Jousting with John: Essays on Jews, Gender, and Ethics in the Fourth Gospel

Adele Reinhartz

Book

Jousting with John

Essays on Jews, Gender, and Ethics in the Fourth Gospel

Adele Reinhartz

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2025

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This book is in the series

Volume 264 | Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

About this book

The Gospel of John is a book that tantalizes and disturbs in equal measure. Its sublime imagery makes spirits soar. Its positive portrayal of women such as the Samaritan woman, the Bethany sisters, and Mary Magdalene, tickle the imagination when it comes to the roles of women in the early church. Its disparagement of the Jews, however, reverberates through the long history of anti-Judaism and antisemitism to this very day.

Adele Reinhartz has been one of the foremost interpreters of the Gospel of John for the past thirty years and more. This volume contains a selection of her essays on the Fourth Gospel, originally published from 1991 to 2020. The collection focuses on four major themes. Essays on Gender consider the Gospel’s portrayal of female characters, its christological use of female imagery, and the possibility of reading social history into or out of the Fourth Gospel. Essays on "the Jews" explore the representation of the ioudaioi, and respond to approaches employed by scholars to address the fraught question of anti-Judaism. The section on Method includes essays that apply different approaches, such as trauma theory, postcolonial theory, and literary and rhetorical criticism to issues in Johannine studies. The final section, on Ethics, considers ethics from two perspectives: the ethical stance(s) that a reader brings to her reading of John, and the question of whether the Gospel portrays Jesus as an ethical actor.

Author / Editor information

Adele Reinhartz is a Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and a research fellow in the Department of Old and New Testament at the University of the Free State, South Africa.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	XIII
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	1
The Gospel as a Literary Text
Chapter 1 A Nice Jewish Girl Reads the Gospel of John Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	31
Chapter 2 On Travel, Translation, and Ethnography: Johannine Scholarship at the Turn of the Century Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	49
Chapter 3 Incarnation and Covenant: The Fourth Gospel through the Lens of Trauma Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	57
Chapter 4 The Colonizer as Colonized: Intertextual Dialogue Between the Gospel of John and Canadian Identity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	75
Literary Criticism and Historical Criticism
Chapter 5 Building Skyscrapers on Toothpicks: The Literary-Critical Challenge to Historical Criticism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	101
Chapter 6 Story and History: John, Judaism and the Historical Imagination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	127
Chapter 7 The “Parting of the Ways” and the Criterion of Plausibility Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	141
John and Anti-Judaism
Chapter 8 “Jews” and Jews in the Fourth Gospel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	155
Chapter 9 “Jews” and Anti-Judaism: Reading John After Nostra Aetate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	171
Chapter 10 “Children of the Devil”: John 8:44 and its Early Reception Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	181
Chapter 11 Of Mountains and Messiahs: John 4:19–23 and Divine Covenant Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	191
John in Jewish Context
Chapter 12 “And The Word Was God”: John’s Christology and Jesus’ Discourse in Jewish Context Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	207
Chapter 13 Doing God’s Work: John 5:17–18 From a Jewish Perspective Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	229
Chapter 14 John 8:31–59 From a Jewish Perspective Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	241
John’s Audience
Chapter 15 The Johannine Community and Its Jewish Neighbours: A Reappraisal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	259
Chapter 16 Gospel Audiences: Variations on a Theme Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	285
Chapter 17 Forging a New Identity: Johannine Rhetoric and the Audience of the Fourth Gospel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	305
Chapter 18 The Fourth Gospel and the First Century Outreach Campaign to the Gentiles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	317
Women and Gender
Chapter 19 Women in the Johannine Community: An Exercise in Historical Imagination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	335
Chapter 20 Women and Gender in the Gospel of John Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	355
Chapter 21 John, Gender and Judaism: A Feminist’s Dilemma Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	371
Chapter 22 Wise Women in the Gospel of John Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	389
Chapter 23 From Narrative to History: The Resurrection of Mary and Martha Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	401
Chapter 24 To Love the Lord: An Intertextual Reading of John 20 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	425
Chapter 25 The Bridal Party in John 3:29: A Feminist Rereading Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	439
Chapter 26 “And the Word was Begotten”: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	451
Chapter 27 “Children of God” and Aristotelian Epigenesis in the Gospel of John” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	471
Ethics in/and John
Chapter 28 Reproach and Revelation: Ethics in John 11:1–44 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	483
Chapter 29 A Rebellious Son? Jesus and His Mother in John 2:4 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	497
Chapter 30 The Lyin’ King? Deception and Christology in the Gospel of John Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	513
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	529
Index of Ancient Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	553
Subject Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	567

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

December 30, 2024

eBook ISBN:

9783111293493

Hardcover published on:

December 30, 2024

Hardcover ISBN:

9783111293110

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Front matter:

14

Main content:

585

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111293493

eBook ISBN: 9783111293493

Hardcover ISBN: 9783111293110

Keywords for this book

Gospel of John; Gender; Ethics; Judaism

Audience(s) for this book

Scholars, students, and institutes of Biblical studies and early Christianity

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Walter de Gruyter GmbH
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Jousting with John

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Topics

Table of contents

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