The midwife of truth: The nature of irony and a rationale for its prevalence in the Gospel of John

<p>The Gospel of John is renowned for its pervasive use of irony. While this phenomenon is widely recognized by scholars, there have been only a few attempts to explain the “how” of Johannine irony and no meaningful attempt to explain its “why.” The last major treatment of the topic was by Paul Duke in his 1985 work, Irony in the Fourth Gospel, which provides an account of how Johannine irony works through an analysis of local and extended ironies. Other examinations, such as Gail O’Day’s Revelation in the Fourth Gospel in 1986, explore irony as a corollary of some other thematic concern. The reticence of scholars to delve deeper into the nature of Johannine irony is understandable given that as Duke puts it, irony laughs at all pretensions, especially the pretension of claiming to have grasped irony. This study undertakes the demanding but necessary task of describing irony to a level that allows meaningful engagement with ironic texts, while accepting that it remains ultimately indefinable. Particular attention is paid to historical shifts of understanding of the nature of irony and the implications this has for appreciating irony at a conceptual level. From a survey of the Johannine scholarship, a comprehensive but non-exhaustive overview of the Fourth Gospel’s use of irony is derived. No previous work has attempted to approach the subject in this way. The main advantage of doing so is that it allows for the identification of broad patterns of irony and the way it functions in the narrative. This in turn provides a framework for proceeding to an examination of particular texts and the identification of a possible rationale. The present study assesses several hypotheses to explain why the author of the Fourth Gospel makes such sustained use of irony. The preferred hypothesis is that it is intrinsically linked to a predominant Johannine theme of alētheia (truth). Drawing on the conceptual link between irony and truth, it argues that the truth theme is a deliberate literary strategy employed by the author to entice the reader to seek certain propositional truths within the narrative. This ultimately serves the author’s desire to evoke revelation and response in line with the Gospel’s purpose statement in 20:31. The argument that irony serves the Johannine truth theme is tested with particular reference to the Prologue (1:1-18) and the Passion Narrative (chapters 18-19). The study establishes that irony serves as the link between appearance and reality in the narrative. Its subtle and engaging qualities make irony the most suitable vehicle to testify to the Gospel’s propositional statements in a manner that fulfils the author’s stated Christological (a revelation of Jesus’ true identity) and soteriological (a response that leads to salvation) purposes.</p>

The midwife of truth: The nature of irony and a rationale for its prevalence in the Gospel of John

<p>The Gospel of John is renowned for its pervasive use of irony. While this phenomenon is widely recognized by scholars, there have been only a few attempts to explain the “how” of Johannine irony and no meaningful attempt to explain its “why.” The last major treatment of the topic was by Paul Duke in his 1985 work, Irony in the Fourth Gospel, which provides an account of how Johannine irony works through an analysis of local and extended ironies. Other examinations, such as Gail O’Day’s Revelation in the Fourth Gospel in 1986, explore irony as a corollary of some other thematic concern. The reticence of scholars to delve deeper into the nature of Johannine irony is understandable given that as Duke puts it, irony laughs at all pretensions, especially the pretension of claiming to have grasped irony. This study undertakes the demanding but necessary task of describing irony to a level that allows meaningful engagement with ironic texts, while accepting that it remains ultimately indefinable. Particular attention is paid to historical shifts of understanding of the nature of irony and the implications this has for appreciating irony at a conceptual level. From a survey of the Johannine scholarship, a comprehensive but non-exhaustive overview of the Fourth Gospel’s use of irony is derived. No previous work has attempted to approach the subject in this way. The main advantage of doing so is that it allows for the identification of broad patterns of irony and the way it functions in the narrative. This in turn provides a framework for proceeding to an examination of particular texts and the identification of a possible rationale. The present study assesses several hypotheses to explain why the author of the Fourth Gospel makes such sustained use of irony. The preferred hypothesis is that it is intrinsically linked to a predominant Johannine theme of alētheia (truth). Drawing on the conceptual link between irony and truth, it argues that the truth theme is a deliberate literary strategy employed by the author to entice the reader to seek certain propositional truths within the narrative. This ultimately serves the author’s desire to evoke revelation and response in line with the Gospel’s purpose statement in 20:31. The argument that irony serves the Johannine truth theme is tested with particular reference to the Prologue (1:1-18) and the Passion Narrative (chapters 18-19). The study establishes that irony serves as the link between appearance and reality in the narrative. Its subtle and engaging qualities make irony the most suitable vehicle to testify to the Gospel’s propositional statements in a manner that fulfils the author’s stated Christological (a revelation of Jesus’ true identity) and soteriological (a response that leads to salvation) purposes.</p>

The Passion Cycle in the Sanctuaries of the Saxon Fortified Churches in Southern Transylvania

"This paper aims to reconstitute the pictorial program of some medieval Saxon churches’ sanctuaries, which are Mălâncrav, Curciu, Râşnov and Sibiu, with particular interest on the images regarding the Passion Cycle. The article will try to bring a stylistic and iconographic analysis of the Passion Cycle in the sanctuary, episodes that usually appear on the northern choir wall. Therefore, we aim to highlight the reasons why this Passion narrative was chosen to decorate this part of the sanctuary and what was its role both regarding the place that it occupies, that is near the most sacred place of the church, and also the role it had in the religious services. Given the complexity of the narrative programs and the strong link with the biblical texts, the paintings have a double role, both educational and devotional. Keywords: Passion Cycles, mural painting, fortified churches, iconography "

“Jesus is Going to Be Stoned”

Anti-Semitic interpretations of the gospels and Christian hostility towards Jews are both rooted, in terribly complex ways, in the first centuries of the Christian era. The death of Jesus is certainly the “most resentment-laden” theme in Christian history. But this chapter argues that it is not a sign of primitive Christian resentment that the gospels depict a Judaean moment in Jesus’ legal ordeal in Jerusalem—an ordeal which culminates in a Roman verdict, and a Roman punishment. In fact, the Judaeans’ condemnation of Jesus is less decisive in the gospels than in many revered Judaic texts. This chapter thus seeks to reconstruct a Judaic ‘passion’ narrative in which Jesus dies, and Pilate is innocent, from the ‘Judaean’ testimonies of a pagan philosopher (Celsus), from the pages of an illustrious rabbinic collection (Babylonian Talmud), and from a tradition of parodic ‘gospels’ (Toledot Yeshu).

Sandra Bland at the cross: A womanist reading of Mark 15:40-47

How do women who lack power and privilege experience the cross? How do women who lack power and privilege view privileged men at the cross? How do such questions probe issues of Jesus’s death in the Markan passion narrative? This article employs a womanist hermeneutic of “gazing” to interpret differently the complexity of women in close proximity to death while interrogating one particular woman’s close proximity to death in contemporary memory: Sandra Bland. Particularly, a womanist hermeneutic of gazing coupled with a womanist hermeneutic of suspicion provides a liberating space for nuanced engagement with the women who gaze upon Jesus’s crucifixion from afar. Recognizing specifically that the Gospel of Mark uses the Greek word βλέπω ( blepō) to identify “seeing” as a metaphor for belief, how does a womanist understanding of the Greek term θεωρέω ( theōreō, which the gospel writer uses sparingly) crack open the text for contemporary audiences? Engaging issues of power, privilege, and death in relationship to the “gaze” of Mark 15:40-47, this article highlights that the women who attempt to anoint Jesus’s body in the Markan narrative, because of their gender in the highly charged testosterone environment of a militarized imperial execution, have more “skin in the game,” different from the privileged position of men in the text. What happens when women are confronted with men who exhibit high levels of masculine testosterone and masculine identity? Like Sandra Bland, they are closer to death. Accordingly, thinking through the women who go to anoint Jesus with contemporary women today means that women who are often closer to death must continue the analytical work of “gazing”, as found in Mark 15:47 to the point that returning the “gaze” produces change for those closest to death (e.g., black and brown bodies close to militarized imperial violence).

The Mind of Matthew, or the Text? Retrieving Eusebius’ Intertextual Proposal on the Crux Interpretum of Matthew 28:1

The translation of Matthew 28:1 is notoriously difficult (ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν σαββάτων). Following a survey of proposals that place the discovery of Jesus’ resurrection at dawn or during the night, and finding these solutions wanting, this article highlights overlooked evidence in this passage’s long reception history. Some of this evidence is intratextual, namely, passages which could favor a day-night schema (Matt 4:2; 12:40) or in which Matthew discusses commerce and travel at night (Matt 14:15; 25:1-13). The second, intertextual set of evidence is found in the works of Eusebius, Didymus of Alexandria, Jerome, and Theodoret. These patristic authors provide a forgotten proposal whereby the resurrection is connected with the “dawn” of Ps 21:1 LXX. Since Matthew’s Passion Narrative appeals to this psalm in so many other instances, this patristic insight helpfully reframes the debate on this crux around the text and its reception history (intentio operis) rather than the elusive category of authorial intent (intentio auctoris).