5 - Conclusion

Summary

It is appropriate now to summarize briefly the findings of the preceding chapters and to draw together the threads of the study as a whole. In general, it may fairly be claimed that the theme of the subordination of family and household ties for the sake of discipleship of Jesus has not been given sufficient attention in studies of Christian origins and of the gospels. The present study of the relevant sayings and stories from the Gospels of Mark and Matthew has attempted to begin to fill that gap.

Having in the Introduction surveyed evidence from the first two centuries of the Common Era which illustrates an awareness, on the part of both outsiders and insiders, of the intrafamilial tensions generated by conversion to Christ, we saw in Chapter 2 that such tensions were by no means unprecedented in both the religious traditions of Judaism and in the philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world. The Jewish sources – in particular, Philo, Josephus, and the Qumran documents – show repeatedly that allegiance to God and obedience to the will and call of God transcend allegiances of a more mundane kind, including and especially ties of natural kinship.