Blog 2 Jedanndrila Bushnell

I was especially drawn to the Markan Jesus because of all of the healing he had done. This view of Jesus as a healer portrays Jesus as being supernatural. I have always been interested in supernatural aspects of the Bible. I feel that this portrayal of Jesus makes me be in awe of Jesus. This supernatural depiction of Jesus makes Jesus seem much more important than the ordinary human being. The miracles of the Markan Jesus bring interest to the Bible and one would desire to continue reading about all of the healings of blind people to unclean spirits.

The Gospel of Mark starts out with Jesus healing someone as it also ends with Jesus healing someone. When the Markan Jesus heals it is as if he is healing with authority. At the beginning of the Gospel of Mark he demands the unclean spirit to come out of the man and the onlookers become amazed and wonder. I feel that this Markan Jesus has many miracles so that the reader and the crowd that listens to the reading could understand that Jesus was really important. “It is argued that these persons were such a distinctive type in the common experience and in the literature of the period that Mark's readers would readily have understood his presentation of Jesus in those terms.”¹ I feel that if these miracle stories were not a part of the Gopsel people would only see Jesus as an ordinary man and they would think that Christ was not the messiah, but as a pompous man.

I also feel that Jesus was depicted as a miracle worker to have a metaphorical meaning. Before the miracles people in the stories did not know that Jesus was from God, but after the performance of the miracles people came to realize that Jesus was divine. The last miracle story exemplifies this metaphorical meaning of blindness. This story is about healing the blind of Bartimeaus. “The disciples have been blind to what Jesus tells them, but the miracle shows that Jesus can and will heal their blindness.”² The miracles performed by Jesus fill a third of the Gospel of Mark.

[1] S.N. Olson, “Christ for all of life: Mark’s miracle stories for 1985,” CTM 12:2 (1985) 90.

[2] S.N. Olson, “Christ for all of life: Mark’s miracle stories for 1985,” CTM 12:2 (1985) 91.

Bibliography

Olson, Stanley N., “Christ for all of life: Mark’s miracle stories for 1985.”Currents in Theology and Mission 12:2 (1985): 90-99.