Johannine Ethics

Johannine Ethics
Author: Christopher W. Skinner
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2017-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506438466

The Gospel and epistles of John are commonly overlooked in discussions of New Testament ethics, often seen as of only limited value. Here, prominent scholars present varying perspectives on the surprising relevance and importance of the explicit imperatives and implicit moral perspective of the Johannine literature. The introduction sets out four major approaches to Johannine ethics today; a concluding essay takes stock of the wide-ranging discussion and suggest prospects for future study.

A Grammar of the Ethics of John

A Grammar of the Ethics of John
Author: Jan G. van der Watt
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 726
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3161589424

After a century of neglect, Johannine ethics has enjoyed a recent surge in interest inspired by new theoretical insights in analysing ethical data in John's Gospel. By closely re-reading the text on the basis of this fresh research, Jan G. van der Watt's aim in the present volume is to reveal ethical data within its structural interrelatedness. The result is a comprehensive overview of basic questions related to ethics, such as what the basis or source of ethics actually is, whether identity plays a role in ethical decision making, how values and ethical requirements are to be recognised, what is expected of an ethical agent, and what ethical behaviour looks like. As a coherent guide to getting deeds done ethically, this first volume on the grammar of the apostle's ethics focuses on his Gospel, while a second is set to concentrate on his letters.

Exploring Johannine Ethics

Exploring Johannine Ethics
Author: Lindsey M. Trozzo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783161557415

Exploring the ways of thinking and living that the narrative in the Gospel of John would likely have engendered Lindsey M. Trozzo utilizes rhetorical analysis to facilitate a fresh approach to the long-standing "problem" of Johannine ethics. She considers four rhetorical features: participation in genre, incorporation of encomiastic topics, metaleptic extension of those topics, and appropriation of structural devices as guides for interpreting the story's narrative and rhetorical trajectory. Each rhetorical feature is defined and situated in its ancient literary context to provide a theoretical framework for discussion. From there, the author explores the presence of the rhetorical feature in the Fourth Gospel. She finds that Johannine ethics engages the audience in moral deliberation rather than delivering explicit ethical propositions. Despite the lack of explicit ethical material in the Fourth Gospel, Exploring Johannine Ethics demonstrates that there is much we can say about John's elusive ethics.

Rethinking the Ethics of John

Rethinking the Ethics of John
Author: Jan Gabriël Van der Watt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Bible
ISBN: 9783161518300

Ethics is a neglected field of research in the Gospel and Letters of John. Judgments about even the presence of ethics in the Gospel are often negative, and even though ethics is regarded as one of the two major problem areas focused on in 1 John, the development of a Johannine ethics from the Letters receive relatively little attention. This book aims at making a positive contribution and even to stimulating the debate on the presence of ethical material in the Johannine literature through a series of essays by some leading Johannine scholars. The current state of research is thoroughly discussed and new developments as well as new possibilities for further investigation are treated. By utilizing different analytical categories and methods (such as narratology) new areas of research are opened up and new questions are considered. Therefore, aspects of moral thinking and normative values can be discovered and put together to the mosaic of an implicit ethics in the Johannine Writings. More familiar themes like the law or deeds in the Gospel are reconsidered in a new light, while the ethical role of the opponents or the ethical use of Scripture are explored as new avenues for describing the dynamics of ethics in the Gospel. The ethical nature of the Letters is also considered, focusing not only on the theological nature of ethics in the Letters, but also on the ethical impact of some rhetorical material in 1 John. The culminative result of these series of essays is to illustrate that the ethical material in the Gospel is not as absent as was believed by many in the past. The essays not only open up a wider spectrum of Johannine ethical material but also invite further exploration and research in this much neglected area of Johannine studies.

Ethics in the Gospel of John

Ethics in the Gospel of John
Author: Sookgoo Shin
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004387439

In Ethics in the Gospel of John Sookgoo Shin seeks to challenge the dominant scholarly view of John’s ethics as an ineffective and unhelpful companion for moral formation. In order to demonstrate the relevance of John’s ethics, Shin argues that the development of discipleship in John’s Gospel should be understood as moral progress, which was a well-known moral concept in the ancient Mediterranean world. Having drawn an ethical model from the writings of Plutarch, this study aims to identify the undergirding ethical dynamic that shapes John’s moral structure by bringing out the implicit ethical elements that are embedded throughout John’s narratives, and thus suggests a way to read the whole Gospel ethically and appreciatively of its literary characteristics.

Early Christian Ethics in Interaction with Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts

Early Christian Ethics in Interaction with Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts
Author: Jan Willem van Henten
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2012-11-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004242155

Early Christian Ethics in Interaction with Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts focuses upon the nexus of early Christian Ethics and its contexts as a dynamic process. The ongoing interaction with Jewish, Greco-Roman or early Christian traditions as well as with the social-historical context at large continuously transformed early Christian ethics. The volume proposes a dynamic model for studying culture and its various expressions in a society composed of several ethnic and religious groups. The contributions focus on specific transformations of ethics in key documents of early Christianity, or take a more comparative perspective pointing to similar developments and overlaps as well as particularities within early Christian writings, Hellenistic-Jewish writings, Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish inscriptions.

Cruciform Scripture

Cruciform Scripture
Author: Christopher W. Skinner
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467461903

What does it mean to participate in the cruciform Lord Jesus Christ so that our life together becomes a living exegesis of the gospel? Michael Gorman has been tremendously influential in exploring this question within the New Testament, particularly in the letters of Paul, the Gospel of John, and the book of Revelation. His 2001 book Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross inspired a generation of scholars and was the first in a trilogy of New Testament theology devoted to exploring the role of the cross, participation in Christ, and becoming the gospel in mission. Here, an assemblage of some of the best and brightest current New Testament exegetes honor Gorman’s work with contributions of their own, each of which further explores these three critical themes in various passages of the New Testament. Cruciform Scripture is more than a tribute to a giant of biblical scholarship. Its contributors (including N. T. Wright, Sylvia Keesmaat, and Richard Hays) are masters in their own right who offer incisive interpretations of essential themes of New Testament theology and the core concerns of Christian life in community. As they reason together in this volume, they amplify one another’s voices as well as Gorman’s, modeling a way that careful reflection on Paul’s determination to “know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified” can engender fruitful insights on the nature of discipleship. Contributors Ben C. Blackwell, Sherri Brown, Frank E. Dicken, Dennis R. Edwards, Rebekah Eklund, Dean Flemming, Patricia Fosarelli, Stephen E. Fowl, Nijay K. Gupta, Richard B. Hays, Andy Johnson, Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Brent Laytham, Christopher W. Skinner, Klyne R. Snodgrass, Drew J. Strait, and N. T. Wright.

Torah Ethics and Early Christian Identity

Torah Ethics and Early Christian Identity
Author: Wendel & Miller
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2016
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802873197

Explores the relationship between the Mosaic law and early Christian ethics In this volume thirteen respected scholars explore the relationship between the Mosaic law and early Christian ethics, examining early Christian appropriation of the Torah and looking at ways in which the law continued to serve as an ethical reference point for Christ-believers -- whether or not they thought Torah observance was essential. These noteworthy essays compare differences in interpretation and application of the law between Christians and non-Christian Jews; investigate ways in which Torah-inspired ethical practices helped Christ-believing communities articulate their distinct identities and social responsibilities; and look at how presentations of the law in early Christian literature might inform Christian social and ethical practices today. Posing a unified set of questions to a diverse range of texts, Torah Ethics and Early Christian Identity will stimulate new thinking about a complex phenomenon commonly overlooked by scholars and church leaders alike.

The Adaptable Jesus of the Fourth Gospel

The Adaptable Jesus of the Fourth Gospel
Author: Jason S. Sturdevant
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2015-09-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004304231

In The Adaptable Jesus of the Fourth Gospel, Jason S. Sturdevant argues that the Gospel of John portrays Jesus as an adaptable teacher, who accommodates to different people in various ways to a singular end, to bring each to faith. In the same way, the Logos accommodates to humanity via the incarnation. Adaptability serves as both an interpersonal and universal category. Early Christian interpretations of John, especially that of John Chrysostom, describe the Jesus of John by echoing characterizations of the ideal Greco-Roman pedagogue, adapting to his diverse students. By looking to such interpretations, as well as illumination from the milieu of the Fourth Evangelist, Jason S. Sturdevant provides a new lens through which to understand the characterization of the Johannine Jesus.