Breaking the Ethnic Barrier in Mark 7:24-30: Implication for the Ghanaian Context
Alice Matilda Nsiah 
Issue: Vol.2 No.10 October 2021 Article 4 pp. 159-169
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20212104 | Published online 29th October, 2021.
© 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The study aims at interpreting Mark 7:24-30 to establish whether Jesus was initially reluctant in helping a needy woman because she was non-Jewish, or the author was establishing the gradual breaking of ethnic and all other barriers to redefine the scope of Jesus’ ministry. The study uses African Biblical Hermeneutic theory of Gerald West that allows a dialogue between the text and the African context. It argues that the text may be interpreted as a covenant renewal discourse aimed at including Gentiles into the covenant family. The study concludes that unproductive ethnic and religious barriers may be broken for the common good of God’s family. It recommends the importance of mutual respect in dialogue in the face of diversities of opinions and perspectives.
Keywords: Ethnicity, Barriers, Covenant, Discourse.
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Alice Matilda Nsiah (Rev. Sr. Dr.) is a senior lecturer at the Department of Religion and Human Values, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. Her research is centered on some controversial biblical passages on women in the New Testament. She reads these passages as covenant discourses, focusing more on some of the innovations that Jesus added to the life of women in the gospels. She enjoys reading biblical text with Ricoeurian theories, sometimes combining this with some African hermeneutic theories.
Nsiah, A.M. “Breaking the Ethnic Barrier in Mark 7:24-30: Implication for the Ghanaian Context,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 2, no.10 (2021): 159-169. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20212104
© 2021 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
