ContradictionsReading order 342Bible context 3 min read
Who did Jesus call a dog?
The parallel exchange uses different identity labels for the woman and different wording for Jesus' initial restriction of aid.
- Textual conflict
- Weak tension
- The alleged conflict needs substantial assumptions, such as treating an omission as a denial or figurative language as literal.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
The woman's identity labels are not demonstrably exclusive, while first versus Israel-only wording leaves a narrower mission-scope tension.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Mark describes the woman as Greek and Syrophenician
And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.
Mark 7:24-30
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Mark 7