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 6:30-52, Bread in a deserted place, a walk on the sea

Jesus feeds five thousand men from five loaves and two fish, then comes to his disciples walking on the lake at night.

The GospelsMark

Mark 6:30-52

Mark 6:30-52, in every translation this tool compares.

What is going on here

Jesus and the disciples try to get away by boat, but the crowd gets there first. He sees them as sheep without a shepherd, teaches them, has them sit on the green grass, and feeds them all with plenty left over. That night the disciples struggle against the wind, and Jesus comes to them on the water and means to pass by them.

The ancient world behind it

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{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/shepherd-and-sheep\/","n":"Shepherd and sheep","s":"Scripture pictured Israel without a leader as sheep without a shepherd, and promised that God himself would come to shepherd them.","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\/the-sea\/","n":"The sea","s":"To ancient Israel the sea stood for chaos and danger that only God could command. The Gospel stories on the lake of Galilee lean on that old picture.","r":""}

Also in this passage

Keener notes that a crowd of five thousand men was larger than most towns of the region, which marks Jesus as one of the most popular figures in Galilee. On the ghost the disciples think they see, he notes that some ancient people thought that anyone drowned and left unburied haunted the spot as a wandering soul. For the walk on the sea, Keener and the ESV Study Bible both point to Job 9:8 and 9:11, where God tramples the sea and passes by, and the ESV Study Bible notes that the Greek Old Testament of Job 9:8 uses the same words for walking on the sea as Mark 6:48. Two hundred denarii would buy about 2,400 thin loaves (Garland). Philip raised Bethsaida to a city and renamed it Julias, and the coins date the dedication to about AD 30, during Jesus' ministry; the mound of et-Tell now lies almost two miles from the lake, though the shoreline has shifted (Garland). The Zondervan Atlas places the feeding northeast of the lake, near Bethsaida, against the tradition at Tabgha.

Related passages

Mark 4:35-41, The storm on the lake Mark 14:12-31, The Passover meal Mark 1:1-13, John in the wilderness Matthew 14:13-36, Bread in a deserted place, a walk on the sea Matthew 9:35-10:15, The Twelve sent with nothing John 6:1-21, Bread in the wilderness and a walk on the sea

Sources

NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 6:34, 6:36, 6:38, 6:39, 6:41, 6:43, 6:44, 6:48, 6:49 and 6:50
N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comment on Mark 6:30-44
ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 6:34, 6:39-40, 6:41-42 and 6:48
Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 42
David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 6:37 and 6:45
Carl G. Rasmussen, Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, The Life of Christ
NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article The Decapolis and the Lands beyond the Jordan

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