“This Generation” from Mark to Judas: On the Hermeneutics of Intra-gospel Reception

Abstract

Although the reception of Mark has a very long tradition within New Testament studies in discussions of the Synoptic problem or the relation of the Synoptics to John, nevertheless works on reception of the Gospel beyond the New Testament are few. Further, especially for the early period, these works focus primarily on the fact of Markan reception—who knew it and accepted it—rather than its hermeneutical potential. The present essay focuses on this hermeneutical question, tracing the Markan language of “this generation” through its reception, rejection, and adaptation in Gospel literature up to the Gospel of Judas. I argue that this intra-Gospel reception reflects back on Mark itself and illuminate aspects of its interpretive possibilities. Indeed, I aim to show here that Mark’s reception is intrinsic to its possibility for meaning at all and by attending to the ways in which early texts from Matthew to Judas interpret Mark enables one to appreciate the very different ways Mark’s potential meaning is actualized. This argument demonstrates the value of uniting exegetical and diachronic description with a dialogical hermeneutical framework, facilitating mutual interpretation without simple harmonization.

The early reception of the Gospel of Mark is a difficult nut to crack. From one perspective, Mark’s reception has a very long tradition within New Testament studies in discussions of the Synoptic problem or the relation of the Synoptics to John. From another, one can count the number of monographs dedicated specifically to the reception of Mark beyond the New Testament on one hand. ¹ Further, especially for the early period, these works focus primarily on the fact of Markan reception—who knew it and accepted it—rather than its hermeneutical potential. ² This latter approach, rather, explores how Mark’s reception illuminates interpretive possibilities in the work itself. This is no doubt due partially to limits of evidence in the first few centuries: the earliest commentary on Mark is the 5th/6th-century Catena in Marcum, which mainly draws comments from previous writers on the other Gospels to interpret Mark. ³ Prior to that work, Mark’s fullest reception, and that which is almost certainly its most significant within the history of Christianity, is found in its being reworked by other Gospels. ⁴ This intra-Gospel reception, moreover, reflects back on Mark itself and illuminates aspects of its interpretive possibilities.

It is in its subsequent reworking that Mark’s interpretive quandaries, which contribute to a certain underdetermined quality in the work, receive a variety of responses. ⁵ Of course, the trend in New Testament Studies, since at least the work of F. C. Baur, has been to tease the Gospels apart, admitting the fact of one Gospel’s influence on the other (canonical) Gospels but generally refusing to let the later works assist in interpreting the earlier per se. Fears of harmonization, of a canonical or orthodox bias, of anachronism loom large. Yet, in keeping with hermeneutical insights developed in particular by Hans-Georg Gadamer, Mark’s reception—that is, its interpretation by others—is intrinsic to its possibility for meaning at all. That is to say, the ‘meaning’ of Mark can emerge only in the context of a particular, dialogical relationship with a reader. ⁶ Before or apart from such an encounter the work has, at best, potential meaning and the appearance of any given work as an object to be interpreted comprises textual resources by means of which a reader can come to an understanding with it. This process of meaning-making relies not on harmonization but on the productive distance between dialogue partners, the interpreter and the interpreted, which is the very space in which the encounter takes place. ⁷

In order to make this rather large point clearer and more manageable, the present argument focuses on an important Markan motif whose fate can also be traced across later Gospel writings: Mark’s appeal to ‘this generation’ and related generational language. This language is not only a distinctive feature of Mark’s Gospel but that work is also the earliest extant Christian text to thematize generational language as such. ⁸ Moreover, while the significance of Mark’s phrase ‘this generation’ (ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη; Mk 8.12; 13.30) may appear obvious at first glance, it quickly becomes a puzzle upon closer examination. Gaps that appear on close attention provide opportunities for such language to develop in various ways in the Gospels that follow. ⁹ While Matthew and Luke, we shall see, principally use a historiographical frame to give meaning to the generation language, this is not the only interpretive possibility. Indeed, other Gospels appear to reject the significance of (biological) succession entirely, focusing instead on one’s spiritual descent and ridding themselves of γενεά terminology even while drawing on passages central for Mark’s use of generational language. Finally, in the Gospel of Judas, these divergent approaches to Mark’s generational language converge, with perhaps unexpected results. Working through these different iterations, then, will reflect back on the interpretive possibilities of Mark’s own ‘generation’ language. ¹⁰

Generation: What’s in a Name?

Before jumping into the exegetical discussions that take up the bulk of this argument, it is helpful to clarify briefly what is at stake in this discussion of generational language. The term ‘generation’—in English as in Greek γενεά or Hebrew דור‎—is etymologically and conceptually related to biological and familial descent. ¹¹ It is, in all cases, easily generalized for use denoting chronological succession of roughly contemporaneous groups of people, even where there is no biological or genealogical link binding the group together. In this mode, the term ‘generation’ is commonly deployed within a historiographical framework to speak of contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. ¹² As Paul Ricoeur outlines, a generalised framework of generational succession has long functioned within western philosophies of history as that which both establishes continuity in history and acts as a bridge between the particular event and ‘universal’ history. ¹³ This generational logic—as a generalisation of biological processes of decent into a chronological category—tends to carry with it certain historiographical-genealogical freight in which the succession of generations are interrelated. Even when used metaphorically, a generational logic implies both that what follows grows out of what precedes and that what precedes has an ongoing effect in shaping what follows. And yet, such generations are not simply given; they are constructed. Generational language retrospectively groups peoples and articulates (or implies) teleologies for those encompassed, operating with a ‘subtle interplay of memory and history’. ¹⁴ As such, generational terminology commonly implicates a past, future, and intervening present within a broad historiographical-genealogical framework.

This somewhat vague theoretical discussion is easily clarified with reference to common use of the Greek term γενεά. The historiographical-genealogical sense of γενεά is common in the Greek Jewish scriptures as a translation for דור‎. In this context, for example, γενεά/דור‎ can refer in a generalized way to the totality of humans contemporaneous with Noah (Gen. 6.9, “his generation”; 7.1, “this generation”) or, later in the same story, as a reference to subsequent generational succession (9.12). ¹⁵ The latter appeal to successive generations is particularly common in references to God’s gracious oversight of successive Israelite generations, from the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 17.17) onwards. ¹⁶ In these cases, while undertones of biological genealogy can be present, the chronological aspect of the term is regularly at the fore. That is to say, here the term signifies the passage of time while simultaneously indicating a certain continuity between past, present, and future: past generations shaping present practice, which is to be followed in the future, “through your generations as a perpetual ordinance’, in the words of Ex. 12.14, 17. Predecessors, contemporaries, and successors are all implied in this use of generational language.

Around the same time Mark was written, Plutarch produced his dialogue ‘On the Decline of Oracles’ (De defectu oraculorum). Early on in this work, the discussion turns to a discussion of δαίμονες, their place between humans and gods, and their end. Here Plutarch introduces a passage from Hesiod, who provides a lifespan for nymphs (who number among the daimones) in relation to generations of other creatures: the cawing crow lives nine generations (ἐννέα…γενεάς) of ‘men in their prime’ while the stag lives four generations of the crow, the raven three generations of the stag, the phoenix nine of the raven, and the nymph ten of the phoenix. ¹⁷ A debate ensues about the precise definition of γενεά, with one interlocutor arguing for a single year and others arguing that it refers to the span of humans between puberty and old age, or simply to the time of old age. ¹⁸ Nevertheless, in due course they reach an agreement that, on the usual understanding, ‘Hesiod says “generation”, meaning a human life’. ¹⁹ In the broader context of the discussion, further, the chronological significance of γενεά is embedded in a discussion in which generational succession relates to a certain generational decline. ²⁰ Each chronologically contemporaneous group, each generation, then, has a particular character that can be articulated and emplotted within a broader historiographical narrative (here, one of decline).

To take one final example, in the works of Philo of Alexandria the full gamut of possible uses of γενεά is present. In the first place, Philo shares with Plutarch (among others) a narrative of decline in which later generations fall short of earlier ones (e.g., Opif. 140–141). ²¹ This generalized historiographical sense refers then to succession and also, by implication, contemporaneity. ²² On the other hand, he can use the term γενεά to refer simply to one’s progeny (another term etymologically related to ‘generation’ and ‘genealogy’ in English, which is fitting; Sacr. 112; Det. 121) and to a category of people without reference to generational succession or contemporaneity (the θήλυς γενεά who are identified by their association with τὰ γυναικῶν, Ebr. 61). ²³

The term ‘generation’ (γενεά), then, is commonly used in a generalized sense, as a chronological category that marks out time by reference to succession and contemporaneity but in a way unrestricted to biological descent. Its use in reference to progeny and the necessary genealogical implications of generational succession, nevertheless, illuminates the ongoing relationship with terms such as γένος—both etymologically and conceptually—despite its potentially abstracted chronological sense, which appears to predominate in normal use. ²⁴ When we turn below to examine references to ‘this generation’, then, the goal is to determine what kind of generation is at stake in Mark and how subsequent re-writers appropriate, co-opt, interpret or otherwise transform the Markan theme.

‘This Generation’ in Mark

The term γενεά is used in four passages in Mark (8.12, 38; 9.19; 13.30), while other uses of generational language are sparse in the gospel. ²⁵ In broad strokes, ‘this generation’ in Mark is characterized in negative terms, though there is difficulty in identifying exactly what the referent for ‘this generation’ is supposed to be.

The first instance of γενεά language in Mark occurs when Pharisees come to question Jesus and ask for a ‘sign from heaven, testing him’ (8.10–11). Rather than assenting to their request or redirecting their expectations, Jesus simply refuses, asking rhetorically ‘why does this generation seek a sign?’ He then states categorically, ‘Truly I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation’ (8.12). Amidst a gospel which details numerous challenges to Jesus’s identity, this comment appears to imply that the Pharisee-interlocutors are part of, or stand for, a larger group who seek a sign. This suggests prima facie that the comment is a critical reference to Jesus’s chronological contemporaries. ²⁶ On the other hand, this straightforward historiographical interpretation begins to be unsettled already by the beginning of the next chapter. ²⁷

Later in Mk 8, when Jesus calls a crowd together to speak about the cost of following him, he frames this with a strong distinction between gaining the ‘whole world’ (ὅλος κόσμος) and losing one’s life (vv. 34–37). This binary framing carries through v. 38 in which he places ‘this adulterous and sinful generation’ in opposition to the time ‘when [the son of man] comes in the glory of this father with the holy angels’. ²⁸ As part of a discourse on discipleship, this negatively characterized ‘generation’ is positioned as the context in which the disciples currently (and will continue to) work. The implication of chronological contemporaneity appears to be reinforced immediately in 9.1, when Jesus states that ‘some of those’ standing with him ‘will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God having come in power’. And yet, at the same time, a two-fold uncertainty is injected: the chronological contemporaneity of ‘this generation’ is unsettled by (1) the limitation of this prediction to ‘some’ of those standing with Jesus and (2) the phrase ‘taste death’, an extremely rare collocation in Greek literature prior to Mark’s Gospel. ²⁹ How, then, do the strong eschatological resonances, the restricted referent of ‘some’, and the coming of the Kingdom work together with this unusual phrase? Some interpreters resolve these uncertainties by noting the close link with the transfiguration in 9.2–8: ‘some’ is Peter, James, and John; ³⁰ the Kingdom come is seen in Jesus’ glorification; and ‘taste death’ refers to the physical death of those apostles. ³¹ Others, however, take the phrase ‘shall not taste death’ to refer to the possibility of avoiding the presumed negative experience associated with one’s physical death. ³² In either case, a tight link between the prediction in 9.1 and Jesus’s or the disciples’ chronologically contemporary γενεά becomes unclear. It still appears to refer to a group of contemporaries but not all of them and so its chronological limits, particularly its link to the future (i.e. its eschatological significance), remain opaque.

Shortly after this, following the transfiguration, ‘this generation’ is again characterized, now as ‘faithless’ (ἄπιστος; 9.19). Here, the inability of his disciples to cast a demon from a boy occasions Jesus’s lament about the time he has left among the γενεὰ ἄπιστος. Despite his criticism of the ‘faithless generation’, however, Jesus later admits that such spirits cannot be driven out except by prayer (9.29). The correlation here between the disciples’ inability to work wonders and their lack of faith recalls Jesus’s earlier inability ‘to perform any wonder’ in his homeland that is characterized by ἀπιστία (6.5–6). At the same time, the link established between power, faith, and prayer resonates with the later discussion of the withered fig tree (11.20–24). There, Jesus tells his disciples that ‘whatever [they] ask in prayer’, if they believe, they will receive it. What is particularly striking about these two resonances is that in Mk 9.19 Jesus appears to include his disciples among the ‘faithless generation’, ³³ while in 11.20–24 his disciples are cast as those who can expect such wonders that are not available to the ‘faithless generation’. Here again, what at first appears to be a clear reference to chronological contemporaneity, in light of Jesus’s evidently limited presence among the faithless ‘generation’, becomes obscure upon a closer look.

The final reference to ‘this generation’ in Mark occurs in the eschatological discourse, when the disciples (and, through them, the reader who is directly addressed in Mk 13.14) are told that ‘this generation will not pass away’ before ‘all these things have taken place’ (13.30). The significance of his appeal to ‘this generation’ is tied to the scope of the phrase ‘all these things’, which is difficult to determine; it would appear to include at least the events beginning with the appearance of the ‘abomination of desolation’ in 13.14, if not also the upheaval described earlier in vv. 5–8. ³⁴ What is more significant here, however, is that the generation in view witnesses a number of signs from heaven (to borrow language from 8.11–12): the sun and moon will become dark, the stars will fall from heaven, ‘the powers in the heavens’ (αἱ δυνάμεις αἱ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς) will be shaken, and ‘the Son of Man will come on the clouds with great power and glory’ (13.24–26). ³⁵ While these events are not referred to specifically as σημεῖα in Mk 13, they otherwise behave as signs insofar as the fig-tree parable in 13.28–29 imbues the events with semiotic weight (they point to something other than themselves). These positive signs thus stand in contrast with the signs of the false prophets in 13.22 and finally give a round-about answer to the question posed by the disciples in 13.4, ‘what will be the sign [τὸ σημεῖον] that all these things are about to take place?’ ³⁶

The account in Mk 13 of what ‘this generation’ will see stands in notable tension with Jesus’s declaration in 8.12 that ‘this generation’ absolutely will not be given any sign. Who then are those that are the subject of the verb ὄψονται in 13.26? Some argue that the parallel citation of Dan. 7.13 in Mk 14.62 clarifies that it refers to opponents of Jesus and his ministry, variously delineated. ³⁷ This reading fits well within the negative portrayal of ‘this generation’ in 8.12 (noted earlier) and heightens the evident tension: those who oppose Jesus evidently constitute the ‘generation’ who both will not be given a sign and who also will witness these eschatological signs. ³⁸ The immediate syntactical context, however, suggests a further possibility in which the subject of ὄψονται is the powers in heaven (perhaps including the sun, moon, and stars). ³⁹ If the powers see the Son of Man’s arrival and are shaken, then this opens the possibility that the passing away (παρέρχομαι) of heaven and earth mentioned in 13.31, beyond functioning as an emphatic declaration of veracity, is also coextensive with the cosmic upheaval of 13.24–25. The ‘generation’ which will not pass away, on this reading, is closely associated with the ‘powers’, though the nature of the relation is unclear. ⁴⁰ Even so, the tension between 13.30 and 8.12 would stand: a generation without any sign is witness to multiple cosmic signs and the return of the Son of Man himself.

The generational ‘logic’ in the Gospel of Mark, then, is quickly complicated in the course of the narrative. A phrase that initially appears to participate in a common chronological sense of succession and contemporaneity, ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη, is situated throughout Mark in the midst of tensions. ⁴¹ ‘This generation’, which may include the disciples, is faithless and cannot perform wonders, though the disciples can also expect great success in that area through a combination of faith and prayer. ‘This generation’ demands a sign from heaven and none shall be given, apart from all the signs from heaven that this generation will witness at the coming of the Son of Man. Chronological limits for ‘this generation’ and, therefore, its referent for the reader remain unclear. It is an apparently malleable category which can include Jesus’s opponents, his disciples, and others who are evidently around after Jesus has left (cf. 2.20) and with an unknown relation to the time of the disciples. ⁴² In fact, even only some of the disciples will not ‘taste death’ before they see the Kingdom already come in power. There is no clear logic of succession, a lack of clear contemporaneity and, ultimately, a puzzle that is picked up and developed by later Gospel writers, building on Mark’s foundation.

‘This Generation’ in Matthew and Luke

In their rewriting of Mark, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke pick up their predecessor’s generational motif. In the process, and in line with their standard modus operandi, they attempt to clarify certain aspects of Mark’s presentation. In broad strokes, both writers appropriate Mark’s generational language within an historiographical framework of genealogical succession, reworking each of Mark’s passages in which ‘this generation’’ is thematized. Rather than giving a detailed exegetical account of each passage where generational language is found, I will focus principally on the ways they diverge from their source and open up new interpretive possibilities.

In the first place, while Mark begins by throwing the reader in medias res, Matthew begins by recounting the generations from Abraham to Jesus (Mt. 1.1–17), ⁴³ locating the narrative structure he appropriated from Mark within the generational-genealogical scope of Israel’s history. This provides an initial historiographical frame for later references to ‘this generation’. ⁴⁴ In the case of Luke, there is a clear and well-known emphasis on situating the narrative within an historiographical frame, ⁴⁵ and the first instance of ‘generational’ terminology in Luke is linked closely with a sense of generational succession in a way reminiscent of the use of γενεά/דור‎ in Jewish scriptures. ‘From now’, Mary states, ‘all generations shall call me blessed’ (1.48) and God’s ‘mercy [extends] to generation upon generation [εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεὰς] … just as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever’ (1.50, 55) ⁴⁶ . In both gospels, then, past successive generations are in view, extending in a genealogical line from Abraham, as well as future successive generations in Luke.

The first passage in Mark dealing with ‘this generation’ (Mk 8.12) is reworked by Matthew and Luke, both of whom preserve his condemnation of the wicked (and adulterous) generation who oppose Jesus (Mt. 12.39; 16.4/Lk. 11.29). ⁴⁷ In notable contrast with Mark, however, this Matthean and Lukan wicked generation will receive a sign: namely, his death and resurrection as the ‘sign of Jonah’. ⁴⁸ Likewise, Matthew and Luke preserve Mark’s criticism of the ‘faithless generation’ (Mk 9.19; Mt. 17.17/Lk. 9.41). The Matthean version goes further in clarifying Mark’s ambiguity: for Matthew, the disciples do not share in ἀπιστία per se, at least to the extent that their ‘little faith’ (ὀλιγοπιστία; Mt. 17.20) indicates that they already have some faith. The negative characterization of ‘this generation’ is expanded by both writers elsewhere by the inclusion of the pericope in which Jesus characterizes ‘this generation’—who are satisfied with neither John the Baptist nor Jesus—as petulant children, determined to be unhappy no matter one’s behaviour (Mt. 11.16/Lk. 7.31–32). ⁴⁹ Luke’s Jesus further states that the Son of Man ‘must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation’ (Lk. 17.25). In all these cases, there is a strong sense that γενεά refers to the chronological contemporaries of Jesus, those available to oppose him, to persecute John the Baptist, and to exhaust his patience in exorcisms. ⁵⁰ His opponents, moreover, are identified by both Matthew and Luke as the genealogical descendants of earlier Israelites who persecuted and killed the prophets (Mt. 23.29–31/Lk. 11.47–48). The Matthean and Lukan Jesus declares that his opponents’ ‘fathers’’ misdeeds, extending from the blood of Abel to that of Zechariah, will be brought to bear against ‘this generation’ (Mt. 23.35–36/Lk. 11.50–51). They are, for Matthew and Luke, a generation to be condemned by the Ninevites in the ‘judgment’ for their lack of repentance (Mt. 12.41/Lk. 11.32). ⁵¹ Here, the generational logic of succession and contemporaneity is in clear effect, if put to very different use than in Mary’s song in Lk. 1. ⁵²

Leading into the main eschatological discourse in both Matthew ⁵³ and Luke, their prior historiographical, genealogical framing of generational language lays the ground for the Markan tension to emerge in relation to what signs ‘this generation’ will see. ⁵⁴ In Mt. 24.34, the disciples (and readers) are informed that ‘this generation’ will not pass away until ‘all these things’—which include a darkening sun, falling stars and ‘the sign of the Son of Man’ appearing in heaven—take place. The σημεῖον … ἐν οὐρανῷ will be witnessed by ‘all the tribes of the earth’ when the Son of Man comes with the clouds, sends out his angels, and gathers the elect (24.30–31), which indicates that ‘this generation’ entails a large-scale view of a chronologically contemporaneous people, perhaps including some disciples as well (16.28). ⁵⁵ The ‘generation’ criticized in 12.39, 41, however, was to receive only the ‘sign of Jonah’, which is hard to identify with the sign of the Son of Man ‘in heaven’. ⁵⁶ Like Mark’s ‘generation’ that both receives no sign and yet witnesses what look like heavenly signs, Matthew’s ‘generation’ receives explicitly only the sign of Jonah and yet also the heavenly sign of the Son of Man. This serves to underline the tension between the straightforward historiographical reframing of Mark’s generational language in the majority of Matthew, and the variation of apocalyptic (i.e. related to heavenly signs) and eschatological expectations across different references to ‘this generation’. ⁵⁷

All these observations apply similarly to Luke: the eschatological references to ‘this generation’ function within the work’s broader historiographical frame, infused with apocalyptic themes. ⁵⁸ The endurance of ‘this generation’ until ‘all these things’ take place (Lk. 21.32) retains the Markan tension between the ‘wicked generation’ who receive the sign of Jonah and the ‘generation’ who will, in Luke, see ‘signs in the sun and moon and stars’ (Lk. 21.25–26). ⁵⁹ From this perspective, and known tension notwithstanding, it appears that ‘generations’ are simply an historiographical category for Luke, following the logic of genealogical succession. ⁶⁰

And yet, there are other threads in the Lukan narrative that unsettle such a view. In the first place, it is notable that the very passage that underscores the sense of eschatological urgency related to ‘this generation’ in Mk 8.38–9.1 is given a different form by Luke. In Lk. 9.27, generational language is lacking from Jesus’s promise that some standing around him will not taste death ⁶¹ and they are not promised that they will see the kingdom ‘having come in power’ (τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐληλυθυῖαν ἐν δυνάμει; Mk 9.1): some of them will simply see ‘the kingdom of God’, with no location noted. Indeed, elsewhere in Luke, the kingdom of God is declared to be already present in some sense. ⁶² The presence of the Kingdom of God on earth in Luke fits with a very different possibility for generational language in Lk. 16. In the parable of the unjust steward, generational language occurs in tandem with references to the ‘children of this age’ and ‘children of light’. Luke’s Jesus states that the ‘children of this age’ are wiser than are the ‘children of light’ in relation to their own γενεά (Lk. 16.8). Within Luke’s previous historiographical use of generation language, it is possible that both the ‘children of this age’ and the ‘children of light’ are part of the same chronological ‘generation’. ⁶³ That reading, however, presumes the that phrase ‘their own generation’ is equivalent to ‘this generation’ elsewhere in Luke and therefore does not grapple with the emphatic ἑαυτῶν in 16.8. Importantly, the phrase ‘the children of this age’ occurs one other time in Luke, where they are contrasted with another group who are ‘deemed worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead’ (20.34–35). Here, οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου are defined not by their chronology but rather by their marriage practices, since those deemed worthy to attain ‘age to come’ (cf. 18.30) still live in this age. ⁶⁴ Turning back to Lk. 16.8–9, we are able to appreciate the emphatic ἑαυτῶν in the phrase ‘their own generation’ as referring to the ‘children of this age’ collectively. That is to say, on this reading, just as the ‘children of this age’ have their own generation, so also do the ‘children of light’. ⁶⁵ As noted in the contrast drawn in 20.34–35, here also the children of this age and the children of light are chronological contemporaries and yet here it is indicated that they inhabit different ‘generations’. At this point, Luke’s historiographical use of generational language breaks down and a different sense comes clearly to the fore: ‘generations’ delineating a group by means of certain shared characteristics other than contemporaneity. ⁶⁶ As an effect radiating out from this point in the narrative, and bolstered by the sign-related tension emerging in Lk. 21, the identity of ‘this generation’ in Luke is permanently unsettled, despite the historiographical framing of Luke’s entire narrative. The generation by whom Jesus is rejected (17.25), the ‘generation’ who will see the cosmic signs (21.32), the faithless (9.41), and the wicked generation (11.29) may or may not overlap to any particular extent, and already within the chronological element of succession and contemporaneity the author alludes to the presence of another set of distinguishing characteristics.

The generational language in both Matthew and Luke, therefore, develops the material inherited from Mark and largely in consonant, historiographically oriented ways. Both works situate ‘this generation’ amidst a succession of generations through history, which Mary’s song in Lk. 1 projects into the future as well. And yet, the Markan ambiguity around the identity of ‘this generation’ and what signs will be available to them remains in each of these Synoptic successors. Moreover, Luke’s parable of the unjust steward opens up another interpretive possibility in which one’s ‘generation’ is not defined by mere chronological circumstances. This is most fully realized in the Gospel of Judas, though before turning there it will be helpful to consider Gospels that refuse any significance to a generational logic of succession and contemporaneity and, indeed, avoid the language of γενεά altogether.

Gospels without ‘This Generation’?

Of the extant Gospels that are more than mere fragments, several are entirely devoid of any reference to ‘this generation’. ⁶⁷ Among these, the Gospel of John is particularly notable, not only for its ongoing influence, but for its evident knowledge (and rejection) of Mark’s generational language. ⁶⁸ For those reasons, and for constraints of space, we will focus on John here, and leave comments about other gospels to the notes.

In Mk 8.38–9.1, we saw above, the identity and characterization of ‘this generation’ is linked in some way to the ability of ‘some’ standing around Jesus to see the Kingdom of God established. The relative temporality of the phrase is suggested—though hardly explained—by the statement ‘some of those standing here will not taste death’ until they witness this establishment. It is the occurrence of the rare phrase ‘taste death’ in Jn 8.52 that indicates the debt of the Johannine writer to the Markan material. ⁶⁹ Yet, in the immediate context of Jn 8, the author has Jesus utterly reject his interlocutors’ connection between salvation and genealogical descent. ⁷⁰ In contrast with Matthew and Luke, both of whom situate the person of Jesus in relation to the successive generations of Israel, John never affirms such a view. Instead of being enmeshed in that generational network, he claims not to be ‘from the world’ (Jn 8.23), and that ‘before Abraham was, I am’ (8.58). Although Jesus admits that his Jewish interlocutors are descendants of Abraham, in a biological sense (‘your father Abraham’; v. 56), Jesus denies that this carries any significance for them in relation to himself, because the defining factor of being Abraham’s ‘seed’ is acting like him—by joyfully accepting Jesus (8.39–40, 56). ⁷¹ It is their actions, Jesus argues, that indicate their true father, the devil, while his true father is God (8.41–44). In other words, neither chronological contemporaneity nor biological succession matter for purposes of either salvation or rejection.

In fact, John already signals in the prologue this thorough rejection of any appeal to generations akin to that in the Synoptics: a certain kind of ‘genealogical’ descent matters, but it is divine not human (Jn 1.13). Similarly, in his engagement with Nicodemus, Jesus repeatedly affirms the need for a person to be born ‘from above’ (ἄνωθεν), which is also to be born ‘from the Spirit’ (3.3–8). Jesus himself has ‘descended from heaven’ (3.13; 1.9–10, 14) because he is not from this world (8.23; 18.37). Moreover, when his disciples question Jesus about a blind man, Jesus rejects the possibility that the moral standing of his parents plays any role in the man’s blindness (9.2–3). For John, then, any historiographical appeal to ‘this generation’ is not relevant: historical and biological generations come and go—Abraham and the prophets in 8.52–53—and Jesus has ‘other sheep’ than those around him in the Gospel (Jn 10.16). But it is those who ‘keep his word’ that will not ‘see’ or ‘taste death’ (8.51–52), who have the ability to become children of God (1.12). ⁷² In short, the allusive possibility of non-chronological generational language suggested by our reading of Lk. 16.8 is offered some clarity by John’s emphasis on spiritual parentage, though John itself does not speak of ‘generations’. To bridge that gap, we turn finally to the Gospel of Judas.

Judas and This ‘Great Generation’

From the beginning, the Gospel of Judas situates itself within a narrative frame familiar from the already circulating gospel works, with a particular affinity to Mark. ⁷³ The work presents itself as a record of the ‘secret discourse’ which Jesus spoke to Judas ‘during eight days before the three days before he kept Passover’ (Gos. Jud. 33.1–6) and it ends by leading the reader back into the familiar Gospel narratives, with Judas’s betrayal of Jesus for money. ⁷⁴ What becomes immediately clear, however, is that the Gospel of Judas is attempting to impart new semiotic value to this familiar story within its particular cosmological framework. Generational terminology (ⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ), shared with the Synoptic traditions, likewise features in this project of re-signification.

The theme of different ‘generations’ (ⲛⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ) arises in the first scene of the Gospel, in which Jesus laughs at the disciples for their celebration of the eucharist (Gos. Jud. 33.22–34.1). When they ask Jesus why he is laughing, he tells them that he is not laughing at them but rather (it is suggested) at the fact that they think they are worshiping god, the father of Jesus, when in fact they are only bringing praise to their god (34.6–11). Jesus declares that, in fact, ‘no generation of people among you’ know him (34.16–18) and that their god is fundamentally different from his (34.24–35.1). When Judas approaches Jesus for his special teaching, he asks for information about when the ‘great day of light’ will dawn on a generation, the holy, great, and strong generation (36.5–9, 16, 20, 26). This ⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ, we find out, is explicitly not present with the disciples; when Jesus returns after disappearing from Judas, he explains that he had gone to ‘another great and holy generation’ (36.16–17). It is exalted above the disciples and not situated within these cosmic realms (ⲛⲉⲓ̈ⲁⲓⲱⲛ; 36.19–21). The distinction between those born in this cosmic realm and the great generation is such that the former shall never even see the latter, much less be able to join their ranks (37.1–8). Later comments by Jesus suggest that each different cosmic realm (ⲁⲓⲱⲛ) in fact has its own ⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ (50.18–26). Moreover, the great generation is not ruled by ‘any angelic army of the stars’ (37.4–6). The link established in this early discussion between distinct cosmic realms, angelic rulers, and astral determinism is one that runs through much of the Gospel of Judas and deeply shapes the presentation of this ‘great generation’. ⁷⁵

Within Judas, the stars are identified with angels who control this and other cosmic realms—they ‘bring everything to completion’ (Gos. Jud. 40.17–18)—and who are identified as ‘enemies’ (42.16) that deceive Judas and the other disciples into horrific and immoral acts of sacrifice. Each disciple has their own star, ruling over them, deceiving them, determining their course in life, ensuring they never attain the ‘great generation’ (42.7–8). In the course of the developing ‘secret’ discourse we hear that Jesus was not even sent to Judas and those like him, those in the ‘corruptible generation’, but to the ‘incorruptible generation’ who are unmoved by astral rulers (42.15–22). If their bodies may die, their souls will live on and ascend to a higher place (43.16–20). Judas too, who receives this revelation from Jesus, cannot ascend to the holy generation, which is something even angelic generations have not seen (46.11–25; 47.1–8). Instead he is angered by his exclusion, thanks to the influence of his star, turns away from Jesus, and betrays him. ⁷⁶ The imperishable generation of Seth, also called the ‘great generation of Adam’ (49.5–16; 57.11–12), stands free from such astral interference, free from angelic rulers, free from the death of their souls, ready to be lifted back up to the cosmic cloud of light where Seth resides and from whence they came.

Generation (ⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ) for Judas, then, does not refer to a logic of chronological succession or contemporaneity but rather to groups differentiated by their cosmological origin. Those born of this corrupt and perishable ⲁⲓⲱⲛ cannot change that fact, any more than those of the imperishable generation could perish. From this perspective, ⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ means something like the term ⲅⲉⲛⲟⲥ (that occurs once in relation to the corruptible generation; 44.3), which provides some justification to the tendency to translate it as ‘race’. ⁷⁷ The difficulty is that while ⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ does resist a strictly chronological interpretation, it also resists any biological-genealogical interpretation. In a way analogous to the interpretation of Jn 8 above, the relevant matter is one’s cosmological origin, which will have a bearing on one’s actions. For the Gospel of Judas, again, that means that one is free from astral deception. Unlike the Johannine reformulation of this Markan theme, though, Judas fully incorporates the generational language that was put into textualized Gospel circulation in the first instance by Mark. Insofar as Judas’s re-signification of such circulating Gospel accounts constitutes an interpretation of Markan (and other gospel) material, then, it represents a radical departure from the main lines of the Matthean and Lukan accounts. Even so, we noted above that Mark’s own generational language was underdetermined, and open to both genealogical and characteristic-based distinctions. The co-presence in Lk. 16 of different generations further indicates a certain ongoing plasticity in the terminology. Further, taken together with John’s rejection of Mark’s generational language in favour of spiritual parentage, the particular cosmic-generational account in the Gospel of Judas emerges as an intelligible interpretive strategy. Looking back at Mk 13 from the Gospel of Judas, the possibility that it is the heavenly powers that see the Son of Man’s arrival is given a particular shape: the erring stars that rule the condemned cosmic generations are themselves due for destruction in the chain of events set off when Judas betrays Jesus (Gos. Jud. 54.17–18). ⁷⁸ Mark’s wicked and adulterous generation has become the corruptible generation, cosmologically separated from Jesus. Both of these ‘generations’ are ‘faithless’ in their own way.

Iteration and Gospel Reception

Having now traced Mark’s generational language through its intra-gospel reception up to the Gospel of Judas, we are able to see that a range of interpretive possibilities were actualized by subsequent writers. Matthew and Luke opted principally for a historiographical-genealogical framing for their iteration of Mark’s generational motif, though this trajectory retained certain tensions suggested by Mark own narrative. ‘This generation’ in the Synoptic Gospels both sees and does not see certain signs: from no sign or the sign of Jonah to the sign of the Son of Man and signs among the heavenly bodies. For Luke, moreover, the clarity of his generational logic of succession is further unsettled by the possibility of multiple distinct yet chronologically contemporaneous generations in the parable of the unjust steward (Lk. 16.1–8). John, on the other hand, rejects Mark’s generational language, refusing any significance to the kind of historiographical-genealogical succession developed by Matthew and Luke. ⁷⁹ In its place is an emphasis on spiritual parentage irrespective of genealogical succession or chronological location. For Judas, the ‘generation’ that includes the disciples and their aeonic cohabiters are destined for judgment, cut off from the ‘great generation’ in the heavenly realm. Placed immediately alongside an historiographical reading of ‘generational’ language in Mark, this is liable to appear as a bizarre development. In light of the space opened by Luke’s parable of the unjust steward and John’s emphasis on spiritual parentage and Jesus’s extra-cosmic origins, however, Judas’ generational language can be seen to grow out of interpretive possibilities latent in Mark, in particular the potential to link heavenly powers with the generation under judgement in Mk 13. This, then, is the dynamic of intra-Gospel reception sketched at the start of the present argument. While reception is composed of interpretive iterations of Markan resources in new contexts, in return interpretive potential in Mark itself is illuminated. From this perspective, the illumination of Mark by way of later Gospels requires not harmonization but rather both an acknowledgement of difference—from Mark and from one another—and a recognition of the interpretive cross-fertilization that this difference facilitates. ⁸⁰

To close, it will be helpful to differentiate briefly this account from other available and related reception paradigms. The first and most common approach to reception works on a ‘rewriting’ or ‘relecture’ model, as in the recent collection on John’s transformation of Mark. ⁸¹ Jean Zumstein (2021), for instance, appeals to Genette’s concept of hypertextuality to articulate a complex relationship between Mark and John without needing the latter to explicitly refer to or substantially cite the former. ⁸² While this model can, in principle, be applied to (now) non-canonical Gospels, the path of interpretive illumination is unidirectional: hypertextuality and other forms of ‘rewriting’ allow us to appreciate the theological fecundity of a later text (John) without clearly affecting one’s understanding of the source (Mark). Within a more comprehensive argument about Gospel origins, Francis Watson (2013) has put forward an account of Gospel writing and reception in which unfettered productivity and broad oral and literary cross-fertilization gave way to the emergence of the ‘fourfold gospel’, which then became a new object of interpretation with ‘limitless semantic possibilities’. ⁸³ In this case, although one can imagine a bi-directional hermeneutical pay-off for Gospel reception within Watson’s framing, in practice scholars working on this model primarily appeal to (now) non-canonical Gospels as de facto witnesses to early Christian diversity which mainly serve to contextualize the (now) canonical Gospels. ⁸⁴ On the other hand, Markus Bockmuehl 2017 has argued that, as receptions of Gospel traditions, the (now) non-canonical Gospels offer ‘para-canonical’ perspectives that draw our attention to small and/or overlooked details in the four canonical Gospels. ⁸⁵ This is grounded in the premise that these later works are ‘epiphenomenal and supplementary’ to the canonical Gospel tradition, in conscious distinction from Watson’s position. ⁸⁶ The iterative reception framework advanced here, however, offers a different way of mapping the hermeneutical value of reception. First, reception as iteration does not follow a single direction of interpretive illumination: later texts reflect back upon the earlier to draw out genuine meaning potential. Second, the hermeneutical fact of (theoretically) limitless interpretive possibility is explicitly extended beyond the fourfold Gospel to the interrelationship of any Gospel texts in reception. ⁸⁷ This leads to the third point of differentiation: the present approach accommodates the wide range of Gospel works without any reference to the canonical status of the works in question.

On its own, Mark’s meaning is like the potential energy of a rock at the top of a hill: latent, only released once the Gospel is pushed down the interpretive slope. And in that descent, there are many possible itineraries. For the earliest period of Mark’s reception in view here, these are accessible to us only by way of other Gospels—whether they are now canonical or not—that appropriated it in a wide variety of ways, illuminating the multifaceted possibilities for meaning of Mark itself.