Ben C Smith

It can. But it does not say much. It only says that Jesus had a home in Capernaum. That home may have been an owned house, or it may have been rented, or it may have belonged to someone else (like Peter) who offered him space. I am not committed to any one of these options, simply because we are not explicitly told.

Ben.

spin

And that's a grave flaw in your approach to the narrative. You need to mystify the text for some reason. When someone states something in a narrative, you usually take it at its simplest, until forced to see that that meaning is not appropriate. That's how meaning works when dealing with multiple possibilities of significance. You start with the most obvious and go on to others when you have to. Nothing in Mark suggests any of your alternatives, which suggests the simplest is correct.


spin

Ben C Smith

Were it not that the very first house Jesus enters in Capernaum is that of Peter, I would not even be thinking in terms of some other house. It is not mystifying the narrative to see a possible connection between the oikos of Peter and the oikos into which Jesus pops every so often. Again, I am not committed to that option. But to limit the phrase at home down so far that it cannot refer to a house in which I live, but do not own, is just too much.

Ben.

spin

Umm, you seem to be struggling with this no-boner. We use "home" when dealing with the house of a specific person. The same significance is found in the idiomatic usages around oikos, such as eis oikon. You are usually not at home in someone else's house, unless some explanation places you as living there. It doesn't matter how many times you throw the word oikos around by itself, it doesn't invoke the notion of home unless it fits the idiomatic usages. Notice the way that Matt moves Jesus from Nazara to Capernaum. The writer felt it necessary to show that move in his narrative, so that Jesus didn't just pop up at home in Capernaum. One would expect it in Mark if Jesus moved to Capernaum, rather than his just being at home there.


spin

Amaleq13

Did you make that straw man all by yourself?

Amaleq13

Gotcha.

Thank you for both understanding my point and providing a substantive response.

That would appear to correspond with Mk 3:31-35.

Ben C Smith

Since it hardly matters to me for the sake of this debate whether Jesus was at home in his own shack in Capernaum or at home playing PS2 games on the living room floor with Peter while his mother-in-law served chips and dip, I will let this go. It is enough that Jesus has a home (of some kind) in Capernaum, as I readily agree.

Ben.

ynquirer

No, I didn't.

ynquirer

The simplest? The simplest smoothly explains everything in the narrative. However, your interpretation does not explain why the writer does not say that Jesus was at home the first time he mentions Capernaum, provided that this town is supposed to be his hometown from the beginning.

Ben C Smith

I am not certain what you are saying corresponds to what. Do you see Mark 3.31-35 as saying that the family lived in the same town as Jesus was living?

Ben.