Introducing Hei-Christa — a new look at the anointing woman in Mark 14:3

Towards the end of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 14:3-9) there is a story within the story that has been told and retold for thousands of years. It is time to re-examine this tale — one verse at a time. Let us begin with Mark 14:3, which is officially translated as, “While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.” (NRSV)

Mark 14:3 While in a beth-aniy, in a house of leper’s shemen…

We are used to taking this opening phrase to mean the town (Bethany) and the person’s home (Simon the leper) where this scene takes place. But I suggest this phrase may be describing something very different. “Bethany” is actually a transliteration of the Hebrew phrase ּ בית עָנְיֵֽ -- beth aniy.—which means “house of affliction”. Having transliterated the Hebrew phrase, Mark then translates it using the Greek words for ‘house’ and ‘leper’. The Greek word lepros was used to indicate various diseases and afflictions. Mark also uses another Hebrew word here: שֶׁמֶן — shemen — which means “oil.” Thus the “house” being described is a place of treatment — through the application of oils — for those suffering from afflictions.

...as he lay there...

Wait, what? As Jesus lay there? Aren’t we used to reading bibles that translate this as “as he sat at the table” or “while he was eating” or “as he sat at meat”? But there is absolutely no mention of meat or table or eating here! Only one word --the verb κατακειμένου -- appears here and it means “to lie down.” This is the same verb Mark uses at the beginning of his story to describe Peter’s mother-in-law lying down sick with a fever (1:30) and the sick person lying down on the mat while being lowered through the roof (2:4). Scholars justify interpreting this verb here as Jesus “sitting at a meal” because wealthy Romans reclined at meals. Jews, however, did not. These first few words of the story seem to be setting a scene in which Jesus is a patient in some sort of healing establishment. Consider that this story comes just after the institutional religious authorities have come together to plot his murder, which they then decide to postpone for a few days (Mark 14:1-2). Imagine the stress of that interim time for one visiting a city in a district far from home, whose murder has been planned and postponed.

…a woman came, holding an alabaster jar of spikenard ointment…

This woman is the grammatical subject of Mark 14:3, and she is the main subject of this story-within-the-gospel.

Jesus is lying there, and this practitioner comes in, carrying alabaster filled with an oil called spikenard.

Spikenard ointment comes from a flowering plant in the honeysuckle family, which grows in the Himalayas of Nepal, China and India. For thousands of years it has been used within the healing practices of Ayurvedic medicine. According to Dr. Meenakshi Chauhan, on their Ayurvedic website, “Spikenard has various therapeutic actions on [the] body. It is a natural nervine tonic and a memory enhancer, which has calming, peaceful and relaxation features. It is used for natural support for mental disorders like schizophrenia and epilepsy, stress, anxiety and depression and induces healthy sleep.”

...pistikos and polytelos. And, breaking the alabaster, she poured it on his head.

The two Greek adjectives used here to describe the spikenard go mistranslated and/or untranslated in our English language bibles. Polytelos means “multipurpose” and pistikos is the adjectival form of the word for faith. As used by Plato and others, pistikos means, “having the power of persuading, useful in producing belief.” Thus this gospel story shows a faith healer using this multipurpose medication on someone in a home of affliction. Her “faithful spikenard ointment” may help the patient in their acute crisis of faith.

While we may previously have imagined this breaking open of an alabaster jar as some sort of smashing, the Greek verb (syn “with” + tribo “a worn away path”) seems to imply that the container has some sort of perforation or indent that the healer punctures in order for the ointment to flow through at a regulated pace.

The treatment Jesus is receiving is the ayurvedic treatment shirodhara.“Shiro” is the Sanskrit word for “head” and dhara means “to flow.” In this treatment, which was practiced in the Himalayas during (and well-before) the time of Jesus, the healer lets a small, steady stream of the oil flow from the bottom of the container onto the forehead of the patient lying down. Shirodhara is still practiced today and the benefits include “relaxing, soothing, and calming effects on the body and mind…[it can] improve sleep quality, manage insomnia, lessen anxiety, reduce stress.”

Such holy oils had many purposes in ancient Israel. In Exodus there is a description of a  “holy anointing oil” שֶׁמֶן מִשְׁחַת־קֹדֶשׁ which includes the word for oil – shemen — and the word for holy — kodesh — and the word for anointing — messiah.

When this woman pours this multipurpose sacred oil on Jesus’ head she acts as a faith healer using plant medicine. And it is her action — giving him this oil treatment — that makes him, literally, the anointed one. In Hebrew: Messiah. In Greek: Christos.

She is the one who anoints — Hei Christa.