what is up with Mark 14:51,52?

Then Jesus said to the posse

The Greek word I have translated “posse” is apokritheis, from the verb apokrinomai, which, in the Christian Testament, meant to respond to certain present circumstances. The roots are apo, derived from, and krinw, to judge or call to account. It seemed to me that “posse” was a better translation than “interlocuters” or “respondents.”

Similarly, the word that is usually translated as “bandit” was lestes. In the first century, lestoi described men who lived in the hills and survived by robbery and plunder. Many were indeed brigands, but many were there as resistance fighters against the Romans.

Although Mark does not mention just who the men were who had been sent to arrest Jesus, we must not forget that it was the holiest night of the Jewish year, and good Jewish men would be at home sleeping off the four cups of wine they had drunk for their Passover suppers — or, even if they were running around the mountainside in the middle of the streetlight-less night, these pious men were forbidden by Jewish law to carry weapons on a holy night.

Therefore the posse must have consisted of Roman soldiers. Since the hour was approximately midnight, the Romans must have been seeking no ordinary bandit; they must have considered Jesus the first-century equivalent of Robin Hood.

[sent to arrest him], “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a guerrilla? Day after day I was with you in the Temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled.” All of them deserted him and fled. A young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen [cloth]. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen [cloth] and ran off naked. (Mark 14:48-52)

When Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, it was somewhere around midnight in late March or early April, and it was cold enough so that two or three hours later, Peter was grateful to warm his hands at the fire.

Clothing was very expensive. Most people owned exactly two pieces of clothing: an everyday garment like a tunic (knee-length for men, longer for women), and a cloak for inclement weather. Some men wore loincloths under their garments, some men wore a little thing that looked like a miniature slip, and some didn’t wear anything at all.

Mark describes the young man in question as a neaniskos, meaning he was in the prime of his life, perhaps 15 to 25 years old. The verb that is used, sunékolouthei, means “was following as a disciple” or “was accompanying.” Since no one evinces any surprise at the young man’s presence, he was probably a disciple.

Fascinatingly, the word neaniskos, which is rare in the Christian Testament, crops up a second time in Mark, to describe the young man in the long white robe who tells the women disciples that Jesus has been raised and they will see him again in Galilee.

Who was this young man? Why was he not considered a disciple in the same category as Peter, James, and John, who couldn’t have been much older? Why was no one surprised that he was standing around in Gethsemane with Jesus’ inner circle of male disciples (and a huge posse of Roman soldiers) wearing “nothing but a linen” — when it was probably no warmer than 50o F.? Was the neaniskos of this passage the same neaniskos as in Mark 16:5, who in the meantime had found himself a nice stolén leukén (long, white robe) to cover his nakedness?

Traditionally, scholars have agreed that because of the “embarrassment factor,” this incident may really have happened — i.e., it was so embarrassing that the early church would have been just as happy if it had never happened and they hadn’t HAD to record it. Jewish people abhorred nakedness; that was just too, too pagan for them.

The best guess of the editors of the Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard Version is that “perhaps [the young man] was sleeping in the house where Jesus ate the Last Supper and rose hastily from bed to follow Jesus to Gethsemane.”

In Word Meanings in the New Testament, Ralph Earle comments, “This brief incident is found only in this Gospel. It might be Mark’s way of saying, ‘I was there.’ If the Last Supper took place in the home of John Mark’s mother (cf. Acts 12:12), Judas Iscariot may have returned there first to betray Jesus. We can then understand how John Mark would be roused, perhaps grab a sheet to cover his body, and rush to [Gethsemane] to warn Jesus.”

Footnote (hide)

Ralph Earle, Th.D. Word Meanings in the New Testament, One-Volume Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1986), p. 47. Personally, I don't find Earle's explanation even slightly plausible. First, no reputable scholar believes that the neaniskos was the same man who wrote the gospel according to Mark. And why “grab a sheet” when it would have been easier for him just to whip on his tunic and cloak?

It is remotely possible that the first-generation Christians in Mark's community may have seen this incident as the fulfillment of a prophecy. In a passage in Amos describing the Day of God’s Judgment, God tells us, “and those who are stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day” (2:16).

But how likely is it, really, that this scene happened in the real world? As I mentioned earlier, when this incident is said to have happened, it was probably around midnight, and cold enough that a few hours later, Peter, dressed and cloaked, was glad to be near a fire. Although it would have been fine to sleep naked inside one’s home in Palestine in April, Jerusalem had a higher elevation than most places, and the Mount of Olives higher still. If Jesus’s young disciple had been wearing nothing but a loincloth or a little slip under his “linen,” he was probably very chilly, especially after the two-mile walk from Jerusalem was done and he had nothing to do but stand around and shiver while he waited for Jesus to finish praying.

Saying that an incident might not have happened in “real life” does not mean that the incident is not true. German theologians have added three useful words to our vocabulary. Historie refers to actual events, the kind of thing you find in history books — names, dates, Social Security numbers. Geschichte refers to the meaning or significance of an historical event — for example, “Jesus lived” is historie, and “Christ is the revelation of God” is geschichte. And heilsgeschichte can be translated “holiness history” or “salvation history.” The Bible is not historie, but heilsgeschichte.

When a parent says to a child, “Santa Claus came last night,” that is not a factual statement, so it is not historie-true — but since there are lots of presents under the tree, it IS geschichte-true. Many “events” recorded in the Bible that literal-minded people think they are required to believe are historie-true — such as Noah collecting two of every one of the 800,000 species of insect — are not historie-true, but they ARE heilsgeschichte-true. As a general rule, an incident recorded in the Bible is likelier to be historie-true if it is something your denomination is embarrassed to have young people about — like the incident where a king got assassinated while his attendants thought he was having a bowel movement (Judges 3:19-25).

In verses 14:51-52, Mark tells us that “A young man was present who was wearing nothing but a sindon. The posse caught hold of him, but he left the sindon and ran away naked.”

Here’s the big discovery I stumbled over by accident: A sindon was a linen cloth used for clothing or burial. The word is used exactly four times in the Christian Testament: in the three synoptic gospels to describe the cloth in which Jesus’s dead body was wrapped for burial . . . and here.

It seems to me that, whoever the naked young disciple was, the story is not meant to be historical in the historie sense. What 15-year-old’s mother or wife

In the first century, most women married for the first time between ages 12 and 15, and most men between 13 and 17.

would allow him out of the house in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a winding-sheet? — to walk two miles to the Mount of Olives in the company of Jesus and at least three other disciples, stand around for a minimum of an hour in the cold, and then run two miles back to Jerusalem naked? Even before they started walking, wouldn’t Peter, James, or John have said, “Hey, kid, what are you, nuts? — at least put on a cloak, before you freeze to death”?

What seems significant to me is the sindon, the “linen.” Because having a punk kid tag along on one of the most important nights in human history is almost certainly not historie-true, the author of Mark (the earliest of all the canonical gospels) must have included the story because it was significant to his congregation for its spiritual truth, its heilsgeschichte.

I believe this incident may be a semeion, an action symbolic of something else. Baptism, for example, was originally a semeion for death and resurrection/rebirth, in which one dies to one���s old way of life and is “born [again] of water and the Spirit.” Those who were baptized were submerged in “living” (running) water, symbolizing both drowning and amniotic fluid, and came out of the water as naked as the day they were born the first time.

I believe it is possible that this incident was either a semeion describing the young man’s baptism into Christ (resurrection/rebirth) — or possibly, a semeion describing Jesus’s “baptism” into his new life. Remember, for no reason that Mark ever explains, the Roman soldiers who have walked two miles through the dark and cold of night, on the holiest night of the year, specifically to arrest Jesus, try to grab the young man (15:51) — but he escapes, naked as the day he was born, leaving behind only the sindon, or winding-sheet — in other words, leaving behind only the evidence of Jesus’s approaching death to his old life and resurrection into the new.

Here is another idea to add to the stew: Clement of Alexandria quotes a fragment of text known as the “Secret Gospel of Mark.” The fragment goes,

And they came to Bethany. And there was a woman there, whose brother was dead. And she came and fell down before Jesus and said to him, “Son of David, have compassion on me.” But the disciples rebuked her. And in anger Jesus went away with her into the garden where the tomb was; and immediately a loud voice was heard from the tomb, and Jesus went forward and rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And immediately he went in where the young man was, stretched out his hand and raised him up, grasping him by the hand. But the young man looked upon him and loved him, and began to beg him that he might remain with him. And when they had gone out from the tomb, they went into the young man’s house; for he was rich. And after six days Jesus gave him an order; and in the evening the young man came to him, clothed only in a linen cloth upon his naked body. And he remained with him that night; for Jesus was teaching him the mysteries of God’s Domain. And from there [Jesus] went away and returned to the other bank of the Jordan. . . . [Fragment 2:] He came to Jericho. And there were the sisters of the young man whom Jesus loved, and his mother and Salome; and Jesus did not receive them.

Footnote (hide)

Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, Volume I: Gospels and Related Writings (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 108.

“Secret Mark” was discovered in the summer of 1958 by a scholar named Morton Smith, who retains the text and has released only photographs of it. It may be a genuine letter of Clement’s — in which case we can be sure only that an expanded version of the Gospel of Mark existed in Alexandria around 170 C.E. Schneemelcher concludes only that “The time of origin of the ‘secret Gospel’ probably lies not before the middle of the second century.” . . . in other words, it probably never “really happened.”

Whether or not it “really happened,” few scholars are particularly thrilled with Secret Mark, which has a strong implication of homosexual love. (“Come to me late at night wearing nothing but a linen sheet and I’ll teach you what heaven is all about.”) Clement’s letter, in fact, denies the possibility vehemently. Charles W. Hedrick writes,

The excerpts from the Secret Gospel of Mark are quoted in Clement’s letter to Theodore. Theodore had written Clement asking whether or not certain things were found in the Secret Gospel. Clement replies that Mark had written two gospels. His original gospel, intended for beginners, was written at Rome. The second gospel, Mark wrote sometime later in Alexandria, Egypt. This second gospel, Clement says, is an expanded version of the original gospel. Mark simply added to the earlier gospel whatever seemed appropriate for persons progressing toward a more advanced level of instruction in Christian faith. This expanded version Clement dubbed the ‘Secret Gospel,’ and described it as a ‘more spiritual gospel’ . . . ‘the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils.’ . . . Clement denied that the Secret Gospel divulged the sacred mysteries of the Lord, or revealed ‘things not to be uttered.’ . . . The leader [of an Alexandrian Gnostic sect, Carpocrates,] apparently revised the Secret Gospel, adding to it other information, which Clement regarded as ‘shameless lies.’ Carpocrates proceeded to interpret his expanded version of Secret Mark in line with his own carnal teachings.

Footnote (hide)

Charles W. Hedrick with Nikolaos Olympiou, “Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses,” The Fourth R: An Advocate for Religious Literacy, September-October 2000, pp. 3-5.

The original gospel, “intended for beginners, was written at Rome” in approximately 65 C.E., shortly before the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E. Whether or not Secret Mark was written for advanced students by Mark (but notice the somewhat anachronistic references to Lazarus and Martha) or by Carpocrates for his own “carnal” purposes, it offers an intriguing glimpse into the story of the naked young man beyond what we get from the canonical gospel.

The possibilities are:

There really was a young disciple present at Gethsemane whose bizarre attire (or, rather, lack of attire) surprised no one; the traditional interpretation, that it was Mark’s way of saying “I was there,” is the right one.

The young man of Mark 14:51-52 is the same neaniskos as in Mark 16:5-7. This would make him an angel, or something like an angel — at any rate, present in the story as a semeion rather than a historically accurate lunatic.

Secret Mark is, as advertised, a fragment of a gospel written by Mark for “advanced” disciples, and Mark 14:51-52 is a canonical remnant of the original story. In this case, the naked young man was probably Lazarus, and the sindon has something to do with the lad’s initiation into a higher level of spiritual insight.

Secret Mark is a fragment of a gospel written by some other person, perhaps Carpocrates, for “advanced” disciples, explaining the young disciple’s presence at Gethsemane and his bizarre attire in terms that seemed reasonable to second-century Christians. In this case, as with the second possibility, the naked young man was probably Lazarus, and the sindon has something to do with the lad’s initiation into a higher level of spiritual insight.

For our modern purposes in recovering these verses for our own use, we observe that it was probably not a historically factual incident, and is therefore included in the gospel for its spiritual truth.

Since “all of them deserted him and fled,” the neaniskos was not a member of the set “all of them.” “All of them” must refer either to Peter, James, and John or to all the disciples who went with Jesus to Gethsemane — which raises the intriguing possibility that the “young man” might have been one of the female disciples

Mark is the only canonical gospel to make explicit that after Jesus's arrest, the men ran away in very reasonable and understandable fear, while the women remained faithful. It is possible — remotely, I acknowledge — that the young disciple was described as a neaniskos because “he” had narrow shoulders and no beard or Adam’s apple, and the evangelist didn't want to admit that some of Jesus's female disciples had to resort to dressing “in drag” for certain vitally important occasions.

(But in that case, why was SHE wearing nothing but a sindon?)

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The incident with the neaniskos involves death (the winding-sheet, the arrest at Gethsemane) and escape from death — “They caught hold of [the young man], but he left the sindon and ran away naked.” If the young man is meant to be an avatar representing Jesus’s resurrection body (which Jesus will be “wearing” in a matter of a little more than 48 hours), the incident becomes a foreshadowing of the Resurrection. If the young man is one of the female disciples, the actions of the posse are again more reasonable than their trying to arrest the wrong guy even after Judas pointed out the right one — but rather less palatable to audiences both ancient and modern.

It would seem to me that the young man gave the linen garment to Jesus, for whatever reason I can only guess. Perhaps the man believed in Jesus and understood that Christ was about to be put to death. I wonder if the linen garment was meant as a burial garment. It was the young man's way of showing his belief in Christ. I am interested in some of the others answers on this. Funny I have read the gospels before and missed that verse.

Mark had likely been edited, which is why it doesn't make sense. A version was found in the form of a letter which included additional text. You can read the text which had been deleted for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

"And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb, they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/secretm...

Jesus was abandoned. The eleven disciples were gone, but certain young man followed Him. Only Mark tells of this incident, and many believe that this young man was Mark himself. If the Last Supper was at his home that evening, he could have risen from bed, pulled on a linen cloth, and followed Jesus and the disciples. : )

Jesus was being arrested. Everyone with him was in fear. The young man in the linen garment was a follower of Jesus. The linen garment was his outer shirt or robe. When they (guards) grabbed him, he pulled out of his clothes leaving him naked. He was not wearing an undergarment. Why? Who knows? Some have suggested that he may have dresses in a hurry and did not put on an undergarment.

Tradition says that this young man may have been John Mark, the writer of this Gospel. The incident is not mentioned in any of the other accounts.

That is a strange one.

I'm going to look for some feedback at crosswalk.com - pretty good resource.

I do wonder if, given the early hour, it was one of the people following Jesus, sleeping in or around the garden, trying to defend Jesus from his captors. Or he may have been following, to see where they were taking Jesus.

Scripture doesn't tell us who the man was or anything else about him. The fact that Mark includes all the details surrounding the arrest of Jesus speaks to the truth of what he's written.

That is Mark inserting himself into the story.He was quite young then.The Gospel of Mark is said to be the writings of Mark told by Peter.Mark accompanied Peter alot as well as Paul and Barnabas his uncle.I'm sure as young as he was ,he would remember that!

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a valid question....

I don't know of any OT thing - the only thing i have ever heard is that the young man who runs away is thought to be mark, the writer of the gospel. that is the "tradition".

god bless