Professional paper
Physical touch as an expression of faith in Jesus Christ in the Gospel according to Mark
Mladen Horvat
; St. Augustine’s Seminary, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
In a passage from the Gospel according to Mark (Mk 5:21-43) we find Jesus healing a sick woman and resurrecting the dead daughter of Jairus. Both miracles happen by touch. In the first miracle, a sick woman touches Jesus’ dress, and in the second miracle, Jesus touches a dead girl. It is not enough to just touch Jesus, as the crowd presses him and impersonally touches him, but it is necessary to show personal faith so that Jesus could perform a miracle. The passage we are considering is a complex text, where within one narrative, that is, within the account of the sick daughter of Jairus, another account of the healing of the sick woman is inserted, with the aim of growing the culmination in the narration in the direction of the second miracle, that is, the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter. The main theme that ties both narratives is “faith,” either the faith of the woman sick with bleeding or the faith of Jairus, who believes in place of his dead daughter.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
322314
URI
Publication date:
11.11.2024.
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