One Thing I Know: How the Blind Man of John 9 Leads an Audience toward Belief by Britt Leslie

Abstract

This book is the reformatted version of the author’s dissertation (PhD, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago), written under the direction of Prof. David Rhoads. Dr Britt currently serves as Adjunct Professor at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, and as Adjunct Professor at South University’s online Doctor of Ministry Program. The book consists of an “Introduction” to the study, its “Conclusions” from the viewpoint of the original text’s likely “performance,” and four methodological chapters, each of which explores the story of Jesus’s healing of the man born blind (John 9) from distinct, but interrelated perspectives: linguistic patterns (2), narrative structure (3), social-science criticism (4), and the text’s ironic, occasionally humorous implications (5). These narrative strategies are shown to have a clearly defined rhetorical purpose—one that coincides with the larger aim of the Gospel of John, as stated in 20:31: “So that you may trust that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through trusting you may have life in his name.”