"The Gospel of John, one of the most enigmatic writings of the early Christian movement, has continued to produce sophisticated scholarly analyses of its literary form, its relationship to the Jesus of history, and its fundamental theological claims. Drawing on contemporary Johannine scholarship this study explores how the gospel weaves into a dramatic narrative a process of serious reflection on a fundamental question of religious epistemology, how one can possibly come to a knowledge of a mysterious God through a special human witness"--

Over, under, and through John’s story of Jesus are unforgettable ideas and concepts, profoundly simple and simply profound, for the author’s own audience and beyond. These ideas did not originate in a vacuum. They have recurred and been repeated before and after the writing of the Fourth Gospel. For this reason we will examine the meaning of its words and themes in the context of its Jewish-Greco-Roman milieu. Much of our intertextual understanding will be derived from alleged parallels that involve comparisons of similar vocabulary and phrases, as well as parallel concepts and images from the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, and other relevant writings. Such parallels will help to determine the meaning of a word or expression, the translation of a particular language, determining any direct influences upon the Fourth Gospel, parallel traditions, or the influence of its ideas, as a creative and inspiring work of later antiquity.

This monograph on John 9 makes extensive use of premodern Christian exegesis as a resource for New Testament studies. The study reframes the existing critique of the two-level reading of John 9 as allegory in terms of premodern exegetical practices. It offers a hermeneutical critique of the two-level reading strategy as a kind of figural exegesis, rather than historical reconstruction, through an extensive comparison with Augustine's interpretation of John 9. A review of several premodern Christian readings of John 9 suggests an alternative way of understanding this account in terms of Greco-Roman rhetoric. John 9 resembles the rhetorical argumentation associated with chreia elaboration and the complete argument to display Jesus' identity as the Light of the World. This analysis illustrates the inseparability of form and content, rhetoric and theology, in the Fourth Gospel.

Young and Strickland analyze the four largest discourses of Jesus in Mark in the context of Greco-Roman rhetoric in an attempt to hear them as a first-century audience would have heard them. The authors demonstrate that, contrary to what some historical critics have suggested, first-century audiences of Mark would have found the discourses of Jesus unified, well-integrated, and persuasive. They also show how these speeches of the Markan Jesus contribute to Mark‘s overall narrative accomplishments.

The book examines six long narratives of the Fourth Gospel, arguing that they are best understood as 'symbolic narrative'. They display a unique cohesion of symbol and narrative: the narrative unfolds the symbol and the symbol draws out the narrative. This process occurs as the character struggles to understand the symbolic meaning. The structure develops in five Stages: the establishing of a 'sign', image or feast (Stage 1); misunderstood in materialistic terms (Stage 2); the struggle to understand the symbolic meaning (Stage 3); the acceptance or rejection of that meaning (Stage 4); a confession of faith or statement of rejection (Stage 5). The symbolic narratives reveal how material reality becomes symbolic of the divine. Just as the flesh of Jesus is the symbol of divine glory, so material reality now has the potential for symbolizing God. Flesh has no independent existence; its value lies in its symbolic role. This parallels the cohesion between form and meaning. Just as the flesh is given value in symbolizing the divine, so narrative form is of value in disclosing theological meaning. The implied reader is drawn into the drama of the symbolic narratives to make the authentic response of faith.

Essential classroom resource for New Testament courses In this book, a group of international scholars go in detail to explain how the author of the Gospel of John uses a variety of narrative strategies to best tell his story. More than a commentary, this book offers a glimpse at the way an ancient author created and used narrative features such as genre, character, style, persuasion, and even time and space to shape a dramatic story of the life of Jesus. Features: An introduction to the Fourth Gospel through its narrative features and dynamics Fifteen features of story design that comprise the Gospel of John Short, targeted essays about how John works that can be used as starting points for the study of other Gospels/texts

This innovative study attempts a comprehensive reading of the Fourth Gospel so as to make sense of its theology, anthropology and history. The most valuable insights of structuralism and reader-response criticism have been taken up, without ignoring what those methods ignore, namely, questions intrinsically related to the Fourth Gospel itself. Moreover, a just appreciation of the text requires the reader to recognize that particular historical situations affect the nature of any narrative.

Friendship and other intimate (but not always amicable) relationships have received some attention in the greater field of research on early Judaism and Christianity, though not as much as deserved. This volume celebrates and builds upon the life-long work of Adele Reinhartz, covering the various permutations of relationships that can be found in the Gospel of John, the wider corpus of early Jewish and Christian literature, and cinematic re-imaginings thereof. While the issue of whether one can 'befriend' the Fourth Gospel in light of the book's legacy of antisemitism is central to many of the essays in this volume, others address other more or less likely friendships: Pilate, Paul, Lazarus, Judas, or Mary Magdalene. Likewise, the bonds between ancient texts and contemporary retellings of their stories feature prominently, with contributors asking what kinds of relationships filmmakers encourage their audiences to have with their subjects. This volume explores some of the rich variety of relationships in the ancient world, and unpacks the intricate and dynamic processes and interactions by which human relationships and societies are generated, maintained, and dissolved.

The essays in the present volume celebrate the work of Margaret M. Mitchell (University of Chicago) by engaging, extending, and challenging her ground-breaking research in three areas: (1) the letters of Paul the Apostle, both authentic and pseudepigraphic; (2) the emergence and rapid development of early Christian literary culture over the first few centuries of the cult’s existence; and (3) Late Antique interpretive practices and perspectives, particularly among patristic readers of the scriptures.

Why do the New Testament gospels depict a Jesus who asks questions almost as often as he gives answers? In The Questions of Jesus in John Douglas Estes crafts a highly interdisciplinary theory of question-asking based on insights from ancient rhetoric and modern erotetics (the study of interrogatives) in order to investigate the logical and rhetorical purposes of Jesus' questions in the Gospel of John. While scholarly discussion about Jesus cares more for what he says, and not what he asks, Estes argues a better understanding of the rhetorical and dialectical roles of questions in ancient narratives sheds a more accurate light on both John’s narrative art and Jesus' message in the Fourth Gospel.