New Testament 331

Matthew 26:47-56

Mark 14:43-52

Luke 22:47-53

John 18:2-12

Compare John 17:12; 18:20, 36

1.

The fact that Judas needed to identify Jesus (ironically, with a kiss) for those who had been sent to arrest the Savior demonstrates that Jesus didn’t have an unusual appearance.  He didn’t, for example, habitually levitate six inches off the ground, or glow, or wear luminescent white robes.

This is obvious, of course, when we think about it.  But I mention it because it forces the question (to me, at least), “Would I have recognized him, had I lived in his day?”  It’s easy to look down upon those first-century Jews who failed to accept him as the Son of God.  But was his deity really so obvious?

2.

The incident in which Peter cuts off the ear of “the high priest’s servant” (which is soon restored by Jesus) is very interesting.

I’m indebted to my friend and former FARMS/Maxwell Institute colleague Kent Brown for alerting me to these matters.

How does one cut off an ear with a sword, without doing serious damage elsewhere to the target’s body?  The momentum of a sideways stroke would carry the sword into the victim’s head.  An upward stroke is difficult to imagine.  It would be hard to get sufficient strength behind the blow.  A downward stroke would almost certainly have continued on into the victim’s neck or shoulder.

The severing of merely an ear is difficult to see as anything other than deliberate.

But what would motivate the infliction of so specific a wound?

John says that the name of the high priest’s servant was Malchus [Μάλχος].  That seems pretty obviously to be a Greek form of a name based upon the common Semitic root MLK, which refers to royalty.  (Think of biblical names such as Abimelech [“My father is (a) king”] and Melchizedek [“My king is righteous’] and, for that matter, of the San Bernardino murderess Tashfeen Malik.)

Was Malchus a member of the high priest’s (aristocratic) family?  Was he in line as a possible high priest himself?  One of the requirements for the high priest was that he be free of physical deformities.  A missing ear would have disqualified a candidate for the office.  Could the severing of the ear have been a deliberate (and rather malicious) attempt not to kill him but to, in effect, ruin his career prospects?

Just thinking aloud.