The meaning of healing in the gospel of Mark vs the testimony of Hadebe: a correlation and comparison.

Abstract

This thesis compares and correlates the function of healing in the Gospel of Mark (8:22–26) and in Gunner (2002:189c–191a). Healing, an important discourse in the Gospel of Mark and regarded as the cornerstone of Shembe’s Church in Gunner (2002), and the growth of Shembe’s church among the African Initiated Churches (AICs), is inclined to have many functions, both literary and symbolic. The type of healing referred to in these two religions are namely the illnesses that affect African people (ukufa kwabantu) and somatisation, an expression of psychological or emotional factors manifesting as physical (somatic) symptoms; stress can cause some people to develop headaches, chest pains, backache, nausea and fatigue, similar to the illnesses researched in the Gospel of Mark. The thesis discourses on this symbolism – particularly in (Mk 8:22–26, exposing its function in the healing narratives. The texts that discuss the cases of illness in the Gospel of Mark are discussed and compared with those found in the AICs from the early twentieth-century isiZulu setting. However, due to the influence of the bible and the African Traditional Religions on the AICs, the study intends to investigate the degree of the presence of these influences in the healing system as per the testimony of Hadebe in Gunner (2002). Similarly, the influence of other healing traditions of the first-century Mediterranean region in the Gospel of Mark is also reviewed. The literature review on the anthropological and socio-cultural illness and traditional healerphysician distinctions leads the discussion to a comparison between Jesus and Shembe as belonging to the same sect in the traditional healers’ enclave, particularly where Jesus is compared to a [Galilean] Shaman. A verse-by-verse exegesis of Mark’s healing of blindness is presented where the similarities between symbolic illness and the characters in other texts in the Gospel are examined. The two-stage attempts of Jesus in healing blindness with saliva and prayer and its symbolic meaning are also debated on. The symbolic nature of the narrative presented in (Mk 8:22- 26) promotes the search for and insight into the comparative significance of the tourniquet, song and dance in the testimony of Hadebe. (Gunner, 2002:189c-191a). A pursuit of the notion of the function of healing, where the healing of the blind man of Bethsaida (Mk 8:22-26) is discussed, compared and correlated with that of Shembe’s healing of Mqhanganyi, a young woman who was bitten by snake in Hadebe’s narrative in Gunner (2002:189c- 191a). The study presents an analysis of the appropriation of Scripture by both Mark and Hadebe, providing the reader with an in-depth understanding of the structure of the work of both authors in relation to their theology. The study concludes with a comparison on the conversion of candidates in both Shembe and Mark churches.