Appearances Of Jesus Research Articles

“No Longer in the World” (John 17:11): The Transformation of the Tragic in the Fourth Gospel

Ancient gospels, canonical and noncanonical, present the resurrection of Jesus with varying degrees of thoroughness and detail. While the Gospel of Peter vividly describes the actual moment that Jesus rises (9.34–10.45), the Gospel of Mark excludes even a postresurrection appearance of Jesus—ifthe common opinion is correct that Mark ends at 16:8. Luke, by contrast, so fully documents Jesus' postresurrection activity that the events extend into the book of Acts. The Gospel of John distinguishes itself from the others as well, not only by uniquely depicting Jesus' postresurrection appearances, but also by portraying Jesus as the resurrected one prior to the crucifixion. Even before he meets Pilate, Jesus proclaims, “I have overcome the world” (16:33). And even before he ascends the cross, Jesus has ascended to the Father and announces, “I am no longer in the world” (17:11). This feature ofthe Fourth Gospel has received various historical, literary, and theological interpretations. The following paper will offer a literary interpretation based ona comparison of the Gospel of John with Greek tragedy. The argument will proceed in two phases, first demonstrating basic connections with the tragic evidence,and then exploring how the Fourth Gospel twists tragic techniques to its own purposes.

« Untersuchungen im Zusammenhang mit der sogennanten Epistula Lentuli »

Dating at the very ealiest from the XIVth century, the Epistle of Lentulus, offered here in a German translation, is an apocryphal work refering to the physical appearance of Jesus, presented as a very handsome man; but it also deals with the psychological portrait of Jesus.It raises, however, a theological question: does this beauty pertain to the Suffering Servant referred to by Isaiah? An inquiry into patristic literature shows the implications of both of the contradictory positions about Christ's beauty and ugliness. Both views are part of a soteriological perspective. The ugly Christ bears the sin of men; Christ in majesty sits at the divine tribunal. This image transmitted by the Epistle of Lentulus corresponds to homilies and pious works of the time when it started to be transmitted.

The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of the Gospel of John

The Women in Life of Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of Gospel of John, by Adeline Fehribach. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998. Pp. viii + 22. $19.95. Adeline Fehribach identifies her study of women characters in Gospel of John as a feminist analysis. Part of her agenda is to explain combination of attention to strong, vivid women characters and presence of traces of patriarchal understandings of gender that have been observed by feminist readers. Her method combines literary and historical reading with a reader-response approach. Using text in its current state (that is, including John 21 but not 7:53-8:11), she attempts to construct responses of a first-century reader. To do this, she selects an extratextual repertoire for ancient readers, consisting of 1) commonly known historical facts and figures; 2) classical and canonical literature; 3) literary conventions such as stock characters, scenes, topoi, etc.; 4) social norms and structures (p. 16). She also delineates an array of resources for disclosing reader's horizon of expectation for female characters: 1) Hebrew Bible; 2) Hellenistic Jewish writings; 3) popular Greco-Roman literature: 4) of `honor and shame' as used by cultural anthropologists for study of gender relations in Mediterranean area; 5) history of women in GrecoRoman world (p. 9). In Fehribach's reading, analogy put into mouth of John baptizer in 3:29 is used to organize and interpret all presentations of women. Beginning from appearance of Jesus' at wedding at Cana (2:1-12), Fehribach argues that when Jesus responds to her with words my is not yet come (2:4), (ancient) reader is led to interpret coming hour as that of Jesus' own wedding. Jesus would then be seen (again, by ancient reader) as refusing to take limelight away from bridegroom. His mother, cast in role of a mother of an important man (cf. Sarah in Gen 21:9-21 and Rebecca in Gen 27:1-46), urges him to increase his own honor at bridegroom's expense. The reader is then left to expect that high point of narrative will be wedding of messianic bridegroom, through which familia dei will be reproduced and children of God begotten (1:14). John 4:1-42 (the Samaritan woman at well) and 11:1-12:8 (Martha, Mary, and Lazarus) are, like 2:1-12, read largely through type from Hebrew Bible and the honor and shame concept derived from cultural anthropology. The scene that initiates betrothals through a meeting at a well locates Samaritan woman as a metaphorical bride, a representative of Samaritan people, divorced from supposed five male gods of Samaria and reunited with her true bridegroom through whom many children (the converted Samaritans) are produced. Mary is seen as fictive bride of Messiah on behalf of Jewish people, while Martha and Lazarus become his in-laws. The portrayal of Jesus' death is read as an example of dying king typescene; of Jesus is thus passed on to his heir, as first Darius and then Alexander pass on their female dependents. At cross and tomb, Mary Magdalen appears climactically as bride representing entire community. Fehribach reads death of Jesus as consummation and conception. The appearance to Mary (John 20:14-18) is juxtaposed with recognition scenes in Greek romances Chaereas and Callirhoe and An Ephesian Tale, in which lover believed dead is fortuitously discovered to be in fact alive. …

The religion of Jesus the Jew

This book completes a trilogy which started in 1973 with Jesus the Jew and continued ten years later with the appearance of Jesus and the World of Judaism, by a leading Jewish expert on the history and literature of Jesus' time whose name is especially associated with work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Like its predecessors, it is one man's reading of the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. It does not offer a survey of scholarly views or a discussion of competing theories but focusses on the New Testament material and what can be understood from it. It is primarily addressed to readers whose expertise lies outside the Bible, the New Testament and theology, namely those interested in ancient religions, history and culture, and especially in Judaism, though of course biblical scholars and theologians will find much that is fascinating in it. Christians ignorant or unconcerned about the historical reality behind their faith may, however, find many of its pages, and above all the final chapter, disturbing. For Professor Vermes argues that Jesus, enthusiastic herald of the imminent Kingdom of God, could not have entertained the idea of founding and setting into motion an organized society intended to endure for. ages to come. He died in despair, with his heart broken, for having done the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. The genuine message of Jesus confronts Christianity with its greatest challenge and at the same time constitutes a powerful appeal to those outside the fold of organized religion. Geza Vermes is a Fellow of the British Acad6my and Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies in the University of Oxford.

Die opstanding van Jesus: God se nadergekome en steeds naderkomende protes en liefde

The resurrection of Jesus: The ever nearer coming God in protest and love The resurrection of Jesus poses the challenge to be understood from an historical as well as a systematictheological perspective. The one without the other give rise to very different and problematic shortcomings. Exploring this double-sided approach, the resurrection narratives - focussing firstly on the empty tomb - are related to the historic-archaeological possibility of a secondary burial of the body of Jesus by some of his disciples without the knowledge of the other. However, the appearances of Jesus are subsequently understood as God’s startling loving turn to history which, due to the very problematic interpretative nature of these appearances, have the character of invitation and not of proof. The appearances are understood from a systematic- theological line of interpretation, called ‘the ever nearer coming God in protest and love’.

John and the Synoptics: the Empty Tomb Stories

Fifteen years ago, at the meeting in Gwatt, Switzerland (1967), when I read my first paper before the Society, I gave it the title: ‘Les femmes au tombeau. Etude de la rédaction matthéenne’. It was a redactional study of Mt. 28. 1–10, with a special concentration on the verses 9–10, the appearance of Jesus to the women, and its parallel in Jn. 20. 17. My paper today could be entitled: Fifteen years later. Many things have changed in the course of these years. An important exegetical contribution has been devoted to the empty tomb stories in the gospels and, more significantly, the scholarly discussion on ‘John and the Synoptics’ has been brought to the foreground. To mention only the Journal of our Society: July 1980, ‘John and the Synoptics: Some Dimensions of the Problem’, by D. M. Smith; April 1981, ‘John and the Synoptic Gospels: A Test Case’, by B. Lindars.

Women and the Eucharistic Presidency

There has been much discussion recently about the ordination of women to the priesthood of the Catholic Church. Most writers on this subject agree that there are no theological reasons why women may not be admitted to the priesthood, and so the debate is conducted between prejudice on one side and sentimentality on the other. I do not see how it can be denied that there are many pastoral ministries, including preaching and counselling, where the effectiveness of women ministers would be very great; nevertheless, I believe that there are important theological considerations which tell against the ordination of women to one of the central ministries in the Church, the celebra-of the eucharist.This has nothing to do with the intentions of Jesus: the fact that he included no women among the Twelve is fundamentally irrelevant to the question of whether women today should be admitted to the priesthood, and not because of changed social conditions (that argument is merely one version of the fallacy that man has ‘come of age’ in the twentieth century), but rather because of our changed understanding of how, the Church stands in relation to Jesus as her founder. Even if Jesus did intend to found a Church, we have no warrant to suppose that he drew up detailed blueprints for its structures: and as it appears much more probable that he had no such intention, but exercised a ministry wholly within the parameters of contemporary Judaism, the question of what he would have thought of women priests becomes purely speculative. Further, it is in any case clear that the relation of the threefold ministry as it developed in the second century to the ministry of the Twelve is extremely distant; since the Twelve could not be replaced in their most important function, that of eye witnesses of the ministry and the resurrection appearances of Jesus (cf Acts 1 :2 If), the sense in which bishops or popes may be said to be their successors according to a pipeline model of apostolic succession is far from obvious.

St. Mark 16.1–8

The first question that must be considered is the historical one: Was the tomb empty? In a very useful chapter entitled ‘History and Criticism’ Professor A. M. Ramsey discusses ‘some of the types of conclusion reached by those who have applied the methods of critical science to the narratives of the Resurrection’. He mentions first the subjective-vision theory, according to which ‘the appearances of Jesus recorded in the Gospels were simply visions generated by the imaginations of the disciples out of an intense state of emotion or expectancy’. Some who have held this view have combined with it a belief in the survival of Jesus' soul. As Professor Ramsey points out, there are obvious difficulties in the way of accepting this theory—particularly the fact that the disciples' slowness to believe is a marked feature of the narratives. He then mentions the ‘telegram from heaven’ or what we might call the objective-vision theory (Theodor Keim, B. H. Streeter), according to which ‘the residuum of fact behind the narratives consists not in visions generated by the disciples but in visions imparted by God Himself, so as to assure the disciples that Jesus was alive…’

The Appearance of Jesus to St. James

The Appearance of Jesus to St. James

The Resurrection Appearances of Jesus

The Resurrection Appearances of Jesus