Out of Pod Experience

This post deals with an excerpt from the New Testament which was chosen solely for its literary qualities (namely, because it illustrates a certain method of writing in a very condensed form)
This post is not concerned with the religious character of that text, the same method can be found in non-religious texts from all ages (but i don't have a non-religious example at hand that would illustrate it better).
Any variations of "Jesus says..." are not to be understood as me expressing an opinion rgd the existence of a historical Jesus and what he may or may not have said but are used as shorthand for "According to the author of Mark 12, Jesus says ..."



tl;dr A scribe asks Jesus (who is being examined by all kinds of theologians) "Which is the first of all the commandments?".
Like any good jew Jesus replies by quoting the Shema Yisreal.
The scribe is impressed and paraphrases Jesus' reply.
Jesus is impressed in turn and acknowledges that the scribe is not completely stupid.
THE END.

.... and I, as the reader, am none the wiser.


Sometimes it is important to read closely and this excerpt nicely illustrates patterns a close reader should watch out for:

(1) Selective quoting of Leviticus 19,18 (in case you are skeptical if this is really intentional - look up Luke 10,36).

(2) Jesus' statement contains an (apparent) contradiction: How can one love the Lord with all one's soul, mind and strength, yet also love oneself and one's neighbour? The two statements logically exclude each other - unless they don't.

(3) The scribe does not just paraphrase Jesus' statement but adds "this is far more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice", a reference to Isaiah 1,10-17.

(4) "not far" is translated verbatim from the Greek "ou makran" - this roundabout way of talking is sometimes used randomly (e.g. Luke 7,6) but there are other ways of saying "close" in Greek that don't emphasize the remaining distance (e.g. agchi).

With these points in mind the dynamic of the conversation (the examined becoming the examiner after exchange of trivial statements) becomes visible:

(1) and (2) are what causes the scribe to be so impressed by Jesus' answer (which is far less canonical than it may seem at first glance), with (3) he signals his understanding to Jesus, (4) is the most unclear (as it could plausibly be random) but may be the equivalent of a "close but not quite there" - which would compel the reader to undertake further investigation rgd which shortcomings/misunderstandings may have been displayed in (3).

Not sure what the point of this is, but since you mentioned the Greek language in relation to the contemporary bible i'll add that the word "heaven" replaced the Greek word for "Uranus" when they translated it into English.

Christians may find heaven a little colder than they expected.

Hail Wat™

But they took that word from the Greek myths perhaps? Just like Romans did.