Interpretation articles from October 1995

Interpretation archives from October 1995

Toward a narrative-critical study of John.(The Gospel of John)
October 1, 1995... The peculiar voice of the Fourth Gospel originated in the encounter of the Johannine community with the tradition it inherited. This suggests that the goal of interpretive methods must be to hold these two factors of community and tradition in...

The plot of John's story of Jesus.(The Gospel of John)
October 1, 1995... One measure of how recently literary approaches have entered gospel studies is the absence of any discussion of plot in the leading commentaries on the Fourth Gospel. Recognition of the existence of plot implies that the Gospels are "plotted"...

From John to the beloved disciple: an essay on Johannine characters.(The Gospel of John)
October 1, 1995... The Fourth Gospel is a dramatically unique story about Jesus, the World become flesch. As the chief protagonist, Jesus is the one around whom the whole of the story revolves. Through interaction with him, characters can be seen to play roles...

The significance of social location in reading John's story.(The Gospel of John)
October 1, 1995... In the last twenty years the discipline of biblical criticism has witnessed a profound shift that, in the mid-1990s, is still under way. This shift has to do with a change of critical paradigms or of umbrella models of interpretation, that is,...

Community in conflict: the history and social context of the Johannine community.(The Gospel of John)
October 1, 1995... We have richer sources of knowledge about the community that produced the Gospel of John than about any of the other communities responsible for our canonical Gospels. The reason is that our sources consist not only of John itself but of the...

Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26.(Between Text and Sermon)
October 1, 1995... If songs and texts of anticipation and hope are the character of our music and preaching at Christmas time, what do we sing as Easter approaches, as the day dawns that turns the darkness of all our human fears and dashed hopes into the joy and...

John 1: 1-14.(Between Text and Sermon)
October 1, 1995... Christmas Day is not a time for explanation and analysis in the pulpit. It is a day for story and poetry and song. There will be time during the season of Christmas for theological reflection. On Christmas Day, however, we stand before the...

John 13:1-17, 31b-45. (Last Supper narrative)(Between Text and Sermon)
October 1, 1995... We are told at the outset what this is about. It is about being loved by Jesus. "Having loved his own, he loved them to the end" -- to the completion, to the "It is finished." The frank declaration that Jesus loves his disciples has not been...

John 18:1-19:42. (Passion narrative)(Between Text and Sermon)
October 1, 1995... Of the four Gospels in the New Testament canon, there is little debate that John's is the "Gospel with a difference." Bible readers and biblical scholars from the early church to the present day have observed John's unique literary style, the...

A History of the Bible as Literature, 2 vols.
October 1, 1995... From the cover Design (esp. William Blake's Christian Reading in His Book), through more than 750 pages of detailed, well-argued text, including over twenty useful illustrations of manuscripts, to the entertaining and informative appendices,...

The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries.
October 1, 1995... Studies of moral and ethical issues in early Christianity have been just that -- studies of particular problems (e.g., sex, war, poverty), often motivated by modern religious concerns. Rarely have these studies been informed by relevant work in...

Romans, a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary.
October 1, 1995... There is no shortage of commentaries on Romans, but Fitzmyer tells us that there has been no full-scale commentary on this book written by an English-speaking Roman Catholic since P. J. Boylan's book, published in 1934. This commentary thus...

On This Rock: A Commentary on I Peter.
October 1, 1995... This commentary is clearly aimed at pastors rather than scholars. Intentionally the author avoids both a scholarly discussion and an "inspirational" commentary that does not deal with substantive issues. Technical terminology and footnotes do...