Paying the Poll Tax
12:13 And certain of the Pharisees and the Herodians send to him in order that they might trap him in word.
These individuals do not come to Jesus directly. They send innocent-looking representatives. We remember that not all Pharisees were hypocrites, but the Gospels remember certain individuals from the Pharisees as key opponents to Jesus. The Herodians were likely a group wanting to see some Herod in charge of Israel rather than a Roman governor like Pilate.
Jesus is not fooled.
12:14 And, having come, they say to him, "Teacher, we know that you are true, and it is not a care to you about anyone. For you do not look to the face of a person, but in truth you teach the way of God. Is it lawful to give poll tax to Caesar or not? Should we give or should we not give?"
Flattery is the name of the game. They don't mean a word of it. They don't believe he is true. They don't believe he teaches the way of God.
On the other hand, it is true that Jesus did not play favorites with people because they were important by earthly standards. He didn't care if someone was rich. He didn't care if someone was famous. He didn't care if someone was powerful. If anything, those attributes made him less impressed with someone. Matters of worldly importance were "not a care" to him.
Then they get to the point. Should you pay taxes or not? If he says yes, then what kind of a Jewish messiah can he be, siding with the Romans. That won't make the people happy. These Pharisees can use it to knock down his popularity.
If he says no, then they can take him to the Romans. This guy is telling the people not to pay taxes. He's an enemy of Rome. You must stop him.
This is the double-bind they were trying to put Jesus in.
12:15 And having known their hypocrisy, he said to them, "Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius that I might see [it]." 16. And they brought [one]. And he says to them, "Whose image [is] this and the inscription?"
And they say to him, "Caesar's."
Jesus sees right through them. But they don't understand his perspective on money. They assume that money matters, that money is a thing. They do not know that money has no place in Jesus' values. It is not a thing. It is irrelevant to him and God's kingdom.
Jesus asks for a coin, worth about a day's wage. He asks whose image is on it. Obviously, it is Caesar's.
12:17 And Jesus said to them, "Repay the things of Caesar to Caesar and the things of God to God." And they marveled at him.
Whose image is on the coin? Caesar's? Well, give it back to him. Jesus' answer is that Caesar can have all his coins back. Coins are irrelevant to the kingdom of God. Money is irrelevant to the kingdom of God.
The Resurrection
12:18 And Sadducees come to him, who say there is not resurrection. And they were asking him saying, 19. "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that 'if a brother of someone should die' and leave a wife 'and he should not leave a child,' that 'his brother should take the wife and should raise up seed for his brother.'
The Pharisees have had their shot. Now it is the Sadducees' turn. The Sadducees were a priestly group who differed significantly with the Pharisees on a number of key issues, perhaps the most famous of which was the afterlife. The Pharisees believed in resurrection, often a very bodily resurrection. The Sadducees did not.
Resurrection belief in Israel seems to have resurrected especially in the early second century BC, around the time of the Maccabean conflict. The Sadducees reflected the tradition before then, such as that found in the book of Sirach (ca. 200BC). Pharisaic belief of the late 100s is best reflected in a book called 2 Maccabees.
The Pharisees also followed oral traditions on how to keep the Law, called the "tradition of the elders." The Sadducees of course had their own traditional interpretations and oral traditions--they just denied it. They claimed just to stick to the Law and not the added traditions of the Pharisees. Nevertheless, the application of Scripture to a new context and new situations almost always involves going beyond what is explicitly said.
The Sadducees were from the highest social class of Israel. In one hypothesis, they actually were from the earlier lineage of high priests before the Maccabees took over the priesthood in 152BC. Then when Herod the Great eliminated the Maccabean line, this formerly priestly class was available to serve once again. In any case, it is a theory.
The law that these Sadducees invoke is the rule of levirite marriage, found in Deuteronomy 25:5. Because the firstborn son inherited the property, it was important for there to be a firstborn son. If an older brother did not have one and died at a pre-mature age, any younger brother was to take on his wife (even though he was probably already married) and raise up seed for him. That child, in effect, was not his son but the son of his older brother. This rule, in effect, is what happened in the case of Boaz and Ruth, although there he was not a brother but a relative of the deceased.
12:20 "[There] were seven brothers. And the first took wife and, dying, he did not leave seed. 21. And the second took her, and he died, not having left seed, and the third similarly. 22. And the seven did not leave seed. Last of all, the wife also died. 23. In the resurrection, whose wife of theirs will she be, for the seven had her [as] wife."
The mention of seven brothers evokes 2 Maccabees 7, a classical Pharisaic text on resurrection. In that story, seven brothers and their mother suffer martyrdom because they believe in a better resurrection (cf. Heb. 11:35). The Sadducees here must think they are pretty clever and quite cheeky to evoke the image of 2 Maccabees.
12:24 And Jesus said to them, "Do you not err on account of this, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God? 25. For whenever they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor give in marriage, but they are as the angels in the skies.
Jesus hands it right back to them. Once again, his opponents are making a false assumption. They are assuming that men will dominate women in the kingdom of God just like they dominated them then. They assume that, in the kingdom, women would be subordinate to men just as women were subordinate to men then.
But women will not be subordinate or inferior to men in the kingdom of God. Women will not be "given" in marriage. Indeed, there will be no marriage in heaven because there will be no sex in the kingdom. Both men and women will have transformed bodies like the angels in heaven. [1]
On a side note, there is no biblical basis for the sentiment you sometimes hear that husbands and wives will not recognize each other in heaven. This rumor presumably arose in some way from this passage. But the passage does not say anything like that.
[1] Mark is not clear what the location of this afterlife existence will be. I have chosen the kingdom of God on a new earth as the location. However, it is possible that heaven is in view.
12:26 "And concerning the dead, that they are raised, do you not read in the book of Moses at the bush how God said to him, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?' 27. God is not of the dead but of those who live. You err much."
Jesus gives another argument that sounds very much like the rabbinic arguments of his day. At the burning bush, God says, "I am the God of Abraham" (Exod. 3:6). Jesus focuses on the present tense. If God is the God of Abraham in the present tense, then Abraham must have continued to live beyond death somewhere. And we have other Gospel texts that suggest that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will return to the earth when the kingdom of God fully arrives (e.g., Matt. 8:11).
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