Reception of Jesus as healer in Mark’s community (original) (raw)
Related papers
Aretalogy of the Best Healer: Performance and praise of Mark’s healing Jesus
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
The study proposes a link between Mark’s healing stories in chapter 1 and praise songs and/or poems performed at Apollo’s temple and other possible shrines of Asclepius in Southern Antioch. Mark chapter 1 begins with Jesus healing the demoniac (Mk 1:21–28), healing of Simon’s mother in law (Mk 1:29–31) and healing of various peoples who gathered at Simon’s mother-in-law’s house (Mk 1:32–34) and people from the region and afar (Mk 13:39). The chapter finishes with the controversial healing of the leper (1:40–45). Assuming that Mark is located in Southern Antioch, with analogies from Zulu praise poems, this study reread Mark’s healing stories alongside Greek aretalogies with a view to reveal the function and mood around which the stories were told and/or performed. As hypothesis, Mark’s healing stories exudes similar characteristics as Greek aretalogies, praising the benefactor (Jesus) vis-à-vis known healers such as Apollo and Asclepius.
Models and perspectives concerning the identity of Jesus as healer
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
This study reviews various perspectives into the identity of Jesus as healer. There are two main perspectives – those that approach the identity of Jesus as healer from a theological perspective focusing on his personhood as messiah and those that use social scientific perspectives from sociology, psychology and anthropology. This study does not aim to evaluate or direct the reader towards a conclusion of Jesus’ identity, but only to review various perspectives. Based on analogies from Zimbabwe and comparative insights from the Mediterranean context from which the memory of Jesus survived, it is plausible that the identity of Jesus as healer should be found from the larger Greco-Roman context. Furthermore, given the various healers that existed during Jesus time both within the Jewish and Greco-Roman villages, the explanation of Jesus as healer is plausible from the various social scientific perspectives discussed.
Jesus as Healer in the Gospel of Matthew, Part II: Jesus as Healer in Matthew 8–9
In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi
This exploration of the healing narratives in Matthew 8 and 9, guided by current scholarship in the fields of medical anthropology and social-scientific study of ancient Mediterranean culture, shows that when viewed in their historical and cultural context these biblical narratives point us toward a more holistic understanding of healing that may encourage contemporary movements in this direction. In this context, the goal is ‘healing’ the person rather than simply ‘curing’ the disease. The goal of restoring persons to a state of well-being and social reintegration into their families and communities requires attention to the emotional, social and spiritual well-being of persons as well as their physical health. A critically and culturally informed interpretation of Matthew’s healing narratives may therefore promote the broader understanding of healing in view of these biblical stories.
Healing Stories and Medical Anthropology. A Reading of Mark 10:46-52
2000
The healing stories of the Gospels have been studied by exegetes from a literary and a theological point of view. Both approaches have contributed greatly to a better understanding of them. Nevertheless none of these methodologies has been able to interpret those stories from their native point of view. The purpose of this article is to contribute to this native understanding of the healing stories. This aim is pursued by using some cross-cultural models taken from Medical Anthropology. These models can help us to imagine how Jesus and his contemporaries experienced and understood illness and healing. The first step will be to elaborate a reading scenario combining these models and some literary and archaeological evidence. Then it will be applied to the story of the blind man of Jericho (Mark 10:46-52). This example will show how Medical Anthropology can be a tool for a more considerate reading of the healing stories.
The historical Jesus as a prophet/healer: A different paradigm
Neotestamentica, 1996
The conventional paradigm for the historical Jesus has been 'Jesus the teacher.' Pointing out the shortcomings of that paradigm and making extensive use of comparative anthropological and psychological research, this study presents the paradigm of 'Jesus the prophet/ healer: This incorporates much more of our canonical evidence and provides us with the ability to understand how the life of Jesus led to the rise of the Christian movement. It places the historical Jesus within the context of other prophet/healers in other colonial environments who also gave rise to movements that were initially in pentecostal form. It is suggested that the earliest biographies and histories of Jesus that portray him principally as a prophet/healer and Christianity as a pentecostal cult are better accounts of the historical Jesus than the books of contemporary scholars that insist that Jesus was a social teacher.
Ukutwasa –the Call of a Healer: An analogical lens into Jesus of Nazareth in Mark’s Gospel
2019
Jesus’ retreat into the wilderness soon after being baptized by John has been interpreted from three perspectives –as an echo of exodus narrative, an echo of Isaiah restoration narrative and as a baptismal liturgy. Because Mark presents Jesus as the best folk-healer and inaugurator of an alternative household within which healing, exorcism and teaching took place, I suggest that the analogue of ukutwasa (ritual whereby the healer retreats for the purpose of acquiring power) may provide illustrative insights into the importance of Jesus retreat; interpreted as rite of passage whereby the practitioner acquires healing powers. Using ukutwasa as an illustration and interpretive lense, Jesus’ retreat signifies three things –the role and power of the Spirit in initiation, the commitment of the practitioner staying on course during an initiative by avoiding things that could be prohibited and, lastly, being possessed by power which later became evident throughout his ministry.
The Talmud, the Hippocratic Corpus and Mark’s healing Jesus on infectious diseases
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
Through interacting with the sick, did Jesus contract infectious diseases or did he take preventive herbs to avoid them? During biblical times, infectious diseases were fatal. Diarrhoea, cough, pneumonia and skin diseases would quickly spread across villages or cities. Underscoring the seriousness with which prevention of infectious diseases was taken, 213 of the 613 biblical commandments concern hygiene. This study has two tasks: firstly, exploring the various techniques undertaken to avoid infectious diseases by looking at daily preventive hygienic activities. Secondly, given that Jesus was always in the company of sick crowds, the study re-describes Mark 1:4–45, where Jesus, after healing the leper, was forbidden from entering the city as indicative of fear against infectious diseases. Furthermore, the story (Mk 3:7–12) whereby Jesus requested a boat to create a gap between himself and the people is plausible from the perspective of infectious diseases.
2017
Using social memory theory, I examine three pericopes in the Synoptic Gospels-(i) the raising of Jairus's daughter from the dead, (ii) the healing of the chronically bleeding woman, and (iii) the raising from the dead of the son of the widow of Nain-to argue that already by the late first century or early second century the earliest Christian audiences of the Gospels would have heard these stories through the lens of traditions associated with the most famous healer of the time, Asclepius-the dream-god known as the "Savior" and "Divine Physician." I show that the Synoptic Gospels construct the figure of Jesus as healer and divine doctor by contesting the reputation of Asclepius, establishing that Jesus was a better Divine Physician who overcame the constraints of geography, money, time, travel, and ritual that Asclepius placed on his suppliants. This interpretation, firmly situated within the context of Hellenistic Judaism and the influence of the Greco-Roman Asklepieia, resolves a number of puzzling textual elements in these pericopes.
‘The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus’, as Mk. 10.46-52 is often called, has been taken over and restated with various changes in Lk. 18.35-43. This paper views Luke’s modification of the account in terms of παράφρασις (‘paraphrase’), a progymnasmatic exercise in which the writer changed the form of expression while keeping the thoughts. It is argued that Luke’s παράφρασις of Mark’s account enhances characterization of three characters— Jesus, the λαός (‘people’), and the ‘blind man’—by creating a favorable portrait of each of them over against some respective inferior counterpart.