Monthly Archive: July 2009

Why is Mark 6:14-29 in Mark's gospel?

It's a good question. Mark devotes significantly more space to the death of John the Baptist than the other gospel writers, yet it is a story that involves neither Jesus nor his disciples. Mark's gospel is usually characterised by brevity; he rarely uses 10 words if 5 will do; Matthew and Luke (when they record the same events as those found in Mark) almost always contain a longer and fuller account. Yet the death of John the Baptist seems an exception - for some reason, he thinks it so important that he devotes about one fortieth of his gospel to the story. Why?

To make things more confusing, the chronology and the focus of the story is ambiguous. The story of John the Baptist is set in the account of Herod deliberating who Jesus is. Is this a story about who Jesus is? If so, why does the account of John's death itself take up so much space and involve so much detail? Or is this a story about John the Baptist? If so, why is Mark concerned with Herod's questions? And why does Mark record a "flash-back" like this. Jesus only begun his ministry after John's arrest; at some point after that, but before 6:16, John is executed. Herod hears of Jesus' ministry and thinks back to John's death. Why?

This post will attempt to look at the details of Mark 6:14-29, as it is found within its context in Mark's gospel, and to answer that question. (It's a longer than average post for this blog).

I thought the reference in Mark 6:23 to "up to half my kingdom" sounded familiar. Sure enough, the phrase also occurs in Esther 5:3 and Esther 7:2.

That got me thinking.

In the book of Esther we have a king with an extravagant party who makes an oath to depose his queen, which would be (for her) a kind of death. He promises a girl up to half of his kingdom, and then executes somebody because it is effectively what that girl asked for. We have someone (Haman), who has the king's ear, asking for the people of God to be put to death. Sound familiar?