To begin with a personal anecdote: when I graduated high school and embarked on a degree in Religion & Theology, my goal in part was to be an apologist. Among the popular apologetics I had readily consumed was Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998) (my attitude to apologetics has since changed quite a bit as it seems to me more about reinforcing the worldview of insiders than an effective mode of persuasion for outsiders and I tend to think the best apologetic is how a tradition impacts one’s daily life and how one treats other people). Moving away from that personal tangent, Strobel’s chapter “The Profile Evidence: Did Jesus Fulfill the Attributes of God” interviews D.A. Carson and has the following conversation:
For example, in Mark 10 someone addresses Jesus as “good teacher,” promoting him to reply, “Why do you call me good? No one is good-except God alone.” “Wasn’t he denying his divinity by saying this?” I [Strobel] asked. “No, I think he was trying to get the fellow to stop and think about what he was saying,” Carson explained. “The parallel passage in Matthew is a little more expansive and does not find Jesus downplaying his deity at all. “I think all he’s saying is, ‘Wait a minute; why are you calling me good? Is this just a polite thing, like you say, “Good day”? What do you mean by good? You call me good master-is this because you’re trying to honey up to me?’ In a fundamental sense there’s only one who is good, and that’s God. But Jesus is not implicitly saying, ‘So don’t call me that.’ He’s saying Do you really understand what you’re saying when you say that? Are you really ascribing to me what should only be ascribed to God?’ That could be teased out to mean, ‘I really am what you say; you speak better than you know’ or ‘Don’t you dare call me that; next time call me “sinner Jesus” like everybody else does.’ In terms of all that Jesus says and does elsewhere, which way does it make sense to take it?” With so many verses that call Jesus “sinless,” “holy,” “righteous,” “innocent,” “undefiled,” and “separate from sinners,” the answer was pretty obvious (162)
It is hard to deny Mk 10:17-18 (cf. Luke 18:18-19) creates issues for Christology, so much that the parallel in Matthew 19:16-17a ”good” is no longer an adjective describing the teacher (διδάσκαλε ἀγαθέ) but ”what good thing I must do” (τί ἀγαθὸν ποιήσω) and ”why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God” (τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός) becomes “why do you ask me concerning the good? One is good” (τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός). Yet Carson’s view of Mark as actually implicitly pointing to Jesus’ divinity is a traditional reading (cf. Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Halls, Mark for Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series) and I came across online an extensive case that at the level of the evangelist (regardless of what the historical Jesus or the rich man thought) the intent was for the perceptive reader to reach this deeper understanding in Brian Han Gregg, “Why Do You Call Me Good: A Markan Riddle” Scripture and Interpretation 3:1 (2009): 68-78. Gregg’s case seems to hinge on whether one accepts that the words/deeds of the Markan Jesus go beyond the Jewish concept of agency (e.g., could the conflict in Mk 2:7f be about the source of Jesus’ authority, see the interpretive comment in Matt 9:8?) and whether the call to sell all & follow me supersedes Torah (might the man’s attachment to possessions be seen as breaking the first commandment which prevents him from Torah obedience as interpreted in the Jesus movement?). On the contrary, I don’t think Mark intended to discredit Jesus’ deity or goodness because I am not sure it is yet an issue in this particular gospel but was merely trying to make a point against flattery that should be reserved for God; however from a canonical or sytematic theological perspective I am not opposed to a Christian who wants to make the equation Jesus = good = equal with God even if not convinced that was how the first readers (or auditors) of Mark heard it. What do you think?
You might also be interested in Jane Heath’s 2010 article in NTS: “Some were saying, “He is good”’ (John 7.12b): ‘Good’ Christology in John’s Gospel?” : http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7889759.
I have always been fascinated by this one scene, as for what I think is happening here. I am incline to interpret it through the lense of the social dynamics at the time. That is to say, through the contributions made by the Context group, you know honor-shame rhetoric and things like that. Though thanks to Mark Goodacre I now realize that the solution to these sorts of problems varies depending on whether you are discussing what this might have meant for the Historical Jesus or the author of Mark. So as far as what the episode means for Mark’s narrative it could very well mean something like what Carson suggest it does though I remain uncertain.
Thanks ClassicalTimeline for this reference; I just checked out the abstract and it looks like a very interesting article.
Thanks Brian S, I agree that what something meant to the historical Jesus may be different than what it mean at the level of the evangelist (and possibly different again from what it might have meant if it perhaps originally circulated as an individual episode in the early church). Could you elaborate on how you read this episode in light of honour-shame models and other social dynamics developed by the Context group (e.g., does the man’s attempt to flatter Jesus an attempt to get him to reciprocate)? This is a subject that I would like to improve my understanding on, though my own advisor James Crossley has made some major critiques of a few of its members for what he sees as some potential Orientalism and unwarranted broad generalizations of the ancient Mediterranean or modern Middle East that is also worth checking out.
Your summary of the honor -shame social model is pretty accurate. And I am behind prof. Crossley 100% in regards to the stereotypical picture of the ancient near east that is sometimes painted by the Context Group and how we need to avoid it. As far as me elaborating on how I interpret this through the lens of honor-shame I would describe it very much like how you did. Compliments were sometimes hostile and Jesus reacted honorably by redirecting it toward God, which allowed him to avoid looking like he was out to gain honor for himself at the expense of others. Honor was a limited good at the time.
Thanks, that could provide another useful explanation for what is going on here.
The best that moderate scholarly apologetics can come up with is that in a possibly historical conversation in the Gospel of Mark we have a man who may have been attempting to flatter Jesus, and Jesus points the man to God who is good, rather than to himself. And the moderate apologist assures us, “Such a conversation does not rule out the possibility that Jesus may also be God.”
However also note how that conversation in Mark begins:
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” They guy was on his knees in front of Jesus. And Jesus takes the time to correct him!? “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.
I suppose that the author of the Fourth Gospel had no patience for such subtleties, for he has Jesus declared every exalted name in the book in chapter one, and also has Jesus announce in public, “I am the GOOD shepherd,” “I am the way, the truth and the life,” “I am the resurrection and the life,” “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” “I am the light of the world.”
Jesus in the fourth Gospel is too busy flattering himself, rather than having such an opportunity as in Mark to rebuff the flattery of others.
Also note that Mark has Jesus baptized by John and explains that John’s baptism was for the forgiveness of sins. So maybe Mark didn’t think of Jesus as sinless.
N.T. Wright’s “solution” by which he can retain “orthodoxy” in the light of such passages as Mark 10:16-18, is to suggest that Jesus was not fully conscious of who he was, he was only conscious of having a “vocation.”
[...] is on Jesus as a powerful theios aner (divine man), the refusal to accept the acclamation “good,” the accusation that Jesus usurped a divine prerogative in claiming to forgive sins, the [...]