Jesus, the Best Capernaum Folk-Healer
Mark’s Aretalogy of Jesus in the Healing Stories
- Biblical Studies & Commentaries
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2020
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Publisher's Description
This book takes the established fields of orality, performance, and first-century Christian healthcare studies further by combining analogues of praise performances to Apollo, Asclepius, and those from the Dondo people of South Eastern Zimbabwe to propose that Jesus's healing stories in Mark's Gospel are praise-giving narratives to Jesus as the best folk healer within the region of Capernaum. The book argues that the memory of Jesus as the folk healer from Capernaum survived and possibly functioned in similar contexts of praise-giving within early Christian households. The book goes through each healing story in Mark's Gospel and imaginatively listens to it through the ears of analogue from praise-giving given to Greek healers/heroes and similar practices among the Dondo people. The power, completeness, and effectiveness in which Jesus healed each of the mentioned conditions provoke praise-giving from the listeners to the best folk healer in the village. In each instance, while Mark is calling for attention to the new healer, more so, he is raving praise-giving.
Endorsements (3)
“For the modern reader the stories about the healings performed by Jesus, from an emic perspective, are difficult to understand. Taking as premise that early Christianity spread primarily as a healing religion, and by employing social scientific criticism as exegetical approach, Dube argues convincingly that the healing stories of Jesus in Mark’s narrative can be read as praise-giving narratives to Jesus as the best folk healer within the region of Capernaum. Dube’s reading of these praise-giving narratives as analogous to praise-giving practiced by the Dondo people of South Eastern Zimbabwe enables him to read these stories as an ‘emic-insider.’ This indeed is a thought-provoking, challenging, and fresh reading of the healing stories of Jesus.”
“Zorodzai Dube’s book is a bold venture. His fresh thesis, which places the early Jesus movement within a Palestinian healing marketplace, is convincing. Dube’s research brings a deep knowledge of the Markan text into conversation with insights from ancient aretalogies and the healing practices of his native Dondo people of Zimabwe. The picture he paints of how the healing stories were told as celebration narrations with singing and dance brings a new dimension to our understanding of the Gospel of Mark.”
“Dr. Zorodzai Dube has successfully demonstrated that the aretalogy of Jesus as a heroic Capernaum folk-healer in Mark’s healing stories is analogous to the healing paean and dances associated with heroic gods of the ancient Greco-Roman world. In so doing, he paves a way for the possibility of reading Mark’s healing stories in light of African contexts of praise-giving performance. The book is an important resource for scholars and students of healing in the New Testament, early Christianity, and African contexts.”
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