Honor may be defined as an individual’s awareness of his own worth, as well as its public claim and the recognition of this claim by others. Of these three elements (awareness, claim, and recognition), the third is the most important, since, in the end, it is public recognition that determines a person’s honor. Others say who is honorable and up to what point (Bordieu: 211).
One of the most distinctive features of the first-century Mediterranean world is its constant search for honor, recognition, and praise. Some philosophers even considered philotimia (love/desire/search for honor) as the quality distinguishing human beings from animals:
In Jesus’ world there were two ways to obtain honor: to receive it from those who could bestow it or to earn it by one’s own actions. Honor received from others is ascribed honor, while acquired honor is earned by one’s own efforts. The former was by far the more important. As a rule it came by virtue of the family one was born into, for family was the store of shared honor (Guijarro 1998:117-25). It could, nonetheless, be bestowed by those invested with authority. On the other hand, acquired honor was earned by an individual’s own actions, either by competition among equals or as a response to benefits received (Malina & Neyrey 1996: 27-29; Malina & Neyrey 1991: 27-32).
The Gospel writers often refer to Jesus’ honor. Most of his actions, especially his teaching and miracles, are understood as acts of beneficence by the people, who in turn respond by giving him praise and recognition (people are astounded; his fame spreads out, etc.). We can glimpse Jesus’ increasing honor by looking at the response of the Pharisees and other religious or political groups (Saducees, Herodians), who perceive Jesus’ increasing honor as a threat to their own honor, and therefore call his actions into question. The controversies, so prevalent in the Gospels, are actually honor contests in which Jesus is victorious. But Jesus’ actions and underlying claims would not have been possible if he did not previously enjoy some kind of ascribed honor. In Mark’s view, this honor does not come from Jesus’ natural family; it derives from his intimate relationship to God. Therefore, the main goal of the beginning of his account is to reveal the origin of Jesus’ ascribed honor. In Jewish society, God was the supreme source of all things, and so, the source of all honor. Therefore, the words pronounced by the heavenly voice confer upon Jesus the highest conceivable ascribed honor. These words are the culmination of all previous statements, and with them the revelation of Jesus’ identity reaches its climax.
This way of presenting Jesus is called for by the cultural values of the society where the author of the Gospel and his audience lived. In a society based on honor, only those born in an honorable family are eligible to become public figures. If an individual born in a lowly family claims this kind of leadership, his authority and his actions are easily ascribed to an evil spirit, unless an extraordinary event empowers him to do so. Jesus, born in a low-status family of artisans, has no legitimacy as a public figure. If he is God’s Son, however, his legitimacy is unquestionable (Malina & Rohrbaugh: 17 7).
- MacVann and E. van Eyck have used V Turner’s typology to better grasp the ritual process described by Mark in his presentation of Jesus. According to V Turner, the ritual process has three steps: separation, liminality, and aggregation. Separation involves being dettached from the normal course of life by being distanced from those people with whom a person lives and going to a place and time different from the normal ones. Liminality is the threshold state of those being initiated, who have been separated from the normal course of life. In this intermediate state the initiand is dispossessed of his former status and somehow must die to achieve his new status. During this ambiguous period, the common attributes of initiands are stressed, originating a peculiar social bond that Turner calls communitas. Finally, aggregation involves the incorporation of the initiand to society with the new status he has achieved through the ritual process. In this ritual process, along with the initiands, there are an elder, who plays the role of mystagogue, and a number of ritual symbols, which play an important role at different points in the process (Turner 1969:94-130; McVann 1991:335-341).
The liminality of this stage may be perceived in the ambiguity of Jesus’ status and in the new relationships he establishes. Although the voice from heaven declares he is God’s Son, his identity will not be totally clear until his testing period ends; therefore, ambiguity is a mark of this entire period. As in other ritual processes, along with this ambiguity, there is a communitas, namely, a new set of relationships based on fundamental common characteristics. Whereas during this period Jesus has no relationships with other human beings, he interacts with beings belonging to another realm of existence. The Spirit comes upon him and becomes his guide (elder), for he is the one who leads Jesus into the desert. The voice that comes from heaven declaring Jesus as God’s Son also belongs to this supernatural realm, where both Satan and the angels-with whom Jesus relates in the wilderness-live. Usually, the communitas is intended to create new relationships among the initiands, thus cancelling all differences among them. In Mark’s narrative, however, Jesus establishes these relationships with beings belonging to a kind of mesocosmos, showing that this is Jesus’ true place, for he is not a human being like others. This is what is meant by the statement, “You are my beloved child”; which reveals Jesus’ true identity.
Jesus’ relation to the Spirit and his confrontation with Satan in this early stage of the Gospel prefigure his later confrontations with evil spirits. Mark gives his readers a key to understand the meaning of the exorcisms, which Jesus himself will explain in the controversy begun by the Pharisees who had come from Jerusalem (Mk 3:22-30). When confronting demons, Jesus acts with the power of God’s Spirit, and his exorcisms are therefore a sign of a deeper confrontation (Guijarro 1999: 125-27). As we have previously seen, the account of Jesus’ baptism and temptations may have been influenced by the accusations raised against him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul. In presenting Jesus as he does, Mark would be answering these accusations and vindicating Jesus’ honor as God’s Son, endowed with power over the spirits.
The figure of the holy man is common to many preindustrial societies. This figure has its own distinct features. in each culture, due to different social patterns; yet it is possible to identify a number of common elements that allow us to characterize this figure from a social viewpoint. Anthropologists have studied especially the figure of the shaman as the prototype of a holy man. A shaman is defined by his ability to reach and control the spiritual or divine realm in favor of the community he belongs to.
A few years ago, M. Borg suggested (43) that “;the initiation sequence in the spiritual world (baptism), followed by the temptation or testing in the desert has surprising similarities with the information we possess about charismatic figures in different cultures.”; In his corresponding footnote, Borg points out several works dealing with shamanism (53, n 17). His suggestion has been recently assumed in an explicit way by P Craffert and J. J. Pilch.
Taking into account the various ways a shaman is presented in different cultures, Craffert uses the expression “;shamanic complex”; to refer to the general typology of this social figure. According to him, this typology “;is made up of a configuration and some features (e.g., experience of altered states of consciousness) and some social functions (such as healing, mediation, prophecy, exorcism and possession of spirits) flowing from such experiences”; (324). Pilch considers of the greatest importance the fact that the shaman is able to enter into an altered state of consciousness (106).
The moment of his call and initiation is of great significance in a holy man’s life. Given the social relevance of this character, the process by which a person reaches the condition of holy man is highly ritualized and is performed by means of a status transformation ritual. Now, this status transformation ritual shows remarkable similarities with what we find at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel. Therefore, by comparing Mark l:l-15 with the holy man’s call and initiation we may throw further light upon our inquiry.
Pilch (107) identifies six distinct features in the call of a shaman: (1) contact with the spirit (through possession or adoption); (2) identification of the possessing or adopting spirit; (3) acquisition of the necessary ritual skills; (4) guidance by the spirit and a real life teacher; (5) growing acquaintance with the possessing or adopting spirit; and (6) all this within the frame of ongoing experiences of altered states of consciousness. These features appear mainly in the baptism narrative, which may be taken as the moment of Jesus’ call. The vision after his baptism and his temptation in the desert after a long period of fasting are typical forms of altered states of consciousness. This is the appropriate environment for the initiation of a holy man (Craffert: 334). Moreover, Jesus’ testing in the desert is the confirmation of his successful initiation (Pilch: 108-09).
While the voice heard after his baptism defines Jesus in kinship terms (Son), all other references describe him in political terms. Both Messiah (Mk 1:1) and Lord (Mk 1:3) are clearly political designations. We must also see as a political reference the expression “the Stronger One”; (Mk 1:7), used in Mark 3:27 to depict the situation of a ruler suffering the attack of a pretender to the throne (Oakman:114-17). The beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee also has political connotations, since his preaching refers to the coming of a “kingdom”; and should therefore be seen as political religion. As B. J. Malina has shown on several occasions, in Jesus’ world there was no independent religious system-only domestic and political religion. Jesus’ preaching clearly belongs to the latter category, for it is addressed to all Israel and announces God’s coming as a king for his people (Malina 2001: 16-24). The apparent contradiction between these two ways of understanding Jesus’ relation to God vanishes when we realize that kinship expressions were commonplace in patronage relationships. In first-century Mediterranean society, as well as in other agrarian societies, patronage relationships were the basis of those social relations taking place outside the family, that is, in the political area. In this sense, they could be used by the evangelists as an analogy, easily understandable by their addressees.
Although patron-client relationships were the basis of the patronage system, these relationships were often indirect, maintained by means of a broker. They were characterized by the exchange of favors and benefits between people belonging to different social levels. Usually the patron offered his clients material help or some other kind of benefit in return for faithfulness, information, and above all, for the public recognition of his honor. Jesus’ relationship to his disciples and to the crowd, as described in the Gospels, shares many features with this type of relationship. Jesus grants them the benefits of his teaching and healing. In return, they give him their support and faith and publicly proclaim his honor (admiration, fame). However, Jesus cannot be seen as the patron from whom these benefits come, for God was the only patron in Jewish political religion. Jesus plays the role of broker between God/patron and his people/clients (Malina 1998: 11-18). This understanding of Jesus’ relationship to God agrees with the expression declaring Jesus the Son of God, often translated as “in you I am well pleased” (Mk 1:11). The verb eudokeô used here often refers to the confidence of a patron, who grants his favor to a client or a broker (Neyrey 1998: 38). This statement about Jesus is related, therefore, to his condition as a divine intermediary, enabling him to announce and to bring about God’s patronage by his actions (Malina 1988: 9-18; Van Eyck: 201-10; Malina 2001: 31-35) (Guijarro, 2003).
