see the "Sketch," p. 3 ff., "The four Pre-suppositions of the Modern Historical Solution."
