Abstract
Abstract Eugene Vodolazkin’s Laurus employs literary ‘distortion’ to capture and convey the eschatological paradoxes of the Fourth Gospel. Having outlined the complexity and contradictions of the Johannine eschatological vision, this article describes how Laurus meets the challenge presented by this vision. Rather than seeking to resolve the tension between vertical and horizontal eschatological dimensions, Vodolazkin reshapes time itself to accommodate both realised and future-oriented eschatologies. This remythologising of time is a distortion that brings the reader closer to the rich imaginative depths of Scripture: a powerful form of resistance to limited, inflexible accounts of the ‘real’.
Highlights
In the Fourth Gospel, expectations of the imminent apocalypse, and anticipation of a final resurrection, exist alongside assertions of eschatological transformation enacted in the present
Part of what Laurus provides is a warning against exclusivism
Bultmann’s project of demythologising was an important contribution to the study of scriptural eschatology as it challenged the dominant narrative by helping to puncture the tyrannical optimism of progressivist eschatologies
Summary
In the Fourth Gospel, expectations of the imminent apocalypse, and anticipation of a final resurrection, exist alongside assertions of eschatological transformation enacted in the present. Belief in the imminence of the last days, and intimations of a fully realised eschatology results in an overall picture defined by ambiguity and tension This enduring uncertainty is reflected in the scholarly debates regarding this topic, and the diversity of interpretations it has generated.[10] How, and when, the Christian promise would be fulfilled is a conundrum ‘still to be wrestled with’.11. Sanders has suggested we are deliberately exposed to two different ‘senses’ of the Kingdom, one relating to ‘redemptive sovereignty’ in the present, and one to the ‘final vindication’ of Divine rule in the future.[17] Explanations like this highlight the inescapable tension built into Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom, and the perceived need to find some means of resolving them These inherent dualities are pronounced in the Gospel of John, where realised and futuristic eschatologies are repeatedly juxtaposed. The equivocacy identifiable in the Synoptic Gospels is accepted and foregrounded, and we are left with a text in which ‘eschatology is subsumed under Christology’.23 The advent of the Incarnate Logos is framed by John as a demand for the radical redefinition of preconceived temporal horizons
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