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Why does the Gospel of Mark make specific and repeated reference to the compassion of Jesus in the miracle stories? This volume discusses the function that compassion has in the Markan characterization of Jesus, particularly in how the terminology employed depicts Jesus as entering the suffering of others. In doing so, it underscores how this portrayal is exceptional among the stories of miracle workers in ancient Greco-Roman and Jewish literature. In Mark, this compassion toward the suffering other is a central feature of the kingdom of God, an attribute the Markan audience is challenged to emulate.
The gospel of Mark purposefully employs characters with specific and nuanced representations of dis/ability to portray the unique authority, the engaging message, and the mission of the Markan Jesus. Based on hermeneutical insights from Dis/ability Studies, this monograph is a contribution to the research of culturally and historically normalized corporeality in the biblical scriptures. At the core of the investigation are the healing narratives: passages that explicitly deal with a transformation from a described deviant bodily state to a positively valued corporeality. Lena Nogossek-Raithel not only analyzes the terminological and historical descriptions of these physical phenomena but also investigates their narrative function for the gospel text. The author argues that the images of dis/ability employed are far from accidental. Rather, they significantly influence the narrative’s structure and impact, embody its theological claims, and characterize its protagonist Jesus. With this thorough exegetical analysis, Nogossek-Raithel offers a firm historical foundation for anyone interested in the critical interpretation and theological application of the Markan healing narratives.
The Gospel of Mark is a relatively short book whose brevity and style create an engaging narrative experience. But Mark’s Gospel is by no means a simple text, and scholars have long puzzled over various features of the narrative. Reading Mark offers an accessible introduction to Mark’s story of Jesus, as well as to important scholarly discussions. Equipping students to become better interpreters of Mark, the discussion focuses on key elements of the narrative, including the presentation of Jesus and the disciples, the so-called messianic secret, and the enigma of Mark’s ending. Designed for beginning students, Reading Mark offers a broad and inclusive orientation to the fascinating world of Mark’s Gospel.
Prominent Hellenistic moralists from ca. the first century CE warn that all emotions carry temptation(s) to sin or error. To be guilty of emotional sin is to allow psychosomatic feelings (or rising emotion) free reign to trump godly (rational) guidance of behavioral pursuits. Thus, morally minded Hellenists widely view unemotional behavior as a sign of moral progress. Emotive language peppers the Markan narrative, inviting moral assessments, yet scholarship has seldom delved into a historical-literary analysis of Jesus's emotional characterization. This study proposes a working definition of emotion apropos the narratival nature of Hellenistic emotion theory. It finds that Jesus consistently vanquishes emotional temptations with “battle” techniques similar to those championed by the moralists. Mark characterizes Jesus in the moral tradition of the anti-emotional exemplar, and several minor characters are liberated from destructive emotions through the mercy of Jesus's godly rationale. By recognizing the Markan Jesus as a model, this study outlines a method for persevering in emotional testing that modern readers might also emulate to resist temptation with divine help.
The earliest of the four Gospels, the book portrays Jesus as an enigmatic figure, struggling with enemies, his inner and external demons, and with his devoted but disconcerted disciples. Unlike other gospels, his parables are obscure, to be explained secretly to his followers. With an introduction by Nick Cave
What sets The Theological Intentions of Mark's Literary Devices apart from other books? What niche does it fill that makes its publication important? This volume will interest all those who value a literary approach to the Gospel of Mark. Dean Deppe introduces some new literary devices in the research of the Gospel of Mark as well as demonstrates the theological intentions of Mark when he employs these literary devices. Deppe argues that Mark employs the literary devices of intercalation, framework, allusionary repetitions, narrative surprises, and three types of mirroring to indicate where he speaks symbolically and metaphorically at two levels. Mark employs these literary devices not just for dramatic tension and irony, but also for theological reasons to apply the Jesus tradition to specific problems in his own day.
This groundbreaking study argues that, in the Gospel of Mark, Gentiles are recipients of Jesus' compassion and are typically depicted as desperate individuals who exhibit faith and understanding. Mark's arrangement of the sequence of Gentile episodes is progressive and envisions a theological reversal in the kingdom of God, a re-prioritization in the proclamation of the gospel message that coincides with the death of Jesus. After receiving Gentiles in the Jewish homeland (3:7-12), the Markan Jesus initiates four excursions into Gentile territory. The first journey (5:1-20) is preparatory and opens the door for future ministry in Gentile regions. Jesus symbolically cleanses the land and the healed demoniac becomes the first missionary to Gentiles. The second journey (6:45-52) ends prematurely when the disciples fail to understand the Gentile mission, leading inexorably to the third journey where the relationship between Jews, Gentiles, and the kingdom of God becomes the focal point of the narrative. Although the Jews are first, the Gentiles are not excluded from the kingdom. On the fourth journey the reader senses a subtle re-prioritization in the kingdom as an event on Gentile soil occurs before its parallel counterpart on Jewish soil, reversing an established narrative pattern in Jesus' ministry. Iverson shows how the theological reversal gains clarity when the narrative shifts to Jerusalem. The tearing of the temple curtain marks the dawn of a new era and links the temple and Gentile themes. Through Jesus' obedient self-gift, he becomes the new temple providing universal access to God for all people's depiction of the centurion is a narrative signal that the kingdom has been passed to Gentiles according to the divine plan. The Jews have not been excluded, any more than the Gentiles were when Israel was first. Mark's theological reversal looks proleptically beyond the story line to the completion of the Gentile mission by the followers of Jesus.
In this study in three-dimensional character reconstruction, Cornelis Bennema presents a new theory of character in the New Testament literature. Although character has been the subject of focused literary-critical study of the New Testament since the 1970s, Bennema observes that there is still no consensus regarding how character should be understood in contemporary literary theory or in biblical studies. Many New Testament scholars seem to presume that characters in Greco-Roman literature are two-dimensional,”Aristotelian”; figures, unlike the well-rounded, psychologized individuals who appear in modern fiction. They continue nevertheless to apply contemporary literary theory to characters in ancient writings. Bennema here offers a full, comprehensive, and non-reductionist theory for the analysis, classification, and evaluation of characters in the New Testament.
Two parables that have become firmly lodged in popular consciousness and affection are the parable of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Prodigal Son. These simple but subversive tales have had a significant impact historically on shaping the spiritual, aesthetic, moral, and legal traditions of Western civilization, and their capacity to inform debate on a wide range of moral and social issues remains as potent today as ever. Noting that both stories deal with episodes of serious interpersonal offending, and both recount restorative responses on the part of the leading characters, Compassionate Justice draws on the insights of restorative justice theory, legal philosophy, and social psychology to offer a fresh reading of these two great parables. It also provides a compelling analysis of how the priorities commended by the parables are pertinent to the criminal justice system today. The parables teach that the conscientious cultivation of compassion is essential to achieving true justice. Restorative justice strategies, this book argues, provide a promising and practical means of attaining to this goal of reconciling justice with compassion.
The third volume in the four-volume commentary on the Book of Acts, this work presents a fresh look at the text of Codex Bezae and compares its message with that of the more familiar Alexandrian text of which Codex Vaticanus is taken as a representative. It deals with Acts 13.1-18.23, the chapters that cover the first two stages of the mission to the Gentiles, with the intervening meeting in Jerusalem (14.28-15.41). For each section, there is a side by side translation of the Bezan and Vaticanus manuscripts, followed by a full critical apparatus which deals with more technical matters, and finally, a commentary which explores in detail the differences in the message of the two texts. Of particular interest in this part of Acts are the person of Paul and the unfolding of his character and theology. It is found that in the Bezan text Luke portrays him as a fallible disciple of Jesus who, despite his powerful enthusiasm, is hindered by his traditional Jewish understanding from fully carrying out the mission entrusted to him in these first stages. The conclusion is drawn that the portrait of an exemplary hero in the Alexandrian text is a later modification of the flawed picture.