Continuation 4: 4. The resolution of the moral conflict: Jesus

removes these doubts, he is allowed to heal, and he grants the sick person forgiveness of sins.

5. The resolution of the inner conflict: The sick person is now freed from the stigma that he himself is to blame for his illness, but he is not yet healed.

Is the forgiveness of sins only a pious saying after all? The scribes, 2:6-7, and Jesus himself, 2:8-9, feel this way, therefore he affirms his will to heal.

Continuation 3: In addition to the external level (the sick person and Jesus)

and the inner level (faith of the sick person and Jesus’ will to heal) there is now a third level, the moral one.

Here the question is asked: Is it allowed to heal, is Jesus allowed to intervene in the divine order? Does Jesus not criticize the divine creation as unfinished?

Doesn’t Jesus criticize God as a bungling creator, who left a half-finished creation to man, so that man could complete it?

Continuation 2: 3. The Moral Conflict: In 2:1-12, the most detailed

healing story in Mark, the reader expects a quick healing after the sick man’s helpers went to so much trouble to bring him to Jesus.

But Jesus makes the reader squirm. Like in a beautiful romance novel, where the lovers are in each other’s arms only after many obstacles and misunderstandings, Mark builds delays into the plot to increase the tension.