Bekele Deboch Anshiso - Jesuss Identification with the Marginalized and the Liminal: The Messianic Identity in Mark

This book aims to examine the idea of the messianic identity in the Gospel of Mark, emphasizing Jesuss 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 Jesuss messianic identity in less obvious ways which has caused ambiguity amongst New Testament scholars.

In order to discover Jesuss 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 Marks 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 Marks 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 book accepts that Marks 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 2 exegetes and interprets particular texts, in Marks gospel, in which Jesuss 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 Marks 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 3 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 book ends with a brief chapter challenging and encouraging the readers and interpreters of Marks gospel to understand not only Jesuss 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.