Abstract

Using narrative, reader-response and social feminist approaches, the study takes a discourse analysis of looking into representations of female bodies within the Jewish-Christian healthcare and Greek Hippocratic healthcare and how such surface in the representation of female bodies in Mark’s healing stories. The study finishes by looking into comparable biases found in some African communities. The gospel of Mark contains some of the early Christian memory concerning Jesus as folk healer and this study selects narratives in the gospel of Mark whereby Jesus dealt with illness pertaining female patients. Instead of dealing with all narratives whereby Jesus healed a female patient, the focus will be on the story concerning the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law and the story concerning the haemorrhaging woman. The underlying question is – what were the socio-cultural ideas concerning the female body and how do such ideas surface in the healing stories? The study hypothesises that, besides being stories that reveal Jesus’ Christological powers or power as folk healer, the healing stories are site to investigate social cultural frameworks concerning illness and gender.

Highlights

  • Among many, two dominant perspectives have been used to interpret the healing stories, namely, theological and social scientific perspectives

  • The gospel of Mark contains some of the early Christian memory concerning Jesus as folk healer and this study selects narratives in the gospel of Mark whereby Jesus dealt with illness pertaining female patients

  • The underlying question is – what were the socio-cultural ideas concerning the female body and how do such ideas surface in the healing stories? The study hypothesises that, besides being stories that reveal Jesus’ Christological powers or power as folk healer, the healing stories are site to investigate social cultural frameworks concerning illness and gender

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Summary

Introduction

Two dominant perspectives have been used to interpret the healing stories, namely, theological and social scientific perspectives. Elizabeth Malbon (Malbon 1986) and John Dominic Crossan (Crossan 1991) think that exorcisms, teaching and healing were activities that took place within the Jesus’ households while the temple and the synagogue is contrasted as spaces associated with hegemony and lack of empathy From this perspective, exorcisms are regarded as mythical tagof-war against evil forces that threaten the household; kingdom and its members, while healing is restoration of people to their social gender roles. Concerning the women as caregivers pseudo-Demosthenes remarks, saying “You yourselves know how valuable a woman is in illness, being there to help a sick person” (pseudoDemosthenes 59, Against Neaira 55–60) This statement assumes that male healers attend to the rational decision making associated with healing while female caregivers attend to the emotional needs of the patient

Reception of ideas about healing and the female body in Mark
Representation of haemorrhaging woman
Reception of sick female body in African hermeneutics
Intersecting the African female body with reproduction and labour
Conclusion

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