The Healing of Simon’s Mother-in-Law in Mark 1:29–31: An Ideological-Critical Reading in the Light of the Role of the Understanding of Sickness in Its Cure

Abstract:The healing of Simon‘s mother-in-law in Mark’s Gospel, while presenting us with the shortest of the miracle stories in the Gospels, contains all the necessary elements of its Gattung. For the critical 21st-century reader, given today’s medical understanding of the nature of the "sickness" in question—fever—as well as the issues of the healing process, the text may leave much to be desired. Through the prism of ideological criticism the text is re-read, and by means of a literature review a close look at Mark’s theology and its inherent Christology is undertaken. From the backdrop of the understanding of sickness in the first-century Greco-Roman world and the understanding of the Jesus event, the article argues that the age-old maxim lex credendi, lex vivendi is at work. The understanding held about a particular medical situation affects the way it is attended to. Arguing that such a thought pattern evidenced in African-Nigerian settings presents difficulties both to mature faith and the treatment of sicknesses, this article criticises the insistent holding onto this ancient worldview. It urges the taking of the steps to accessing the possibilities of medicine today.