Mark 9

Mark 9 begins with the transfiguration (9:2-8), which is the single most explicit disclosure of Jesus' divine identity in the gospel before the passion. The mountain, the three disciples, the radiant garments, the appearance of Elijah and Moses — the two figures who represent the Law and the Prophets respectively — and the cloud and the voice: the scene is constructed as a theophany in the Old Testament mode. Peter's offering of three tents (sukkahs, or booths) is probably an allusion to the Feast of Tabernacles; the cloud recalls the cloud of the divine presence in Exodus; the voice repeats the baptism declaration (1:11) with the addition listen to him. The command to tell no one until after the resurrection and the disciples' confusion about what resurrection means (9:9-13) continues the pattern: even at the summit of the disclosure, the disciples cannot integrate what they are told into understanding.

The healing of the possessed boy (9:14-29) is the longest exorcism narrative in the gospel and the one that most explicitly engages the question of faith. The father's cry — I believe; help my unbelief — is one of the most cited lines in the gospel. The failure of the nine disciples who remained below is addressed privately: this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. The second passion prediction (9:30-32) is followed by the greatest-in-the-kingdom controversy (9:33-37), in which the disciples' argument about greatness on the road is corrected by the placing of a child in their midst: whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. The chapter closes with three units — the exorcist who is not of the group (9:38-41), the sayings about causing little ones to stumble (9:42-48), and the sayings about salt (9:49-50) — all of which orbit the question of what it means to be inside or outside the community of Jesus.