Bible Review

I am indebted to Lawrence Stager and Stanley Walters for this insight. See Frank Anthony Spina, “Rahab,” in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 4 vols., ed. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), vol. 4, pp. 33–34.

Stanley Walters made this suggestion in an unpublished lecture.

Other sanitized translations include: “Produce the men who came to you and entered your house” (Jewish Publication Society); “Bring forth the men that have come to you, who entered your house” (Revised Standard Version); and “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house” (New International Version).

Both Jewish and Christian interpreters have famously attempted to sanitize this story by seeing Rahab’s establishment as an inn and Rahab as the innkeeper. See, for example, Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 5.1.2.

I use Canaanite in this context formulaically, since a variety of terms, sometimes occurring singly, sometimes in varying combinations, is employed to signify the inhabitants of the promised land. (See Genesis 10:15–18, 15:16, 18–21.)

See Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967), pp. 3–31, 58–59.

Donald H. Juel, A Master of Surprise: Mark Interpreted (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), p. 107.

Although the grammatically unusual ending is rare, it is not unparalleled. For the evidence and details, see Andrew T. Lincoln, “The Promise and the Failure—Mark 16:7, 8, ” Journal of Biblical Literature 108 (1989), pp. 283–300.

For a detailed and sophisticated presentation, see Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 1009–1021.