Peter Bolt explores the impact of Mark's Gospel on its early readers in the first-century Graeco-Roman world. He focuses upon the thirteen characters in Mark who come to Jesus for healing and, using analytical tools of narrative and reader-response criticism, explores their crucial role in the communication of the Gospel.

Peter Bolt explores the impact of Mark's Gospel on early readers in the first-century Graeco-Roman world. Focusing upon the thirteen characters in Mark who come to Jesus for healing or exorcism, Bolt analyzes their crucial role in the communication of the Gospel. Enlisting a variety of ancient literary and non-literary sources, this book recreates the first-century world of illness, magic and Roman imperialism. This new approach to Mark combines reader-response criticism with social history.