New Perspectives on Healing, Restoration and Reconciliation in John’s Gospel


Book Description

In New Perspectives on Healing, Restoration and Reconciliation in John, Jacobus (Kobus) Kok investigates the depth and applicability of Jesus’ healing narratives in John’s gospel. Against the background of an ancient group-oriented worldview, it goes beyond the impasse of most Western approaches to interpreting the Biblical healing narratives to date. He argues that the concept of healing was understood in antiquity (as in some parts of Africa) in a much broader way than we tend to understand it today. He shows inter alia why the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman could be interpreted as a healing narrative, illustrating the ancient interrelationship between healing, restoration and reconciliation.




Restored, Rescued, and Redeemed by Jesus


Book Description

Minor characters, both male and female, heavily populate the fourfold Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all come from different socioeconomic strata of society. Some are distinguished by name, while most remain anonymous. Some are taciturn, while others are loquacious. A few are wealthy, while the majority are poor. This book examines seven pericopae of different minor characters, who appear suddenly in different settings and circumstances, interact with Jesus briefly, and then vanish quickly, leaving behind historical memories preserved by the Gospel evangelists as windows into Jesus’ identity and his multifaceted charismatic ministry of compassion and redemption within the context of first-century Judaism.




Negotiating the Disabled Body


Book Description

An intersectional study of New Testament and noncanonical literature Anna Rebecca Solevåg explores how nonnormative bodies are presented in early Christian literature through the lens of disability studies. In a number of case studies, Solevåg shows how early Christians struggled to come to terms with issues relating to body, health, and dis/ability in the gospel stories, apocryphal narratives, Pauline letters, and patristic expositions. Solevåg uses the concepts of narrative prosthesis, gaze and stare, stigma, monster theory, and crip theory to examine early Christian material to reveal the multiple, polyphonous, contradictory ways in which nonnormative bodies appear. Features: Case studies that reveal a variety of understandings, attitudes, medical frameworks, and taxonomies for how disabled bodies were interpreted A methodology that uses disability as an analytical tool that contributes insights about cultural categories, ideas of otherness, and social groups’ access to or lack of power An intersectional perspective drawing on feminist, gender, queer, race, class, and postcolonial studies




Prayer in John’s Farewell Discourse


Book Description

It was reported that a doctoral student at Princeton once asked Albert Einstein, "What is there left in the world for original dissertation research?" He replied by saying, "Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer." Since Einstein's day, a great deal has been written on the topic of prayer in general. However, relatively little has been written about prayer in John's Farewell Discourse in particular. Therefore, this analysis not only seeks to understand the relationship between Johannine and Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Christian prayer traditions, but also seeks to discern the unique function and application of prayer as it is prescribed in the Farewell Discourse.




Jesus and Disability


Book Description

Drawing from his personal, pastoral, and academic interests, Chris Hulshof offers biblical wisdom and comfort to those seeking to understand the topic of disability in the church. He explores how Jesus’s involvement with the disabled can be instrumental in laying a foundation for disability-inclusive church leadership and practice. Ultimately, this book provides a blueprint for how pastors and congregations can become disability friendly in the church and in the broader community.




The Figure of Abraham in John 8


Book Description

In the Gospel of John, the character of Jesus repeatedly comes into conflict with a group pejoratively designated as 'the Jews'. In chapter 8 of the Gospel this conflict could be said to reach a head, with Jesus labeling the Jews as children 'of the devil' (8:44) - a verse often cited as epitomizing early Christian anti-Judaism. Using methods derived from modern and post-modern literary criticism Ruth Sheridan examines textual allusions to the biblical figures of Cain and Abraham in John 8:1-59. She pays particular attention to how these allusions give shape to the Gospel's alleged and infamous anti-Judaism (exemplified in John 8:44). Moreover, the book uniquely studies the subsequent reception in the Patristic and Rabbinic literature, not only of John 8, but also of the figures of Cain and Abraham. It shows how these figures are linked in Christian and Jewish imagination in the formative centuries in which the two religions came into definition.




Eve Was Named an Apostle


Book Description

This book investigates the movement of the Eve parallelism along the chain of tradition, focusing primarily upon the female characters of the Gospel of John. The principal aim is to explore their interrelationship with the mother of Jesus who, in the developed ecclesial tradition, is eventually given the title New Eve. Accordingly, this work examines the motif of woman in the Fourth Gospel by probing the use of the nuptial metaphor where female narrative characters are presented both as idealized disciples and fictive brides of the divine Bridegroom. By means of a common narrative-critical approach, this book then engages the thought of Hippolytus of Rome as found in his Commentary on the Song of Songs. Specifically, it explores how his focus upon the myrrophores is an expansion of the Johannine tradition, and one in which the nuptial metaphor takes on an ecclesial significance. By presenting the primordial garden in a narrative climax whereby a symbolic recapitulation occurs in the resurrection garden, Hippolytus shifts the Eve parallelism from the mother of Jesus to the Magdalene. This, in turn, is early evidence of a confluence of understanding, whereby she is not only disciple, but also both Eve and apostola apostolorum.




Saint Thomas the Apostle: New Testament, Apocrypha, and Historical Traditions


Book Description

Are the Thomas references in the Gospel of John, the Thomas compositions, and the early Thomas traditions in northwestern and southern India purely legendary as biblical scholars have assumed or do they preserve unexamined historical traditions intermittently as the Thomas Christians in India have believed? Didymus Judas Thomas is one of the most misunderstood characters from the beginning of the New Testament history and interpretation. In this study, Thomaskutty addresses the following questions: whether Thomas was merely a 'doubting Thomas' or a 'genuine Thomas'? Can we understand Thomas comprehensively by bringing the New Testament, apocrypha, and historical traditions together? How was Thomas connected to eastern Christianity and how does the Thomas literature support/not support this connectivity? Can we understand the Thomas traditions related to Judea, Syria, and India with the help of canonical, extra canonical, and traditio-historical documents? Thomaskutty investigates the development of the Thomas literature right from the beginning, examining and questioning the approaches and methodologies that have been employed in interpreting these documents, and analyzes the Thomas literature closely in order to understand the character, his mission involvements, and the possible implications this may have for understanding early Christianity in the east.




The Fourfold Gospel, Volume 2


Book Description

In the spirit of Ludolph of Saxony (c. 1295-1378) and Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), The Fourfold Gospel invites the reader into the mystery of God's redemption in Jesus Christ. All the parallel passages in the Gospels are glossed together, along with the unique material, using a medieval interpretive approach called the Quadriga or the acronym PaRDeS in Hebrew. Meditating on the literal, canonical, moral, and theological senses of Scripture offers a scaffolding for the spiritual formation of the reader. This volume focuses on the summoning and purgative stage of discipleship--the Sermon on the Mount--as well as participating in Christ's healing of creation.




Off the Beaten Path


Book Description

In this book, the academic colleagues of Prof. Dr. Gie Vleugels, who turned 65 in 2021, celebrate his life by contributing chapters in his honor. Several chapters are innovative in nature, including Clemens Wassermann's comparative analysis of 1 John and the Fourth Gospel, which utilizes insights from Semitic syntax and shows how spoken Semitic dialects help us to unearth new perspectives on the relationship between John's Gospel and 1 John. The chapter on the Didache by Martin Webber makes innovative use of Social Identity Complexity Theory. Other contributions come from the fields of New Testament, Old Testament, Historical Theology, and Systematic Theology. Prof. Dr. Dr. Jacobus Kok is Professor and Department Chair of New Testament Studies and Co-Director of RCEC at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven in Belgium, as well as Professor Extraordinarius and NRF B3 rated scholar in the Department of New Testament and Related Literature, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria in South Africa. Prof. Dr. Martin Webber (Professor of New Testament Studies), Dr. Jeremy Otten (Senior Researcher and Lecturer in New Testament Studies and Greek) and Dr. Mark Paridaens (Lecturer in Greek) are also appointed at Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven in Belgium.