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the
    standard of purity that Essenes held sacred. Instead of separating
    himself from people who polluted themselves by “walking in
    the ways of the Gentiles” ( Jubilees 1:9), Jesus chose for one of his
    disciples a tax collector—a class that other Jews detested as
    profiteers who collaborated with the hated Romans. Indeed,
    Mark says, “There were many tax collectors who followed him”
    (2:15). Instead of fasting, like other devout Jews, Jesus ate and
    drank freely. And instead of scrupulously observing Sabbath
    laws, Jesus excused his disciples when they broke them:

    One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they
    made their way, his disciples began to pick ears of grain. And
    the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is
    not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you
    never read what David did, when he was in need and was
    hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the
    house of God . . . and ate the sacred bread,. . . and also gave it to
    those who were with him?” (2:23-26).

    Here Jesus dares claim, as precedent for his disciples’
    apparently casual action, the prerogative of King David himself,
    who, with his men, broke the sacred food laws during a wartime
    emergency.
    Claiming divine and royal power while simultaneously
    violating the purity laws, Jesus, at the beginning of his public
    activity,
    THE GOSPEL OF MARK AND THE JEWISH WAR / 19

    outrages virtually every party among his contemporaries, from
    the disciples of John the Baptist to the scribes and Pharisees.
    The next time Jesus entered the synagogue on a Sabbath, Mark
    says,

    a man was there who had a withered hand. And they watched
    him, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that
    they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the
    withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it
    lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or
    to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them
    with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the
    man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his
    hand was restored (3:1-5).

    Instead of postponing the healing for a day, Jesus had chosen
    deliberately to defy his critics by performing it on the Sabbath.
    Seeing this, Mark says:

    The Pharisees went out, and immediately conspired against
    him with the Herodians [the party of King Herod], how they
    might kill him (3:6).

    For Mark the secret meaning of such conflict is clear. Those
    who are offended and outraged by Jesus’ actions do not know
    that Jesus is impelled by God’s spirit to contend against the
    forces of evil, whether those forces manifest themselves in the
    invisible demonic presences who infect and possess people, or in
    his actual human opponents. When the Pharisees and Herodians
    conspire to kill Jesus, they themselves, Mark suggests, are acting
    as agents of evil. As Mark tells the story, Jesus has barely
    engaged Satan’s power before his opponents “conspired . . . how
    they might kill him” (3:6).
    Mark suggests that Jesus recognizes that the leaders who
    oppose him are energized by unseen forces. Immediately after
    this powerful coalition has united against him, Jesus retaliates by
    commissioning a new leadership group, “the twelve,” presum-
    20 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

    ably assigning one leader for each of the original twelve tribes of
    Israel. Jesus orders them to preach and gives them “power to cast
    out demons” (3:13).
    This escalation of spiritual conflict immediately evokes
    escalating opposition—opposition that begins at home, within
    Jesus’ own family. Mark says that when Jesus “went home ... his
    family . . . went out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is insane [or:
    beside himself]’ ” (3:21 ).26 Next “the scribes who came down
    from Jerusalem” charge that Jesus himself “is possessed by
    Beelzebub; by the prince of demons he casts out demons” (3:22).
    Jesus