Traditions of the Elders

When the Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus why his disciples “do…not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands,” Jesus responds by quoting Isaiah 29:13: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mk 7:6–7). The problem isn’t with ceremonial rituals per se. The problem is that the relationship between God’s commands and the traditions of men has been inverted.

The traditions of men are not formally denying the law. They are functioning above it. Jesus clarifies this when he discusses the Corban (7:10–12). The fifth commandment requires children to honor their parents, which would have included providing material assistance to aging parents. While the qorban in the Old Testament referred more generally to an offering (Lev 1:2; Num 7:13; Ezek 20:28), it had taken on a slightly different meaning in the New Testament period. The Corban was sacralized, or removed from any use beyond its designation to God or the Temple. The tradition Jesus refers to involved making the Corban irrevocable, so that there were no circumstances in which one could be released from the vow.

As Jesus’s argument suggests, the rigidity of the Corban became problematic insofar as it precluded someone from meeting their responsibilities under the law, particularly with regard to honoring parents. Though many in Jesus’s day would have allowed the vow to be released, this was evidently not the practice of Jesus’s opponents. By elevating the tradition above the law, the community had effectively become a law unto themselves. The interpretive system was positioned to take the place of the biblical text and, as such, the biblical text could no longer correct the interpreter.

After condemning this particular way of practicing the Corban, Jesus returns to the question of defiling. Though the Pharisees and scribes take their external rituals seriously, Jesus reminds the people that it is what comes “out of the heart of man” that defiles (7:21). As such, lip service and vain worship are inadequate because they will lead to an inversion of human and divine authority. Humans will end up living on their own terms instead of on God’s terms. What is necessary is a heart that draws near to God and is set apart to him. Whereas the interpretive system has trained the community’s attention on hands and food, the true danger comes from within. A community that refuses to allow Scripture to correct its traditions and interpretations draws on God’s authority to serve ends God has not authorized. A form of piety continues, but that piety is defined by human rules rather than God’s law.

Mark 7 is not simply a critique of Pharisaic Judaism that contemporary Christians can read at a safe distance. It points to a dynamic that is easy for us to adopt. Interpretive approaches and traditions are necessary. We need a deep awareness of our community’s beliefs through time and ways of approaching the biblical text that help us understand what it is saying. Every community that reads Scripture together will develop them, and developing them is part of what it means to take the text seriously across time. The question is whether the theological systems, interpretations, and traditions remain subject to God’s word or become a rigid grid to which God’s word is subjected.

The posture Mark 7 requires is not suspicion of tradition, but a willingness to let Scripture revise it. While our traditional understandings are often doing good work, we must be careful to avoid the inversion that occurs when our understanding becomes more authoritative than God’s word. The mark of an interpretive system that has narrowed a community is not the rejection of Scripture but the lack of any willingness to allow Scripture to speak against the community’s understanding.