Those feet in ancient times: From slave to land (via Allegory)

Abstract

This article looks at the relation between allegory and land in the Gospel of Mark in an attempt to understand Mark as a product of class struggle, and as such carries the seeds to socioeconomic change. We propose that Mark should be seen as form of responsive metaphorization in which the text responds in complex and mediated ways to a multilayered situation: while Paul's message was based on a narrative of Jesus's death and resurrection, and pushed for a form of Christianity that could appeal across peoples, places, and times (made possible by slave labour), the gospels, beginning with Mark, seek to locate Jesus in a particular place and time. We thus see Mark as an allegorical narrative constructed when the process of indenture was well under way, leading to the colonate. Show more