1 E.g. (among many): Wellhausen, J., Das Evangelium Marci (Berlin: Reimer, 1903) 57Google Scholar, ‘Was πυγμῇ heißen soll, weiß man nicht’; Rawlinson, A. E. J., The Gospel according to Mark (London: Methuen & Co., 1925) 94Google Scholar, ‘has not been satisfactory explained’; Cranfield, C. E. B., The Gospel according to St Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1959) 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘The difficulty of this word was felt early…the problem cannot be said to have been definitively settled’; Nineham, D. E., Saint Mark (London: Penguin, 1963) 188Google Scholar, ‘One Greek word is of uncertain meaning and is not translated’ (!); Taylor, V., The Gospel according to St Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes and Indexes (London: Macmillan & Co., 1963) 335Google Scholar, ‘No satisfactory explanation of this difficult word in Mk can be given’; Hengel, M., ‘Mc 7,3 πυγμῇ: Die Geschichte einer exegetischen Aporie und der Versuch ihrer Lösung’, ZNW 60 (1969) 182–98 (182)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Zu den Rätseln, die bis heute im NT ungelöst geblieben sind, gehört auch das ἐὰν μὴ πυγμῇ νίψωνται τὰς χεῖρας in Mc 7.3’; McHardy, W. D., ‘Mark 7.3: A Reference to the Old Testament?’, ExpTim 87 (1975–76) 119Google Scholar, ‘the difficult word’; Ross, J. M., ‘With the Fist’, ExpTim 87 (1975–76) 374–5 (375)Google Scholar, ‘a meaning for Mark and his readers which we can only guess at’; Gnilka, J., Das Evangelium nach Markus (Mk 1–8, 26) (Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1979) 281Google Scholar, ‘das rätselhafte Wörtchen πυγμῇ’; Skeat, T. C., ‘A Note on πυγμῇ in Mark 7.3’, JTS 41 (1990) 525–7 (525, 526)Google Scholar, ‘mysterious’, ‘nonsensical’; Painter, J., Mark's Gospel: Worlds in Conflict (London/New York: Routledge, 1997) 110Google Scholar, ‘The precise manner of hand-washing described by Mark is unclear’; Marcus, J., Mark 1–8 (New York: Doubleday, 2000) 441Google Scholar, ‘perplexing’; Edwards, J. R., The Gospel according to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 206Google Scholar, ‘particularly elusive’; Crossley, J. G., The Date of Mark's Gospel: Insights from the Law in Earliest Christianity (London/New York: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2004) 183Google Scholar, ‘mysterious’; Collins, A. Y., Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 339Google Scholar, ‘obscure’.

2 Marcus, Mark 1–8, 443. Important manuscripts include καὶ κλινῶν (A, D, W, Θ, Φ etc.) while καὶ κλινῶν is omitted in important witnesses that include ῥαντίσωνται (א, B).

3 Crossley, J. G., ‘Halakah and Mark 7.4: “…and beds”’, JSNT 25 (2003) 433–7Google Scholar.

4 On the history of scholarship and for a list of the major interpretive options, see e.g. Hengel, ‘Mc 7,3 πυγμῇ’, 185–91; Gnilka, Markus, 281; Booth, R. P., Contrasts: Gospel Evidence and Christian Belief (Bognor Regis: Paget, 1990) 202–5Google Scholar; Marcus, Mark 1–8, 441. On Aramaic alternatives see e.g. Weis, P. R., ‘A Note on PYGMHI’, NTS 3 (1956–57) 233–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Weis is useful in demolishing some highly speculative Aramaic explanations (some speculative to the point of inventing Aramaic words or Hebrew meanings) but then offers a highly speculative alternative: ‘The original Aramaic thus meant “unless they wash their hands with the (special) pitcher for the purpose called טפיח”’ (236). For critiques of Aramaic solutions see also Reynolds, S. M., ‘ΠYΓΜΗΙ (Mark 7.3) as “Cupped Hand”’, JBL 85 (1966) 87–8 (87)Google Scholar; Black, M., An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Oxford University, 3rd ed. 1967) 8–9Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Gould, E. P., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Mark (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1897) 126Google Scholar; Reynolds, ‘‘ΠYΓΜΗΙ’, 87. ‘Fistful’ or ‘handful’ was still found in e.g. Schweizer, E., The Good News according to Mark: A Commentary on the Gospel (London: SPCK, 1971) 148Google Scholar and Lane, W. L., The Gospel according to Mark: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 246Google Scholar, and most vigorously defended in Hengel, ‘Mc 7,3 πυγμῇ’.

6 Hengel, ‘Mc 7,3 πυγμῇ’, 195; cf. Guelich, R. A., Mark 1–8:26 (Dallas: Word, 1989) 365Google Scholar.

7 Crossley, Date, 183–205.

8 Hengel, ‘Mc 7,3 πυγμῇ’, 191–8.

9 For clear critiques of Hengel's proposals see Reynolds, S. M., ‘A Note on Dr Hengel's Interpretation of πυγμῇ in Mark 7,3’, ZNW 62 (1971) 295–6Google Scholar, and Booth, Contrasts, 303. See also below on further Hebrew and Greek words for ‘handful’ or the like.

10 Collins’ recent commentary on Mark translates ‘up to the elbow’ (Mark, 339, 347 n. 57).

11 Hengel, ‘Mc 7,3 πυγμῇ’, 186.

12 Compare also Palladius Monachus: νίψασθαι τὰς χεῖρας καὶ τοὺς πόδας πυγμῇ ὕδατι ψυχροτάτῳ (historia Lausiaca 55) and the discussions and references in Turner, C. H., ‘The Lausiac History of Palladius’, JTS 6 (1904–5) 321–55 (353–4)Google Scholar; Lampe, G. W. H., Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 1207Google Scholar; Hengel, ‘Mc 7,3 πυγμῇ’, 186–7; Black, Aramaic Approach, 9; Gnilka, Markus, 281 n. 27; Booth, Contrasts, 202–3; BGAD³ 896.

13 Jastrow, M., A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (2 vols.; New York: Pardes, 1950)Google Scholar 2.1240. Cf. Booth, Contrasts, 204–5.

14 Booth, Contrasts, 205.

15 Reynolds, ‘ΠYΓΜΗΙ’, 88.

16 Reynolds, ‘ΠYΓΜΗΙ’, 88 and Reynolds, ‘πυγμῇ in Mark 7,3’, 295, based on Blass, F. and DeBrunner, A., A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961) 195Google Scholar.

17 For example, Liddell and Scott (followed by BGAD) have the common and wholly uncontroversial uses of πυγμή as ‘fist’ (e.g. Hippocrates De articulis 71; Euripides Iphigeneia in Taurus 1368; Aristophanes Wasps 1384) and ‘boxing’ or ‘fighting’/‘fight’ (e.g. Homer Iliad 23.669; Euripides Alcestis 1031; Plato Laws 795b; Josephus Ant. 14.210), in addition to the clearly related use, namely the measurement from the elbow to the knuckles which we saw above.

18 ‘Hollow of the hand’, ‘handful’ or ‘fistful’, in the sense of grabbing handfuls of coins, soot or incense (cf. Exod 9.8; Lev 16.12; Ezek 10.2, 7; Prov 30.4; Eccles 4.6; 4Q156 1.2); Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, 1.492.

19 ‘Fistful’, ‘handful’, ‘closed hand’; Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, 2.1386; BDB 888.

20 Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, 1.14.

21 Cf. Swete, H. B., The Gospel according to Saint Mark (London: MacMillan, 1898) 136Google Scholar.

22 Reynolds, ‘ΠYΓΜΗΙ’, 88; cf. Hooker, M. D., A Commentary on the Gospel according to St Mark (London: A. & C. Black, 1991) 175Google Scholar: ‘Whatever the exact meaning, it would seem that the purpose was to cleanse the hands with as little water as possible (water being scarce)…’

23 There also seems to be an underlying concern for the amount of water used in the other main rabbinic text for understanding Mark 7.3: ‘The hands are susceptible to uncleanness and are rendered clean up to the wrist. How so? [If] one poured the first [water] up to the wrist, and the second beyond the wrist and it went back to the hand—it is clean… [If] he poured out water on to one hand and rubbed it on the other, it is unclean’ (m. Yad. 2.3). Cf. Hooker, St Mark, 175.

24 In the roughly analogous case of Christian baptism, which was probably directly or indirectly influenced by Jewish purity immersions, it is worth noting that Did. 7 allows different amounts (and types) of water as exceptions if running water is not available. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

25 Cf. Taylor, St Mark, 335; Gundry, R. H., Mark: A Commentary on his Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993) 360Google Scholar.

26 This also means that we should reject the following suggestion by T. C. Skeat because Mark provides a very precise piece of information on washing hands: ‘…one cardinal fact which, so far as I know, no commentator has noticed, namely that the word πυγμῇ is totally otiose. All that Mark is saying is that Jews, or at any rate strict Jews, wash their hands before eating, whereas some of the disciples were observed not to do so. The exact extent of the washing, whether it was to the wrist or the elbow, the position of the hands during the washing, the quantity of water used, and so on, are all beside the point, as can readily be seen from the parallel account in Matt 15:1–20’ (Skeat, ‘πυγμῇ’, 524–5). Skeat's general point is well taken: Mark does make the contrast between who washes hands and who does not. But, if anything, reference to Matthew actually counters Skeat's suggestion: for whatever reason, Matt 15 simplifies Mark's detail on purity law by removing the description of the immersion of the listed utensils in Mark 7.4 and so the most obvious solution to Matthew's removal of πυγμῇ is that he has done exactly the same in this instance. Moreover, from what we have seen in this article, we can hardly endorse the argument that ‘All that Mark is saying is that Jews, or at any rate strict Jews, wash their hands before eating’. Mark is also saying how such people wash their hands.

27 For a full discussion of related practices see Deines, R., Jüdische Steingefäße und pharisäische Frömmigkeit: eine archäologisch-historischer Beitrag zum Verständnis von Joh 2,6 und der jüdischen Reinheitshalacha zur Zeit Jesu (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993)Google Scholar.

28 Crossley, ‘Halakah and Mark 7.4’.

29 Crossley, Date, 191–204; Moyise, S., Evoking Scripture: Seeing the Old Testament in the New (London/New York: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2008) 27Google Scholar; Bockmuehl, M., ‘God's Life as a Jew: Remembering the Son of God as Son of David’, Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage (ed. Gaventa, B. R. and Hays, R. B.; Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008) 60–78Google Scholar, esp. 69–70 n. 19; Bauckham, R., ‘In Response to my Respondents: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses in Review’, JSHJ 6 (2008) 225–53 (233–5)Google Scholar; Crossley, J. G., ‘Mark 7.1–23: Revisiting the Question of “All Foods Clean”’, Torah in the New Testament (ed. Tait, M. and Oakes, P.; London/New York: Continuum/T&T Clark, 2009) 8–20Google Scholar. Cf. the discussions in Catchpole, D., Jesus People: The Historical Jesus and the Beginnings of Community (London: Darton, Longman & Todd; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006)Google Scholar; Fiensy, D. A., Jesus the Galilean: Soundings in a First Century Life (Piscataway: Gorgias, 2007) 147–86Google Scholar; Furstenberg, Y., ‘Defilement Penetrating the Body: A New Understanding of Contamination in Mark 7.15’, NTS 54 (2008) 176–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kazen, T., Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010) 113–35Google Scholar. It is notable that recent discussions of Mark 7.1–23 and related passages have paid a great detail of attention to precise legal contextualisation. See e.g. Svartvik, J., Mark and Mission: Mark 7:1–23 in its Narrative and Historical Contexts (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2000)Google Scholar; Kazen, T., Jesus and Purity Halakhah: Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity? (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2002)Google Scholar; Crossley, Date, 183–205. Booth, R. P., Jesus and the Laws of Purity: Tradition and Legal History in Mark 7 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986)Google Scholar still remains a crucial resource for understanding purity contexts. Much of the work from the above bibliography has provided an important correction to E. P. Sanders’ more sceptical views on Mark's knowledge of hand-washing in e.g. Sanders, E. P., Jewish Law from the Bible to the Mishnah (London: SCM, 1990) 39–40, 230Google Scholar. For further implicit and explicit critiques of Sanders on hand-washing and purity in the first century see e.g. Dunn, J. D. G., Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (London: SPCK, 1990) 61–88Google Scholar; Deines, Steingefäße; Harrington, H. K., ‘Did Pharisees Eat Ordinary Food in a State of Ritual Purity?’, JSJ 26 (1995) 42–54Google Scholar; Poirier, J. C., ‘Why did the Pharisees Wash their Hands?’, JJS 47 (1996) 217–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Regev, E., ‘Pure Individualism: The Idea of Non-Priestly Purity in Ancient Judaism’, JSJ 31 (2000) 176–202Google Scholar; Poirier, J. C., ‘Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era’, JBL 122 (2003) 247–65Google Scholar. The Sanders-influenced Meier, J. P., A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: Law and Love (New York: Doubleday, 2009)Google Scholar, uncharacteristically lacks interaction with some of the more detailed recent discussion of the legal context of Mark 7.1–23. For criticisms of Meier on Jesus and purity, including his omission of, and lack of interaction with, certain scholarly sources, see e.g. Casey, M., Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of his Life and Teachings (London/New York: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2010) 57Google Scholar; Kazen, Issues of Impurity, 161.

30 Poirier, ‘Pharisees’.

31 Cf. Hübner, H., Das Gesetz in der synoptischen Tradition (Witten: Luther-Verlag, 1973) 163–4Google Scholar.

32 See esp. Booth, Purity, 183–4.

33 Painter, Mark's Gospel, 110, therefore misses the point by not properly noting the function of the transmission of impurity surrounding the issues of hand-washing, food, utensils and immersion: ‘The precise details are not important to Mark, who also describes the necessity of cleansing vessels as an aspect of purification, though vessels are not involved in this incident’. On the contrary, Mark gets the details precisely right, and for good reason.

34 Skeat, ‘πυγμῇ’, 526. Cf. 527: ‘future translators who decide to ignore the fictitious words [Skeat adds a supposedly complementary case from Luke 6.1] can at least feel reassured’!

35 McHardy, ‘Mark 7.3’, 119. The criticisms of McHardy by Ross, ‘With the Fist’, are clear and to the point.

36 The classic statement of this view is Niederwimmer, K., ‘Johannes Markus und die Frage nach dem Verfasser des zweiten Evangeliums’, ZNW 58 (1967) 172–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 178–85.