The Historical Jesus

by John Dominic Crossan

“Mark has,” according to Klosinski, “organized three of the boat trips of Jesus and his disciples (4:35–41; 6:45–52; and 8:13–21), three healings (7:31–37; 8:22–26; and 10:46–52), and the two feeding miracles and the last supper (6:3–44; 8:1–10; 14:17–26) into progressive, triadic structures. A feature of this structure is that the final member serves as a climax of the previous two” (207–208). On the narrower sequential level, Mark 14:22–25 is brutally linked, externally, to the preceding prophecy of Judas’ betrayal by a triple repetition: “they were at table eating … one who is eating with me … one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me.” And, internally, Mark insists at 14:23 that “they all drank of it,” as if to associate all the disciples with the betrayer himself. Following those clues, and reading Mark 14:21–25 in the context of Mark’s compositional, polemical, and climactic theology, I conclude that Mark is opposing an institutionalized eucharistie ritual that does not allow for Jews and Gentiles at the same table (Kelber 45–65) and that emphasizes the presence of Jesus now rather than the coming of Jesus soon within that liturgy. We have come, as it were, full circle. “Mark is caught,” as Klosinski summarizes his doctoral dissertation, “between two understandings of Christian commensality. One understanding envisions commensality as a continuation of the type of table-fellowship remembered from the time of Jesus. Another understands commensa...