Jesus, Healer of the Canaanite Woman's Daughter in Matthew's Gospel: A Social-Scientific Inquiry

Abstract

This study assesses the historicity of the healing story of the Canaanite woman's daughter in the Gospel of Matthew (15:21-28) primarily by means of a cross-cultural anthropological analysis. It is the second part of a larger study, the first being the healing account of the hemorrhaging woman (9:20-22). A social-scientific inquiry demonstrates that the account is possibly rooted in the activity of Jesus. Matthew's redaction of Mark does not take us farther away from the historical Jesus; quite the contrary, it underscores characteristics of Jesus' ministry even while it features theological concerns of the Sitz im Leben of the later Christian community.