Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World

by E Randolph Richards

I WAS SITTING WITH SOME MEDITERRANEAN FRIENDS in my living room studying Mark’s Gospel. We got to the story where Jesus’ family hears all he is doing and decides to take charge of him.1 This is a very collective way of dealing with such a problem, so everyone in the living room was nodding along with the story. We got to the part where it says: Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mk 3:31-35) Suddenly my Bible study group went crazy. Ghaith stood up, arms in the air. “There is no way Jesus said something as offensive as that!” I wondered what all the fuss was about. It’s a nice story about loving one another, isn’t it? Nothing to get all worked up about. Months later the Bible study group remembered the story and said it was one of the most challenging stories in the entire Gospel of Mark. I had missed something: the foundational role kinship plays in organizing Mediterranean society. Worse, I had glossed over a scandalous statement by Jesus about how life altering the Christian message is to be. Mark probably had expected me to react like Ghaith.