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and
    reclaim it for God; in order to accomplish this, he must overcome
    the evil powers who have usurped authority over the world, and
    who now oppress human beings. So, Mark says,

    Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”
    And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud
    voice, came out of him, and they were all amazed, so that they
    questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? New
    teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean
    spirits, and they obey him.” And at once his fame spread
    everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee
    (1:25-28).

    Even in this first episode, the astonished crowds recognize
    that Jesus possesses a special authority, direct access to God’s
    power. Jesus’ power manifests itself especially in action, since
    Mark does not here record what Jesus taught. Even in this first
    public challenge to the forces of evil, Mark shows how Jesus’
    power sets him in contrast—and soon into direct conflict—with
    the scribes commonly revered as religious authorities. Mark's
    point is to demonstrate that, as he says, Jesus "taught as one who
    had authority, and not as the scribes" (1:22).
    Throughout this opening chapter, Mark emphasizes that Jesus
    healed “many who were sick with various diseases” and “drove
    THE GOSPEL OF MARK AND THE JEWISH WAR / 17

    out many demons” (1:34). He traveled throughout Galilee
    “preaching in the synagogues and casting out demons,” for, as he
    explains to Simon, Andrew, James, and John, who gather around
    him, “that is what I came to do” (1:38).
    During his next public appearance, as Mark tells it, the scribes
    immediately took offense at what they considered his usurpation
    of divine authority. In this episode Jesus speaks to a crowd
    pressed together so tightly that when four men came carrying a
    paralyzed man,

    they could not get near him because of the crowd; so they
    removed the roof above him; and when they had made an
    opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay.
    And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “My
    son, your sins are forgiven” (2:4-5).

    By pronouncing forgiveness, Jesus claims the right to speak for
    God—a claim that, Mark says, angers the scribes:

    “Why does this man speak this way? It is blasphemy! Who can
    forgive sins but God alone?” (2:7).

    According to Mark, Jesus, aware of the scribes’ reaction,
    immediately performs a healing in order to prove his authority to
    his critics:

    And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus
    questioned within themselves, said, “Why do you question
    thus in your hearts? . . . But so that you may know that the Son
    of man has power on earth to forgive sins ”—he said to the
    paralytic—“I say to you, rise, take your pallet, and go home. ”
    And he rose, and immediately picked up his pallet and went
    out before them all, so that they were all astonished, . . . saying,
    “We never saw anything like this!” (2:8-12, emphasis added).

    When Jesus first appeared proclaiming “Repent: the Kingdom
    of God is at hand!,” he must have sounded to many of his
    contemporaries like one of the Essenes, who withdrew to the
    wilder-
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    ness in protest against ordinary Jewish life. From the desert caves
    where they lived in monastic seclusion, the Essenes denounced
    the priestly aristocratic leaders in charge of the Jerusalem
    Temple—men like Josephus and those he admired—as being
    hopelessly corrupted by their accommodation to Gentile ways,
    and by collaboration with the Roman occupiers. The Essenes
    took the preaching of repentance and God’s coming judgment to
    mean that Jews must separate themselves from such polluting
    influences and return to strict observance of God's law—
    especially the Sabbath and kosher laws that marked them off
    from the Gentiles as God’s holy people.25
    But if Jesus sounded like an Essene, his actions violated