Matthew 15 & Mark 7 - part 1
When it comes to what is allowed on our dinner plates, many turn to Matthew 15 and Mark 7. In these sister passages, Jesus argues with the Pharisees about what defiles a person – unwashed hands or a defiled heart. In this encounter, Jesus declares all foods clean. Let's take a look at the situation to see if pork chops and crispy strips of fried bacon can now be added to the menu.
Both of these passages record the same event.
Both of these passages record the same event.
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” (Matthew 15:1–2)
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, 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.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:1–5)
The Pharisees and the scribes ask Jesus why he lets his disciples eat without first washing their hands. This behavior is in violation of the "tradition of the elders." Mark adds some more information than Matthew about these traditions for washing, which include washing hands and other objects, depending on the situation. Most scholars believe Mark was writing to a Gentile audience who therefore may not be familiar with the Jewish traditions (Edwards, 10). But what are these "traditions"? Are they biblical traditions according to the Law of Moses or something else?
Traditions of Man
There is nothing mentioned in the Law (the first five books of the Bible) concerning the washing of hands before eating. While this might be good hygiene, it is not a command from God (although priests are required to wash prior to offering sacrifices in Exodus 30:18-21 and 40:30-32). There are instructions in the Law concerning the washing of dishes if they become unclean through contact with a dead animal (Leviticus 11:32) but nothing about washing of hands.
So then, what is the "tradition of the elders" the Pharisees are referring to? Description of hand-washing among Jews and its significance in the first century is lacking, although we know from passages such as these in Matthew and Mark that hand-washing had ritual significance at this time. About 200 years after Christ, the Jews had more fully developed these rules, or “traditions” concerning washing hands before eating. These can be found in the Talmud in the tractate Yadayim. Yet in the first century, Jewish traditions about washing hands were already present. Jesus argues these traditions are not from God but from man; moreover, traditions have wrongly taken the place of God’s commands.
Traditions of Man
There is nothing mentioned in the Law (the first five books of the Bible) concerning the washing of hands before eating. While this might be good hygiene, it is not a command from God (although priests are required to wash prior to offering sacrifices in Exodus 30:18-21 and 40:30-32). There are instructions in the Law concerning the washing of dishes if they become unclean through contact with a dead animal (Leviticus 11:32) but nothing about washing of hands.
So then, what is the "tradition of the elders" the Pharisees are referring to? Description of hand-washing among Jews and its significance in the first century is lacking, although we know from passages such as these in Matthew and Mark that hand-washing had ritual significance at this time. About 200 years after Christ, the Jews had more fully developed these rules, or “traditions” concerning washing hands before eating. These can be found in the Talmud in the tractate Yadayim. Yet in the first century, Jewish traditions about washing hands were already present. Jesus argues these traditions are not from God but from man; moreover, traditions have wrongly taken the place of God’s commands.
He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:3–9).
And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)-- then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” (Mark 7:6–13).
Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for setting aside the Law of Moses for the sake of holding onto traditions. Here, he uses the example of the fifth commandment, to honor one’s father and mother. While it may seem foreign to our modern American culture, keeping the fifth commandment meant more than just respecting one’s parents with our words. Honor was played out through action. Specifically, adult children honored their parents by providing for them financially in their old age, when they were no longer able to do the physical work necessary to make income in their agrarian society. Yet during the first century, Jews were given allowance to ignore this responsibility by saying the money they would have given to their parents is dedicated instead to God as a gift to the temple.
No one questions the importance of this law in the Ten Commandments; disregarding it was punishable by death in ancient Israel. Part of honoring father and mother is to care for them, both financially and personally, in their old age. However, Jewish tradition allowed that funds originally dedicated to the care of parents could be declared Corban (Hebrew/Aramaic for legally “dedicated to God”; cf Lev. 1:2; 2:1 etc.), meaning that the person would no longer be required to do anything for...father or mother. These funds could now be given to the temple, if so desired. Such human traditions thus allow room for the depravity of the human heart, directly opposing the Law of Moses which so often serves to protect the weak and helpless, in this case, parents in their feeble old age (making void the word of God). The “Corban” tradition is an example (along with many such things you do) of disregarding and rejecting the most important parts of the Mosaic law (ESV Study Bible, page 1906).
This is a clear example of a manmade tradition that not only is not from the Law, but that actually opposes the Law. Jesus calls his audience on this, saying that their traditions make void the word of God. This is a stinging rebuke! The Pharisees want to guard traditions of the elders—rules of mere men—while flagrantly ignoring one of the ten commandments, to honor your father and your mother.
The Condition of the Heart
Jesus continues his teaching about hand-washing, a commandment of men:
The Condition of the Heart
Jesus continues his teaching about hand-washing, a commandment of men:
And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (Matthew 15:10-11).
And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him” (Mark 7:14-15).
Recall the Pharisaical accusation against the disciples: they ate with defiled hands, which led to defiled food. Jesus turns the table on the Pharisees, showing that they are the ones who are truly defiled. Unwashed hands cannot defile a person’s inner being, but what proceeds from the heart is what defiles. The Pharisees are hypocrites who pay lip-service but have hearts far from God (Matthew 15:7-9; Mark 7:6). They are the ones who are unclean, for their hearts are unclean.
This direct attack offended the Pharisees:
This direct attack offended the Pharisees:
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:12-15).
Jesus is not interested in placating the Pharisees; he states they are not of the Father (i.e. he has not planted them) and are blind guides. While the Pharisees claim Jesus’ disciples were defiled because they did not wash their hands in the prescribed manner, Jesus asserts the defilement of the Pharisees is far more serious.
The disciples want more clarification. Jesus, marveling at their lack of understanding, explains further:
The disciples want more clarification. Jesus, marveling at their lack of understanding, explains further:
But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? 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 15:15-20).
And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:17-23).
Jesus explains it is not food that goes into the body that defiles. Food simply goes through the digestive tract and is expelled, but cannot enter a man’s inner heart. Rather, a person is defiled from the state of his or her own wicked heart. The Pharisees believed they were clean because they followed manmade ritualistic traditions such as ceremonial hand-washing. Jesus exposes their unclean hearts.
All Foods Clean?
Traditional explanations of these passages conclude that Jesus overrides and abolishes the Old Testament food laws detailed in Leviticus 11 and other passages. The basis of this conclusion is, if what enters our mouth cannot defile our hearts, then any previous description of clean and unclean animals must no longer apply. Even though the immediate context is about manmade laws and not the commands given by God in the Torah, some scholars conclude that Jesus has the Old Testament food laws in mind. R.T. France, a scholar on Mark’s gospel, makes this conclusion:
All Foods Clean?
Traditional explanations of these passages conclude that Jesus overrides and abolishes the Old Testament food laws detailed in Leviticus 11 and other passages. The basis of this conclusion is, if what enters our mouth cannot defile our hearts, then any previous description of clean and unclean animals must no longer apply. Even though the immediate context is about manmade laws and not the commands given by God in the Torah, some scholars conclude that Jesus has the Old Testament food laws in mind. R.T. France, a scholar on Mark’s gospel, makes this conclusion:
The force of this pronouncement cannot easily be confined to the issue of hand washing with which the pericope began. While the washing ritual (where recognised) did indeed involve the impurity of food eaten without due preparation, this was only a very minor aspect of the concept of defilement by ‘what goes in’. Far more prominent were the very detailed regulations of Lv. 11 specifying which animals could and could not be eaten by the people of God, spelled out in terms of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ foods, and the prohibition of eating blood first declared in Gn. 9:4 and developed in Lv. 17. It was such laws, firmly rooted in the Torah, that would more naturally come to a Jewish mind on hearing Jesus’ words (289-290).
Even though the context is about hand washing, France maintains that the Jewish mind would naturally apply Jesus’ words to the Old Testament food laws. However, France must step outside of the context to arrive at this conclusion. There is nothing mentioned in the passage about negating the food laws found in the Torah. Rather, Jesus upholds the Torah and speaks against the traditions of men (Matthew 15:3-9; Mark 8:8-13). (Interestingly, France uses the prohibition of eating blood as an example of the Old Testament regulations that Jesus is apparently abrogating, yet even the Gentile believers in the early church are told to refrain from eating blood in Acts 15:19-20.)
William L. Lane, a commentator on the book of Mark, admits that Jesus is not speaking about the OT food laws in this passage, at least through verse 19a:
William L. Lane, a commentator on the book of Mark, admits that Jesus is not speaking about the OT food laws in this passage, at least through verse 19a:
Here, however, Jesus’ expression is general and enigmatic. It did not abrogate the Mosaic laws on purification or erase the distinctions between clean and unclean and declare them invalid. It rather attacked the delusion that sinful men can attain to true purity before God through the scrupulous observance of cultic purity which is powerless to cleanse the defilement of the heart. It is this latter emphasis which is stressed in the exposition to the disciples in verses 17–19a (254.)
Lane further states,
Jesus now makes this explicit when he traces the source of defilement to the heart, and shows that in an ultimate sense “food” and “the heart” have nothing to do with each other. The relevance of this explanation to the question posed in verse 5 is apparent: fulfilling the dictates of the oral law on cultic purity does not alter the heart of man with its warring impulses: the minutiae of the tradition are powerless to remove the pollution from the heart, the source of defilement in the actions of men. Jesus has no intention of denying that the purity laws occupy a significant place in the Mosaic code (Lev. 11:1–47; Deut. 14:1–20) or of detracting from the dignity of men who suffered death rather than violate the Law of God governing unclean foods (1 Macc. 1:62 f.). Rather he presses home the recognition that the ultimate seat of purity or defilement before God is the heart (255).
Lane recognizes Jesus is not undoing the food laws in the Torah, but is focusing on the essential and primary need for internal purity, in the heart.
Contextually, the issue at hand is two-fold: 1) The Pharisees were elevating their own manmade traditions over the Word of God; and 2) while the Pharisees thought that following these traditions brought purity, Jesus shows that defilement comes from the wickedness of the heart (even if your hands are washed!).
Referring to 7:15, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him,” Markan scholar Robert A. Guelich comments,
Contextually, the issue at hand is two-fold: 1) The Pharisees were elevating their own manmade traditions over the Word of God; and 2) while the Pharisees thought that following these traditions brought purity, Jesus shows that defilement comes from the wickedness of the heart (even if your hands are washed!).
Referring to 7:15, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him,” Markan scholar Robert A. Guelich comments,
It becomes obvious that that community in no way understood Jesus’ “original” response in 7:15 to be in reference to the Levitical food laws. In fact, it was precisely the Pharisees’ use of “tradition” to contravene the Mosaic law that made them “hypocrites.” So one could evidently still take seriously 7:15, buttressed by the argument in 7:6–13, in the narrow terms of “defiled hands” and follow the Levitical food laws. This seems to have been how 7:15 was preserved in its present form in the primitive Church (376).
Lane, Guelich, and others agree Jesus is not addressing the Old Testament food laws, at least through verse 19a. Yet many of these same scholars still eventually conclude New Testament believers are set free from these laws, based on the Matthew and Mark passages. This is primarily due to the second half of Mark 7:19.
And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) (Mark 7:18–19).
Many modern translations (including the ESV quoted above) put the second half of verse 19 in parentheses and interpret it as a comment by Mark, who is explaining the meaning of Jesus’ teaching. However, not all translations read this way. Consider the following:
And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? (Mark 7:18–19 King James Version, emphasis ours).
So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?” (Mark 7:18–19 New King James Version).
In these translations, the parenthetical comment asserting Jesus declared all foods clean is absent. Instead, the cleansing or purifying of foods is done by the digestive system, as the food is eliminated from the body. This understanding makes logical sense and fits the context. Jesus is describing how food goes into the body, through the stomach, and then is expelled. When food is expelled, the body is cleansed of the food.
Some may ask what is meant by “all foods” or “all meats”? Would this include foods listed as unclean in the Torah, such as pork and shellfish? The context does not allow for this interpretation on two levels. First, Jesus is giving the example of how the digestive system expels food that we eat. Yet the stomach and intestines cannot turn pork from unclean to clean. What it can do is get rid of waste that we do not need. When God told the Israelites not to eat certain animals, He knew about the digestive process (which He created Himself.) If it somehow had sanctifying power to transform an unclean animal into clean food for us, then there would be no need for Him to have given the food commandments in the first place.
Second, Jesus’ audience was Jewish, and because of this, had clear definitions of what is food and what is not food. When Jesus said, “cleansing all meats,” they would not think of pork or rabbit or spiders. They would think of lamb and beef and dove. Contextually, Jesus is describing the cleansing digestive process of biblically-clean foods, and pointing out the body’s lack of power to cleanse the heart.
If some translations such as KJV and NKJV read this way, why then do other translations include a statement about Jesus declaring all foods clean? The tension lies in the Greek. Verse 19 reads:
Some may ask what is meant by “all foods” or “all meats”? Would this include foods listed as unclean in the Torah, such as pork and shellfish? The context does not allow for this interpretation on two levels. First, Jesus is giving the example of how the digestive system expels food that we eat. Yet the stomach and intestines cannot turn pork from unclean to clean. What it can do is get rid of waste that we do not need. When God told the Israelites not to eat certain animals, He knew about the digestive process (which He created Himself.) If it somehow had sanctifying power to transform an unclean animal into clean food for us, then there would be no need for Him to have given the food commandments in the first place.
Second, Jesus’ audience was Jewish, and because of this, had clear definitions of what is food and what is not food. When Jesus said, “cleansing all meats,” they would not think of pork or rabbit or spiders. They would think of lamb and beef and dove. Contextually, Jesus is describing the cleansing digestive process of biblically-clean foods, and pointing out the body’s lack of power to cleanse the heart.
If some translations such as KJV and NKJV read this way, why then do other translations include a statement about Jesus declaring all foods clean? The tension lies in the Greek. Verse 19 reads:
ὅτι οὐκ εἰσπορεύεται αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν καρδίαν ἀλλ᾿ εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν, καὶ εἰς τὸν ἀφεδρῶνα ἐκπορεύεται, καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα (hoti ouk eisporeuetai autou eis tēn kardian all’ eis tēn koilian, kai eis ton aphedrōna ekporeuetai, katharizōn panta ta brōmata) (emphasis ours).
The phrase in question is “καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα” (katharizōn panta ta brōmata). This phrase literally means, “cleansing all foods.” The difficulty arises with the Greek verb καθαρίζω (katharizō; in our text, the form being katharizōn).
There is a textual variant with this word, which means the Greek manuscripts have differences in wording. The King James Version (and NKJV) was translated from the Textus Receptus, which is the Greek New Testament text originally compiled by Erasmus in 1535 and based on manuscripts dating no earlier than the tenth century (Wegner, 219, 339). Later manuscripts such as those used to compile the Textus Receptus have one form of the verb katharizō , where as the ESV, NASB, and other versions use older and generally more reliable manuscripts. These older manuscripts have a different form of the verb katharizō.
There is a textual variant with this word, which means the Greek manuscripts have differences in wording. The King James Version (and NKJV) was translated from the Textus Receptus, which is the Greek New Testament text originally compiled by Erasmus in 1535 and based on manuscripts dating no earlier than the tenth century (Wegner, 219, 339). Later manuscripts such as those used to compile the Textus Receptus have one form of the verb katharizō , where as the ESV, NASB, and other versions use older and generally more reliable manuscripts. These older manuscripts have a different form of the verb katharizō.