Reception of Jesus As Healer During Early Christianity and Today As Healer During Early Christianity Reception of Jesus Zorodzai Dubezorodzai Dube Edited By
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
HTS Religion & Society Series Volume 9 Healer ReceptionHealer of Jesus as healer during Early Christianity and Today Zorodzai Dube (ed.) Edited by Zorodzai Dube HTS Religion & Society Series Volume 9 ReceptionHealer of Jesus as healer during Early Christianity and Today Published by AOSIS Books, an imprint of AOSIS Publishing. AOSIS Publishing 15 Oxford Street, Durbanville 7550, Cape Town, South Africa Postnet Suite #110, Private Bag X19, Durbanville 7551, South Africa Tel: +27 21 975 2602 Website: https://www.aosis.co.za Copyright © Zorodzai Dube (ed.). Licensee: AOSIS (Pty) Ltd The moral right of the authors has been asserted. Cover image: Original design created with the use of free images. Free image used https:// pixabay.com/photos/christian-the-bible-1188200/ is released under Pixabay License. Published in 2020 Impression: 2 ISBN: 978-1-928523-70-3 (print) ISBN: 978-1-928523-71-0 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-928523-72-7 (pdf) DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2020.BK222 How to cite this work: Dube, Z. (ed.), 2020, ‘Healer: Reception of Jesus as healer during Early Christianity and Today’, in HTS Religion & Society Series Volume 9, pp. i–240, AOSIS, Cape Town. HTS Religion & Society Series ISSN: 2617-5819 Series Editor: Andries G. van Aarde Printed and bound in South Africa. Listed in OAPEN (http://www.oapen.org), DOAB (http://www.doabooks.org/) and indexed by Google Scholar. Some rights reserved. This is an open access publication. Except where otherwise noted, this work is distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), a copy of which is available at https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Enquiries outside the terms of the Creative Commons licence should be sent to the Rights Department, AOSIS, at the above address or to [email protected] The publisher accepts no responsibility for any statement made or opinion expressed in this publication. Consequently, the publishers and copyright holder will not be liable for any loss or damage sustained by any reader as a result of his or her action upon any statement or opinion in this work. Links by third-party websites are provided by AOSIS in good faith and for information only. AOSIS disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third-party website referenced in this work. Every effort has been made to protect the interest of copyright holders. Should any infringement have occurred inadvertently, the publisher apologises and undertakes to amend the omission in the event of a reprint. HTS Religion & Society Series Volume 9 ReceptionHealer of Jesus as healer during Early Christianity and Today EDITOR Zorodzai Dube Religious Studies Domain Editorial Board at AOSIS Commissioning Editor Andries van Aarde, MA DD, PhD, D Litt, South Africa Board Members Warren Carter, Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, TX, United States Christian Danz, Dekan der Evangelisch-Theologischen Fakultät der Universität Wien and Ordentlicher Universität professor für Systematische Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Pieter G.R. de Villiers, Associate Editor, Extraordinary Professor in Biblical Spirituality, Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa Musa W. Dube, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana David D. Grafton, Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian–Muslim Relations, Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT, United States Jens Herzer, Theologische Fakultät der Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany Jeanne Hoeft, Dean of Students and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Care, Saint Paul School of Theology, Leawood, KS, United States Dirk J. Human, Associate Editor, Deputy Dean and Professor of Old Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa D. Andrew Kille, Former Chair of the SBL Psychology and Bible Section, and Editor of the Bible Workbench, San Jose, CA, United States William R.G. Loader, Emeritus Professor, Murdoch University, Perth, WA, Australia Isabel A. Phiri, Associate General Secretary for Public Witness and Diakonia, World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland Marcel Sarot, Emeritus Professor of Fundamental Theology, Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands Corneliu C. Simut, Professor of Historical and Dogmatic Theology, Emanuel University, Oradea, Romania Rothney S. Tshaka, Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa Elaine M. Wainwright, Emeritus Professor, School of Theology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; Executive Leader, Mission and Ministry, McAuley Centre, Wembley, Australia Gerald West, Associate Editor, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa Peer review declaration The publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African ‘National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum Best Practice for Peer Review of Scholarly Books’. The manuscript was subjected to rigorous two-step peer review prior to publication, with the identities of the reviewers not revealed to the author(s). The reviewers were independent of the publisher and/or authors in question. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and recommended that the manuscript be published. Where the reviewers recommended revision and/or improvements to the manuscript, the authors responded adequately to such recommendations. Research Justification The book explores the established field of healing narratives in the New Testament by focusing on the remembered tradition regarding Jesus’ healings and comparing them with those of other healers such as Asclepius. A sub-theme to the book is to investigate the reception of Jesus as a healer in various African communities. The book exposes the various healing methods employed by Jesus such as exorcism, touch and the use of spittle. Like any other healing performances that reflect the healthcare system of a given culture, Jesus’ healings were holistic: healing the bodily pain, restoring households and combatting stigmatisation and marginalisation. The book demonstrates Jesus’ healing activities as ‘shalom’ performances that seek to re-establish peace in all its social dimensions. With regard to the reception of Jesus as a healer in the African context, the book elaborates the sacrificial lamb motif and the need of restoring the relationship with God. All the contributions in the book present a unique and original perspective in understanding Jesus as a healer from an African healthcare system. Most African societies do not see healing as a cure for bacteria or virus that is typical in biomedical healthcare systems. Instead, within most African societies, healing speaks to broader social categories of peace, hospitality, absence of violence and harm, and peace with the spiritual world. From an African perspective, healing encompasses restoration of the physical community, and spiritual dimension pervades all the contributions. Against the background of these perspectives, this scholarly book endorses the insight gained from theories about Jesus as a healer who amended the broken cosmological world of the sick. From these contributions, prayer and the role of religious practitioners, such as prophets and healers, are transforming the broken spiritual canopy. Such an interpretation provides new ideas about the function of various healing rituals and an African understanding of healthcare. The methodology applied represents multidisciplinary perspectives concerning healthcare within the first-century Judeo-Christian context and today’s African context. It also contributes to an understanding of Africans’ use of the model of western medicine by comparing such a use with patients’ personalist worldview and religious practices and rituals in Africa. The book targets academic specialists in the areas of ‘Healing in the Jesus Tradition’ and ‘medical anthropology’. It takes the established field of healing in the New Testament further by exploring how Jesus was remembered as a healer within the broader Judeo-Christian and Greco- Roman healthcare systems and the reception of his healing activities in various African contexts. The similarity report of an iThenticate™ analysis confirms that the book contains no plagiarism and represents original and innovative research. Zorodzai Dube, Department of New Testament and Related Literature, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Contents Abbreviations and Tables Appearing in the Text and Notes xiii List of Abbreviations xiii List of Tables xiii Notes on Contributors xv Acknowledgements xix Declarations xxi Section 1: Historical paradigms and theory Chapter 1: Shalom practices: Theorising Jesus’ healing practices 3 Zorodzai Dube Abstract 3 Introduction 4 Highlight of previous approaches 5 Shalom theory: Restoration and celebrations 8 Mark’s healing Jesus as a restorer of Shalom 11 Shalom towards kinship and household economic fortunes 11 Shalom towards gender roles 15 Celebratory aspects 17 Chapter 2: Therapeutic paradigms in the public ministry of Jesus 19 Jesse Mugambi Abstract 19 Introduction: Healing as a focus of the public ministry of Jesus