Rhetorical Analysis Of Mark 8: 1-3

Verse 1b reads, “His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.” What was Jesus’ reason for walking through the fields? Was it just a shortcut to his next mission or was it for other reasons? We know that Jesus was sensitive to the need of the people. In Mark 8:1-3, Jesus was aware that the crowd had followed him for three days and had not eaten. It is obvious that Jesus himself did not eat the grain since the Pharisees accusation directed towards Jesus, yet it was about his disciples’ actions. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Jesus went through the field so that disciples could eat. But on the other hand, Jesus intend could also have been to violate this Sabbath tradition in order to provoke the
Jesus used scripture to state his position. However, he did not just quote the scriptures; instead, he presented the scriptures in the form of rhetorical questions that began with, “Have you not read?” The author has Jesus utilizing this rhetorical technique four other times (19:4; 21:16, 42; 22:31), and in each situation it is used in reply to an accusation made by the Pharisees and Sadducees. As stated by Longman & Garland, “The use of counter question and appeal to Scripture was common…in rabbinic debates. The Pharisees had in deed read it. The Pharisees were the authorities on the Torah, which was central to the Jewish religion and tradition. They were the ones responsible for interpreting and teaching the laws to the Jewish people. However, they had added so many rules, that abiding by the rules had become burdensome to the people. Longman and Garland states, “Picking grain was one of thirty-nine kinds of work forbidden on the Sabbath under prevailing Halakah.” Hence, what Jesus was implying when he asked, “have you not read,” was that the Pharisees did not understand what they had read. According to Gibbs, “It also asserts that his (Jesus) own teaching and actions reveal how the OT Scriptures should be