Description
Book Synopsis The social values of honor and shame, which have attracted much research from cultural anthropology and New Testament studies for the past five decades, is the main focus of the book. This book proposes the need to combine major contributions of narrative, rhetorical, and cultural anthropological approaches to trace the development of the twofold honor-shame concept throughout the Marcan narrativewith special attention to family relations. Though adequate social-scientific and socio-rhetorical studies in Mark's Gospel (even in relation to honor and shame) have been conducted, there are still few scholarly monographs that trace the honor-shame motifs from the start to the end of the narrative through the use of helpful insights from literary methods and heuristic models (e.g., challenge-riposte; patronclient relation). Thus, this book seeks to undertake this kind of research. It argues further that Mark intends to reverse the content of the honor-shame value system of his audience b
Trade Review
“The early church was accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6). According to this well-written and well-researched book by Narry F. Santos, that was, in part, Mark’s point in writing his Gospel. Mark wanted to create a radical redefinition (a turning upside down) of the honor-shame value system of his world. This is an important book; after all, our present broken world also deserves to be turned upside down through the teaching of Jesus.”—Joel F. Williams, Professor of New Testament Studies, Biblical Seminary of the Philippines
“I commend Narry F. Santos for attempting several important tasks in this volume: the use of honor and shame as a sustained interpretive framework in conjunction with other recently developed methods, and his sustained effort to interpret the entire Markan narrative. As a result, he provides a useful lens for discriminating a number of features of Mark, including how to understand a variety of passages in relation to each other. In the final chapter, he provides a useful summary of how his reading re-orients the Jesus story in Mark.”—Stanley E. Porter, President, Dean, and Professor of New Testament, McMaster Divinity College
“In Western culture, honor and shame discussions are almost foreign territory, yet its presence is deeply embedded in the biblical world and culture because our individualism obscures our connections to others and issues tied to those links. Narry F. Santos’s study of honor and shame in Mark reintroduces us to that perspective and takes us through an illuminating journey in how Mark teaches us through such concerns. Not only do we get to see Jesus’s teaching from a fresh angle, we also see how he challenged us to change how we live in the world as a result.”—Darrell L. Bock, Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary
Table of Contents
Honor and Shame and the Narrative Reversal of Family Relations in the Gospel of Mark – Honor and Shame and Family Relations in the First-Century Mediterranean World – Honor–Shame Integration and Transformation in the Gospel of Mark – Real Honor and Shame in the New Family of Jesus (Narrative Reversal in Mark 1:1–8:21) – Transformation of Honor and Shame in Jesus’s Teaching (Narrative Reversal in Mark 8:22–10:52) – From Jesus’s Shameful Death to Triumphant Honor (Narrative Reversal in Mark 11:1–16:8) – Insiders and Outsiders in the Gospel of Mark and Intergroup Boundaries and Conflict with the Marcan Community – Subject Index – Scripture Index.
