ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a conclusion to this study, its implications in the postcolonial context of India, the limitations of the findings and some suggestions for further research in this line. The result of this study can be summarized in the following way along with some major hermeneutical issues emerging from the deliberations of this thesis. This thesis has considered the Gospel of Mark afresh from a postcolonial perspective. The contributions of past interpreters have been reviewed, focusing on three main areas, namely Markan interpreters, Indian hermeneuts and postcolonial readers of the text. In the light of the contributions of the past interpreters of Mark from various angles of their interpretation, this study has focused more attention on a postcolonial viewpoint. The introduction of the study raised five major questions concerning the identity of the subalterns in Mark, the nature of Roman oppression in Galilee, the Markan milieu, postcolonial dimensions of the text and a possible hermeneutical paradigm for India
Part I, Hermeneutics: General Methodological Considerations paved the way for a creative discussion on Mark and its hermeneuts in the rest of the study. Further, this section dealt with the issue of the spread of Christianity and missionary attempts at biblical interpretation. This part of the study clearly showed that they did not take the issues related to the sociopolitical and religiocultural life of the natives into account when interpreting the Bible. However, there were native voices which stood for indigenization and local systems of religious order. In the postcolonial period, there are heremeneuts with a nationalistic thrust, sociopolitical concerns and contextual interpretations. The past interpreters of Mark can be divided into three categories: historical-critical, contextual interpreters and postcolonial readers. This section defined postcolonialism
and its impact in the biblical field, presenting the major arguments from this point of view. It is argued that colonialism influenced the culture, religion, education and politics of the natives. A study of the major contextual hermeneutics – liberation, feminist, postcolonial feminist and subaltern – proved that they have used many insights from the postcolonial situation, but have often neglected the presence of the empire in the text as well as the context. This part has attempted to show that a postcolonial reading could accommodate voices and insights emerging out of any contextual and the reading strategies of the marginalized of the Bible.
