While it is impossible to ignore the theological weight of the New Testament, it is perhaps somewhat reductive to downplay the ramifications policies of the text. From its inception, Christianity consciously aimed to draw from and build upon a reservoir of Jewish (and other) religious traditions and philosophical models of thought. There are many examples of this appropriation of the Hebrew Bible in the gospels, but perhaps the most striking example is Christ's speech in the Temple in Jerusalem, as described in Mark 12-13. Through a close examination of this passage, this article attempts to show how Christ simultaneously uses and metamorphoses Jewish doctrine to syncretically create a religion that reflects his unique conception of God. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Unlike Paul, whose epistles are specifically aimed at helping his followers remain strong in their faith, Mark does not openly announce his political intentions. But he too is intrinsically concerned with conquering the faithful, with creating a “we” to counter the “others” who surround him. To do so, he draws heavily on Christian reassessments of Jewish doctrine, but it is important to remember that Mark's audience was not solely Jewish. None of the apostles could afford to forget the Gentiles, and Mark's emphasis on the corporeality of Christ, his depiction of Jesus as an extraordinary man with ordinary beginnings, is designed to capture the sympathies of his audience with a way that transcends existing religious beliefs. Pagan or not, we cannot help but be moved by the Jesus of Mark, characterized in the manner of a Greek tragic hero. According to this gospel, Jesus' hamartia is his inability to express himself clearly: his readers already know the outcome and yet they read his story, fascinated by how events escalate to their disastrous final conclusion. It’s a testament to Mark’s genius that he harnesses the cathartic emotions that a secular reading might inspire and directs them so effectively into religious channels. Unfortunately, for the purposes of this article, this aspect of the story will have to remain unexplored. Postcolonial literary theory recognizes three main stages in the evolution of the artistic production of a subject-nation. At first, subjects adopt the dominant ideology, then they become adept at it, and finally they become so adept at manipulating cultural functions (such as language and literature) that they begin to adapt these functions to their needs. own ends, often subverting the dominant ideology. tool against the dominant discourse itself. This was as true for Christians in the first century CE as it was for Commonwealth authors writing in the shadow of 19th-century British rule. As Christ himself said to a Samaritan woman: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). Obviously, he identified himself as inherently Jewish. How the “adopt” and “follower” principles work is clear from the beginning of Mark’s text. Shortly after his anointing by John the Baptist, Christ goes into the desert, emerging after forty days to proclaim the “good news of God” (1:14). We are given almost no details about this period alone, but we can assume that he did more than just fraternize with wild beasts. This hypothesis takes shape with the following vignette, which describes how he entered a synagogue and “taught [the congregation] asone having authority, and not like the scribes” (1:22). Thus, not only was Jesus a follower of the Hebrew scriptures, but he was also actively engaged in their interpretation in a way that the “literate elite of jurist scholars” (1.22n) of Jerusalem were not. Chapter 12 contains the essence of Jesus' challenge to the well-established socio-religious order. He had already preached in other smaller temples and had gathered a good number of followers, but the Temple in Jerusalem was a true bastion of Jewish power. His choice of parable once again demonstrates his intention to adapt Jewish religious law to his own purposes. He begins with the story of the recalcitrant winegrowers, an allegory of his current situation: he is the “beloved son” that the “winegrowers” ​​are going to kill. He ends with a rebuke: “Have you not read this scripture...? (12:10 p.m.); his quote is from Psalm 118, a celebratory hymn that gives thanks to the Lord after victory in battle (Ps 118n). The poem mentions enemies who “surrounded [the devotee] on all sides; / in the name of the Lord, I cut them off! » (Ps 118.10). Jesus too is, literally, surrounded on all sides by an antagonistic religion with only the sanction of the Lord to help him. By inserting himself into the psalm, he subtly reinterprets it so that the speaker is no longer a Jew singing hallelujahs but a Christian praising his lord, the only true God. Mark continues this sophisticated pattern of appropriation in Jesus' debate with the Pharisees and Herodians. The Messiah refuses to give a direct answer on paying taxes, saying simply: "Give to the emperor the emperor's things, and to God the things that are God's" (12:17). While literally espousing a separation between the institutions of church and state, Jesus actually denies the command of the state – after all, God is the ultimate master (as he emphasized in the previous parable) . Up to this point in their history, Abraham's sons had had a precarious existence under a dual system of power, declaring their God while recognizing the regulating force of their pagan rulers. Thus, the link between the two axes of authority has several meanings. Clearly, he advocates moving away from the material world of coins and values ​​the philosophy of love that is developed more fully in the later gospels. A closer look might show the extent of Jesus' self-awareness: he (or the narrator) knew that there would be little hope for the Christian faith if it were not the sole center of regulatory power. In this, it draws directly on the Hebrew Bible's emphasis on the uniqueness of Yah, but instead of attacking other religions, it attacks the socio-political foundations of society. Once again, an Old Testament tradition is skillfully reinvented and added to the Christian canon. Another important political ramification of Christ's gospel of love is the location of the Other. It is obvious that Christians are different from others in terms of religion. But if this encourages them to love all the different pagan practices, it would fundamentally weaken their own. Before examining the gospel's response to this problem, it may be significant to note that Jesus' injunction to love God and to love neighbor thematically complements a narrative problem introduced by Satan's question: "Job Does he fear God for nothing? (Work 1.9). The trials and tribulations that followed Job and Yahweh's final rejection of an androcentric worldview provide a long, if rather unsatisfying, answer. Christ recognizes that even if humanity cannot escape its context, trying to understand the vagaries of its life is one of our impulses.