Mark 14:3-9, followed closely by Matthew 26:6-13, tells the story of an unnamed woman who comes into Simon's house, where Jesus is reclining, and breaks an alabaster jar of myrrh over Jesus's head. Controversy ensues and at the end, the woman is praised. Luke agrees with this framing state of events, placing it earlier in the narrative to Luke 7:36-50, and making the cosmetic change of having Jesus recline "at table". As a result the Mark, Matthew, and Luke tales are considered "synoptic" and based on "Mark", and it is assumed that Luke's differences derive from Luke's feminist concerns with female sin and redemption against Pharisaic snobbery.
In fact Mark's and Matthew's version as it exists today is deutero-synoptic in other
respects, matching John 12:1-8 against Luke. First, the event is placed in Bethany in Mark and John. Second, Mark and John share a different
controversy against Luke. In Luke, the woman is a sinner, and those offended mutter that
Jesus is allowing an unclean person to touch him; Luke also encapsulates a parable which mentions silver but only perchance. In Mark 14:4-5 and John 12:4-5, the offended parties
are upset that the woman has wasted silver, and imply that this silver was the motive for Jesus's betrayal; also, there is no parable.
In Luke, Jesus forgives the sinner.
In Mark and John, there was no sin: Jesus goes on to say "let her alone
" (Mark 14:6 == John 12:7a).
Mark and John moralise with a prediction of burial and "there will always be poor around, but
I won't always be around
" (in John, 12:7b and 12:8; in Mark, 14:8 and 14:7)
- although Mark 14:9 tries to make the woman's generosity the real conclusion.
The placement is therefore deliberate in Mark and (especially) John, that the anointment leads into the Passion.
There are also some facets of this story found in John and Luke against Mark. John and Luke agree that the woman anointed Jesus's feet, and wiped them with her hair. Mark has her anoint his head instead, as Jesus said Simon should have done in Luke 7:46. John also populates the house with Mary and Martha; Luke does not, but has another story about Mary and Martha in 10:38-42 in which Mary lies at Jesus's feet.
The key element in John and Mark, of course, is "there will always be poor around, but
I won't always be around
". It is an incredibly swellheaded thing for Jesus to say,
at least in its Markan context.
But perhaps less so in a Johannine one. John's Jesus had after all called himself the fulfilment of Scripture in 5:39-47 and 9:28-29, compared himself to the staff of Moses in 3:14, and claimed he could rebuild the Temple in three days in 2:19. These verses are all projected for John's sources, particularly Egerton.
John agreed with his sources insofar as they had Jesus make claims about himself.
Mark, and he whom I call the "Bethsaida editor" of Mark, was less ready to accept these claims.
In the case of John 2:19, the Bethsaida editor at Mark 14:55-61a
went so far as to deny Jesus had even spoken the words of the verse cited.
In the case of John 12:8, Mark 14:7 has "there will always be poor around, but
I won't always be around
" earlier in the narrative than John, and ends in Mark 14:9 with high
praise of the unnamed woman (that is, Mary).
This had the effect of preserving Jesus's statement about himself, but masking it behind his
support of others.
Also, the cost of the ointment is "more than" 300 in Mark and exactly 300 in John. Mark's woman is more generous than John's.
There was no particular reason for John to downplay the sympathetic natures of Jesus and Mary. Mark had every incentive to expand them. Accordingly I think Mark or the Bethsaida editor was working off John or John's source.
Almost all agree that Luke depended on a version of Mark. The majority opinion is that Luke was working off our version. If Luke was working off Mark 14:3-9 as we know it, she changed almost everything, and added a few details she could only have gotten from John or John's source, like the washing of feet.
It follows from the majority opinion that John (or pre-John) had additional ties with Luke. Luke and John share the name "Lazarus" in a resurrection context. They also share a tradition about John the Baptist. Presumably they would have shared the names in Luke 10:38-42 too. But then one must explain the paucity of Johannine features in the rest of Luke.
I would explain it otherwise. John reflects more or less faithfully an original, even up to Mary and Martha. It only adds that Judas was stealing from the coffers, and that the house belonged to Lazarus.
The original of Mark 14:3-9, meanwhile, was more like Luke 7:36-50 and belonged between Mark 3:19 and 3:20, or maybe 3:30 and 3:31, or just prior to 4:1. Luke led up to it with some Q sayings on sin, redemption, and hypocrisy, and saved Mary and Martha for another tale.
Mark 14:3-9 represents John 12:1-8 or its source with a Luke 7:36-50 makeover. John had a miracle story in Bethany, the raising of Lazarus. But even assuming Secret Mark, Mark had no reason for his narrative to be in Bethany at this point. Accordingly Mark made Simon a leper rather than a Pharisee, and - as in John - had the disciples do the complaining.
Like Luke - mostly - Mark also got rid of Mary and Martha. Mark also harmonised the anointing of feet shared by elder Mark and John, with the anointing of the head from later in elder Mark (or, if you like, proto-Luke 7:46).
Luke, then, depended on original Mark. Mark 14:3-9 is a Bethsaida correction of Mark toward John or John's source.
The tale of the anointing as we know it in Mark came about because the editor of Mark wanted to steal the thunder off John or John's source.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^) zimriel@sbcglobal.net
The first version of this project was written 27 May 2002. 15 June, gave Mark 14:9 some prominence. 5 July, =300 v. >300. Then in 17 September 2006 I noticed the connexion between this tale and that of Judas, so on the next day I dealt with it here.