Pisteuomen - πιστευομεν - T. Michael W. Halcomb

In the last couple of posts dealing with "Studies in Mark," I have been analyzing the story generally referred to as "The Feeding of the 5,000." I have argued a number of points in those posts: 1) The story is not just about a "feeding," it is also about Jesus "teaching," 2) The 5,000 men in the story were political zealots, 3) The zealots wanted new leadership because of all the evil and corruption brought about by the Herodian family, and 4) The way that Mark arranges and tells his stories in chapter 6, is done purposefully and with numerous echoes from the Hebrew Scriptures. In this post, which I will keep short, I want to add some more thoughts on this. In thinking about the arrangement, structure and context of Mark's narrative of the story about the 5,000, a question came up: Why did the zealots choose Jesus to be their new religio-political leader? In other words, what piqued their interest in Him above anyone else? After thinking abou...

The more I read and study Mark’s Gospel account, especially from a socio-literary point-of-view, the more I see a lot of the little details that piece the story together. Just as well, the more I read and study, the more I become convinced of two things: 1) Mark’s habit of telling stories about Jesus and polishing them with Old Testament echoes and imagery and, 2) The centrality of the parable of the soils (Mk. 4.3-20). I have written about the meaning and importance of this parable in other posts, click the following link to read that information: Mystery of the Kingdom . Now, before I come back to the parable of the soils, I need to make a few more points. As Ched Myers and other scholars have noted, in the 1960’s, H. Montefiore argued that Mk. 6.30-44 (“The Feeding of the 5,000”) was in the main, a story about Jesus feeding 5,000 zealots. While Myers and others disagree with Montefiore, I actually do agree with his findings but, I would also add to them some other points, for exampl...