The mystery of the kingdom of God; the secret of Jesus' Messiahship and passion by Schweitzer Albert 1875-1965 & Lowrie Walter 1868-1959

Author:Schweitzer, Albert, 1875-1965 & Lowrie, Walter, 1868-1959
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Kingdom of God
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and company
Published: 1913-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

During the ceremony Jesus was deeply moved. For this reason he urged immediate departure and dismissed the people. He himself withdrew to a mountain in order to be alone in prayer. On the beach at Bethsaida, whither he had charged them to row, he again met his Disciples. They, battling with wind and wave, had the illusion that a supernatural apparition approached them as they descried his figure on the beach. They still were so much under the influence of the impression lately made upon them by the mighty personality who with mysterious majesty had distributed to the multitude sacred food and then had suddenly broken off the ceremony (Mk 6:45-52).

Whither had he sent away the multitude? What did they do at Bethsaida? How long did they stay there? Our text merely recounts that they returned again to Genezareth.

At this point, however, we encounter a difficult literary problem, in the Synoptical narrative of the period immediately preceding the departure for Jerusalem (Mk 9:30).

According to Mk 8:27-33, Jesus is now alone with his Disciples far away in the north, in heathen territory, from which point also he sets out on the rapid march through Galilee to Jerusalem (Mk 9:30): "And they went forth from thence and passed through Galilee, and he would not that any man should know it." Between the disclosure of his messiahship and this departure there intervenes only one scene (Mk 8:34, 9:29), where he appears surrounded by a great multitude of people. In company with the three intimate Disciples he leaves the multitude, only to return to them shortly again. It is nowhere recounted how this multitude suddenly gets to him in heathen territory. And just as little are we informed how it leaves him again, so that (according to Mk 9:30) he can march through Galilee alone with his Disciples and unrecognized.

But it is not only the multitude that appears unexpectedly: the whole scenery also is altered. One finds oneself in a familiar region, for Jesus enters with his Disciples "into the house," while the people stay without (Mk 9:28)!

The literary context in which the section stands is absolutely impossible, for this cannot have been enacted in heathen territory, but only in Galilee! But as Jesus subsequently had only a fleeting contact with Galilee, passing through it incognito, this piece belongs in the Galilean period before the departure for the north, and more precisely, at the time of the return of the Disciples, for it is then that he was constantly surrounded by a throng of people and was seeking to be in solitude with his Disciples!

The situation, however may confidently be defined with still greater exactness. Jesus dwelt in a village (Mk 9:28) in the neighborhood of which there was a mountain to which he betook himself with the three Disciples (Mk 9:2). All this agrees, however, most certainly with the sojourn in Bethsaida. The mountain which he seeks with the Three is the mountain on the north shore of the lake where he prayed

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