Hearing Mark: a prologue

Okay, I've put off making an official start to the posts for this new Bible study long enough. It's time we get underway; so, these posts are valuable to give those who join us after we've begun a place to catch up.

First things first, before we begin listening to Mark's Gospel, we need to get a foundation. Some folks spend an entire career studying the 'New Testament' world. I'll try not to spend that long, but let this serve as notice that - if you are interested in the questions and ideas I bring up here - there is a universe of information you can engage.

There are two ideas that will guide the next two posts as an introduction, but there is also a general belief that underlies it all.

General Belief: To understand a story, we have to understand the human context in which it is told (composed, written, performed, whatever). Example: Swift's 'Modest Proposal' only makes sense as social/political commentary under the yoke of empire. As timeless as the Gospels are, they are most fully understood by understanding that world.
To understand the human context of the Gospel, those two ideas I mentioned are necessary.

First, people 2,000 years were very much like you and me. The human brain has not changed significantly in thousands of years; those folks we call 'cavemen' probably felt the same emotions and longed for the same internal things that you and I do: happiness, companionship, joy, fear. This is great because it gives us an immediate lens into the world of our ancestors; this is why the Gospel still speaks to us, as do other ancient books: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the epic of Gilgamesh, the Psalms, the Bhagavad Gita.

Second, the world those folks lived in is almost utterly alien to us and our world. While our internal life hasn't changed, the physical and intellectual world in which we've lived it through the millennia has rarely remained constant. 2,000 years ago slavery was expected; there were no human rights except those given by the power brokers in your world; people could be killed on a whim. Still, it is unfair for us to say life was 'nasty, brutish, and short.' Philosophy, science, and religion were all parts of that world, although they would seem strange to us. The gods were everywhere visible in daily life.

Before I move to the next posts in this string, let me connect these dots quickly. Many ancient historians claim that people just accepted the institution of slavery in the ancient world. The evidence is that there were not regular slave revolts recorded in the histories, Spartacus' revolt being the exception that proves the rule. However, more sensitive consideration tells us that humans almost never want to have their own wills subject to others. Thus, more insightful scholars recently have begun to look for - and find in abundance - evidence of little revolts by slaves and underlings against 'the power.' This look at the ancient world has been informed by studies of the modern world in a discipline often called Popular or People's History.

An alien world peopled by folks not that different from you and I: that frame is the best way to see the past.