Exploring the Sense-scape of the Gospel of Mark

Abstract

This article attempts to address a certain lack of interest in the senses in New Testament studies by conducting a sensory survey of the Gospel of Mark. Informed by cross-cultural anthropology of the senses, the Gospel of Mark is revealed as an audio-centric text in which hearing is the pre-eminent sense and deafness the gravest sensory impairment. Mark’s ambivalence surrounding the faculty of sight is viewed as a resistance to the pre-eminence of the visual within imperial propaganda.