Discipleship and Family Ties in Mark and Matthew

During the first two centuries CE there was a common awareness that familial tensions were generated by conversion to the Christian faith. Yet studies of Christian origins have so far paid comparatively little attention to the impact of the Christian movement upon attitudes to family ties and natural kinship. Dr Barton aims to remedy this deficiency by means of a detailed study of the relevant passages in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, where the sections relating to family concerns are studied from four different angles: form-critical, redaction-critical, literary-critical and sociological. Each has something to contribute, and all are integrated to present a coherent total picture. By way of background to these major chapters, the author examines the religious traditions of Judaism and the philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world, and shows that the tensions apparent within the Christian movement were by no means unique. In all three areas of thought and religious practice there is found the conviction that familial duty may be transcended by some higher philosophical or religious obligation. Dr Barton argues that Mark and Matthew saw the Jesus movement as offering a transcendent allegiance, which relativized family ties and created the possibility of a new personal identity, based on association with Jesus himself and his community of disciples.