Gospel Narratives Research Articles

From the Editor: Studying Religion in a Rapidly Changing World

From the Editor: Studying Religion in a Rapidly Changing World

Teaching about Catholic–Jewish relationships: interpreting Jewish hostility to Jesus in the gospels

A recent article in this journal, Teaching about Catholic–Jewish relations: some guidelines to assist the work of teachers in Catholic schools, by Clare Jardine (Volume 7, no 1, 46–60), includes a page on ‘A new approach to New Testament studies’. There the author points out that ‘The situations described in the Gospels as happening during Jesus’ lifetime often reflect a later situation … growing hostilities between the Jewish community and the emerging Church’ (54). This is entirely in line with the teaching of Vatican II in Nostra Aetate (the declaration on the relationship of the Church with non-Christian religions, passed by the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Originally formed as a document on the relationship of the Church to Judaism, it was later expanded to include other major religions. It transformed the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to other religions, expressing a completely new attitude of welcome and fraternity. The full text is available online, s.v. Nostra Aetate) and particularly with the 2001 study of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. There is room for further investigation, firstly on the extent and nature of the Jewish opposition to Jesus during his lifetime, and secondly on the growth and nature of the hostility between the Jewish community and the emerging Church. This hostility is evident in frequent little touches and interpretations in the course of the Gospel narratives, such as interpretations which spring from the evangelist's own reading of the situation: ‘hoping for something with which to accuse him’ (Mark 3.2), ‘testing him’ (8.11), ‘trying him out’ (10.2), ‘they were seeking to destroy him’ (11.18), ‘to catch him out’ (12.2), they ‘were seeking to arrest him by stealth’ (14.1). Most of all, we must question the extent to which the apportionment of blame between Pilate and the Jewish authorities in the condemnation of Jesus depends on the later reading of the facts.

Dogmatic Aesthetics: A Theology of Beauty in Dialogue with Robert W. Jenson, Stephen John Wright, Fortress Press, 2014 (ISBN 978‐1‐4514‐6559‐4), xviii + 263 pp., pb $49

<b>Dogmatic Aesthetics: A Theology of Beauty in Dialogue with Robert W. Jenson,</b> Stephen John Wright, Fortress Press, 2014 (ISBN 978‐1‐4514‐6559‐4), xviii + 263 pp., pb $49

Doctors in English: A Study of the Wycliffite Gospel Commentaries by Anne Hudson

Reviewed by: Doctors in English: A Study of the Wycliffite Gospel Commentaries by Anne Hudson Michael P. Kuczynski Anne Hudson. Doctors in English: A Study of the Wycliffite Gospel Commentaries. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015. Pp. 256. $110.00. The so-called Glossed Gospels (hereafter GG), extensive Middle English commentaries on the four evangelists, are among the most important texts within the Wycliffite orbit that remain unedited and therefore underappreciated by scholars. Anne Hudson’s Doctors in English is, as she describes it, “a prolegomenon to an edition” (xiii) of this very complex set of texts. In her book, Hudson provides the necessary foundation for a long-term collaborative project that she hopes will be taken up by a group of researchers dedicated, as she has been for many years, to recovering an accurate history of the Wycliffite movement from its manuscript remains. Those who answer this challenge will owe Hudson an immense debt of gratitude for her deliberative preparations. In the meanwhile, readers can marvel at the precision of a scholar operating at the top of her game, on a group of Middle English texts that, as Hudson examines them, seem only to gain in theological and ideological interest because of their manuscript complexities. Aside from the two translations of the Wycliffite Bible and the intertextual and marginal glosses designed by the translators to facilitate an accurate understanding of these, GG represents the movement’s most profound engagement with the basic sense and import of Scripture. The “clear objective” of those responsible for GG, Hudson notes, was “the provision of complete vernacular biblical commentary on each gospel derived from accepted authorities that would be specified in sufficient detail to be traced back to their sources” (cli). At the same time, Hudson explains, “no single ‘recipe’ . . . controlled the production of the commentary for each of the four gospels—on the contrary, each gospel’s commentary reveals individual methods of production and eccentricities of citation” (liii). The commentaries she discusses, then, are both distinct and connected—parts of a comprehensive exegetical endeavor and texts that manifest at times their own peculiar features, practices, and concerns. More than half of Doctors in English (i–cliv) consists of an expert analysis, in seven detailed chapters, of the five most important GG manuscripts: their contents, affinities with each other, and the expository and polemical nature of their materials. Most of the rest of the book (1–98) offers edited selections from these “intended to demonstrate some of the claims that are made in the main chapters . . . and to illustrate the [End Page 323] normal method of each of the commentaries” (3). There are, as well, two brief appendices: the first on problems posed by the use of modern editions of Latin sources in studying the vernacular commentaries—particularly Guarienti’s edition of Thomas Aquinas’s Catena aurea, the chief source for GG—and the second on the text of Odo of Chateau-roux’s commentary on the Psalms in Oxford, Balliol College, MS 37, an intriguing outlier source used heavily in two GG manuscripts. There is also a helpful bibliography of primary (both manuscript and print) and secondary sources. At some point in the late fourteenth-century history of GG’s production, Hudson argues, there were both long- and short-form commentaries for each Gospel—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What survives, however, is an anomalous long discourse on Matthew based on five separate Latin commentaries but not involving Aquinas—which may represent an abortive early approach to Wycliffite Gospel exegesis (four manuscripts, one of these complete, another consisting of two leaves only; and the other two abbreviated versions of the complete text, one of these a copy of the other)—and five commentaries based predominantly on Aquinas and supplemented by other authorities: a short Matthew independent from but also aware of anomalous long Matthew (two manuscripts); a short Mark (one manuscript); a long and short Luke (one and two manuscripts respectively); and a short John (two manuscripts, included respectively in one of the short Matthew and one of the short Luke copies). Beyond these works, each of which is organized around a subdivided text of one or more Gospel narratives, a single manuscript...

From “Hosanna!” to “Crucify!” The Fickle Crowds in the Four Gospels

Abstract It is often taken for granted that the same crowds who hail Jesus at his triumphal entry later turn against him and cry for his crucifixion. A careful examination of the four Gospel narratives overturns this assumption by demonstrating that the two crowds are not the same narrative character. Despite this, the vehemence of the crowds who cry for Jesus’ crucifixion demands explanation. This essay concludes by exploring several different reasons for the cries to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus and by suggesting that no single explanation is sufficient.

Walk, Don’t Run: Jesus’s Water Walking Is Unparalleled in Greco-Roman Mythology

Scholarly treatments of Jesus’s sea-walking miracle frequently cite several parallel figures “walking on water” in Greco-Roman mythology, such as Poseidon, Orion, Euphemus, and Pythagoras. In fact, however, this “walking” terminology is inaccurate because, contrary to Adela Yarbro Collins and others, Greco-Roman mythology supplies no unambiguous example of a figure walking on water in the way that Jesus does in Mark, Matthew, and John. Rather, there are numerous examples—far more than have been recognized—of running, chariot-riding, and flying over water beginning as early as Homer’s Iliad. Whereas Jesus’s feat is presented as a sort of levitation miracle, water running and water riding are understood as a consequence of superhuman speed in the popular Greek conception of physics, with the idea ultimately based on the motion of wind over waves. Flying over water and other surfaces is associated in Greek thought with supernatural travel convenience; it requires speed and flying devices that are entirely foreign to the Gospel narratives. The few examples of Greco-Roman figures purported to walk on water just as Jesus does either have been misinterpreted or are idiosyncratic, Common-Era creations. This article argues that there are no actual Greco-Roman parallels to what Jesus does in the Gospels. Walking on the sea was more novel, more marvelous, and less immediately interpretable for non-Jewish audiences than has been assumed.

Is There Anything Left to Be Told About John? The Future of Johannine Character Studies and the Literary Concept of Bildung

In this paper, the author suggests that Johannine scholarship can be enriched in the future with the contribution of scholars from different parts of the world, sometimes even from areas where Johannine scholarship does not have a long tradition. He also briefly advances a new approach to character studies in the Fourth Gospel, emphasizing the possibility of engaging the modern literary genre of Bildung/Bildungsroman in the study of the gospel narratives, succinctly arguing for the legitimacy of his approach.

Walk, Don't Run: Jesus's Water Walking Is Unparalleled in Greco-Roman Mythology

Scholarly treatments of Jesus’s sea-walking miracle frequently cite several parallel figures “walking on water” in Greco-Roman mythology, such as Poseidon, Orion, Euphemus, and Pythagoras. In fact, however, this “walking” terminology is inaccurate because, contrary to Adela Yarbro Collins and others, Greco-Roman mythology supplies no unambiguous example of a figure walking on water in the way that Jesus does in Mark, Matthew, and John. Rather, there are numerous examples—far more than have been recognized—of running, chariot-riding, and flying over water beginning as early as Homer’s Iliad. Whereas Jesus’s feat is presented as a sort of levitation miracle, water running and water riding are understood as a consequence of superhuman speed in the popular Greek conception of physics, with the idea ultimately based on the motion of wind over waves. Flying over water and other surfaces is associated in Greek thought with supernatural travel convenience; it requires speed and flying devices that are entirely foreign to the Gospel narratives. The few examples of Greco-Roman figures purported to walk on water just as Jesus does either have been misinterpreted or are idiosyncratic, Common-Era creations. This article argues that there are no actual Greco-Roman parallels to what Jesus does in the Gospels. Walking on the sea was more novel, more marvelous, and less immediately interpretable for non-Jewish audiences than has been assumed.

Water imagery and the power and presence of God in the Gospel of John

This article explores the role of symbolism in the gospel narrative in general and the suggestion that symbolism lies at the core of the theology of the Gospel of John. In particular, the Fourth Evangelist’s use of water imagery is deeply rooted in his Jewish scripture, where control of the waters is the prerogative of God alone. Johannine use of water symbolism is therefore discussed in terms of creation, the Exodus, human longing for God, and the manifestation of God known as “theophany.” By way of application, the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well about the presence of God in living water in John 4 and the sign of the power of God seen through Jesus walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee in John 6 are interpreted for their capacity to reveal the power and presence of God acting in reality through the mission and ministry of Jesus the Christ and Son of God.

‘It is that Loving Gaze’

The aim of this article is to study ecclesiological themes and patterns in material from a structured group conversation in a rural parish in Church of Sweden. The conversation was conducted in relation to a Gospel narrative and the content is analysed in search for expressive ecclesiologies. The concept expressive ecclesiologies is defined in dialogue with Geir Afdal’s model for research on social practices. The analysis shows how the expressive ecclesiologies in the group conversation give a nuanced and rather thick understanding of the purpose and identity of the church in the local context.

Gospel Narratives, Miracles, and the ‘Critical’ Reader: The Eclipse of the Supernatural

The European Enlightenment and the nineteenth century were formative periods for modern biblical criticism, and are rightly associated with the rise of sceptical perspectives on the supernatural dimension of the Bible. This article argues for the persistence of pre-critical, theologically conditioned assumptions in the hermeneutical procedures of two influential writers on the subject of miracles in the Gospels: Thomas Woolston and David Friedrich Strauss. Their work helped to revive a theological tradition of non-realistic interpretation of biblical narrative which runs from Origen of Alexandria to Rudolf Bultmann and beyond.

The Passion of the Digital: the Ontology of the Photographic Image in the Age of New Media

Using Mel Gibson’s 2004 film and cultural phenomenonThe Passion of the Christas a launching pad, this essay meditates on some questions about the twentieth century legacy of competing realisms, the graphic imperative of contemporary digital image cultures, and the ontological conundrums involving technology and mass media.Passionis an onto-theological filmic ‘event’ that derives equally from an almighty religiosity as well as a cultish process of being enraptured by certain ritual values of a new-age technologism of sound and image. This endographic writing out of the Gospel narrative at the level of the tissue and nerve of the committed viewer affirms a transcendental truth already there in an internal cosmos of belief instead of working in terms of an externally navigable ‘realist’ representation of the world that seeks to ‘bear away our faith’. This is rendered possible when unquestioning belief in Christ and in his momentous sacrifice is met by an embracing of technologywithout the skepticism of a scientific temper.

Identity, Alterity, and the Gospel of John

Post-classical narratologies are beginning to appreciate the ways in which identity and alterity are central to narrative. The Gospel of John has long been considered an artistically crafted narrative, yet little scholarly attention has been given to the dialectical interplay of identity and alterity in the Gospel narrative, except as this dialectic forms part of a larger examination of postcolonial discourse in John. Using insights from Monika Fludernik’s “natural” narratology and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, this article argues that issues of identity and alterity are pivotal to the Gospel of John, particularly in the Gospel’s rhetoric of belief and its anti-Jewish tenor and substance.

In Dialogue with the Gospel

The aim of this article is to reflect on an approach and method for practical and prophetic ecclesiology. The article describes the process of planning and using a method at a conference for Church of Sweden suburban parishes. By returning to the conference and the planning process, the account presents the various steps of the broader approach, spells out ecclesiological considerations and analyses results of the conference. Gordon Lathrop’s concept, dialogue of holy things, is used to argue for the relevance of using a method based on Gospel narratives in empirical ecclesiology. The results from the conference show that the method could contribute to constructive and critical reflections on theological challenges facing Church of Sweden. The approach is discussed in relation to Theological Action Research and theories developed by Geir Afdal concerning studies of social practices.

Mapping the Word, Reading the World: Biocartography and the “Historical” Jesus

In the early nineteenth century, the study of “sacred” geography gained traction in American Sunday schools, buoyed by the popular belief that students needed to familiarize themselves with the Holy Land in order to understand the Bible. As religious educators designed geographic curricula, they turned to cartography for assistance and developed map-based lesson plans that would, they hoped, enliven the study of scripture by making visible the spatial layout of ancient Palestine. This article tracks the emergence and widespread use of a particular type of thematic map that featured the life of Jesus superimposed onto the Holy Land, a form of biographical mapmaking that I call “biocartography.” To help students visualize scripture, mapmakers translated the gospel narratives into vectors that crisscrossed Palestine, which meant that they had to overlook the New Testament’s textual discontinuities in order to create a seemingly authentic mosaic of biblical history. Paying close attention to the semiotics of cartography, I explain how biographical circuits that were largely (if not entirely) speculative were regarded as historical fact and how educators who used such maps invented a wide range of cartographic activities to help students comprehend and internalize the Bible’s most salient passages.

A Sixteenth-Century Debate on the Jewish Calendar: Jacob Christmann and Joseph Justus Scaliger

This article explores the background and details of a forgotten debate on the history of the Jewish calendar, which took place between the chronologer and philologist Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) and the Heidelberg Hebraist Jacob Christmann (1554-1613) at the end of the 16th century. Special attention is paid to Scaliger's erroneous and peculiar analysis of the contemporary Jewish calendar in the first edition of his famed Opus de emendatione temporum (1583), which is here reconstructed and explained for the first time. It is shown how Scaliger's views changed in between the first and second edition of his Opus and how these may have been influenced by Christmann's criticism. Furthermore, it will be argued that the strong interest in the Jewish calendar, as manifested in the Scaliger-Christmann controversy, goes back to a medieval Christian desire to improve understanding of the Gospel narratives pertaining to the Passion of Jesus and to fix the historical date of the crucifixion. The article also relates Scaliger's and Christmann's arguments regarding the history of the Jewish calendar to those made by the Italian Jewish scholar Azariah de' Rossi (1511/12-1577) and places these debates in the wider context of the Christian Hebraism of the Renaissance.

Historical and archaeological analysis of the Church of the Nativity

The team has considered the special status of the Basilica of Bethlehem, which is not just a monument of outstanding historic and artistic importance, but also and fundamentally a holy place, that has long been and is still perceived as a memorial site, marking the place of Christ's birth and transcribing into a sacred topography the main events of the Gospel narratives. Because of such a peculiarity, the team considered that it was indispensable to analyze the Basilica of Bethlehem from different viewpoints, namely those of archaeological and historical research. The historical approach aims at understanding the centuries-old development of the holy site as a ritual space and the materialized expression of holiness, the ways in which it has been perceived and used, and the messages that it was meant to convey to its beholders. It combines the findings of previous archaeological research with the data provided by the analysis of written evidence, including old textual sources about the Basilica (especially chronicles and pilgrims’accounts). For the archaeological study of the Basilica of the Nativity, we used the methodology of its investigation of the Archeology of Architecture. Stratigraphical analysis was carried out in relation to various portions of the church walls, as well as in relation to the buildings that make up the whole complex, in order to understand the dynamics of major changes in the structure in its entirety. Direct analysis of evidence from the walls was supported by the reading of existing literature and historical maps with particular reference to the plans of the church. These tools of investigation have been applied to the analysis of the church in its entirety, including its underground cavities.

José, o Padrasto Eleito por Deus: A Justiça como Preservação da Vida em Mateus

Embora todos saibam que Jesus é o grande protagonista das narrativas evangélicas, os dois primeiros capítulos do Evangelho de Mateus dão destaque especial a José, característica que nem sempre é devidamente notada.

Le prologue du quatrième évangile, clé de voûte de la littérature johannique

Like its last verse (Jn 1.18), the Prologue of the Johannine Gospel has a double meaning: christological and soteriological. The christological one is mainly connected with John 1–20, the soteriological with John 21, and both are linked to 1 John. Indeed, while the Prologue interacts with the Gospel narrative and with the Epilogue (Jn 21), it works also as a ‘relecture’ (re-reading) of 1 John. It recapitulates the promise by Jesus to lead the believers ‘where he is’—i.e. ‘in(to) the bosom of the Father’ (Jn 1.18//Jn 12.26; 14.2–3, 6; 17.24)—as well as the assertion of the Letter regarding the children of God (Jn 1.12//1 Jn 3.1–2). In adding a Prologue and an Epilogue, the last redactor of Jn created a huge meta-historical arch evoking the whole Divine design, from the Alpha before the Creation (ἐν ἀρχῇ, Jn 1.1–2) to the Omega of the eschatological coming of the Risen One (ἕως ἔρχομαι, Jn 21.22, 23; cf. the παρουσία of 1 Jn 2.28). The Prologue is then the keystone and the reading key of the Johannine literature.

Hearing the Shepherd's Voice: The παροιμία of the Good Shepherd Discourse and Augustine's Figural Reading

Abstract This essay argues for the congruence between Augustine's figural interpretation of the Good Shepherd discourse (John 10:1–18) and the discourse's literary and rhetorical character. John refers to Jesus' figurative speech in the shepherd discourse as παροιμία (10:6). This term designates a mode of figurative discourse in the Fourth Gospel, which is presently obscure and requires a more-than-literal interpretation. By using παροιμία as a compositional technique, John aligns his audience with the individuals in the Gospel narrative, all of whom work to understand Jesus' figurative language. The παροιμία is a literary strategy by which John draws his audience into the Gospel's narrative world and invites them to adopt his theological understanding of all things in light of the Word. In his figural reading, Augustine positions his congregation to mirror the individuals and relationships in the discourse. His figural reading involves a complex interrelationship between doctrinal profession, moral disposition, and ecclesial participation, all of which serve the reader's spiritual transformation by Christ. Resonant with the Gospel's prologue, the economy of the Word connects these realities and provides the theological architecture for the spiritual associations between the biblical prophets, Jesus, the church, and the interpretation of Scripture. Augustine thus develops the literary and rhetorical cues of the Gospel's plain sense into a figural interpretation, which is congruent with the invitation of the Gospel itself.