I am interested in looking at Mark 12:18-27. These verses in chapter 12 deal specifically with the issues of marriage and property in regards to widowed women[1]. Is it okay for women to marry multiple men after their husbands have passed away? What does this mean for the sacrament of marriage? Does death affect religious covenant[2]? What does this mean for resurrection? Additionally, Jesus challenges the Sadducees, addressing issues of property and inheritance within a patriarchal society.
Presenting Jesus with a question regarding a scenario where seven brothers, trying to abide by the Laws of Moses, have successively married the same woman because each brother has died without leaving behind any descendents. Jesus not only solves the Sadducees’ logical problem, he also addresses and refutes their implied critique that denies resurrection on the grounds that “it 1) represents a more complicated “raising up” than the natural reproduction that has failed in the proposed scenario and 2) is not prescribed in Torah. While Jesus could theoretically have discerned a deeper theological issue of which his questioners were unaware, his harsh rebuke and the other indications of a hidden trap imply the Sadducees’ duplicity of such a question[3]”.
Ultimately, the Sadducees are asking Jesus several questions; one of which regards to marital relationships in the afterlife. Jesus responds to the Sadducees, “[a]re you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven[4].” While the Sadducees seem mostly concerned with what is supposed to happen to individuals who have participated in the sacramental act of marriage in their material life Jesus questions their interpretation of the Mosaic Law. In resurrection, not death, there is no institution of ‘marriage’. Jesus explains that our understanding of God’s kingdom, should be one which does not maintain an institution of marriage; rather, in the resurrection, there will be no hierarchy. Jesus explains that the condition of persons after death will be totally different from the present condition. After death there will be no marriage, but all will be as the angels in Heaven. The Sadducees imagined life in Heaven as life on earth. And at the end Jesus concludes: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living! You are in great error[5]”. In doing this, Jesus warns the disciples explaining that those who are on the side of these Sadducees and question faith and resurrection will be on the side opposite to God.
[1] Oxford Biblical Studies Online (Commentary)
[2] Trick, Bradley R. Novum Testamentum (2007), 232.
[3] Trick, Bradley R. Novum Testamentum (2007), 240.
[4] NAB, Mark 12:18-27.
[5] NAB, Mark 12:18-27.
Bibliography
The New American Bible: Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002.
Trick, Bradley R. "Death, Covenants, and the Proof of Resurrection in Mark 12:18-27." Novum
Testamentum 49.3 July (2007): 232-56. Print.
W. Grudem, “Does ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ("Head") Mean "Source" or "Authority Over” in Greek
Literature? A Survey of 2,336 Examples.” Trinity Journal 6 (1985): 38-59.
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