When Did we See You Naked?. Группа авторов
God’s hospitality and inclusivity of non-Jews does the tone of Jesus’ reception change (Luke 4.28–29). In Mark’s equivalent scene (Mark 6.1–6), there is no favourable disposition towards Jesus at all. It is heavily negative. His hearers take offence at him from the beginning (Mark 6.3). Mark concludes with the judgement on Jesus’ audience: he ‘marvelled because of their unbelief’ (Mark 6.6).30
Second, Mark’s story of Jesus’ healing of a man with a withered hand (Mark 3.1–6) ends with a plan between religious and royal officials to ‘destroy’ (apollumi) Jesus. In Luke’s equivalent scene (Luke 6.6–11), this authoritarian coalition is absent. Rather, his observers are filled with annoyance and ‘discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus’ (Luke 6.11). Mark’s plot to ‘destroy’ Jesus is absent, replaced by a consultation about some unspecified action against him. His destruction, though available to Luke from Mark’s Gospel, is played down by his detractors. Their response, though negatively intentioned, is more benign than in Mark.
Third, on the Temple Mount Jesus meets his theological opponents. They try again to test his allegiance to God and his attitude to Roman taxation. In Mark (Mark 12.13–17) an explicit alliance of religious and royal officials tries to ‘entrap him in his talk’ (Mark 12.13b). At the end of the attempted entrapment they are left in a state of amazement (Mark 12.17c). In Luke (Luke 20.20–26) the coalition of officials is absent. Unwilling to confront Jesus directly, they delegate spies to record what he says. At the end of the encounter, Luke notes their inability to catch him out. Instead, their amazement is heightened, and they are reduced to silence: ‘And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answers, they became silent’ (Luke 20.26).
The verbal interchange between Jesus and his opponents is significantly reduced in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus is the authoritative and unquestionable teacher and prophet. This Christological impression continues into Luke’s passion narrative (Luke 22.1—24.53) as the evangelist also significantly softens, if not changes, Mark’s portrait of the abused, misunderstood and abandoned Jesus.
Luke’s passion narrative
The Lucan evangelist follows Mark’s basic narrative of Jesus’ suffering and death, but with noteworthy differences. First, Mark’s story of the unnamed woman’s prophetic and regal anointing of Jesus’ head (Mark 14.3–9) occurs earlier in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 7.36–50). Here it is a story of a sinner who anoints and washes Jesus’ feet with oil and tears and becomes a lesson on forgiveness. Luke has moved it away from an action focused on Jesus that reaffirms his identity to an episode earlier in the Gospel (Luke 7.36–50) in which Jesus acts and offers moral instruction. Here, Jesus is not the subject, as in Mark, but the agent. Second, Luke adds a faction fight into the Last Supper scene (Luke 22.24–27) and converts Mark’s Gethsemane scene of a struggling and soul-wrenched Jesus (Mark 14.32–38) into a prayer event in which Jesus calmly faces death comforted by God’s angelic presence (Luke 22.39–46). In Mark’s scene, Judas identifies Jesus to his captors with a kiss (Mark 14.45), and that act of intimacy becomes an act of betrayal. In Luke, Judas draws near to Jesus to kiss him (Luke 22.47), but there is no actual kiss. Instead, a violent act by one of Jesus’ disciples that removes the ear of a high priest’s slave with a sword becomes a moment of healing as Jesus touches the slave’s ear and heals him (Luke 22.50–51).
Luke’s alterations to Mark intensify Jesus’ agency, his authority and apparent imperviousness to suffering. As Raymond Brown notes, Luke portrays Jesus as ‘more reverential … and avoids making him seem emotional, harsh or weak’.31 Elsewhere, Brown adds, ‘The resistance to portraying [Luke’s] Jesus as suffering during the passion befits a Hellenistic resistance to portraying emotions.’32 Luke’s Jesus is not the target of physical violence or verbal abuse as in Mark. This is evident in the trial scenes and their aftermath. In Mark, physical and sexual violence enacted against Jesus follow his religious and political trials. In Luke, this is either toned down or absent altogether.
The violence associated with Jesus’ trial by the council of Jerusalem’s religious leaders occurs in both Mark (Mark 14.65) and Luke (Luke 22.63–65) (Figure 2). In Luke it comes before the council, which allows for the auditor’s focus to fall on the main Christological titles of the trial. Jesus is the Christ (Luke 22.67), the Son of Man (Luke 22.69a), and the Son of God (Luke 22.70) who exercises God’s authority (Luke 22.69b). With Mark, the violence perpetrated against Jesus concludes a more prolonged and dramatic trial. Noteworthy is Luke’s redaction of Mark’s scene in which Jesus is maltreated:
| Mark 14.65 | Luke 22.63–65 |
| Some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to strike him, saying to him, ‘Prophesy!’ The guards also took him over and beat him. | Now the men who were holding Jesus began to mock him and beat him; they also blindfolded him and kept asking him, ‘Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?’ They kept heaping many other insults on him. |
Figure 2. Jesus’ mockery at his religious trial
In Mark’s scene, Jesus is spat upon, struck while blindfolded and beaten a second time by the guards. Luke also has Jesus derided, but he is held, mocked and beaten only once. Though Jesus is blindfolded and beaten, Luke does not use Mark’s more aggressive expression for ‘striking’. Jesus is not struck – even though he is asked who struck him. With this derisory, repetitive questioning, as those holding him ‘keep asking him’, Luke explicates and underscores the prophetic nature of Jesus. It is a Christological theme in his Gospel.33 In Luke the mention of Jesus’ beating occurs only at the beginning of the scene. There is no other violent action. Physical violence from Mark’s scene is replaced with verbal abuse in Luke, as ‘they kept heaping many other insults on him’ (Luke 22.65). Verbal abuse continues into the next two scenes (Luke 23.1–24), but they are otherwise devoid of physical violence.
When Luke switches to Jesus’ civic trial before Pilate (Luke 23.1–5), the same emphasis from Mark – Jesus’ royal status – is again the focus, though with the added accusation of his capacity to pervert the nation and refusal to pay taxes to Caesar (Luke 23.2). In other words, Jesus is a royal pretender and a threat to the Roman Empire. What is clear is Pilate’s declaration of Jesus’ innocence (Luke 23.4), which he twice repeats (Luke 23.14–15, 22) after the intervening trial before Herod. This second trial before Pilate (Luke 23.6–16) places Jesus in the presence of Herod, who had longed to see Jesus having heard so much about him.
Herod unsuccessfully questions Jesus as the religious leaders further accuse him ‘vehemently’ (Luke 24.10b). There is one final action that Herod performs after he and his soldiers mock Jesus with contempt (Luke 23.11): he places a luminescent, shining or resplendent (lampros) garment around Jesus.34 For Luke’s audience, its symbolism is unmistakable. Jesus reveals and reflects the radiance of God before Rome’s authoritative figure. The garment echoes Jesus’ dazzlingly radiant raiment on the mountain as he becomes transfigured (Luke 9.29). His authoritative presence as God’s revealer remains even in the face of mockery from Rome’s emblematic authority. Moreover, this luminous garment remains on Jesus throughout the rest of Luke’s passion narrative. It is never taken off and accompanies him to the cross and grave. As Jesus is handed back to Pilate (Luke 23.13–23) and finally over for crucifixion (Luke 23.24–25), Luke completely omits any ironic royal investiture and mock coronation ritual as seen in Mark. Luke’s Jesus is above such physical violence and abuse. His status demands better treatment.
Luke’s description of a less violent and abusive treatment of Jesus continues as the Gospel moves towards the moment of his crucifixion and death. He journeys to the place of execution accompanied by a great multitude, the women of Jerusalem and two criminals to be executed with him (Luke 24.26–33). Luke converts