Gathered Around Jesus: An Alternative Spatial Practice in the Gospel of Mark

An analysis of the portrayal of space and geography in Mark’s Gospel, and the Kingdom of God as an alternative social space centred on the person of Jesus.


Modern scholars are virtually united in understanding that space encodes social practices and power relations. Those who control space exert their control by means of particular spatial practices. Models of critical spatiality, such as that of territoriality, show how social relationships are predominant in the classification, communication, and control of space. Space is seen as a relational category rather than an absolute category.

In this innovative study, Stewart addresses Mark’s editorial and/or compositional control over the geographic presentation of Jesus’s ministry. He makes the case that Mark presents the world spatially in a manner widely consistent with geographic traditions found in Greek and Roman texts. In Mark, Stewart argues, Jesus offers an alternative spatial practice, one that is centered on himself. The kingdom of God exists spatially in the area around Jesus in which the new community “gathers”.

<DIV>Eric C. Stewart is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University at South Bend. He is the co-editor of In OtherWords: Essays on Social Science Methods and the New Testament in Honor of Jerome H. Neyrey.</DIV>