A Markan "Context" Kingdom? Examining Biblical and Social Models in Spatial Interpretation

This article argues for the Kingdom of God as a central spatial concept to Mark's Gospel, but one that ought to be understood “without context.” For this, Bruno Latour's critique of “context” and “the social” is employed in order to challenge the usefulness of both biblical models of space and social scientific models for interpretation, and to investigate what is new in the Kingdom's construction as a space. The article engages with Esler and Horrell's 2000 debate in JSNT over social scientific methodologies, with the ultimate goal of moving from an understanding of what is social about the Kingdom as explanans—an explaining element—to explanandum—what needs to be explained.