Essay I
Kellie Meusborn
Religion 317
David M. Reis
24 February 2015
Jesus’ Deed
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John differ in wording and arrangement in their stories, and image of God. It is difficult to combine these Gospels into a cohesive image of Jesus. Majority of scholars believe that Mark was the earliest of Gospels to be written. In Mark 5:21-43, Jesus raised a girl from the dead and healed the sick. A large crowd followed Jesus as Jairus, a ruler who asked for the healing of his dying daughter. Amongst the crowed of people a woman who had been suffering from bleeding for twelve years, with a worsening condition thought if she just touched the clothes of Jesus she would be healed, and miraculously she was. He asked in reply who touched me and knowing what the women had done, she kneeled in tears and Jesus said to her: ““Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mk 5: 34.) The miracle of faith is seen here through his power. Not only had this woman been unhealed for twelve years, it shows that the Holy Spirit brought repentance and awareness to ones own sin. By the time Jesus arrived at Jarius’ house his daughter was dead. Jairus in tears over the death of his daughter is unable to find hope. Jesus tells him: “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”. This example of encouragement is an important to the church especially, and how God has promised to never leave or forsake us. Jesus did not allow anyone to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, the commotion of crying and weeping consumed those around. He then said to them: “The child is not dead but asleep.” But they all laughed. This declares the resurrection and salvation of the church. The laugher of those who surrounded Jesus demonstrates the lack of faith the house of Judah and Levi has. Jesus preforms the miracle of brining back the life of a young girl, who is twelve years at the time, symbolizes the first resurrection and promised faith to the church.
The healing and resurrection contribute to Marks view of Jesus. Susan Miller theological view of Mark is “the cosmic struggle between good and evil, and Jesus conquers evil first by his miracles, and ultimately by his death on the cross.” She takes a literary approach for interpretations of women in Mark’s Gospel. For example the image of women in marks Gospel may suggest in part take the view of women in his community. Other scholars such as Gill believe that Mark “aims to promote the role of women because the status of women is diminishing in his community.”(11). In the gospel of Mark, a woman who has been powerless is now transformed through the healing of Jesus. In other passages Jesus praises the faith of others who seek for his healing. The act of a women’s service is unusual. Also since only in narratives does a human respond to the healing of Jesus with service. Miller approaches this view in two sets. The first being, a “skillfully and crafted narrative” and the second stating Mark was written for a particular community. The Gospel of Mark in some sense is a parable for the community itself. For example, that Jairus’ daughter awakes after Jesus raises her from the dead can be connected to the miracle of him walking on water. The story of Jairus’ daughter has become a parable meant to show facts about the death and resurrection of Jesus. Each encounter of women in Mark’s Gospel has a separate chapter in the book, some of which are: Healing Simon’s mother-in-law (1.29-31), Healing the women with the flow of blood (5.21-43), Herodias and her daughter (6.14-29), and the women who anoints Jesus (14.3-9.)
Moss Candida in “The Man with the Flow of Power” addressed the issues of women’s ailment and their relationship to purity. Scholars are now disregarding her disability and focusing on her identity as a woman. Other interpretations focus on the analogous practice in Hellenistic magic. This is the practice of healing through the power of touch. The closest unrelated kind of magical healing is found in the summary of Paul’s healing in Acts 19:11-12: “God did extraordinary miracle by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” The story shows the characteristic of healing through touch. This is all connected upon the idea of gender and its particular structure. In the ancient world sexuality was constructed using a sliding scale with male and female at either pole. This male-female continuum was hierarchical and males stood at the top. Aristotle states that “women are incomplete males: like undercooked bread, female bodies never achieved the heat, dryness, or impermeability that make up healthy bodies.”(513) Softness is associated with weakness and femininity. In narratives it is the sickly women who gains control over the body of the physician savior. It is she who is able to pull divine power out. This ability is used in the language of faith.
In New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible Vol. 2, contemporary Western scientific interprets many physical problems in the Bible. Most of which are considered to be conversion disorders, also known as conversion hysteria. In other words, the person who experiences a misfortune in life whether that be physical or social, converts into a physical disorder by liberating power of suggestions. It is not likely ancient Mediterranean’s interpreted their problems from modern perspectives. A second form of confusion is in language. Many of the ancient lexical terms are flexible and unsystematic. Words in every language derive their meaning from social systems such as writings or speech in a particular culture. “Disease is not the reality itself, but rather an expletory model or concept that describes abnormalities n the structure and/or the function of human organs and organ system.” (136.) This is the concept based upon Western, scientific, and biomedical views. Illness as well is not the reality, but “an explanatory model or concept that describes the human perception, experiences, and interpretation of certain socially disvalued states including but not limited to diseases.” (136.) The word “illness” would be the most reasonable term if used because the Bible does not have appropriate information to describe socially disvalued states. Therefore Bible readers are best encouraged to understand all of terms of sickness, and illness.
All theology is based on human experiences that are culturally specific/ Middle Eastern cultural perspective of sin is shaming another person. In the case of health problems the concept of “collectivistic sin” is an idea as to why a child who has not sinned could be afflicted with health problems. Medical anthropology sheds on these cultural convictions of one’s belief system plays in determining sickness and health. Knowing ones life has meaning and purpose is the difference between health and sickness: “If one believes that shaming God (=sin) may bring disastrous consequences, one can either repent or suffer God’s vengeance.” (138.) Human societies make sense out of their social living by having metaphorical lines around self, others, nature, time, and space. Ancients saw these terms in line of “clean” and “unclean.” Purity is viewed as a question of where a person and things belong. For example, people and things that of which are put of place are seen s dirty, or unclean. Diseases in the Bible are not feared because of physical consequence but rather separation from God as seen in Mark.
Matthew in relation to Mark conveys the mechanics of the women’s healing, in Mark 5. The woman certainly believed she would be healed through physical touch. Jesus in returns announces it was her faith that saved her. While the context of Jesus’ words in Matthew are not noticeable different from Mark, its placement is passive. Matthew abbreviates the story in a way that takes away the healing of touch through a woman, but rather his clothing. Jesus and the woman with blood are unforgettable. She contracts with both Jairus’s daughter and Jesus. Interpreters contrast between these two ideas as examples of Power. The body and healing of Jesus, stand for a positive and divine figure. Throughout the rest of the Gospel, Mark continues to show how Jesus serves others with divine power. The body is a “portable road map.” The body is divided into three zones: the heart-eyes, mouth-ears, and hands-feet. The heart-eye zone symbolizes the part of the body that is responsible for emotion infused by thinking. Mouth-ears are part of communication and self-speech. Last, the hand-feet zone represents part of the human body that is responsible for purpose. The analyses of “disease” in the bible are large but relatively worthless for historically based analysis. In conclusion ancient Israelites were concern with diseases and purity. They categorized these experiences and to some that “just happen” to the body or caused by God.
Gospel Passage: Mk 5:21-43
Cotter, Wendy. “Miracle.” In New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 99-106. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009. (sections A.1-4; B; C.1-3b)
Pilch, John J. “Disease.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 135-140. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007. (sections A; C; D; E; F)
Miller, Susan. Women in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004. (pp. 52-72)
Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010): 507-519.
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Essay II
Jesus’ Deeds
By Hannah Stern
Part 1
Some of the earliest accounts of Jesus’ life include his deeds as a miracle worker and healer. Mark 5:21-43 provides two accounts of Jesus performing great deeds: the healing of the woman with the flow of blood (5:25-34) and the healing of Jairus’s daughter (5:21-24, 35-43). This passage begins as a leader of the synagogue named Jairus approaches Jesus, and asks him if he will come to his home to heal his ill daughter, and Jesus agrees. On the way to the house, he encounters a woman who enacts her own healing by touching the garment of Jesus. After she is healedesus praises her. Immediately as this happens, news comes to Jairus and Jesus that Jairus’ daughter has died. Jesus sets off to raise the girl and brings with him only his closest disciples: James, Peter and John. When Jesus reaches the house he enters the room of the girl and takes her by the hand, speaks some magical words, and the girl is raised.
Part 2
Susan Miller analyses both of these healings in relation to ritual impurity, faith and fear, the kingdom of God, discipleship and the restoration of Israel. Miller ties all this together to show how “the healing of the two women foreshadows the abundance of the kingdom of god, which breaks into the world in the midst of human suffering”(Miller 72).
Miller states that the unnamed woman with the flow of blood has more faith than the named disciples, because she overcomes her crippling fear and is saved; thus acting as a foil character to the disciples that never quite understand Jesus in the gospel of Mark (Miller 52). The abandonment of the purity laws is another topic that she discusses. The woman with the flow of blood is considered ritually unclean by the purity laws stated in Lev 15:19-30; the rules of these laws state that she cannot touch anyone or enter the temple without being condemned (Miller 53). But Jesus does not condemn her when she touches him, instead he praises her for her faith, and this is the precedent for the abandonment of the purity laws (Miller 53). This is an important inclusion by the author because it also shows that in the new kingdom of God that Jesus is bringing about, everyone is invited. These healings are associated with the people who would have been left out of the camp of Israel: those who are ritually unclean, and those made unclean by the touching of a dead body (Miller 55). Miller also discusses how the two healings stories are linked. The woman has been ill for 12 years and the girl is twelve years old, this coincides with the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve disciples. Returning back to the topic of faith and fear, Miller believes that “fear and trembling is a characteristic human response to the revelation of God”(Miller 57). The woman with the flow of blood begins trembling in fear only after she is healed which is important to note, because of the parallel actions in Mk 4:41 and 16:8. This fear stems in response to the encountering of the divine, therefor Since these miraculous healings can only take place in company with faith, the woman with the flow of blood reaches out secretly to touch Jesus, just as Jesus keeps with him only his closest disciples (Peter, James and John) and casts off everyone except Jairus and his wife at the healing of the girl.
When Jesus raises the girl he uses an Aramaic phrase (which is unusual because Mark’s audience speaks primarily Greek) “to rise”, and the girl rises. Mark uses this same verb in discussion of Jesus’ resurrection as he states he will rise and later is raised; thus relating the healing of Jairus’ daughter to the resurrection of Jesus (Miller 62). Divine power raises them both. This also reveals Jesus’ power to overcome death (Miller 64). Miller also draws connections between these two healing stories in connection to words Jesus speaks. Jesus initially sets off to heal a leader of the synagogues daughter, but stops along the way to heal a poor, diseased woman: this illustrates that in Jesus’ new kingdom of god “many that are first will be last, and the last will be first” (Miller 64). Likewise, the action of the woman with the hemorrhage emulates the parable of the sower (Miller 65). The woman with the flow of blood and Jesus have many similarities often comparing her life to that of the disciples, in that she has nothing and trusts completely in Jesus. In addition to this, the woman also shows many similarities to the life of Jesus. The woman suffers and is isolated in society because she is deemed ritually unclean, just as Jesus is isolated at his arrest and suffers the passion. The drying of the blood of the woman relates to the creation of dry land in genesis, and therefore contributes to the idea of rebirth in Jesus’ new kingdom.
Candida Moss also examines the story of the woman with the flow of blood, but her essay focuses more specifically on understanding it within it’s Greco-Roman context. She argues that the similar porous bodies of the woman with the flow of blood and Jesus tell us much about Jesus’ character. The woman is healed by the simple action of touching Jesus’ garment. The idea that people could be healed through touch and even the touching of the garment of someone holy is well known during this time. A parallel can be made between the healing powers by touch of Paul in Acts 19:11-12 (Moss 510). Moss notes that the woman does not take power from Jesus’ garment, but actually from Jesus himself, this shows the magical diffusion of power from Jesus to those whom he makes contact with.
Moss states that in Greco-Roman times, disability and disease was seen as being caused by one of two things: the theory of imbalance or the theory of invasion. The first states that imbalances of morals or emotions will result in disease and can only be cured by administration of the opposite force. The latter states that the body is penetrable, and therefore health comes from the ability of the body to fight off alien forces and pollutants from entering it (Moss 512). People used to believe that disease stemmed from demonic possession (Moss 513). Since the body was seen as a permeable entity, health comes from the ability to fend off these harmful outside forces and remains from staying impermeable. These medical ideas were integrated into the ancient gender hierarchy, where men are placed above women, because women were said to be far more wet, cold, leaky, squishy, and secreting; all characteristic of the porous body. And as we have learned, a porous body is not a healthy body by these standards.
Porous bodies are said to symbolize weakness and femininity (Moss 513). These porous bodies are subject to attack from outside forces and threaten contaminating people in close proximity (Moss 514). Since the woman with the flow of blood has been secreting for 12 years, it makes sense that when Jesus heals her she has “dried up”; which constitutes a balanced, healthy body according to Greco-Roman medical standards (Moss 515). Jesus’ ability to heal the woman without even knowing he made contact with her tells us that Jesus also has a porous body through which power is flowing. The flow of blood from the woman parallels the flow of power from Jesus. According to both models of a healthy body, Jesus is considered weak (Moss 516). To the Markan author, however, this porosity of Jesus is not necessarily considered to be a bad thing; in fact he states, “the human shells that the deities inhabited in disguise could barley conceal their divine brilliance and glory” (Moss 518). This porosity of Jesus serves a divine purpose; to continually leak divinity to the people he comes into contact with.
Part 3
Both Wendy Cotter and John J. Pilch, provide general ideas about both miracles and disease seen in the historical religious light. Cotter gives us the broad stigma about types of miracles and what they would have meant to the people of Jesus’ time, while Pilch gives us a similar broad array of ideas involving disease.
In the New Testament, miracles mainly serve the function as a sign or communication of God’s relationship with humankind and history (Cotter 100). To begin, Cotter states that in the Old Testament times, everything within the cosmos and every activity was a part of God’s divine intervention (Cotter 101). With this we can assume that when most people during the first century heard news of miracles being performed by Jesus, they would believe it, and even seek him out to perform these miracles, since many believed in magic and miracle workers. As Cotter discusses in her passage, everything naturally occurring was seen as a message from God, I will focus on her entries about healing and illness, as well as life and death since they relate the most to the essay’s topics. Health can either be given or removed by the power of God. In the two healing stories, life is put back into the two women. Jairus’ daughter is brought back to life by the touch and words of Jesus, while blood is removed from the woman thus saving her life. Jesus has this divine power to give life to people, just like that of God; he is the constant sustainer of life. During the Greco-Roman time period, a “divine man” was believed to be given divine power from God, so that nature could refuse him nothing. (Cotter 106). In this context, Jesus can bee seen as a divine man, because of his ability to defy the natural world by giving life. In the Old Testament there are three stories in which god brings the dead back to life: (1 Kngs 17:24), (2Kngs 4:18-37;13:20-21). Each of these resurrections occurs from either the calling on God himself (reminiscent of Jairus’ calling of Jesus to heal his daughter), or healing by the physical touch or words of someone divine (reminiscent of the healing of the woman with the flow of blood). Cotter points out that in Mark “miracles are meant to give the listener confidence in Jesus’ authority and ability to restore both physical and spiritual sight, so that the listeners can experience the in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven” (Cotter 110). I believe that this idea completely mirrors the thesis of Miller, since the kingdom of heaven is so heavily alluded to in not only these healing passages, but the entire gospel of Mark.
The topic of disease is discussed in Pilch’s passage from vol 2. In the western world during the first century and before, diseases and illnesses were diagnosed based on assumptions. Pilch notes that ancient disease must be studied in its cultural context. During this time, many thought that these ailments were brought about by a persons experience with trauma, then resulting in disease; and the translation of these stories leads to much mix up of diagnoses. This is a similar idea to Candida Moss’s essay, in which the “porous” bodies result from the imbalance of emotions and or the inability to fight off potentially polluting forces. Pilch states that illness is a sense of having lost meaning in life. In the healing of the woman with the flow of blood, she is healed because she acts out of desperation when she reaches out to touch Jesus’ garment; and is thereafter cured. In slightly different context, Jairus, upon hearing the news that his daughter has died loses faith, but Jesus tells him not to do this. In a way I feel like illness can be seen as a simple lack of faith, and in faith, life is given. The faith of the woman heals her, and Jairus’ daughter is healed because Jesus removes all people from the place of healing with no faith.
Part 4
Not only this project, but this entire class has taught me an immense amount about the gospels. On the first day of class I would have been unable to describe to someone what a gospel is. Now I can confidently say, I feel like I have learned a thing or two. Reading the gospels dry is dull, confusing and just flat out boring. With my newfound knowledge of the different sources used, allusions to stories told in the Old Testament, and sayings included in the making of these gospels, I am able to look at and appreciate these words of literary art in a whole new light. The research on this topic has given me a better understanding of what ancient literature meant to the people of the time. And I believe that people probably liked these miracles stories the best because of how miraculous they are; it made them believe. Seeing how much goes into each passage, and being able to recognize what source is being used, what story is being alluded to, or what a parable means, bring to life in me a newfound interest and undivided attention. Then again these stories were written to an audience of the first century, what does this mean for me? This type of literature is unlike anything I have ever looked at. In what context am I suppose to read it? I read it in my own context. With knowledge of the different audiences the different gospel authors wrote to, I can see how each narrative of Jesus is different, as well as how they relate. I now relate this to me, what can I learn from Jesus’ words, what does this mean to me? What would I have done in this context, turns into my analysis of how the characters react, what this means in relation to the particular scene, and how it fits into the entire narrative. The gospels are an extremely historical, complexly layered set of words that allude to a million different concepts at once. Maybe even Jesus would have felt that things got a little over complicated, as I felt when I opened up my New Testament for the first time.
Bibliography
Cotter, Wendy. “Miracle.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol 4, edited by Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, 99-106. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009.
Pilch, John J. “Disease.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol 2, edited by Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, 135-140. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007.
Miller, Susan. Woman in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004.
Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature
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Essay III
Miracles of Jesus: Responses of Faith, Acts of Power
Rachel Anderson
REL 317
February 23rd, 2015
The character of Jesus has been portrayed countless ways over the span of 2000 years since he lived: from philosopher to even God himself, it seems everyone has their own definition of who this man once was. The author of Mark paints a unique picture of Jesus that forms the base for many of the other Gospel’s Jesus Portraits. Mark gives his audience a visual of who Jesus was through recounting his words, and furthermore by presenting his miraculous deeds. Mark’s rendition of Jesus’ miracles are meant to not only define who Jesus was, but also to challenge social constructions of illness, cement the power and authority of the Son of God, and reveal the purpose of God’s Kingdom.
These motives are especially evident in 2 miracles stories in the Markan narrative. The passage in which they are contained, Mark 5:21-43, begins with Jesus crossing over the Sea of Galilee, as he has does several times throughout the Markan narrative, to “the other side”: the Western, Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee (NSRV).
When Jesus arrives, a large crowd forms around him. In Mark 5:23, a man from the crowd comes before Jesus, falling on his knees, and begs him to come lay his hands on his dying daughter in order that he might heal her. The man’s name is Jarius: a leader of the synagogue. Jesus goes with Jarius to his daughter and the crowd follows suit.
In verse 25, there is a woman who has been suffering for 12 years from what the Bible says are hemorrhages, but through Jewish context we can infer is a ceaseless menstrual cycle. After suffering for twelve years and spending all she has, Mark says the woman is left not healed, but instead worse than she was before. She had heard about Jesus before, so in verse 27 the woman decides to push through the crowd to just touch Jesus, for she believes touching him will heal her.
Mark 5:29 says that immediately after the bleeding woman touches Jesus “her hemorrhage stopped and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.” (NRSV) Immediately, Jesus is aware that power has left his body. He “turns about” in the crowd asking who has touched him to make this happen. His disciples don’t understand what he is asking after all, many people in the crowd surrounding them are “pressing in”.
The woman knows what she has done and comes forward in fear, trembling. She falls down in front of Jesus and tells him the whole truth, verse 33 says. Jesus replies to the woman’s fear in verse 34: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; god in peace and be healed of your disease.”
While Jesus is still speaking, people come from Jarius’ house (the synagogue leader) telling him to not trouble Jesus anymore because his daughter is already dead. Jesus overhears this and says, “Do not fear, only believe” (5:36). He in turn doesn’t let anyone in the crowd come with him and Jarius’ except Peter, James, John, and the brother of James. When Jesus arrives everyone is “weeping and wailing loudly” and he asks them why they are making a commotion and weeping. He tells them “the child is not dead but sleeping” (5:39). At this, everyone begins to laugh at him. Jesus then makes them all go outside except the child’s father, Jarius, and her mother and “those who were with him”. They enter into where the little girl was. In verse 41, Jesus takes the girl by her hand and says to her “Talitha Cum” which means “Little girls, get up!” in Aramaic.
Immediately, the girl gets up and begins to walk about and everyone is “overcome with amazement”. Jesus orders them not to tell anyone, but to instead give her something to eat.
Women in Mark’s Gospel
According to Susan Miller in her book Women in Mark’s Gospel, Mark includes these two gospel stories together in his narrative for a variety a reasons. Many scholars believe that these stories didn’t actually occur in the order they are presented, but are rather placed in this order by Mark to draw upon their correspondence. By drawing parallels between these two particular deeds of Jesus, Mark is revealing aspects of Jesus’ character and the coming “Kingdom of God”.
One of the major correspondences Mark is highlighting between the two stories is their emphasis on the response of faith and the coming kingdom of God. Through both of these deeds Jesus preforms, Miller points out that Mark is demonstrating that Jesus places emphasis on faith in order to carry out his miracles: In fact, miracles only happen in Mark’s gospel where there is faith. The woman who suffers from the hemorrhages overcomes her fear by confessing her faith. Contrarily, Jesus tells Jarius not to fear but keep the faith. Miller says that Jesus constantly seeks to separate unbelief from faith through his signs of healing.
Besides the theme of faith, there are a number of other similarities between these two miracle stories in Mark that Miller points out. For example, both miracles feature women who are suffering and are “unclean” under Jewish law. In Jewish tradition, any woman who bleeds beyond her “impurity”, or menstral cycle, is deemed ceremonially unclean and can touch very few things with out causing them to be unclean as well. (Lev 15:19-30) The same is true in the Hebrew Bible of any one who touches a corpse. Miller thinks these healings (as well as the healing of the leper in Mark) correspond to the 3 “camps” of people who are excluded from the “camp of Israel” in the Old Testament: those of unclean skin, unclean discharge, or those who have touched a corpse. (Lev) In this way, it doesn’t seem like a mistake that these two miracles together were grouped together. Mark is structuring his healing stories around purity rituals; He does this to show that the power of Jesus is stronger than the death or disease, which has often threatened to “defile Israel”.
The contrasting elements of these healing stories also have strong parallels. The woman has been suffering for 12 years from an issue dealing with “fertility”, while Jarius’ daughter is 12 years old and therefore presumably entering into an era of “fertility” in her own life. The contrasting parallels continue with the women’s social classes: the older woman is of a low social class, while the daughter’s father is high up in society, making her of high social class as well. Jesus heals them both but especially appreciates the woman who displays great faith in Jesus even when it could have gotten her killed for touching Jesus as an “unclean” person. Jesus calls the woman “daughter” when she is healed, symbolically welcoming her back into not only the earthly community, which has most likely shunned her for being “unclean”, but also his community to come: the kingdom of God. Miller infers that Jesus’ healing of the woman and then the little girl foreshadows his acceptance of every class, gender, and social-economic status of person into the kingdom of heaven. Furthermore she states: “The miracles of Jesus are acts of power that point forward to the future rule of God when no disease or evil will remain.”
The last major parallel Mark draws is between the number twelve and the healings of the little girl and bleeding woman. Twelve is an extremely important number in the Bible, especially among the Jews. It symbolizes the twelve tribes of Israel. The age of the little girl and the sickness of the older woman both total 12 years, and their healing might further symbolize “the renewal of Israel as a whole”. Mark includes these healings not just as a measure of Jesus’ power but also as an invitation to all of humankind into renewal- especially for the people of Israel. (Miller 2004)
The Man with the Flow of Power
Candida Moss adds other elements to Miller’s take on the two Miracle stories in her article “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34”. She sees many parallels between the story of the bleeding women and the story of Jesus, and believes Mark uses these stories to “reverse traditional views” of divine men, specifically Jesus, in Hellenistic culture. She sees very strong parallels between the ways the bleeding woman is viewed as weak and “leaking” and Jesus, who also appears “feminine, weak and leaking”. However, Moss suggests that the woman is leaking with blood and Jesus on the other hand is leaking with power. In fact, Moss thinks Jesus’ power leakage points towards his actual identity.
According to Moss, in Hellenistic culture it was not uncommon to receive healing through touch. The healing was usually attributed to touching clothing or possessions of magicians or anyone believed to have “magical healing powers.” In Hellenistic culture, the garment or representation of a magical figure had the same healing powers as the person itself. This has drawn many scholars to believe that the woman received the same healing other ancient Greeks and Romans would have received because of the “transference of magic” from touching Jesus’ garments. However, Moss thinks that this leaves out the fact that Mark actually mentions that the power “leaves Jesus body” and heals the woman. Mark is suggesting that the healing did not come from the garments themselves.
Mark also taps in on Greco-Roman views of healing and sickness. Moss goes on to explain views of healthy and sickly bodies in the Greco-Roman world and both Jesus and the bleeding woman appear sickly under cultural definitions. A sickly body in the Greco-Roman world is leaky, moist, feminine, soft and porous, whereas a healthy body is impermeable, hot, dry, regulated, and masculine. (Moss 2010) When Jesus heals the woman, Mark describes her illness as being “dried up” and “hardened.” People in Greco-Roman culture would indeed understand this verbage as a healing. However, Mark also presents Jesus as weak: His leakage of power mirrors the woman’s leakage a blood and therefor redefines the “patient-physician” power dynamic. (Moss 2010) Jesus also redefines the Leviathan purity laws: the unclean woman does not make Jesus sick but rather he makes her well. This is the opposite of what one in Jewish culture might expect. In this way, Mark is showing that Jesus has come to present a way of healing that is counter to popular culture among both the Jews and Gentiles. In fact Mark suggest that it is nothing about the actual healing themselves that makes them different. Instead this “leakiness” of Jesus, the reaction of the woman by “fear and trembling”, and the healing of the woman despite her “uncleanliness” all suggest that Jesus is not only a healer: he is actually divine.
Moss thinks his divinity “inverts the traditional physician-patient power dynamic”. Mark’s Jesus serves as an alternative to earthly medicine. Jesus’ “sickness” parallels the sickly woman and throughout the gospel of Mark Jesus continues to “contaminate people with divine power.” The ironic part is that this contamination is essentially healing. (Moss 2010)
Analysis through the New Interpreters Bible Dictionary
The story of the bleeding woman and the little girl who is brought back to life by Jesus can be even further understood through their biblical context both in relation to the Hebrew Bible and the Greco-Roman influence of Jesus’ time.
Beginning with Wendy Cotter’s passage from the New International Bible Dictionary entitled “Miracle”, we are given a more in-depth look into the function of miracles both historically and in the time of Jesus. The word used to describe these miracles in Hebrew is “mofet” (meaning “wonder”) or more commonly “oth” (meaning “sign”). Cotter states that miracles in the New and Old Testaments of the Christian Bible function as “sign[s]: a communication of God’s relationship with humankind and history.” However, the function and significance of miracles has changed over time and have been delivered to people in a variety of ways.
There are many instances, beginning with the Old Testament, when the Lord preforms miracles through people. Most famously perhaps, is the parting of the Red Sea for Moses. However, Cotter points out that throughout the Bible many of God’s miracles come through nature. This is evidenced in the absence of sun as Moses’ predicted final plague for the Egyptians, the fire that often shows God’s favor in the Old Testament yet can also destroy, and the thunder and lightning that often show the presence of God. (Cotter 2009) Repetition of miracles also displayed God’s purpose and proved their significance. For example, God parts the Red Sea for Moses and similarly dries up the Jordan for Joshua. All of these Jewish miracle connotations are important in understanding the miracles Jesus preformed and their significance to the Jewish audience who they affected.
Jews were not the only people who encountered Jesus, however. The Greeks and Romans of Jesus’ time had their own history of divine signs. Greeks has seen “merciful and benevolent” gods such as Isis and Demeter who showed signs of sympathy towards human grief. The Greco-Roman world also understood this idea of Divine rulers such as Alexander the Great whose success could only be explained by a “divine favor” and “divine empowerment” by the Gods. (Cotter 2009)
In the New Testament, many of the characteristics of Hebrew and Greco-Roman miracles are carried over into the miracles that Jesus preforms and often follow the same as well. The healing of the bleeding woman and the little girl have Old Testament and Greco-Roman undertones, but also carry with them new meanings for the Jews and Gentiles alike. Mark highlights that Jesus preforms miracles that restore health and life to people who both in Greek and Jewish Culture were historically viewed as “deserving” of their illness and wouldn’t traditionally be included in miracle stories of Jewish or Greek origin.
John J Pilch further explains this cultural view of disease in the time of Jesus in his article “Disease”, found in the New Interpreters Bible Dictionary. Pilch explores the ideas of sickness and disease as they apply to 1st century Palestine. He explains that Greek culture often explained one’s disease as an effect of “someone” or “something” that caused you to be sick. This could be brought upon by someone’s mal-intent towards you, such as the Greek “Evil Eye” theory that continues today, or your “shaming of the Gods” that could bring about horrible consequences such as illness or disease. Similarly, traditional Jewish culture had laws which deemed you “unclean” or “clean”. These definitions of illness and disease were more of a social construct that a description of the actual illness itself. However, the results of both were the same: an illness in ancient times meant a complete “loss of meaning in life”, and often a shunning from part of society. (Pilch 2007)
Jesus, however, begins to overturn these social constructions of disease through his miracles. This can especially be seen through Mark 5:21-43 where Mark narrates the miracles of the bleeding woman and the little girl, both deemed “unclean” by Jewish Law and society. Wendy Cotter argues, “miracles are signs of [God’s] new kingdom where the ordinary the ordinary is overturned.” (Cotter 2009) Essentially, Mark is implying that Jesus came to not only heal people but to also to redefine who is actually sick in society. Jesus heals those who have faith in him and he tends to especially show mercy towards the poor. Through his miracles Jesus seeks to welcome the marginalized back not only into their societies, but into his new society: the kingdom of God. Mark’s Jesus is literally “leaking power” causing people to respond in fear and amazement. There is no doubt that Mark is painting a picture of the Son of God and a divine man unlike the Jewish and Greco-Roman world has seen before. Jesus’ miracles are a large part of how Mark displays Jesus’ power and act to prove that Jesus is sent by God not only to heal 1st century Palestine, but the world.
All in all, this project has completely enhanced my understanding of Jesus. I came into this class wanting to know how Jesus was perceived in the 1st century and the context of the stories our culture has come to know so well. I was more interested in knowing who Jesus actually was as a person than I was in knowing what he actually did. I now know that maybe the “true” story of Jesus will never be uncovered- it is lost to the grip of history. But what I have found is a Jesus who was loved and followed by large communities of people. Through reading Mark’s rendition of Jesus’ life I have gained a passionate view into Mark’s own community of early Christians. The same is true for Matthew and Luke. I might not know more about Jesus from an unbiased point of view, but I now know more about 1st century humanity and a group of people with a detailed history. This intergenerational connectivity is really astounding. It’s cool to be a part of even just a small part of it.
Bibliography:
Miller, Susan. Women in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004. (pp. 52-72)
Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010): 507-519.
Cotter, Wendy. “Miracle.” In New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 99-106. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009. (sections A.1-4; B; C.1-3b)
Pilch, John J. “Disease.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 135-140. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007. (sections A; C; D; E; F)
Gospel Passage: Mk 5:21-43
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Essay IV
Dorian Perkey
REL 317
February 24, 2015
Jesus’ Deeds
The Gospel of Mark is riddled with miraculous stories of healings, exorcisms, and resurrections performed by Jesus. Of these many instances there are two that will be focused on. They are both intertwined in the same passage; the healing of a hemorrhaging woman, and bringing a young girl back to life. From Mark’s telling of these stories we can begin to look at the consistencies and the discrepancies between his account of Jesus’ deeds, and the traditional Greco-Roman telling with a similar theme. It will be important to look at what Mark deems important, what he omits, and what Mark’s intended audience would have related to.
In the passage of Mark 5:21-43 a story is told of two miracles performed by Jesus. The beginning starts out with a man named Jairus seeking out Jesus and pleading with him to come heal his sick daughter. At this time Jesus is walking in a crowd of people; and in this crowd of people is a sick woman who also seeks his help. This woman’s healing takes place first as she believes if she can just touch the clothes Jesus is wearing then she will be made well. She had been suffering for years of constant bleeding with no help from any doctor. In fact her assumption was in fact correct; she reached out and the moment she grabbed his robe she was healed. Jesus then confronted the crowd of people as to who touched him saying he felt the power draining from him. The woman came forward and he told her to go because her faith had healed her. From this Jesus continued on to see the sick child. Other men suggested it was a waste of time because they brought news that the young girl had already passed away. Jesus ignored them telling Jairus to not fear, but believe. As they arrived Jesus told the people that the girl was not dead but just sleeping. As they laughed at him Jesus lead the girl’s parents to where she was laying. He grabbed her hand and told to get up; which she then did as he said. Jesus then told the parents they were to tell no one of what had taken place.
This story contains two distinct instances of healing miracles that overlap each other in their telling. Both of which would follow form of a divine miracle story by containing all three elements typically attributed to one; the problem is introduced, there is a response from the miracle worker, and there is a demonstration (Cotter 2009). Separating these two miracles, lets take a deeper look at the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. Author, Candida Moss, wrote an article entitled “The Man with the Flow of Power” that focuses on this very subject. Moss’s thesis made the argument that that the bodies of the woman and Jesus parallel each other in the sense that both are porous and leak uncontrollably. When viewed in the context of Greco-Roman models of the body, both the woman and Jesus appear weak, sickly, feminine, and porous. It is important to take note of the vocabulary used, specifically the word porous, because it is essential to understand the true history of the story in the time it was written. The article contains a few main points crucial to the argument. The first being to point out the similarities to Jesus’ story with other miraculous healing claims. The second idea introduced the ancient medical models of the body and overall health. Finally, there is the analysis of Jesus’ character as he relates to the sick woman.
Perhaps one of the more obvious of the observations made is that Mark makes it a point to say that all other physicians and modern medicine had failed this woman. By doing this he sets the stage for what is about to happen and magnifies Jesus’ power. Back in the Hellenistic culture it was not uncommon for people to be healed by the touch of a magician or healer. In fact there are quite a few stories that tell of just that. In Plutarch’s Life of Sulla a woman extracts a thread from Sullas garment in the hope of securing a portion of his luck, and in the New Testament people would take cloths and garments that were near Paul because they believed the healing powers he possessed had been endowed to them (Moss 2010). It would seem logical that the desperate woman would believe the same could happen to her if she could just touch Jesus’ robs. However, we can see in the bible verses that the power did not come from the clothes because Jesus said to the crowd that he felt the power leave his body. This means the healing power has to be leaking out of Jesus himself.
This is where the idea of ancient medical philosophy comes in. There were two theories of how a body could become ill; imbalance and invasion. In this passage the sick woman would have been view as someone whose body failed to keep out the entities that would harm them. They were thought of as being “porous” and that is what caused them to be sick (Moss 2010). Words such as leaky, moist, feminine, soft, and porous were all very commonly used when describing an unhealthy body. On the other end of the scale words such as dry, hard, masculine, and impermeable were used to describe a healthy body. Aristotle once wrote “women are incomplete males: like undercooked bread, female bodies never achieved the heat, dryness, or impermeability that make up healthy bodies” (Moss 2010). This is why the woman’s bleeding illness, and healing, fit so perfectly with the porous body model of the ancient world. Mark even describes the healing with words such as “hardening,” and “drying up,” which are Greek terms used for healing in which the root literally means “dried up” or “hardened” (Moss 2010).
When we think of sick or healthy bodies being described as porous or impermeable this is where we can begin to relate Jesus and the woman. Jesus must be porous if the magic could have been drained out of him. In fact it draws an illusion that reflects the flow of power from him, and the flow of blood from her. Even more so it is there is a connection that neither one can control what leaves their bodies, yet they both physically feel it happening. Examining this concept through the views of Greco-Roman ideals of disease means Jesus would have been considered weak (Moss 2010). Reading the works of later gospel writers it is apparent that Matthew did not like this idea. He not only condensed the story, he rearranged it so that Jesus confronted the woman in the crowd before she had the chance to touch him. This version would allow Jesus to remain in control and her faith heal her. He would not be seen as “porous” this way. However, there are some who would suggest that divine men were in fact porous as they believed gods to be concealing themselves in humans. In this way it would actually put it in the minds of Mark’s audience that Jesus may in fact be a divine man. In Mark’s telling he even describes the woman as trembling with fear when Jesus confronted her afterwards; which would be a typical response to a higher power.
Looking at these stories from a different perspective Susan Miller, author of “Women in Mark’s Gospel,” draws more connections to the two sick women. Even though we are not told the maturity of the young girl she is said to be about 12, the age of puberty. This leads the audience to believe that both of these illnesses were rooted in fertility. The woman with constant bleeding would not be able to bear children, and the young girl was dying before she came of age. From this we see that in both cases 12 is a significant number. While these two individuals seem to have a lot of similarities in their illness, each one seems to serve a different purpose in Jesus’ teachings. The woman’s story is believed to be centered on purity laws, whereas the girl looks to have played a role in the foreshadowing of Jesus and his own resurrection.
In the case of the bleeding woman she would have been seen as unclean by other people. There was a stigma around her and people believed that if an unclean person were to touch them, they would in turn become unclean as well. Her healing defies these beliefs and proves that Jesus is above them. As an outcast the woman wanted to touch the robes of Jesus in secret, however, when Jesus felt the power drain from him he called her out. At this moment people not only witnessed the healing of her illness, they were witness to Jesus overcoming the purity laws (Miller 2004). He had the ability to heal her and still remain pure. What this did was give the people an image of Jesus as an authority over sin and illness, he was above it, and it was for everyone, even the “unclean.” Playing in this issue of the outcasts, Jesus stopping to talk to and take care of this woman while he knows a girl is dying (whom had a much higher social standing) speaks volumes to the people. It reiterates the idea that God does not care about the social status of a person when it comes to His kingdom. Jesus needed to talk to her, and establish a relationship with her because her healing was not complete without her knowing that she is his “daughter”
When Jesus moved on to the issue of the sick girl his strategy was different. He left the crowd behind and traveled with his three chosen disciples. Once he got to the home where the girl had died he told everyone to leave. When he told the mourners that she was merely sleeping and they laughed at him, he kicked them out of the home. After he woke the sleeping girl he told the witnesses not to tell anyone what he had done. While this all seemed confusing at the time, later on much of this same scenario was played out at Jesus’ own crucifixion, death, and resurrection. In his final days Jesus was traveling with a select few men and three days after he died on the cross he was resurrected from the grave. When his spirit spoke to his disciples he told them not to tell anyone what they had seen and to wait for confirmation to continue traveling (Miller 2004).
These women both act as different role models to Mark’s audience. The first woman can teach the power of faith and equality to the readers. Because her healing stalled Jesus it also allowed the audience to see that time is not a factor when it comes to the kingdom of God. No one person’s healing is more important than another, and God does not have to choose. The girl however, had nothing to do with her own healing. It was because of the faith and the persistence of the people around her that she was brought back to life (Miller 2004). This concept shows people how important it is, and how possible it is, for them to intercede in the lives of others. Jesus often taught on the ideals of the church being a body with many moving parts, that they were a family, God’s beloved children, and this little girls loved ones proved this.
Analyzing the way that Mark wrote his gospel as a whole it is very apparent that he had a goal in mind. Mark’s formation and interpretation of Jesus’ life was one meant to inspire. The book of Mark is full of miracle stories. Pretty much the whole of Jesus’ life that we knew of was spent in the midst of signs, wonders, and miracles. “Miracles are meant to give the listener confidence in Jesus’ authority and ability to restore both physical and spiritual sight, so that listeners can experience that in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven,” (Cotter 2009). In his era Mark had to compete with the many other idols, gods, and heroes that captivated the attention of the masses. Jesus’ short life has more divine power in it then can be ignored. And nearly all of the miracles performed by Jesus were for human need (Cotter 2004). He exerted his power for the greater good of man which was a unique element because “divine men” before him were rulers and controllers who did little for the individual.
When it comes to looking at the gospels in a first-century context, and even my own life I have always had a great appreciation for them. Even more so this class has added on to that, and in a new way. As a Christian I have read the gospels many times. Granted I have not understood true meaning of much of it until the last couple years. I do believe that God loves to challenge us, that he knows we love a good mystery, and that is why He didn’t lay out everything in an obvious fashion. I believe by taking this class, and researching for this paper, I have learned a lot more about the inner workings of the writers, as well as the audiences. It was a great reminder to look at the bible as how it was meant to be understood back then. By doing that it gave me a better grasp on what that could look like in our lives today. I won’t lie I have been challenged in the concepts of the gospel writers (Matthew and Luke) changing and editing the stories. However, I have really enjoyed comparing them all side by side and feeling like you really get an insight as to what each author was intrigued by, or what they deemed unimportant. I have a long way to go in every aspect of understanding the gospels, their writers, and even God, but I now know my foundation is growing.
Gospel Passage: Mk 5:21-43
Cotter, Wendy. “Miracle.” In New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 99-106. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009. (sections A.1-4; B; C.1-3b)
Pilch, John J. “Disease.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 135-140. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007. (sections A; C; D; E; F)
Miller, Susan. Women in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004. (pp. 52-72)
Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010): 507-519.
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Essay V
Melania Winslow
REL 317
February 24, 2015
Jesus’ Deeds and Their Contribution to Mark’s Portrayal of a Misunderstood Messiah
In the Gospel of Mark, there are many different miracles and each contributes to Mark’s portrayal of Jesus as a misunderstood messiah. Over and over again he emphasizes Jesus’ divine nature but no one, and especially not his disciples, sees him for what he truly is until after his crucifixion. In chapter five of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus performs several miracles. Of these the healing of the woman with the flow of blood and the resurrection of Jarius’ daughter greatly parallel Jesus’ own life and especially his passion.
In Mark 5:21-43, Jesus has just returned to Jewish territory when he is approached by Jarius, a leader in the local synagogue. Jarius’ 12 year old daughter is dying and he implores Jesus to come and heal her. While Jesus and a crowd follow Jarius back to his home, a woman who has been hemorrhaging for 12 years comes up behind Jesus and touches his “garment” and is instantly healed. Jesus senses this and questions the crowd, asking “‘Who touched my clothes?’” (Mk.5:31). The woman comes forward and is told that it is because of her faith in Jesus that she was made well. At the same time, the crowd is informed that Jarius’ daughter has died and they begin to question whether they need Jesus any more. But he insists of going. Once there he takes only three disciples and the girl’s parents and heals their daughter before their eyes. Jesus then warns them not to speak of this miracle to anyone and to feed the daughter, before he heads on his way.
Using this main text as a jumping off point, if we examine this section of the gospel in the light of the article “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34”, and the book Women in Mark’s Gospel, we can draw many conclusions about Mark’s Jesus and how and why he connected Jesus with these two miracles and what their symbolic contribution is to the entire text are.
In the article “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34”, by Candida R. Moss, the author discusses the relationship between the hemorrhaging woman and Jesus. Moss asserts that Jesus and the hemorrhaging woman are highly connected because they both are porous and both suffer for their faith in God. Moss refers to both Jesus and the woman as porous throughout the article. She talks about pores in the sense that things are leaking out of the bodies, even if the pores aren’t visible to the human eye. In her article, Moss points out that things leaking is greatly related to fluidity and that this is seen as a very feminine quality. This seems odd because Jesus is meant to be a powerful, divine being and in the time that Mark’s gospel was written, femininity and weakness are synonymous. Moss refers to this as the “hyper hydrated feminine identity” (Moss 2010, 514). It was a belief in that time that to be healthy you had to have “a sense of good proportion, and a balanced, well-regulated body” (Moss 2010, 512) and that women could never reach this ideal state. So when the body was too hydrated it was a sign of illness and weakness. But then if the “woman with the flow of blood” as she is referred to in this article, is a weak character due to her illness then why would Mark have her as parallel to Jesus? Moss answers this in her article stating that “the flow of power from Jesus mirrors the flow of blood from the woman.” (Moss 2010, 516). But while his body is leaking, it is power that leaks out because he is a divine being. Due to the divine being inside of Jesus human form, which the Greek tradition is recognized as an Epiphany(the idea that a god or goddess will come to earth and possess a human being and because they are a divine being their human form can barely contain them and so it may leak as Jesus does) the human body which holds it can barely contain the power. The epiphany motif, which runs through Mark’s gospel, is just another way that the Gospel emphasizes the messianic secret and the misunderstood messiah that Mark portrays Jesus as. Moss’ article also highlights the reversal of purity. Purity in the Jewish tradition was extremely important and they had very strict rules regarding how to stay ritually pure and what to do if you became ritually impure. In the section of Mark that we are reviewing, the hemorrhaging woman is considered ritually impure; and in Judaism when a person becomes ritually impure, anything they touch also becomes dirty. This could be seen as a problem then when the woman touches Jesus’ clothing because traditionally this would have meant that he was now unclean like her. But instead power flows out of his body and into hers. This reversal of purity rules once again shows Jesus’ power and the divine being concealed in his human form.
In the book Women in Mark’s Gospel, by Susan Miller, we are given an explanation for the two miracles stories and their relation to purity, faith, and ultimately to Mark’s portrayal of Jesus. She claims that Mark uses the women, in the section under review, to foreshadow the passion of Jesus, to emphasize his belief in the equal status of men and women, and to further support his idea of Jesus as a misunderstood messiah. Miller discusses impurity and its implications within a Jewish community; normally anyone who is ritually impure would become a societal outcast. But Jesus, in his miracles, saves these people who are on the edges of society and Mark does this to show that Jesus “is stronger than the forces of disease and death, which threaten to defile the camp of Israel.” (Miller 2004). Faith is another important factor in Miller’s book. She highlights how the hemorrhaging woman is healed because of her faith. Faith is also brought up when the crowd says that they no longer need Jesus because the girl has died. This shows that they are not complete believers and this part is underlined when Jesus takes only Peter, James, John and the girl’s parents to watch him perform the resurrection. Miller notes that both the story of the hemorrhaging woman and the dying girl parallel Jesus’ passion story in several ways. Firstly, Jesus and the hemorrhaging woman both suffer and become outcasts in society, one by being unclean and the other by dying a shameful death, but both remain faithful to God in the face of adversity. Then there are the connections between Jesus and Jarius’ daughter. When Jesus raises her he says “Talitha cum” (Mark 5:42). This is the same thing that God says when he raises Jesus after he has been crucified. There are also similarities in that when the girl is raised, Jesus tells her parents to feed her and this can be seen as a parallel to the messianic feast which occurs several chapters later. Miller believes Mark’s Gospel “may reflect [Mark’s] concern for the equal status of men and women” (Miller 2004), in that he draws so many lines between Jesus and these two female characters. All of these things relate back to Mark’s portrayal of Jesus and his focus on faith as the thing that will truly save people. His gospel shows how all of the signs clearly point to the fact that Jesus is a divine being in disguise but still no one realizes what his true message is, which comes back to Marks misunderstood messiah motif.
Using these two outside sources there are several things that we can learn about miracles and Mark’s Jesus. In the gospels, miracles are used to show similarities between Jesus and several important Jewish prophets: Elijah, Elisha, ad Moses. His use of miracles helps to further his message to the reader that Jesus was the messiah and his death on the cross means salvation for all of those who follow him. But to do this we must first look at what the significance of a miracle was in ancient times when Mark’s gospel was written. According to the Miracle section, written by Wendy Cotter, of the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, in the Hebrew bible everything is an act of God so everything that was good that happened was a miracle. This meant that “since God is the constant sustainer of life itself, health given or removed is a powerful expression of God’s care or anger” (Cotter 2009, 102). This ties in to the miracle stories, and especially the resurrection of the daughter of Jarius because God intervenes and saves the girl’s life through Jesus which is just another proof of the power Jesus wields. In ancient times it was also believed that just by touching the bones or even an article of clothing of a healer may revive someone (Cotter 2009, 102). In the New Testament, there is a specific form for each miracle that occurs. Each has a statement of a problem, then an action or words from the miracle worker, and an exclamation from an audience. The more embellishments in a miracle story, the more editing and retelling has occurred of that story (Cotter 2009, 104). According to Cotter, in Mark’s gospel, “miracles are meant to give the listener confidence in Jesus’ authority and ability to restore both physical and spiritual sight” (Cotter 2009,104). Essentially Jesus deeds give reason for people to have faith in him and what he was preaching.
Knowing what we do about miracles now, we must delve even deeper into the study of this passage from Mark and discuss disease in ancient times since both of the miracles that Jesus performs are on women who are ill in some way. The Disease section, written by John J. Pilch, in the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, studies the view of disease in the ancient world. According to Pilch, illness in ancient times was “a sense of having lost meaning in life as a result of sickness.” (Pilch 2007, 136). Because of this readers should be weary of how they use the terms disease and illness because they could mean a large range of things that are either physical or spiritual or both. Something very important that Pilch notes at the beginning of his section is the difference between the emic and etic view of a culture. The emic view is the view of a culture through the eyes of someone within the culture while the etic view is that of someone not native to the culture. He also tells us that people with the etic view must keep modifying their view until it closely matches that of the emic view so that they may best understand that which they are studying (Pilch 2007, 135). As we review this text we look at it with an etic view but through a deeper understanding of what miracles and disease were in ancient culture we can more closely read and better understand Mark’s gospel and his portrayal of Jesus.
Another part of illness is sin. Sin is a key part of the belief system of Christianity and Judaism. Sin in the time of Jesus and Mark was when a person shamed someone else, this caused the person who was shamed to have to get revenge to regain their honor. This is especially true of God and his punishments for all those who sin against him. This idea closely ties belief/faith with health and this means that people could perceive illness as not having faith in god (Pilch 2007, 138). This can be seen when dealing with issues of purity. Often illness meant that someone was ritually impure and this was very bad because people thought that being impure “restricts you access to God” (Pilch 2007, 138). Now with our knowledge of disease and miracles we can examine Mark 5:21-43 in the context of the article and book that we studied earlier.
According to “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34” and Women in Mark’s Gospel, the most important things about the two miracles performed is their parallelism with Jesus life and their implications that faith is how you receive God’s grace. The hemorrhaging woman is similar to Jesus in that she has suffered and that her body is, as Moss refers to it “porous”. Jesus’ similarity with the woman is interesting and shows a close connection between Jesus and non divine beings, which through association shows a connection between god and those who are faithful to him. This is especially obvious when Jesus says to the woman, “Daughter, your faith has made you well” (Mk. 5:34). This shows a close familial connection between the two which seems much warmer than the God of the Israelites, who is often portrayed as very powerful and vengeful. Faith also plays a very important role in this passage in that it is the saving grace of both the woman and Jarius’ daughter. As discussed before, the crowd becomes discouraged when they hear of the death of Jarius’ daughter which is why when they finally reach the house of Jarius, they are not allowed to witness the girl’s resurrection. Miller comments on this and says that fear reveals an incomplete belief in God (Miller2004, 57). The crowd shows fear and mistrust of God and their punishment is that they are unable to witness the act of God, the resurrection miracle. This second miracle of resurrection is also connected to the passion narrative in Mark in that very similar things occur during the girl’s resurrection and Jesus’. Again this character that is being compared with Jesus remains unnamed. This anonymity is used to draw more attention to Jesus’ great works but even more than that is meant to make it more evident to the reader how similar to Jesus’ resurrection it is. Mark pulls all of these things together in these 23 verses that we have reviewed, to further his main goal of portraying Jesus as a misunderstood messiah who was the bringer of the good news. Mark shows Jesus as a powerful divine being who defies the rules of purity and performs great works but then urges people to keep it a secret. The messianic secret again is a main contributor to Mark’s portrait of Jesus, and Jesus repeats over and over again throughout Mark’s gospel, that people should not speak of his great deeds which adds to the confusion of Jesus’ followers and especially his apostles. The portrait of Jesus painted throughout Mark’s gospel is very clear in this passage and it gives you Mark’s main message in one simple line, “your faith has made you well” (Mk. 5:34), this line shows Mark’s true goal in writing his gospel. People must have faith in Jesus, even if they do not fully understand all of his actions, and follow him because the good deeds he did lead up to his final act of dying on the cross to save those who follow him, and through him follow God.
Analyzing the Gospel of Mark in this way has greatly contributed to my appreciation for the New Testament and Christianity as a whole. Growing up with a Jewish background I have not had many opportunities to learn about Jesus and Christianity. It has been challenging for me to grasp some of the concepts because there is so much new information that comes with learning about the gospels. It is interesting to be able to look at a religion and it’s texts in a historical context and to try to figure out what Mark’s purpose in writing his gospel was and who he perceived Jesus to be. This project was like a treasure hunt, following the clues and attempting to find the spot where the x is marked.
Bibliography
Gospel Passage: Mk 5:21-43
Cotter, Wendy. “Miracle.” In New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 99-106. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009. (sections A.1-4; B; C.1-3b)
Pilch, John J. “Disease.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 135-140. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007. (sections A; C; D; E; F)
Miller, Susan. Women in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004. (pp. 52-72)
Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010): 507-519.
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Essay VI
Katie Hughes
February 24, 2015
REL 317
Jesus’ Deeds
The section of the Gospel of Mark that this essay is examines places the reader into a time when Jesus is traveling back and fourth between the Jewish and the Gentiles, showing his disciples his work. Mark 5:21-43 begins when Jesus, “had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea,” (Mk 5:21) he had just crossed the Sea of Galilee and was greeted by a Jewish crowd who were being lead by a man names Jairus. Initially, Jesus was repetitiously begged by the synagogue leader Jairus to help his dying daughter (Mk 5:24). As Jesus was following, the crowd kept pressing towards him and in the chaos the story breaks and we are introduced to a new character by the author of the Gospel of Mark, the hemorrhaging woman. We learn that after many failed attempts with physicians she had been deemed continuously impure, this woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve years and needed a miracle. Verse 27 tells us, “She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,” she truly believed that if she were to come in contact with Jesus she would be healed; the hemorrhaging and the impure identity would finally stop. She was indeed healed, “Immediately her hemorrhage stopped;” (Mk 5:29) but Jesus knew that his powers had been used. In fear that Jesus would be upset that his powers had been used without his implicit consent the woman quickly fell before him, telling him the whole truth (Mk 5:33). Jesus was quick to acknowledge her faith in front of the crowd and his disciples stating, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease,” (Mk 5:34). Once the hemorrhaging woman’s faith is recognized the reader is returned to the story that began these verses; Jairus’ dying daughter, but we learn that it is too late when it is announced that the girl has died in verse 35. Jesus becomes upset by the little faith that these Jews are showing, even announcing that they shouldn’t bother him for help anymore. What Jesus says to Jairus, the leader of the synagogue in verse 36 is so important, he says, “Do not fear, only believe,” then bringing only Peter, James and John into the home with him, Jesus goes to heal the girl. Upon entering the home they see nothing but weeping community members amongst the commotion and then he declares the daughter of Jairus is not dead but merely sleeping, (Mk 5:38-39). He removed the people who did not believe his words and only took Jairus and his wife into the room with their daughter where he picked up her hand and only said two words: “Talitha cum” which translates to “Little girl, get up!” (Mk 5:40-41). Immediately, the girl wakes up and begins walking around, upon her waking up we learn that she is twelve years old. Jairus and his wife were overwhelmed and overjoyed that Jesus had saved the life of their daughter, however, Jesus requested that they tell no one of the situation and that they get their daughter some food (Mk 5:43), which is how the selected verses end.
The scholarly article “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34 ” brings up a very interesting point about how this would have been viewed in Greco-Roman times, written by Candida Moss. In this article Moss says, “the bodies of the woman and Jesus parallel each other in the sense that both are porous and leak uncontrollably”(Moss 2010, 508). The body of the woman has not stopped hemorrhaging blood for twelve years and the body of Jesus is leaking his powers, the flow of power from Jesus mirrors the flow of blood from the woman. Like the woman, “Jesus is unable to control the flow that emanates from his body” (Moss 2010, 516). Many people who read this story view the woman’s hemorrhaging as a disability and deem her impure however, a different way to view this story is something that Moss brings up, she says, “The surface of the body was not a sealed boundary; it was a permeable membrane,” (Moss 2010, 513) meaning that the membrane allows the body to have things enter and exit it. This is where we can relate the woman’s hemorrhaging to Jesus. Upon the woman grasping his cloak in verse 27 Jesus’ power healed her. Although it wasn’t until verse 30 that Jesus becomes aware of his power exiting his body; much like the blood that had been exiting the woman’s body for the past twelve years. Moss says an unhealthy body in ancient times would be described as: drippy, leaky, moist, uncontrolled, feminine, soft, and porous (Moss 2010, 514) which is very interesting since that last word has also been used to describe Jesus’ body in a positive light. If it weren’t for his porous body he might not have been able to heal both the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus’ daughter through touch. Moss feels that the Jesus written about in Mark come across as physically ill because his porousness parallels the sickness used to describe the hemorrhaging woman at this time (Moss 2010, 516)- even though Jesus is still the source of healing and his body serves a positive function in this passage (Moss 2010, 519).
Susan Miller is the author of the second scholarly article titled Women in Mark’s Gospel she argues that despite the many purity rules and negative associations that women’s menstruation carries that is not the entire focus in this passage, the focus is more on how, “Jesus does not criticize her for touching his clothes, but praises her action, (Miller 2004, 53). Miller points out the similarities in the stories of the hemorrhaging woman as well as Jairus’s daughter, saying that, “both stories explore the response of faith” that we see in Mark 5:34 and 5:36 (Miller 2004, 56). On page 58 the desire of the hemorrhaging woman to be healed is so strong that she pushes through the crowds and in front of everyone, breaking purity laws, she touches Jesus’s cloak with the faith that he will be able to heal her. The laws of Leviticus are also mentioned, furthering the point that the woman risked her life for the faith that Jesus would be able to heal her and it was her faith that released the power from the body of Jesus. Going back to Jairus’ daughter, Jesus makes all of the mourners in the house to exit because he knows they are lacking faith once they mock him for announcing that the girl is simply asleep. Miller says, “ Marshall points out that Jesus’ action serves to separate unbelief from faith, thus emphasizing that miracles can take place only where faith is present,” (Miller 2004, 61). In her conclusion Miller circles back to the importance of intercessory faith in this passage of Mark, recalling how Jesus praised faith in both the stories of the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus’ daughter.
There are two miracle healings in the passage of the Gospel of Mark that we have read, the healing of the hemorrhaging woman in verses 24-34 and the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter in verses 21-24 and 35-43. The word miracle is one that is used quite often in all of the Gospels and this word is often used synonymously with the term healing. The section titled; The Interpretation of Miracle Stories (Cotter 2009, 105) has an interesting examination of miracle stories across the Gospels. Rudolf Bultmann concluded that, “Miracle stories have three elements: an introduction in which the problem is identified; the response of the miracle worker to the situation in command, deed or both; and the resolution with either a demonstration or an acclamation from those watching,” (Cotter 2009, 105). Mark 5:21-43 presents these miracle stories slightly broken up because we first hear of Jairus’ daughter and then that story is interrupted with the story of the hemorrhaging woman but non-the-less, both stories follow the format that Bultmann suggests in the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. In the conclusion of the term miracle it is pointed out that all of his miracles “attest to the authority of Jesus as God’s Son,” (Cotter 2009, 106).
In Mark, the diseases that are discussed are not so much diseases as they are impurities. The hemorrhaging woman does not have a disease but to society her ailment is viewed as an impurity. The word “disease” is found in the second volume of the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible and the section that best applies to this passage in Mark looks at disease as an impurity; exactly how society viewed the hemorrhaging woman. A scholarly study conducted by Bernard de Gerardon shows that, society interpreted the body symbolically and formed three zones (Pilch 2007, 138). This section says that the illnesses in Mark are not spirit related and both the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus daughter fall into the category of hands and feet. Upon first reading this, it was a little bit confusing however, it is further explained that, “The hands-feet zone symbolizes that part of the human body responsible for purposeful action,” (Pilch 2007, 138). The different zones or categories that this study created are designed to work as a whole with the body and mind, “If any zone or part is affected by some illness, that person is no longer whole, holy, clean. The person’s access to God is impeded.” Once these females were healed and ridden of their impurities their access to God was restored and they could resume their lives without fear or embarrassment of being labeled impure by society.
After reading both articles by Miller and Moss introduced several very strong interpretations that I had not noticed until reading their articles. The title from Moss’ article gives away the point that she wanted to drive home- connecting Jesus’ body with the body of the hemorrhaging woman- both bodies leaking something uncontrollably; the woman, blood, and Jesus, his powers. I thought that this comparison was an excellent one but I couldn’t help but wonder how it would have been perceived during their first-century context because as we read in Moss’ article, words like leaking and porous were often always used to describe the downfalls of a woman. Had the body of Jesus not been porous and free flowing I don’t know if he would have been able to work miracles for all of those people. Just examining the verses in this particular passage had his body not been porous he wouldn’t have been able to heal the hemorrhaging woman, “She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,” (Mk 5:27) and then she was healed, without his explicit consent, she was healed. Although I don’t think that this idea would have translated well into a first-century context I think that today’s readers can appreciate the vulnerability that Jesus was offering to everyone by allowing his powers to flow from him.
I found it very bold that Miller’s article had a strong focus on faith instead of a more theological take on this passage of Mark. In both stories Jesus praised people for having faith and put more energy into supporting those who were able to keep their faith alive throughout hard times. This portion of the article made me really appreciate the work that Jesus did and the fact that he was encouraging people to have faith and in return he showed them that it pays off to keep their faith and in both of these cases, it saved lives. I think that today when we think of religion we associate it with faith and prayer, which is something that I think the first-century, could have benefitted from focusing on. My appreciation for the Gospels has definitely grown through the completion of this project. I have a better understanding of how first-century people viewed and interacted with Jesus in person, which is something that we will never know. Diving into the twenty-two verses of this passage and really being able to examine a smaller section of one Gospel helped me understand the author of the Gospel of Mark and see where they were coming from. It would be interesting to dive into the parallels of this passage in the other Gospels and I would be curious to see if my final opinion would vary between Gospels. The Gospel of Mark does an excellent job of highlighting Jesus’ powers and illustrating how he was able to balance two different miracles, something that is unique to this passage because we have a frame story that we revisit once the hemorrhaging woman is healed. Focusing on Jesus’ faith and his ability to multitask is something that I will take away from this project because I believe that it is very applicable to life today.
Sources:
Gospel Passage: Mk 5:21-43
Cotter, Wendy. “Miracle.” In New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 99-106. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009. (sections A.1-4; B; C.1-3b)
Pilch, John J. “Disease.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 135-140. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007. (sections A; C; D; E; F)
Miller, Susan. Women in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004. (pp. 52-72)
Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010): 507-519.
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Essay VIII
Nick Jones
Religion 317
Essay Assignment
David Reis
Jesus Deeds and Miracle Stories
In Mark 5:21-43 Jesus is a very popular and well-known person, and is known to heal people of illnesses, deformities, and even bring people back to life after previously being passed away. In verse 21, it says “When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.” (When it says Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, it is explaining how Jesus always went the route to the west (the more Jewish side) compared to the more Gentile side to the east.) In verse 22 and 23, one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus saw Jesus and fell upon Jesus’ feet pleading for him to lay his hands on his daughter who was on her deathbed. (At that time, leaders of the synagogue were prominent figures of the community, so the fact that he is literally begging is a huge deal.) Jairus explains that if Jesus were to lay his hands upon his daughter she would be made well and live. (This shows that Jesus has healing powers, and foreshadows to Jesus’ resurrection when Jesus tells his disciples that they too can have healing powers through him if they ask/pray for it.) It goes on to say in verse 24 that not only Jesus went with Jairus, but also a large crowd and pressed on Jesus. (This verse is key to show that the Jewish people were interested in Jesus’ works, but also could be interpreted as a sign of having a lack in faith in Jesus. Showing the Jewish people were unsure of if Jesus could heal and perform miracles such as healing a dying child.)
On the way to little girl, there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. This woman had spent all of her money going to countless doctors and had not gotten any better, but had gotten worse. She had heard that if you were to touch his clothes that she would be instantly made well. (The reason she needed to be made well was due to her impurity, which caused women to bleed continuously.) When Jesus passed by her she touched his cloak and said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” When she has said this, her hemorrhages stopped and her body began to become normal with no physical aliment. Jesus had felt that power go forth to the women and turned around and said to the crowd “who had touched his clothes?” His disciples then turned to Jesus and said “the crowd is pressing on you, how can you say ‘Who touched my clothes?’” This shows that not even Jesus own and disciples (the people closest to him understood Jesus. So what does this say about anyone who thinks they know the true Jesus, but have not actually stood next to him and walked with him during his time of his testimony and miracle performance.) After all of this ensued, Jesus began to look around to see who had touched his cloak. The women knowing that she just was made well, felt the guilt of the Lord and came into fear. She then trembled and fell upon her knees and told him that it was her that touched Jesus’ cloak. (So now both Jairus and this woman have now both fell upon their knees to Jesus, this symbolizes Jesus as a messiah and people bowing down to him.) Jesus said to the woman “Daughter your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.”
After this happens, several people come out from the Jairus’ house and shout that the daughter is dead, and why to trouble the teacher any further. (When the leader says teacher, it shows the Jewish people not only believe Jesus is a messiah, but also someone to learn to be like.) Jesus then responds to the several people by saying “Do not fear, only believe.” At this time Jesus didn’t allow any but Peter, James, and John, and they all followed Jesus into house of the leader. When they arrived in there people were wailing and weeping in sadness. Jesus then says, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” Everyone, including Jesus’ own disciples laughs at this comment. (This yet again shows the mis-understandment of Jesus by the people closest to Jesus.) Then Jesus threw everyone in the house out, except for the mother, father, and his disciples. They went to the child and Jesus took the little girl’s hand and said “Talitha Cum” (meaning Little girl, get up). Immediately the girl got up and began walking. (The text tells us that this little girl is twelve, in order to show the age difference in the two miracle stories. This shows that the age wasn’t a factor in the healing/miracle stories.) All the people in the house were amazed at what had just transpired. But, even though they were amazed, they were strictly told not to inform anyone of what had happened, and to give the girl something to eat.
2) In Candida Moss’ The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34, the main argument is that the bodies of both women and Jesus have parallels to each other in the sense that they are both porous and leak uncontrollably. In the reading there are many examples, such as the women who was unclean and was hemorrhaging. And it is said that “We cannot argue that Jesus’ garments were already endowed with power by virtue of their proximity to his body because it is only at the moment that the woman grasps the hem of his garment that power leaves the body of Jesus himself This is not an act of simple magical transference from garment to woman; the woman’s touch pulls power out of Jesus himself. “ (Moss 510) This shows that both the body of that women and Jesus were both porous and leaking uncontrollably. In Jesus’ case he is leaking his power to the women. And the woman was leaking because she was unclean from adultery. This is then backed up when Moss states “In the Markan account, the characterization of the woman’s body contrasts strikingly with that of the body of Jesus. Just as the woman’s body hemorrhages blood, so also Jesus’ body leaks power.”(Moss 511)
Another way that both Jesus and the women are parallel through being porous/leaking uncontrollably is the physical look of Jesus and the woman being her own “leaky physician.” Moss states that “the Greco-Roman models of disease reviewed earlier, the Markan Jesus appears weak and sickly. He is unable to control, regulate, or harden his porous body. He is not only acutely porous; he is unable to regulate and control his own emissions. According to both models, Jesus is weak. The nature of his porosity may enable the Markan Jesus to heal others, but his physiological makeup resembles that of the sick and diseased. Even if he is the source of healing, the Markan hero is himself physiologically weak. His powers use the pathways of bodily weakness and illness, uncontrollably leaking through his broken skin.”(Moss 516) When it came to the women and her being porous/ leaking uncontrollably Moss says this “Moreover, in the narrative it is the sickly woman who exerts control over the body of the physician savior. It is the woman who is able to pull divine power out of the passive, leaking Jesus. To be sure, this ability is framed using the typical Markan language of faith, but there is no escaping the power that she exerts over his body. This is something of a reversal of fortunes for the physician and patient. Here the disabled woman ably controls the body of the spiritual and physical physician.”(Moss 516) So this again shows that both the woman who is unclean has parallel traits to Jesus being porous and leaking uncontrollably.
In Susan Miller’s Women in Mark’s Gospel it is already known the woman that touches Jesus is bleeding and unclean. The argument in this document is that anything the woman touches is unclean. So why is Jesus still clean after the women touches his cloak? It is said, “blood is a source of impurity and threatens others. “(Miller 53) And then it goes on to answer our question at issue partially, which is why is Jesus not unclean after being touched by an unclean woman. Miller explains “Jesus has the power to heal her and restore her to full health. Jesus does not criticize her for touching his clothes, but praises her.” (Miller 53) It is understood that Jesus has power, but why did that power overcome the uncleanliness of the women?
The simple answer, Miller explains, “Our account is thus concerned with purity issues, and recalls the miracle story of the healing of the leper.” (Miller 55) This miracle story is pretty similar to the woman that is unclean. The leper was touched by Jesus and cleansed of his sins and leprosy. In that time it was known that if you were to touch a leper, you were deemed unclean. You too would very soon develop the skin rash and acne wherever the leper touched you. So it was then too that Jesus should have been deemed unclean, but for some odd reason he not only was totally healthy but so was the person he touched. The simple answer for this comes from Miller when she says, “the power of Jesus is stronger than the forces of disease and death.” (Miller 55) So going back to the unclean woman, Jesus wasn’t unclean when the woman touched his clothes, because he had the power and authority over the disease. And being the Son of God and having the power to heal people that deemed totally unworthy at the time, Jesus would also heal whomever he touched/touched him. So when the woman touched Jesus she lost her hemorrhages and any uncleanness she had on her during that moment in time.
So the real message and common thing that both these narratives have in common is that they have both uncleanness happening around Jesus, but not only is Jesus totally healthy but so is the other person. There is also some type of porous/ uncontrollable leak from either Jesus, the woman, or both. The real message here though is the Jesus made miracles happen and that everyone compared to him is unclean, but through Jesus we can be made clean with faith, prayer, and the touch of Jesus.
3) Cotter’s take on miracle stories is a lot broader with the types of miracles and the meaning to them in the time of the Gospel. As to Pilch’s take was also very broad but had much to do on disease and miracles within diseases.
Cotter explains, “In the beginning, everything was a miracle. Prior to the 5th century CE, people believed that everything within the cosmos and every activity was an act of God’s intervention.” (Cotter 100) This shows that everything that Jesus did was a miracle, so people would flock to Jesus to hear and witness the healing for them-selves. He also states “it is clear that god is directly involved in miracles. Sometimes God speaks directly to human leaders, giving directions as well as interpretive messages to people.”(Cotter 100) This states that people believed that God would direct to leaders such as Moses and give messages and directions on where to go and what to do.
Pilch explains that disease and sickness back in biblical times were totally misdiagnosed and “the analyses of disease in the bible are plentiful buy relatively worthless for historical based biblical interpretation.” (Pilch 139) Basically in biblical times the belief of a sickness or disease was pretty much based off an assumption. Pilch explains, “culture dictates what to perceive and what to ignore, what to value and what to dismiss, what to express and what to overlook, then finally how to live with the illness.” (Pilch 137) This basically meant that based on the culture you could assume what to perceive as an illness and what not to perceive as an illness. It also expressed what the people would overlook and not, and if you had an illness/sickness you lived with it. When getting these types of sickness sometimes miracles would be preformed by the “cosmos” and the sick people would rely on God more. So the sickness back in the biblical times could either make you rely on faith more or even be a reason as to why a person had a lack of faith.
4) This project has contributed to my appreciation of the gospels in their first-century context by really opening my eyes as to what Jesus was really like. It shows me that no matter what happens if you rely on Jesus you will be made clean. Also, I have really learned more about Mark and the miracle stories. Coming into this project and even to this class I was not real educated on the Gospels. And growing up in a church you heard all the miracle stories, but never got a educational/scientific/historical view on it. I definitely think I have a better grasp on the gospel stories in the New Testament, and what it was like being an attributor to the writing of the bible and the different gospels within the bible. I really got a good understanding of all the literature and cultural feel at the time of the famous people in the gospel stories such as Jesus, John the Baptist, or even Mathew the Tax collector. It was really cool to get an understanding for what the people believed in medically and the different classifications of miracles. When dealing with that kind concept I think it is really different and eye opening as to the different viewpoints and the expansion of the knowledge that you already had coming into the project and the class. I also believe after this project and even after this class, as a person of faith I have increased my faith and learned the different viewpoints on what I believe in. I truly believe that is something special and something I can use when dealing questions from people who may have different viewpoints than what I believe is to be true.
Bibliography
1.) Cotter, Wendy. “Miracle.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol 4, edited by Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, 99-106. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009.
2.) Pilch, John J. “Disease.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol 2, edited by Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, 135-140. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007.
3.) Miller, Susan. Woman in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004.
4.) Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature
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Essay IX
Jesus’ Deeds
Alex Hagerty
REL 317
University of Oregon
Many sections of the Gospel of Mark deal with Jesus’s deeds. Some of these include the stilling of the storm (4:35-41), Exorcism (5:1-20), and feeding of five thousand (6:30-44). In addition to these miracles there is the gospel passage Mark5:21-43 which deals with the deeds of Jesus and specifically the healing of an older woman who is suffering from chronic hemorrhaging and the resurrection of a sick girl who has recently passed. The passage begins by the man Jairus approaching Jesus begging for him to heal his twelve year old daughter. As in many of the other healing stories there is a large crowd of people and in the commotion a woman who has been suffering from bleeding for twelve years touches his clothes believing that she would be healed. Through this action she risked embarrassment or harm as she was impure but she was desperate and had faith that he would heal her. She is in fact healed by touching his garments and Jesus senses his power leaving him. When Jesus searched for the one who had touched him she fell to her knees trembling in fear. Jesus released her saying to go in peace and be free from your suffering. It is after this point that it is announced that Jairus’s daughter is dead, the crowd states to give up but Jesus says “don’t be afraid, just believe.” Jesus then proceeds to order the crowd to leave keeping just the mother and father and disciples who were with him to where the girl was. Jesus then proceeded to speak the words “talitha cum!” and she rises. The section closes with Jesus ordering the people not to speak of the resurrection (it was common in Mark for him to make a request such as this when a miracle was performed) and that the girl should have something to eat.
The section has several parts that can be analyzed to fully understand this passage. Like many of the miracle stories there is the common theme of coming to faithfulness in correlation to being healed. This passage has firstly the woman who reaches out to touch Jesus’ clothes with the belief that this will heal her risks possible embarrassment and rejection trusting her faith and in turn for her faithfulness she is in fact healed. The second section is where the crowd is in disbelief that Jesus can heal the girl once she has died but he does resurrect her and this shows the interplay between faith and healing. The passage also has secrecy in Jesus stating not to speak of the resurrection a common occurrence in Mark. This correlation is a powerful device for the author to bring validity to Jesus’ divinity and depict the rewards of faithfulness. This correlation in Mark is very direct and straight forward differing from Matthew and Luke where the correlation is less pronounced.
Another important part of this section is when Jesus speaks the Aramaic words “talitha cum” which is stated to mean little girl get up or damsel I say to you arise. This action is similar to casting spells or the belief that by speaking certain phrases miraculous events can occur.
Lastly I think it is important to note some of the differences between the sections of Luke and Matthew that parallel Mark in order to understand differing portrayals of these healings. Most notably is the change in Matthew to the woman touching Jesus’s clothes and being seen by him rather than going unseen until Jesus sensed his power leaving him. In Matthew she is not healed until after Jesus has acknowledged her presence. This change takes away from the characters and their reaction and refocuses it towards the miraculous powers of Jesus himself and forgoes the potential weakness that could be seen when the power leaves him involuntarily. The Lukan version keeps much of the same story as the Mark version including the woman being healed before Jesus sees her and the girl’s death while Jesus is en route but is slightly more condensed than the Markan version (White 2010, 186). In the next section I will analyze what other scholars and authors have interpreted from this passage and the image it creates of Mark’s Jesus.
In Candida Moss’s article in the Journal of Biblical Literature she dives deeper into the meaning of this passage in Mark by examining ideas such as femininity and power and correlation between flow of blood and flow of power. She first draws attention to the correlation of the age of the girl, twelve years and the length of suffering of the woman, also twelve years. This similarity likely draws on the idea that twelve is the age when childbearing begins and a female child gains feminine traits. Further on the issue of femininity Moss states that sexuality as it was seen in those times was not black and white but was graduated between masculine and feminine. A common belief of that times was that of Aristotle’s philosophy that men are superior to woman and that women are incomplete version of men (Moss 2010, 507-519). Femininity was viewed as negative and was correlated with weakness.
Dealing primarily with saturation and weakness is where we can draw the correlation between the bleeding woman and Jesus’s flow of power (Moss 2010, 507-519). Both the woman and Jesus can’t control the outflow from their bodies, in the article this is described as being porous. The flow of Jesus’s power is amplified in the observation that his power passes through him to his clothes and then on to those who touch his clothes, this transfer of power is like a flowing motion; a continuous transfer. In this passage of Mark Jesus is depicted as being weak and unable to control the outflow of power as the woman receives healing through him despite his allowing her to do so. As a further elaboration on what I stated before Matthew’s redaction of this changes the image of from one of a weak Jesus in Mark to a scenario where Jesus holds the power over the healing. This obviously alters the effect on the reader significantly even though the change within the text itself is subtle.
Another interesting aspect in Moss’s writings can be pulled from the footnotes on page 515 discussing the correlation between faith and health. This is something that I have noticed before as it is a fairly obvious correlation. This correlation is acknowledged by several scholars in the footnotes. As noted the exorcisms are a good example of this as well, the common belief that sickness was caused by demons in that time period is similar to possessions that require exorcism. Both involve going from an unclean, sickly state to a healthy and faithful one (Moss 2010, 507-519).
Susan Miller is an author that further inspects the healing and resurrection passage in Mark in her article Women in Mark’s Gospel. A significant portion of her article reinforces the ideas presented in Moss’s article including the correlation of twelve years and womanhood, flow of power and significance of female roles in this passage. Miller does expand on certain other aspects of this passage including the significance of sexual status and gender roles. Miller notes that only the men in the passage are named whereas the bleeding woman, the sick girl and the girl’s mother all remain unnamed. This is in contrast to several named male individuals; the presence of names could indicate a higher social status. Miller also acknowledges that Jairus’s name could hold symbolic purpose meaning “he enlightens” which holds with the pattern of Jesus bringing people from sickness to health and from disbelief to faithfulness.
An issue discussed in detail in Miller’s article is that of purity. The menstrual cycle was seen as being unclean or impure and the woman’s condition put her in a constant state of uncleanliness. If a man had sexual interactions with a woman that was experiencing her menstrual cycle he was also unclean (Miller 2004, 52-72). It is also indicated that the woman is alone likely due to the inability to bear children because of the condition and the desire for the man not to be impure. With this constant impurity she risks great danger to herself by attempting to touch Jesus as the uncleanliness could potentially be transferred to him as was commonly believed. But Jesus’s power was greater than the uncleanliness and she was healed, this sets the precedent for abandonment of purity practices (Miller 2004, 52-72). Although it is never mentioned what condition Jairus’s daughter has that is making her sick based on other correlations in the passage we can infer that the girl’s condition is related to fertility.
It is also important to note contrasting portions of the passage as well. A major difference is the social status of the girl and the woman. Jairus’s daughter comes from a high class most likely wealthy position whereas the woman is poor and has low social status. It is possible that the woman was once wealthier and of higher status but that her wealth was spent trying to rid herself of the disease (Miller 2004, 52-72). Another significant difference is the manner in which the healing occurs. While Jairus is seeking help to heal his daughter and Jesus eventually resurrects her in the presence of multiple people on his own accord the bleeding woman is healed unknown to Jesus and unseen by any of the crowd around her.
Miller takes a feminist view of the gospels; her research focuses on women in the gospels and examines the role of women in Marks Gospel in the light of apocalyptic eschatology that is said to depict Mark’s world view (Telford 214-219). Telford also presents that women in Mark are the only ones that serve Jesus and that they are portrayed more favorably than his male disciples. This observation is important to note when reading this passage as it deals with femininity. Jesus is indifferent to the preexisting practices between the sexes and is not acknowledged to regard these practices as a natural process.
Upon analyzing this passage in depth I have gained a far greater understanding of how Jesus was depicted by Mark. I have read this passage in the past and while did grasp basic concepts presented such as the correlation between Jesus’s healing and coming to faith I would not have seen the complex literary devices in play to make the passage more effective. It is interesting to have this past experience with the passage before examining it in depth because I was able to experience the effect Mark intended to have on the reader. The articles by Moss and Miller brought to attention many things that I had skipped past not knowing the depth of the passage. The connection between the woman’s flow of blood and Jesus’s flow of power depict Jesus as being more powerful than death and disease but also as being unable to control his outflow of power. While this could be interpreted as a weakness it seems to me that it is a way to emphasize his role as bringing faithfulness to the people. The heavenly energy or God’s energy flows through Jesus in this manner.
Examining this passage in depth will also aid me in understanding how the other gospel authors Matthew and Luke redacted Mark in order to create their own image of Jesus while retaining the information. As stated earlier Matthew alters the weak and secretive nature of Jesus seen in Mark by altering the healing of the bleeding woman to be within Jesus’s control and removing the section of Jesus stating not to speak of these events. With this knowledge in mind it will be beneficial when reading further in Matthew because now I have an understanding of the reasoning behind the changes that occurred and I will be able to better recognize situations where these redactions occur.
In regards to how these passages have contributed to my appreciation of the gospels in a first century context I would say that I have a newfound understanding of the complexity of the literature in the Bible itself. I have had some prior experience with the gospels in a non-academic sense but had never acknowledged the workings of the authorship or looked at them in a scholarly manner. I have gained an appreciation for the painstaking process required to record information in those times and the amount of effort that went into the portrayal of information in different ways by different authors. Specifically regarding this passage the amount of research and information that can be pulled out of a small section of Mark makes me interested in further examination of other Biblical passages not discussed in this class.
Citations
Miller, Susan. Women in Mark’s Gospel. New York T&T Clark, 2004. (pp. 52-72)
Moss, Candida. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010): 507-519.
White, L. Michael 2010 Scripting Jesus New York, Harper Collins
Women in Mark’s Gospel. (JSNT Supplement Series, 259.) by Susan Miller
Review by: W. R. Telford
The Journal of Theological Studies
NEW SERIES, Vol. 58, No. 1 (APRIL 2007) , pp. 214-219
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23970521