From: “John Barach”
Subject: Mark 3:9: A Boat
BHers —
What’s the significance of the boat that Jesus has His disciples prepare for Him in Mark 3:9?
It appears in the midst of a passage in which Jesus has taken His exodus from the synagogue (as Farrer points out) and has withdrawn to the sea (rather like Moses), with a great multitude following Him, before He ascends a mountain (like Moses) and establishes the seed of a new Israel, twelve disciples.
The boat is there, Mark tells us, just in case the crowd starts to crush (press) Jesus, especially since they’re already “falling upon” Him (perhaps contrasted with the demons “falling down” before Him). Does that suggest that as Jesus withdrew from the Pharisees and Herodians, He may also have to withdraw from the crowd?
Obviously the boat is there for safety, but I’m not just interested in the literal sense. I’m interested in the typological/allegorical sense. What’s that boat doing here in the story?
Here’s some stuff I’ve been toying with, as I stick my big toe into the deep weird and test the temperature: Jeff points out in his lectures that Mark covers seven days (evenings and mornings). Mark 3 happens in the second of those seven days. This is the time of withdrawal, the time when God creates the firmament as a veil, separating heaven (God’s space) from earth. That veil will eventually be taken away, but it is established from the beginning.
Now this section of Mark’s Gospel is going to have a lot to do with withdrawing, with the so-called “Messianic secret,” and so forth. The demons are being silenced here because Jesus doesn’t want them as preachers; He wants His people to puzzle through what He is doing and figure out who He is.
The boat, then, is another agent of withdrawal. The people are still coming to Jesus here as a wonder-worker for healing and exorcism. They aren’t yet listening fully to His message. Jesus is going to be starting over, and eventually He will need to withdraw from this crowd. The boat is ready. The crowd could eventually turn dangerous (as they will later on!). But for now, Jesus withdraws from those who are threatening Him but stays and ministers to the people who follow Him.
As well, I’ve wondered if there isn’t some kind of a Flood motif here. The Flood is a reversal of the parting of the waters (and involves waters from the waters above the earth crashing down on the earth). It’s a return to the beginning which ends an old creation and starts a new one.
Jesus has now gone as far as He can with the synagogue system and the Pharisees and scribes in Galilee. He withdraws from them and goes back to the sea, the water from which He was called by the Spirit and from which He, as the Spirit-filled one who does the Spirit’s work, called Peter, Andrew, James, and John and then later called Levi. He’s going to call twelve more in a little while: There will be a new creation from the sea.
But returning to the sea implies a Flood motif, doesn’t it? It’s going back to the beginning and starting over, leading to a new creation. And if that’s what this is, then perhaps the people who come streaming to Jesus correspond to the animals that come streaming to Noah. And then perhaps this boat is a typological ark. Jesus is the one who takes you through the flood into the new creation, up to the mountain (Ararat), and into the new world — just as He is the one who takes Israel through the Red Sea, forms them into a new creation, ascends a mountain, and creates a new nation.
I dunno. As Bob Dylan once said, “Sometimes I think there’s something there; other times it’s only me.” One more question: Does this boat echo anything (anything at all) in the Davidic narrative, so much of which is echoed in the context here in Mark 3?
John
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:41:32 -0600
From: “James B. Jordan”
Subject: Mark 3:9: A Boat
Well, I don’t know. But it seems there’s some Sign o’ Jonah stuff, in 4:36ff, which results in being in gentile territory in ch. 5. But there is a lot of boatness in these chapters, and there’re no boats in David. Yet, in the wilderness David ministered and both Israelite and gentile pariahs gathered to him. Could the boat-motif relate to David in wilderness?
JBJ
