A narrow stone street in a first-century town at dusk, robed figures walking past market stalls toward a glowing wheel of light at the end of the street.

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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 2:13-22, Levi and the party

Jesus calls a tax collector from his booth and eats with tax collectors and sinners. He is questioned about eating with them and about not fasting.

The GospelsMark

Mark 2:13-22

Mark 2:13-22, in every translation this tool compares.

What is going on here

Jesus calls Levi away from his tax booth by the lake, and soon he is at table with a crowd of tax collectors and sinners. Teachers of the law who are Pharisees ask why he eats with such people. Then he is asked why his disciples do not fast, and he answers with a wedding, a patch and wineskins.

The ancient world behind it

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{"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\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/pharisees\/","n":"The Pharisees","s":"A mostly lay movement devoted to careful keeping of the law and of oral tradition, respected by the people and watchful of new teachers.","r":""}

Also in this passage

Keener notes that fasting went with mourning while weddings were for joy, so fasting at a wedding would insult the host. He adds that new wine still fermenting would burst old wineskins already stretched to their limit. Garland places Levi in the service of Herod Antipas, collecting tolls at the border with Philip's territory and perhaps taxes on fishing, and notes that the only fast the law commanded was the Day of Atonement.

Related passages

Mark 12:13-17, The coin with Caesar's face Mark 14:12-31, The Passover meal Mark 7:1-23, Washed hands and the tradition of the elders Matthew 9:1-17, A paralyzed man, Matthew's table and the wedding guests Matthew 6:1-18, Alms, prayer and fasting in secret Luke 5:17-39, Through the roof, then a feast with toll men Luke 15:1-10, A lost sheep and a lost coin Luke 18:35-19:10, A blind beggar and Zacchaeus at Jericho

Sources

NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 2:14, 2:16, 2:19 and 2:22
N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comment on Mark 2:13-17
ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 2:14 and 2:15-16
David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 2:14 and 2:18

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