Response Paper 2

Response Paper 2

While reading Borg Chapter 2, two things really caught my interest; Borg’s analysis of the exorcism of Legion and his analysis of women in the first few chapters of Mark.

In the exorcism of Legion, I find it interesting that Jesus listens to the demons’ pleas to not send them out of the country, and instead sends them into a herd of pigs. That Jesus listens to the demons’ request is unusual for the son of God, in most exorcism stories Jesus just sends the demon out of the man, the miracle being to focus of the story. In this case however, Legion seems to be a greater focus than the man he is possessing. Legion takes up about two-thirds of the story, while the man who was possessed gets just one line, a line asking Jesus to let him go with Jesus and his disciples, which Jesus refuses. It is interesting that Jesus grants a demon its request, but not a man. And while the story gives the man a job to do, he continues afterwards preaching about what Jesus has done for him; but he doesn’t get the courtesy of having his request granted, this strikes me as being a strange balance.

The analysis the Borg goes into intrigues me, I like how he goes into an in depth description of the impurity of this scene. I think that Borg’s points on geography, possession, proximity to corpses, and animals make very good and reasonable points. However, I’m more confused on the direct relation with the name “Legion” to a Roman military unit. Although I understand that they share the same name I would have been less puzzled if Borg had gone into a more in depth description of why a Roman Legion is being used as a demon. Borg continues with a series of rhetorical questions that address my confusion. “Is this story about personal and political possession, and the exorcism of ‘Legion’ as the path of both personal and political liberation?” (47). But Borg doesn’t answer it. He also provides a rhetorical question on whether Jesus was on a whole attempting to rid the Jewish homeland of Roman forces, but he doesn’t answer it. I feel that it is unfair for the author to pose such questions to the reader, they may be intrigued by the concept but without an explanation he quickly loses their trust, if Borg can’t explain a concept it probably shouldn’t be introduced.

Finally, I was interested in Borg’s comments on women in the Bible. I find it interesting that he points out the important role of women in the Gospels, especially about Jesus being anointed for burial by a woman, and the women witness Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Borg goes on to mention that women have a role of importance in Paul’s seven genuine letters, and that women were patrons of the Jesus movement and even apostles (49). Considering we were discussing a few weeks ago that the Pope told the 80’s women’s movement that women could not be priests because Jesus didn’t choose any female apostles, I find the proof Borg provides (Junia in Romans 16:7) to be very intriguing (49).

From what I’ve read so far, Borg seems to do a very good job of explaining and analyzing the text, my biggest complaint is the rhetorical questions he used when discussing Legion instead of providing a clearer, more interesting explanation.