"Let them renounce themselves and take up their cross": a feminist reading of Mark 8:34 in Mark's social and narrative world.

Abstract

Christians today, especially Christian women, often interpret Mark 8:34 as a call to sacrifice self--to be subservient and to endure suffering that could be alleviated--as a demand of Christian discipleship. This is a fundamental misreading of Mark. The argument is placed in the context of the development of feminist biblical criticism these last thirty years and then of Mark's social and narrative world. When read in the context of the first-century cultural world and the larger narrative of Mark, Mark 8:34 is not an exhortation to suffering in general. General human suffering-hunger, illness, etc.--is overcome with Jesus' inauguration of God's rule. Rather, to renounce self is to renounce one's kinship group and join the followers of Jesus. It is an exhortation to remain faithful to Jesus and the rule of God in the face of persecution by political authorities.

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In Mark 8:34, the markan Jesus invites everyone to become disciples: "If any want to follow after me, let them renounce themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (trans. Rhoads et al). If read out of context and with modern western understandings, the invitation can be understood as a glorification of suffering and an encouragement to become a victim: one is to deny oneself, sacrifice oneself, wipe out any sense of self, and to embrace the cross, that is, suffering in general. On the basis of this verse, discipleship is portrayed as "suffer now," presumably for reward later in the age to come. Many a woman has failed to develop her own identity and strengths and has embraced or endured suffering that could be alleviated because she has come to believe that such a way of life is pleasing to God and an imitation of Christ.

I believe this is a fundamental misreading of the Gospel of Mark. Mark does not glorify either self-sacrifice or suffering. Indeed, the markan Jesus inaugurates the rule of God; he alleviates much suffering and empowers others to do the same. Mark, however, does indicate that one particular cause of suffering--namely, persecution by the powers-that-be--is part of discipleship as long as this age continues, until God's rule comes in the fullness of power. In the first-century cultural context, to renounce or deny oneself did not mean self-sacrifice as we understand it today, and taking up one's cross referred only to one specific type of suffering. The inbreaking of God's rule meant joy, healing, feasting, the overcoming of much suffering. Before I develop this argument, however, I want to place this study in the context of feminist work on Mark during the last thirty years.

Feminist Markan Scholarship

I well remember my exhilaration thirty years ago as the second wave of feminism began to impact biblical studies. In those days, there were few women clergy, very few women seminary professors, and not many women seminary students. In 1974, Letty Russell gathered together Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Sharon Ringe, and myself in her living room in New York City. We brainstormed about feminism and the Bible and then wrote THE LIBERATING WORD: A GUIDE TO NONSEXIST INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE, a useful and--for many--an exciting and liberating book. We investigated biblical authority and interpretation in general, interpreting patriarchal traditions, images of women, and changing language. I wrote the chapter on positive images of women, using, among other passages, two markan stories: the one describing Jesus' true relatives as those (male and female) who do the will of God and the one about the Syro-Phoenician woman convincing Jesus to heal her daughter (Mark 3:31-35; 7:24-30). We were in the process of discovering that there really were a lot more positive images for women than our upbringings in various churches or our academic doctoral training had led us to believe.

As I look back from today's perspectives, the book seems naive in many respects. We were all Euro-American middle-class Christian women. While we were certainly aware of issues of race and class, we nonetheless treated "woman" as a largely essentialist category, as was customary in the feminism of the 1970's. We were just beginning to deal with methodological issues. We had not fully sorted out what were men's views of women and what were women's own views and actions. We had not made a clear distinction between prescriptive and descriptive statements. (A prescriptive statement gives someone's [usually an elite male's] opinion of what someone else should do, and thus indicates that the opposite behavior is occurring. One does not need to instruct, "women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak" [1 Cor 14:34] unless women are speaking in church. A descriptive statement tells us someone's view of what women did--for instance, discover the empty tomb.) For example, I contrasted prescriptive statements of a few misogynist rabbis with descriptions of Jesus' interaction with women, instead of with the similar misogynist statements in the pastoral epistles or some church fathers. Thus, we engaged in the long-standing and still troublesome practice of making Jesus and early Christians look better (in this case, pro-women) by making the Judaisms of the time look worse (very anti-women and patriarchal), as if Jesus were not a Jew. Unfortunately we reinforced Christian anti-Semitism, now with a feminist twist. Finally, we tended to focus on specific passages of the Bible as troublesome or helpful, rather than grappling with the Bible or individual biblical writings as a whole.

Nonetheless, THE LIBERATING WORD was a good, solid beginning. Feminist New Testament scholarship progressed rapidly in both methodological sophistication and knowledge. 1983 saw the publication of both Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's IN MEMORY OF HER: A FEMINIST THEOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF CHRISTIAN ORIGINS and THE BIBLE AND FEMINIST HERMENEUTICS, edited by Mary Ann Tolbert. Schussler Fiorenza provided a fundamental revisioning of the history and theology of early Christianity, including women as both agents and victims. Tolbert's SEMEIA volume began to address literary-critical issues of women as readers of androcentric narratives. Increasingly, women entered the profession of biblical scholarship, and by the 1990's there were enough academically trained women to produce major feminist biblical anthologies: THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY (Newsom & Ringe 1992), SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES (Schussler Fiorenza 1993; 1994), and THE FEMINIST COMPANION TO THE BIBLE series from Sheffield Academic Press. In addition, anthologies such as READING FROM THIS PLACE, (Segovia & Tolbert 1995a&b) and READING THE BIBLE AS WOMEN: PERSPECTIVES FROM AFRICA, ASIA AND LATIN AMERICA (Sakenfeld and Ringe) representing the voices of women who were not white middle-class Westerners are increasingly available. The Gospel of Mark specifically has received a variety of feminist treatments by authors such as Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Rita Nakishima Brock, Mary Ann Tolbert (1992), myself (1994a) and Hisako Kinukawa, and recently an anthology of its own (Levine).

What, then, have these thirty years accomplished? On the positive side, the academic climate has drastically changed. Women in the biblical text are no longer invisible to scholarship. The "women at the empty tomb" stories are no longer ignored. At the 1976 Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Norman Perrin referred to the women at the end of Mark's gospel as "surrogate disciples"--the first time they had been granted even so much dignity. Today it is not uncommon to find scholars referring to that group of women as disciples, without even feeling the need to argue for it. Some of this information has begun to filter down into some churches and contemporary preaching. In 1997, teaching New Testament in a liberal seminary in the Northeast, I assigned a portion of IN MEMORY OF HER to supplement the still inadequate introductory text. A first-year seminary student actually asked me if the book had been all that ground-breaking, since the information seemed to be mostly old hat to her. This is progress indeed!

As feminist scholars continue to work on the Bible, however, it has become increasingly clear to us how problematic biblical texts are for women (and Jews and often other non-dominant groups as well). Turning specifically to the Gospel of Mark, we do indeed find positive pictures of women in the stories of the woman with the flow of blood, the Syro-Phoenician woman whose daughter is healed, the woman who anoints Jesus on the head at Bethany, and the women at the cross, burial, and empty tomb. However, these stories--the very same stories that provide us with positive images and give us a glimpse of the important roles of women around Jesus--are generally used, not to portray significant women in relation to Jesus, but to teach men (Dewey 1994a; 1997; Fatum). Even in its positive portrayals of women, then, Mark tends to serve the interests and aims of males. Furthermore, since in an androcentric narrative the implied author and reader are basically construed as male, to read a text such as Mark forces a woman either to read "as male" or to exclude herself from the intended audience of the narrative (Fetterly; Anderson). In the last thirty years we have both rediscovered the women of the Bible and reconstructed their significant role in early Christian history, on the one hand, and, on the other, we have learned how problematic for women the Bible is.

As far as the Gospel of Mark is concerned, I believe the basic feminist work has now been done on the portrayal of women in the narrative. We recognize both the positive images for modern women to be found in Mark and the continued dangers for women in reading such an androcentric narrative where women are invisible, relegated to minor roles, and/or used for the instruction of men. Scholars will continue to give feminist interpretations of Mark. The application of new methodologies, both feminist and otherwise, will provide new insights. Work in greater depth on particular passages will increase our knowledge and understanding (e.g. on the woman with the flow of blood [Mark 5:24-34]: Selvidge; Sibeko and Haddad; D'Angelo; Rosenblatt; Dube). New readers will give new interpretations; work from women from different social locations in different parts of the world will enrich our understandings greatly. Readings will vary in how positively or negatively they view the narrative overall (for a very negative interpretation, see Liew). Such views will depend not only on how we interpret Mark, but also on how Mark's world compares to our own various experiences of the role of women. I venture to guess, however, that the basic picture of the markan narrative as fostering both some positive women models and the overall marginalization of women will remain.

Much less work from a feminist perspective has been done on the theology of Mark. Quite apart from the roles of women in a narrative, the theology or ideology advocated can empower and/or oppress women and other non-dominant groups. As Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza writes:

   It is true that Christian theology overtly condemns oppressive
   forms of exploitation and victimization of wo/men....
   Nevertheless, the Christian proclamation of the kyriarchal politics
   of submission and its attendant virtues of self-sacrifice, docility,
   subservience, obedience, suffering, unconditional forgiveness,
   male authority, and unquestioning surrender to 'G*d's will' covertly
   promotes, in the name of G*d and love, such patriarchal-kyriarchal
   practices of victimization as Christian virtues [1998:147].

In addition to Schussler Fiorenza (1994; 1998), feminist theologians such as Joanne Carlson Brown & Rebecca Parker, Delores Williams, Darbey Kathleen Ray, and myself (2004) have done major work criticizing traditional atonement theology for its exalting of self-sacrifice and suffering, and the issues we raise are beginning to be addressed in "malestream" theology (e.g., Atonement and the Church, in INTERPRETATION). Feminist New Testament scholars, however, have done much less work on the theologies of particular writings (See Schussler Fiorenza 1994: 97-128; 1998: 137-59; Brock 71-104). And this work is needed. For women, insofar as they submit to the narrative world created by a gospel, absorb not only that world's ideas about the proper role for women, but also its values (Rhoads et al.: 39-46). And if what Christian women readers absorb from reading Mark is a glorification of victimage, then no matter how powerful positive female role models in Mark may be, the Gospel is indeed harmful to women as they strive to lead Christian lives today.

Mark 8:34 in Its Social and Narrative Context

The question I am asking about Mark 8:34, "Does Mark encourage victimage and suffering?" comes out of the feminist theological and biblical work I have described above. My argument that Mark does not encourage suffering and victimage depends on literary and sociological analysis of the Gospel. Not only has feminist criticism arisen in the last thirty years, but the methodologies of literary criticism (Anderson & Moore; Rhoads et al) and sociological approaches to the Gospels (Neyrey; Malina & Rohrbaugh; Rohrbaugh) have become major avenues of research in New Testament studies as a whole. It is these new tools that enable me to read Mark 8:34 in the contexts of both the markan narrative and first-century culture. A full analysis of the markan views on suffering and victimage would include study of the interpretation of Jesus' execution, service (who serves whom), and forgiveness, but this would be far beyond the scope of one article. This article is a beginning, limited to Mark 8:34.

To understand Mark 8:34, I shall begin by looking briefly at first-century views of suffering. Then I shall turn to the Gospel of Mark, the markan understanding of the inauguration of God's rule and its impact on suffering. Next I shall focus directly on Mark 8:34, first looking at the cross as one particular type of suffering caused by discipleship and then looking at the first-century understanding of "self" to determine that "to renounce self" does not carry its modern connotations, since the ancient concept of self was quite different.

The first century viewed suffering quite differently than we do in the post-industrial West today. We reject suffering as a normal, everyday part of life. We think pain should go away, preferably immediately. Television advertises instant cures for almost anything that might ail us. If a person seems unhappy, we are likely to recommend therapy. We view suffering as an exception or disruption of life, something to be changed or overcome as soon as possible, or--when that is impossible--drugged out of human consciousness. At the same time, Christian values, which often encourage suffering as a Christian virtue--especially for women--are also part of contemporary American culture.

Ancients viewed suffering as a normal if unpleasant part of life rather than as an interruption to normal human existence (Pilch 1992). Since they understood themselves to have little control over their lives, they did not expect to have the power to make suffering go away (Malina 1992). Therefore, their task was to endure it. For most people in antiquity, suffering was indeed much less avoidable than it is for middle-class Westerners. At least ninety percent of the population lived at subsistence level or below, with hunger and disease as common experiences. The high taxation levied by Roman imperial control meant that even subsistence existence was always threatened, and families were often in danger of losing their land to cover their debt (Herzog). In varying degrees, then, suffering was an ever-present reality. So, in antiquity, parents trained their children to be able to endure suffering, for this was a survival skill (Pilch 1993). Suffering was not, however, considered good or redemptive; it was just part of the human lot.

Mark uses the words to suffer, suffering only three times, always in the construction "to endure many things" ("Many things" (polla) followed by some form of the verb "to endure, suffer" (pascho') in Mark 5:26; 8:31; 9:12). Most English translations obscure the parallelism of the Greek. These uses are a clue to the understanding of suffering in the markan narrative world. The term occurs once in reference to the woman with a hemorrhage and twice in relation to Jesus' coming passion. The sickness of the woman is to be cured, while the lot of Jesus is to endure many things, that is, to be persecuted by the powers-that-be. For Mark does not lump all forms of suffering together. The narrative sharply distinguishes between general human suffering, which is to be cured or alleviated with Jesus' inauguration of God's rule, and persecution, which is the lot of those who persevere in following the way of God as long as this age endures.

For an apocalyptic view of time undergirds Mark's narrative world. The present age is under the control of Satan; God will act soon to bring about the new age of the rule of God. With the beginning of his public ministry, the markan Jesus inaugurates God's rule (Mark 1: 14-15) and with it the blessings of that rule: healings, feedings, and new community. In Mark, the present is a time of the overlapping of ages. The new age or rule of God has indeed begun, and Jesus' power over sickness and nature reveals its present reality. However, the powers of the old age are not yet fully defeated, and until that age ends its adherents will struggle to defeat those who participate in the new age. Mark expects the end of this age and the arrival of the rule of God in full power soon, within a generation (Mark 9:1).

This double sense of time, of God's rule having truly begun but the old age still struggling to maintain its grasp, provides the context for the markan understanding of suffering. In Mark, chapters 1-8 portray the arrival of God's rule. Jesus is shown repeatedly alleviating suffering, exorcising demons, healing illnesses, feeding people in the desert, stilling storms. Furthermore, not only Jesus but others who join God's realm also have this power over suffering. Jesus sends out the disciples to preach, heal, and exorcise, and they do so successfully (6:7 -13). Jesus also expects the disciples to trust God's power over nature: he expects them to trust that the storm will not destroy them and to be able themselves to feed thousands with little food (4:35-41; 6:3544; 8:1-10). Once, someone not even known to Jesus or the disciples is able to exorcise in Jesus' name (9:38-39). In the markan narrative world, the marvelous new reality of God's rule has indeed begun.

While the inbreaking of God's rule on earth gives Jesus and his followers power over sickness and nature--the power to end suffering and wrest health, life and safety for humans--it does not give them the power to dominate or control other human beings or to use force against them. During the overlap of the ages, human freedom is maintained. Humans are free to reject the rule of God and oppose its agents, and most of those who hold power in the old age do reject God's rule. They correctly perceive the rule of God as a threat to their own rule, and set out to destroy it. In Mark 1-8 the narrator shows the markan audience both the present real blessings, and the two ways people respond to them: those who follow enthusiastically (disciples and crowd), and those who reject and oppose Jesus (scribes, Pharisees, Herodians). And, unlike those who belong to God's rule, those who reject it have no hesitation in using force. As early as Mark 3:6, the Pharisees plot with the Herodians how to destroy Jesus. In Mark 6, Herod has John the baptizer beheaded. Later in the narrative, the Roman governor Pilate will have Jesus crucified (15:1-47), and Jesus prophesies that the disciples will also face persecution, even execution (13:9-13). This persecution by the powers-that-be who reject God's rule will end only when God's rule comes in full power and the present evil age ends.

Thus, it is only after the good news of God's rule is clearly established in the markan narrative that the cost of following Jesus is made explicit. In Mark 8:34, the markan Jesus issues a general invitation to discipleship to the crowd: "If any want to follow after me, let them renounce themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Along with the good news, there comes persecution from those who adhere to the old age. Following Jesus is both blessing--the ending of much human suffering--and incurring new suffering at the hands of those who will do their best to destroy Jesus' followers. The markan narrative does not lump all suffering together in this time of the overlap of the ages: some is decisively ended while new dangers are incurred because of the new situation.

Mark 8:34 introduces the new danger of persecution in strong terms: "take up their cross." The cross, after all, is an instrument of execution. Crucifixion was a cruel, shameful, and legal means of execution reserved by Roman imperial authorities primarily for slaves and rebels, low-class troublemakers. Anyone questioning Roman authority--as someone living the life of the new age necessarily did--was from the Roman perspective a potential or actual troublemaker, and political authorities believed in preemptive action against possible threats. To take up your cross is specifically to pick up the cross beam, to carry it out to the place of execution, where you will be nailed or tied to it and then hoisted up on the upright pole. It is like instructing someone today to "take up your electric chair."

No ancient audience could miss the reference to execution, or think of the cross as a general reference to all human suffering. This persecution caused by adherence to God's rule will not be overcome until the new age is fully here. Yet, unlike human suffering in general, it is easily avoidable. All one has to do is renounce Jesus--renounce the new age. It is only because one persists in following Jesus, in embracing the new age, that one is persecuted. In Mark 8:34 and following, the narrative attempts to prepare the disciples--and the Gospel's audiences--for this persecution and to encourage faithfulness in face of it. The emphasis on the inevitability of persecution, however, in no way negates the blessings of God's rule; both are true, and both are the experience of Jesus' followers (Dewey 1994b; cf. Weeden; Kelber).

The first demand in Mark 8:34, "Let them renounce themselves," certainly sounds to modern ears like a call to self-sacrifice. Today many do tend to read it as denial of the individual self, a call to give up one's will, always to put oneself last. I suggest that this is not what it would have conveyed to a first-century audience. First, their sense of self was quite different; they had little idea of any individual identity. Second, the demand is in parallel with taking up one's cross, and is to be interpreted in the context of persecution.

In modern Western post-Enlightenment societies the basic unit of society is understood to be the individual self. In such a culture, to renounce oneself comes to mean to renounce one's very individuality. In antiquity, however, and indeed in much of the world still today, the basic unit of society is not the individual person but the basic multi-generational kinship group (Malina 1992; 1994). The group is responsible for the actions of its individual members, and within the group it is the chief member, usually the male head of household, who determines appropriate behavior. Malina writes, "There is always the dominant male or his surrogate" (1992: 48). Adult sons continue to owe obedience to their fathers as long as their fathers live; daughters are transferred from the authority of their fathers to that of their husbands upon marriage. "People are not expected to have personal opinions, much less voice their opinions.... Social behavior derives from relative status where hierarchy is the essence of social order" (Malina 1994: 113). In such a society, to deny self means, in effect, to renounce one's kinship unit. Today, modern Westerners live in a culture in which we routinely do exactly what ancient society understood as renouncing self: we move out from under parental authority and establish independent households upon reaching adulthood. To do so in antiquity was not normal at all.

The kinship group was not only a unit of consumption as the family is today, but also the basic unit of production, whether of subsistence farming or a small household industry. It was also the basic political unit that composed the empire. The household was the state in miniature; the empire the household writ large, each hierarchically structured. To step outside of one's kinship unit, then, was not only a rejection of one's parents but quite likely a loss of one's means of earning a living as well. It also put one outside the accepted social-political order. It was indeed a radical act to renounce kin. If one did so, and if one had any voice, power, or following at all, one would be perceived as a threat to the social order of the empire.

That renouncing self in Mark 8:34 means, in effect, renouncing one's kinship group is confirmed in two ways. First, in similar sayings in Q and the Gospel of Thomas, the denial of kin is explicit. Luke's rendition of Q reads, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-27, see also Matt 10:35-38). The Gospel of Thomas reads, "Jesus said: He who does not hate his father and his mother will not be able to be my disciple; and [he who does not] hate his brothers and his sisters and [does not] bear his cross as I have, will not be worthy of me" (GThom 55, see also 101). All connect rejection of kin with carrying one's cross. In the place of "renounce self" in Mark 8:34, these statements with parallel structure and content spell out that kin is what is to be rejected.

In Mark, to become a disciple is to renounce one's kinship group and to join those following Jesus, that is, to join the new community or fictive kinship group around Jesus. The markan Jesus says, "'Who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking around at those seated about him in a circle, he said, 'Look, here are my mother and my brothers! For those who do the will of God, they are my brother and sister and mother'" (Mark 3:33-35). Later, in response to Peter's question about what the disciples get for following him, Jesus spells out the riches and cost of rejecting kin: "There is no one who has left a house or brothers or sisters or a mother or a father or children or fields for me and for the good news who does not receive a hundred times as many now, in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields--with persecutions--and in the coming age life eternal" (10:29-30). In addition, the only other uses of renounce (aparneomai) in Mark are found in the prediction and relating of Peter's renunciation of Jesus (14:30, 31, 72). In renouncing Jesus, Peter is renouncing his new fictive kinship group. To deny self, then, is to deny ones kin.

Since to reject kin is to reject the basic social-political-economic structure of ancient society, it is not surprising that rejection of kin and persecution should occur together. Societies do not tend to support those who break their rules. The parallels cited above from Q and the Gospel of Thomas suggest the close connection between denying kin and persecution. The chiastic pattern (that is the crossing or abb'a' pattern) of Mark 8:34 also suggests a close parallel (Malina 1994: 107). The structure of the verse may be laid out as follows:

A If any want to follow after me,

B let them renounce themselves [that is, deny kin]

B' and take up their cross [that is, risk persecution]

A' and follow me.

The parallelism between A and A' (to follow Jesus) suggests that B and B' are similar to each other in meaning as well. To follow Jesus is to join the new community of God's rule, the fictive kinship group gathered around Jesus. In order to do this, one must renounce kin and be prepared to face persecution--take up one's cross--from those in authority in the larger society. Bas van Iersel writes:

   Today's readers must be careful not to see this passage as being
   unrelated to a possible situation of persecution, and interpret it,
   for instance, as a call for an ascetic way of life that is
   characterized by self-renunciation or even self-contempt.... The
   sayings are not about anything so vague as general lifestyle, but
   about a person's willingness to give his or her life for the sake of
   Jesus when this ultimate sacrifice is demanded [291].

In summary then, when read in the context of the first century cultural world and the larger narrative of Mark, Mark 8:34 is not an exhortation to suffering and victimage in general. It is an exhortation to remain faithful to Jesus and the rule of God in face of persecution, even execution, by political authorities. While the end of much human suffering is realized by the breaking of the rule of God into history in Jesus' ministry, persecution for following Jesus is a real possibility as long as this age lasts. Any reading of this passage as encouraging individual suffering is a misreading of the text.

Postscript: Reading Mark Today

Thus Mark 8:34 does not encourage suffering or self-sacrifice, as we often interpret this verse today. Modern readers, however, are still likely to read such meanings into the text. We all come to the Bible with our assumptions informed by our contemporary societies. Most of us are not educated about the massive differences between our time and the first century; it is indeed a foreign culture to us. Furthermore, we tend to read the Bible in snippets, in lessons at church or daily readings, and thus never experience Mark as a complete narrative, whose parts find their meaning only in context of the whole. Thus, we read and abstract messages the evangelist never envisioned.

The problems that arise from reading Mark 8:34 with modern assumptions serve as an instance of the larger problems that arise from continuing to use the New Testament as sacred scripture for Christians today. While the New Testament contains much obvious good, it remains an androcentric and patriarchal text. A naive reading enculturates androcentric and patriarchal values. Every person who continues to read the Bible either will be caught in such constructions of reality or will have to go through the work of deconstruction and reconstruction for a more liberative and liberating faith. Translations and paraphrases can certainly help, but they cannot eradicate the problem. I believe the problem is too fundamental.

But as long as Christianity remains a viable religion--and I as a feminist still count myself a Christian--we will need to grapple with these issues. The Gospel of Mark may offer us some resources in this struggle. Mark's view of the new age working to ameliorate most suffering, while exhorting faithfulness in the face of persecution from the powers that be, may serve as a resource against some other portions of the New Testament and much of later Christian theology that has tended to valorize suffering as redemptive. As Mary Ann Tolbert writes, "One must defeat the Bible as patriarchal authority by using the Bible as liberator" (120).

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Joanna Dewey, Ph.D. (Graduate Theological Union), author of MARK AS STORY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NARRATIVE OF A GOSPEL (with David Rhoads, 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999) and many articles including in BIBLICAL THEOLOGY BULLETIN (vols. 22, 24, 26 & 27), is Academic Dean and Harvey H. Guthrie, Jr. Professor of Biblical Studies at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA 02138 (e-mail: [e-mail]). An earlier version of this article was published in A FEMINIST COMPANION TO MARK (edited by Amy-Jill Levine; Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).