Charlie, this story about Mary anointing Jesus feet is related in two places in the gospels, the one you quote from Mark and also in St. John 12.8.
The former states that it was in reply to: "some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her." After which Judas goes to the high priests to betray Jesus.
But the latter reports that it was Judas Iscariot, already with the silver in a bag on his person, who complained: 4. Then said one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, 5. Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6. This he has said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein."
This "the poor always" has been used by the pious for centuries to ignore the plight of the poor, in fact to make them suffer for being poor.
But how do you reconcile the fact that the reports are so contradictory that in one case it is a number of folks who are asking (in latter times it was the trustees of the poorhouses and the refugee camps) while in the other it was specifically the bad guy Judas.
For my part, I doubt that the historical Jesus ever said it.
Coincidentally I wrote a paper in Swedish on the Gospel of St. Mark about ten years ago to compensate for not attending a seminar in my Comparative Literature class. So I am primed for this question. I won't bore you with the contents of the entire paper,
but here are some pertinent bits.
The Gospel of St. Mark was written some sixty or seventy years after the death of the historical Christ. It is included as the second book in the New Testament but most critical assessments regard it as being the first of the four that was written. Scholars in antiquity and all extant manuscripts name Mark as the author. The oldest reference is Papias (200 years Common Era) who says that Mark was an interpreter for Peter and that he wrote his version in Rome based on what Peter had told him. Most researchers concede the Marcan priority, and conclude that Matthew and Luke more or less copied Mark to create their versions. Some also hold that Matthew and Luke drew from an hypothetical document known as Q.
The literary relationship of the first three gospels are known as "the synoptic problem" because the first three—known as the synoptics—are similar (the so-called triple tradition) but in strong contrast to John.
The phenomena that demand clarification in the synoptic problem are:
1) Ninety percent of Mark's 661 verses are (often ipsis verbis) in either Matthew (more than 600) or Luke (350) or both.
2) Mark text arrangement is followed by the other two.
3. When the words are given verbatim, Matthew and Luke are seldom in agreement, but one of them uses Mark's text.
4) When there is no parallel text in Mark (roughly 200 verses), the corresponding texts in Matthew and Luke are similar.
According to the earliest Greek manuscript and the earliest writings of the patriarchs, the Gospel of St. Mark ends abruptly after chapter 16, verse 8. Several manuscripts have different endings and both the English and Swedish versions have 12 additional verses. (And since Easter is just around the corner, I will tell you that verse 9 and following are about the resurrection and ascension.)
To further confuse the issue, in 1958 in the ancient monastery Mar Saba was found a copy of a letter and a copy of the Marcan gospel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_Saba_letter
All these confounding issues aside, what we
do know is that the gospel had a long history before it was written down and was based on an oral tradition several generations after Christ's crucifixion. And it has gone through many translations. I found it interesting that the Swedish and KJV English versions have radically different styles. And now both have been turned into modern versions and any critical thinker must ask:
What did Jesus really say about the poor?
Well, one thing he supposedly said, (Mark 10.21.) was:
21 "Then Jesus beholding him loved him and said unto him, "One thing thou lackest,. Go thy way, sell whatsoever thus hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross and follow me.
22. And he was sad at that saying and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.
Now you get a reward for reading all this, Charlie. Don't cheat. If you haven't really read it all, your screen will crack.
The Swede Joe Hill was executed one hundred years ago this year. Like the historic Christ he was executed on trumped-charge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ236CwhlPw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUR2PDTptO0
Happy Easter, Charlie.