Q: In Mark 1:2-3, Mark frames John the Baptist as the fulfillment of the prophecy given in Malachi 3:1 and Malachi 4:1-5. In Malachi 4:4-6, Elijah is pictured appearing as the forerunner of the great and dreadful day of the LORD, i.e., judgment day. However, in John 1:21, John flatly denied that he was Elijah. And, of course, judgment day did not commence after John the Baptist. Isnt Marks view of John the Baptist a false prophecy?
A: First, regarding John 1:21: the priests and Levites had asked John, Are you Elijah? and he said, I am not. What we have here is a difference in peoples preconceptions about Elijah. In the OT, Elijah didnt die; he was taken up to heaven. John, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, is not Elijah; Elijah was not the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth. To a stark question, John gives a stark reply. That does not mean that John was unaware that he fulfilled the prophecies about Elijah in a non-literal sense. He just spoke to his questions in John 1:21 with the assumption implicit in the question in view (i.e., the assumption that if he is literally Elijah, then he just recently got off the heavenly chariot).
One could, if one wished, adopt a different approach, and reckon that John the Baptists intent was to deny that he was Elijah in any sense whatsoever. In that case, John the Baptist was honest in John 1:21, but honestly mistaken, since he did fulfill the role of Elijah in a figurative way.
Now about the claim that Mark claims that John the Baptist fulfilled Malachis prophecies. The parallels run along these lines:
Mark: Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.
Malachi 3:1: Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.
Exodus 23:20: Behold, I send an angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
(The overlap between messenger and angel is because the Greek word for angel and messenger is the same word, angelos.)
It looks to me like Mark is not concerned -- at least, not here in 1:2-3 -- with explicitly identifying John the Baptist as Elijah. He does not quote from Malachi 4:4-5, where Elijah is mentioned. Instead, Mark paraphrases Malachi 3:1 -- redirecting it as if it is spoken by the Father to the Son as He takes on the role of Gods anointed. Mark doesnt give us his take on Malachi 4; this is all we get from Malachi, and its from 3:1. If Mark interpreted the coming of Elijah in Mal. 4:4-6 as something not in his (i.e., Marks) past, but as something which was from his perspective still in the future -- something that would put off Judgment Day for a while -- we dont know. But it seems strange to suppose that in order to understand John the Baptist as a fulfillment of Malachi 3:1, we must figure that even though John the Baptist had died decades before Mark began to write, Mark thought that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of Malachi 4:4-6, to the exclusion of other possible (and possible-to-expect) fulfillments.
Sub-Question: The phrase "in the prophets" is not found in the oldest and best Greek manuscripts which say, rather, "in Isaiah." Scribes made the change to correct the mistake of attributing the quotation to Isaiah, since the first part of the quote (v.2) is not from Isaiah, but from Ex.23:20 and Mal.3:1. So here we have a misquote, right?
No. Simply appealing to the best manuscripts is often hazardous. Just because a manuscript may have a high-quality text elsewhere does not mean that it has the right reading at any particular point. Plus, the reason why some manuscripts are considered best is because those manuscripts have been observed to have the right reading very often. But who really thinks that its a good idea to judge a particular reading solely because of general tendencies of manuscripts? Other factors should be considered.
In the case of the Isaiah the prophet variant, one can easily imagine a scenario where a copyist says to himself, Isaiah? No; no; that first part is not from Isaiah. The second part, yes, but not the first part. Lets save our readers the trouble of wondering about this, and just write in the prophets. Yup, thats easy to imagine -- but its not so easy to demonstrate that it occurred, especially since the copyists who perpetuated the in the prophets variant apparently did not feel similarly compelled to make similar adjustments to Mark 2:26 or Matthew 27:9.
In the early centuries of Christendom, some copyists were preoccupied with the harmony between the four canonical Gospel-accounts. Harmonization is a very, very, very frequent cause of textual corruption in the Gospels -- much, much more than scribes desire to for factuality ever was. To make things more complicated, a guy named Tatian in about A.D. 170 composed an amalgamation-narrative, presenting the contents of the four Gospels in one continuous narrative, and that composition (Tatians Diatessaron) influenced the text of some copies of the Gospels. Matthew 3:3 and Luke 3:4 both use Isaiah 40:3 (but not combined with Malachi 3:1, though Matthew uses that in Mt. 11:10, where Matthew also presents Jesus teaching that John was Elijah, but not in a way/sense that people were expecting).
Since the Gospel of Matthew got a lot more use than the Gospel of Mark, it would be natural for some copyists to decide to save their readers the trouble of wondering about Marks quotation in Mk. 1:2-3 -- that is, save them the trouble of wondering what book Mark is quoting -- by inserting a more specific phrase taken from Mt. 3:3. In one of the best manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus), Isaiah is inserted in Matthew 13:35 to identify the prophet being quoted. Unfortunately for the insertionist, Isaiah was not the prophet being quoted. Also in Codex Sinaiticus, at Matthew 2:15, theres a note in the margin, In Numbers, but the note-writers cross-reference is incorrect; although Number 24:8 is vaguely similar to Hosea 11:1, it is clearly Hosea 11:1 that Matthew is quoting.
So not only can a plausible case for harmonization-induced error be proposed, but we can observe evidence that this sort of alteration -- done with the intent of making the reference more specific, rather than more generalized -- was attempted by scribes. Against the very good, broad attestation for the in Isaiah variant, the in the prophets reading has respectable attestation (Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Washingtonensis, for example). It is significant that the in Isaiah reading is preserved in the Western and Caesarean witnesses, which is where we find the thickest swarms of harmonizations. So I tend to favor the in the prophets reading, and suspect that the best manuscripts, as well as the bulk of the Latin witnesses, have been affected by an early copyists harmonistic adjustment (perhaps expressed in a very early marginal or interlinear note) to the text of Mark 1:2.
If one were to insist that the in Isaiah reading is original, the problem is not drastic; we would just be looking at a presentation in which Marks focus is on Isaiahs statement and the snippet from Malachi 3:1 is employed to complement it. That sort of thing seems weird nowadays, when we expect our quotations to be neat and precise, with quotations-marks and clearly delineated references; however, it was not so unusual when Mark was writing. (Acts 1:20 provides an example of something like this, where, when spoken audibly, the two quotations (from Psalm 69:25 and Ps. 109:8) seem like a single quotation.) But if the in the prophets variant is retained, there is no impetus to resort to that consideration.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: First, regarding John 1:21: the priests and Levites had asked John, Are you Elijah? and he said, I am not. What we have here is a difference in peoples preconceptions about Elijah. In the OT, Elijah didnt die; he was taken up to heaven. John, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, is not Elijah; Elijah was not the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth. To a stark question, John gives a stark reply. That does not mean that John was unaware that he fulfilled the prophecies about Elijah in a non-literal sense. He just spoke to his questions in John 1:21 with the assumption implicit in the question in view (i.e., the assumption that if he is literally Elijah, then he just recently got off the heavenly chariot).
One could, if one wished, adopt a different approach, and reckon that John the Baptists intent was to deny that he was Elijah in any sense whatsoever. In that case, John the Baptist was honest in John 1:21, but honestly mistaken, since he did fulfill the role of Elijah in a figurative way.
Now about the claim that Mark claims that John the Baptist fulfilled Malachis prophecies. The parallels run along these lines:
Mark: Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.
Malachi 3:1: Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.
Exodus 23:20: Behold, I send an angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
(The overlap between messenger and angel is because the Greek word for angel and messenger is the same word, angelos.)
It looks to me like Mark is not concerned -- at least, not here in 1:2-3 -- with explicitly identifying John the Baptist as Elijah. He does not quote from Malachi 4:4-5, where Elijah is mentioned. Instead, Mark paraphrases Malachi 3:1 -- redirecting it as if it is spoken by the Father to the Son as He takes on the role of Gods anointed. Mark doesnt give us his take on Malachi 4; this is all we get from Malachi, and its from 3:1. If Mark interpreted the coming of Elijah in Mal. 4:4-6 as something not in his (i.e., Marks) past, but as something which was from his perspective still in the future -- something that would put off Judgment Day for a while -- we dont know. But it seems strange to suppose that in order to understand John the Baptist as a fulfillment of Malachi 3:1, we must figure that even though John the Baptist had died decades before Mark began to write, Mark thought that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of Malachi 4:4-6, to the exclusion of other possible (and possible-to-expect) fulfillments.
Sub-Question: The phrase "in the prophets" is not found in the oldest and best Greek manuscripts which say, rather, "in Isaiah." Scribes made the change to correct the mistake of attributing the quotation to Isaiah, since the first part of the quote (v.2) is not from Isaiah, but from Ex.23:20 and Mal.3:1. So here we have a misquote, right?
No. Simply appealing to the best manuscripts is often hazardous. Just because a manuscript may have a high-quality text elsewhere does not mean that it has the right reading at any particular point. Plus, the reason why some manuscripts are considered best is because those manuscripts have been observed to have the right reading very often. But who really thinks that its a good idea to judge a particular reading solely because of general tendencies of manuscripts? Other factors should be considered.
In the case of the Isaiah the prophet variant, one can easily imagine a scenario where a copyist says to himself, Isaiah? No; no; that first part is not from Isaiah. The second part, yes, but not the first part. Lets save our readers the trouble of wondering about this, and just write in the prophets. Yup, thats easy to imagine -- but its not so easy to demonstrate that it occurred, especially since the copyists who perpetuated the in the prophets variant apparently did not feel similarly compelled to make similar adjustments to Mark 2:26 or Matthew 27:9.
In the early centuries of Christendom, some copyists were preoccupied with the harmony between the four canonical Gospel-accounts. Harmonization is a very, very, very frequent cause of textual corruption in the Gospels -- much, much more than scribes desire to for factuality ever was. To make things more complicated, a guy named Tatian in about A.D. 170 composed an amalgamation-narrative, presenting the contents of the four Gospels in one continuous narrative, and that composition (Tatians Diatessaron) influenced the text of some copies of the Gospels. Matthew 3:3 and Luke 3:4 both use Isaiah 40:3 (but not combined with Malachi 3:1, though Matthew uses that in Mt. 11:10, where Matthew also presents Jesus teaching that John was Elijah, but not in a way/sense that people were expecting).
Since the Gospel of Matthew got a lot more use than the Gospel of Mark, it would be natural for some copyists to decide to save their readers the trouble of wondering about Marks quotation in Mk. 1:2-3 -- that is, save them the trouble of wondering what book Mark is quoting -- by inserting a more specific phrase taken from Mt. 3:3. In one of the best manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus), Isaiah is inserted in Matthew 13:35 to identify the prophet being quoted. Unfortunately for the insertionist, Isaiah was not the prophet being quoted. Also in Codex Sinaiticus, at Matthew 2:15, theres a note in the margin, In Numbers, but the note-writers cross-reference is incorrect; although Number 24:8 is vaguely similar to Hosea 11:1, it is clearly Hosea 11:1 that Matthew is quoting.
So not only can a plausible case for harmonization-induced error be proposed, but we can observe evidence that this sort of alteration -- done with the intent of making the reference more specific, rather than more generalized -- was attempted by scribes. Against the very good, broad attestation for the in Isaiah variant, the in the prophets reading has respectable attestation (Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Washingtonensis, for example). It is significant that the in Isaiah reading is preserved in the Western and Caesarean witnesses, which is where we find the thickest swarms of harmonizations. So I tend to favor the in the prophets reading, and suspect that the best manuscripts, as well as the bulk of the Latin witnesses, have been affected by an early copyists harmonistic adjustment (perhaps expressed in a very early marginal or interlinear note) to the text of Mark 1:2.
If one were to insist that the in Isaiah reading is original, the problem is not drastic; we would just be looking at a presentation in which Marks focus is on Isaiahs statement and the snippet from Malachi 3:1 is employed to complement it. That sort of thing seems weird nowadays, when we expect our quotations to be neat and precise, with quotations-marks and clearly delineated references; however, it was not so unusual when Mark was writing. (Acts 1:20 provides an example of something like this, where, when spoken audibly, the two quotations (from Psalm 69:25 and Ps. 109:8) seem like a single quotation.) But if the in the prophets variant is retained, there is no impetus to resort to that consideration.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
