Strange companions

jay_emm

In Mark 2 here the disciples pick grain and the pharisees tell them off.
But what were they doing on the scene, close enough to see, in the first place?

My mental picture is of the disciples in a small group about a mile out and grabbing a few heads of grain as they walk. And that's clearly mismatched somewhere.

A bit later on, you get the various antoganistic groups already (allegedly) conspiring together. How did that conversation go?

HarryCH

I think it is an excellent question.

jay_emm

So I now can't get the image of the disciples turning up at the synagogue with vast bags of grainy swag behind their backs.

In our sermon there was a suggestion that the disciples were already pushing the law with the walk. Depending on what the convention was that would potentially affect things.


If it were a moderately long walk that might work with:
a) the Pharisees and Disciples were very close till losing patience.
b) the Pharisees were in active surveillance mode (and the disciples were rather reckless)
c) coincidence

HarryCH

Even if the disciples showed up with bags of grain, this might have been from gleaning (legal) rather than harvesting (not). I suggest another possibility: there were witnesses who happened to mention this to the Pharisees, perhaps completely without malice.

Lamb Chopped

jay_emm wrote: »

So I now can't get the image of the disciples turning up at the synagogue with vast bags of grainy swag behind their backs.

heh. This cracks me up. Probably not, though, as the fields seem to have been not-yet-harvested. The rule for a crop that was not yet harvested was that you could eat what you wanted, but not take stuff away in a container. Here's Deuteronomy 23:24-25 on the principle:

“If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain.

But it's a really good question, why Jesus and his disciples would have been walking through the fields in the first place (as opposed to on the road, I assume? Or maybe these fields were roadside?) and why the Pharisees turned up. I also suspect some ill-natured surveillance, rather like a neighbor of ours that was always scrutinizing us to catch us in some code violation she could report. There are people like that, with their spyglasses...

jay_emm

Here (towny UK) there's plenty of footpaths through or alongside fields. So that bits relatively easy for me picture. For a while my way to church was the one field away.
Most of the time (even in London really) there aren't that many walkers.*

Obviously 1st century Palestine is very different to 21st century UK.
There's the tragedies of enclosure, the crazy growth in towns from 1850-1910, and cars for a start.

*In fact I've just had a minute completely unsupervised.

Lamb Chopped

The thing I can’t shake is a mental picture of the Pharisees, like flocks of vultures, popping up out of pretty much every village and town they went in to. I assume that these were the people who would be running the local synagogues, more or less? Good upstanding church elders, that type? Because if not, they seem strangely ubiquitous.

Jengie Jon

Look the Lawyers, scribes, Sadducees etc were the central authority, centred around the temple in Jerusalem. The Pharisees were a local community based organisation centred around the synagogue rather on the lines of many European Pietist movements. So if a places was big enough to have a synagogue you can assume it also had a group of Pharisees. Let's assume that the synagogue was on the edge of the village, or this village Jews met outside for their Sabbath prayer because the village could not raise ten male Jews, then if the disciples and Jesus were heading to or from the synagogue there is a good chance they would have been observed by Pharisees.

Lamb Chopped

And of course we're told that "as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day" (Luke 4:16).

Gamma Gamaliel

Indeed. And whether they were taking short-cuts across fields or walking alongside them on roads or dusty paths, it's not as though these would have been very far away.

mousethief

The Hoe Owners Association (HOA) keep a close watch on violations.

Gamma Gamaliel

Hoe Owners?

Who knew?

Hoe! Hoe!

Gramps49

Hate to confess my missing something here, but what verse says they disciples were picking grain while walking through a field? I do see the disciples being criticized for not fasting while the Pharisees and disciples of John were.

jay_emm

Verse 23 is the specific event. With there being so many interactions, I thought they might add context.

Gramps49

Thanks, I didn't read far enough. People were talking about the Pharisees and John's disciples fasting while Jesus' disciples partying.

As far as context is concerned, it seems Mark is combining several independent stories together. I think, in part, to show how restrictive Pharisaical can be compared to the freedom that is in the Gospel.

Of note, immediately after the destruction of the Temple, only the Pharisees and Christians were competing for the hearts and minds of the Jewish people. Once the Pharisees gained control of the synagogue, Christians turned to the evangelism of the Gentiles.