Lectionary Year B
September 7, 2003
Mark 7:24-37

Step IV: Cross-Section

A. Primitive Christianity

(JFC) Matthew 15:21-28 nearly parallels the exorcism in our lection's first 7 verses, which refer to the woman as a Canaanite and has Jesus commending her faith in asking for His healing of her daughter. And Matthew 15:29-31 almost parallels the rest of our lection. In Matthew 10:8, Jesus looks to heaven and prays, also in both Mark 6:41 and Matthew 6:9. That posture could have been habitual and/or ritualistically common at least for Him in His day. In Mark 3:7-12, Jesus goes to the Mediterranean Sea coast, the region of Tyre and Sidon, where he has healed many and told them to keep it a secret. He repeatedly calls disciples and others to keep what is called the Messianic secret, like in Mark 5:34, 7:36 and 1:44 and/or who He was, as in 1:34, 3:11f, 8:30 and 9:9. He amazed His home-towners in Matthew 13:54f, Mark 1:22 and 6:2 and Luke 4:16-22, where they also spoke well of Him, when He taught in their synagogue. Of course, Jesus heals several other ailing persons such as in Mark 1:21-28, which also reports Jesus' fame "spreading throughout the region of Galilee." In the next paragraph, Mark 1:29-31, Jesus heals Simon's mother-in-law. And, next, verses 32-34, He heals "all who were sick or possessed by demons". To end that chapter (1), verses 40-45, He cleansed a leper with the admonition not to tell anyone but rather to go to the priest, yet, the cleansed leper widely told of the cure. In the next chapter (2) He healed a paralytic, and in the next He healed a man's withered hand. And, Jesus amazed the disciples with His statement about the relative ease of a camel's going through a needle's eye in Matthew 19:25. Some of the church fathers argued that Christ was pictured in the Old Testament Psalm 45 and Isaiah 52 and 53 as ugly so as not to distract from His preaching and/or to look unimpressive to His enemies, while others believed He was appealing physically, as the Hellenists seem to think/suppose.

B. Old Testament and Judaism

(JFC) God both inflicts Miriam with leprosy and heals her of it in Numbers 12. In II Kings 5:1-19, Elisha cures Naaman of leprosy. And, "with God all things are possible", seems to claim both Genesis 18:14 and Jeremiah 32:17. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Psalm 45 and Isaiah 52 and 53 refer to the ideal servant and/or king as good and/or beautiful, Kalw/j. Is Jesus' reputedly doing "well" of such caliber?

C. Hellenistic World

(JFC) These thinking Greeks would approve of the woman's debating with Jesus' assertion that His people/children should eat first. Also, the report that Jesus healed the deaf and mute man would please them, too. From "popular animistic belief", as says Foerster in Kittel's TDNT, we get the Greek philosophers' views of dualistic deities. This term, daimo,nion, can refer to "gods" and "lesser deities", some good, some ruling human destinies and some possessing, protecting, controlling humans in the Hellenistic world's literature. Also, the good, Kalw/j, Aristotle divides into two aspects, one the "naturally beautiful" and the other "morally beautiful", as Grundmann writes in Kittel's TDNT. The Hellenists "regarded beauty (Kalw/j) as intrinsic to deity," according to Bertram in Kittel's TDNT.



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