Heavens Torn Open

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Mark, the earliest and the shortest of the Gospels, begins with John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River (Mark 1:9). As Jesus emerges from the water, Mark tells us, Jesus sees the “heavens torn open” (schizomenous tous ouranous) (Mark 1:10). The Spirit then descends upon Jesus, like a dove (Mark 1:10). A voice calls from heaven: “Thou art my beloved son; with thee I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). The Spirit then drives Jesus into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan for 40 days (Mark 1:12–13).

The verb schizomenous (torn open) is unusual, as the image it evokes. At the precise beginning of Jesus’ career—the moment of his baptism—the heavens are “torn open.”

For the heavens simply to open is not unusual in early Christian and ancient Jewish texts. But this almost always happens in an orderly and nondisruptive way. The classic example is Ezekiel 1:1. The prophet in Exile in Babylonia is beside the Chebar River when the heavens open and Ezekiel sees visions of God. Often doors or gateways provide access to heaven, but the verb used almost always means simply “open.” This is true in the intertestamental Jewish literature known as the Pseudepigrapha(that is, apocalypses and other texts written by Jews during the Hellenistic and Roman periods but attributed by their authors to various ancient figures such as Enoch; see 1 Enoch 33–36, 104:2; Testament of Levi 2:6, 5:1; ^a Baruch 22:1), well as in the canonical literature of the New Testament (see Revelation 4:1, John 1:51, Acts 7:56, 10:11)

The contrast between all these examples, in which the heavens simply open, and the opening chapter of Mark, where the heavens are literally “torn open,” is stark. In Mark, the implication is the heavens are somehow being damaged or ruptured.

Matthew and Luke also describe John’s baptism of Jesus. Scholars generally agree that their accounts based on Mark, although with some variations. One of the variations is in the verb we have been discussing. In both Matthew and Luke, the heavens simply open as the Spirit (it is the Spirit of God in Matthew and the Holy Spirit in Luke) descends (like a dove in Matthew and in the form of a dove in Luke) (Matthew 3:16; Luke 3:21–22). In short, where Mark uses the verb schizo (to tear open), Matthew and Luke use the verb anoigo (to open).

Why has Mark chosen this unusual image? The question is especially pressing because we so rarely read of the heavens being torn open and so commonly read of the heavens being simply opened.

There is one passage in the Hebrew Bible where the heavens are said to be torn open—Isaiah 64:1–2. A number of scholars have claimed that this passage is the source of the image in Mark. The prophet beeseeches God: “that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down … to make thy name known to thy adversaries.”¹

There is a serious obstacle, however, to the claim that this passage influenced Mark’s description. As is well known, the author of Mark did not use a Hebrew Bible; he depended on the third-century B.C. Greek translation of the Bible known as the Septuagint for his scriptural allusions.² In the Septuagint, the Hebrew quarata (tear) in Isaiah has been translated not by schizo—the verb that Mark uses and that means “tear”—but rather by the Greek anoigo, meaning simply “open,” the word usually used to refer to the nondisruptive opening of the heavens. Although it is not impossible that in this case Mark went back to the original Hebrew or to some translation besides the Septuagint, it is unlikely.

Moreover, the circumstances described in Isaiah 64:1–2 do not really match those of the account of Jesus’ baptism in Mark: The passage in Isaiah is a prayer to God to come down from heaven and destroy his enemies; in Mark the tearing open of the heavens is a private vision experienced by Jesus alone. In Isaiah, the passage beseeches God himself to come down; in Mark it is the Spirit that descends; indeed, in Mark it is clear that God does not come down, because after the descent of the Spirit the voice of God is heard from heaven, declaring to Jesus that “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”

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If Mark’s image of the tearing of the heavens does not derive from Isaiah, where does it come from?

A much closer parallel is found in Ezekiel 1:1, a passage I have already referred to as the classic example of the heavens opening.³ Although the heavens are not torn in this passage, there are a number of other parallels. This passage, which begins the Book of Ezekiel, describes the prophet on the banks of a river (the Chebar River in Babylonia) having a vision of the opening of the heavens. In Mark, Jesus too is on the banks of a river (the Jordan River) having a vision of the tearing of the heavens. This similarity can hardly be coincidence. Immediately after his vision Ezekiel hears a voice coming from heaven, just as Jesus does. Ezekiel relates that “the Spirit (pneuma in the Septuagint) entered into me and set me upon my feet… the Spirit lifted me up and took me away” (Ezekiel 2:2, 3:14), just as in Mark the Spirit (pneuma) descends on Jesus and drives him into the wilderness. For both Ezekiel and Jesus, the event inaugurates their careers—a similarity which suggests that Mark is portraying Jesus as in some sense the new Ezekiel. Another parallel, “Son of Man”—a title frequently given to Jesus as in some sense characteristic and constantly repeated self-designation used by Ezekiel(e.g., Ezekiel 2:1, 3, 8; 3:1, 3, 4, 10, 17, 25, etc.).

The origin of the title “Son of Man” as used of Jesus is usually sought in Daniel 7:

“I saw in the night visions

and behold, with the clouds of heaven

there came one like a son of man,

and he came to the Ancient of Days

and was presented before him.

And to him was given dominion

and glory and kingdom,

that all people, nations, an languages should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

Daniel 7:13–14

However, if the relationship between Jesus’ baptism and the opening of Ezekiel is as strong as it seems to be, the origin of the title “Son of Man” may well be in Ezekiel rather than in this passage from Daniel. In other words, the evangelist may be telling us that Jesus is in some sense the new Ezekiel.⁴

This does not, however, explain Mark’s image of the heavens being torn at Jesus’ baptism. For in Ezekiel, as in Matthew and Luke, the heavens simply open; they are not torn. In the Septuagint translation of Ezekiel, we find anoigo, not schizo.

How then do we explain Mark’s unusual image of the heavens tearing?

On a very basic, almost physical level, I believe Mark imagined the heavens as a kind of curtain or tent over the earth, an image that we find quite explicitly in Isaiah 40:22.

There is some indication that Mark actually had this passage in mind when he was setting down the account of Jesus’ baptism. At the beginning of his Gospel, Mark makes several allusions to Isaiah. In Mark 1:3, he quotes (with slight changes) Isaiah 40:3 (“A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”). In Mark 1:11 the evangelist alludes to Isaiah 42:1: Mark states, “A voice came from heaven, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.’” Isaiah states: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.” Clearly Mark was meditating on these chapters of Isaiah as he was composing his Gospel. It is thus striking that in Isaiah 40:22, just a few lines after the verse that Mark quotes at the very beginning of his Gospel, we find a passage in which the prophet describes the heavens as a curtain or tent:

“It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.”

Mark’s image of the tearing of the heavens probably arose from his picturing the heavens like a piece of cloth, as in Isaiah 40:22, and then imaginating the heavens opening as in Ezekiel 1:1.

Can we, however, explain Mark’s use of “tear” (schizo) rather than “open” (anoigo), on a deeper, more meaningful level?

The word schizo (to tear) does appear one other time in Mark—and this is the key—at the final moment we see Jesus. At the instant of Jesus’ death, as he breathes his last, Mark tells us that the “veil of the Temple” was torn (schizo) in two from top to bottom (Mark 15:38). It is striking to discover that at precisely the first moment that Jesus appears in Mark’s Gospel and at precisely the last moment we see him, something is torn. Is it coincidence?

That this is not simply coincidence is suggested by a number of other motifs that are also repeated at precisely these two junctures.⁵ First, 035at the baptism, a voice declares that Jesus is the Son of God; at the crucifixion, when the Roman centurion sees that Jesus has breathed his last, the centurion similarly declares that Jesus was the Son of God (Mark 15:39). Second, both at Jesus’ baptism and at his death, something descends: At his baptism, it is the Spirit-dove; at his death it is the tear in the veil, which Mark explicitly describes as moving downward. Third, at both moments we find Elijah symbolism. At the baptism, John the Baptist—commonly understood by early Christians as being Elijah come back to earth—is present, while at the crucifixion, some bystanders suggest that Jesus is calling Elijah. Just before Jesus expires, a bystander gives him vinegar to drink and taunts the others, singing, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down” (Mark 15:35–36). Finally, the Spirit that descends on Jesus at his baptism is in Greek pneuma (Mark 1:10), while a cognate of pneuma, ekpneo (expire), is twice used to describe Jesus’ dying (Mark 15:37, 39). The use of these cognates suggests that in Mark’s imagination the Spirit that entered Jesus at his baptism was identical with the spirit-wind that came out of him at his death.⁶

Given all these links between the moment of Jesus’ baptism and the moment of his death, the presence of the motif of tearing at both those moments can hardly be mere coincidence. As I have indicated in endnotes, these parallels in Mark have already been noted by scholars. But there is additional evidence which, so far as I know, no one else has noticed. This evidence, I believe, decisively leads us to the conclusion that the tearing of the heavens and the tearing of the Temple veil are connected in Mark’s imagination.

The first thing to note is that we are not dealing here with the mere fact that at both the baptism and the death of Jesus something is torn. If it were only two random things which were torn, then perhaps it could still be argued that the repetition was mere coincidence. However, the fact is that these are not two random things. The reality is that the two things that are torn—the heavens and the Temple (or its veil, representing the Temple)—were symbolically connected in ancient Jewish and early Christian thought. Indeed, this was a so true in Greco-Roman and other ancient Near Eastern traditions.

I am referring to the extremely widespread conception of the Heavenly Temple, that is, the idea that the heavens are, or contain, a temple, or that the earthly temple is a manifestation of the heavens. A typical example of this idea is found in Psalm 78:69, where it is said that God “built his sanctuary like the, high heavens.” In the New Testament the idea is found, for example, in Revelation 11:19: “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened….”⁷

Perhaps the most interesting example is found in the pseudepigraphical work known as the Testament of Levi (18:6–7):

“The heavens will be opened,

and from the temple of glory

sanctification will come upon him [the new priest of the Law],

with a fatherly voice, as from Abraham to Isaac.

And the glory of the Most High shall burst forth upon him.

And the spirit of understanding and sanctification shall rest upon him”

We have in this passage an extremely close parallel to the baptism scene in Mark, including the opening of the heavens, the fatherly voice from the 036heavens and the descent of the Spirit. Whether the Testament of Levi is a Jewish text that served as model for Mark’s baptism scene or an early Jewish-Christian text which is an interpretation of the baptism scene is unimportant to our argument. What is relevant is that we see here the elements that make up the symbolic complex of the baptism linked directly with the idea of the heavenly temple (“The heavens will be opened, and from the temple of glory…”). It seems clear then that traditions existed connecting the opening of the heavens at the baptism of Jesus with the concept of the heavenly temple. And this, of course, provides strong support for the existence of a link between the tearing of the heavens and the tearing of the Temple veil in Mark.

At this point an important question arises: Which veil of the Temple did Mark imagine to have been torn at Jesus’ death? For there were in fact two veils associated with the Temple—an outer veil that hung in front of the entrance to the Temple, and an inner veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. Some scholars have been inclined to understand Mark as referring to the inner veil, and thus interpret the image of its tearing as Mark’s attempt to symbolize the idea that the death of Jesus has destroyed the barrier between God and humanity; that is, the Holy of Holies, which formerly could be entered only by the high priest, is now symbolically made open to all.⁸

However, many other scholars have claimed that 037Mark was referring to the outer veil of the Temple, rather than the inner veil. Immediately after the tearing of the veil, the Roman centurion states that Jesus was the son of God; the centurion must have been state motivated, these scholars contend, by observing the tearing of the veil, but this would only be possible if it were the outer veil, since the inner veil was hidden from view inside the Temple.⁹

Those scholars who believe Mark to have been referring to the outer veil regard the image of the tearing as signifying for Mark a theological judgment against the Jewish religious hierarchy and a symbolic foreshadowing of the destruction of the Temple. Although I believe that Mark does indeed refer to the outer veil of the Temple, the image of the tearing has a quite different meaning when it is understood as linked to the tearing of the heavens at Jesus’ baptism.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus described the appearance of the outer veil of the Temple in great detail. According to Josephus, it was a gigantic curtain 80 feet high, a

Babylonian tapestry, with embroidery of blue and fine linen, of scarlet also and purple, wrought with marvelous skill. Nor was this mixture of materials without its mystic meaning. it typified the universe” (The Jewish War 5.212–214).

Then Josephus tells us what was pictured on this curtain: “On this tapestry was portrayed a panorama of the heavens…”¹⁰ (emphasis mine). In other words, the outer veil of the Jerusalem Temple was actually one huge image of the starry sky! Thus any of Mark’s, readers who had ever seen the Temple or heard it described upon reading Mark’s statement that “the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom” would instantly have seen in their mind’s eye an image of the heavens being torn, and would immediately have been reminded of Mark’s description of the heavens tearing at the baptism.

This can hardly be coincidence. Rather we must conclude that in Mark’s imagination there was a clear link between the heavens depicted on the veil that was torn and the heavens that were torn at the baptism.

The image of the tearing of the heavens at the baptism, therefore, must have been Mark’s own invention. The tearing of the heavens—which, we can now see, occurs at both the precise beginning and at the precise end of Jesus’ earthly career—served as a symbolic inclusio that brackets the entire Gospel and that must, therefore, be attributed to the creative vision of the author.

The image of the tearing of the Temple veil should no longer be understood merely as Mark’s way of symbolizing a judgment against the Temple or against the Jewish religious hierarchy, for this same tear also splits open the heavens themselves. For Mark, the significance of the tearing of the heavenly veil cannot be reduced to a narrow allegorical statement; rather, it was Mark’s way of symbolizing his sense that the coming of Jesus represented the manifestation of a primordial, world-shattering force that produced a deep rupture in the very fabric of reality itself. This rupture in the fabric of reality tears its way through Mark’s Gospel from the precise beginning to the precise end, opening up a narrative space of enormous dimensions that gives immense power to the story that unfolds within it.

This article was adapted by the author from his “The Heavenly Veil Torn: Mark’s Cosmic Inclusio,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Spring 1991 (vol. 110, no. 1).

Mark, the earliest and the shortest of the Gospels, begins with John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River (Mark 1:9). As Jesus emerges from the water, Mark tells us, Jesus sees the “heavens torn open” (schizomenous tous ouranous) (Mark 1:10). The Spirit then descends upon Jesus, like a dove (Mark 1:10). A voice calls from heaven: “Thou art my beloved son; with thee I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). The Spirit then drives Jesus into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan for 40 days (Mark 1:12–13). The verb schizomenous (torn open) is unusual, as the image it […]