Markus 8:11
Konteks8:11 Then the Pharisees 1 came and began to argue with Jesus, asking for 2 a sign from heaven 3 to test him.
Markus 10:2
Konteks10:2 Then some Pharisees 4 came, and to test him 5 they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his 6 wife?” 7
Markus 12:15
Konteks12:15 But he saw through their hypocrisy and said 8 to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius 9 and let me look at it.”
[8:11] 1 sn See the note on Pharisees in 2:16.
[8:11] 2 tn Grk “seeking from him.” The participle ζητοῦντες (zhtountes) shows the means by which the Pharisees argued with Jesus.
[8:11] 3 sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.
[10:2] 4 tc The Western text (D it) and a few others have only καί (kai) here, rather than καὶ προσελθόντες Φαρισαῖοι (kai proselqonte" Farisaioi, here translated as “then some Pharisees came”). The longer reading, a specific identification of the subject, may have been prompted by the parallel in Matt 19:3. The fact that the
[10:2] sn See the note on Pharisees in 2:16.
[10:2] 5 tn In Greek this phrase occurs at the end of the sentence. It has been brought forward to conform to English style.
[10:2] 6 tn The personal pronoun “his” is not in the Greek text, but is certainly implied and has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the statement (cf. “his wife” in 10:7).
[10:2] 7 tn The particle εἰ (ei) is often used to introduce both indirect and direct questions. Thus, another possible translation is to take this as an indirect question: “They asked him if it were lawful for a man to divorce his wife.” See BDF §440.3.
[10:2] sn The question of the Pharisees was anything but sincere; they were asking it to test him. Jesus was now in the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas (i.e., Judea and beyond the Jordan) and it is likely that the Pharisees were hoping he might answer the question of divorce in a way similar to John the Baptist and so suffer the same fate as John, i.e., death at the hands of Herod (cf. 6:17-19). Jesus answered the question not on the basis of rabbinic custom and the debate over Deut 24:1, but rather from the account of creation and God’s original design.
[12:15] 8 tn Grk “Aware of their hypocrisy he said.”
[12:15] 9 tn Here the specific name of the coin was retained in the translation, because not all coins in circulation in Palestine at the time carried the image of Caesar. In other places δηνάριον (dhnarion) has been translated simply as “silver coin” with an explanatory note.
[12:15] sn A denarius was a silver coin stamped with the image of the emperor and worth approximately one day’s wage for a laborer.