In this article, we explore yet another instance where assumptions concerning the publication dates of the Gospels ultimately impact one’s understanding of the Gospels.1 Below, the parable of the wicked tenants is said by several scholars to convey that those who would soon assume oversight of the vineyard, the “others,” would be Gentiles (non-Jews), because Mark was (purportedly) published several decades after the resurrection, at a time when there were more Gentile Christians than Jewish Christians.
In Jesus’ parable of the tenants, the story is told of the owner of a vineyard and wine press who seeks to receive the fruits of the vineyard from tenant farmers who have leased the vineyard. The tenants beat, abuse, and then kill the servants of the owner who are sent to collect what is due. Ultimately, the owner sends his son, whom the tenants kill. Of course, Jesus was referring to himself as the son who would soon be killed. Jesus concludes by asking,
What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. (Mark 12:9 ESV).
In Mark’s Gospel, the parable comes immediately after (1) Jesus’ clearing of the merchants from the temple grounds, much to the ire of the chief priests and scribes who were plotting how to destroy him (11:15–18); (2) the report of the withering of the fig tree, cursed for being fruitless, which symbolized judgement against the Jewish leaders, or perhaps against the temple, or Israel, more broadly (11:20–21);2 and (3) the challenge brought by the chief priests, scribes, and elders against Jesus’ authority to teach in and otherwise disrupt the temple (11:27–33). Given this escalating conflict, it is not surprising that the Jewish authorities quickly recognized that the parable of the tenants was directed against themselves (Mark 11:12), especially since Jesus was leveraging language in their own Scriptures to condemn them. Per Isaiah:
The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders and princes of his people: “It is you who have devoured the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?” declares the Lord God of hosts. (Isa. 3:13–14).
For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry! (Isa. 5:7)
Jeremiah, employing the imagery of sheep and shepherds, similarly prophesied against the leaders of Israel, while promising that the Lord would someday displace the present evil shepherds in favor of shepherds who would care for the sheep, under the righteous rule of a descendant of David. (Jer. 23:1–6).
Again, it is clear that the parable was directed against the Jewish leaders. But here is where it gets interesting. Who in the parable are the “others” to whom the vineyard would be given, after the evil tenants are removed (Mark 12:9)? This is where we see dating assumptions impact one’s interpretation of the passage.
Since many scholars postulate that Mark was published in the AD 60s, give or take, it is not surprising that they take this into account when assessing what Mark was intending to convey in its reporting of the words of Jesus, and how the original audience of this Gospel would have understood the text.
France: Mark’s readers would have had no difficulty in identifying the ἄλλοι (others) as the church, but Jesus’ words remain uninterpreted to those who heard him in the temple.3
Edwards: By Mark’s day, the “others” were certainly understood to mean Gentiles.4
Hooker: The others to whom the vineyard is to be given ought logically—at least in the setting Mark gives the parable—to be new leaders, since it is said to be directed against the Jewish authorities. But by Mark’s day the new tenants who are taking over the vineyard are Gentiles.5
Stein: Matthew 21:43 refers to the vineyard being ‘taken away and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom,’ which suggests that the new covenant would involve a community whose ethnicity would consist of both Jew and Greek. By the time of the evangelists [Gospel authors], it may very well have come to contain more Gentiles than Jews.6 … The “others,” to whom the vineyard is given (12:9), would have been understood by Mark’s readers to involve not a new group of chief priests, scribes, and elders and not just Jesus and the disciples but also the new Israel of God, the church. … In the “others,” Mark’s readers would almost certainly have seen the church, and its Gentile element in particular.7
But what if we accept that Mark was published in the early to mid 40s, for the benefit of new Greco-Roman believers in Caesarea Maritima (e.g., Cornelius and friends), as I have previously proposed?8 In my A Trustworthy Gospel: Arguments for an Early Date for Matthew’s Gospel, I argue that Irenaeus’ reference to “Rome” should be understood as “Rome, the empire.” Thus:
Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in a language contrasting with their own, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome, the empire, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure to other lands, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also . . . . Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. — Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.19
Accordingly, in this early to mid 40s time-frame the Gentiles would have yet been a small contingent of Jesus-followers, including those in Caesarea Maritima, Antioch, and elsewhere. Thus, Mark’s original audience would have had no reason to presuppose that Jesus was (purportedly) anticipating that vineyard oversight might be given to Gentiles. Rather, the following assessment of the “others” better reflects the situation of Mark’s original audience:
Strauss: The ‘others’ that the vineyard passes to are not the Gentiles alone, but the leadership of the church made up of the restored remnant of Israel and the Gentiles who respond (Luke 2:30–32; 22:30; Acts 15:16–17; Rom 11:1–6, 25).10
In summary, my point in this article is that we must recognize that our assumptions regarding the publication dates of the Gospels implicitly (or explicitly) impact our interpretation of the text. With respect to the Gospels, we appropriately consider not only how Jesus and his immediate audience might have understood his teachings, but also how a Gospel author and their original audience might have understood these teachings.
[Vineyard image is copyright BiblePlaces.com.]
- Prior articles on the impacts of publication assumptions: Publication Assumptions Impact Buswell’s Interpretation of the Olivet Discourse; Matthean Publication Assumptions and the Sermon on the Mount; Publication Assumptions Even Impact Matthew’s Name. ↩︎
- Eckhard J. Schnabel, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (InterVarsity, 2017), 289. ↩︎
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2002), 462. ↩︎
- James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2002), 359–60. ↩︎
- Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (Continuum, 1991), 276. ↩︎
- Robert H. Stein, Mark, Baker Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament (Baker Academic, 2008), 537. ↩︎
- Ibid., 539. ↩︎
- Daniel B. Moore, A Trustworthy Gospel: Arguments for an Early Date for Matthew’s Gospel (Wipf and Stock, 2024), 22. Wenham likewise supports this time-frame for Mark; although he place Peter, Paul, and Mark in Rome, the city. John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), 182. Also, Phil Fernandes, “Redating the Gospels,” in Vital Issues in the Inerrancy Debate, ed. F. David Farnell (Wipf and Stock, 2015). On the other hand, Thomas Birks contends that Mark was “written at Caesarea, or for the Roman converts in that place, about AD 48,” before the Jerusalem council. Thomas R. Birks, Horae Evangelicae: The Internal Evidence of the Gospel History (George Bell & Sons, 1852), 232, 238. ↩︎
- Moore, A Trustworthy Gospel, 24, 34. ↩︎
- Mark L Strauss, Mark, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Zondervan, 2014), 520. Likewise, Schnabel, Mark, 289. See also, William C. Varner and David W. Hegg, Matthew’s Messiah: His Jewish Life and Ministry (Fontes, 2025), 268. ↩︎
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