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Jesus Christ & the Demoniacs

The neurodissent podcast‘s second episode (season 1) is now online! In this episode, we explore healing stories about Jesus Christ told in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark, we find stories of Jesus Christ exorcising demons. Using modern medical or psychiatric knowledge, listeners may recognize these afflictions as diagnoses like epilepsy and posttraumatic stress disorder. In this episode, Molly and I unpack Jesus Christ’s exorcisms. We consider whether Hippocrates (or the author of On the Sacred Disease, as we discussed in episode 1) would have thought Jesus was a quack. We also explore how some contemporary Christian theologians see Jesus’ healings: as examples of healing through empowerment and the building of a loving community. We hope you’ll listen!

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I use open access sources in my scholarship, so that listeners and readers can engage with the texts I use. The sources referred to in this episode are listed below.

References for Season 1, Episode 2: “Jesus Christ & the Demoniacs“

  1. Campbell, Justin. 2014. Jesus in the Shadows: Healing the Gerasene Demoniac in Mark’s Gospel, an Existential Christology. Obsculta. 
  2. Dube, Zoradzai. 2018. Reception of Jesus as healer in Mark’s community. HTS Theological Studies.  
  3. Flannery, Frances. 2017. Talitha Qum! An Exploration of the Image of Jesus as Healer-Physician Savior in the Synoptic Gospels in Relation to the Asclepius Cult, In Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean. McGill University Library. 
  4. Foucault, Michel. 1965. Madness & Civilization: A History Of Insanity In The Age Of Reason. Random House. 
  5. Horsley, Richard A. 2010. Oral and Written Aspects of the Emergence of the Gospel of Mark as Scripture. Oral Tradition. 
  6. Licona, Michael R. Are the Gospels “Historically Reliable”? A Focused Comparison of Suetonius’s Life of Augustus and the Gospel of Mark. Religions.
  7. Manus, Chris. 2020. Greco-Roman healing tradition of Asclepius vis-a-vis Jesus as the Messianic Healer in the Gospels tradition: Implications for healing ministrations in contemporary African churches. In Healer: Reception of Jesus as healer during Early Christianity and Today. AOSIS.
  8. New American Standard Bible. 2020. Mark 3: 13-30. 
  9. New American Standard Bible. 2020. Mark 5: 1-20.
  10. New American Standard Bible. 2020. Mark 9: 14-29.
  11. van Aarde, Andries G. 2019. Christus medicus – Christus patiens: Healing as exorcism in context. HTS Theological Studies. 
  12. Weissenreider, Annette. 2016. “It Proceeded from the Entrance of a Demon into the Man”: Epileptic Seizures in Ancient Medical Texts and the New Testament. Embodiment in Evolution and Culture. Mohr Siebeck.

Other credits

Music: “Grit” by Shaolin Dub, licensed use

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