Mark 10 Footnotes

10:35 Matthew tells us that it was James and John’s mother who made the request of Jesus, whereas Mark has the brothers approaching Jesus directly. Matthew’s version (Mt 20:20-28) is probably more accurate, since it was common in Mediterranean culture to broach delicate requests through a respected intermediary. Nevertheless, Jesus understood that the mother was speaking for the sons, so that even in Matthew, Jesus responded directly to the brothers rather than to the mother and focused on their untoward request as the main issue. Mark simplified the story in the interests of this main point.

10:45 This saying combines allusions to the Son of Man of Dn 7 and the Suffering Servant of Is 53. These ways of understanding Jesus were rare, if not nonexistent, in the early church, and thus it is improbable that the church (instead of Jesus himself) would have created this saying. In fact, a similar saying in 1Tm 2:5-6 is reworded in a much more Hellenistic style, highlighting the antiquity and Semitic background of Mark’s version. The cross was central to Jesus’s messianic self-understanding (Mk 14:24).