44 MAARTEN J.J. MENKEN zation, or from contextual exegesis. The overall picture drawn in the text is now that of a division between two groups, the shep- herds (together with “the man, his fellow citizen”) on the one hand, and the sheep on the other. The shepherds, that is the ruling class, are evil; the sheep, that is the common people, have to be rescued from them 15. It is possible that certain events known to the translator such as the beginning of the Maccabean revolt have led to this tendentious translation. 2. Mark 14,27 When the Markan Jesus and his disciples walk from the room of the last supper to the Mount of Olives, Jesus announces to them that all of them will become deserters, and he substantiates this as- sertion (in 14,27) with words derived from Zech 13,7 16 : patajw ton poimena, ¥ ù ¥ I will strike the shepherd, kaı ta probata diaskorpisuhsontai. and the sheep will be scattered. ùù ¥ ¥ He continues: “But after I have been raised up, I will go before you towards Galilee” (14,28). This continuation suggests that “strik- ing the shepherd” refers to Jesus’ arrest, condemnation, passion and death, events that are imminent at this point in Mark’s narrative and that will precede his resurrection 17. The “scattering of the sheep” must then refer to events that are in time close to “striking the she- pherd ” and also its consequence, that is, the flight of the dis- ciples (14,50) and Peter’s denial (14,66-72). Peter’s remark that he will not defect (14,29) and Jesus’ reply that he will do so “today, this very night” confirm that the defection of the disciples and thus the “scattering of the sheep” will take place very shortly. The allu- sion to Zech 13,7 in John 16,32 (see below) equally confirms that So also B. LINDARS, New Testament Apologetic. The Doctrinal Signifi- 15 cance of the Old Testament Quotations (London 1961) 130. The variant readings listed in NA27 are secondary adaptations to Mat- 16 thew’s text (26,31). The text of Zech 13,7 offered by Mark is also found in the so- called Fragmentum Fajjumense, a papyrus fragment from the 3rd century with what looks like a shortened version of Mark 14,26-30 par. Greek text in Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (ed. K. ALAND) (Stuttgart 151997) 444; English transla- tion in J.K. ELLIOTT, The Apocryphal New Testament. A Collection of Apoc- ryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (Oxford 2005) 44-45. Cf. MOO, Old Testament, 186. 17