Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Mark 1:21-45, A Sabbath in Capernaum and a leper
Jesus teaches in the synagogue, drives out a spirit, heals Simon's mother-in-law and, after sunset, the whole town. Then he touches and cleanses a leper.
Mark 1:21-45, in every translation this tool compares.
Mark packs one Sabbath in Capernaum with teaching, an exorcism and healings, until the whole town gathers at a single house door. The listeners are struck that Jesus teaches on his own authority. Then he touches a leper, a man others kept away from, cleanses him and sends him to the priest for the required check, while telling him to keep quiet.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/teachers-of-the-law\/","n":"Teachers of the law","s":"Trained experts in the law of Moses, also called scribes, some local and some from Jerusalem, who taught by citing earlier teachers.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/unclean-spirits\/","n":"Unclean spirits and exorcists","s":"Spirits that defiled and harmed people. Exorcists of the day used names, oaths, spells and foul smells to drive them out. Jesus gave an order.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sabbath\/","n":"The Sabbath","s":"The seventh day, a commanded rest from sundown to sundown, a badge of Jewish identity, and a law the experts argued over in detail.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/unclean-by-touch\/","n":"Unclean by touch","s":"Under the law, skin disease, bleeding, corpses, tombs and certain animals made a person ritually unclean, and touch could pass it on.","r":""}
Keener notes that many Capernaum homes were built around courtyards shared with other homes, with extended family living together, which helps explain how the whole town could gather at one door. He estimates Capernaum's population at about 1,500. Keener reads the spirit's claim to know who Jesus is as a possible attempt to ward him off. When Jesus touches the leper, the ESV Study Bible notes, Jesus does not become unclean; the leper becomes clean. Under the limestone synagogue visible at Capernaum, which is later, lies a building of rough basalt that probably marks the synagogue of Jesus' day; Garland gives it 4,838 square feet, the largest of its period. A house a hundred feet south of it, with first-century coins, lamps and fishhooks, may be Peter's, and an open area by its door had room for the town to gather (Garland; the cultural backgrounds article on houses). Garland puts the town at 1,000 to 1,500 people. A leper could attend synagogue behind a screen if he came in first and left last (Garland).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 1:21, 1:22, 1:23, 1:24, 1:26, 1:29, 1:32, 1:33, 1:40, 1:41 and 1:44
- N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comment on Mark 1:35-45
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 1:22, 1:41-42 and 1:44
- David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 1:21, 1:29 and 1:40, and sidebar Capernaum
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Houses in the Holy Land of the First Century AD: Peter's House in Capernaum; Insulae
