What is the significance of omitting the definite article before the name Jesus in Mark 1:9?

Question

Robert M. Price points out in The Christ Myth and Its Problems that Mark 1:9 omits the definite article [ὁ, tō, etc] before the name of Jesus, in contrast to the almost universal practice elsewhere in the Gospel. He suggests that this could be evidence that the sentence is an interpolation.

I am far from convinced that this omission is enough to believe that Mark 1:9 is an interpolation, but would like to know if there are grammatical or theological reasons for the original author to have omitted 'the' in this instance, while including the definite article almost everywhere else in the Gospel.

Alternatively, did the use of the definite article before a name fall out of favour after the second century?

Answer 1

It is true that the "anarthrous" usage of "Jesus" (Ἰησοῦς) in Mark 1:9 is unusual. Of 82 occurrences of the name in Mark, only eight of them lack the article (1:1, 9, 24; 5:7; 10:47[x2]; 16:6, 19). There is something of a pattern, though, as aside from 1:1, 9; and 16:19 (which is in the disputed "long ending" of Mark), these occur with an epithet, not a "raw" use of the name.

There are some factors to take into account in evaluating the instance in Mark 1:9 -

1. As commentators regularly point out (e.g. E.P. Gould [ICC], C.E.B. Cranfield, R.T. France [NIGTC], Joel Marcus [Anchor Bible]), the syntax of this verse is strongly "Semitic": kai egeneto ... ēlthen reflects the Hebrew Bible's wayəhî + further finite verb. Hebrew proper names do not take an article, so perhaps this influences the use of the name at this point (if Hebrew usage is in the mind of the writer).

2. This is the first usage of the name "Jesus" in the body of the gospel. As Cranfield (p. 51) suggests:

   Was Mark perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, feeling after a special dignity at the point where he was introducing Jesus for the first time?

3. The wider pattern of usage is worth noting as well. First, LXX Joshua should be recalled, where "Joshua" is (of course) named as "Jesus" 172x. Of those, 18x it has the article (all dative, and this is all the dative occurrences, in fact), leaving by far the most common usage of "Jesus" in this familiar book as "anarthrous". Perhaps another reason for this first occurrence in Mark to echo the foreshadowing "Greek Joshua"?

4. Second, in the whole NT, "Jesus" is used approximately 917x. Of those, roughly half are without the article (450 or so; 80x in the gospel of John alone), so it is not an unusual thing by any means.

5. Finally, the syntax of the article with proper names in wider classical Greek usage is compared with NT usage by A.T. Robertson who cites Basil Gildersleeve's full treatment. There is a fair diversity of usage, so worth perusing those works to gain an impression of the situation.

Answer 2

I'm a scientist not a Greek language expert but I previously did a Bayesian probability analysis on the hypothesis that Mark 1:9 contains a scribal error vs. an interpolation/redaction using information from Bart Ehrman and Jesus mythicist/Nazareth mythicist Frank Zindler.

I concluded that the probability of a scribal error vs. an interpolation was about of equal probability. But there is also the unknown probability that Mark 1:9 was originally written without the definite article. That probability can't be assumed to be zero percent but the upper probability is unknown. I assumed a low 5% probability as a prior probability.

Zindler examined variations in all the over 50 critical editions of Mark that were published by Reuben Swanson and discovered numerous scribal errors and apparent interpolations in Mark. But he did not do a complete analysis and he was unable to quantify how many of these differences were interpolations without having the actual first manuscript of Mark, which of course no one has.

Zindler also believes that the verse in Matthew (21:11) that mentions Jesus of Nazareth from Galilee was used as the source text to fabricate Mark 1:9 but Matthew 21:11 contains the definite article. Another problem with Zindler's conclusion is that Matthew 21:11 could contain real historical information so even if it were interpolated into Mark it could still be historically accurate in Mark 1:9.

Bart Ehrman said he examined every verse in Mark and the numerous variants and concluded that the absence of the definite article in Mark 1:9 is almost certainly an early scribal error, based on his experiences looking at New Testament manuscripts. The definite article is often used optionally in New Testament texts and could easily be overlooked or omitted by scribes.

Interestingly, if you randomly delete definite articles from any of the Jesus verses in Mark in order to simulate a scribal deletion you also get many unique and striking patterns that appear to be intentional interpolations/redactions but that are of course only simulated scribal errors. [Zindler quite by accident made an error in the manuscript he wrote about Mark 1:9 and produced a sentence and paragraph that looks like an intentional interpolation if one is predisposed to be looking for interpolations, that is, practicing confirmation bias.]

I conclude that the absence of the definite article in Mark 1:9 is probably due to scribal error or redaction with about equal probability, close to 50-50 probability. And there is also a greater than zero percent probability that Mark 1:9 was originally written without the definite article. A 50-50 probability in Bayesian probability theory means we don't know and can't say otherwise.

Answer 3

In my question, I stated that I was far from convinced that the omission of the article is enough to believe that Mark 1:9 is an interpolation. After some months, I noticed other features of Mark 1:9 that now support a reading of this verse as having been redacted.

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Mark 1:9 is the only place in the entire Gospel where the town of Nazareth is mentioned, in the original Greek language. Moreover, the reference to “Nazareth of Galilee” is unusual for Mark – elsewhere, he refers to towns and cities such as Capernaum,Tyre, Sidon, Dalmanutha, Bethphage, Bethany and Jerusalem without telling us where these towns are.

Although English translations of Mark's Gospel often refer to 'Jesus of Nazareth' (eg Mark 1:24), the Greek text says in each instance, Ἰησοῦ Ναζαρηνέ (Jesus the Nazarene). While verse 1:9 only says that Jesus departed from Nazareth to meet John the Baptist, this is the nearest Mark ever gets to locating Jesus in Nazareth.

An argument against Nazareth as Jesus’ home town is that there is another town that, for Mark, might have been his home town. Apart from Nazareth in verse 1:9, the first town that Mark mentions is Capernaum, and some modern Bibles translate Mark 2:1,15; 3:20 in a way that suggests Capernaum was really the home town of Jesus:

Mark 2:1 (NAB): When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it became known that he was at home.
Mark 2:15 (NAB): While he was at table in his house …
Mark 3:20: (NAB): He came home ...

The later gospels leave no doubt that Jesus was from Nazareth. However, Matthew supports the above translations of Mark 2:1, 15; 3:20 because it tells us in verse 4:13 that Jesus moved there from Nazareth. With a slightly different approach, Luke 5:29 says that the house of Mark 2:15 is Levi’s house.

Conclusion

Mark 1:9 has three features, unusual for Mark, that, seen in combination, lead to a reasonable conclusion that the verse has been redacted:

1. Omission of the definite article before the name of Jesus;
2. Only mention of Nazareth in the entire Gospel;
3. Nazareth is mentioned as being in Galilee.

To reach this conclusion, it is not necessary to explain why the verse was altered, but I believe this was done in order to place Jesus in Nazareth at the beginning of his mission on earth and therefore harmonise with the later gospels that tell us that Jesus was actually brought up in Nazareth. Knowing that Jesus began his mission from Nazareth, the reader would conclude that 'Jesus the Nazarene' had the same meaning in Mark as 'Jesus of Nazarene' had in the later gospels.

Answer 4

The omission of the definite article before the name of Jesus in Mark 1:9 could very likely be due to scribal error (deletion) since scribal errors are very common in New Testament texts. The occurrence of the words Jesus and Nazareth and a scribal error in the same verse could simply be due to coincidence. After all, the omission of the definite article only looks striking because of data mining and data selection. And the words Jesus and Nazareth (or Nazarene) are commonly associated with each other so nothing surprising should be seen in a verse with both of them present. Of course even if Mark 1:9 contains an interpolation that is not proof that the verse is historically inaccurate and that Nazareth or Jesus never existed as Robert M. Price claims.