Departure and Consolation

Parsenios, George L.

doi:10.1163/9789047407010

Cited by 10 publications

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“… 13. Further on the theme of consolation in the ﬁnal discourses, see Parsenios 2005. Parsenios refers to ‘the overarching concern of the discourses to render Jesus present in his absence, to bring future generations into the presence of their Lord’ (154).…”

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‘Lord, if you had been here …’ (John 11.21): The Absence of Jesus and Strategies of Consolation in the Fourth Gospel

North

2013

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

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This article aims to account for two aspects of the Lazarus story: ﬁrst, the words with which Martha and Mary greet Jesus on his arrival at Bethany and, second, Jesus’ earlier unexplained delay on learning of Lazarus’s illness. It is claimed that the absence of Jesus was of crucial concern to John’s readership, whose cohesion was threatened by persecution and whose faith in Jesus’ return at the eschaton was growing increasingly fragile. In response, John provides consolation for his flock by means of a twofold strategy: ﬁrst, he deals with Jesus’ absence by presenting the Holy Spirit advantageously as the abiding presence of Jesus in their midst and, second, he strengthens their resolve in the face of death by his emphasis on resurrection to life on Judgment Day as a present guarantee for those who believe in Jesus. Since these are distinctive aspects of John’s presentation, the question is raised as to whether other characteristic features of his work, even perhaps his choice of the gospel medium, could plausibly be seen as part of the same process of meeting his readers’ needs. The focus thus returns to the Lazarus story, distinctively placed as the centrepiece of the Gospel, and to a possible explanation of those aspects of it with which the study began. Two brief examples from the Gospel’s reception history are offered by way of conclusion.

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‘Lord, if you had been here …’ (John 11.21): The Absence of Jesus and Strategies of Consolation in the Fourth Gospel

North

2013

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

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Meeting Nicodemus: A Case Study in Daring Theological Interpretation

Ford

2013

SJT

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The Nicodemus story can be read as a distillation of the Gospel of John and an example of many of its key features. John 3:1–21 poses a wide range of the problems raised by this most distinctive and mysterious of the four gospels. It shows characteristic practices of John as a reader, writer and teacher. In line with John's theology of the Spirit ‘leading into all the truth’, it also shows him as a daring theologian, opening up fresh interpretations and ways of doing theology beyond the Septuagint and the Synoptic Gospels and even beyond his own Prologue (itself a remarkably daring piece of theology). That same Spirit means that John also expects his readers to be led into further truth, and to improvise on his theology as he himself did on the Septuagint and on the Synoptic traditions. His ways of reading, writing and teaching encourage such a response in the Spirit by creating a work rich in intertextuality, imagery and conceptuality which has a ‘deep plain sense’, superabundant in meaning and always inviting the reader to reread, learn more and interpret afresh. So one challenge for readers now is whether they are open not only to thinking along with John but also to thinking beyond him, in ways appropriate to different people and contexts. But this transformation in thought and imagination is not all: it is inseparable from doing the truth ‘in God’. The mutual involvement of seeing, believing/trusting, knowing and living in love is above all communicated in the drama of John's Gospel, whose backbone is a series of meetings with Jesus and the injunction to follow Jesus. More embracing and fundamental than, for example, doctrinal theology or existential decision-making, is the dramatic reality of encountering other people and following Jesus in all the complexities of life in specific contexts. In John 3:1–21 the encounter of Jesus with Nicodemus is the dramatic heart of the passage, blending into a discourse which itself culminates in the ultimate drama of ‘deeds done in God’. But to stop interpretation there would be to refuse the Johannine invitation to enter into more truth with a view to ‘doing greater things’. So the article ends with two midrashic interpretations of Nicodemus for today.

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John and other Gospels

Attridge

2018

Oxford Handbooks Online

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Early Christians found many ways to proclaim their ‘good news’, prominently including the kind of popular biography represented by the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. The relationship of the Fourth Gospel to those texts has long intrigued readers. The patristic claim that John supplemented the Synoptics gave way in the twentieth century to the opinion that John was independent. Opinion has recently shifted. While the compositional process complicates the picture, the Fourth Evangelist probably did draw on the Synoptics. He did so creatively, shaping his account to make distinctive theological and Christological points. He also drew from a broad tradition of Jesus’ teaching, evident in such texts as the Gospel of Thomas. Yet the Gospel also works creatively with elements of Synoptic teaching. The Fourth Gospel subsequently attained a wide acceptance and numerous echoes in the second century, including the unknown Gospel on Papyrus Egerton 2.

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Departure and Consolation

Cited by 10 publications

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‘Lord, if you had been here …’ (John 11.21): The Absence of Jesus and Strategies of Consolation in the Fourth Gospel

‘Lord, if you had been here …’ (John 11.21): The Absence of Jesus and Strategies of Consolation in the Fourth Gospel

Meeting Nicodemus: A Case Study in Daring Theological Interpretation

John and other Gospels

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