The Gospel of Mark in Context: A Social-Scientific Reading of the First Gospel
Ebook
The short story that we now know as the Gospel according to Mark was written in Greek twenty centuries ago in the context of an agrarian society that had been developing its own characteristics in the circum-Mediterranean region. Mark's account presupposes the values, institutions, and relationships of the culture in which Jesus and his first followers lived. Modern readers of the Gospels, however, especially those born and raised in the North Atlantic postindustrial societies, have other values and institutions, and relate to each other according to other cultural codes. This temporal and cultural distance between the ancient texts and their present-day readers makes necessary an exegetical effort whose purpose is to recover, as far as possible, the reading scenarios presupposed by these texts. In order to reconstruct these scenarios, exegesis has turned in recent years to the social sciences, whose models permit us to imagine and describe the situations presupposed by these ancient texts. This book aims to show how the use of these scenarios elaborated with the help of the social sciences can contribute to a more considered and respectful reading of Mark's story.
“Social-scientific interpretation made us aware of the cultural
embeddedness of language, persons, and events. . . .
Context, Santiago Guijarro illustrates in this collection of
studies, is a social context, and the social sciences provide the
tools for unlocking that context. A variety of aspects of Mark’s
Gospel are illuminated in this book by means of social-scientific
tools. This is a truly contextual interpretation of Mark’s
gospel.”
—Pieter F. Craffert, University of South Africa
“One of the great pleasures of reading Santiago Guijarro’s work is
its consistent transparency. . . . The result is to find
oneself once more believing in the possibility of an honest
conversation about the biblical text. In his hands, a
‘social-scientific reading’ becomes not the sterile application of
a foregone conclusion but the occasion for meeting for the first
time the embodied and socially embedded human beings both depicted
in and responsible for the First Gospel.”
—Leif E. Vaage, Emmanuel College of Victoria University, University
of Toronto, emeritus
“Guijarro’s explorations of the Gospel of Mark and its world
provide an insightful and trustworthy guide to the cultural and
social nuances of Mark’s surprising, complex, and uniquely
consoling narrative for contemporary readers.”
—Séamus O’Connell, Pontifical University, Saint
Patrick’s College, Maynooth (Ireland)
“Guijarro’s contextual social-scientific studies on Mark offer a
coherent quest for the meaning of Mark in its original setting.
Amazing how these new insights on major themes like Jesus’ baptism,
the exorcisms and healings, the conflict stories, the anointing in
Bethany, the temple, and the passion narrative not only throw the
reader into the past but open new perspectives on the meaning of
Mark’s story today.”
—Geert Van Oyen, Catholic University of Louvain
- Title: The Gospel of Mark in Context: A Social-Scientific Reading of the First Gospel
- Author: Santiago Guijarro
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666729801, 9781666729795, 9781666734195, 1666729809, 1666729795, 1666734195
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666729801
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-10-30T03:32:55Z
Santiago Guijarro is Professor of New Testament Studies at the Pontifical University of Salamanca (Spain).