Mark 14 is the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It contains the plot to kill Jesus, his anointing by a woman, the Last Supper, predictions of his betrayal, and Peter the Apostle's three denials of him. It then begins the Passion of Jesus, with the garden of Gethsemane and Judas Iscariot's betrayal and Jesus' arrest, followed by Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin and Peter's denials of Jesus.
Having 72 verses, this is the longest chapter in Mark's Gospel. The Gospel of Matthew's chapter which covers the same material, Matthew 26, has 75 verses. This chapter's material is presented somewhat differently in Luke 22, which has 71 verses. Jesus' arrest at Gethsemane, his trial, and Peter's denials are found in John 18:1-27.
Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek.
Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are: Codex Vaticanus (325-350; complete) Codex Sinaiticus (330-360; complete) Codex Bezae (~400; complete) Codex Alexandrinus (400-440; complete) Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (~450; complete)
Old Testament references
: : Psalm .
Timescale
Mark states at the beginning of this chapter that the Passover was two days away, although Lutheran pietist Johann Bengel argues in his Gnomon of the New Testament that μετὰ δυὸ ἡμέρας (meta duo hēmeras) in means "on the following day". If the Passover was on Friday (Good Friday) then the opening events "probably" happened on the Wednesday, the day celebrated by Christians as Holy Wednesday. Verse 12 moves the narrative on to on the first day of Unleavened Bread, the afternoon of the 14th Nisan, and the action continues overnight (verses 27, 30) and concludes the next morning as a rooster crows. Henry Alford notes that "chronological difficulties ... beset this part of the gospel history".
The plot to kill Jesus and his anointing in Bethany
Mark states that the chief priests were looking for a way "by craft", or "by trickery" to arrest Jesus. They determine not to do this during the feast, because they were afraid that the people would riot. Some translations emphasise the proposed subtlety or trickery in the priests' approach; others emphasise that they were looking for secrecy, to avoid popular knowledge of his arrest. Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon the Leper, who has not appeared in this gospel until now. Simon's relationship to Jesus is not explored, but they must have been friends as this appears to have been a social visit. According to the Markan narrative, Jesus is arrested on the following evening.
An unnamed woman, who has a very expensive jar of perfume, made of "pure", "expensive" or "genuine" (πιστικῆς, pistikēs) nard, or nard from some specific place, comes and breaks the alabaster jar containing the perfume and pours it on Jesus' head. Some unnamed people there become angry and say that this is a waste: the perfume could have been sold for 300 denarii and the proceeds given to the poor. Jesus, however, is pleased with her and rebukes her critics:
This story may originally have had a setting independent of the passion narrative: Luke, for example, places a similar story much earlier in Jesus' ministry, in , where a sinful woman anoints Jesus' feet during a dinner with a local Pharisee. Some writers have objected to the statement that the poor will always exist, although Jesus also says you can help them any time you want.
The anticipation of widespread audiences might mean the book was intended for wide distribution and not written solely for a single community.
This begins the final section of Mark, which probably originally ended at Mark 16:8 with the two Marys going to anoint Jesus' dead body and finding that they could not, because he had risen from the dead, an anointing by God. There is no time to anoint him when he is taken down from the cross and his body is not there for the women to anoint three days later (Mark 16:1).
Jesus foreshadows his death and this is the last anointing, an expensive one at that, that he will receive. Mark states in Mark 1:1 that his book is "the good news of Jesus the anointed one", the word Christ meaning "anointed". The woman understands Jesus' importance more than do the other people there. It is also a signal to the reader that as Jesus is being anointed for burial the plot against him will succeed. (Brown 145)