[decimon]

Subtle yet clear ping.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Ok, I read that twice.

I am still not sure what the dude is talking about.

[count-your-change]

“When the story of Jesus known as The Gospel of Mark began to circulate as a written text in the ancient Mediterranean cities, it became engaged in a form of negotiation with the Roman imperial culture. A newly published dissertation from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) shows, however, that a European colonial heritage probably has caused biblical scholars to neglect the earliest Gospel's primary act of negotiation with its imperial context.”

Pseudo intellectual swill. No doubt this dissertation had to be rewritten until it made absolutely no sense to anyone. At that point it's ready to be defended.

[pierrem15]

The relationship between the Gospel of Mark and the Roman Empire, Hans Leander argues, has primarily been understood from the modern separation between religion and politics. But the dissertation criticizes such an understanding.

"Such a separation was alien to the first recipients of the Gospel of Mark. There was no secular political sphere that was separate from religion. We must think beyond this modern separation if we are to understand the significance of Mark for its first audience", says Hans Leander.

Mark, 12:17--

And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

Kind of hard to square that circle.