Mark as Recovery Story
Author | : John C. Mellon |
Publisher | : University of Illinois Press |
Total Pages | : 338 |
Release | : 1995 |
ISBN-10 | : 0252021657 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780252021657 |
Rating | : 4/5 (57 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Mark as Recovery Story interprets the Gospel of Mark in terms of alcoholism and Twelve-Step recovery. Identifying numerous previously unrecognized ambiguities in the gospel's Greek text, John Mellon portrays Mark's mysterious "insider" audience as a fellowship of ex-inebriates turned waterdrinkers, alcoholics whose spirituality of powerlessness resembled that of Alcoholics Anonymous today. Mellon discovers in Mark, the most enigmatic of the Jesus narratives, genre features of the former drunkard's sobriety story, and he reconstructs the first-person story Jesus would have told on his return to Galilee, culminating in his Last Supper words about wine and his Gethsemane prayer for removal of the cup.