GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:23
Gotcha
There are some phrases that linguistic purists advise against using; “gotcha” is one of them. In more formal prose, linguists prefer “gotta ya,” “got ya,” or “got you.” There are, however, times when “gotcha” works better, especially when one catches someone in the act of grasping a tricky situation. In a debate, when one party stumps another, it seems right to say “gotcha,” accompanied by an I-told-you-so smile.
That seems to have been the case with the Sadducees, who thought they had presented Jesus with a case that disproved his teaching about the resurrection. Their story involved seven brothers. The first brother married a woman but died without leaving an heir. Under the levirate marriage law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, the next brother had to take the woman as a wife—forget giving the woman any say in the matter—in order to preserve the family name and the right of inheritance. In the Sadducees’ scenario, seven unfortunate brothers passed the same woman along as a wife until she died. “In the resurrection, when they arise, whose wife will she be, for the seven had her as a wife?” (Mark 12:23) It is likely that these critics—who did not believe in the resurrection or providence—folded their arms, “grinned like a jackass eating saw briars,” and thought to themselves, “Gotcha,”—or its Aramaic equivalent.
If Jesus had answered that she was the wife of only one of the brothers—the first or the last—the other brothers would have become envious or angry, causing strife and warfare. On the other hand, if Jesus had said she was still the wife of all seven brothers… well, that would have been an absurd picture of the afterlife in the mind of the Sadducees. They had stumped Jesus—“gotcha.”
There are contemporary Sadducean arguments against an afterlife. For example, consciousness depends on the physical brain; hence: no brain, no consciousness, no afterlife. Or there is no reliable, verifiable evidence that personal consciousness survives death—gotcha.
Just as with the Sadducees, these arguments start with a conclusion and accept only premises that support it. They simply define reality in a way that excludes the resurrection or eternal life from the start.
The same choice exists today as in the temple court—the Sadducees or Jesus?
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