The absent Lord: oikos and authority in the Gospel of Mark

SPLENDIDO, MARIANO

Capital Federal

Congreso; Society Biblical Literature International Meeting 2015.; 2015

Society of Biblical Literature

Mk?s author apparently comes from a community located in the north of Palestine, south of Syria, which has suffered a great impact upon the Temple?s destruction and the siege of Jerusalem. Despite failing to give significance to Jerusalem?s sanctuary, Mk?s community still values the synagogue?s space, which seems to have brought Jews from different trends together and which, in the 70s, would not carry out expelling orders. Mark?s believers would take part in Jewish ceremonies, though they would differ in connection with certain practices such as the Sabbath, the notion of purity and Gentiles? integration. From this point of view, this Christian community would bean interstice between two groups: the synagogue and the Gentile world. This is different from what happens in Pauline?s assemblies, which can be observed in the epistles to the Colossians (Col), to the Ephesians (Eph) and the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (2Thes), contemporary with Mk. The fact that Christians have moved away from the synagogue as regards the administration and the meeting physical space is evident in these letters. There is a search for identity and leadership that, for the time being, only leads to some organization-related recommendations. Taking this into consideration, the aim of this paper is to analyze the role played by the oikos and the family in Mark?s outline; we will look into the organization proposal of the community and whether the domestic sphere actually offers support to the new Christian identity. The appearance of a family ethics in the Pauline epistles at the time gives us the idea that the issue of community leadership is a topic that concerns worshippers and is cause for heated debates.