The author examines the concept and responsibilities of discipleship revealed in a reading of Mark 8:27-33, and illuminated elsewhere in the Gospel According to Mark. One of the author's main contentions is that biblical scholarship and interpretation is continuing to lead the Christian community of faith away from the mysticism which once infused Judaism and was likely a part of the early Church's understanding of its relationship to God through Jesus, the Messiah of Israel.
The author explores the topic from a variety of interpretive perspectives gathered from an assortment of (mostly) recent texts and articles written by theologians, historians, philosophers, and scholars. Particular attention is given to newer forms of textual criticism and interpretation which have emerged in the light of source, form, and redaction criticism which guided most biblical inquiry before the mid-twentieth century.
The conjectures and conclusions posited by the author contend that a renewed interest in mysticism may be beneficial in the future role of the Church.
A. Substituting man's wisdom for God's Will
2. Conjecturing about authorship, date, sources
B. Losing the mysticism in religion
1. Ignoring the mystical roots of Judaism
C. The possibility of Hebrew or Aramaic texts
1. A 1990s paraphrase of Mark 8:27-31
1. The temporal world is a hard place
2. The attraction of charismatic leaders
D. Teaching/discipleship parallels in the Scriptures
1. Inability to understand the miraculous
2. The value (cost) of discipleship
4. Challenging the dogma of religion
5. Martin Buber's I and You vs. the It-World
1. The subversions of source, form, and redaction criticism
1. A female author? Hebrew manuscripts?
2. Returning to the mystical once again
3. Discipleship a 100 percent commitment
4. God and Israel: the original discipleship
5. God and Israel: the rec...