The miracle stories told by each of the four evangelists are arguably one of the most famous aspects of the life story of Jesus Christ, and it is clear that for the writers of the Gospels, as well as for the early Christians, miracles were of great importance. However, the way these miraculous events are described differs across the Gospels, generating variation in how we, as readers, may perceive their function. In this essay, I will seek to support the argument that the miracle stories contained in Mark's Gospel serve many potential functions; the authentication of the identity and message of Jesus, a catalyst for profound teaching and a method by which the author of Mark could speak directly to the concerns, fears and questions of his own community, so as not to name just a few. Although it is difficult to know which of these functions, if any, the author of Mark actually intended in telling the miracle stories, these roles are, ultimately, even accidentally, fulfilled. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay It is worth describing the distribution and arrangement of the miracle stories in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark we see eighteen accounts in which Jesus is depicted as a miracle worker or exorcist[1]; as Boring observes: "Depending on whether one includes Markan's summaries and stories such as finding the foal and cursing the fig tree, miracle stories account for between 20 and 30 percent of 1:1 to 16: 8 and 40 percent of chapters 1. -10[2].' Notably, almost all of the miracle stories occur in the first half of the narrative, most of them having been performed before Peter's post-transfiguration confession and before the first prediction of the passion. Discussion of Jesus' miraculous work virtually died down after his entry into Jerusalem. I think that when discussing the “function” of miracles in Mark, it is important to recognize how much of what we find in his text is the result of individual interpretation. It is widely believed that Mark simply served to uphold and maintain the use of the tradition of miracle stories with which he himself would have been familiar; as Richardson argues, "it is a reasonable assumption to suppose that St. Mark found miracle stories already used by the teachers of the Church for the same purposes to which he himself applied them in his Gospel." .. We cannot consider St. Mark to be in any way an innovator; rather he is the preserver and scribe of the tradition in which he himself was educated[3].' It seems, then, that the author of Mark adopted the tradition of miracle stories and continued it as an effective way of talking about Jesus; we cannot be sure to what extent the stories we see told in the Gospel remain as Mark received them, but given Mark's own sitz im leben and his desire to direct the Gospel toward the struggles and questions of his community, I think it is most likely that the writer inherited the tradition and used it for his own theological purposes; as Best notes, "The Gospel was written not only for a Christian community but for a particular Christian community in a particular time and intended to meet its needs."[4] It is impossible to know the exact intended function of the miracle stories for Mark, but we can see that somefunctions are undoubtedly fulfilled; in the remainder of the essay, I will attempt to explore some of these potential functions. Miracles serve to demonstrate Jesus' connection with God; he acts with an authority that seems new to his contemporaries: “…they were all amazed and glorified God saying: “We have never seen anything like this!”[5]”, “…and everyone was amazed[6] ". ]' Historically, healings and exorcisms were not entirely unusual; the audience would certainly have been aware of others who had performed similarly well. The astonishment therefore seems to lie in the way in which Jesus heals: his authority and his response to faith signal that he comes from God. Additionally, in many cases Jesus heals solely through his word, perhaps reminiscent of God's creative activity in Genesis. From a narrative point of view, the miracle stories testify to the assertion that Mark already made at the beginning of his Gospel, about “Jesus Christ, the son of God[7]”. The fact that Mark's readers already know that Jesus is the son of God creates a sense of dramatic irony in that the audience knows the secret of Jesus' miracles while those around him still have questions. Perhaps the most obvious function served by miracle stories. is the revelation of aspects of the nature of Jesus; after establishing his identity as the Son of God, the miracles clarify what this title implies. Mark succeeds in revealing the dual nature of Jesus as divine man and suffering Messiah; two Christological views that many believe were brewing within the Markan community at the time the Gospel was composed; Mark might have wished to reconcile these positions. As already noted, the first half of the Gospel contains the majority of Jesus' miracles with virtually no mention of them. As the narrative moves closer to the passion, Boring concludes that "the first half of the Gospel therefore represents a sort of slippage.” theology of glory,” with Jesus’ power to perform miracles spectacularly in the spotlight. The second half of the Gospel represents a kind of "theology of the cross", in which the power of God is revealed in weakness.[8] Mark accentuates the remarkable nature of Jesus' miracles in order to strengthen his power before his weakness, his nature as a suffering Messiah, is revealed through the crucifixion, "Jesus is above all the one who dies on the cross and rises again and not the one who works miracles. The cross might suggest that he was helpless, but the miracles show him as one who can and does come in his resurrected power to help the community.[9] Alongside the emphasis on Jesus as the suffering Messiah, the juxtaposition of Mark's secret-themed miracles demonstrates a modesty towards Jesus' ministry; he is here to serve rather than to gain personal gratification. For example, Jesus healed Jairus' daughter and “strictly commanded them that no one should know.”[10] The idea that people often can't help but proclaim how Jesus healed them also demonstrates the amazement of His power. In addition to gaining a deeper understanding of the personal nature of Jesus through the miracle stories, perhaps more significantly we gain insight into the nature of Jesus. of Jesus' ministry, his purpose for humanity, and what humanity can gain from him through faith. Best alludes to this idea when he observes that “the lesson taught by miracles also concerns the person of Jesus; whether he saves from sickness, the devil, or the storm, we learn something about his nature, but the main focus is on what they tell us about hisactivity for and in the name of men[11].' Perhaps most obviously, Jesus is presented as one who possesses the power to heal spiritually, demonstrated most blatantly through his exorcisms. The demonic Gerasene, for example, is severely possessed and yet Jesus purifies him. Juel observes how the details given by Mark about the gravity of the situation increase the sense of Jesus' power to save him: “The situation is desperate. The signs of possession are painfully obvious to everyone. The man is totally out of control and incapable of living in society. Symbolic of his expulsion from human communion, he lives beyond the boundaries of civilization, in a state of ritual impurity (from the Jewish point of view), among the dead.[12] In the society in which Jesus performed his miracles, illness in the bodily sense would be considered a physical manifestation of spiritual illness; when Jesus heals physically, he also heals spiritually. When we talk about “spiritual healing” I am referring to the redemptive power of Jesus that Mark highlights. This is particularly explicit when Jesus cleanses the leper in 1:40-45. To a Jewish audience, the fact that the man had leprosy would indicate that he was a sinner since the disease was, in the Old Testament, a punishment for sinful behavior.[13] Since “leprosy is a type of sin,”[14] when Jesus physically heals the man, he is seen as forgiving him of his sins and reintroducing him into society. This also establishes, once again, the connection between Jesus and God since Jesus is endowed with the authority to do what only God has the authority to do, forgive sins. Throughout the miracle stories, Jesus can be seen to transgress many boundaries regarding society and laws of cleanliness. As Rhoads explains, “These notions of clean and unclean have nothing to do with our modern ideas of sanitation. Rather, they are invisible forces capable of making things pure or polluted, holy or defiled, clean or impure[15].' Jesus can be seen ignoring these laws on numerous occasions: he heals a leper, he heals on the Sabbath, he heals the bleeding woman who would be considered ritually unclean by the laws of Leviticus, and he heals the girl in the land of the Gentiles of a kind woman. Collectively, these demonstrate the universal nature of Jesus' salvation; he rises above all restrictions that might be imposed by society and offers salvation to all who have faith. Jesus brings a new covenant that transcends social boundaries and welcomes all people, not just those who are of Jewish origin and follow Jewish religious laws. Jesus brings a new law: '...from within, from the hearts of men, evil designs are born: fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, acts of greed, acts of wickedness, deception, licentiousness, the envious eye, blasphemy, arrogance, reckless folly. All these bad things come out from within and defile the person[16].' Commenting on this passage, Rhoads notes that “Mark eliminates ritual purity or defilement as a demarcation. Instead, he draws a line between moral and immoral behavior as what determines purity or defilement. Mark honors moral behavior from within rather than guarding against impure things from without.[17] added meaning to members of Mark's own community. Within a constantly persecuted community, stories of Jesus' miraculous work would have provided justification for Jesus' power to redeem and transcend death; “Christians need help; they face persecution and must face the..196