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 14:1-11, Perfume at Bethany
Two days before Passover, at dinner in Bethany, a woman pours costly perfume on Jesus' head. He says she has anointed him for burial, and Judas goes to the chief priests.
Mark 14:1-11, in every translation this tool compares.
The chief priests want Jesus dead but not during the feast. At Simon the leper's house a woman breaks a jar of pure nard over his head, and some at the table are angry at the waste. Jesus defends her, says she has prepared his body for burial, and promises her story will be told wherever the gospel goes. Judas then offers to hand him over.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/passover-pilgrims\/","n":"Passover and the pilgrim crowds","s":"The spring festival that retold God's rescue of Israel from Egypt. Jerusalem filled with pilgrims, and hopes of freedom ran high.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/reclining-at-table\/","n":"Reclining at table","s":"At banquets men lay on couches, propped on the left elbow, and where you lay showed your rank.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/anointing-with-oil\/","n":"Anointing with oil","s":"Oil poured on the head was a courtesy to a guest, the sign of a new king, a medicine, and care for the dead. The setting decided which.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/burial-and-mourning\/","n":"Burial and mourning","s":"Mourners came at once, the dead were buried the same day, wrapped in linen in rock tombs, and family carried the duty of burial. Pagan mourning, with little hope beyond a shadowy underworld, could be bleak.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/women-who-followed\/","n":"Women who followed","s":"Women traveled with Jesus, paid for his movement, and stayed at the cross and the tomb when the men had gone.","r":""}
Keener notes that because lepers were unclean and contact with them was discouraged, Simon the leper may have been someone already healed. He notes that ancient writers used similar language about fame spreading through the world, but this woman's story really is told around the world. Guests could be given oil as a courtesy, kings were anointed on the head, and Jesus says she has anointed him for burial, so all three meanings sit in one act (Keener's notes). Garland estimates that 85,000 to 300,000 pilgrims came to a city that normally held 25,000 to 30,000, most of them sleeping in tents or in nearby towns. Alabaster flasks were five to nine inches high, nard came from India, and three hundred denarii was nearly a year's wage (Garland).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 14:2, 14:3, 14:7, 14:8 and 14:9, and note on Matthew 26:7
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 14:1 and 14:3-5
- N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comment on Mark 14:1-11
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 16, The Syro-Phoenician Woman
- David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 14:2 and 14:3
