Mark 14:32-42 has a number of elements not found in Luke, not all of which can be explained as Lukan redaction. In particular, Mark 14:41-42:
41 Returning the third time, he said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! hlqen h wra (the hour has come). Look, the Son of Man is paradidotai (handed over) into the ceiraV twn amartwlwn (hands of sinners).
42 egeiresqe agwmen (rise, let's go)! Here comes my betrayer!"
This quote is mirrored in Matthew 21:45-46 but interestingly not in Luke (where it would be between 22:46 and 22:47), despite its dramatic potential.
I have shown here that Mark, after making its way into the Gospel of Luke, was edited in the region of southern Syria prior to its adoption by the Carpocratians ("Secret"/canonical Mark) and the community of Peter (Matthew). These amendments, at least in part, follow one or more sources of John - among which I include the gospel(s) behind the Egerton fragments. Those who accept that premise put their core at Mark 6:45-8:21, but I believe they extend into Mark's Passion narrative, as shown here.
There is already enough evidence to define the terms of a "Bethsaida Section". A Bethsaida Section is ultimately defined by the original Bethsaida section, Mark 6:45-8:21. It is a section of Mark that Matthew witnesses, that Luke omits for no purpose of Luke's, and that parallels some aspect of either Egerton or the pre-Johannine parts of John.
All that remains to count Mark 14:41-42 in the ranks of Bethsaida is to determine its Egertonian or otherwise pre-Johannine qualities.
Egerton is fragmentary, but enough survives of
fragment 1-recto
ll.30-32 to read that the rulers tried to put their "hands"
(cei[ran])
on Jesus to arrest him, but could not
"because not yet had come the hour for him to be handed over
":
oti oupw e[lhluqei] autou h wra thV parado[sewV?].
The Complete Gospels puts it at Egerton 1:8-9.
This shares with Mark 14:41 the "coming of the hour"; the "hands" used to arrest; and the "handing over" to the enemies. The latter two terms do exist in Mark as witnessed by Luke to predict Jesus's betrayal: Mark 9:31 (==Matt 17:22==Luke 9:44) especially, but also Mark 10:33, 13:9, 14:11. But the "coming of the hour" is not used elsewhere in Mark in this way, but only in Mark 14:41 and Egerton. (And in Mark's follower Matthew, and Egerton's follower John 7:30...)
I conclude that Mark 14:41b - "The hour has come" - is certainly a Bethsaida addition to Mark, in this case dependent on Egerton. The rest of Mark 14:41 has affinity with both Mark and Egerton, and is therefore merely a possible Bethsaida addition.
That leaves Mark 14:42.
John was not a hostile witness to Egerton to the degree of Bethsaida-Mark.
As it happens another parallel to Mark 14:41-42 not in the Egerton fragment exists in
John 14:31: egeiresqe agwmen, "get up, let's go
"
in Funk p. 226. In John 14:31 that command appears after Jesus has told his disciples
(in more typically Johannine language) that he is about to prove his love for his Father and
how he will act as He has instructed. But in John, no action ensues, and Jesus continues
speaking up to the end of John 17 before Jesus crosses the Kidron in 18:1.
This command is also
not found elsewhere in Mark, nor at all in Luke.
Luke 22:46b, mirroring Mark 14:38a, but also Mark 14:42 in that it is the end of the Gethsemane
section, uses a different phrase when he tells the disciples
anastanteV proseucesqe ("pray standing up
")
instead of grhgoreite kai proseucesqe
("be alert and pray
").
The easiest way to resolve this is that John's source had Jesus say, "get up, let's go" at that point, and that John 15-17 was added later. This source also provided that command to Mark 14:42a in lieu of Luke 22:46b's anastanteV and Mark 14:38a's grhgoreite. Assuming Mark 14:41-42 was not in Egerton itself, Mark 14:42a provided a precedent for the Bethsaida editor to insert Mark 14:41b too, out of some region of Egerton.
Mark 14:41-42 is the conclusion to Mark 14:32-42, a section from which Luke 22:40-46
also omits Mark 14:33-34 (Peter, James, and John come with Jesus when he first withdraws,
and Jesus withdraws a second time - Luke incidentally omits Mark 10:35-40 too, which also had
James and John, and moves 10:41-45 into the Last Supper at Luke 22:24-27),
14:37b ("could you not stay awake for one hour?
"), and 14:38b-42 (two more times
the disciples fall asleep).
There is a real question of whether Luke's version or Mark's
version is closest to the original, now that we know both represent "corrections" to an original.
The Bethsaida editor of Mark was very free with his pre-Johannine sources, of which Egerton is one. In one instance the editor moved the Isaiah citation of Egerton 3:6 into Mark 7:6b-7, an entirely different context. In another instance the editor went so far as to deny Jesus said a predecessor of John 2:19.
Mark 14:32-42 differs from other Bethsaida-edited sections in that it is not a grab bag of Egertonian and pre-Johannine tales and anecdotes like Mark 6:45-8:21; nor is it a direct rebuttal of pre-Johannine claims and attacks like Mark 14:55-61a and the associated story of Peter's denials. It merely contains a couple of pre-Johannine phrases, at least one of which is Egertonian. But why would the editor bother?
It is hard enough just to figure out what differences are Bethsaida and what are Luke, for which one example will suffice. If Mark's was the closest, there may have been a proto-Mark 14:42 that had anastanteV instead of egeiresqe agwmen, in which case Luke moved anastanteV to replace Mark 13:38a's grhgoreite. If Luke's was the closest, Luke 22:46b's anastanteV may instead reflect original Mark 13:38a's usage. But in either case it is possible Luke inserted anastanteV into what was Mark 13:38a to provide her own bridge with the arrest, out of her own imagination.
There are certainly Bethsaida (that is, Egertonian and pre-Johannine)
elements in the long version of Jesus's agony in the garden.
It is a possibility that all Mark 14:32-42 may be a Bethsaida extension
of a passage that would, then, in its original state have matched Luke 22:40-46 more closely.
The shared status of Peter, James, and John implicates other disciples in Peter's coming failure;
and Peter is forgiven in advance when Jesus, addressing him alone, admits that his "spirit is willing
" even if
his "flesh is weak
".
The comment on the "hour" in 14:37b may depend on the "coming of the hour" in 14:41, perhaps
ironically. And the triplication of the disciples' sleep
emphasises the uselessness of all the disciples, not just Peter.
So Bethsaida-Mark 14:32-42 does represent a rebuttal of the pre-Johannine Passion's attacks on Peter, but more subtly than the pre-Johannine Passion account. If Egerton was not part of this Passion, then the Egertonian Mark 14:41b was just thrown in there for good measure.
John and Bethsaida-Mark disagree over where, exactly, to locate the command of John 14:31 == Mark 14:42a. John has it in the Last Supper and Bethsaida-Mark has it just prior to Jesus's capture.
We do not know the full extent of the Bethsaida extensions to Mark 14:32-42, and many of the pluses - if they are extensions - seem to have been made in the course of Petrine apologetics against proto-John, in which case they will not derive directly from proto-John's text. Therefore it is not possible to place John 14:31 == Mark 14:42a in an original context.
Mark 14:41b and 14:42a are both Bethsaida additions to Mark. The former is based on Egerton, either the prediction of the Passion seen in 1:8-9 or in Egerton's Passion itself. The latter is based on the Passion tale that underlaid John 14:31.
It is not yet possible to construct the source of Mark 14:41, or Mark 14:42==John 14:31. But it is likely that other elements of Mark 14:32-42 - and maybe 10:35-45 - derive not from Luke's corrections to Mark, but from Mark's corrections to Mark.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^) zimriel@sbcglobal.net
The first version of this project was written 25-27 May 2002.