Introduction

This chapter is an attempt to re-read Mark 7:24–30 in the light of issues of gender, race and hybridity. These issues are crucial in Mark as a number of Markan passages besides 7:24–30 address these issues. In the first part of the chapter these issues will be defined. The place of women, racial scars and questions of hybridity in Mark will be evaluated. The question of how Mark treated issues of gender in his milieu will be discussed here. A discussion of the major insights which have emerged from both the traditional interpretations and Indian interpretations will be presented. Finally, Mark 7:24–30 will be interpreted from a postcolonial perspective. All these discussions will be framed by a postcolonial reading of 7:24–30 dealing with the issues of race, gender and hybridity/pluralism.

There may be many reasons why the marginalization of women and the subalterns took place in the textual presentation of the Markan story of Jesus. It is believed that an alternative reading from the perspective of the people of the margins will equip readers to understand the inner dynamics of the text. In the present postcolonial context, the search for these issues in the text or a re-reading of the text in the light of these issues will be a significant reading discourse.

Gender, Race and Hybridity Concerns in Mark

Defining Gender, Race and Hybridity

Racial concerns are connected with the notion of domination and imperialism. Thus it may be necessary to reconstruct history to search for definitions.

Introduction

In the light of the results of the explorations of the imperial elements in Mark and of the possibility of using postcolonial hermeneutics for interpreting Mark presented in the previous chapter, it is relevant to look at some issues related to the poor in Mark and their representation in the Gospel and consequent interpretations of the Gospel of Mark. The issues of the poor, representation, economics, labour, tax, liberation and Jubilee are visible in several passages of Mark. Needless to say, many concerns visible in Mark seem to be postcolonial as the Gospel of Mark was a product of the colonial era of Roman imperialism. This study considers Mark in the light of these issues and in the living context of today as the author hails from a postcolonial situation. This section will look at the theological position of Mark as well as the theological position of the Markan interpreters on these issues. This chapter will have three main parts, namely a discussion on the issue of the poor in Mark, an exegetical study of Mark 10:17–31 and a postcolonial reading of that passage. In addition to this, there will be an evaluation of the historical-critical interpreters of the text. In the light of their interpretations of the issues of the poor in Mark, a postcolonial reading might offer some possible guidelines for constructing a hermeneutical paradigm for the postcolonial context.

Introduction

New methodological shifts and trends in the current world have stimulated and provoked the reader and deconstructed the relationship between the text and reader with a new ideological and political sense. Khiok-khng Yeo argues for the influence and incorporation of cultural values in biblical hermeneutics as “culture, context and people are in constant interaction” (2004: 82). As a result of this movement, postcolonial methods have entered into the fascinating arena of hermeneutics. The presence of the Roman Empire in the Gospel was a major reason for the emergence of the subalterns in Mark. Before moving to the issue of postcolonial readings in biblical studies, it is only appropriate to present fundamental observations on liberation, feminist, postcolonial, and subaltern readings as they have stimulated the biblical hermeneuts to look into various hidden dimensions of the biblical insights which were not given sufficient attention by traditional interpreters of the Bible. In order to examine the above said methods in detail, this study will look at some scholars with a representative character.

Liberation Hermeneutics

It is understood that liberation interpretations, which began in the 1970s as a protest to the existing readings and political dominations, handled many postcolonial concerns in a general manner. A theology of resistance and protest which emerged within the frameworks of military regimes and neocolonialism during the 1960s took the shape of theological and biblical hermeneutics with the publication of Theology of Liberation in 1973 by Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru.

Introduction

In the light of the findings of the previous chapter, which placed the Gospel of Mark in the Roman colonial milieu, this chapter will investigate the sociopolitical, literary and religious origins and dimensions of the Gospel of Mark. By presenting and placing Mark in its real sociopolitical and religiocultural context, it is proposed by this author to offer a hermeneutical challenge based on the rebel and subaltern voices in Mark. Many scholars strongly advocate that Mark had access to some historical and biographical documents which were perhaps shaped immediately after the death of Jesus by the possible eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus (Trocme, 1975: 32). This chapter will also study the nature of the Jerusalem authorities and their influence on the Jesus movement. In the same way, on the basis of these investigations it is anticipated that there will be an exploration of the movements of resistance, including the identity and implications of the marginalized and subalterns in the Gospel of Mark.

The Identity of the Author of Mark

A section on the identity of the author of Mark is necessary to understand the sociopolitical and ideological compulsions behind the formation of the Gospel. Despite the existence of many theories about the context and origin of the Gospel, this author would like to place Mark in a “post-Nero/pre-70 Roman setting” (Senior, 1987: 11) as this is ideologically and socially convincing.