Reformed Theological College, Melbourne, Australian College of Theology
The Shame of the Son of Man in Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26
Studies of honour and shame have made a significant contribution to NT study during the latter part of the twentieth century. Recent decades have seen a renewed interest in this topic. These studies have challenged the assumption that shame in biblical settings is primarily a psychological phenomenon and asserted that it is a “social fact.” As a result, honour-shame discourse in the Gospels have often been viewed through the lens of social psychology and cultural anthropology. Nevertheless, discussion of this topic has overlooked the saying of Jesus in Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26 that “whoever is ashamed of me and of my words … of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes.” It is easy to understand how people would have been ashamed of Jesus in his first century context. What is harder to explain is the shame of the Son of Man in an eschatological context. In this paper I will examine these texts and place them in their Synoptic context, before considering the language of shame (especially divine shame) in the Greco-Roman world as well as the language of shame in the Hebrew Bible. In the light of this research I will suggest that psychological and anthropological perspectives on shame need to be supplemented with a theological understanding of shame in the NT in order to gain a better understanding of the significance of these texts and how they help us to follow the dynamics of honour-shame discourse in the NT. In particular, the paper will consider whether NT theology allows for a category of shame which might be called “divine shame.”