A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Mark 5:22

Mark 5:22 ovno,mati VIa,i?roj

It has sometimes been argued (e.g. by Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark, p. 287) that the words ovno,mati VIa,i?roj are an early interpolation, because (1) they are absent from several Western witnesses (D it^{a, e, ff², i}); (2) the parallel account in Matthew does not identify Jairus by name; (3) the only other person mentioned by Mark outside the Passion Narrative, apart from the disciples, is Bartimaeus ( Mark 10:46), and the name Jairus is not mentioned in Mark 5:35 ff.; and (4) the use of ovno,mati is Lukan rather than Markan; elsewhere Mark uses o;noma with the dative ( Mark 3:16 f.; Mark 5:9).

When these arguments are analyzed, their weight is greatly diminished. Considered in reverse order:

(a) The three instances of o;noma with the dative are scarcely sufficient to establish Mark’s preferred usage, especially since two of the instances report the conferring of a name upon a person, when the dative is to be expected (evpitiqe,nai, Mark 3:16 f.). That Luke generally prefers ovno,mati is true but irrelevant, for the Lukan parallel ( Luke 8:41) to the passage under consideration reads avnh.r w|- o;noma VIa,i?roj (which accounts for the Markan variant w|- o;noma VIa,i?roj in W Q 565 700).

(b) Whether it is fair to exclude from one’s consideration the many names in Mark’s Passion Narrative is open to question. In any case, however, Taylor has unaccountably overlooked the presence, in addition to Bartimaeus, of Mark’s references by name to John the Baptist ( Mark 1:4, Mark 1:6, Mark 1:9, Mark 1:14; Mark 6:14, Mark 6:16-18, Mark 6:24 f.). The absence of the name Jairus in Mark 5:35 ff. surely cannot prove that it is an interpolation in Mark 5:22. (Jairus occurs only once in the Lukan narrative ( Luke 8:41); is it also an interpolation there?)

(c) The absence of the name in Matthew’s account would be explained if, as has been sometimes argued on the basis of other instances, Matthew utilized a copy of a Western text of Mark. ⁷ In any case, however, it must be observed that Matthew has very much condensed Mark’s whole account, and omits much more than merely the name of Jairus.

(d) The external evidence supporting the presence of ovno,mati VIa,i?roj is far more impressive (including î⁴⁵ a A B C L N D P S F almost all minuscules it^{b, c, l, q} vg syr^{c, s, p, h, pal} cop^{sa, bo, fay} arm geo) than the testimony supporting the absence of these words (D it^{a, e, ff², i}). Put another way, from a text-critical point of view it is more probable that the name Jairus was accidentally dropped during the transmission of part of the Western text (represented by one Greek manuscript and several Old Latin witnesses) than that it was added, at the same point in the narrative, in all the other textual groups. See also the Note on Western non-interpolations, following Luke 24:53.

⁷ See T. F. Glasson, “Did Matthew and Luke use a ‘Western’ Text of Mark?” Expository Times, 55 (1943—44), pp. 180—184; and 77 (1965—66), pp. 120—121.

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A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Mark 5:22

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