Beyond Spiritual Blindness: Agency, Honour, and Discipleship in Mark’s Bartimaeus Pericope (Mark 10:46–52)

Abstract This article offers an integrated reading of Mark 10:46–52, foregrounding Bartimaeus as an honour-aware, disabled figure who exercises significant narrative agency. Combining close analysis of the Greek text, first-century Judaean social dynamics, and Disability Studies critique, it proposes four operational criteria for agency: dialogic symmetry, public resistance, a self-directed post-cure trajectory, and narrative echo with the disciple group. Measured against a Markan control set of healing narratives, Bartimaeus meets all four criteria. Mark’s dense scene construction—featuring a defiant messianic cry, the dramatic casting off of his cloak (ἀποβαλών), and his choice to follow Jesus ‘on the way’ (ἠκολούθει)—positions him as a model disciple in contrast to the Twelve. This reading challenges ableist interpretations that metaphorize blindness, reframing Markan discipleship around the inclusion of disabled agency and modelling a co-operative grace that listens rather than silences.