Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Mark 8:1

ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις : a vague phrase, used only once again in this Gospel (Mark 1:9, in reference to Jesus going from Nazareth to be baptised), indicating inability to assign to the following incident a precise historical place. Cf. Matthew 3:1 for similar vague use of the expression. πάλιν πολλοῦ ὄ. ὄ. This well-attested reading is another indication of the evangelist's helplessness as to historical connection: there being again a great crowd. Why? where? not indicated, and we are not entitled to assert that the scene of the event was Decapolis, and the occasion the healing of the deaf-mute. The story is in the air, and this is one of the facts that have to be reckoned with by defenders of the reality of the second feeding against those who maintain that it is only a literary duplicate of the first, due to the circumstance that the Petrine version of it differed in some particulars from that in the Logia of Matthew. On this subject I do not dogmatise, but I cannot pretend to be insensible to the difficulties connected with it. ὄχλου, a great crowd again. How often the crowd figures in the evangelic story! It is the one monotonous feature in narratives of thrilling interest.

Continues after advertising

BibliaPlus

Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Mark 8:1

Old Testament

New Testament