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Main Article Content
A reading of the leper’s healing in Matthew 8:1–4 through ethnomedical anthropology
Fednand M. M’bwangi
Abstract
Scholars offer several options for Matthew’s value of the leper’s story in his narrative that
range from revealing Jesus’ attributes of compassion and sympathy, manifesting God’s
empire, to portraying Jesus’ function as a temple. Although these suggestions aptly portray
Matthew’s rhetorical use of the leper’s healing in his narrative to address societal concerns of
his time, for lack of referring to the social setting of the narrative, they do not capture the
holistic healthcare system embodied by Jesus in Matthew’s narrative that portrays Jesus as a
superior healer to the rest of the other healers in the Roman Empire. The findings of the
research for this article establish the argument that employing ethnomedical anthropology as
a lens to read the leper’s healing narrative in Matthew 8:1–4 in the context of Matthew’s social
setting reveals Matthew’s ideology for a transcendent and immanent Christology. The aim of
the article is to demonstrate the effectiveness of medical anthropological theory in explaining
the dynamics of health and healing reflected in biblical texts.
Contributions: This article contributes to the interdisciplinary approach to the study of
religion by employing a ethnomedical anthropological perspective to read the leper’s healing
in Matthew 8.1–4 in reference to the first century CE health systems in the Roman Empire. This
approach procured that Matthew’s immanent and transcendent perspectives of Christology is
crucial in demonstrating the text’s function in constructing and sustaining the identity of
Matthew’s community in antiquity
