Jesus as Healer: Prologue

1. What is “health”? “sickness”? “healing”?

2. What roles are played in healing by physicians and other health care workers? By relatives and friends of the sick person? By the sick person?

3. What differences do you see between attitudes to sickness, health, and healing in Jesus’ day and today? In the treatment of sickness then and today? Why the differences? What are the pros and cons of the differences?

4. Have you ever turned to “alternative medicine” for help, or do you know persons who have? What were the reasons - and the results?

5. What is your experience with “home remedies”? How do they compare with home remedies in Jesus’ day?

6. What is your perception of medical treatment of women as compared to that of men?

Jesus as Healer: The Gospel of Mark

1. What are the similarities and differences between “leprosy” today and the “leprosy” referred to in the New Testament, or in the Bible generally (cf. Lev. 12, 14; Num. 12:15; 2 Kings 5 and 7:3-4) and in the attitudes to persons afflicted with it?

2. Compare and contrast biblical reports of “possession by demons” and modern diagnoses of “mental illnesses” and attitudes to such afflictions then and now.

3. What comparisons and contrasts do you see in belief in the power of words and names in Jesus’ day and today? How are “words” used in treating mental illness today?

4. How were material means used by healers in Jesus’ day? How are they used in treating mental illness today?

5. How important is “touch” in healing? In life generally?

6. What connection - if any - do you see between sickness and “sin”?

7. If you had been living in Jesus’ day, do you think you might have been found among his supporters or his opponents?

8. How do power and powerlessness figure into the story of Jesus in Mark? Do you see any implications for today?

9. Does the question of Jesus in Mark (and other New Testament gospels), “Who do you say that I am?/” seem important (and challenging), or remote and antiquarian, today?