Douglas Ellory Pett

Lutterworth Press, 2015, £19.00 Pb 194pp, ISBN 9780718893873
Reviewed by Russ Parker, Acorn Healing Trust

This is essentially a work of scholarship focusing on a Form Critical approach to the New Testament. At its heart lies the conviction that the original and authentic Gospel message is to be found in the Gospel of Mark and a 'sayings' document known as Q which Matthew and Luke adapted.

Pett believes that the healing stories in Mark have been changed by Matthew and Luke and as such are of an inferior quality as they represent the convictions of the developing church. It is for this reason amongst others that he maintains that it is a fallacy to believe that healing was a central part of Jesus' and the church's mission. Pett points out that Mark, unlike Matthew and Luke, does not include healing as part of the Apostolic mission, only preaching and the casting out of demons.

In this he is correct. However, to dismiss the other Synoptic writers as inferior is to pay scant attention to their alternative sources whilst failing to appreciate that Mark undoubtedly adapted his own source material. The welcome challenge of this book is to re-examine our assumptions about the nature and practice of Christian healing. It is not so much a separate category to the proclaiming of the good news of God's saving grace as an integral element of it through which we extend our care to and for the whole person.