Recently, I have been analyzing a section of Mark where several verses have Jesus discussing how a person is “defiled.” For me, this myopic translation of the Greek verb “defiled” misses the specific points that Jesus was making. This is too bad because his ideas are cleverer and more interesting that our translations indicate.
The Greek word that is translated as "defiled" is the Greek verb, koinoo (κοινόω). The verb means to “make common,” “make public,” “communicate,” and “share.” Notice that it has not one, but two main meanings, “to make common” and “to communicate.” The double meaning is important to the way Jesus uses it. It has a host of other positive uses as well, including to “undertake together,” “make common cause in,” “take counsel with,” “consult,” “agree with,” and “to be partners.” This word is only translated negatively in one place, in the New Testament of the Bible. Koinoo does not appear in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament. Jesus only used this verb in seven verses, but these verses all echo the same idea, with the three in Mark echoing the four in Matthew.
Koinoo is from the same root as the Greek adjective that means “common,” koinos (κοινός), which means “common,” “shared in common,” “public,” “ordinary,” “universal,” and so on. This is the word from which we get koine, with which we describe the type of Greek used in the Bible. It is from the Grek phrase ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, which means “the common dialect.” By making the adjective into a verb, the literal sense is “to make common” and “to make public.” This adjective appears in the Septuagint in Proverbs (see verses) where it is used to translate various ideas of sharing and speaking. It also appears in the New Testament (see verses), most frequently in Acts, where it is usually translated as “common.”
The Negative Meaning
We have to wonder where the negative meaning of “defiled” comes from when the root word means “common” and the general usage of it in the Old Testament was positive. The issue seems to have come primarily from the Pharisees, who during the time of Jesus, were enforcing various “purity” rules on the people of Judea and Galilee. The noun, pharisee, comes from the Hebrew parash (פָּרַשׁ), which means “to distinguish,” “to separate,” and later on, “to explain.” The Pharisee saw themselves as “the distinguished,” that is, as the elites, “separate” from the “common” people.
For them, the verb, koinoo, has the sense of categorizing people in the lower classes, among the “unclean.” The verb has the sense of bringing people down in society and making them unacceptable to other. This class of “commoners” has a similar feel to the way the European aristocracy used the term, which was less extreme and permanent as the idea of the Hindu, lowest class as “untouchables.” All of Jesus’s verses using this verb revolve around the question of what type of things lowers a person’s status or social standing.
For the Pharisees of the era, “common” people included all foreigners. The Judeans considered themselves as people "set apart" from other nations. The Biblical words that we translate as “holy” and “sacred” (the topic of an upcoming article) is applied to items that were “sanctified,” that is, purified in various ways, for use during the worship of the Divine.
We see this connection between the lowest classes as “common” reflected in how often the adjective, koine, is associated with the idea of “unclean.” “Unclean” is a different Greek word, akathartos (ἀκάθαρτος).For example, in Acts 10:28:
KJV: And he (Peter) said unto them, “Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation; but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.
NIV: He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.
Notice how the idea of “common” gets changed in some (but not all) modern Bibles to “impure.” The Pharisees were not the only ones pushing this idea of the lowest classes as “unclean” and immoral. Notice in this verse also how this idea of “unclean” is connected with the foreigners. This is another frequent idea throughout human history, “those filthy [insert nationality here]” is not just a modern idea but an historic one. Every tribe, even the most primitive, has had its own idea of “purity” condemning outsiders.
The Pharisees associated being “common” with not practicing various “cleanliness” traditions. One of these was eating without first washing one’s hands. While this idea is considered good hygiene today, we must remember that, throughout almost all of human history, ninety percent of the population made their living farming, literally, working in the dirt, often with manure. These people, of course, were seen as “common” by the Pharisee, who made their living in the “clean” (ha-ha!) cities, writing and practicing law.
Jesus’s Usage
The New Testament has several instances when Jesus or his followers are criticized by the Pharisees for not washing before eating. How does Jesus respond? We see an example in Mark 7:15:
NIV: Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.
Listeners Heard: Nothing exists from outside of the person entering into him that has the power to make him common. Instead, those things emerging from that person are those making the person common.
At the time, the apostles didn’t understand what he meant by this verse. Jesus isn’t too happy with their lack of awareness. In Mark 7:18, he explained to them:
NIV: Are you so dull? Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?
Listeners Heard: That is why you are also yourselves witless. Don't you observe that everything, that entering from the outside into the person, doesn't have the power to make him common?
“Everything…from the outside” covers a lot of area. It includes not only dirt and different types of food, but it also includes people’s heritage from their parents, their nationality, their culture, other people’s words, and so on. It means that people cannot be lowered by being born to humble parents, by their nationality, or anything else from outside of them.
There is also a play on words here. Since “make common” also means “make public,” this means “has the power to reveal a person.” These verses using the word “make common” are also the only verses where Jesus uses the term “from within.” How does someone reveal what is within? Jesus then goes onto clarify his teaching on what comes out of people that makes them common in Mark 7:21:
NIV: For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder,
Listeners Heard: Because from within, out of the heart of these people, the arguments, those evil ones are made to go out: immoralities, frauds, killings.
Jesus’s list of bad actions goes onto to only actions but certain attitudes that people have toward others. The central meaning of this verse is lost in the poor translation of "evil thoughts." The noun translated as "thoughts" means something more like "arguments." The adjective translated as “evil” is proceeded by an article, so the sense is "those evil ones." This is not the Greek word usually translated as “evil” in the Bible, which actually means “worthless” (see this article), but the Greek word meaning morally evil. The idea is that bad arguments about right and wrong are at the heart of our problems.
The verb translated as "come" is passive and means "are made to go out." Evil thoughts matter only to the degree they create action. The problem is when they are "made to go,” that is, when we act on them.
Conclusions
We are not made “common,” that is, lowing ourselves or bringing ourselves down, by missing certain rituals. Nor do we reveal what is inside of us by performing such rituals. We are made common or revealed by what we do: the actions we take. These arise from our beliefs, that is, from what is in our “hearts.” But what do those bad beliefs arise from? They arise from “evil arguments,” the arguments we make for doing what is wrong.
I actually used “reveal” in my earlier translations of these verses, but changed it because it was wordplay, not primarily what people heard. How does someone reveal what is within? Through their actions. So evil thoughts lead to evil action. These lower or debase a person, but they also reveal what is inside of him or her.