Jesus At Home - Mark 2:1 & 3:20 (xxi)

Lion of St. Mark, Piazza San Marco, Venice

This posting is the 21st in a series (originally written in 1998) looking at the Gospel of Mark from the perspective of a historian. The first posting in this series is (here).

The general image of Jesus is that he was a wandering, homeless itinerant who, unlike foxes and birds, had no place of his own to stay. Mark 2:1 appears to contradict that image, depending on which translation you read. Today's English Version (TEV) reads, "A few days later Jesus went back to Capernaum, and the news spread that he was at home." The New International Version's (NIV) translation agrees: "A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home." The New English Bible (NEB) and New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) also agree, but other translations are less clear. The Jerusalem Bible (JB) states, "When he returned to Capernaum some time later, word went around that he was back..." Still, apparently the majority of translators do agree that Jesus returned to his home in Capernaum after he'd been out teaching and healing for an indeterminate period of time. A second passing reference to Jesus' home in Mark seems to confirm this picture, although there the various translations are in less agreement. TEV still refers to Jesus' home, but the NIV says only that Jesus "entered a house." JB, interestingly enough, translates the Greek here as "home" and the American Standard Version (ASV) notes "home" as a variant reading for "house". Still, all of the major translations agree, either in 2:1 or 3:20, that Jesus had a home. Mark, furthermore, doesn't contain that famous statement by Jesus that foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest (Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58).

So what? It seems to me to be no small matter that Jesus, if the author of Mark is right, wasn't a homeless itinerant preacher. He worked out of a home base. He apparently owned, in fact, a home. In 3:21, Jesus' family heard what was going on in his home, where large crowds had gathered to be healed, and they "set out to take charge of him." Clearly, Jesus wasn't living with his family, and his home was his own. IF this was the case, then Jesus apparently practiced a form of semi-itinerant ministry based out of his own home. More on this in the next installment.