Department of Old and New Testament

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Browsing Department of Old and New Testament by Author "Anshiso, Bekele Deboch"

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    Jesus and the marginalized and the liminal :the messianic identity in Mark
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-10-11) Anshiso, Bekele Deboch; Punt, Jeremy; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Old and New Testament.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation aims to examine the idea of the Messianic identity in the Gospel of Mark, emphasizing Jesus’ self-identification with the marginalized and liminal people. In the whole Gospel, particularly, in its decisive points, the Markan Jesus is revealed and announced as the divine Son of God by the heavenly voice, by demons and finally by the unsuspected humanity. Nevertheless, Mark recorded Jesus’ Messianic identity in less obvious ways which has caused ambiguity amongst NT scholars. In order to discover Jesus’ divine identity, preliminary studies undertaken in the past, are briefly discussed. This focuses on the “Messianic secret” as the key point of discussion to which a satisfactory consensus has not been reached. Some Markan scholars, such as William Wrede and his supporters, believed that in the first half of Mark’s record of the gospel Jesus did not think that he was the Messiah. Theodore Weeden and his followers thought that Jesus was not the Son of God but, as described in Mark’s second half, that he was the suffering Son of Man. Therefore, in order to engage the narrative elements of the text and to interpret and understand the message in its own narrative context, narrative criticism is utilized. Its importance will be demonstrated as it investigates the meaning of the text as a completed work. Use is made of the probable sources Mark had available, of which the most important are the Old Testament traditions on which the Evangelist drew for his background to his text. In addition, some intertestamental writings such as Qumran literature and apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works will be discussed, not to build an alternative understanding of Messiahship of Jesus, but rather to attempt to understand the contemporary Jewish thinking about the Messiah. This dissertation accepts that Mark’s Gospel is the unified work of the evangelist. It is demonstrated that Jesus is portrayed as having thought that he was the divine Messiah in a unique sense. Chapter two exegetes and interprets particular texts, in the Gospel, in which Jesus’ divine Sonship and vindicated Messiahship is shown. His divine identity is revealed and proclaimed not only as the Messianic Son of God by his miraculous activities in Mark’s first half, but also as the suffering and vindicated Son of Man in the second, yet associating himself with unsuspecting people who are marginalized and liminal at various levels. Chapter three critically evaluates certain Christological themes through which Jesus is understood and confessed as the unique figure whose divine Messiahship is proclaimed by God self and by humanity, and redefined and reinterpreted by Jesus himself in terms of vindicated Messiahship. This dissertation ends with a brief chapter challenging and encouraging the readers and interpreters of the Gospel to understand not only Jesus’ self-identification with the marginalized and liminal in and around Galilee but also his extreme marginality to the point of shameful death and glorious resurrection in Jerusalem to save humanity.