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Too Stressed to be Blessed?: Social Stress Theory and the Ambiguity of Matthew's Healing Scenes
Nelson, Jillian Denise
Nelson, Jillian Denise
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2020
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This study focuses on a largely unexplored aspect of the healing narratives in Matthew¿s gospel. While previous scholarship has emphasized the role of Jesus in each scene, I instead explore aspects of the possible somatic and societal experience of the impaired person/people encountering Jesus and who experience healing. Employing the sociological model of Social Stress in the Roman Empire, this study elaborates the possible circumstances and experiences of the impaired, both in their pre- and post- Jesus encounter (¿impaired/healed¿) states. Both the Gospel and previous scholarship have largely neglected both situations by focusing only on the healer and on the moment of encounter and healing. As such, this study is an exercise in informed imaginative readings of three of the healing scenes in Matthew¿s Gospel. This study will focus on the characters within the narrative and will explore possibilities for filling in the gaps of the stories. An ancient audience encountering Matthew¿s gospel held certain cultural assumptions about how one becomes impaired, the effects of that impairment, and what could result from healing. By relying on well-researched work on the societal structures that constituted Roman imperial society, as well as work by social science investigations of the impact of social stressors, this study imaginatively reconstructs possible societal stressors and the impacts those stressors may have had on individuals and communities, and then reads the healing stories with this broader framework in mind. This study argues that, while Jesus¿ healings open up a new way of life for healed persons (as is often argued), this new way of life, experienced in imperial societal structures, has its own significant social stressors for the previously impaired person and others within their social network. Thus the healing narratives are complicated and ambiguous. Accordingly, this study discusses healing narratives as they relate to three structures of life under the Roman Empire: slavery (the centurion¿s slave, Matt 8:5¿13), demonic activity (the Gadarene demoniacs, Matt 8:28¿9:1), and family life (daughter of the Canaanite woman, 15:21¿28).
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Brite Divinity School