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Little James: Μικρός as an Indication of Height or Affection not Comparative Age in Mark 15.40
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2023
Abstract
This article argues that, based on a close reading of the ancient textual, documentary and epigraphic evidence, the expression ὁ μικρός in Mark 15.40 is most likely a nickname regarding this James’ particular height or potentially an affectionate indication that he is a child. The expression ὁ μικρός is not an indication of comparative age to another person (‘younger’). The evidence from ancient epigraphy and the LXX, initially provided by Adolf Deissmann to support a longstanding reading of ὁ μικρός as ‘the younger’ in Mark 15.40, proves to be less than reliable.
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1 There are a few reasons why it is unlikely that James in Mark 15.40 is meant to refer to Jesus’ brother, James, mentioned in Mark 6.3. The first is that, as R.T. France argues, it would be strange to identify Mary by her other sons and not with Jesus as he does in Mark 6.3. France, R. T., The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 664Google Scholar. Additionally, why would Mark not say that both James and Joses are Jesus' young brothers? Mark 15.40 is clearly meant to distinguish James ‘the Little’ and his brother Joses from Jesus’ brothers and mother in 6.3. Schweizer, Eduard, Das Evangelium nach Markus (NTD; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998) 198CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Additionally, as Joel Marcus notes, there is no ancient evidence that Jesus’ brother, James, was ever referred to as ‘James the Small’. Marcus, Joel, Mark 8–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AYB; New Haven: Yale University, 2009) 1060CrossRefGoogle Scholar. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. Texts and translations from classical Graeco-Roman literature are from the Loeb Classical Library unless otherwise noted.
2 Gould, Ezra Palmer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark (ICC; New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1922) 296Google Scholar.
3 Ernst, Josef, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Regensburger Neues Testament; Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1981) 475Google Scholar.
4 Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (BNTC; London: Continuum, 1991) 379.
5 See interpreters such as Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007) 774; Craig A. Evans, Mark 8.27–16.20 (WBC 34B; Dallas: Word Biblical Incorporated, 2001) 511; James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 485; Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 977; Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark, 379; John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (SP; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2002) 449; James A. Brooks, Mark (NAC 23; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1991) 264; Ernst Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus, 11th ed. (KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1951) 348. Some interpreters do not comment on it at all: Erich Klostermann, Das Markusevangelium (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1950) 168.
6 Marcus, Mark 8–16, 1060; Kara Lyons-Pardue, Gospel Women and the Long Ending of Mark (LNTS; London: Bloomsbury, 2020) 62; David A. deSilva, The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 33; Raymond E. Brown, et al., Mary in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars (New York: Paulist Press, 1978) 71; John Painter, ‘What James Was, His More Famous Brother Was Also’, in Earliest Christianity Within the Boundaries of Judaism: Essays in Honor of Bruce Chilton (ed. Alan Avery-Peck, Craig A. Evans, and Jacob Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 2016) 225; John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 1224. Swete tentatively suggests that a comparison should be made with a similar expression in Luke 19.3 with Zacchaeus. Henry Barclay Swete, The Gospel According to St. Mark. The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes and Indicies (London: MacMillan and Co., 1898) 390.
7 Peter Schegg, Jakobus der Bruder des Herrn (München: Ernst Stahl, 1883) 56–7; Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium. II Teil: Kommentar zu Kap. 8,27–16,20 (HthKNT; Freiburg: Herder, 1977) 506; Theodor Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons und der Altkirchlichen Literatur. VI. Teil (Leipzig: A. Deichert, 1900) 346. See also, BDAG s.v. ‘μιρκός’ 1a says that ‘perhaps’ it is a reference to stature, but then under the entry for ‘Ἰάκωβος’ it says under 3, ‘ὁ μικρός, James the small or the younger.’
8 Adolf Deissmann, Bible Studies: Contributions Chiefly from Papyri and Inscriptions to the History of the Language, the Literature, and the Religion of Hellenistic Judaism and Privitive Christianity (trans. Alexander Grieve; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1901) 144–5, originally published as Adolf Deissmann, Bibelstudien: Beiträge, zumeist aus den Papyri und Inschriften, zur Geschichte der Sprache, des Schrifttums und der Religion des hellenistischen Judentums und des Urchristentums (Marburg: N.G. Elwert, 1895). For interpreters who cite Deissmann, see Swete, St. Mark, 390; Gundry, Mark, 977.
9 C. Leemans, Papyri Graeci Musei Antiquarii Publici Lugduni-Batavi. Tomus I. (Leiden: H.W. Hazenberg, 1843) 68–9.
10 For further information see https://papyri.info/ddbdp/upz;2;181.
11 Transcription from the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri: https://papyri.info/ddbdp/upz;2;181.
12 Col i: Αἶμος ὡς (ἔτους) ι μɛλαγχρὴς κλαστόθριξ μɛλανόφθαλμος σιαγόνɛς μɛίζους καὶ φακοὶ ἐπὶ σιαγόνι δɛξιᾶι ἀπɛρίτμητος (‘Haimos, about 10, dark skin, curly hair, black eyes, rather big jaws, with moles on the right jaw, uncircumcised’). Col ii: Ἀτίκος ὡς (ἔτους) η μɛλίχρους κλαστόθριξ ὑπόσιμος ἡσυχῆι μɛλ̣ανόφθαλμος οὐλὴ ὑπ’ ὀφθαλμὸν δɛξιὸν ἀπɛρίτμητος (‘Attikos, about 8, light skin, curly hair, nose somewhat flat, black eyes, scar below the right eye, uncircumcised’). Col iii: Ἀυδομος ὡς (ἔτους) ι μɛλανόφθαλμος 10κλαστόθριξ ἔσσιμος πρόστομος οὐλὴ παρ’ ὀφρὺν δɛξιὰν πɛριτɛτμημένος (‘Audomos, about 10, black eyes, curly hair, nose flat, protruding lips, scar near the right eyebrow, circumcised’). Col iv: Ὀκαιμος ὡς (ἔτους) ζ τρογγυλοπρόσωπος ἔσσιμος γλαυκὸς πυρράκης τɛτανὸς οὐλὴ ἐμ μɛτώπωι ὑπὲρ ὀφρὺν δɛξιὰν πɛριτɛτμημένος (‘Okaimos, about 7, round face, noes flat, grey eyes, fiery complexion, long straight hair, scar on forehead above the right eyebrow, circumcised’). Text is from the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri: https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.cair.zen;1;59076. Translations are from Mladen Popović, Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hellenistic-Early Roman Period Judaism, (STDJ 67; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 279.
13 Leemans, Papyri Graeci, 74.
14 Leemans says, ‘Itaque ad aetatem referendum videtur, et additum fortasse ut distingueretur ab altera Nechytye, fratre majore’ (Therefore, it seems to refer to old age, and perhaps an addition added to distinguish him from the other Nechytyes, his older brother).
15 Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Gospels of Mark and Luke (ed. William P. Dickson; trans. Robert Ernest Wallis; Edinburgh: T&T Clarck, 1883) 236.
16 This is confirmed by a reception of this story in Psalm 151. In verse 1, the author writes speaking in the voice of David, ‘I was small among my brothers and the youngest in the house of my father’ (Μικρὸς ἤμην ἐν τοῖς ἀδɛλφοῖς μου καὶ νɛώτɛρος ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ τοῦ πατρός μου). Here the psalmist distinguishes between μικρός as physical stature and νɛ́ος as age in relation to brothers.
17 Zahn, Forschungen, 346.
18 Simon ‘The Rock’ (Σίμων Πɛ́τρος, Mark 3.16), James and John, the sons of Zebedee, otherwise known as ‘Sons of Thunder’ (Βοανηργές, Mark 3.17), Simon ‘The Zealot’ (Σίμωνα τὸν Καναναῖον, Mark 3.18), and as recently argued by Elizabeth Schrader and Joan Taylor, Mary ‘The Tower’ (Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ, Mark 15.40, 47; 16.1, 9).
19 Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 210, n.35.
20 Beth Sheʿarim. Volume II: The Greek Inscriptions (ed. Moshe Schwabe and Baruch Lifshitz; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1974) 14–15.
21 Transcriptions from Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palestinae. Volume V: Galilaea and Northern Regions. Part 2: 6925–7817 (eds. Walter Ameling et. al.; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023) 1081, 1091. Cf. Schwabe and Lifshitz, Beth Sheʿarim, 19.
22 Ἰοσῆ = יוסף according to Tal Ilan and Thomas Ziem, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity. Part III: The Western Diaspora 330-BCE-650 CE (TSAJ 126; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002) 723.
23 Schwabe and Lifshitz, Beth Sheʿarim, 20.
24 N. Avigad, ‘Excavations at Beth Sheʿarim, 1954: Preliminary Report’, Israel Exploration Journal 5, no. 4 (1955) 222.
25 For the most detailed studies on short stature and dwarfism in the ancient Mediterranean see especially Véronique Dasen, Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece, Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Michael Garmaise, ‘Studies in the Representation of Dwarfs in Hellenistic and Roman Art’, PhD Dissertation (McMaster University, 1996); Alexandra F. Morris, ‘Plato's Stepchildren: Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World’, PhD Dissertation (Teesside University, 2022); Isaac T. Soon, A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).
26 For the historical plausibility of traditions about Paul's height see Soon, Isaac T., ‘The Short Apostle: The Stature of Paul in Light of 2 Cor 11:33 and the Acts of Paul and Thecla’, Early Christianity 12, no. 2 (2021) 159–78Google Scholar.
27 For studies on Zacchaeus’ stature see Parsons, Mikeal C., ‘“Short in Stature”: Luke's Physical Description of Zacchaeus’, NTS 47 (2001) 50–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Solevåg, Anna Rebecca, ‘Zacchaeus in the Gospel of Luke: Comic Figure, Sinner, and Included “Other”’, Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 14, no. 2 (2020) 225–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Jesus as being ‘the short one’ in Luke 19:3 see Soon, Isaac T., ‘The Little Messiah: Jesus as τῇ ἡλιϰίᾳ μιϰρός in Luke 19:3’, Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 1 (2023) 151–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Zahn also connects Mark 15.40 to Luke 19.3, Zahn, Forschungen, 346.
29 Text from The Greek Anthology. Volume IV, (W.R. Paton, trans; LCL; London: William Heinemann, 1918) 114–17.
30 Text from https://papyri.info/ddbdp/sb;5;7576/.
31 Text from https://papyri.info/hgv/27328.
32 Text from https://papyri.info/ddbdp/psi;9;1080.
33 France, The Gospel of Mark, 664.