Exegesis:

en poia exousia ‘in what sort of authority,’ ‘by what authority.’

poios (11.29, 33; 12.28) is a qualitative interrogative pronoun meaning properly ‘of what kind,’ ‘of what sort’: in usage, however, it is often weakened to mean simply ‘what’ (cf. 12.28), and that is the meaning most commentators and translations give it here. Arndt & Gingrich, however, suggest that the dative poia ‘by what’ here is equivalent to the genitive of the indefinite pronoun, tinos ‘of whom,’ and the phrase means ‘by whose authority.’

exousia (cf. 1.22) ‘authority.’

tauta ‘these things’ is undefined. Most commentators take it to refer to the cleansing of the Temple, narrated in vv. 15-16.

hina tauta poiēs ‘that you should do these things’: in this phrase hina indicates result, ‘so that you do these things,’ or else hina … poiēs ‘that … you should do’ is simply equivalent to poiein ‘to do,’ as Revised Standard Version has it.

Translation:

Said may be rendered by ‘asked,’ in view of the following question.

By what authority is not easy to translate literally in some languages, but the meaning can be conveyed, even though a somewhat paraphrastic expression may be required, e.g. ‘what permission do you have to do these things’ (Eastern Highland Otomi), ‘by whose power do you do these things,’ or ‘because of what sort of right do you do these things.’

The last clause shifts the question from the abstract ‘authority’ to the specific source of the authority, e.g. ‘who told you that you could do these things’ or ‘who gave you the right to do these things.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .