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AS LITERARY COMPOSITIONS:
THE CASE OF JAIRUS'S DAUGHTER
CHARLES W. HEDRICK
Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield MO 65804
Until the late eighteenth century the miracles in the canonical gospels were
regarded and explained as supernatural occurrences narrated virtually as they
happened. No distinction was made between the report and the event from
which the report was thought to have originated. Hermann Samuel Reimarus was
the first to challenge this marriage of history and faith by calling the historical
credibility of the miracle stories into question.1
In the nineteenth century some miracles were taken to be reports about
events as they were perceived to have been experienced by eye witnesses. The
stories were then explained (or explained away) by an appeal to the putative
historical events that were thought to he behind them.2 Even David Friedrich
Strauss, who rejected most of the miracles tradition as legend and myth, thought
that some of ie stories derived from actual events in which Jesus by his
presence and demeanor had cured or exorcized persons from "supposed" demon
possession or nervous disorders.3 Of course the reports did not reflect for
Strauss the true circumstances of the actual events.
In the twentieth century miracle stories still tend to be read and
explained (or explained away) against the background of a presumed historical
event. And hence features in the story are explained on the basis of a
first-century putative event in the ministry of Jesus.4 Only the form critics
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its
Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: Macmillan, 1968)
18-19; Charles Talbert, ed., Reimarus: Fragments, trans. R. S. Fraser (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1970) 143-44, 229-35.
Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 19, 28, 32, 34, 41, 44-45, 51-53.
Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 82-83; D. F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus
Critically Examined, ed. P. C. Hodgson; trans. G. Eliot (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972)
436.
4
Compare, for example, Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark. The
Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices (London: Macmillan, 1959) 171: On
218
See, for example, R. Bultmarm, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. J.
Marsh (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963) 209-44; M. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, trans.
B. L. Woolf (New York: Scribners, no date) 70-103.
6
219
I. WHICH STORY?
Each of the three different versions of Jairus's Daughter (Mark
5:22-24a, 35b-43; Matt 9:18-19, 23-26; Luke 8:41-42, 49b-56) constitutes a
unique performance of the story. Each narrator performs the story in
recognizably different ways. Hence the narrative critic must decide on one of the
performances to analyze. The other performances may be helpful, however, in
identifying unique aspects of the one performance chosen for analysis. For this
study I have chosen to analyze the story of Jairus's Daughter as Mark (5:22-24a,
35b-43) performed it.
By comparison with Matthew and Luke it is clear that the story begins
with Mark 5:22. Each narrator has introduced the story proper in a different way
(Mark 5:21; Luke 8:40; Matt 9:18a), but the story of Jairus's Daughter begins
for each narrator with the father of the young girl presenting himself to Jesus
(Mark 5:22; Luke 8:41; Matt 9:18b). Mark's narrator briefly suspends the story
of Jairus's Daughter to tell the story of the Woman with a Hemorrhage
(5:24b-34).8 At 5:35a the two stories are joined. This brief connective statement
("while he was still speaking") is not actually a part of either story, but serves
as a transition between them. Hence the Markan story, broken up into periods
and clauses,9 is as follows:
Mark 5:24b ("the thronging crowd**) clearly goes with the story of the Woman
with the Hemorrhage, to provide the crowd mentioned at 5:27 and shown as thronging
about him in 5:30-31: So Bultmaim, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 214. Separating
the two stories for analysis is against Dibelius who regarded the two stories as
"inseparably bound together": Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, 72. See also the
discussion by Paul Achtemeier, "Pre-Markan Miracle Catenae," JBL 89 (1970): 276-79.
My justification for analyzing the story of Jairus's Daughter apart from the Woman with
a Hemorrhage is that the plots of the stories are independent and autonomous. Mark's
method of intercalation has protected the integrity of each story as an independent unit.
The horizons of the stories are merely contiguous, not overlapping.
'I have adapted the divisions of the story into "periods" and "clauses" following
Aristotle (Rhetoric .9.1-10). A period () is a "statement () that has a
beginning and end in itself and a magnitude that can be easily grasped"; a clause
() is a part of a period. I am taking a "period" in this story to be a unit of the
story in which an action is complete. A "clause" is a part of a period The translation is
my own. It attempts to focus the reader on Mark's poetics. Most modem translations tend
to be more interpretive than is really necessary. I do not assume that my translation is
"literal"; only that it is less interpretive than virtually all modem translations, which are
designed to facilitate worship. As a result such translations tend to obscure aporia and
ambiguity in biblical texts.
220
221
10
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11
Lazarus (John 11-.1-46). Other readers have pointed out, however, that it is
12
not absolutely certain that Jairus's daughter is dead.
Modern interpretations that the young girl is dead are clearly influenced
by Mark's setting for the story and by the "readings" given the story by Mark's
13
earliest interpreters, Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke read Mark's story
as a resuscitation of the dead girl. In Matthew the girl's father brings news to
Jesus at the outset that his daughter is already dead (9:18) and Luke corrects any
possible confusion over the girl's condition at the conclusion of the story by
having her spirit return (8:55; cf. 8:53).
Also one finds in Matt 10:8 that Jesus directs his disciples to raise the dead, and
in Matt ll:5=Luke 7:22 it is implied that Jesus raised the dead.
12
Taylor, Gospel According to St. Mark, 285-86; E. Klostermann, Das MarkusEvangelium (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] 1926) 61; . Holtzmann, HandCommentar zum Neuen Testament. Die Synoptiker (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck], 1901) 75; E. Mcmillan, The Gospel According to Mark (Austin TX: Sweet,
1973) 73; C. S. Mann, Mark. A New Translation and Commentary, AB 27 (Garden City
NY: Doubleday, 1986) 282-83, 287.
13
I assume the two document hypothesis for reasons too numerous to address here.
14
References are keyed to text/translation given above as well as to chapter and
verse of the biblical text
15
223
There are six periods of various clauses each (7,6,2,6,9,3); of these one
period (5:37 []) consists completely of clarifying commentary by the narrator,
"told" as an aside to the reader rather than being "shown" as dramatic action.
Exactly what role Peter, James, and John are supposed to play in the
narrative is unclear. They really seem extraneous to the story of Jairus's
Daughter. One wonders why they are there at all in the light of the secrecy
motif at the end (Mark 5:43). In the story three more "observers" actually
increase the possibility of information about the event eventually getting out,
since they increase the number of observers that must remain silent. Nothing is
made of them in this story by the narrator, and their presence seems to conflict
with the principle of secrecy enjoined at the end of the story (5:43). A reader
will tend to assume that they were part of the small group (5:40 [V.2]="those
with him") that witnessed the event, but it is not clear in the text that such is the
case.
There are also overt narrator's asides in three other places. In 5:22 [LI]
the narrator tells the reader the name of the chief of the synagogue,16 although
he is never referred to by that name again; rather he is regularly referred to by
the awkwardly long tide "Chief of Synagogue" (5:22 [1.1]; 5:35,36 [.1.5]; 5:38
[IV. 1]) and once by his kinship nomenclature "father" (5:40 [V.2]). Once
introduced, the repetitive use of the name "Jairus" would have provided a
cohesiveness to the story on which the narrator fails to capitalize. Does the
narrator avoid the name Jairus for some special effect, out of incompetence, or
is what I have called a narrator's aside in 5:22 (1.1) actually due to the author
who, letting his narrator's guise momentarily slip aside, supplies for the reader
what the narrator did not know, or simply had failed to report?17 In 5:41 (V.6)
the narrator translates a foreign phrase (Aramaic) for the reader, who presumably
would not have known what it meant. Why then does the narrator use the
foreign phrase in the first place? To preserve an original utterance of Jesus? This
is not likely, since Jesus has other direct discourse lines in the story at 5:36
(.6) and 5:39-40 (IV.4-5) without their having been cast in a language foreign
to the principal language in which the story is narrated. Likely it is told that way
for dramatic effect, so as to enhance the pleasure of the reader with a foreign
16
See R. Pesch, "Jairus (Mark 5:22/Luke 8:41)," Biblische Zeitschrift 4.2 (1970):
252-56 on the text-critical question of the name "Jairus."
17
224
18
18
19
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the trip that Jesus and the father must make to another location to see the sick
girl. A sense of the passing of time is also evoked by the father's early
statement that the girl is at the point of death (5:23 [1.4]) and the subsequent
report that she had died (5:35 [.2]).
There is a certain surrealistic quality to the story. Like Alice's looking
glass, things are not all they appear to be. The chief of synagogue upon seeing
Jesus "falls at his feet." In order for this to be a realistic portrayal of the
behavior of a distraught father one must assume the information, drawn from
earlier parts of Mark's narrative, that Jesus' reputation had preceded him (for
example, Mark 2:28, 33, 37, 39, 45; 3:7-11; 5:33), and that the poor fellow is
so upset over his daughter's illness that he throws himself at Jesus' feet as an
act of desperation. But such is really not the case, for with two exceptions (1:40;
10:17; ), all other instances of such "body language" in Mark's story
world have an element of Christian worship or adoration involved: Mark 5:6-7
("Jesus, Son of the most high God"); 15:19-20 (
ironic); 3:11 ()"you are the Son of God"); 5:33-34
("your faith has made you well"); 7:25.28 ("Lord").
Hence the broader narrative appears to undermine the realism of this particular
story, for in the broader context the father's act appears to be Christian
adoration rather than simply the act of a desperate man. And Jesus' admonition
to the father "to believe" 5:36 (.6) must then also be seen in this connection
as a cloaked invitation to Christian faith, which the narrative does not exploit.
In the light of Jesus' widespread reputation as a healer and exorcist in
Mark's narrative (see above) who draws people to himself, one is simply not
prepared for the reaction of the mourners at Jairus's house. In Mark's narrative
one has been prepared for hostility (Mark 3:6), surprise (Mark 1:22; 2:12);
perplexity (Mark 1:27; 2:16), indignation (Mark 2:7); awe (Mark 4:41), and fear
(Mark 5:14, 17), but not ridicule (Mark 5:40). The laughter in the very room
that had so recently echoed with the wailing and shouting of mourners strikes
a particularly sharp and discordant note.
The narrative reflects little awareness of the possibilities of language to
enhance visualization for the reader, and makes use only of the linguistic
intensifies (5:23 [1.3]; 5:43 [VI.l]) and (5:42 [V.7,9]). For
example, there is no specific description of die young girl's ailment, and hence
the narrator misses an opportunity to visualize, for example, the girl's pale color,
labored breathing, motionless state, and so forth. Failure to describe the mother's
grief (5:40 [V.2]) is also another missed opportunity to visualize the story for
the reader. Had the issue of faith (5:36 [.6]; and see below) been of prime
concern to the narrator, such an emphasis could have easily been incorporated
1961) para. 321; and A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the
Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman, 1934) 866-69.
226
into 5:40 (V.2) by noting that the parents were holding on to faith as Jesus had
admonished them, or the narrator could have had them make some confession,
such as is done in Mark 9:24. These missed opportunities tend to "flatten" the
story and hence reduce its visual intensity.
21
227
believe that the messengers' report is true, and that he should hold onto the
belief that the child is yet alive? That understanding would make good sense in
the light of Jesus' comment at 5:39 (IV.5): "The child is not dead but sleeping."
On the other hand, if it is a subtle call to Christian faith (i.e., "have faith in
me"; see the discussion above), then the narrator of the story really seems to be
unaware of it since nothing in the story is made of the statement as a call
22
to Christian faith. If 5:36 is a call to Christian faith, it would seem to be a
case of the implied author conspiring with the implied reader and undermining
the omniscience of the narrator. Such an explanation puts the reliability of the
23
narrator in question.
It is clear that the actors in the story regard the girl as physically dead
(5:35 [.2]; 5:40 [IV.6]; 5:42 [V.9]) and when Jesus chides them for their
unbridled grief and tells them categorically that the girl is not dead but only
sleeping, they start laughing at him (5:40 [IV.6]); it is equally clear that Jesus
rejects die noon of the girl's death. What is one to make of this discrepancy
in perception, and how does Jesus know the girl is not dead? He had not yet
been to Jairus's home.
It is likewise uncertain what thing (, 5:43 [VI.2]) it is that no one
should know. Matthew and Luke do little to clear up the obscurity. Matthew
omits the entire epilogue (i.e., in Mark 5:43) that enjoins secrecy, replacing it
instead with the notice that this () report went throughout the area
(9:2).24 Luke (8:56) clarifies to some degree by talking about the "thing that
had happened" ( ), but still leaves imprecise what that "thing" was.
Does the Markan epilogue have in view the healing of the girl as 5:23 (1.4),
5:39 (IV.5), and 5:41 (V.6) imply or does it have in view the resuscitation of the
girl from the dead as 5:35 (.2), and 5:40 (IV.6) state? Or might it be die
^Elsewhere in Mark it is usually unclear what one is expected to believe (cf. 2:5;
4:40; 5:34; 9:14-27; 10:52). One, however, should believe in the gospel (1:15), have faith
in God (11:22), and believe what one says (11:22-23). In the only passage where it is
stated that one should "believe on Jesus** (9:42which still does not clarify what it is
about Jesus one should believe!) the expression "on me*' ( ) is of doubtful
authenticity: . M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek-New Testament
(London and New York: United Bible Societies, 1971) 101-02.
^Unreliable narrators are quite common in modem literature and can be found
in ancient literature as well. See Hedrick, "Authorial Presence and Narrator in John** in
Goehring/Hedrick/Sanders, eds., Gospel Origins and Christian Beginnings 74-93; and
idem, **Unreliable Narration: John on the Story of Jesus; The Chronicler on the History
of Israel" in Parsons/Sloan, eds., Perspectives on John, 121-43.
^Suggesting that Mark's implied to Matthew a public report about the
incident.
228
229
context Jesus "heals" the boy using virtually the same language as Mark
5:41-42*
Mark 9:27:... . . . . . . . . .
Mark 5:41-42:... . . . ... . . .
Clearly Matthew and Luke believe that it was part of Jesus' program to
raise the dead. To the question of John's disciples: "Are you he who is to
come?" (Matt 11:2; Luke 7:19), both Matthew and Luke have Jesus say (Matt
ll:4-6=Luke 7:22-23): "Go and tell John . . . the dead are raised up"
(). Luke seems to limit this ability to raise the dead to Jesus only,
but Matthew considers it as a gift passed on to the Twelve by Jesus (Matt 10:8).
The only other story in the synoptics describing Jesus raising someone
from the dead is in Luke 7:11-17. As one might suspect from Luke's reading of
Mark's story about Jairus's Daughter, the young man is unambiguously dead
and the story does use to describe Jesus "raising" him (Luke 7:14). In
the story of the raising of Lazarus (John 11 :l-44) is not used, though the
narrative does use the concept of sleep as a cipher for death (11:11-13; but not
the word as used by Mark).
The question is: does the narrator in Mark 5 use these terms
"sleep"-"awaken" in the natural sense of Mark chapter nine, or in the
metaphorical Johannine sense? Or does the narrator deliberately leave the reader
guessing?27 The only word Mark uses for sleep in the gospel is
(4:27,38; 13:36; 14:37(bis),40-41), and it is always used in the natural sense of
sleep.28 Mark never uses it as a metaphor for death. The predominant use of
in Mark is a natural use: that is, usually the word does not refer to
someone rising from the dead (1:31; 2:9, 11, 12; 3:3; 4:27, 38; 9:27; 10:49;
13:8, 22; 14:42). In five instances (6:14, 16; 12:26; 14:28; 16:6) however, it is
usedfigurativelyas a resurrection from the dead. But in each of these instances
the meaning is clear.
Mann (Mark, 287) says that "Mark's text appears to be almost deliberately
ambiguous."
^John never uses ; Matthew ( 12:35; 15:5; 26:45) and Luke (22:46) never
use figuratively, unless it is this passage on Jairus's daughter (Matt 9:24; Luke
8:52). Matthew (27:52) and Luke (Acts 13:36) each use once in a figurative
way. John uses (John 11:11-12), (11:13) (11:11, 13)
in afigurativeway.
230
29
It is still possible that we are dealing with a careless narrator, however. Compare
Mark 1:4-11 where the Markan narrator performs the story of Jesus' baptism in such a
"careless" way that one could come to the conclusion that Jesus confessed his sins and
repented, and as a resultane received the "baptism of repentence for the forgiveness of
sins'* at the hands of John (cf. 1:4-5.9).
231
^See for healings: 1:29-31; 2:10-12; 3:5-6; 5:34; 6:12 (disciples); 6:53-56; 6:3fr,
9:27; 10:52; for nature "miracles": 4:35-41; 6:41-44; 6:47-56; 8:1-10; for exorcisms:
5:19-20.
31
Compare Mark 9:1-9 and 8:28-30 where it again appears to be his identity that
is at issue.
232
through prayer or some other oblique or overt comment. The reason, of course,
is Mark's apparent strategy to push Jesus into the role of absolute authority as
the Holy One (Mark 1:24), the one who forgives sin (Mark 2:5-10), the one who
is "Lord" of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28) and the one at the "right hand of Power"
(14:62).
32
See, for example, Defining Death: A Report on the Medical, Legal, and Ethical
Issues in the Determination of Death. President's Commission for the Study of Ethical
Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Library of Congress
Card number-81-600150. U. S. Government Printing Office. July 1981: "Prior to the
advent of current technology, breathing ceased and death was obvious. Now, however,
certain organic processes in these bodies can be maintained through artificial means,
although they will never recover the capacity for spontaneous breathing or sustained
integration of bodily functions for consciousness, or for other human experiences" (3),
see also 83-84, 162-65.
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Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, remove Mark's ambiguity and
claim that Jesus not only understood the border, he could control it with simply
a touch or a word. Few persons holding a modern worldview would make such
claims for physicians. Some would ascribe the ability to manipulate the frontier
that separates life from death to "faith healers" like Robert Tilton and Oral
Roberts. But many moderns are generally skeptical of such practices, and
likewise one who shares the modern worldview would tend to regard the stories
of Matthew and Luke as sentimental fantasy. Mark's brief story, however, that
obscures the young girl's actual condition, challenges the piety of Matthew and
Luke. Mark's narrator simply did not confirmor denyJesus' diagnosis of the
young girl's condition, and thereby Mark's story reaffirms the mysteries of life
and death.
Mark's story also challenges the modern worldview that I share. Is our
cosmic system open or closed? Do things happen inevitably in accordance with
some natural law? Is the world an arena where death occurs inevitably under
certain prescribed conditions? Or is the cosmos open, where things that violate
a supposed inevitable cause-and-effect system are really possible? This story
holds open the possibility that even in an apparently closed world, things may
be other than they seem. Hence the story contrasts two ways of viewing the
world: a closed system in which death is inevitable and always the
victorrepresented by those mourners who laughed at Jesus. And a system
slightly open in which the inevitabilities of the closed system have become
merely possibilitiesrepresented by Jesus and Jairus's daughter. Hence the
story, by affirming the mystery of death and holding open the possibility of life,
calls all people to the courage of an irrational faith, a faith that holds out for the
possibility of new beginnings in spite of the "obvious" inevitability of
conclusions that militate against hope.