My Ph.D. dissertation investigates Mark’s Gospel as a witness to early Christian theological anthropology. Since, arguably, a strong element of Mark’s purpose is the transformation of the reader, his text can appropriately be treated as an example of ‘transformative discourse’. The study demonstrates that Mark’s rhetoric includes elements of proclamation, demonstration, instruction, metaphor, indirection and performance, and that these interweave to produce a composite transformative discourse that potentially impacts its audience in a variety of ways.
A detailed exegesis of the Gerasene demoniac story (Mark 5:1-20) in its literary setting highlights its significant contribution to this transformative discourse. What happens to the demoniac typifies the dynamics of the Gospel’s theological anthropology, and can be regarded as somewhat paradigmatic of human transformation in the context of Christian discipleship.
Because of its focus on the specific ways in which the language and narrative rhetoric of Mark’s Gospel express ideas about human nature, the project makes possible an overview of Mark’s theological anthropology. This reveals a vision of humanity that is both firmly founded on the anthropology of the scriptures and also strongly predicated on Jesus’ eschatological perspective. The Gospel presents humankind as created but fundamentally distorted. However, the possibility of radical personal transformation that is allied to discipleship of Jesus, and that has communal ramifications, energises the rhetorical thrust of the Gospel. Its ‘model reader’ (the person who responds whole-heartedly as the author intends) is the eschatological anthropos who inhabits the in-breaking kingdom of God.
The study fills a gap in Markan studies by highlighting the contours of the transformative potential of the Gospel, specifying elements of the rhetorical means by which transformation of the reader is promoted, and showing how the rhetoric is linked with a dynamic eschatological anthropology.
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