On Mark 14:61

Jesus uses the term anointed or Christ in Mark: 12:35-37 and the parallels, but he negates the meaning of it as a king of the Davidic line. The only meaning left is an anointed High Priest, and this can only be the second and greater Moses. This is the concept behind the term Chrestos. He also accepts the title from Peter, but without specifying what it means. As Peter adds “the Son of the Living God”, I suppose this is the specification. I think I can prove this term refers to Deuteronomy 23, which means the concept of a new revelation is implicit, which means the term Christ means the new and greater Moses, the anointed High Priest. I have already said this must have been what the Samaritan woman meant. All other instances of the use of the term being addressed to Jesus are accompanied by Jesus’s direct or indirect rejection of it. A doubtful case is Mark 14:61. The correct meaning is implied by the words “the son of the Blessed”. A good case could be made for the word “Anointed” not having originally been present, since it is left out by several reliable MSS, and would more easily be inserted than removed. My conclusion is that the word “Christ” could have been in the title of the original Gospel, with the meaning implicit in Mark 12, but that it was probably not there, because if it had been there, it wouldn’t have been removed. The title of the Diatessaron in MS. B resembles the short reading in Mark 14:61.

The anointed one in Daniel is said to be an anointed leader, נגיד משיח . This is the status Jesus explicitly rejected in Mark 12:35-37 and the parallels. What Jesus implicitly claims for himself there is quite different. The early Christian commentators were right in saying the figure in Daniel can’t be Jesus, not only from the chronology, but also fron the use of the term Nagid in Daniel, which belongs to a status rejected by Jesus. Calvin missed the point. I thin people get hypnotised when they see this word משיח because they forget what it means. The condescending tone of Calvin and others is annoying. It is these commentators that are ignorant, not pseudo-Nachmanides or Rashi.