A version of a paper I did for my GTU Oral Exam (be prepared for philosophy to meet biblical studies):
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SATAN’S KINGDOM IN THE BEELZEBUL
CONTROVERSY
In the so-called
Beelzebul Controversy, Jesus is involved in a confrontation with certain
opponents over their charge that Jesus’ exorcisms are done only by the power of
Beelzebul, the prince of demons. This controversy occurs in Mark 3:20-30 as
well as, in longer form, in both Matthew 12:22-37 and Luke 11:14-26. Jesus’ response to his critics, in this
pericope, consists of a number of sayings.
The main focus in this paper will be specifically on the Divided House
and Kingdom sayings, and the Strong Man sayings respectively[1]
(for purposes of conciseness, I will simply call this group of sayings the DSM sayings, with “DSM” short for Divided-Strong Man), with only
secondary attention to their context in the larger text of the controversy
itself. Regarding these same sayings, Joel
Marcus and others have gone so far as to claim that they contradict one another;
the main argument of this paper will then be to undermine the claim that such a
reading is necessitated by the text.
To
make my case, I will be offering three possible interpretations according to
which the DSM sayings turn out to be consistent with one another. Along the way, I will be addressing a small
number of objections to these interpretations based on analogous objections
offered by Marcus against other, often similar, interpretations. I will conclude from this discussion that we
have good reason to believe that the DSM sayings may not be contradictory after
all, since, if even one of my proposed interpretations proves to be plausible,
it will seriously challenge the warrant for accepting Marcus’s interpretation. To set up the discussion of the DSM sayings
to follow, I will first briefly consider the sayings inserted by Matthew and
Luke between the DSM sayings. Following
this, I turn to the DSM sayings proper, where I first give some preliminary
considerations about the proper interpretation of the Strong Man before finally
looking at the Divided House and Kingdom and examining the case for
inconsistency within the DSM sayings and offer my own alternative
interpretations one by one.
The Context
Before turning to the DSM sayings
themselves and the argument for their inconsistency, I will first examine some
of the context of these sayings within the Synoptics. Towards the beginning of the pericope, in Mark
3:22, some scribes have come down
from Jerusalem and accuse Jesus of
“having” Beelzebul[2] and
further charge that it is “by the prince of demons” (ἐν τῷ ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων) that Jesus casts out demons.[3] The scribes accuse Jesus of using Beelzebul,
whom they identify as the prince of demons, as the power behind his exorcisms,
accusing Jesus, in effect, of being something like a sorcerer or magician who
has a spirit granting him power.[4] Similar charges are laid out at the beginning
of both Matthew and Luke’s respective versions of the pericope as well.
In
all three Synoptic Gospels, the Evangelists move next to the first set of DSM
sayings, the Divided House and Kingdom.
I will for the time being put this set aside, as well as the Strong Man,
and turn first to some of the other sayings presented in Jesus’ response to his
opponents as it appears in each of the three Synoptics. Whereas in Mark the DSM sayings appear all
together, in Matthew and Luke they are separated by the question of the source
of others’ authority for exorcism,
which then concludes with the Finger/Spirit of God saying. A quick examination of these will, I think,
prove suggestive as to how to interpret the DSM sayings, at least as they are
understood in Matthew and Luke.
In Matthew 12:27
and Luke 11:19, immediately following the Divided House and Kingdom, Jesus asks
his opponents by whom certain exorcists (οἱ υἱοὶ ὑμῶν)
cast out demons. The majority opinion is
that Jesus is issuing a charge of inconsistency against his opponents – they do
not charge certain others with being in league with Satan, yet Jesus (whose
exorcisms and miracle working are even more unmistakably unlike magical practices than the more ambiguous exorcisms
performed by Jewish exorcists) is the one accused of sorcery.[5] There is in fact nothing to cast doubt on
Jesus’ exorcisms when compared with the exorcisms performed by other Jews who do
not seem to be in question. Hence,
without further evidence and given that these others are not in question, the
opponents ought not to be attributing Jesus’ exorcisms to Satan.[6] This still leaves us, however, with the
question of the source of Jesus’ power, particularly as it is manifested in
casting out demons.
The alternative to
casting out demons by Satan seems to be that Jesus does so by power from
God. And if this is true, Jesus’ message
is vindicated – the kingdom of God
really has come in the person of Jesus.
This is what we find next in the Finger/Spirit of God saying in Matthew
12:28/Luke 11:20.[7] Jesus’ exorcisms are unique in that they
point to the presence of the kingdom and this is owing to Jesus’ unique
relationship to that very same kingdom.[8]
In sum, both the
immediately preceding context in all three Synoptic Gospels, as well as the two
sayings inserted between the DSM sayings by Matthew and Luke, point to the
conclusion that the DSM sayings are being used by Jesus in some way to answer
his opponents concerning the charges laid against him. In particular, one might expect to find in
the Divided House and Kingdom sayings some initial rebuttal to the charge that
Jesus is casting out demons by Beelzebul.
And in the Strong Man sayings (particularly in Matthew and Luke, due to
their insertions immediately prior to this saying), one would expect to find
either some further argument against the opponents, an alternative explanation
of the authority and power of Jesus to cast out demons, or both. As we will see in the rest of paper, such
expectations are likely not far from the truth.
The issue, however, will be whether we can interpret the DSM sayings in
such a way that they not only fit in their context in the ways just mentioned
but that they are also in fact consistent with one another.
Defeating the Strong Man
I will now address the DSM sayings,
taking on the Strong Man sayings first since its interpretation seems in
general to be less controversial than the Divided House and Kingdom sayings.
Interpreting the Strong Man sayings first will then aid us with the more
controversial sayings later on. Because
of the controversial nature of the Divided House and Kingdom sayings, then, and
because the target of our argument is the (in)consistency of these with the
Strong Man sayings, I will again postpone discussion of the argument for
inconsistency until the next section, where I can explore it in conjunction
with my treatment of the Divided House and Kingdom. However, the treatment of the Strong Man here
will prepare for that discussion by giving us a prior handle on at least one of
the two sets of sayings comprising the DSM.
While Matthew and
Mark contain essentially the same version of the Strong Man, Luke’s is somewhat
different in ways that I will describe below.[9] We turn to Matthew and Mark’s version
first: The Strong Man appears in Matthew
immediately following the Spirit of God saying, and in Mark immediately
following the Divided House and Kingdom.
The idea seems to be that if one is to plunder the goods (τὰ σκεύη) of a strong man’s house – that
is, rescue oppressed people from Satan’s kingdom (see Isaiah 49:24-25 LXX) –
then one must first “bind” (δήσῃ - an aorist subjunctive form of δέω) the strong man. The strong man will obviously otherwise
resist and will not willingly allow the stealing of his goods.[10] This terminology of binding occurs both in
the New Testament and in Jewish literature with respect to rendering Satan or a
demon powerless or defeated, particularly in regards to rescuing a person from that being’s influence, carrying at times
echoes of creation or restoration. Hence,
in its current context, use of such language emphasizes that Satan’s power must
be contained or destroyed by the eschatological power of the kingdom
of God present in Jesus’ exorcisms.[11]
This binding need
not necessarily be seen as a full, once-and-for-all, final defeat of Satan at
Jesus’ hand, since Matthew and Mark both seem to still think of Satan as at
least somewhat active. Instead it can be
viewed in terms of “Satan having being [sic]
rendered powerless to interfere with Jesus’ incursion into his territory.”[12] Alternatively, we might see the binding as a
victory-in-principle, still to be implemented through real conflict with the
demonic realm, particularly through exorcisms – in fact, we might even see each
act of exorcism as the very act of binding (and hence plundering of goods)
Jesus is speaking of, an attack on Satan’s minions being an attack on Satan
himself.[13]
In Luke’s version
of the parable, by contrast, an armed strong man guards his abode and is then
defeated and disarmed by an even stronger attacker, who then divides his
goods. Hence, instead of a robbery as in
Matthew and Mark, Luke describes an armed battle. Martin Emmrich suggests that Luke’s version,
more clearly than its parallels, echoes the Exodus pattern behind Isaiah
49:24-26 (and 59:16-18), with God’s people rescued from an oppressive tyrant by
the even more powerful divine warrior.[14] In any case, Jesus seems clearly to be the
stronger man who attacks Satan’s kingdom and overcomes him, as already
foreshadowed in both Luke 3:16 and 4:1-13.[15]
This attack has consequences
for Satan similar to those in the parallels in Matthew and Mark, as he is
disarmed and his goods taken. What
happens with the goods, though, is slightly different. Whereas in the parallels, the goods seemed to
be people and the idea seemed to be that they are released from Satan’s power,
here the idea seems to be that in disarming Satan, Jesus brings blessings of
some kind upon people.[16] Despite the difference between accounts, however,
the outcome seems ultimately to be similar: In casting out demons, Jesus is
disarming Satan, thereby bringing blessings to the formerly possessed and, in
general via the power of the kingdom
of God, to the world.
Satanic Civil War
Having discussed the context of the
DSM sayings and one of its two components – the Strong Man – we are now ready
to address together the Divided House and Kingdom and the argument that it and
the Strong Man are mutually inconsistent.
As already alluded to earlier, most of the warrant for thinking that the
DSM sayings are inconsistent depends on the supposed lack of availability of
plausible alternative interpretations according to which they are consistent. If we find another interpretation which is
otherwise plausible and sees the sayings as consistent, then we will have taken
away much of the warrant for seeing the DSM sayings as inconsistent. The current section will examine three interpretations which appear to be
plausible candidates for having this character.
Mark begins Jesus’
discourse with a question about whether Satan is able to cast out Satan,
proceeding then to describe how divided kingdoms and houses (here, in the sense
of households) will inevitably fall – civil war brings empires to their
end. He then claims that Satan would
also fall into the same category if he (that is, his kingdom) was similarly
divided. The parallel in Matthew is
similar but with a divided city added to create a Matthean triad of kingdom,
city and house.[17] The sense in Luke is also very similar to
that of Mark, despite slightly different wording.[18]
In a paper
published in 1999, Joel Marcus claims that the Divided House and Kingdom
present us with an argument that is “fairly easy to reconstruct” and, indeed,
Marcus describes to us its “fairly obvious logic”, which, he says, contradicts the
Strong Man.[19] Marcus’s reconstruction of it, focusing on
Mark’s version, is as follows:
1. If Jesus casts out demons by
means of Beelzebul/Satan, as his opponents charge, then Satan’s kingdom has
become divided.
2. A divided Satanic kingdom
implies a Satanic kingdom laid waste, and one that cannot stand.
3. But Satan’s kingdom has
obviously not been laid waste, and is not about to fall.
4. Therefore Satan’s kingdom has
not become divided.
5. Jesus, then, does not cast out
demons by means of Beelzebul/Satan: Q.E.D.
Marcus takes all of these steps to
be obviously present basically at the surface of the text, premise 3 being
supplied as an implied premise required for the validity of the argument. One might see 5, in Mark at least, in Mark 3:23
when Jesus begins with what appears to be the rhetorical question “How can
Satan cast out Satan?” to which the supposed answer seems to be “He
can’t.” One might wonder whether this
logic is as apparent in the parallels in Matthew and Luke (which lack Mark’s
initial question on the lips of Jesus), but for the sake of argument I will
treat it as if it is. 1 and 2 would appear
to come directly from the parables themselves.
The end result is a clear example of a formally valid argument using modus tollens.[20]
By contrast,
Marcus takes the Strong Man to assume the negation
of premise 3 – Satan’s kingdom has indeed been laid waste by Jesus, Satan
having been bound by him. If Marcus and
others are correct in such interpretations, it would appear that the DSM
sayings therefore contradict each other.
Is Marcus’s interpretation of the DSM sayings, however, the most
reasonable? What is needed at this point
is to examine a few other interpretations, according to which the DSM sayings
do not so obviously end up contradictory.
The first interpretation to be considered (A) says that on the DSM
sayings, Satan indeed still stands in one sense, but is defeated in
another. The second (B) takes the
argument to be that whether or not Jesus casts out Satan by Beelzebul, his
message of the coming of the kingdom is vindicated and hence so is he. The third (C) says takes the argument instead
to be that it would be absurd to think that Satan would risk his own kingdom by
empowering Jesus to cast out demons and hence it is by God’s power that Jesus
defeats Satan. In what follows I will
successively examine each of these three interpretations.
The
Defeat of Satan as Coming and Accomplished
The first interpretation to be
considered (Interpretation A) does not dispute the logic of the Divided House
and Kingdom as reconstructed by Marcus but nevertheless still insists that the
set of statements made in this argument is consistent with that of the statements
made in the Strong Man. On this view, the
Strong Man does indeed depict Satan as bound, and the earlier DSM sayings do
depict him as still standing. The key is
to see Satan as powerful in one sense and yet rendered powerless in another:
there are aspects of Satan’s defeat that have been or are being accomplished
and yet others that are still future.
This sort of now/not yet tension should not perhaps be so surprising,
given the way it arguably shows up throughout the New Testament. Or so one could argue. On this view, one can see Satan as already proleptically
defeated yet the completion of that victory as still to come; the world now
experiences the inbreaking of God’s kingdom into Satan’s yet must still wait
for the final defeat of Satan and the swallowing whole of his kingdom by
God’s. In other words, the power of evil
is broken, but complete victory is still to come.
The comments of
the previous main section on the Strong Man seem to support such an
interpretation (assuming, of course, that they in fact end up being accurate). The defeat of Satan in the Strong Man is just
the inbreaking of the kingdom in the ministry of Jesus and its application in
freeing individuals from Satan’s power by casting out his minions that oppress
them, something which is occurring in Jesus’ ministry and through his disciples’. The defeat that is denied in the Divided
House and Kingdom consists, perhaps, in a more universal, complete powerlessness
on the part of Satan. This sort of
defeat is not something which has happened, since the Gospel writers still seem
to see Satan as active, at least at some further points in Jesus’
ministry. If this all worked out, then
it would turn out that the Strong Man would not in fact assume the negation of
step 3 (“But Satan’s kingdom has obviously not been laid waste, and is not
about to fall”) as it is understood within the argument of the Divided House
and Kingdom.
One potentially useful way of
understanding this idea of Satan defeated and yet undefeated is to think in terms
of models. A model is just some
structure which we use to represent something else as being in a certain condition.
The model does this by being in a similar
condition itself.[21] A model, though, will not be similar in every
respect to the object or phenomena it is representing (or modeling) and hence ought not to be used as a representation of everything that is true of its
representational target. Hence, when
discussing the success or implications of a particular usage of a model, we ought in general to restrict our discussion of
it with respect to the actual goals or ends for which it was deployed in the
first place.[22]
One can even
accurately and appropriately use two models which, if taken as applying in
every aspect, would otherwise be contradictory.[23] This is simply because models are meant to
resemble their targets only in some respects (and for some particular purposes)
and not others and should not be interpreted, when used, overly literally as
representing fully the conditions of what is being represented.
The application to
the DSM sayings is fairly clear – models are used not just in science but in
ordinary thought as well, perhaps in metaphorical or imagistic thought in
particular.[24] The Strong Man presents us with one model:
Jesus’ confrontation with the forces of darkness is in some aspects rather like
a Strong Man being bound and despoiled.
The Divided House and Kingdom, meanwhile, presents us with models
involving civil strife – divisions in household, kingdoms, or cities (depending
on the Gospel). This latter sort of model
forecasts the fall or collapse of power for the civic entity involved in such
internal strife. Without such strife,
the entity may yet stand, or at least
not fall from within. Satan’s kingdom,
according to this interpretation, is in some aspects rather like a civic entity
lacking such internal strife and hence not falling to internal division.
To take these two
very different models and think that they tell us something contradictory goes
beyond the use of the model itself – there is no clear indication that Jesus
uses each model to represent so much of the current state of Satan’s kingdom
that a contradiction is produced. On
this way of understanding what Jesus is doing, he is not literally saying that
the reality is exactly in every way like the situations presented in the
models. Rather, things in reality resemble the way things are in the model
in important ways but not necessarily in every
way.[25] To take the DSM sayings as contradictory,
then, is to treat them too literally and not to treat them as using the models
they (on this interpretation) do. To
make them out as contradictory, one would have to show that what the features
being modeled end up, for the purposes for which the models are respectively
used, representing conflicting states of affairs. This, however, has not been done. More could be said, obviously, about this –
in particular, about the exact ways in which these models are supposed to
resemble reality (at which point the discussion earlier in this section about
differing kinds of defeat might usefully be deployed). Instead, I will simply leave this approach as
a live interpretive option for the time being, whichever way we understand
Interpretation A, and turn to my other alternative interpretations.
Not
Whether but How
The next two interpretations I will
examine involve challenging Marcus’s five-step argument as an accurate
reconstruction of what is going on in the Divided House and Kingdom. In particular, it involves a denial that step
3 (“But Satan’s kingdom has obviously not been laid waste, and is not about to
fall”) is any part of what is going on in these passages. Despite Marcus’s assertion of obviousness
(one person’s obvious may be
another’s unclear and what one finds
obvious may in fact be false), it is by no means clear that all the steps he
gives ought to be read as occurring in our passages. There is no direct evidence, for instance, of
3, 4 (“Therefore Satan’s kingdom has not become divided”), or 5 (“Jesus, then,
does not cast out demons by means of Beelzebul/Satan”) in the passages under
consideration, though the latter two are surely not unreasonable
suppositions. In fact, all Jesus
explicitly says is what is represented by step 2 (“A divided Satanic kingdom
implies a Satanic kingdom laid waste, and one that cannot stand”) – everything
else is just filled in by reconstruction based on the context. And when we take into account the fact that
the Strong Man is part of that context, that may provide at least some evidence
against reading 3 into the earlier DSM sayings (provided we do not adopt Interpretation
A, that is).
The interpreter
obviously has to take into account the context of the Divided House and Kingdom
in interpreting that set of sayings, but we cannot arbitrarily take only some
of the context into account but ignore the rest (i.e., the Strong Man), and
then say that the passage contradicts those ignored parts when that ignored
part ought to have been taken into account in our interpretation in the first
place. Marcus cannot appeal to the
original separateness of the DSM saying, either, since he would then be begging
the question – after all, it was supposed to be the contradiction between the
sayings that, on his view, was supposed to show us that the sayings were
originally separate in the first place.
On the two interpretations
to be considered next, then, 2 (“A divided Satanic kingdom implies a Satanic
kingdom laid waste, and one that cannot stand”) will be accepted and, within 2
(understood as expressing a conditional), the consequent will be accepted while
the antecedent is rejected.[26] This is a perfectly plausible position to
take so far in our investigations, as long as a convincing interpretation of
the DSM sayings is offered which is consistent with this.[27] The basic idea of these sorts of
interpretations will be that the Divided House and Kingdom are not really about
whether Satan is defeated but how.
Satan does not fall to civil war but to invasion from without by the
divine robber or stronger one.[28]
Either
Way, it’s the Kingdom
On the second interpretation
(Interpretation B) to be considered, the main idea is that even if Jesus’
opponents’ charges are correct, it would still mean that Satan was falling and
hence, given the assumed correlation between the two events, that the kingdom
of God has come. But this, in effect,
only serves to vindicate Jesus’ message and, by extension, his miracles, thus
casting doubt on the charges against him.
In Mark, this is followed immediately by the Strong Man. Jesus offers an alternative interpretation of
just why Satan’s power is failing and people have been freed from his grasp –
Jesus has bound Satan.[29]
In Matthew and
Luke, prior to the Strong Man, we have the saying about the other exorcists and
the Finger/Spirit saying. The effect, on
Interpretation B, is that Jesus begins by showing that his hypothetical use of
Satan to cast out demons implies the coming of the kingdom. He then continues with a short interlude
charging his opponents with hypocrisy, and then provides finally the
alternative that if it is by God rather than Satan that Jesus casts out demons,
the kingdom has still come either way (and hence Jesus is vindicated once again). Thus, we see in the Strong Man, Jesus is not
in collusion with Satan but rather has either tied him up or disarmed him. In all three Gospels, then, we have a reading
of the DSM sayings that renders them perfectly consistent with one another.
Marcus, however,
considers the following idea: that Jesus is asserting what would follow from his
opponents’ charge (that is, Jesus asserts that Satan’s kingdom has been laid
waste and cannot stand) and yet rejects the charge itself. Marcus’s objection to this idea is that it is
“ridiculous” for Jesus to suddenly accept his opponents’ charge after arguing
against it with the analogies in 3:24-25. And even if this was an “even if” acceptance[30] –
that is, accepting the charge only in order to draw out its consequences –
there ought to be a more strongly contrastive conjunction between 3:24-25 on
the one hand, where Jesus is not accepting the charge in any way, and 3:26,
where he is.[31]
It is Marcus who
is confused here, however, since the statements ‘On the supposition that p, q’
and ‘If p, then q’ are formally equivalent.
Drawing out the consequences of a statement does not require actually
supposing that statement but instead can all be done in the form of
conditionals. And, similarly, the work
done in the form of conditionals can be done by supposing something p for the sake of argument, drawing out
consequence q, and then discharging p (that is, discarding the assumption
by conditionalizing what was drawn from it) by concluding that if p then q.[32] But these procedures are exactly what Marcus
has already done in 1 (“If Jesus casts out demons by means of Beelzebul/Satan,
as his opponents charge, then Satan’s kingdom has become divided”) and 2 (“A
divided Satanic kingdom implies a Satanic kingdom laid waste, and one that
cannot stand”) of his reconstructed argument.
1, for instance, tells us in its consequent – that Satan is divided –
what is the case on the supposition of its antecedent – that Jesus casts out
demons by Satan. There is, then, no
contrast between what is going on in Mark 3:24-25 and in Mark 3:26 on the interpretation we are considering. 3:24-25 simply give the general examples of
what happens on the supposition of particular events occurring and 3:26 gives the application to a particular
supposition involving Satan or Jesus.
Marcus, once again, has gotten tripped up on issues of logic (once
again, related to conditionals).
That’s
Just not What Rulers Do
The final interpretation
(Interpretation C) I will examine comes to this: Jesus agrees with the widely
held idea of the unity of the demonic realm and sees Satan as the chief and
undisputed ruler of that realm.[33] And it is only common sense that rulers such
as Satan do not undermine their own absolute authority or willingly endanger
their own rule – for in that case, their rule and authority would crumble and
their kingdom would slip from their fingers.[34] Given the absurdity of rulers acting in such
a way to undermine themselves and the further fact that if Satan was empowering
Jesus to perform exorcisms he would be doing just that, it follows that it is also absurd to think that Satan is
empowering Jesus to do such things.
Instead, in the Strong Man, we are told that Satan’s fall only comes
about unwillingly and as a result of an act of binding (or disarming). Again, on this interpretation the DSM sayings
come out consistent with one another.
Marcus does, in
fact, consider a version of this interpretation which he dubs the “satanic
intentionality” interpretation. On that
interpretation, Jesus is thinking things from Satan’s point of view: Satan
thinks that using someone to cast out demons would result in his fall and
hence, as a rational being and given his own desires and goals, refuses to
pursue such a foolish course of action.
Marcus, however, takes it that there is no independent evidence in the
passage that “Jesus is hypothesizing about Satan’s thought-processes.”[35] In fact, on his view, whereas the antecedent
of the conditional in the Greek of Mark 3:26
indicates the past (since its main verb ajnqivsthmi
appears here in the aorist indicative), if this were from Satan’s point
of view, it would rather be future.
Instead, a proper reading of the grammar of this section has Jesus
pointing to “a real or contrary-to-fact division of Satan’s kingdom that is
past from the perspective of the person from whose outlook the condition is
being formulated; if that person were Satan himself, it would be too late to do
anything about it, and the sentence would be senseless.”[36]
On behalf of the
satanic intentionality interpretation, it can be argued that one may indeed see
in the context of this passage at least some
concern with Satan’s mental state. The
Strong Man, for instance, emphasizes the unwillingness
of Satan to give up power – it has to be by external attack, not internal
division. Marcus does not consider,
though, the option that the viewpoint encapsulated in the conditional is that
of Jesus and his audience – they have
a third-person person, present viewpoint, on Satan’s first-person, past point
of view. From the viewpoint of Jesus and
his companions, Satan’s hypothetical thought-processes leading (or not) to
division are past. If this is possible,
then Marcus has failed to consider a relevant alternative available to the
satanic intentionality interpretation.
More importantly,
however, we need not see the focus in this passage to be on Satan’s internal
thought processes at all. Talk of
rationality, behavior, and even interests or dispositions need not be directly
concerned with mental deliberations or thought-processes – it need not look at
any of these as subjective phenomena but can take a purely external,
third-person point of view on them.
Hence, “satanic intentionality” might not be the best name for all forms
of such interpretations – Marcus’s idea that the focus on thought processes is
the key feature of the satanic intentionality interpretation actually implies
that many of the scholars, whom Marcus lumps together as holding the satanic
intentionality view, do not in fact
hold that view but rather hold some other version of Interpretation C. Hence, Marcus’s arguments do not in fact damage
the views of many of the very scholars he targets with them.
As Marcus himself
says, quoting Robert Gundry, the Divided House and Kingdom are about “action,
not thinking”.[37] But whereas Marcus uses this quote against
the satanic intentionality interpretation, it actually points to the very same
point I made in the previous paragraph: one can hold a view somewhat similar to
the satanic intentionality interpretation but without focusing on Satan’s
thought processes. One can say things
like “Satan would not do that since that would be an irrational action,”[38]
“Satan would not do that because it conflicts with his interests,”[39]
or “Satan would not do that because he is a ruler and rulers simply do not do
that sort of thing.”[40]
And one can say such things all the while without making any excursion into
internal processes. The focus in each of
these examples is on the external, even in the second statement.[41] Marcus’s criticisms, then, do not carry any
weight, at the very least, against many potential forms of Interpretation C.
Conclusion
As we have seen, Matthew, Mark, and
Luke present us with versions of the Beelzebul controversy which are at once
very similar but also rather different.
At the heart of each version of the controversy, however, are the DSM
sayings, which are the only sayings carried across all three Synoptics in the
context of the Beelzebul controversy.
These provide the basic skeleton on which the three Evangelists build
based on their individually distinct interests.
Joel Marcus, along
with a number of other commentators, to the contrary, has argued that the DSM
sayings are in fact inconsistent with one another. However, as I hope I have shown we need not
accept Marcus’s interpretation. Instead,
I offered three alternative interpretations which prima facie fit well into the DSM sayings’ contexts in the
Gospels. We thus have three possible
interpretations on which the DSM sayings end up consistent and which can
potentially provide viable alternatives to interpretations on which the DSM
sayings are contradictory. Further
examination of these three interpretations, and possible adjudication between
them (or acceptance of more than one if it is found that the DSM sayings are
appropriately ambiguous), is needed but would take us beyond the scope of this
paper. If, as I believe, at least one of
these is more plausible than Marcus’s interpretation, though, I think we will
still have good reason to think that the DSM sayings end up being truly
consistent with each other after all.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Hugh. The
Gospel of Mark. Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1976.
Aune, David E. “Magic in Early Christianity.” In Aufstieg und
Niedergang der römischen Welt, Part II, 23.2, edited by H. Temporini
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Barrett, C. K. The
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Fisher, Loren R. “Can this be the Son of David?” In Jesus and the Historian: Written in Honor of Ernest Cadman Colwell,
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_____. “How Models are Used to
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______. Mark: A
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Brill, 1999.
______. Mark 1-8. AB. New
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Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978.
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Person. New
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Development of Early Christian Pneumatology. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991.
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Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text.
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Herder, 1976.
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Times 72 (1960-1961): 157-158.
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11:19.” Journal for the Study of the New
Testament 46 (1992): 41-51.
Twelftree, G. H. Jesus the
Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus. Peabody:
Hendrickson, 1993.
Wall, Robert W. “The Finger of God: Deuteronomy 9:10 and Luke 11:20.”
New Testament Studies 93 (1987):
144-150.
Wallace, Daniel B. Greek Grammar
Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.
Williams, David. “Why the Finger?” Expository
Times 115 (2003): 45-49.
Williams, James G. “A Note on the ‘Unforgiveable Sin’ Logion.” New Testament Studies 12 (1965): 75-77.
Witherington, Ben, III. The Gospel
of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary.
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Wright, N. T. Jesus and
the Victory of God. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1996.
[1] The
Divided House and Kingdom: Mk 3:24-26/ Mt 12:25-26/ Lk 11:17-18. The Strong
Man: Mk 3:27/ Mt 12:29/ Lk 11:21-22. For
evidence that the DSM sayings do in fact, in some form, go back to Jesus, see
David E. Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang
der römischen Welt, Part II, 23.2, ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase (Berlin and
New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 1525-1526; Joel Marcus, “The Beelzebul
Controversy and the Eschatologies of Jesus,” in Authenticating the Activities of Jesus, ed. B. Chilton and C. Evans
(Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 1999), 261-264; G. H. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the
Study of the Historical Jesus (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1993), 142. Marcus is, in particular, arguing against
Rudolf Bultmann, History of the Synoptic
Tradition (New York: Harper
and Row, 196), 49.
[2] On this
name (βεελζεβούλ in the Greek), see, for instance,
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According
to Luke X-XXIV (Garden City: Doubleday, 1985), 920; Lloyd Gaston,
“Beelzebul,” Theologische Zeitschrift 18 (1962): 254; as well as the
relevant TDOT article.
[3] The
sorts of charges brought out in the Beelzebul controversy in the Synoptic
Gospels are likely historical given the also likely historicity of Jesus’
exorcism and healing ministries (both charges of possession and ministries of
Jesus also being attested to by the Gospel of John). See J. R. Donahue and D.J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville:
Liturgical Press, 2002), 130; Martin Emmrich, “The Lucan Account of the
Beelzebul Controversy,” Westminster
Theological Journal 62 (2000): 269; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), 170; D. J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991), 134;
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking
the Historical Jesus, Volume One: The Roots of the Problem and the Person (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 96; N. T.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1996), 187, 195.
[4] Chrys C.
Caragounis, “Kingdom of God, Son of Man, and Jesus’ Self-Understanding,” Tyndale Bulletin 40 (1989): 224; Michael
Humphries, “The Kingdom of God in the Q Version of the Beelzebul Controversy: Q
11:14-26,” Forum 9 (1993): 128-130; Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 281; Wright, Jesus, 452-453; Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2007), 228.
[5] This
seems to be the most plausible explanation.
See Caragounis, “Kingdom of God,” 229; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Vol.
2: Matthew 8-18 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991), 337; Fitzmyer, Luke, 918; Harrington, Matthew, 183; Ulrich Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, 2.Teilband Mt
8-17 (Zürich: Benzinger, 1990), 259-260.
For an alternative (and, it seems to me, less plausible) interpretation
according to which these exorcists are the disciples rather than Pharisees or
some other Jews outside Jesus’ circle see Robert Shirock, “Whose Exorcists are
They? The Referents of οἱ υἱοὶ ὑμῶν
at Matthew 12:27/Luke 11:19,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament
46 (1992): 41-51.
[6] Note
that this important move on Jesus’ part in no way implies or requires the
acceptance of the other exorcists and their exorcisms on Jesus’ part. At least some commentators notice this. See, for instance, Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a
Mixed Church under Persecution, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1982),
235. Hence, we need not follow, for
instance, Humphries, “Q Version,” 132-134.
[7] Whether
or not this Q saying originally spoke of casting out demons by the “finger of
God” or the “Spirit of God” need not concern us, particularly given the amount
of evidence on both sides and the difficulty of adjudicating it. See Davies and Allison, Matthew, 340; Emmrich, “Lucan Account,” 271-273; Fitzmyer, Luke, 918; Harrington, Matthew, 183; Luz, Matthäus, 255-256; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978), 475-476; Robert P. Menzies, The Development of Early Christian Pneumatology (Sheffield:
JSOT Press, 1991), 186; C. S. Rodd, “Spirit or Finger,” Expository Times 72 (1960-1961): 157-158;
Robert W. Wall, “The Finger of God: Deuteronomy 9:10 and Luke 11:20,” New Testament Studies 93 (1987): 144-150. Whether or not the saying, in whatever form
it originally took, is regarded as an authentic word of Jesus, it certainly
fits the context well and probably went together with the charges of demon
possession in the tradition (at least within Q’s version of it), which might
give us at least some reason (even if it is not seen as decisive) to think this
might originally belong with the DSM sayings or even go back to Jesus (though
its absence from Mark certainly makes these claims less supported than they
otherwise might have been). On the
potential significance of the phrase “finger of God” as a link back to the
Exodus narrative, see Fitzmyer, Luke,
922; Gerald A. Klingbeil, “The Finger of God in the Old Testament,” Zeitschrift
für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 112 (2000): 415; Marshall, Luke, 475; David Williams, “Why the
Finger?” Expository Times 115 (2003):
48. Against the alternative
understanding of Wall, “Finger of God,” 144-150, see Emmrich, “Lucan Account,”
272n32.
[8]
Caragounis, “Kingdom of God,”
230-231; Davies and Allison, Matthew,
339. There may also be a sense here of
Jesus’ companions having won a victory for God’s kingdom over Satan as Jesus’
kingdom subordinates by attacking Satan via casting out his subordinates. See Luke
Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Collegeville:
Liturgical Press, 1991), 183.
[9] On the
originality (or not) of Luke’s version, see Davies and Allison, Matthew, 342; Emmrich, “Lucan Account,”
273; Marshall, Luke, 476-477.
[10] Davies
and Allison, Matthew, 342; Luz, Matthäus, 261; Marcus, Mark, 274; Collins, Mark, 233. I take this
interpretation to be more plausible than that of Gundry, who thinks that in
Matthew (as opposed to the other two Synoptics) Jesus is the strong man and the
goods are the disciples. See Gundry, Matthew, 236.
[11] For
Biblical and extra-Biblical references, see Richard H. Hiers, “‘Binding’ and
‘Loosing’: The Matthean Authorizations,” Journal
of Biblical Literature 104 (1985): 235-239; Luz, Matthäus, 261-262; Marcus, “Beelzebul Controversy,” 250; Marcus, Mark, 274; Collins, Mark, 233. See, for instance, I Enoch 10:4;
Jubilees 5:6; 10:7-11; Revelation 20:2-3.
[12] John
Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A
Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005), 502.
[13] France,
Mark, 171-174; Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the
Cross (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1993), 174. In Luke, this may be clearer because of the
links in his version of the controversy with Luke 10:17-19. Cf. Donahue and Harrington, Mark, 131.
[14]
Emmrich, “Lucan Account,” 273; Marshall, Luke,
478.
[15]
Fitzmyer, Luke, 919.
[16]
Marshall, Luke 477-478.
[17] Davies
and Allison, Matthew, 138: “[F]rom
the largest collective to the smallest, internal division wreaks havoc.”
[18] Luz, Matthäus, 255n21, declares, without
giving any real evidence or dealing with opposing views, that Luke
misunderstood the image of the house in Matthew 12:25 and took the house to be
a building and then shortened the whole thing: “Er faßte ‘Haus’ als Gebäude auf
raffte daraufhin das Ganze.”
Commentators on Luke appear to disagree and find Luke’s use of “house”
to be in the sense of “household”, just as in Matthew and Mark. Luke’s image is of a civil war, just like the
other Gospels, not of one building falling onto an adjacent one. See, for instance, Fitzmyer, Luke, 921; Marshall, Luke, 474.
[19] Marcus,
“Beelzebul Controversy,” 248-250. Note,
however, that his landmark Anchor commentary on Mark, published the very next
year, does not press the thesis of the paper.
Cf. Austin Busch, “Questioning
and Conviction: Double-voiced Discourse in Mark 3:22–30,” Journal of Biblical Literature 125 (2006): 483-484;
Christopher Evans, Saint Luke
(Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1990), 491; William Lane, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1974), 142-143; Luz,
Matthäus, 259; Marcus, Mark, 273. Note, though, that, unlike many of these
others, while Lane agrees with Marcus’s interpretations of the DSM Sayings, he
does not appear to see any contradiction there.
[20] As
reconstructed, it is clearly not a reductio
ad absurdum, contrary to what Marcus says.
This confusion between reductio
and modus tollens is an example in
Marcus’s paper of a persistent confusion between statements that appear as premises in an argument and statements
that appear as the antecedents of
conditionals that appear as premises in an argument. Busch, “Questioning and Conviction,” 483,
correctly identifies the form of this sort of argument.
[21] More
formally, by examining a model m of, say, object o, which is similar to o in
regards to some property or relation F, we can learn about o insofar as it is
F.
[22] A physical, scale model airplane in a small wind
tunnel, for instance, can act as a model of its target, a real plane in a
full-sized wind tunnel, and does a good job in representing certain aspects of
the plane by being very similar to it those respects, but obviously a model
airplane will be very different from what it is modeling in other, very
important ways.
[23] In
physics, for instance, physicists routinely model water as an incompressible,
continuous fluid one moment, to capture particular aspects of water, and then
the next moment model it as a collection of discrete, billiard-ball like
particles, to capture certain other aspects of water. If taken to describe water in every aspect,
the application of these two models to water would be contradictory. But it is not – physicists, and those who
knowingly use models in general, do not take their models to apply in every aspect
to what is being modeled. The goals with
respect to which each model is used are different. Since the aspects of water we are interested
in with one model are different from those with the other, there is nothing
contradictory in applying both of them to water.
[24]
Philosopher Paul Teller, in his talks and seminars, even goes so far as to
suggest that models are being applied or used in almost all of our thoughts or beliefs – that is, our thinking tends to be
in-model thinking. Model usage is
related to other representational phenomena in various ways. Analogies, for instance, tend to involve a
more or less explicit statement of correspondence (or some particular manner
thereof) between a model and the target of the analogy. For a brief overview of model theory,
including how models are used in theory construction, see, for instance, Ronald
Giere, “Using Models to Represent Reality,” in Model-Based Reasoning in
Scientific Discovery, ed. L. Magnani, N. J. Nersessian, and P. Thagard (New
York: Kluwer, 1999), 41-57; “How Models are Used to Represent Reality,” Philosophy
of Science 71 (2004): 742-752. Other
works by Giere might also be usefully considered here.
[25]
Arguably, this is how a lot of wisdom instruction works, Jesus’ parables
included. It may prove useful, in fact,
to consider the DSM sayings as examples of the latter.
[26] Though
see Joachim Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, 1.Teilband Mk1-8,26
(Zürich: Benzinger, 1978), 150. According
to Marcus, “Beelzebul Controversy,” 252-253, Gnilka takes Jesus to accept both
antecedent and consequent – Satan has
risen against himself. Marcus offers
some pieces of evidence against this, some of them more convincing than
others. In the end, though, I think this
is an incorrect reading of Gnilka, a result of the recurring given confusion
concerning premises and conditionals in Marcus’s paper.
[27] Marcus,
“Beelzebul Controversy,” 254, attacks Gundry, Mark, 173, for taking just this position, saying, “But it flouts
every rule of logic to use a patently absurd premise to justify a true
conclusion, and one wonders how such an obtuse rhetorical procedure could be
presumed to be effective in a polemical situation.” It is rather difficult to tell what Marcus is
actually talking about, since Gundry’s Jesus does not offer any absurd premise
or use it to justify any true conclusions.
This seems to be another case where Marcus is simply confusing
antecedents with premises and, by extension, consequents with conclusions (and
conditionals, in general, with arguments) – Gundry’s Jesus does offer step 2
(“A divided Satanic kingdom implies a Satanic kingdom laid waste, and one that
cannot stand”), which has an absurd antecedent but a true consequent. Accepting this sort of conditional need not
be an “obtuse rhetorical procedure” at all – it depends on how it is used and
such conditionals can often be rather useful, effective things. In fact, Marcus himself admits in more than
one place that the Evangelists accept an interpretation of the DSM sayings
which has just this understanding of 2 as a consequence. See, for instance, Marcus, “Beelzebul
Controversy,” 255; Marcus, Mark,
282. This is just the sort of “not about
whether Satan falls, but how” reading that we are now discussing, though Marcus
still thinks that the Divided House and Kingdom suggests a strong Satan. For positions Marcus considers similar in
some ways to his own, see, for instance, Hugh Anderson, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1976), 123; C.
K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit in the Gospel
Tradition (London: SCM Press, 1947), 60-61.
[28] Marcus,
“Beelzebul Controversy,” 253-254, offers arguments against this sort of
interpretation (espoused, for instance, by Gundry and D. H. Juel, Mark (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990), 63,
but most of these arguments really only work so long as the target is the sort
of position that takes it that the DSM sayings are about how Satan is falling
but which do not add anything else to the structure of the passages. Once an argumentative structure is added,
Marcus’s criticisms do not necessarily apply any longer. His other argument (why would the Evangelists
mention how division leads to destruction if invasion does the same?) does not
seem to me to provide very convincing evidence for Marcus’s view and in fact it
may even be argued to be evidence for the very position he is arguing against.
[29]
Collins, Mark, 232-233, seems to
suggest something like this reading of the DSM sayings. Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001), 157, may also have
something similar in mind, but he is woefully unclear here.
[30] As he
finds, for instance, in Twelftree, Exorcist,
106.
[31] Marcus,
“Beelzebul Controversy,” 253.
[32] For a
recent extended treatment of conditionals in Koine Greek, see Daniel B.
Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics:
An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996),
679-712.
[33] See
Marcus, Mark, 281. Contra Otto Böcher, Christus Exorcista: Dämonismus und Taufe im Neuen Testament
(Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1972), 162, and Twelftree, Exorcist, 106, Marcus, “Beelzebul Controversy,” 251, argues against
the thesis that this unity is the issue, not Satan’s relative strength. The argument, basically, is that this idea
applies only to Mark 3:23 but not 3:24-26 since, on Marcus’s interpretation,
3:24-26 assumes Satan is not finished and yet Jesus has performed successful
exorcisms. This, of course, is clearly
question-begging, since whether or not 3:24-26
tell us Satan is not defeated is precisely part of what is at issue.
[34] Cf.
Harrington, Matthew, 183; Juel, Mark, 63; John J. Kilgallen, “The Return
of the Unclean Spirit (Luke 11,24-26),” Biblica 74 (1993): 49; Marshall,
Luke, 471. Juel says that the opponents’ charge is
against common sense – rulers who did that would fall. Instead, it is Jesus who is bringing Satan to
an end. This is a clear example of the
sort of interpretation presented in this section. Marcus, “Beelzebul Controversy,” 260,
however, does not see this interpretation and interprets Juel in the same way
he interprets the Divided House and Kingdom.
[35] Marcus,
“Beelzebul Controversy,” 257.
[36] Marcus,
“Beelzebul Controversy,” 257-258.
[37] Marcus,
“Beelzebul Controversy,” 258, quoting Gundry, Mark, 173.
[38] Cf.
Davies and Allison, Matthew, 337-338;
B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, Patterns of
Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1989), 165.
[39] Cf.
Rudolph Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, Teil
1: Einleitung und Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1 - 8,26 (Freiburg: Herder, 1976),
214-215.
[40] Cf.
Nolland, Mark, 499.
[41] One
might even argue that, because of the strict unity of the demonic, Satan is
constitutively incapable of acting against other demons because that would be
to act against himself. See Loren R.
Fisher, “Can this be the Son of David?” in Jesus
and the Historian: Written in Honor of Ernest Cadman Colwell, ed. F. T.
Trotter (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), 91-92; Gundry, Mark, 173.
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