New Testament in a Year

Footnotes

1. Mark 12:28 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.
2. Mark 12:28 tn Or “One of the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.
3. Mark 12:28 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4. Mark 12:30 tn Grk “You will love.” The future indicative is used here with imperatival force (see ExSyn 452 and 569).
5. Mark 12:30 sn A quotation from Deut 6:4-5 and Josh 22:5 (LXX). The fourfold reference to different parts of the person says, in effect, that one should love God with all one’s being.
6. Mark 12:31 sn A quotation from Lev 19:18.
7. Mark 12:32 sn A quotation from Deut 4:35.
8. Mark 12:33 sn A quotation from Deut 6:5.
9. Mark 12:33 sn A quotation from Lev 19:18.
10. Mark 12:34 sn The kingdom of God is a major theme of Jesus’ teaching. The nature of the kingdom of God in the NT and in Jesus’ teaching has long been debated by interpreters and scholars, with discussion primarily centering around the nature of the kingdom (earthly, heavenly, or both) and the kingdom’s arrival (present, future, or both). An additional major issue concerns the relationship between the kingdom of God and the person and work of Jesus himself.
11. Mark 12:35 tn Or “that the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.
12. Mark 12:35 tn Or “the Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”sn See the note on Christ in 8:29.
13. Mark 12:35 sn It was a common belief in Judaism that Messiah would be David’s son in that he would come from the lineage of David. On this point the Pharisees agreed and were correct. But their understanding was nonetheless incomplete, for Messiah is also David’s Lord. With this statement Jesus was affirming that, as the Messiah, he is both God and man.
14. Mark 12:36 sn The Lord said to my lord. With David being the speaker, this indicates his respect for his descendant (referred to as my lord). Jesus was arguing, as the ancient exposition assumed, that the passage is about the Lord’s anointed. The passage looks at an enthronement of this figure and a declaration of honor for him as he takes his place at the side of God. In Jerusalem, the king’s palace was located to the right of the temple to indicate this kind of relationship. Jesus was pressing the language here to get his opponents to reflect on how great Messiah is.
15. Mark 12:36 sn A quotation from Ps 110:1.
16. Mark 12:37 tn Grk “David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ So how is he his son?” The conditional nuance, implicit in Greek, has been made explicit in the translation (cf. Matt 22:45).
17. Mark 12:38 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18. Mark 12:38 tn Or “for the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.
19. Mark 12:38 tn In Greek this is the only infinitive in vv. 38-39. It would be awkward in English to join an infinitive to the following noun clauses, so this has been translated as a gerund.
20. Mark 12:38 sn There is later Jewish material in the Talmud that spells out such greetings in detail. See H. Windisch, TDNT 1:498.
21. Mark 12:38 sn See the note on marketplaces in Mark 6:56.
22. Mark 12:39 sn See the note on synagogue in 1:21.
23. Mark 12:40 tn Grk “who,” continuing the sentence begun in v. 38.
24. Mark 12:40 tn Grk “houses,” “households”; however, the term can have the force of “property” or “possessions” as well (O. Michel, TDNT 5:131; BDAG 695 s.v. οἶκια 1.a).
25. Mark 12:41 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.
26. Mark 12:41 tc Most mss, predominantly of the Western and Byzantine texts (A D W Θ ƒ^1,13 33 2542 M lat), have ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς (ho Iēsous, “Jesus”) as the explicit subject here, while א B L Δ Ψ 892 lack the name. A natural scribal tendency is to expand the text, especially to add the Lord’s name as the explicit subject of a verb. Scribes much less frequently omitted the Lord’s name (cf. the readings of W Θ 565 1424 in Mark 12:17). The internal and external evidence support one another here in behalf of the shorter reading.
27. Mark 12:41 tn On the term γαζοφυλάκιον (gazophulakion), often translated “treasury,” see BDAG 186 s.v., which states, “For Mk 12:41, 43; Lk 21:1 the mng. contribution box or receptacle is attractive. Acc. to Mishnah, Shekalim 6, 5 there were in the temple 13 such receptacles in the form of trumpets. But even in these passages the general sense of ‘treasury’ is prob., for the contributions would go [into] the treasury via the receptacles.” Based upon the extra-biblical evidence (see sn following), however, the translation opts to refer to the actual receptacles and not the treasury itself.sn The offering box probably refers to the receptacles in the temple forecourt by the Court of Women used to collect freewill offerings. These are mentioned by Josephus, J. W. 5.5.2 (5.200); 6.5.2 (6.282); Ant. 19.6.1 (19.294), and in 1 Macc 14:49 and 2 Macc 3:6, 24, 28, 40 (see also Luke 21:1; John 8:20).
28. Mark 12:42 sn These two small copper coins were lepta (sing. “lepton”), the smallest and least valuable coins in circulation in Palestine, worth one-half of a quadrans or 1/128 of a denarius, or about six minutes of an average daily wage. This was next to nothing in value.
29. Mark 12:43 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amēn), I say to you.”
30. Mark 12:43 tn See the note on the term “offering box” in v. 41.
31. Mark 12:43 sn Has put more into the offering box than all the others. With God, giving is weighed evaluatively, not counted. The widow was praised because she gave sincerely and at some considerable cost to herself.
32. Mark 12:44 tn Grk “out of what abounded to them.”
33. Mark 12:44 sn The contrast between this passage, 12:41-44, and what has come before in 11:27-12:40 is remarkable. The woman is set in stark contrast to the religious leaders. She was a poor widow, they were rich. She was uneducated in the law, they were well educated in the law. She was a woman, they were men. But whereas they evidenced no faith and actually stole money from God and men (cf. 11:17), she evidenced great faith and gave out of her extreme poverty everything she had.