Transformational Role of Discipleship in Mark 10:13-16, The: Passage Towards Childhood (The Library of New Testament Studies)

Book info: Transformational Role of Discipleship in Mark 10:13-16, The: Passage Towards Childhood (The Library of New Testament Studies) (Hardcover, 172 pages) – T&T Clark, 2021. Language: English.

Katherine Joy Kihlstrom Timpte addresses a gap in scholarship by answering the question: “how is a child supposed to be the model recipient of the kingdom of God?” While most scholarship on Mark 10:13-16 agrees that children are metaphorically employed because of their qualities of dependence, Timpte argues that it is more specifically an image of the disciple’s radical transformation, which both mirrors and reverses the traditional rites of passage by which a child became an adult. Timpte suggests that Jesus, by insisting that one must enter the Kingdom of God as a child, invokes two interlacing images. First, to enter the Kingdom of God, one must be fundamentally transformed and changed. Second, this transformation reverses the rite by which a child would have become an adult, removing the adult’s superior status. Beginning with a summary of the scholarship surrounding children in the Bible, Timpte explores the perception of children in the ancient world, their rites of passage and entrance into adulthood, and contrasting this with the processing of entering the kingdom of God, while also highlighting childish characters in Mark. Timpte concludes that to enter into the kingdom as a child means that one must strip off those things one gained by leaving childhood behind: wealth, respect, family, much like Jesus, who throughout Mark’s Gospel moves from powerful to powerless, respected to despised, and accepted by all to rejected even (seemingly) by God. Jesus models transformation to childhood in an emphasis on what the Kingdom of God is like. Editorial Reviews Review “A well-researched and engaging monograph … Timpte adds much to emerging conversations around children in the ancient world and biblical texts … Overall I celebrate this monograph's contribution as a worthwhile and lasting addition to the field.” ―Review of Biblical Literature About the Author Katherine Joy Kihlstrom Timpte teaches at St. Mary's College of California, USA.

Chris Keith is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway. He is the author of The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John and the Literacy of Jesus, a winner of the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and Jesus' Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee. He is also the co-editor of Jesus among Friends and Enemies: A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospels, and was recently named a 2012 Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar.