An Unnamed Woman Anoints Jesus for Burial (14:3-9)
The present section will highlight Mark’s contrasting characterizations of an unnamed woman (14:3-9) and Judas Iscariot (14:10-11). The discussion of this contrast builds on the inference that 14:3-9 is a redactional insertion between 14:1-2 and 10-11.[240] That is to say, Mark’s source originally narrated without interruption Judas’s agreement to betray Jesus to the Jewish priests.
In 14:3-4, subsequent to the woman’s tardy and presumably uninvited arrival at the meal,[241] she is accused of wasting costly ointment on Jesus. Mark neither characterizes her as wealthy nor reveals the means by which she came to possess this ointment. What Mark does accentuate is that her expending this valuable possession results in others becoming indignant (ayavaKTEM) and censuring (spppipaopai) her action as inappropriate.[242]
Whereas the parallel passage in Matthew explicitly attributes this indignant response to Jesus’s disciples (iSovTes 8s oi pa0pTai, Matt 26:8), Mark 14:4 obliquely ascribes it to tives (“some people”). The question thus arises whether in Mark the interpreter should distinguish the Twelve from Tivss or identify (“some” of) them with those who became indignant. Craig Evans persuasively argues for the latter view, or that tives pertaines to “some” of the Twelve.[243] Furthermore, as Etienne Trocme notes, Mark does not indicate who else besides the Twelve was present at the house of Simon the leper (cf. 14:3) to register such a complaint.[244]
If the inference that Mark 14:4 points to “some” of the Twelve is persuasive, the characterization would be analogous to the Twelve’s hindering the work of an unnamed exorcist whom Jesus approved (9:38-41) and, later, their rebuking those who were bringing children to Jesus (10:13-14). Like these previous two instances, the(ir) mistake again concerns incorrectly denying Jesus’s favor toward those whose action he does indeed approve, whether exorcising demons in Jesus’s name (9:38-41), bringing children to him (10:13-14), or anointing his “body beforehand for its burial” (14:8).
As compared with hindering a single exorcist or keeping parents from bringing their children to Jesus, in Mark this last instance is arguably the worst of the three, since objecting to the anointing of Jesus’s body implies a lack of recognition of Jesus’s approaching passion. Instead, those implicated as tives dyavaKTOuvTss (“some who became indignant,” 14:4) - most likely the Twelve or at any rate “some” of them - unnecessarily cause suffering for this woman while discounting the value that she attaches to Jesus’s impending suffering and death.An additional parallel in Mark’s narrative to 14:3-9 is the meal scene in 2:15-17 at which “the scribes of the Pharisees” object to Jesus’s disciples about the company Jesus was keeping.[245] In the present pericope it is apparently the Twelve who make such an unwarranted judgment against this unnamed woman. In both instances Jesus defends those who are deemed unwelcome, whether the “many tax collectors and sinners” (2:15) or the woman (14:6-9). Moreover, in both pericopes the depictions of the accusers - “the scribes of the Pharisees” or, apparently here, “some” of the Twelve - are patently unflattering. Therefore, like other unnamed followers of Jesus depicted in this Gospel (cf. 8:34b; 9:38-41; 10:29-31, 40; 13:13b), the woman in 14:3-9 offers a positive example of discipleship in that she not only recognizes Jesus’s suffering but also suffers disdain from others for what she offered to Jesus. Her resolve to honor Jesus’s death despite objections from others is the reason why her deed will be remembered “wherever the good news (to eüayyeXiov) is proclaimed” (14:9).
Contrasting with this unnamed woman is the following pericope - or, as noted above, the continuation of the pre-Markan pericope of 14:1-2, 10-11 - concerning the disciple Judas who “betrayed” Jesus (14:10-11; cf. 3:19). Given Mark’s numerous depictions of the Twelve’s shortcomings and misunderstandings, accompanied by precious few successes subsequent to their return from a mission (6:30), it is not particularly surprising that one of them betrays Jesus.[246] In Mark 14:1-11 both Judas and the unnamed woman are aware that Jesus will suffer. One of them prepares Jesus’s body for burial, and the other’s betrayal leads to Jesus’s arrest and passion.
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