Mark’s Story

This chapter begins the study of the canonical Gospels with the earliest Gospel written rather than the first in the Christian canon: the Gospel of Mark. After offering basic background on authorship, provenance, and date of composition, this chapter outlines the historical and political contexts of Roman Palestine in the first century CE. This introduction leads into a discussion of Mark’s apocalyptic perspective and presentation of Jesus’s mission as a cosmic battle. Following this background information, the chapter offers a literary overview of the Gospel and explores major themes and passages, including Jesus’s characterization, the Parable of the Sower and minor characters, Jesus’s time in Jerusalem, and the various endings of the Gospel of Mark. The chapter ends with a conclusion describing Mark’s challenge for its readers to choose between fear and faith.

The land is mine

The parables told by Jesus the Galilean, when read from a realistic perspective, can be seen as a window to the exploitative socio-economic, political and religious situation of the peasantry in first-century Roman Palestine. The Galilean’s parables picture this exploitative world, and also speak of ways to address the societal ills of his day. In an agrarian world, land meant life. For most of the peasantry, however, this was not the case anymore. In reaction to this situation, Jesus proclaimed the possibility of a world in which the land, especially its produce, belongs to everyone. This world he called the kingdom of God, a different kind of world, a world ruled by God’s generosity and goodness. In this world, everybody has enough.

Ancient patronage: A possible interpretative context for Luke 18:18–23?

Against the conventional reading of Luke 18:18–23 as a micro-narrative that revolves around discipleship and the dangers of wealth with regard to inheriting the Kingdom of God, this article reads the text using patronage (and clientism) as a model. It argues that this micro-narrative also mirrors patronal relations in the 1st-century Roman Palestine through which a few elites exploited the majority poor. The description of the chief protagonist in the narrative as a ruler, who was also rich, by Luke casts him in a negative light as a patron who exploited the poor around him who were his clients. From this standpoint, it is therefore argued in the article that the strategy of the narrative is to encourage patrons to move from negative and balanced reciprocity to ‘general reciprocity’ in which giving to the poor without the desire to receive back dominates. This interpretation is still within the framework of the theology of wealth in the Gospel of Luke, which encourages ‘giving without the expectation to receive back’.Contribution: This article argues that the micro-narrative of Luke 18:18–23 mirrors patronal relations of 1st-century Palestine. From Luke’s description of rich ruler, the first hearers of Luke probably thought of him as a patron who exploited his clients, the poor. The call by Jesus to self-divesture therefore is a call for patrons to move beyond negative and balanced reciprocity to practice general reciprocity in which giving to the poor, without the want to receive back, dominates; this is social-scientific criticism of Luke 18:18–23 mostly neglected in Lukan scholarship.

A Roman altar on Mount Gerizim: Rediscovering a civic icon on tetradrachms of Neapolis (Samaria)

This article examines the iconography of a type of Caracalla tetradrachm that has been newly attributed to Neapolis in Roman Palestine and whose reverse depicts a monumental altar decorated with statues of Tyche, Ephesian Artemis, and Kore Persephone. The study contextualizes these deities in the religious life of Neapolis and identifies the monument as an altar often depicted as a miniscule element in panoramic views of Mount Gerizim on the bronze coins of Neapolis. The tetradrachms provide, for the first time, a close-up view of this long-lost civic monument.

What Is Hidden in the Small Box? Narratives of Late Antique Roman Palestine in Dialogue

This study is a comparative reading of two distinct narrative traditions with remarkably similar features of plot and content. The first tradition is from the Palestinian midrash Kohelet Rabbah, datable to the fifth to sixth centuries. The second is from John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow (Pratum spirituale), which is very close to Kohelet Rabbah in time and place. Although quite similar, the two narratives differ in certain respects. Pioneers of modern Judaic studies such as Samuel Krauss and Louis Ginzberg had been interested in the question of the relationships between early Christian authors and the rabbis; however, the relationships between John Moschos and Palestinian rabbinic writings have never been systematically treated (aside from one enlightening study by Hillel Newman). Here, in this case study, I ask comparative questions: Did Kohelet Rabbah borrow the tradition from Christian lore; or was the church author impressed by the teachings of Kohelet Rabbah? Alternatively, perhaps, might both have learned the shared story from a common continuum of local narrative tradition? Beyond these questions about literary dependence, I seek to understand the shared narrative in its cultural context.