Warning About Leavened Bread

How to cite this article: Joshua N. Tilton, David N. Bivin, and Lauren Asperschlager, “Warning About Leavened Bread,” The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction (Jerusalem Perspective, 2026) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/36652/].

Matt. 16:5-12; Mark 8:14-21; Luke 12:1^[1] 

‏[וְהִתְחִיל לוֹמַר לָהֶם] הִזָּהֲרוּ מֵחֲמֵץ הַפְּרוּשִׁים

And he began to say to them, “Beware of the Pharisees’ leavened stuff!^[2] 

Reconstruction

To view the reconstructed text of Warning About Leavened Bread click on the link below:

Story Placement

Luke’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread (Luke 12:1) follows Woes Against Scribes and Pharisees and is linked to a series of sayings (Nothing Hidden, Hair of Your Head, Acknowledgement of the Son of Man, Speaking Against the Son of Man, Testifying Before Authorities) concerning the future trials of the disciples (Luke 12:2-12). The links to the sayings preceding and following Warning About Leavened Bread in Luke are artificial. Warning About Leavened Bread is linked to Woes Against Scribes and Pharisees because both pericopae share key vocabulary (“Pharisees”) and content (criticism of the same).^[3] The arrangement of Warning About Leavened Bread followed by sayings on the future trials of disciples is extremely tenuous.^[4] There is every reason to suspect that Luke’s placement of Warning About Leavened Bread is due to redactional activity and does not reflect the original context of the saying.

Whereas Luke gives Warning About Leavened Bread a narrative introduction (while the scribes and the Pharisees plot to entrap Jesus [Luke 11:53-54] the myriads trample one another as they surge toward him [Luke 12:1a]), in Mark’s Gospel the warning (Mark 8:15) is embedded within a narrative about the disciples’ forgetting to bring along bread (Mark 8:14), which, to Jesus’ chagrin, leads to their misunderstanding of his warning (Mark 8:16-21). This narrative framework alludes to the preceding Markan pericope (Sign-Seeking Generation; Mark 8:11-13), in which the Pharisees demand a sign immediately following the Miraculous Feeding (Mark 8:1-10) of the four thousand.

Despite being embedded within this narrative framework, Jesus’ warning about leavened bread so clearly stands out from the rest of the Markan pericopae that some scholars have suggested the author of Mark inserted the warning into a pre-existing account.^[5] This earlier narrative would have described how the disciples failed to appreciate that the miraculous feeding was proof they would never need to worry about food supplies so long as Jesus was with them. However, Mark’s narrative framework exhibits signs of extensive Markan redaction. Jesus’ scathing questions about the disciples’ lack of understanding in Mark 8:17b-18 echo earlier statements of Jesus in Mark (see the Conjectured Stages of Transmission section below), and since the disciples’ incomprehension of Jesus is a Markan redactional theme, these echoes of earlier statements in Mark are best ascribed to Markan redaction. Likewise, Jesus’ drilling of the disciples on the details of both the miraculous feeding of the four thousand (Mark 8:1-10) and the earlier miraculous feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:31-44) points to Markan redaction. Scholars are divided as to whether the two miraculous feedings reflect variant traditions concerning a single incident to which the author of Mark was heir or whether the author of Mark invented the second miraculous feeding in imitation of the first. There is, however, general scholarly consensus that the twin miraculous feedings in Mark presented as separate events are the product of Markan redaction. If the inclusion of the two miraculous feedings in Mark is redactional, then so must be Jesus’ questioning regarding the particulars of the two feedings in Mark’s narrative framework.^[6] When all this redactional material is stripped away, what remains of a conjectured pre-existing account is extremely meager. It consists of the narrator’s notice that the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread except for one loaf (Mark 8:14), the disciples’ discussion about their lack of bread (Mark 8:16), and Jesus’ asking them why they are discussing their lack of bread (Mark 8:17a). What we have in these verses is not a plot that advances a narrative but the thrice-repeated statement that the disciples had no bread.^[7] And repetition of the same point in a single narrative is another hallmark of Markan redaction.^[8] Since there is no solid pre-Markan core to Mark’s narrative framework around the warning about leavened bread,^[9] it is unlikely that the author of Mark embedded the warning into a pre-existing story. Rather, it appears the author of Mark constructed the narrative framework in order to give Jesus’ warning context and meaning. In any case, it is clear that Mark’s placement of the warning is not original.^[10] 

Matthew’s placement of Warning About Leavened Bread (Matt. 16:5-12) agrees with and depends upon Mark’s. However, whereas Mark’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread concludes with the disciples’ persistent incomprehension and is followed by Two-Stage Healing in Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26)—an allegory of the disciples’ slowness to understand Jesus’ true identity—and Petros’ Confession (Mark 8:27-30), Matthew’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread concludes with the disciples finally understanding Jesus’ warning, and therefore Matthew was able to skip over Two-Stage Healing in Bethsaida directly to Petros’ Confession (Matt. 16:13-20), since he had no need for an allegory about the disciples’ slowness to understand.^[11] 

Since neither the Lukan nor the Markan-Matthean placement of Warning About Leavened Bread is original, some scholars have despaired of recovering the original meaning of Jesus’ saying.^[12] However, we believe it may be possible to identify the context to which Warning About Leavened Bread originally belonged, and therefore the original import of Jesus’ warning might also be salvageable. Luke’s version of Jesus’ warning about the leavened bread of the Pharisees (προσέχετε…ἀπὸ…τῶν Φαρισαίων [prosechete…apo…tōn Pharisaiōn]; Luke 12:1) is similar in wording and construction to Jesus’ warning about the scribes (προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῶν γραμματέων [prosechete apo tōn grammateōn]; Luke 20:46) in Making a Show. We think it is possible that these two warnings were originally paired, since associating scribes with Pharisees is frequent in the Gospels.

If Warning About Leavened Bread and Making a Show originally belonged together, then a new possibility for understanding the cryptic reference to the “leaven” or “leavened bread” of the Pharisees emerges. The Hebrew term for leavened bread, חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz), which the LXX translators rendered several times as ζύμη (zūmē, “leaven,” “leavened foodstuff”), sounds like the Hebrew term חָמָס (ḥāmās, “extortion”), a term that might be used to describe the corrupt financial practices attributed to the scribes (viz., devouring widows’ homes) in Making a Show. It is possible, therefore, that Jesus’ reference to the “leavened bread” (ḥāmētz) of the Pharisees was intend as a pun on the financial misdeeds (ḥāmās) of the Pharisaic scribes.

The Hebrew word חָמָס is associated with finance in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Qumran covenanters renounced הוֹן חָמָס (hōn ḥāmās, “wealth of extortion”; 1QS X, 19), the ill-gotten gains of non-sectarians. As such, חָמָס functioned as a polemical term used against persons and groups with whom the Qumran covenanters disagreed. Moreover, חָמָס could more generally be used as a term for violence, in view of which a polemical accusation from Jesus that the Pharisaic scribes were guilty of חָמָס (“extortion”/“violence”) would resonate with the rabbinic critique of the מַכֹּת פְּרוּשִׁים (makot p^erūshim, “wounds of the Pharisees”; m. Sot. 3:4), defined as the defrauding of widows of their rightful maintenance from the estates of their deceased husbands (y. Sot. 3:4 [16a]). The accusation of חָמָס in sectarian polemics and the use of violent vocabulary (“wounds”) to characterize the financial abuse of widows strengthens the plausibility of a wordplay on חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz, “leavened bread”) and חָמָס (ḥāmās, “extortion”) in Warning About Leavened Bread. When Jesus’ saying was translated into Greek, the ability to convey this underlying wordplay was lost. The later separation of Jesus’ warning about the Pharisees’ “leavened bread” from the warning about the scribes’ financial abuses obscured the saying’s meaning even further. Fortunately, Lindsey’s insights that 1) fragments of originally longer complexes of teachings and narratives can still be pieced back together from the materials preserved in the Synoptic Gospels and that 2) those preserved materials were originally composed in Hebrew allows for the recovery of both the context and the meaning of obscure sayings of Jesus.

For the reasons stated above we have placed Warning About Leavened Bread and Making a Show together in a sayings complex we have entitled “Showing Proper Humility.” For an overview of the “Showing Proper Humility” complex, click here.

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Click here to view the Map of the Conjectured Hebrew Life of Yeshua.

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Conjectured Stages of Transmission

Scholars who adhere to the theory of Markan Priority debate whether the author of Luke derived his version of Warning About Leavened Bread from Mark,^[13] or whether Luke knew a separate version of the warning either from “Q”^[14] or from Luke’s special tradition.^[15] We approach the question differently.

Of the three synoptic versions of Warning About Leavened Bread, Luke’s is the simplest and most obscure, especially when the obviously intrusive explanation of what “leavened bread” refers to (i.e., “which is hypocrisy”) is eliminated (see below). Mark’s version is far more elaborate than Luke’s, being provided, as we have seen, with a redactional narrative framework that was intended to give the cryptic saying meaning, even though that meaning is not made explicit. Matthew’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread resembles Mark’s, but it is more streamlined and the meaning of Jesus’ cryptic warning is left unambiguous.^[16] This progression from simplicity and relative opacity in Luke, to intricacy and hints at meaning in Mark, to a coherent narrative that makes transparent Jesus’ enigmatic saying in Matthew suggests literary development as the pericope passed from Luke to Mark to Matthew, as Lindsey’s hypothesis suggests.

Apart from the explanatory phrase ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις (hētis estin hūpokrisis, “which is hypocrisy”) and the inessential reflexive pronoun ἑαυτοῖς (heavtois, “for yourselves”), Luke’s is the only version of Jesus’ enigmatic warning to contain no unique features, as can be clearly seen in the table below:

Luke 12:1	Mark 8:15	Matthew 16:6
προσέχετε ἑαυτοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις τῶν Φαρισαίων	ὁρᾶτε βλέπετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ τῆς ζύμης Ἡρῴδου	ὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ Σαδδουκαίων
“Beware for yourselves of the leaven”—which is hypocrisy—“of the Pharisees!”	“Look! Watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod!”	“Look and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

In the table above purple text marks wording shared by all three versions, black text marks wording unique to Luke, blue text marks wording shared by Luke and Matthew, red text marks wording unique to Mark, orange text marks wording shared by Mark and Matthew, and green text marks wording unique to Matthew.

Luke’s unique wording (black) is either non-essential (ἑαυτοῖς) or obviously editorial (ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις), since no speaker would give the interpretation in the same breath as the metaphor.^[17] Any sensible reader would have realized that the words ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις did not belong to Jesus’ speech, but were an explanatory gloss supplied by the narrator.^[18] Everything else in Luke’s version of the warning is common to Mark and/or Matthew. Luke, in other words, preserves the kernel from which the more elaborate versions in Mark and Matthew seem to have developed. Or put another way, the author of Luke appears to have reproduced the most original form of Jesus’ warning.^[19] Mark’s version is more elaborate than Luke’s in that it contains a double imperative (ὁρᾶτε βλέπετε) and refers to two types of leaven, the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. One of the imperatives (βλέπετε) and the reference to Herod’s leaven are unique to Mark. Matthew’s version is unique only in that it refers to the Sadducees as well as the Pharisees. Like Mark, Matthew’s version contains a double imperative, but surprisingly one of those imperatives (προσέχετε) agrees not with Mark but with Luke. We should note, moreover, that Matthew’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread repeats the warning in Matt. 16:11, where we read, προσέχετε δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ Σαδδουκαίων (prosechete de apo tēs zūmēs tōn Farisaiōn kai Saddoukaiōn, “But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees”). Apart from the conjunction δέ (de, “but”) and the reference to the Sadducees, Matthew’s second version of Jesus’ cautionary words is identical to Luke’s (excluding black text). Since the pairing of Pharisees with Sadducees is a phenomenon unique in the synoptic tradition to Matthew’s Gospel, and since historically the Pharisees and Sadducees were adversaries with little in common, we may safely attribute the reference to Sadducees in Matt. 16:11 to Matthean redaction. What we are left with in Luke 12:1 and Matt. 16:11 is a simple version of Jesus’ warning with zero Markan influence: προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων (prosechete apo tēs zūmēs tōn Farisaiōn, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees!”). It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this was the earliest Greek form of Jesus’ warning.

But could the author of Mark have taken the warning as it appeared in Luke 12:1, elaborated it with a double imperative and a reference to a second type of leavened bread, given it a narrative frame that alluded to Jesus’ miraculous provisions of bread and the repeated failures of the disciples to comprehend Jesus, but nevertheless refrained from solving the riddle of what Jesus meant by “leavened bread”? That he could is by no means as far-fetched as it might initially seem. If the author of Mark read, “‘Beware for yourselves of the leavened bread’—which is hypocrisy—‘of the Pharisees!’” in Luke, he could easily have discerned that the explanation (“which is hypocrisy”) was the narrator’s—not Jesus’—interpretation of the leaven, and the author of Mark could have rejected the narrator’s interpretation. It is possible, however, that the author of Mark’s text of Luke 12:1 did not include the explanation ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις (“which is hypocrisy”), for there is some evidence to indicate that this phrase is not original to the text of Luke. The explanatory gloss appears at different points in the sentence in various manuscripts, which may indicate that this gloss originated as a marginal note, which later copyists erroneously incorporated into the text of Luke 12:1. Support for this supposition may be adduced from the fact that nowhere else in Luke’s Gospel are the Pharisees accused of hypocrisy.^[20] The word ὑπόκρισις (hūpocrisis, “hypocrisy”) does not even appear in the rest of Luke’s Gospel or in the Acts of the Apostles.^[21] All this casts doubt on the originality of the explanatory gloss in Luke 12:1. On the other hand, a scribe familiar with Matthew’s Gospel would have readily associated the Pharisees with hypocrisy and could easily have supplied the gloss ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις in the margin. If ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις was not in the author of Mark’s text of Luke 12:1, then he did not reject the narrator’s interpretation of the “leaven”/“leavened bread” of the Pharisees, he was simply unaware of this interpretation’s existence.

Whether the author of Mark rejected Luke’s interpretation of “leaven”/“leavened bread” or whether this interpretation was absent in Mark’s text of Luke 12:1, we believe it is a mistake to conclude that the author of Mark did not provide an interpretation of “leavened bread” of his own. Although the author of Mark did not make his interpretation of “leavened bread” explicit, we believe his redactional activity in Warning About Leavened Bread was intended to guide his readers toward the answer in the hope that they would solve the riddle for themselves.^[22] For the author of Mark, the leavened bread of the Pharisees and the leavened bread of Herod represented the very failure to comprehend Jesus and to grasp his true identity for which he has Jesus so harshly chastise the disciples. Each of Jesus’ humiliating questions about the disciples’ lack of understanding leads back to a progressively earlier instance of the disciples’ failure to comprehend. As noted in the JP article “What Is the Leaven of the Pharisees?”:

“Do you still not comprehend or understand [οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ συνίετε]?” (Mark 8:17) harks back to the disciples’ bafflement at Jesus’ controversy with the Pharisees over purity (Mark 7:1-23, esp. v. 18). “Do you [still] have an imperceptive heart [πεπωρωμένην ἔχετε τὴν καρδίαν ὑμῶν]?” (Mark 8:17) alludes back to the disciples’ failure to understand the first miraculous feeding (Mark 6:52). “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear [ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες οὐ βλέπετε καὶ ὦτα ἔχοντες οὐκ ἀκούετε]?” (Mark 8:18) refers back to the disciples’ inability to understand the parables (Mark 4:10-13, esp. v. 12). And with the question “And do you not remember [καὶ οὐ μνημονεύετε]?” (Mark 8:18) the author of Mark nudges his readers to recall when all this incomprehension due to imperceptive hearts began: the healing of the man’s withered hand, when the Pharisees first plotted with the Herodians to destroy Jesus because their hearts were imperceptive (Mark 3:5-6), because they were filled with incomprehension (Luke 6:11).^[23] 

The Pharisees and the Herodians were guilty of incomprehension of Jesus and his miracles. This lack of understanding due to imperceptiveness of the heart led the Pharisees and Herodians to conspire to destroy Jesus.^[24] The disciples’ failure to comprehend Jesus and his miracles threatened to lead the disciples into the same deadly error. One of the Twelve, Judas Iscariot, eventually would succumb to this temptation and conspire with the chief priests to betray Jesus.

The author of Mark’s strategy with the questions about the miraculous feedings was to bring home to his readers that the disciples ought to have understood that Jesus was not talking about food for consumption when he warned against the leavened bread of the Pharisees and the leavened bread of Herod. From the miraculous feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and from the miraculous feeding of four thousand with seven loaves the disciples ought to have understood that with the one loaf in their possession Jesus could feed the disciples. They were wrong to take Jesus’ reference to “leavened bread” literally. What the disciples ought to have guarded against was what they and the Pharisees and Herod and his hangers-on held in common: incomprehension of Jesus. That is why, after questioning the disciples about the miraculous feedings, Mark had Jesus conclude with a final question, “Do you not yet understand?”

Although the author of Mark wanted his readers to realize that “the leavened bread of the Pharisees and the leavened bread of Herod” represented the danger inherent in failing to comprehend Jesus and his miracles, most of his readers, including the author of Matthew, did not succeed in deciphering his message. For this reason the author of Matthew decided to provide an explicit answer to Mark’s riddle. Not understanding that Mark intended Jesus’ questions about the disciples’ incomprehension to be a breadcrumb trail leading back to the bewilderment of the Pharisees and the Herodians, the author of Matthew shrank Jesus’ interrogation down to a simple “Do you not understand? Do you not remember…?” The author of Matthew economized by transforming Mark’s question-and-answer format regarding the miraculous feedings into rhetorical questions to which readers were supposed to remember the answer. He then transformed Mark’s concluding “Do you not yet understand?” into the even clearer “How do you not comprehend that it was not concerning bread that I spoke to you? But beware of the leavened bread of the Pharisees and the Sadducees!” And to solve the riddle the author of Matthew concluded the pericope with “Then they understood that he did not say to them to beware of the leaven of bread but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

So we see that positing a literary progression from Luke to Mark to Matthew is not at all unreasonable or unlikely. The only hiccups are the Lukan-Matthean minor agreements against Mark, namely the agreement to write προσέχετε as one of the imperatives in Matt. 16:6 ∥ Luke 12:1 and the agreement to use only a single imperative, προσέχετε, in Matt. 16:11 (≈ Luke 12:1). Lindsey’s hypothesis accounts for these “hiccups” by supposing that the authors of Luke and Matthew were heirs to a non-Markan tradition. Whereas the author of Luke used this non-Markan tradition to the exclusion of the Gospel of Mark, the author of Matthew tended to blend the non-Markan and Markan traditions. Such blending is exactly what we see in Matt. 16:6, where the author of Matthew took the first imperative (ὁρᾶτε) from Mark and the second imperative (προσέχετε) from his non-Markan source. Lindsey referred to Matthew’s non-Markan source as the Anthology (Anth.).

Luke’s source for Warning About Leavened Bread is a little more difficult to identify. According to Lindsey, the author of Luke primarily relied on two non-Markan sources. One of these was the Anthology. The other was a stylistically improved and chronologically arranged adaptation of the Anthology, which Lindsey called the First Reconstruction (FR). Luke’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread is chronologically correlated with Woes Against Scribes and Pharisees, but this could just as easily be due to the author of Luke’s editorial activity as to the First Reconstructor’s. Tipping the balance in favor of attribution to FR are 1) the identification of Luke’s version of Woes Against Scribes and Pharisees as also stemming from FR, and 2) the use in Warning About Leavened Bread of vocabulary peculiar to FR pericopae.

Regarding the first point, it was usually the author of Luke’s practice to take over material from his sources in large blocks, so Warning About Leavened Bread’s proximity to Woes Against Scribes and Pharisees, an FR pericope, favors FR as Luke’s source for Warning About Leavened Bread. The common subject matter—critique of the Pharisees—also favors the derivation of the two pericopae from the same source. Regarding the second point, the phrase προσέχετε ἑαυτοῖς (prosechete heavtois, “Beware for yourselves!”) occurs in other pericopae identified as stemming from FR (Reproof [Luke 17:3]; Be Ready for the Son of Man [Luke 21:34]), while προσέχετε without the reflexive pronoun (cf. Matt. 16:6, 11) occurs in a pericope derived from the Anthology (Making a Show [Luke 20:46]). While certainty is not possible, these reasons give us a fair degree of confidence in attributing Luke’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread to FR.

Crucial Issues

1. What is the meaning of ζύμη (zūmē, “leavening agent,” “leavened bread”) in Warning About Leavened Bread?
2. What was the function of “leavened bread” in Jesus’ warning?

Comment

L1 ἐν οἷς (Luke 12:1). The phrase ἐν οἷς (en hois, “in which,” “meanwhile”) connects Warning About Leavened Bread to the preceding Woes Against Scribes and Pharisees, which concluded with a description of the scribes and Pharisees seeking to trap Jesus in something he might say (Luke 11:53-54). The plotting of Jesus’ adversaries to catch him through his speech is a redactional motif of the First Reconstruction.^[25] Since the use of ἐν οἷς as a chronological connector is not characteristic of Lukan redaction,^[26] it is likely that Luke’s wording in L1 stems from FR. For this reason we have excluded Luke’s wording in L1 from our Greek Reconstruction (GR).

L2-3 ἐπισυναχθεισῶν τῶν μυριάδων τοῦ ὄχλου (Luke 12:1). “As the myriads of the crowd converged,” expressed with a genitive absolute construction, is un-Hebraic and therefore unlikely to have occurred in the Anthology.^[27] The term μυριάς (mūrias, “ten thousand,” “myriad”) does not occur elsewhere in Luke’s Gospel and only occurs twice in Acts (Acts 19:19; 21:20),^[28] so it is not especially Lukan, although it is possible that the author of Luke inserted τῶν μυριάδων (tōn mūriadōn, “of the myriads”) before the reference to the crowd in order to make the First Reconstruction’s description of the crowd’s trampling of one another (L4) more credible. In any case, we have excluded this difficult to reconstruct description from GR.

L4 ὥστε καταπατεῖν ἀλλήλους (Luke 12:1). “So as to trample one another” continues the description of the convergence of the crowd, which we have attributed to FR. Since the vocabulary is not especially Lukan,^[29] Luke’s wording in L4 probably also stems from FR.

L5-6 καὶ ἐπελάθοντο λαβεῖν ἄρτους (Mark 8:14). Mark’s narrative surrounding Jesus’ warning about leavened bread opens with “and they forgot to take bread.” This statement sets the stage for the disciples’ misunderstanding of Jesus’ warning about the leavened bread of the Pharisees and the leavened bread of Herod. As the author of Mark tells the story, the disciples might have been quicker to grasp that Jesus was speaking figuratively if they had not been preoccupied with their scant supply of food.

In the text of Codex Vaticanus and critical text of Nestle-Aland, Mark’s verb, ἐπελάθοντο (epelathonto, “they forgot”), lacks a subject. However, an early witness to the text of Mark, 𝔓⁴⁵, includes the words οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ (hoi mathētai avtou, “his disciples”), thereby supplying “they forgot” with a subject. The question is whether 𝔓⁴⁵’s reading is original. Against this supposition are the facts that 1) the omission of οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ is the lectio difficilior, which is usually to be preferred when evaluating textual variants, and 2) the value of 𝔓⁴⁵ as a textual witness in this pericope is somewhat undermined on account of its harmonizing tendencies with the Matthean version of Warning About Leavened Bread, which does mention the disciples. On the other hand, Luke’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread mentions the disciples (L11), so if, as we suppose, the author of Mark based his version of Warning About Leavened Bread on Luke 12:1, then it would be a little odd for the author of Mark to have omitted a reference to the disciples. Also, 𝔓⁴⁵’s longer reading in Mark 8:14, though similar to Matthew’s wording, is not exact. Whereas Matt. 16:5 refers to “the disciples,” 𝔓⁴⁵’s text of Mark 8:14 refers to “his [i.e., Jesus’] disciples.” If the scribe who produced 𝔓⁴⁵ had wanted to harmonize Mark’s text with Matthew’s, we might have expected him to reproduce Matthew’s wording exactly. The discrepancy leaves open the possibility that 𝔓⁴⁵’s reading is original.

καὶ ἐλθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ εἰς τὸ πέραν ἐπελάθοντο λαβεῖν ἄρτους (Matt. 16:5). The author of Matthew slightly expanded Mark’s opening by referring to a destination (εἰς τὸ πέραν) and the disciples’ arrival (ἐλθόντες) thereat. The words εἰς τὸ πέραν (eis to peran, “to the across”) were picked up from Mark’s conclusion to Sign-Seeking Generation (Mark 8:13),^[30] the pericope which, in Mark and Matthew, precedes Warning About Leavened Bread. On account of these alterations the events described in Matthew’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread do not take place in transit aboard the boat as in Mark, but upon the disciples’ arrival on the further shore. Allen suggested that the purpose of Matthew’s changes was to avoid the implication that Jesus was among those who forgot to take bread,^[31] but the mere addition of “the disciples” (if these words were not already present in Mark 8:14 [see above]) would have sufficed to exclude Jesus from the others’ forgetfulness.

L7-9 καὶ εἰ μὴ ἕνα ἄρτον οὐκ εἶχον μεθ’ ἑαυτῶν ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ (Mark 8:14). The author of Mark’s statement in L7-9 that, except for a single (loaf of) bread, they did not have any (bread) with them in the boat appears to contradict his prior statement in L5-6 that the disciples forgot to take bread. To resolve this contradiction it is not necessary to suppose that the single loaf on board had already been stored in the boat.^[32] The appearance of contradiction is due to the difficulty of rendering Mark’s Greek into English. In L6 ἄρτος (artos, “bread”) occurs in the plural, while in L7 ἄρτος is singular. In other words, the disciples forgot to bring enough loaves of bread sufficient for their need, as a consequence of which they had only a single loaf with them in the boat. Admittedly, however, Mark’s wording is somewhat convoluted, and it is probably for this reason that the author of Matthew omitted it. Nevertheless, there is a reason for Mark’s awkward wording. Mark’s wording in L7-9 is reminiscent of the disciples’ statement in Miraculous Feeding, where they tell Jesus, οὐκ ἔχομεν ὧδε εἰ μὴ πέντε ἄρτους (ouk echomen hōde ei mē pente artous, “we do not have [anything] here except five [loaves of] bread”; Matt. 14:17).^[33] It therefore appears that the author of Mark was indicating to his readers that although the disciples had forgotten to bring enough bread to feed everyone under normal circumstances, there was a sufficient quantity of bread for Jesus to work another miracle.^[34] 

The phrase ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ (en tō ploiō, “in the boat”) occurs with much greater frequency in Mark (6xx)^[35] than in Matthew (2xx)^[36] or Luke (0xx).^[37] Its presence in L9 is an indication of Markan composition.

L10 [καὶ ἤρξατο λέγειν (GR). Whereas Matthew’s word order in L10 (subject ahead of verb) is un-Hebraic, and Mark’s vocabulary in L10 is stereotypical (διαστέλλειν),^[38] the use of ἄρχειν + infinitive is not typical of Lukan redaction.^[39] Therefore, Luke’s wording in L10 could reflect that of a pre-synoptic source. Nevertheless, we have placed ἤρξατο λέγειν (ērxato legein, “he began to say”), introduced with the conjunction καί (kai, “and”), within brackets to indicate a degree of uncertainty.

וְהִתְחִיל לוֹמַר] (HR). On reconstructing ἄρχειν + λέγειν with הִתְחִיל לוֹמַר (hitḥil lōmar, “he began to say”), see Yeshua’s Words about Yohanan the Immerser, Comment to L4.

L11 πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ (Luke 12:1). The author of Luke has Warning About Leavened Bread addressed to the disciples. Although Matthew’s version, too, explicitly refers to the disciples (L5), this Lukan-Matthean agreement is not as significant as many others. In Mark, too, the warning is addressed to the disciples, even though in critical texts the disciples are not mentioned explicitly. It is even possible that the original text of Mark 8:14 did refer to the disciples (see above, Comment to L5-6). Thus, addressing the warning to the disciples may have originated with Luke and may not go back to the pre-synoptic version of Jesus’ saying. The author of Luke had a clear motive for making the disciples the recipients of the warning: following Warning About Leavened Bread the author of Luke included several sayings concerning the future trials of disciples that are likely derived from a different source (Anth.) than the one from which Warning About Leavened Bread was taken (FR). To patch over this literary seam the author of Luke inserted a reference to the disciples into the First Reconstruction’s narrative introduction to Jesus’ warning.^[40] We suspect that Luke’s reference to the disciples replaced a more generic description of the addressees, such as πρός αὐτούς (pros avtous, “to them”; cf. αὐτοῖς [avtois, “to them”] in Mark 8:15 ∥ Matt. 16:6 [L10]), the wording we have adopted for GR.

L12 πρῶτον (Luke 12:1). Scholars debate how πρῶτον (prōton, “first”) in Luke 12:1 is to be understood. The adverb could belong outside the quotation marks to indicate order (i.e., “And he first began to say to the disciples…”)^[41] or to indicate priority (i.e., “And he said primarily to the disciples…”),^[42] or it could belong within the quotation marks (i.e., “And he said, ‘First of all, beware…’”).^[43] We suspect the author of Luke of having added πρῶτον as part of his attempt to patch over the literary seam in his sources.

L13 ὁρᾶτε βλέπετε (Mark 8:15). Mark’s double imperative (“See! Look!”) is unsupported by Luke and only partially supported by Matthew, which blends Mark’s first imperative, ὁρᾶτε (horate, “See!”), with Luke’s only imperative, προσέχετε (prosechete, “Beware!”), which the author of Matthew would have known from Anth. It may be that the warning introduced with a double imperative in Luke 12:15 (ὁρᾶτε καὶ φυλάσσεσθε ἀπὸ πάσης πλεονεξίας [horate kai fūlassesthe apo pasēs pleonexias, “See and guard from all greediness”]) inspired the author of Mark to use a similar double imperative here. In any case, double imperatives are typical of Markan style.^[44] The imperative βλέπετε (blepete, “Look!”) is a Markan stereotype,^[45] and therefore likely to be redactional.^[46] The author of Mark similarly substituted προσέχετε with βλέπετε in Making a Show (Mark 12:38; cf. Luke 20:46).

προσέχετε (GR). The Lukan-Matthean agreement against Mark to write προσέχετε (prosechete, “Beware!”) in L13 is a strong indication that this was the imperative that appeared in Matthew’s pre-synoptic source (Anth.).^[47] Matthew’s exclusive use of προσέχετε in the repetition of Jesus’ warning in Matt. 16:11 (L39) reinforces this conclusion. There is a slight disagreement between Luke and Matthew, however. Whereas Luke attaches the reflexive pronoun ἑαυτοῖς (heavtois, “for yourselves”) to the imperative, Matthew omits it. The other two Lukan pericopae in which προσέχετε ἑαυτοῖς (“Beware for yourselves”) appears are Reproof (Luke 17:3) and Be Ready for the Son of Man (Luke 21:34), both of which have been identified as stemming from FR.^[48] Thus, attaching the reflexive pronoun to the verb προσέχειν (prosechein, “to pay attention”) is probably a redactional feature of FR. On these grounds we have excluded Luke’s ἑαυτοῖς from GR.

הִזָּהֲרוּ (HR). In LXX the verb προσέχειν (prosechein, “to pay attention”) occurs as the translation of several Hebrew verbs, נִשְׁמַר (nishmar, “be on guard”) being among the most common.^[49] We also find that the LXX translators usually rendered נִשְׁמַר as προσέχειν.^[50] Therefore, נִשְׁמַר would be a reasonable option for reconstructing προσέχειν in L13. However, in Mishnaic Hebrew נִזְהַר (nizhar, “be warned,” “be careful”) supplanted נִשְׁמַר‎,^[51] a usage already current in the later books of the Hebrew Scriptures. In Ecclesiastes we find an example of נִזְהַר which the LXX translators rendered as προσέχειν:

טוֹב יֶלֶד מִסְכֵּן וְחָכָם מִמֶּלֶךְ זָקֵן וּכְסִיל אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָדַע לְהִזָּהֵר עוֹד

Better is a poor child but wise than an aged, foolish king who no longer knows to be warned [לְהִזָּהֵר; LXX: τοῦ προσέχειν]. (Eccl. 4:13)

Since we prefer to reconstruct direct speech in Mishnaic-style Hebrew, we have adopted נִזְהַר for HR.

L14 ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης (GR). Since the wording in L14 in all three versions of Warning About Leavened Bread is the same, and since the phrase ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης (apo tēs zūmēs, “from the leaven/leavened bread”) reverts easily to Hebrew, we have adopted this phrase for GR.

The meaning of ζύμη (zūmē) in this pericope is generally assumed to be “leaven” or “leavening agent,” which is indeed its usual meaning,^[52] and is certainly the meaning of ζύμη in the Starter Dough parable (Matt. 13:33 ∥ Luke 13:21). However, this meaning does not work well in the Markan or Matthean versions of Warning About Leavened Bread. In the Markan and Matthean versions the disciples misunderstand Jesus’ warning about ζύμη because they had forgotten to bring ἄρτος (artos, “bread”). In other words, the Markan and Matthean versions of Warning About Leavened Bread treat these two terms, ζύμη and ἄρτος, as though they are synonymous. This functional equivalence, however, is not compatible with ζύμη in the sense of “leaven” or “leavening agent,” which is inedible. No one is likely to have confused fermenting uncooked sourdough (i.e., leaven) with a baked loaf of bread. However, in Jewish Greek ζύμη could also refer to leavened bread or other leavened foodstuffs (cf. Exod. 12:15; 13:3; 23:18; 34:25; Deut. 16:3).^[53] Therefore, “leavened bread” is a much more suitable meaning for ζύμη in the Markan and Matthean versions of Warning About Leavened Bread.^[54] Luke’s version of the warning lacks sufficient context to determine which meaning of ζύμη is preferable, however, as we will discuss below, we believe it was leavened bread that the Greek translator of Jesus’ warning had in mind when he translated it from Hebrew.

If “leavened bread” is the intended meaning of ζύμη in the Markan and Matthean versions of Jesus’ warning, and possibly in the Lukan version as well, then the suggestions that the “leaven of the Pharisees” represents their pervasive influence (parallel to the manner in which, through the process of fermentation, leaven causes dough to rise) are invalid.^[55] Leavened bread does not have a pervasive influence. Although the authors of Mark and Matthew understood “leavened bread” in this pericope to have a symbolic meaning (Mark: incomprehension; Matthew: [false] teaching), we do not believe this was its function in the original version of Jesus’ saying. The reference to leavened bread was not a metaphor but a wordplay on two similar-sounding words in Hebrew. The wordplay, and consequently the significance of Jesus’ warning, was lost when the saying passed from Hebrew into Greek.

מֵחֲמֵץ (HR). There is nothing remarkable about reconstructing ἀπό (apo, “from”) with מִן (min, “from”), but comment on our reconstruction is necessary since in rabbinic sources it is more common to find נִזְהַר (nizhar, “be warned”) coupled with the preposition -בְּ (b^e–, “in,” “with”) or with שֶׁמָּא (shemā’, “lest”). Nevertheless, examples of נִזְהַר coupled with מִן (min, “from”) are not wanting. For instance:

אָמַר רַ′ יוֹחָנָן: הִזָּהֲרוּ מִזְּבוּבֵי בַעֲלֵי רָאתָן

Rabbi Yohanan said, “Beware of [-הִזָּהֲרוּ מִ] the flies of someone afflicted with rā’tān [i.e., a debilitating skin disease—JNT and DNB].” (Lev. Rab. 16:1 [ed. Merkin, 7:179])

וַהֲלוֹא כָּל בְּנֵי אָדָם צְרִיכִין לְהִזָּהֵר מִן הַיָּיִן

And do not all people need to beware of [לְהִזָּהֵר מִן] wine? (Num. Rab. 10:4 [ed. Merkin, 9:246-247])

The earliest example of נִזְהַר מִן (nizhar min, “be careful of,” “beware of”) of which we are aware occurs in the Halakhic Letter from Qumran, where we find a warning לְהִזָּהֵר מִכָּל תַּעֲרוֹבֶת (l^ehizāhēr mikol ta‘^arōvet, “to beware of all defilement”; 4QMMT^c [4Q396 II, 2]). This example proves that this usage was current in the first century C.E. and is therefore suitable for HR.

In LXX ζύμη occurs as the translation of both שְׂאֹר (s^e’or) and חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz),^[56] two Hebrew nouns with distinctly different meanings. The former, שְׂאֹר, refers to a leavening agent (i.e., starter dough). The latter, חָמֵץ, refers to leavened foodstuffs, primarily leavened bread. Various proposals for an Aramaic wordplay underlying Jesus’ warning have been put forward. Negoiţä and Daniel, for instance, suggested that Jesus warned against the אֲמִירָה (’^amirāh, “speech”) of the Pharisees, which they took to be equivalent to the Pharisees’ teaching, but the disciples misheard Jesus to warn against the חֲמִירָא (ḥ^amirā’, “leaven,” “leavened bread”)^[57] of the Pharisees.^[58] In a similar vein, Zimmerman suggested that Jesus warned against the חֲמִירָא (ḥ^amirā’, “stringent [thing]”) of the Pharisees, but the disciples mistook Jesus’ intended use of חֲמִירָא for the homonym חֲמִירָא (ḥ^amirā’, “leaven,” “leavened bread”).^[59] Both of these suggestions, however, are rife with difficulties. In the first place, both proposals are too credulous with regard to Matthean redaction. Both proposals posit an Aramaic saying that harmonizes with the Matthean interpretation that ζύμη (“leaven,” “leavened bread”) represents teaching. But it is clear that this is a secondary interpretation the author of Matthew invented because he was not content to leave Mark’s riddle unresolved. Likewise, both proposals rely on unattested meanings of the Aramaic words involved in the wordplay. Negoiţä and Daniel themselves admitted that אֲמִירָה (’^amirāh, “speech”) is never attested with the meaning “teaching,”^[60] while Zimmerman had to resort to an unattested use of חֲמִירָא, an adjective, “taking over the function of a noun.”^[61] In support of his proposal Zimmerman argued that “One of the principal criticisms that Jesus levelled against the Pharisees was that they lay on the people with a heavy hand, ‘the weightier matters of the Law’…,”^[62] but actually Jesus criticized the Pharisees for neglecting the weightier matters of the Torah (Matt. 23:23; cf. Luke 11:42)! And even if Zimmerman was correct that the adjective חֲמִירָא could be used as a substantive, which of the “stringent things” of the Pharisees did Jesus warn against? Zimmerman’s suggestion actually requires a plural noun, but this destroys the wordplay upon which his proposal rests and defies the singular nouns ζύμη (zūmē, “leaven,” “leavened bread”) and διδαχή (didachē, “teaching”) in Matthew’s version of the pericope.

Despite the failures of these Aramaic solutions, we think these proposals are on the right track in as much as they reject a symbolic meaning of ζύμη and seek an interpretation based on an underlying wordplay. However, we propose that a wordplay makes better sense in Hebrew than Aramaic, since it is Hebrew that was the primary literary and spoken language among first-century Jews in the land of Israel.^[63] 

A wordplay based on שְׂאֹר (s^e’or, “leaven”) does not present an obvious option, but a wordplay based on חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz, “leavened bread”) yields intriguing possibilities. The noun חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz) sounds like various Hebrew terms for “wrongdoing,” “oppression,” or “extortion.” One of these is the Hebrew noun חָמוֹץ (ḥāmōtz, “oppression”), which occurs once in Scripture in connection with widows:

לִמְדוּ הֵיטֵב דִּרְשׁוּ מִשְׁפָּט אַשְּׁרוּ חָמוֹץ שִׁפְטוּ יָתוֹם רִיבוּ אַלְמָנָה

Learn to do good, study justice, correct oppression [חָמוֹץ], judge the fatherless, defend the widow’s case. (Isa. 1:17)

Jesus, too, drew a connection between oppression and widows in a warning that is worded similarly to the warning about leavened bread:

προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῶν γραμματέων…οἳ κατεσθίουσιν τὰς οἰκίας τῶν χηρῶν

Beware of the scribes…who devour the houses of widows…! (Luke 20:46-47; cf. Mark 12:38-40)

A wordplay based on the similar-sounding terms חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz, “leavened bread”) and חָמוֹץ (ḥāmōtz, “oppression”) could, therefore, underlie Jesus’ enigmatic warning, and might even have entailed an allusion to Isaiah’s admonishment.

Alternatively, Jesus’ saying could reflect an underlying wordplay based on the similarity of חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz, “leavened bread”) to חָמָס (ḥāmās, “extortion”). As we noted above, accusations of חָמָס were bandied about in ancient Jewish polemics, and an accusation of חָמָס, which could also be used in the more general sense of “violence,” is reminiscent of the rabbinic references to the “wounds of the Pharisees,” which involved the cheating of widows. Of the two possible wordplays, we think one based on חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz, “leavened bread”) and חָמָס (ḥāmās, “extortion”) to be somewhat more likely, since חָמוֹץ (ḥāmōtz, “oppression”), already rare in Scripture, fell into disuse in Mishnaic Hebrew.

As we noted earlier, a wordplay based on חָמֵץ rules out the possibility that the saying alludes to the dangerous pervasiveness of the Pharisees’ influence. A wordplay based on חָמֵץ also rules out any connection to late rabbinic prayers that use leaven (שְׂאֹר) as a symbol of the evil inclination (יֵצֶר הָרָע).^[64] For instance, the Jerusalem Talmud preserves the following prayer of Rabbi Tanhum bar Isbalostika:

ויהי רצון מלפניך ה′ אלהי ואלהי אבותי שתשבור ותשבית עולו של יצר הרע מלבינו שכך בראתנו לעשות רצונך ואנו חייבים לעשות רצונך את חפץ ואנו חפצים ומי מעכב שאור שבעיסה גלוי וידוע לפניך שאין בנו כח לעמוד בו אלא יר″מ ה′ אלהי ואלהי אבותי שתשביתהו מעלינו ותכניעהו ונעשה רצונך כרצוננו בלבב שלם

May it be pleasing before you, O Lord, my God and God of my fathers, that you would break and destroy the yoke of the evil inclination from our hearts, for you created us to do your will, and we are obligated to do your will. You so desire, and we so desire. But who prevents us? The leaven [שְׂאֹר] that is in the dough. It is revealed and known before you that there is not strength in us to withstand it. But may it be pleasing before you, my God and God of my fathers, that you might destroy it from upon us and subdue it, so that we may do your will as our own will wholeheartedly. (y. Ber. 4:2 [33a])

The prayer of Rabbi Alexandri is similar:

רבון העולמים גלוי וידוע לפניך שרצוננו לעשות רצונך ומי מעכב שאור שבעיסה ושעבוד מלכיות יהי רצון מלפניך שתצילנו מידם ונשוב לעשות חוקי רצונך בלבב שלם

Master of the worlds, it is revealed and known before you that our will is to do your will. But who prevents us? The leaven [שְׂאֹר] that is in the dough and the oppression of the [Gentile] kingdoms. May it be pleasing before you to deliver us from their hand so that we may return to doing the statutes of your will wholeheartedly. (b. Ber. 17a)

These prayers refer to inedible leaven, not edible leavened bread.

L15 ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις (Luke 12:1). The explanatory gloss, “which is hypocrisy,” is an interpolation that was never intended to be understood as words Jesus actually spoke. Someone simply wished to provide Jesus’ cryptic words with an interpretation. But who was responsible for the gloss? The First Reconstructor^[65] and the author of Luke are both viable candidates,^[66] but as we discussed in the Conjectured Stages of Transmission section above, it is also possible that the explanation originated as a marginal gloss that crept into the text.^[67] The complete absence in the rest of the writings of Luke of the accusation that the Pharisees were hypocrites lends credence to this possibility, as does the way the phrase ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις (hētis estin hūpokrisis, “which is hypocrisy”) floats about in the textual witnesses to Luke 12:1, which may suggest that copyists were not quite sure where this explanatory gloss belonged. And if Lindsey’s solution to the Synoptic Problem is accepted, then the author of Mark’s apparent unawareness of the explanatory gloss in Luke 12:1 also supports the conclusion that it was not present in his text of Luke. But even if ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις belongs to the original text of Luke 12:1, this does not pose a serious challenge to Lindsey’s hypothesis. According to Lindsey, the author of Mark used the Anthology in addition to Luke, so by comparing the Lukan and Anth. versions of Warning About Leavened Bread he would have discovered—if Luke’s grammar had not made it obvious to him already—that the explanatory gloss was merely the author of Luke’s own interpretation of what Jesus meant by ζύμη.

If the phrase ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις does belong to the original text of Luke 12:1, then we are inclined to attribute these words to FR,^[68] since the hypocrisy of the Pharisees is not a Lukan redactional motif.

L16 τῶν Φαρισαίων (GR). All three versions of Warning About Leavened Bread refer to the leavened bread “of the Pharisees,” and in all three versions the Pharisees are mentioned either first (Mark, Matthew) or exclusively (Luke), which gives the impression that the reference to the Pharisees goes back to the pre-synoptic form of the saying. We have therefore accepted the synoptic wording in L16 for GR.

הַפְּרוּשִׁים (HR). On reconstructing Φαρισαῖος (Pharisaios, “Pharisee”) with פָּרוּשׁ (pārūsh, “Pharisee”), see Call of Levi, Comment to L41.

L17 καὶ τῆς ζύμης Ἡρῴδου (Mark 8:15). In addition to the leavened bread of the Pharisees, the author of Mark refers to a second kind of leaven.^[69] In Codex Vaticanus, the base text for our reconstruction, and in Nestle-Aland’s critical text, the second kind of leavened bread is identified as Ἡρῴδου (Hērōdou, “of Herod”), but an early variant attested in 𝔓⁴⁵ reads τῶν Ἡρωδιανῶν (tōn Hērōdianōn, “of the Herodians”). This variant reading is congenial to our view (see the Conjectured Stages of Transmission section above) that the author of Mark intended the leavened bread in Jesus’ warning to symbolize the incomprehension and imperceptiveness of heart that caused the Pharisees and the Herodians to conspire to destroy Jesus. Most scholars reject 𝔓⁴⁵’s reading on the grounds that it reflects the influence of Mark 3:6 and Mark 12:13, which mention the Herodians,^[70] but this argument begs the question. A scribe copying the text of Mark might have been inclined to change “Herodians” to “Herod” because Herod was mentioned much more recently in Mark (Mark 6:14-29) than the Herodians (Mark 3:6). Since τῶν Ἡρωδιανῶν is also the earliest attested reading in Mark 8:15, we should not be too quick to reject it.^[71] 

Even if τῶν Ἡρωδιανῶν should not prove to be the original reading in Mark 8:15, this would do little to undermine our view that in Mark the leavened bread of the Pharisees and the leavened bread of Herod allude back to the incomprehension and imperceptiveness of the Pharisees and Herodians who plotted to kill Jesus. Herod was not separate from the Herodians, but the foremost among them, the leader around whom the Herodians rallied. There can be no doubt that in the author of Mark’s mind the leavened bread of which Herod partook was also the fare of the Herodians. The Herodians and Herod were alike in not understanding Jesus and his miracles.

καὶ Σαδδουκαίων (Matt. 16:6). In place of “and the leavened bread of Herod/the Herodians” the author of Matthew wrote “and the Sadducees.” The economizing produced by the dropping of the repetition of τῆς ζύμης (tēs zūmēs, “the leavened bread”) and the improbable pairing of Pharisees and Sadducees are typical of Matthean redaction.^[72] Referring to the Sadducees in Matt. 16:6 is also a literary improvement, since it creates narrative continuity in Matthew’s Gospel,^[73] the author of Matthew having already inserted the Sadducees into his version of Sign-Seeking Generation (Matt. 16:1).^[74] The change from “Herod/Herodians” to “Sadducees” also served the author of Matthew’s theological agenda. Wishing to make “leavened bread” symbolize Jewish doctrine, the author of Matthew chose, in addition to the Pharisees, to refer to another major Jewish sect of the Second Temple period. Unlike the Pharisees and the Sadducees, neither Herod nor the Herodians propounded doctrine.^[75] Therefore, there is every reason to attribute the references to the Sadducees in Matthew’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread to Matthean redaction.

L18-19 καὶ διελογίζοντο πρὸς ἀλλήλους (Mark 8:16). Mark’s wording in L18-19 contains echoes of a previous occasion when the disciples were with Jesus in a boat. After Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples said to one another (πρὸς ἀλλήλους), “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea listen to him?” (Mark 4:41). The phrase πρὸς ἀλλήλους (pros allēlous, “to one another”) does not occur again in Mark until Warning About Leavened Bread. The echo of this scene from Quieting a Storm underscores the disciples’ incomprehension. In the time that had elapsed since the calming of the storm they still had not come to understand who Jesus is or what his miracles signify.

It is also possible that Mark’s wording alludes to the scene in Luke’s version of Man’s Contractured Arm where the Pharisees were filled with incomprehension and discussed with one another (διελάλουν πρὸς ἀλλήλους) what they might do with Jesus (Luke 6:11). In Mark’s version of Man’s Contractured Arm it is the Pharisees and the Herodians who conspire with one another how they might destroy Jesus (Mark 3:6).

οἱ δὲ διελογίζοντο ἐν ἑαυτοῖς (Matt. 16:7). The author of Matthew paraphrased Mark’s wording, replacing πρὸς ἀλλήλους with ἐν ἑαυτοῖς (en heavtois, “in themselves”).^[76] Matthew’s wording echoes the scene in Mark’s version of Bedridden Man where Jesus senses in his spirit that the scribes were διαλογίζονται ἐν ἑαυτοῖς (dialogizontai en heavtois, “reasoning in themselves”) that Jesus had committed blasphemy (Mark 2:8). It is possible that by this change the author of Matthew wished to insinuate that Jesus’ awareness of what the disciples were saying was achieved by supernatural means.^[77] No such inference can be drawn from Mark’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread.^[78] 

L20 ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχουσιν (Mark 8:16). The author of Mark presents the disciples, in response to Jesus’ warning about leavened bread, as discussing the fact that they have no bread in their possession. The disciples, in other words, have interpreted Jesus’ warning in an overly literal manner which—Oh, the irony!^[79] —has led them into the very incomprehension that Jesus intended to warn his disciples against. Scholars have noted that this scene in Mark is similar to scenes in the Gospel of John where individuals such as Nicodemus or the Samaritan woman misunderstand Jesus because they stupidly interpreted his words literally.^[80] It may be that this scene in Mark was a source of inspiration for this Johannine motif.

Although some scholars have regarded Mark’s statement (L7-9) that except for one loaf the disciples did not have any bread to be a secondary insertion, the narrator continues here in L20 (and again in L24) with the theme of “having” rather than “taking” (L6) bread, which suggests that Mark’s statement in L7-9 is an organic detail in the Markan version of the story.

λέγοντες ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἐλάβομεν (Matt. 16:7). The author of Matthew again paraphrases Mark’s wording. Here he prefers to use the verb λαμβάνειν (lambanein, “to take”), which connects back to the opening verse (Matt. 16:5), in place of Mark’s ἔχειν (echein, “to have”).^[81] Also, whereas Mark reports the disciples’ discussion indirectly (“And they were discussing with one another that they did not have bread”; Mark 8:16), Matthew directly quotes the disciples’ speech (“But they were discussing in themselves, saying, ‘We did not take bread!’”; Matt. 16:7). Matthew’s changes to Mark’s wording are literary and stylistic improvements.

L21 καὶ γνοὺς λέγει αὐτοῖς (Mark 8:17). “And knowing he says to them” echoes Mark’s account of the feeding of the five thousand, where, in response to Jesus’ question about how many loaves are available, the disciples take an inventory, καὶ γνόντες λέγουσιν (kai gnontes legousin, “and knowing they say”), “Five, and two fish” (Mark 6:38). Just as the disciples’ “knowing” the number of loaves and fishes was attained through observation, so Jesus’ “knowing” what the disciples were saying came not through supernatural insight but through direct observation. This echo from the first miraculous feeding prepares attentive readers for Jesus’ questions about this miracle that are soon to follow. The use of the historical present tense in Mark 8:17 (λέγει [legei, “he says”]) is typical of Markan redaction.^[82] 

γνοὺς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν (Matt. 16:8). The author of Matthew paraphrases Mark’s wording once more, changing Mark’s καί (kai, “and”) to a more elegant δέ (de, “but”), inserting a direct reference to Jesus (ὁ Ἰησοῦς [ho Iēsous]), and changing Mark’s colloquial historical present tense λέγει (legei, “he says”) to a more proper aorist εἶπεν (eipen, “he said”). All of these changes are stylistic improvements to Mark’s Greek.

L22 τί διαλογίζεσθε (Mark 8:17). For the third time in his version of Warning About Leavened Bread the author of Mark reiterates that the disciples lack bread. The third iteration takes an interrogative form on the lips of Jesus.

τί διαλογίζεσθε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς (Matt. 16:8). Matthew reproduces Mark’s wording in L22, but also adds ἐν ἑαυτοῖς (en heavtois, “in yourselves”), repeating the wording the author of Matthew adopted in L19.

L23 ὀλιγόπιστοι (Matt. 16:8). The author of Matthew adds the derogatory appellation ὀλιγόπιστοι (oligopistoi, “small believers”), a stereotype typical of Matthean redaction.^[83] 

L24 ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχετε (Matt. 16:8). In L20 the author of Matthew had changed Mark’s “have” to “take,” but here in L24 the author of Matthew rather surprisingly accepts Mark’s “have.” This may be an example of the author of Matthew’s editorial sloppiness.^[84] 

L25 οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ συνεῖτε (Mark 8:17). The wording of Jesus’ impatient question, οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ συνεῖτε (oupō noeite oude sūneite, “Do you not yet perceive or understand?”), echoes Jesus’ exasperated outburst—οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀσύνετοί ἐστε οὐ νοεῖτε (houtōs kai hūmeis asūnetoi este ou noeite, “Are you also likewise uncomprehending? Do you not understand…?”; Mark 7:18)—in response to the disciples’ bafflement at Jesus’ controversy with the Pharisees over purity (Mark 7:1-23),^[85] which was the most recent example of the disciples’ incomprehension in Mark’s Gospel.

On οὔπω (oupō, “not yet”) as typical of Markan redaction, see Quieting a Storm, Comment to L49.

οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ (Matt. 16:9). By skipping from Mark’s οὐδέ (oude, “and not,” “or not”) in L25 to Mark’s μνημονεύετε (mnēmonevete, “you remember”) in L29 the author of Matthew was able to trim away much of Jesus’ critical questioning of the disciples without having to paraphrase Mark’s wording.^[86] Such economizing is typical of Matthean redaction.

L26 πεπωρωμένην ἔχετε τὴν καρδίαν ὑμῶν (Mark 8:17). Annoyed with the disciples because “you are discussing that you have [ἔχετε] no bread,” Jesus accuses the disciples: “you have [ἔχετε] an imperceptive heart.” The accusation alludes back to the reason for the disciples’ failure to understand the first miraculous feeding: ἦν αὐτῶν ἡ καρδία πεπωρωμένη (ēn avtōn hē kardia pepōrōmenē, “for their heart was imperceptive”; Mark 6:52).^[87] Each question Jesus asks in Mark 8:17-18 takes readers another step backward to earlier scenes in Mark’s Gospel.

L27-28 ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες οὐ βλέπετε καὶ ὦτα ἔχοντες οὐκ ἀκούετε (Mark 8:18). “Having eyes do you not look, and having ears do you not hear?” echoes Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ question regarding his use of parables. Jesus had told the disciples that parables were told to outsiders ἵνα βλέποντες βλέπωσιν καὶ μὴ ἴδωσιν καὶ ἀκούοντες ἀκούωσιν καὶ μὴ συνιῶσιν (hina blepontes blepōsin kai mē idōsin kai akouontes akouōsin kai mē sūniōsin, “so that looking they may look and not see, and hearing they may hear and not understand”; Mark 4:12). Now, however, the disciples are in danger of being excluded from knowledge like the outsiders.^[88] The resemblance of Mark’s wording in L27-28 to Jer. 5:21 may be intentional^[89] or merely coincidental.

L29 καὶ οὐ μνημονεύετε (Mark 8:18). Mark’s wording in L29 could either be understood as a discrete question (“And do you not remember?”) or as the beginning of a two-part question (“And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets of leftovers you picked up?”).^[90] The author of Matthew opted for the latter reading,^[91] but we suspect the author of Mark’s intention was the first. “Do you not remember?” asks the disciples (and the readers of Mark’s Gospel) to recall when all this lack of understanding due to imperceptive hearts began—at the healing of the man with the contractured arm, in response to which the Pharisees conspired with the Herodians to destroy Jesus because they did not understand what the miraculous healing meant.

Jesus’ demand for remembering in L29 contrasts with the disciples’ forgetfulness in L5 and reveals their differing priorities. The disciples were worried because they had forgotten to bring bread, but Jesus wanted the disciples to remember the significance of his miracles.

μνημονεύετε (Matt. 16:9). With μνημονεύετε (mnēmonevete, “you remember”) the author of Matthew resumes Mark’s wording, but in the lines to follow he will continue to abbreviate his Markan source.

L30 ὅτε τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους ἔκλασα (Mark 8:19). On the whole, the author of Mark carefully distinguished between the two miraculous feedings by using vocabulary peculiar to the incident in question. But in L30 the author of Mark somewhat relaxed this rigorous distinction by using the verb κλᾶν (klan, “to break”) with respect to the first miraculous feeding. This verb appears in the feeding of the four thousand (Mark 8:6), but not in the feeding of the five thousand, where we find κατακλᾶν (kataklan, “to break apart”; Mark 6:41) instead.

τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους (Matt. 16:9). The author of Matthew adopted Mark’s phrase, τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους (tous pente artous, “the five breads”), but streamlined Mark’s wording by making Jesus’ question rhetorical.^[92] 

L31 εἰς τοὺς πεντακισχειλίους (Mark 8:19). The only two instances of πεντακισχίλιοι (pentakischilioi, “five thousand”) in Mark’s Gospel occur in the first miraculous feeding (Mark 6:44) and Warning About Leavened Bread (Mark 8:19).^[93] Although in the first miraculous feeding the number modified ἄνδρες (andres, “men”), here five thousand is regarded as the total number of persons in the crowd. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the author of Mark regarded ἄνδρες in Mark 6:44 as functionally equivalent to ἄνθρωποι (anthrōpoi, “persons”) and did not think, as did the author of Matthew, that the tally of five thousand excluded women and children (cf. Matt. 14:21).

τῶν πεντακισχιλίων (Matt. 16:9). Having omitted “I broke” in L30, the author of Matthew was obliged to change Mark’s εἰς τοὺς πεντακισχιλίους (eis tous pentakischilious, “for the five thousand”) to τῶν πεντακισχιλίων (tōn pentakischiliōn, “of the five thousand”). The author of Matthew has either forgotten that, according to his account, the crowd far exceeded five thousand, or he used “of the five thousand” as a shorthand way of referring to the first miraculous feeding.^[94] 

L32 πόσους κοφίνους κλασμάτων πλήρεις ἤρατε (Mark 8:19). The wording of Mark’s phrase πόσους κοφίνους κλασμάτων πλήρεις ἤρατε (posous kofinous klasmatōn plēreis ērate, “how many full baskets of pieces you picked up”) echoes καὶ ἦραν κλάσματα δώδεκα κοφίνων πληρώματα (kai ēran klasmata dōdeka kofinōn plērōmata, “they picked up pieces, twelve basketfuls”; Mark 6:43) in Mark’s account of the first miraculous feeding. In Mark the noun κόφινος (kofinos, “basket”) only occurs in these two verses.^[95] 

καὶ πόσους κοφίνους ἐλάβετε (Matt. 16:9). The author of Matthew economized Mark’s wording by omitting “full” and “pieces.”^[96] He changed “picked up” to “took” in order to draw a parallel between the bread the disciples took in baskets after the miraculous feeding and the bread the disciples forgot to take (L6) in the opening to Warning About Leavened Bread.^[97] Both changes are literary and stylistic improvements.

L33 λέγουσιν αὐτῷ δώδεκα (Mark 8:19). “They say to him, ‘Twelve,’” allows the disciples to provide the correct answer (cf. Mark 6:43). The use of the historical present is characteristic of Markan redaction and composition.^[98] The author of Matthew eliminated the disciples’ response, thereby streamlining the narrative and requiring readers to remember the answer for themselves. This, too, is a literary and stylistic improvement to the story.

L34 ὅτε τοὺς ἑπτὰ εἰς τοὺς τετρακισχειλίους (Mark 8:20). In Mark’s question about the second miraculous feeding the verb “I broke” is unstated but implied. The number τετρακισχίλιοι (tetrakischilioi, “four thousand”) only occurs twice in Mark,^[99] in the second miraculous feeding (Mark 8:9) and in Warning About Leavened Bread (Mark 8:20).

οὐδὲ τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἄρτους τῶν τετρακισχειλίων (Matt. 16:10). As in Mark, the verb in Matthew’s second question is unstated but implied. However, which verb is implied is different. In Mark it is “I broke” (cf. L30), but in Matthew it is “you remember” (cf. L29).

For the sake of clarity the author of Matthew added ἄρτους (artous, “breads,” i.e., “loaves”) after ἑπτά (hepta, “seven”).^[100] 

L35 πόσων σπυρίδων πληρώματα κλασμάτων ἤρατε (Mark 8:20). Mark’s phrase πόσων σπυρίδων πληρώματα κλασμάτων ἤρατε (posōn spūridōn plērōmata klasmatōn ērate, “how many large basketfuls of pieces you took up”) echoes καὶ ἦραν περισσεύματα κλασμάτων ἑπτὰ σπυρίδας (kai ēran perissevmata klasmatōn hepta spūridas, “and they took up seven large baskets of leftover pieces”; Mark 8:8) in Mark’s account of the second miraculous feeding. These are the only two verses in Mark in which the noun σπυρίς (spūris, “large basket”) occurs.^[101] 

καὶ πόσας σπυρίδας ἐλάβετε (Matt. 16:10). The author of Matthew economized by omitting “fullnesses” and “pieces.” As in L32, he replaced “you picked up” with “you took.”

L36 καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ ἑπτά (Mark 8:20). Once again the author of Mark, in characteristically Markan style (historical present), has the disciples answer Jesus’ question with the correct response. And once again the author of Matthew eliminated the disciples’ answer.

L37 καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς πῶς οὐ νοεῖτε (Mark 8:21). In Codex Vaticanus Mark’s pericope concludes with “and he was saying to them, ‘How do you not perceive?’” but this reading is an assimilation to the Matthean parallel. The original reading was καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς οὔπω συνίετε (kai elegen avtois oupō sūniete, “And he was saying to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’”).^[102] Thus, the concluding question recapitulates Mark’s question in L25: οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ συνεῖτε (oupō noeite oude sūneite, “Do you not yet perceive or understand?”; Mark 8:17).^[103] It is as though the author of Mark wanted his readers to retrace their steps in case they had lost his trail of breadcrumbs the first time around. The author of Mark wanted his readers to come to the realization, without his explicit say so, that incomprehension of Jesus and his miracles is the leavened bread of the Pharisees. The deadly consequences that follow from such imperceptiveness of the heart is the leavened bread of the Herodians (or Herod).

Although the conclusion sounds a note of frustration, it is not without hope.^[104] The disciples do not yet understand, but most of them will. Likewise, Mark’s Gospel is designed to reveal to its readers who the evangelist believed Jesus is.

L37-40 (Matt. 16:11). His elimination of Mark’s question-and-answer format enabled the author of Matthew to omit Mark’s “and he was saying to them.” He thereby economized, which is typical of the author of Matthew’s style. But he immediately departs from this economizing approach in the lines that follow. Not content to leave Mark’s riddle unsolved, the author of Matthew transformed “Do you not yet understand?” (L37) into “How do you not perceive that it was not concerning bread that I spoke to you? But beware of the leavened bread of the Pharisees and Sadducees!” (L37-40).

In L39-40 the author of Matthew gives a version of Jesus’ warning that is unalloyed by Markan influence. Nevertheless, it is adulterated by Matthean redaction. The conjunction δέ (de, “but”) in L39 and the addition of καὶ Σαδδουκαίων (kai Saddoukaiōn, “and the Sadducees”) in L40 come from the author of Matthew’s editorial pen. The elimination of these blatantly Matthean additions yields a version that is identical to the version of the warning in Luke 12:1 absent the explanatory gloss. Such agreement is improbable unless both evangelists drew from a non-Markan tradition.^[105] 

L41-44 (Matt. 16:12). The author of Matthew continued his redactional expansion of the pericope by concluding with the statement “Then they understood that he did not say to beware of the leaven of bread but of the teaching of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.” The author of Matthew thereby resolves the riddle of Jesus’ warning for his readers. The use of narrative τότε (tote, “then”) to open the sentence is typical of Matthean redaction and composition,^[106] and there can be no doubt that the entire verse is the author of Matthew’s redactional creation.^[107] The phrase τῆς ζύμης τῶν ἄρτων (tēs zūmēs tōn artōn, “of the leaven of bread”) suggests the author of Matthew committed a mental error, slipping into ζύμη’s more usual meaning of “leaven” instead of the contextual meaning “leavened bread.” But perhaps Matthew’s phrase could be interpreted as “of the leavened bread, which is [literal] bread,” so perhaps the author of Matthew can avoid the accusation of redactional sloppiness on this occasion. Moreover, the appending of τῶν ἄρτων (tōn artōn, “of bread”) to τῆς ζύμης (tēs zūmēs) is not textually certain, so perhaps the original text of Matthew read, “Then they understood that he did not say to beware of leavened bread but of the teaching of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.”

Whatever the original reading might have been, the disciples’ sudden realization that leaven/leavened bread stands for Jewish doctrine is a non sequitur.^[108] From Jesus’ question in L37-38 (“How do you not perceive that it was not concerning bread that I spoke to you?”) the disciples could have deduced that when Jesus referred to leaven/leavened bread he was speaking figuratively rather than literally, but how they leapt to the conclusion that leaven/leavened bread means “teaching” is perplexing. The only answer is that leaven/leavened bread means “teaching” because the author of Matthew wanted it to have that meaning. For the author of Matthew and the community for whom he wrote the concept of “teaching” or “doctrine” was important. They considered themselves to be recipients of the διδαχὴ κυρίου (didachē kūriou, “teaching of the Lord”; Did. incipit), and the author of Matthew was adamant that the members of his community had only one teacher (διδάσκαλος [didaskalos]) and one instructor, the Christ (Matt. 23:8, 10). Just as the author of Matthew did not want any of the members of his community to style themselves as ῥαββί (hrabbi, “Rabbi”), so he did not want them to follow Jewish doctrines,^[109] or, to use the Matthean terms, ἡ διδαχή τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ Σαδδουκαίων (hē didachē tōn Farisaiōn kai Saddoukaiōn, “the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees”).^[110] Thus his solution to the riddle reveals the author of Matthew’s anti-Jewish tendency.

Redaction Analysis

None of the synoptic versions of Warning About Leavened Bread have escaped redactional activity. Nevertheless, the remarkable non-Markan agreements between the Lukan and Matthean versions of Jesus’ warning allow us to recover an early Greek version of the saying that reverts easily to Hebrew.

Luke’s Version^[111] 

The author of Luke made very few changes to the First Reconstruction’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread, which probably read something like this:

ἐν οἷς ἐπισυναχθεισῶν τῶν ὄχλων ὥστε καταπατεῖν ἀλλήλους ἤρξατο λέγειν πρός αὐτοὺς προσέχετε ἑαυτοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης [ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις] τῶν Φαρισαίων

Meanwhile, as the crowds converged so that they trampled one another, he began to say to them, “Beware for yourselves of the leavened bread[—which is hypocrisy—]of the Pharisees!”

In our reconstruction of FR’s wording we have placed the explanatory gloss (“which is hypocrisy”) in brackets. Since it is unlikely that this interpretation came from the author of Luke, who never accuses the Pharisees of hypocrisy anywhere else in his writings, the gloss was either taken over from Luke’s source (FR) or added by a later copyist of Luke’s Gospel. We are inclined toward the latter view, but the brackets acknowledge the former possibility. In any case, the author of Luke’s changes to FR include a reference to “the myriads of the crowd” in place of “the crowds” and “he began to say to his disciples” in place of “he began to say to them.”

The First Reconstructor’s changes to the Anthology were more extensive. He provided Jesus’ warning with a narrative introduction that linked the saying to the preceding pericope (Woes Against Scribes and Pharisees), thereby correlating Jesus’ warning with the thronging of the crowds even as the Pharisees and scribes conspired to entrap Jesus. Nevertheless, the First Reconstructor modified Jesus’ words very little, merely adding the reflexive pronoun “for yourselves” after the warning “Beware!” It is also possible, although we think it unlikely, that the First Reconstructor added the explanatory gloss to clarify the meaning of Jesus’ warning. More likely, the explanatory gloss began as a marginal gloss from a Christian scribe that crept into the body of the text sometime after the Gospel of Luke was written.

Mark’s Version^[112] 

The author of Mark provided Jesus’ warning about the leavened bread of the Pharisees with a new narrative context. He placed it within the larger account of the Pharisees’ ironically demanding from Jesus a sign immediately after the second of his miraculous feedings. The immediate context within which the author of Mark placed Jesus’ warning is the disciples’ forgetting to bring a sufficient stock of bread to supply their needs (L1-9). Ironically, however, the disciples did have a single loaf with them (L7), which, after two miraculous multiplications of bread, the disciples ought to have known was more than necessary for Jesus to perform another miracle, should that become necessary. These ironic situations form the backdrop of Mark’s version of the saying, which the author of Mark paraphrased in his characteristic style, using a double imperative (L13) and also referring to the leavened bread of the Herodians (L17) in addition to that of the Pharisees. The leavened bread of the Herodians is the first clue to the author of Mark’s interpretation of Jesus’ saying. The Herodians had only been mentioned once previously in Mark’s Gospel, and on that occasion they had conspired with the Pharisees to destroy Jesus because their hearts were imperceptive and they could not understand the meaning of Jesus’ miracles. The author of Mark did not want his readers to fall prey to that same imperceptiveness, and so he had Jesus warn the disciples against the “leavened bread” of the Pharisees and the Herodians. In case the equation of “leavened bread” and “imperceptive hearts” was not already clear to his readers, the author of Mark had Jesus ask a series of questions (L25-29) that led back from their most recent failure to understand to the original misunderstanding of the healing of the man’s contractured arm when the conspiracy between the Pharisees and the Herodians began. The evangelist then had Jesus question the disciples about the two miraculous feedings (L30-36), both to prove that he was not warning against literal “leavened bread” and to demonstrate that they had still not understood the significance of Jesus’ miracles. For the author of Mark, the miracles proved Jesus to be the Son of God, who suffered on behalf of believers, and the Son of Man, who was coming to save the elect. To conclude the pericope the author of Mark had Jesus reiterate his question about the disciple’s lack of understanding (L37) just in case readers had not made the connection that the “leavened bread” Jesus referred to was incomprehension of Jesus and his miracles due to imperceptiveness of the heart. With these changes the author of Mark radically changed the meaning of Jesus’ warning about leavened bread.

Matthew’s Version^[113] 

The author of Matthew polished Mark’s Greek and streamlined Mark’s presentation, adding some clarifications (L5, L10) and omitting what he considered to be unnecessary details (L7-9). The author of Matthew replaced Mark’s reference to the Herodians with a reference to the Sadducees (L17) because he wished to interpret “leavened bread” as representing Jewish teaching. The author of Matthew changed Mark’s description of the disciples’ discussing their lack of bread “among themselves” to a description of their reasoning “in themselves” (L19, cf. L22), perhaps to insinuate that Jesus had supernatural awareness of the disciples’ thoughts. Characteristically of the author of Matthew, he had Jesus accuse the disciples of being “small believers” (L23). The author of Matthew simplified Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ questioning about the disciples’ lack of understanding (L25-28), and he turned Mark’s question-and-answer exchange between Jesus and the disciples concerning the miraculous feedings into a series of rhetorical questions (L29-35). He also changed Mark’s concluding question, “Do you still not understand?” (L37), into “How do you not perceive that it was not about [literal] bread that I spoke to you?” (L37-38). And, not content to let readers solve the riddle for themselves as the author of Mark had wished (and as the author of Matthew had apparently failed to do), the author of Matthew provided his own solution to the riddle: “leavened bread” refers to Jewish doctrine (L41-44).

Despite all this redactional activity, Matthew’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread remains valuable as a witness to the original wording of Jesus’ warning, which is repeated twice in Matthew’s pericope. Jesus’ warning in Matt. 16:6 (L13-17) not only has elements in common with Mark’s version (double imperative, one of which is ὁρᾶτε; two groups antagonistic toward Jesus), which is to be expected given Matthew’s dependence on Mark, it also has elements in common with Luke’s version (the imperative προσέχετε; a single kind of ζύμη), which is surprising given Matthew’s independence from Luke. Even more surprising is the fact that Matthew’s second version of Jesus’ warning in Matt. 16:11 (L39-40) is entirely free of distinctively Markan elements, and when all redactional elements are stripped away from Luke 12:1 (ἑαυτοῖς [L13]; ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις [L15]) and Matt. 16:11 (δέ [L39]; καὶ Σαδδουκαίων [L40]), the two versions are identical. Such an occurrence is highly improbable unless the Lukan and Matthean evangelists were both relying on a non-Markan tradition for their versions of Jesus’ warning. Thus, the agreed upon wording in Luke 12:1 and Matt. 16:11 (προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων [prosechete apo tēs zūmēs tōn Farisaiōn, “Beware of the leaven/leavened bread of the Pharisees”]) in all probability represents the earliest Greek version of Jesus’ saying. This Greek version, we hasten to add, reverts smoothly to Hebrew.

Results of This Research

1. What is the meaning of ζύμη (zūmē, “leavening agent,” “leavened bread”) in Warning About Leavened Bread? As the question implies, among ancient Greek-speaking Jews the noun ζύμη could refer both to an inedible leavening agent (starter dough)^[114] and to edible leavened foodstuffs (bread).^[115] Thus, in LXX ζύμη translates both שְׂאֹר (s^e’or, “[inedible] leavening agent”) and חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz, “leavened foodstuff”).^[116] Theoretically, therefore, either meaning of ζύμη could apply in Jesus’ warning. The overwhelming assumption among New Testament scholars is that ζύμη in Jesus’ warning refers to a leavening agent, probably because this is the more usual meaning of ζύμη.^[117] On account of this assumption the “leaven” of the Pharisees is often interpreted as referring to their malignant “pervasive influence,” which contaminates the whole lump of dough. However, in Mark’s version of the pericope ζύμη is treated as a synonym of ἄρτος (artos, “bread”), which is why, when Jesus warns the disciples against the ζύμη of the Pharisees and the ζύμη of Herod, the disciples assume Jesus was referring to their lack of bread. The context shows that in Mark 8:15 ζύμη is better translated as “leavened bread” than “leaven.”

In Matthew’s parallel to Mark’s pericope ζύμη can bear the same meaning as in Mark (viz., “leavened bread”) except, perhaps, for the statement in Matt. 16:12: τότε συνῆκαν ὅτι οὐκ εἶπεν προσέχειν ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν ἄρτων (“then they understood that he did not say to beware of the leaven of bread”). While it might be possible to understand τῆς ζύμης τῶν ἄρτων as “the ζύμη that is bread [i.e., leavened bread],” it is more natural to read it as “the leaven that pertains to bread.” To complicate matters, there is a text-critical problem in Matt. 16:12. Some witnesses do not attach τῶν ἄρτων to τῆς ζύμης. If τῶν ἄρτων is not original, then ζύμη probably refers to “leavened bread” throughout Matthew’s version of the pericope, just as in Mark’s. If τῶν ἄρτων is original, then the author of Matthew was probably inconsistent in his use of ζύμη—by no means improbable given the author of Matthew’s tendency toward editorial sloppiness—or the author of Matthew intended the meaning “leavening agent” throughout.

Luke’s version of Warning About Leavened Bread gives no indication of which meaning of ζύμη was intended.

If, as we believe, Jesus made a wordplay on the חָמֵץ (ḥāmētz, “leavened bread”) of the Pharisees and the חָמָס (ḥāmās, “extortion”) of the Pharisaic scribes, then “leavened bread” was the meaning of ζύμη that the Greek translator of Jesus’ saying had in mind.

2. What was the function of “leavened bread” in Jesus’ warning? The Synoptic Gospels evince three approaches to Jesus’ use of “leavened bread” in his warning. If the explanatory gloss is later than Luke’s Gospel, then the author of Luke regarded Jesus’ use of “leaven”/“leavened bread” as enigmatic. Neither he nor his readers were able to understand the meaning of Jesus’ warning. The author of Mark’s approach to Jesus’ use of “leavened bread” was figurative; “leavened bread” functioned for Mark as a figure of the Pharisees’ and the Herodians’ imperceptiveness of heart, which the disciples were also in danger of “eating.” The author of Matthew’s approach was similar, but nonetheless distinct. “Leavened bread” functioned for him not so much as a figure but as a cipher. “Leavened bread” was a codeword for “teaching.” Whoever was responsible for the explanatory gloss in Luke 12:1 took a similar approach. For him, “leaven” or “leavened bread” was a codeword for “hypocrisy.” Modern scholars tend to take a metaphorical approach. Leaven pervades dough and causes it to rise. It does so through fermentation. So the “leaven” of the Pharisees must represent their moral decay, which threatens to pervade the community of believers in Jesus. We reject this modern interpretation.

Of all these options, Luke’s enigmatic approach is the best. We believe Jesus intended a wordplay in which the “leavened bread” of the Pharisees sounded like the word for “extortion” committed by the Pharisaic scribes. When Jesus’ warnings were translated from Hebrew into Greek, the wordplay was lost. The separation of Jesus’ warning against the leavened bread of the Pharisees from his warning against the scribes who made a show of their personal piety while ignoring their social responsibilities to the poor made recovering what Jesus meant by “leavened bread of the Pharisees” an even more difficult task. Three tenets of Lindsey’s hypothesis—1) that the pre-synoptic tradition in Greek goes back to a Hebrew source; 2) that longer teaching discourses were broken down into shorter units that were rearranged as the Greek pre-synoptic tradition passed through various stages of transmission; and 3) that Luke’s Gospel is prior to Mark and Matthew—allow us to overcome these difficulties.

Conclusion

When Jesus warned his audience against the “leavened bread” (חָמֵץ [ḥāmētz]) of the Pharisess, he was making a jab at the extortion (חָמָס [ḥāmās]) certain Pharisaic scribes perpetrated against vulnerable members of society.

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Notes

1. For abbreviations and bibliographical references, see “Introduction to ‘The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction.’” ↩
2. This translation is a dynamic rendition of our reconstruction of the conjectured Hebrew source that stands behind the Greek of the Synoptic Gospels. It is not a translation of the Greek text of a canonical source. ↩
3. See Bundy, 356 §243. ↩
4. Some scholars suggest that the connection between Warning About Leavened Bread (Luke 12:1) and Nothing Hidden (Luke 12:2-3) is that hypocrisy (i.e., “leaven”) will be revealed in the final judgment, and therefore one’s words and deeds in private ought to be consistent with one’s public persona. This connection depends on the phrase ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις (“which is hypocrisy”) being original to the text of Luke 12:1. On this text-critical issue, see below, Comment to L15. ↩
5. Cf. Guelich, 419. ↩
6. Cf. Guelich, 425; Hooker, 194. ↩
7. Cf. Guelich, 424. ↩
8. See LOY Excursus: Mark’s Editorial Style, under the subheading “Mark’s Freedom and Creativity: Literary Techniques.” ↩
9. Cf. Davies-Allison, 2:587; Luz, 2:349. ↩
10. Pace Taylor, 365-366. ↩
11. Cf. Luz, 2:350. ↩
12. Cf., e.g., Bultmann, 131; Beare, Matt., 350. ↩
13. Cf., e.g., Luz, 2:349 n. 4. ↩
14. Cf., e.g., Streeter, 279; Bundy, 357 §243; Marshall, 510. ↩
15. Cf., e.g., Manson, Sayings, 105; Fitzmyer, 2:953. See also Bacon, 97; Taylor, 365-366; Nolland, Luke, 2:675. ↩
16. Cf. Beare, 135 §120. ↩
17. Cf. Bundy, 357 §243. ↩
18. Cf. Wolter, 2:132. Plummer (Luke, 318) overreached when he interpreted προσέχετε ἑαυτοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις τῶν Φαρισαίων as “Beware of the leaven which is hypocrisy,—I mean the Pharisees’ leaven.” ↩
19. Cf. Fitzmyer (2:935), Guelich (422) and Vermes (Authentic, 63), who concluded that the original form of the saying was aimed solely against the Pharisees. Marcus (1:509) speculated that the original form of the saying was aimed solely against Herod, and that reference to the Pharisees is a later accretion. This suggestion does not adequately take into account the pre-synoptic version of the warning independent of Mark 8:15 attested in Luke 12:1 ∥ Matt. 16:11 that refers solely to the Pharisees. Dibelius (228-229) argued that Mark’s reference to the leavened bread of Herod must be original “since there is no reason…for naming Herod.” This suggestion fails to follow Mark’s breadcrumb trail back to the Pharisees’ imperceptiveness of heart, which gave rise to their collusion with the Herodians (Mark 3:6). Gundry also regarded Mark’s reference to the leavened bread of Herod as stemming from Mark’s tradition, and further suggested that Luke’s explanatory gloss “led to the omission of ‘and the leaven of Herod’” (Gundry, Mark, 1:411). But Gundry’s suggestion, too, fails to take the evidence for Luke’s dependence on a non-Markan tradition fully into account and overlooks the author of Mark’s redactional interest in adding a reference to the Herodians (or Herod). ↩
20. Cf. Fitzmyer, 2:953; Bovon, 2:176. The term ὑποκριτής (hūpokritēs, “hypocrite”) occurs 3xx in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:42; 12:56; 13:15), but this pejorative label is never applied in Luke to the Pharisees in general or any individual Pharisee in particular. Likewise, the verb ὑποκρίνεσθαι (hūpokrinesthai, “to act [hypocritically]”), although it occurs once in Luke, is applied not to the Pharisees but to the chief priests and scribes (Luke 20:20). See Moulton-Geden, 979. ↩
21. See Moulton-Geden, 979. ↩
22. We do not agree with Gundry’s assessment (Mark, 1:408) that the author of Mark’s emphasis was on Jesus’ miraculous power and therefore had “little concern…for the meaning of Jesus’ warning.” On the contrary, the bulk of Mark’s redactional activity was aimed at leading his readers toward solving the riddle for themselves. ↩
23. See JP Staff Writer, “What Is the Leaven of the Pharisees?” Jerusalem Perspective (2023) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/26391/], under the subheading “Mark’s Version.” ↩
24. Cf. Hooker, 194-195. ↩
25. Cf. Luke 20:20, 26 (Tribute to Caesar). ↩
26. The single instance of ἐν οἷς as a chronological marker in Acts 26:12—in direct speech, not in narration as in Luke 12:1—is hardly sufficient to characterize ἐν οἷς as especially Lukan. ↩
27. On genitives absolute in the Gospel of Luke as indicative of redactional activity, see LOY Excursus: The Genitive Absolute in the Synoptic Gospels, under the subheading “The Genitive Absolute in Luke.” ↩
28. See Moulton-Geden, 658. ↩
29. Although ἀλλήλων (allēlōn, “one another”) was sometimes used in Lukan redaction (see Like Children Complaining, Comment to L6), neither the use of ὥστε (hōste, “so that,” “in order that”) to express result (see Cadbury, Style, 138) nor καταπατεῖν (katapatein, “to trample”) are typically Lukan. The verb καταπατεῖν occurs only twice in Luke (Luke 8:5; 12:1) and never in Acts (see Moulton-Geden, 536), so it is more likely that the two instances in the Gospel stem from Luke’s source(s). Pace Jeremias, Sprache, 211. ↩
30. See Gundry, Matt., 325; Davies-Allison, 2:587. ↩
31. See Allen, 173. Cf. Davies-Allison, 2:588. ↩
32. Cf. Hooker, 193; France, Mark, 315. ↩
33. Although this statement does not appear in Luke’s or Mark’s versions of Miraculous Feeding, Matthew’s wording may reproduce the Anthology’s, in which case the disciples’ statement would have been familiar to the author of Matthew. ↩
34. Cf. Bundy, 287-288 §175; Guelich, 421-422; Gundry, Mark, 1:412; Nolland, Matt., 651 n. 275. Pace Plummer (Mark, 198), who regarded the single loaf as “an unimportant detail.” ↩
35. The phrase ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ occurs in Mark 1:19, 20; 4:36; 5:21; 6:32; 8:14. ↩
36. The phrase ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ occurs in Matt. 4:21; 14:33. ↩
37. Nevertheless, ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ occurs twice in Acts (Acts 27:31, 37), so there is no reason for the author of Luke to have avoided this phrase had it occurred in his sources. ↩
38. See LOY Excursus: Catalog of Markan Stereotypes and Possible Markan Pick-ups, under the entry for Mark 5:43. Cf. Pryke, 136. ↩
39. See Randall Buth and Brian Kvasnica, “Critical Notes on the VTS” (JS1, 259-317), esp. 266-267 (Critical Note 4). Cf. Jeremias, Sprache, 211. ↩
40. Cf. Manson, Sayings, 270. ↩
41. Cf. Marshall, 511. ↩
42. So Plummer, Luke, 317; Creed, 170; Manson, Sayings, 270; Nolland, Luke, 2:677. ↩
43. So Bovon, 2:176; Wolter, 2:132. ↩
44. See Collins, 385-386. ↩
45. On the imperative βλέπετε as a Markan stereotype, see Be Ready for the Son of Man, under the subheading “Redaction Analysis: Mark’s Version,” Comment to L16. ↩
46. Plummer (Mark, 198) noted that βλέπετε ἀπό is not an Hebraism. ↩
47. Pace Nolland (Luke, 2:677), who dismissed the importance of this Lukan-Matthean minor agreement. ↩
48. Cf. Cadbury (Style, 176) and Jeremias (Sprache, 211), who attribute the appending of ἑαυτοῖς to προσέχετε to Lukan redaction. ↩
49. See Trommii, 2:355-356; Hatch-Redpath, 2:1215. ↩
50. See Dos Santos, 213. ↩
51. See Jastrow, 382. ↩
52. Cf. LSJ, 757, which only gives “leaven” as a definition for ζύμη. ↩
53. Nevertheless, Luz (2:351 n. 17) denied any awareness of ζύμη ever occurring “in Greek and Jewish writings as pars pro toto meaning bread.” ↩
54. Cf. Marcus, 1:506. ↩
55. For the suggestion that ζύμη in Jesus’ warning refers to the Pharisees’ pervasive corrupting influence, see Plummer, Luke, 318; Lane, 280; Marshall, 511; Fitzmyer, 2:954-955; Guelich, 422; Davies-Allison, 2:588-589; Nolland, Luke, 2:677; Marcus, 1:507; France, Mark, 316; Nolland, Matt., 652. Cf. Luz, 2:351; Bovon, 2:176; Culpepper, 305. ↩
56. See Hatch-Redpath, 1:599. ↩
57. See Jastrow, 477. ↩
58. See Athanase Negoiţä and Constantin Daniel, “L’Énigme du levain: Ad Mc. viii 15; Mt. xvi 6; et Lc. xii 1,” Novum Testamentum 9.4 (1967): 306-314. ↩
59. See Zimmerman, 41-42. ↩
60. See Negoiţä and Daniel, “L’Énigme du levain,” 311. Cf. Gundry, Mark, 1:414. ↩
61. See Zimmerman, 41. ↩
62. Ibid. ↩
63. See Randall Buth, “Language Use in the First Century: Spoken Hebrew in a Trilingual Society in the Time of Jesus,” Jerusalem Perspective (2026): [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/31004/]. ↩
64. Pace Manson, Sayings, 270; Hans Windisch, “ζύμη, κ.τ.λ.,” TDNT, 2:902-906, esp. 906; Taylor, 365; Lane, 280. ↩
65. Marshall (512) supposed that the explanatory gloss was already present in Luke’s source, which he identified as Q. Cf. Manson, Sayings, 270. ↩
66. Bultmann (327), Bundy (357 §243) and Fitzmyer (2:953), among others, attributed the gloss to the author of Luke. ↩
67. Cf. Bovon, 2:176 n. 28. ↩
68. Cf. Marshall, 512; Nolland, 2:677. ↩
69. See Plummer, Mark, 198; Bundy, 288 §175. ↩
70. See Taylor, 366; Metzger, 98; Davies-Allison, 2:588 n. 14; France, Mark, 313; Collins, 382. ↩
71. Cf. Hooker, 194. ↩
72. On the pairing of Pharisees and Sadducees as the product of Matthean recaction, see Yohanan the Immerser Demands Repentance, Comment to L1-2. Cf. Meier, Marginal, 2:30. ↩
73. See Bundy, 289 §175; Gundry, Matt., 326; Nolland, Matt., 652. ↩
74. See Sign-Seeking Generation, Comment to L12. ↩
75. See Allen, 173; Beare, Matt., 349; Davies-Allison, 2:588. Pace Meyer, who asserted that Herod propounded “morally vile principles and maxims” (italics original), which where “propagated by the Jews who adhered to him (the Herodians…)….” See Heinrich Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Gospels of Mark and Luke (2 vols.; trans. Robert Ernest Wallis and William P. Dickson; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1880), 1:124. There is no record of Herod Antipas ever propounding maxims or having disciples who would follow them. ↩
76. See Davies-Allison, 2:589; Buth and Kvasnica, Critical Notes on the VTS, 292 (Critical Note 22). ↩
77. See Gundry, Matt., 326; Davies-Allison, 2:590. Luz (2:350 n. 14), however, dismisses this possibility. Cf. Nolland, Matt., 652. ↩
78. Cf. Plummer, Mark, 198-199; Gundry, Mark, 1:409. Pace Marcus, 1:508. ↩
79. This section in Mark’s Gospel is laden with irony. The author of Mark has the Pharisees demand of Jesus a sign immediately after his miraculous feeding of four thousand people. (See Sign-Seeking Generation, under the “Story Placement” subheading.) Now, following the Pharisees’ ironic demand, the disciples fail to comprehend that a man who can work such miracles would not be concerned about their lack of bread and, therefore, should have understood that his warning was not to be taken literally. Cf. Hooker, 194; Collins, 385. ↩
80. Cf. Debelius, 229; Hooker, 194; Marcus, 1:511; Collins, 387. ↩
81. Cf. Gundry, Matt., 326; Davies-Allison, 2:589. ↩
82. On the historical present as an indicator of Markan redaction, see LOY Excursus: Mark’s Editorial Style, under the subheading “Mark’s Freedom and Creativity.” ↩
83. Cf. Davies-Allison, 2:590; Nolland, Matt., 653. On ὀλιγόπιστος as a redactional “Matthean stereotype,” see Quieting a Storm, Comment to L39. ↩
84. On sloppiness in Matthean redaction, see Woes on Three Villages, Comment to L24. ↩
85. Cf. Collins, 387. ↩
86. See Nolland, Matt., 653. ↩
87. Cf. Collins, 387. ↩
88. Cf. Collins, 387. ↩
89. See Swete, 171; David Flusser, Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzähler Jesus (Bern: Peter Lang, 1981), 248; Gundry, Mark, 1:415. ↩
90. See Plummer, Mark, 199; France, Mark, 317. ↩
91. As did Gundry, Mark, 1:409. ↩
92. See Nolland, Matt., 653. ↩
93. See Moulton-Geden, 789-790. ↩
94. Cf. Nolland, Matt., 653. ↩
95. See Moulton-Geden, 557. ↩
96. See Nolland, Matt., 653 n. 283. ↩
97. Cf. McNeile, 236; Gundry, Matt., 327; Nolland, Matt., 653 n. 283. ↩
98. On the historical present as an indicator of Markan redaction, see above, Comment to L21. ↩
99. See Moulton-Geden, 940. ↩
100. See Gundry, Matt., 327. ↩
101. See Moulton-Geden, 927 (σφυρίς). ↩
102. Cf. Collins, 383. ↩
103. See Plummer, Mark, 199; Nolland, Matt., 653. ↩
104. Cf. Guelich, 426; Marcus, 1:508. ↩
105. Pace Gundry, Matt., 327. ↩
106. On τότε as an indicator of Matthean redaction, see Jesus and a Canaanite Woman, Comment to L22. ↩
107. Cf. Beare, Matt., 350. ↩
108. Cf. Culpepper, 306. ↩
109. See Luz, 2:351. Cf. Davies-Allison, 2:587. ↩
110. Note the slight difference in word order between Nestle-Aland and the text of Vaticanus. It is impossible to decide which order—“teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” or “teaching of the Sadducees and Pharisees”—is original. ↩

111. Warning About Leavened Bread
     Luke’s Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     ἐν οἷς ἐπισυναχθεισῶν τῶν μυριάδων τοῦ ὄχλου ὥστε καταπατεῖν ἀλλήλους ἤρξατο λέγειν πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ πρῶτον προσέχετε ἑαυτοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης [ἥτις ἐστὶν ὑπόκρισις] τῶν Φαρισαίων		[καὶ ἤρξατο λέγειν πρὸς αὐτοὺς] προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων
     Total Words:	24 [27]	Total Words:	6 [11]
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	6 [9]	Total Words Taken Over in Luke:	6 [9]
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	25.00 [22.22] / 37.50 [33.33]%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Luke:	100.00 [81.82]%

      ↩

112. Warning About Leavened Bread
     Mark’s Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     καὶ ἐπελάθοντο λαβεῖν ἄρτους καὶ εἰ μὴ ἕνα ἄρτον οὐκ εἶχον μεθ’ ἑαυτῶν ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ καὶ διεστέλλετο αὐτοῖς λέγων ὁρᾶτε βλέπετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Ἡρωδιανῶν καὶ διελογίζοντο πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχουσιν καὶ γνοὺς λέγει αὐτοῖς τί διαλογίζεσθε ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχετε οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ συνεῖτε πεπωρωμένην ἔχετε τὴν καρδίαν ὑμῶν ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες οὐ βλέπετε καὶ ὦτα ἔχοντες οὐκ ἀκούετε καὶ οὐ μνημονεύετε ὅτε τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους ἔκλασα εἰς τοὺς πεντακισχειλίους πόσους κοφίνους κλασμάτων πλήρεις ἤρατε λέγουσιν αὐτῷ δώδεκα ὅτε τοὺς ἑπτὰ εἰς τοὺς τετρακισχειλίους πόσων σπυρίδων πληρώματα κλασμάτων ἤρατε καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ ἑπτά καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς οὔπω συνίετε		[καὶ ἤρξατο λέγειν πρὸς αὐτοὺς] προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων
     Total Words:	107	Total Words:	6 [11]
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	5 [6]	Total Words Taken Over in Mark:	5 [6]
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	4.67 [5.61]%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Mark:	83.33 [54.55]%

      ↩

113. Warning About Leavened Bread
     Matthew’s Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     καὶ ἐλθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ εἰς τὸ πέραν ἐπελάθοντο λαβεῖν ἄρτους ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ Σαδδουκαίων οἱ δὲ διελογίζοντο ἐν ἑαυτοῖς λέγοντες ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἐλάβομεν γνοὺς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν τί διαλογίζεσθε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ὀλιγόπιστοι ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχετε οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ μνημονεύετε τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους τῶν πεντακισχιλίων καὶ πόσους κοφίνους ἐλάβετε οὐδὲ τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἄρτους τῶν τετρακισχειλίων καὶ πόσας σπυρίδας ἐλάβετε πῶς οὐ νοεῖτε ὅτι οὐ περὶ ἄρτων εἶπον ὑμῖν προσέχετε δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ Σαδδουκαίων τότε συνῆκαν ὅτι οὐκ εἶπεν προσέχειν ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν ἄρτων ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ τῆς διδαχῆς τῶν Σαδδουκαίων καὶ Φαρισαίων		[καὶ ἤρξατο λέγειν πρὸς αὐτοὺς] προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν Φαρισαίων
     Total Words:	109	Total Words:	6 [11]
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	12	Total Words Taken Over in Matt.:	6
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	11.01%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Matt.:	100.00 [54.55]%

      ↩

114. Thus, Philo wrote, ζύμη γὰρ ἥδυσμα τροφῆς, οὐ τροφή (“for leaven, a sweetener of food, is not [itself] food”; QE 2:14). ↩
115. Thus, in Exod. 12:15 we read, πᾶς, ὃς ἂν φάγῃ ζύμην… (“everyone who might eat a leavened foodstuff…”). ↩
116. See Hatch-Redpath, 1:599. ↩
117. Cf. LSJ, 757, which only gives “leaven” as a definition for ζύμη. ↩