Mark and its Subalterns

A Hermeneutical Paradigm for a Postcolonial Context

David Joy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781845533274
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317490692
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire antique

This book offers a fresh appraisal of the identity and involvement of the subalterns in Mark, arguing that the presence of the subalterns in Mark is a possible hermeneutical tool for re-reading the Bible in a postcolonial context like India. Part I paves the way for a creative discussion on Mark and its interpreters in the rest of the study by looking at the issue of the spread of Christianity and missionary attempts at biblical interpretations that did not take the life of the natives into account. Many insights from the postcolonial situation can be found in the contextual interpretations such as liberation, feminist, postcolonial feminist and subaltern. Part II considers colonial rule in Palestine and examines some Markan texts showing the potential role of the subalterns. It is argued that due to colonial rule, the native people suffered in terms of their identity, religion and culture. There was conflict between Galilee and Jerusalem mainly on religious issues and the victims of domination were the poor peasants and the artisans in Galilee. A dialogue and interaction with the Markan milieu was possible in the research and so the marginal and subaltern groups were effectively understood by exegeting Mark 10:17-31, 7:24-30 and 5:1-20 and showing the postcolonial issues such as the poor and their representation, gender, race, hybridity, class, nationalism, and purity respectively. The subalterns were mainly associated with movements of resistance in Palestine. The Markan proclamation of solidarity with those subalterns is significant. The general conclusion presents the implications of this interpretation for a hermeneutical paradigm for a postcolonial context.

Chapter 1
GENERAL INTRODUCTION

“Can the Subaltern Speak?” was a groundbreaking question posed by Gayathri Chakravorthy Spivak in 1985 in connection with the voices and struggles of the marginalized and the neglected in society. Similarly, in this study it is proposed to pose the questions: Can the Subalterns and Marginalized in Mark’s Gospel Speak? and, What is their role and impact in shaping the Gospel? The identity and the function of the marginalized in Mark will be debated and the results are expected to lead the study to develop a hermeneutical paradigm for the postcolonial Indian context.

During the recent past, many New Testament readers have sought to address the problem of the marginalized persons and communities in the Gospel of Mark. Since the 1970s India has witnessed many endeavours in hermeneutics in tune with explorations from the social and political viewpoints which seemed to define the identity of the marginalized in Mark. Although fresh investigations in both Markan studies and hermeneutics have brought tremendous insights in terms of a liberative use of the Bible, much work needs to be done from the postcolonial context for employing a hermeneutical paradigm for the context of the researcher. The researcher is a product of postcolonial India and has undergone different kinds of struggles due to the colonial and neocolonial power dynamics. As a Christian, the question of the liberative potential of the Bible has been a major driving force during recent years of theological deliberations, and the researcher has been well placed within the context of a multiplicity of scriptures and cultures.

1.1 The Goals of the Study

The aim of this study is to inquire into the problem of the identity of the subalterns (the marginalized, the poor, women etc.,) in Mark’s Gospel in accordance with their role in shaping the hermeneutical principles for a postcolonial context. While re-examining the identity of the marginalized, many New Testament scholars of our time (e.g., Sean Freyne and William E. Arnel) placed the Gospel of Mark in the Galilean context where “we can sense the rumblings of those particular events” which caused unrest among the people of Galilee (Freyne, 1994: 620). The Gospel also deals with the division and conflicts between the Jews and the other people in that region where the people of the Gospel of Mark emerged (Freyne, 1997; Arnel, 1997). Since the Gospel of Mark reflects events necessarily influenced by the Roman political powers and Jewish religious structures, it is legitimate to re-read Mark to deconstruct their distinctiveness. The available interpretations offer only a monolithic exegetical conclusion without considering the colonial context of the Gospel of Mark in depth. Therefore this study will explore the identity of the subalterns in Mark and their interactions with the cultural, social, political and religious contexts.

Walter Wink clearly believes that the context of Jesus’ ministry was the Roman military occupation and its necessary implications for the native people (1992: 181). He argued that Jesus challenged the dominant system by proposing a counter model for imperial and religious authorities that equipped the artisans and peasants to challenge the power of the ruling elites and Rome (Lee, 1995). The author of the Gospel of Mark also clearly exposed the inferior and alienated conditions of the subalterns in the Gospel. Thus marginality can become a key term in defining the identity of the subalterns in Mark.

This study seeks to reconstruct the sociopolitical and religiocultural trends in Jesus’ Galilee. This will make it possible to offer insights into locating the identity of the subalterns in Mark. Moreover it will demonstrate that the presence of the marginalized in Mark is not an accidental one, but is careful construction by the author to present his theological understanding of the movement of Jesus. A fresh re-reading of this text and its context allows these intentions and dynamics to come to the fore.

Part of the aim of this study is to expose the monolithic character of the traditional interpretations as some of these interpretations have little meaning in the postcolonial context. In this context, the role of the Markan interpretations in the process of colonization will be explored. The colonial legacy is “one that former colonized peoples still have to live with, and which determines to one degree or another, the problems they face today” (Parratt, 2004: 4). Talking in this line, Rieger believed that the colonization process is still explicit in different forms:

The colonizing process itself has changed dramatically...colonization – long after its abandonment in politics – has found new space of existence in the so-called postcolonial world in the virtual reality of economics that is not only virtually omnipresent but also much harder to detect

(2003: 7).

Thus any venture to place the text in the context of the interpreter will demand a preliminary understanding of the sociopolitical dimensions of the postcolonial context of the researcher and hence, there will be a section dealing with such concerns. It also demands a deconstruction of the historiography as the world situation is made complex due to the divisions and hostility between various communities (Pearse, 2003). Since Mark reflects the Roman imperial situation clearly, the texts from Mark should be appropriate in conceptualizing a hermeneutical paradigm. And such a study will not overlook the presence of the empire in the text and the consequences of such recognition will be advantageous for a hermeneutical paradigm for a postcolonial context. It can be uncovered through an exegesis from the point of view of the interpreter. Commenting on the book The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics, Christopher Rowland demands “that the socio-economic dimensions of text and interpretation must be central to the exegesis” (Gottwald and Horsley, 1989; back cover). A major target of this study is a kind of decolonizing of the biblical interpretations and reading the texts from the social locations of the interpreters which serve as the bases for a new biblical interpretation (De La Torre, 2002).

The scope of this study is wide as it includes discussions of the various methods of biblical interpretation and the current trends in Markan studies. It also necessarily includes “the recognition of the suffering caused by colonization” (Prior, 1997: 14) and aims to place the meaning of the text beyond the target of colonial conversion. Thus the relevance of the meaning of Mark in a postcolonial context can be reaffirmed. In India there are conflicting challenges between the ideology of the ruling class (Brahmanism) and the ideology of the subalterns (the Bahujans and the Dalits) (Frykenberg, 2004: 111) and such a conflict is the background of this study.

The study also investigates the so-called crisis in hermeneutics in terms of accommodating the voices from the margins and postcolonial contexts (Adedeji, 2003). Additionally it is assumed that the intention of the author of Mark to include the subalterns in his writing was not an accidental one, but a deliberate and theologically-loaded one. The researcher’s Christian and subaltern background is an advantage in understanding the dynamics of the oppressive forces in the neocolonial contexts. The following questions form the focus of discussion.

1. What is the identity of the subalterns in Mark?
2. Was there any Roman oppression in Galiee? If so, what was the extent of Roman colonial oppression in Jesus’ Galilee?
3. How far had Mark inherited the legacy of the milieu in the text in terms of presenting the sociopolitical conflicts of Palestine?
4. What are the postcolonial issues helpful in re-reading Mark?
5. Can a hermeneutical paradigm be proposed for India in the light of the sketch of exegesis from a postcolonial perspective?

1.2 Methodology

This study employs a variety of methodological approaches from the field of hermeneutics. Although historical-critical methods will be used to find out the context of the text, their failure in exploring configurations of the identities of the subalterns are recognized (Thiselton, 1980). In order to examine the Roman political and cultural aggression in Jesus’ Galilee, sociopolitical methods will be used. There are a number of perspectival readings on Mark from various contextual thrusts available to the researcher (Yang, 2002; A. Lee, 1999; Donaldson, 1997; Gallagher, 1997; Abraham, 1996; Muthuraj, 1995; and others) and those studies may shed considerable light in proposing a hermeneutical paradigm for the postcolonial context. On the basis of the insights from the above mentioned, this study will make use of the historical-critical and sociopolitical methods to uncover the context of the Markan texts for exegesis. These contextual readings can be guidelines in using postcolonial insights for reconstructing the identity of the subalterns in Mark. Some of the recent endeavours from the postcolonial view point demand recognition of the native culture and insights from native religions (R. S. Sugirtharajah, Kwok Pui-lan, Musa Dube, Sebastian Kappen). Fernando F. Segovia’s book Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins challenges readers by asking for a recognition of the hegemonic characters in the traditional interpretations and the necessity for re-constructing the readings from the point of view of the people on the margins.

One of the basic assumptions of this investigation is that when the presence and function of the subalterns are mentioned in Mark, then the author intends to present the sociopolitical and religiocultural contexts of his time. A multi-dimensional approach in theology and hermeneutics is justified as interpretative operations are multi-dimensional (Lonergan, 1972). The more the sociopolitical and religiocultural contexts of Mark in which the Gospel was shaped are examined, the better the position of the subalterns is exposed. In probing the selected passages from Mark in the following chapters, three main contextual hermeneutical methods, namely liberation, feminist and subaltern have been employed. Since they are the products of postcolonial conflicts and situations, a postcolonial method is employed to propose a hermeneutical paradigm for the postcolonial context. J. Pathrapankal challenges the exegetes in a postcolonial context:

This task is all the more imperative for the Indian theologians and exegetes. After centuries of Western colonialism followed by foreign missionaries looking after the theological formation as well as theological thinking of this subcontinent, the time has come for the Indian theologians and exegetes to develop a theology in tune with the culture and social imperatives of this country

(1994: 1015).

For Pathrapankal, the local culture and social matrix may be key guiding forces for a contextual reading in a postcolonial situation like India. Therefore, a major task of the hermeneutical exercise in a postcolonial context is to understand the undercurrents and dynamics of the sociopolitical arenas in the situation.

1.3 Definition of Key Terms

This section will briefly explain the key terms used in the thesis. There will be studies on these terms at length in the following chapters.

Subaltern: This refers to the people of inferior status in a society. These people, according to Antonio Gramsci, are suppressed by the hegemonies of the ruling class (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 1998: 215). In this study the term is used to refer to the crowd, the minor characters, the women, the sick people, the tax collectors and others in Mark. For sociopolitical interpreters of Mark, Mark is “submerged people’s history” (Horsley, 2001: 27) and therefore the term subaltern is a possible one to represent the marginalized in Mark.

Colonialism: This is the domination by imperial powers which establish geographical colonies and replace the local systems of culture, economics, religion, and so on (Osterhammel, 1997: 15). It also alludes to the differences between the colonized and the colonizer.

Decolonization: The term is primarily meant to define the transition of the colonies from colonial rule to native rule. However, it also includes the “forms of manipulation, exploitation, and cultural expropriation” which persist even after the departure of the colonizers (Osterhammel, 1997: 119).

Hybridity: In a postcolonial context this term points to the cross-cultural interactions between the colonizer and the colonized. Through many transcultural exchanges, the native systems and religions are altered.

Postcolonialism: In this study the terms postcolonial context, Indian, the researcher’s context, Kerala and third-world context are used as synonyms. According to Robert C. Young, “Postcolonial critique focuses on forces of oppression and coercive domination that operate in the contemporary world: the politics of anti-colonialism and neocolonialism, race, gender, nationalism, class and ethnicities define its terrain” (2001: 11). Thus, the study of postcolonialism would necessarily try to expose the interplay between these institutions in terms of subjugating “the other.”

1.4 Outline of the Study

The study is in three parts. Part I deals with the various kinds of contextual readings available to the researcher from the postcolonial context. A brief history of hermeneutics in India is presented to offer further clarity for the discussion. This section also defines hermeneutics, postcolonialism and other necessary terms. In addition a survey of past interpretations of Mark will be presented to illustrate the scholarly context of the study. This section also deals with the basic principles of liberation hermeneutics, feminist hermeneutics, postcolonial feminist hermeneutics and subaltern readings as these readings are considered to be foundations of a possible postcolonial hermeneutics.

Part II consists of five chapters (Chapters 4–8) dealing with the subaltern groups and persons in Mark in the light of their struggles for identity and resistance and an exegetical section which is an application part from a postcolonial viewpoint. The conflict and uprootedness are presented in detail with relation to the political and religious authorities in Mark. There is particular consideration of the colonial powers of Jesus’ time and Markan understanding of their engagements. The social location of the Gospel of Mark and the geopolitical conflicts are also examined in detail. Further, the colonial policies of the Romans are examined in accordance with their implications in the life of the people of that region. The aim of this part is primarily to establish the meaning of the Roman Empire in the text for further interpretation of the text from a postcolonial viewpoint.

Chapters 6–8 are concerned with application and deal with the text from a postcolonial perspective. The logic behind choosing representative passages for interpretation is twofold: (1) these are the Markan passages that reflect the ideological and theological intention of Mark and his milieu; and (2) these are the passages that show the function and active role of the subalterns in Mark. Chapter 6 is an attempt to see Mark in the light of postcolonial issues such as economics, the poor and representation. In order to make the issues of the interpreters’ context more legitimate, an exegetical study of Mark 10:17-27 is attached. A background study evaluating the style, context and sociopolitical background of the text is offered. In addition to this, the major findings of the traditional interpretations and Indian readings are presented. As a modification to these materials, issues of poor and rich are debated. Chapter 7 formulates the issues of “race” and gender by studying the gospel of Mark. Although major passages dealing with the issues of gender in Mark are mentioned, only Mark 7:24-30 is discussed in detail. The limitations of the traditional readings are examined. Finally, Chapter 8 studies the issues of subalternity and purity. In the light of marginality, subalternity and purity, the Gospel of Mark is re-read. Mark 5:1-20 is exegeted from the perspectives of those issues. Generally all these three chapters (the application section) have evaluated the major insights of the traditional interpretations including the interpretations by the Indian exegetes. It is proposed to offer a particular emphasis on the readings which were prepared during the colonial period in India. Interestingly, the study analyzed a number of exegetical pieces from the Kerala context which were written in Malayalam.

To conclude, the final section will summarize the hermeneutical issues and present a conclusion. Needless to say, this section will raise further concerns for postcolonial hermeneutics in India.

Part I
Hermeneutics: General Methodological Considerations

Chapter 2
HERMENEUTICS: INDIAN METHODS — POSTCOLONIAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

2.1 Introduction

The search for a hermeneutical paradigm for India i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1 General Introduction
• PART I Hermeneutics: General Methodological Considerations
• PART II Mark — Context and Interpretation
• Endnotes
• References