Jesus Says Everybody Poops
This week, I’m working through translating Mark, and I spent time on this section on Mark 7. There are a few words that stand out to me as needing some clarification.
It’s not just about being more accurate. The traditional translations here are downright harmful. They are full of shame and toxic dehumanization. They fill the role of the False Accuser far more than they do the Life-breath of Truth.
I’ll explain more after the quotation. Take a look at it here (or even compare it to another version you’re familiar with).
14 After calling to the crowd again, he said to them, “Everyone, listen to me and make the connections! 15 There is nothing from outside a person that when it goes into them it is able to make them unconsecrated; instead, the things that come out of the person are what make the person unconsecrated.
17 When Jesus went into the house away from the crowd, his students began asking him about the parable.
18 “Are you unable to put it together, like them, too?” he said to them. “Do you not understand that nothing that goes into a person from outside is able to make them unconsecrated 19 since it does not go into their heart but into their stomach instead, and then it goes out into the latrine?” (All foods are clean!)
20 “What goes out from a person,” he said, “That is what makes the person unconsecrated. 21 You see, from inside—from people’s hearts—go out harmful deliberations, sexual exploitation, theft, murder, 22 marital infidelity, greed, actions that cause others hardship, fraud, lack of restraint, pursuing oppressive gain, speaking disrespectfully, thinking of oneself as above others, and carelessness. 23 All these harmful things go out from the inside and make the person unconsecrated.”
As I see it, there are two major shifts. The first is the difference between ‘defiled’ and ‘unconsecrated’ (and how I understand holiness and clean/unclean imagery). What comes to mind when you think of something being defiled? I get a visceral nose-wrinkling, queasy-making disgust response in my body. I almost get a visual image in my mind of something smeared with feces. Certainly, ‘unclean’ would be an accurate—if somewhat understated—description of that.
But that’s not what it says. The Greek there is koine, which literally just means ‘common’ or ‘ordinary’ or 'normal.' The Greek dialect the Bible is written in is called Koine Greek. Certainly, we’re not thinking the Bible was written in Defiled Greek, are we?
So, the question is how is it ‘ordinary’? It’s the opposite of sacred. The opposite of sacred is not anti-sacred. It’s not attacking or against sacredness. It’s just not sacred. It’s ordinary.
But isn’t this part of Jesus criticizing people’s behavior? Well, yes. He’s saying that following religious behavioral codes is not what makes someone unclean (is ‘shitty’ a loose paraphrase here?). It’s how you treat people. The real question is whether the religious leaders are acting toward people with the sacred calling to love your neighbor. Or, as do most people, they take the ordinary route of boosting their own ego or looking out for their own good instead of others’ well-being.
Jesus says they’re failing to live up to their sacred calling and are being plain ordinary.
The ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ imagery is always about a sacred calling or purpose and whether or not something is ready for it. It’s not always about being bad. Hebrews talks about the Tabernacle being cleansed during Israel’s time in the wilderness. It wasn’t a sinful Tabernacle that needed to be cleansed from sin. It was an ordinary tent that needed to be consecrated, to be anointed and inaugurated into its use as a sacred place.
Even more ordinary (see what I did there?) ways of being clean or unclean had the lens of sacred calling in view, such as eating certain types of meat (the sacred calling to taking care of your body in a nourishing and healthy way) or getting rid of mold (preparing a home for the sacred calling of providing people with shelter). Westerners have lost our awareness of the sacredness of reality and limit it only to explicitly religious activities for the most part. It makes it difficult to understand the Bible, which has a much more expansive view of sacredness.
Here's the other thing I’m noticing as I reflect on what I saw as I translated. Take a look at these verses in two translations side-by-side:
LIT: You see, from inside—from people’s hearts—go out harmful deliberations, sexual exploitation, theft, murder, marital infidelity, greed, actions that cause others hardship, fraud, lack of restraint, pursuing oppressive gain, speaking disrespectfully, thinking of oneself as above others, and carelessness.
ESV: For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
(Mark 7:21-22 ESV)
I’m not going to take the time here to get into each of these terms, but as an overarching theme, I notice something immediately. The LIT includes some individual actions but also things that could be more society-level or systemic in nature. The ESV is all at the level of the individual. Also, some of them in the ESV are really vague. What does wickedness mean that isn’t covered in the others? What is foolishness, exactly? What kind of pride are we talking about?
The ESV stays solidly at the level of individual piety, how can we tell if someone is a bad person as the question. The LIT starts to surface that all of this is about how should people treat each other as part of a community. All of it. That’s what Jesus means by unclean or clean: how we all treat each other. We are called to the sacred purpose of loving our neighbors, of treating others how we want to be treated, of loving one another. If we’re ready to do those things, we are ‘clean.’ If not, well, that’s just normal.
