Abstract
This chapter explores the transcendent otherness of the mother of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple in the crucifixion scene (Jn 19:25–27, 34), employing Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of double-voicedness. A closer reading indicates that the mother of Jesus—a Galilean Jew—and the Beloved Disciple—a Judean Jew—traverse their racial/ethnic borderlines in such a way as to become God’s offspring, a new race/ethnicity, while at the same time maintaining their perceived race/ethnicity. In doing so, Jesus also transgresses the gender lines between masculinity (as Logos) and femininity (as Sophia) by taking on the symbolic role of bearing the children of God. Jesus goes on to transcend the line between life and death in the sense that his death brings about a new birth of the Johannine community, a hybrid community in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender. All things considered, the otherness beyond as symbolized by the mother of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple ultimately undermines the ideology of homogeneity, as enforced by Roman supremacy, through upholding unity in diversity and diversity in unity.
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Notes
- 1.
A reader response analysis could also read the identity of the Beloved Disciple as representing the Gentile group within the Johannine community based on his/her anonymity, thereby inviting the readers to take part in the story of John and identify the disciple’s story with their own stories in the diasporic context, both transhistorical and transcultural.
- 2.
Cf. J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003); Raymond Edward Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979); Sharon H. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 10–28. My contention is that the Johannine community is a multi-racial/ethnic and gender-inclusive community.
On the one hand, the community is diverse in terms of racial/ethnic profile. First, it is to be emphasized is that, in spite of its hostility against Judean Jews, the Johannine community is predominantly a Judean Jewish community. See J. G. Van der Watt, Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel According to John, Biblical Interpretation Series (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 187. In addition, some Judean Jews start to believe in Jesus after observing the miracle performed by Jesus (John 2:23; 7:31; 11:45; 12:11, 17). Second, Jesus and his disciples are from Galilee (John 1:43, 46; 2:1, 11; 7:41, 52). Third, the Samaritan woman leads her people to believe in Jesus as “the Savior of the world” (ὁ σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου), with the result that the Samaritans are incorporated into the Johannine community (John 4:42). Subsequently, Jesus hints at his association with the Samaritans by leaving unanswered an indictment brought against him as a Samaritan (John 8:48). Fourth, the appearance of the Greeks witnesses to their presence in the Johannine community (John 12:20–22).
On the other hand, the community is an open one in terms of gender. The Samaritan woman becomes the first so-called missionary to her townspeople (4:28–30). Martha proclaims Jesus as the Messiah, which is ascribed to Peter in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 16:13–20; Mark 8:27–30; Luke 9:18–20). Mary’s washing the feet of Jesus has an impact on Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples (John 12:1–8; 13:1–17). Mary Magdalene, one of the bystanders at Jesus’ crucifixion, becomes the first to witness the risen Jesus to his disciples (John 20:11–18). In addition, the Beloved Disciple and Jesus as gender-ambiguous characters perform both masculinity and femininity. Therefore, the Johannine community is transformed into a multi-racial/ethnic and gender-inclusive community in the diasporic context.
- 3.
Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 69–106.
- 4.
M. M. Bakhtin and Caryl Emerson, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 189.
- 5.
Ibid.
- 6.
Concerning the mother of Jesus as an ideal disciple, see Ritva H. Williams, “The Mother of Jesus at Cana: A Social-Science Interpretation of John 2:1–12,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 59, no. 4 (1997): 679–692. Drawing on a social-scientific reading strategy, Ritva H. Williams portrays the mother of Jesus as a challenging character in that she takes the initiative to encourage him to come to terms with the shortage of wine. On the mother of Jesus as an ideal character, see also John McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1975), 388–403; Raymond F. Collins, “Representative Figures of the Fourth Gospel,” Downside Review 94, no. 315 (1976), 120. On the patriarchal and androcentric characterization of the mother of Jesus, see also Adeline Fehribach, The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of the Female Characters in the Fourth Gospel (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1998), 32–40.
- 7.
Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), 66–67.
- 8.
Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 116–117. Rudolf Bultmann does not consider it impolite for Jesus to address his mother “woman,” given its usage in the Greek and Jewish literature. Cf. McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament, 402. Contra Williams, “The Mother of Jesus at Cana: A Social-Science Interpretation of John 2:1–12,” 688.
- 9.
McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament, 363.
- 10.
C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978), 191; Raymond E. Brown et al., Mary in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 191–194; Matthew S. Collins, “The Question of Doxa: A Socioliterary Reading of the Wedding at Cana,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 25, no. 3 (1995): 103.
- 11.
Colleen M. Conway, Men and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization, Dissertation Series/Society of Biblical Literature (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), 73.
- 12.
Ibid., 74.
- 13.
Ibid., 78.
- 14.
Turid Karlsen Seim, “Roles of Women in the Gospel of John,” in Aspects on the Johannine Literature, ed. Lars Hartman and Birger Olsson (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1987), 61. On various interpretations—symbolical, historical, and polemical—about the anonymity of “the mother of Jesus,” cf. Troy W. Martin, “Assessing the Johannine Epithet ‘the Mother of Jesus,’” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 60, no. 1 (1998): 64–68.
- 15.
Judith Lieu, “The Mother of the Son in the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 117, no. 1 (1998), 63.
- 16.
On the role of the mother of Jesus like a “mother of an important son” character-type in the Hebrew Bible, see Fehribach, The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of the Female Characters in the Fourth Gospel, 25–28.
- 17.
Cf. David R. Beck, “The Narrative Function of Anonymity in Fourth Gospel Characterization,” Semeia, no. 63 (1993), 150. David Beck contends that the anonymous characters in the Gospel of John function as model disciples on the part of the readers. In this light, Beck regards the mother of Jesus as a woman of faith.
- 18.
Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John, New Century Bible (London: Oliphants, 1972), 457. Contra Barnabas Lindars, see Richard Bauckham, “The Beloved Disciple as Ideal Author,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, no. 49 (1993): 21–44. Richard Bauckham argues that the Gospel does not represent the Beloved Disciple as the ideal disciple but as the ideal author (John 19:35; 20:30–31; 21:24).
- 19.
Raymond Edward Brown, Paul J. Achtemeier, Karl P. Donfried, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and John Reumann, Mary in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 211.
- 20.
Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 446.
- 21.
Ibid. Barrett goes to some length to explain the custom of reclining in a meal thus: “Persons taking part in a meal reclined on the left side; the left arm was used to support the body, the right was free for use. The disciple to the right of Jesus would thus find his head immediately in front of Jesus and might accordingly be said to lie in his bosom. Evidently he would be in a position to speak intimately with Jesus, but his was not the place of greatest honour; this was to the left of the host. The place occupied by the Beloved Disciple was nevertheless the place of a trusted friend.”
- 22.
On a mariological interpretation, see Moloney, The Gospel of John, 504. On an ecclesial interpretation, see Seim, “Roles of Women in the Gospel of John,” 65.
- 23.
Conway, Men and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization, 84; Margaret M. Beirne, Women and Men in the Fourth Gospel: A Genuine Discipleship of Equals (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 178.
- 24.
In terms of narrative flow, the role of the mother of Jesus is simply emphasized in the narrative because the Greek word μήτηρ, which means “mother,” comes into use five times within the pericope (cf. vv. 25 (twice); 26 (twice); 27 (once)).
- 25.
Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), 93. Interestingly, Gaventa suggests that the “son” in verse 26 might encourage the readers to associate it with Jesus rather than the Beloved Disciple. However, as she admits, the narrator in verse 27 makes it plain that the term refers to the Beloved Disciple.
- 26.
On an adoption formula in connection with a revelatory formula, see Cf. Beirne, Women and Men in the Fourth Gospel: A Genuine Discipleship of Equals, 179; Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 552.
- 27.
Joan Cecelia Campbell, Kinship Relations in the Gospel of John (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2007), 40. On the familial unity focused on paternal-filial relationship, see also Conway, Men and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization, 83–84. As Conway argues, it would be fair to say that the mother of Jesus is so essential a character as the Beloved Disciple in forming a new family of Jesus.
- 28.
It is noteworthy that the hour (ὥρα) of Jesus in his first ministry dramatically overlaps with that in his final ministry. It is also significant to note that τὰ ἴδια may convey either a physical sense (i.e., one’s own home) or a spiritual sense (i.e., one’s own spiritual influence).
- 29.
On the unitedness at the individual level, cf. Moloney, The Gospel of John, 503. “As a result of the lifting up of Jesus on the cross the Beloved Disciple and the Mother become one.”
- 30.
Van der Watt, Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel According to John, 353–354.
- 31.
Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 673; cf. 483–485.
- 32.
Ibid., 673; cf. 512–518.
- 33.
Ibid., 512.
- 34.
Ibid., 517.
- 35.
Richard Bauckham, “Messianism According to the Gospel of John,” in Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John, ed. John Lierman (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 59–60. Opposing the scholarly view to see only the mother of Jesus as representative of Israel, I would consider both the mother of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple to be symbolically constitutive of Israel in unity.
- 36.
On the issue of the translation of Ioudaios, see Brown et al., Mary in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars, 214–217.
- 37.
Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties.
- 38.
Cf. Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 159–166.
- 39.
Ibid, 162.
- 40.
On Jesus’ (Jewish) Galilean identity, see Sean Freyne, Jesus, a Jewish Galilean: A New Reading of the Jesus-Story (London: T & T Clark, 2004); “The Galilean Jesus and a Contemporary Christology,” Theological Studies 70, no. 2 (2009): 281–297; Jouette M. Bassler, “The Galileans: A Neglected Factor in Johannine Community Research,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43, no. 2 (1981): 243–257. Sean Freyne argues that Jesus himself has both Jewish and Galilean identities, with the result that Jesus can be recognized as a Jewish Galilean or a Galilean Jew.
- 41.
Cf. Freyne, Jesus, a Jewish Galilean: A New Reading of the Jesus-Story, 8. Freyne aptly states: “Thus, places and their identities should be seen as unfixed, contested and multiple.”
- 42.
On Jesus’ origin and father land in the Gospel of John, Meeks, “Galilee and Judea in the Fourth Gospel,” 159–169. Interestingly enough, Wayne Meeks argues that Jesus has Galilean origin, but Judean fatherland (patris). Meeks understands the Johannine geographical distinction at the symbolic level; for instance, Jerusalem is “the place of judgment and rejection,” whereas Galilee and Samaria are “the places of acceptance and discipleship” (169).
- 43.
On this, see Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 138–139. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza constructs the mother of Jesus as one of the Galilean women disciples.
- 44.
On this, see James H. Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1995), 127–224; Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 325–333. Cf. Adele Reinhartz, Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John (New York: Continuum, 2001).
Charlesworth argues that the Beloved Disciple is a real historical person rather than a fictional literary character. He points out that it would be inaccurate to see the Beloved Disciple as merely a symbolic character. He demonstrates that at least the redacted version of chapter 21 attests to the historicity of the Beloved Disciple. He further contends that the Beloved Disciple is male. By contrast, Schüssler Fiorenza suggests that Martha of Bethany would be a Beloved Disciple: “As a ‘Beloved Disciple’ of Jesus she [Martha] is the spokeswoman for the messianic community” (329). In a similar fashion, Schüssler Fiorenza portrays Mary of Bethany as “the true disciple and minister in contrast to the betrayer who was one of the twelve” (331). In addition to these historical reconstructions, Reinhartz attempts, on the literary level, to identify the Beloved Disciple as the implied author—a construction by the reader (cf. John 21:24–25). As will be demonstrated, my contention is that, from a linguistic, literary, and theological perspective, the best candidate for the Beloved Disciple would be Lazarus of Bethany more than any other characters.
From a postmodern perspective, one, however, would go a step further to say that the Beloved Disciple is rendered anonymous so that the Gospel may invite readers across time and space to identify themselves with this ideal disciple. The context of diaspora (διασπορά), ancient and modern, in the Gospel of John especially allows for this identification (on the use of the Greek word διασπορά, see John 7:35; see also James 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1; on the use of the Greek word διασκορπίζω, see John 11:52; 16:32; on the use of the Greek word διασπείρω, see also Acts 8:1, 4; 11:19). Reinhartz (Why Ask My Name?: Anonymity and Identity in Biblical Narrative [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 13) argues: “The reader therefore ‘becomes’ the character and is invited by the anonymity of the character to adopt his or her position or point of view in the text.” If such is the case, readers, ancient and contemporary, with multifaceted racial/ethnic and gender backgrounds would be attracted to the anonymity of the Beloved Disciple in the process of identification. In this way, the readers, regardless of their racial/ethnic and gender identity, identify themselves with the Beloved Disciple. Therefore, the anonymity of the Beloved Disciple may facilitate the crossing of the boundaries of race, ethnicity, and gender.
- 45.
I would argue that the Gospel of John interchangeably uses the Greek verbs φιλέω and αγαπάω. First, the Gospel uses both verbs to express Jesus’ love of the family of Bethany (φιλέω: John 11:3, 36; αγαπάω: John 11:5). Second, the narrator alternatingly uses both verbs in the conversation between Jesus and Peter (John 21:15–17). Third, the narrator uses both words in reference to the Beloved Disciple (φιλέω: John 20:2; αγαπάω: John 13:23; 19:26). Finally, the narrator demonstrates the love of the Father toward the Son by using the two verbs (φιλέω: John 5:20; αγαπάω: John 3:35). It follows that the Fourth Gospel interchangeably uses the Greek verbs φιλέω and αγαπάω throughout.
- 46.
Philip Francis Esler and Ronald A. Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha: A Social-Scientific and Theological Reading of John (London: SCM Press, 2006); Floyd Vivian Filson, “Who Was the Beloved Disciple,” Journal of Biblical Literature 68, no. 2 (1949): 83–88.
- 47.
In effect, Jesus also crosses over his racial/ethnic identity as a Galilean Jew by highlighting his role as a mother bearing these two characters as children of God and incorporating their racial/ethnic identities into a new identity as members of his new family. Jesus’ command of mutual entrustment between his mother and the Beloved Disciple allows him to acquire a new race/ethnicity, inclusive of a Galilean Jew and a Judean Jew. This scene is the climax of Jesus’ racial/ethnic transgression wherein Jesus crosses his racial/ethnic identity as a Galilean Jew in a way that he paradoxically becomes a spiritual mother to his physical mother.
It is noteworthy that Jesus is always portrayed as transgressing his racial/ethnic identity by emphasizing his heavenly identity as the Logos and hiding his racial/ethnic origin as a Galilean Jew. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus hides his racial/ethnic identity as a Galilean Jew, in spite of the extant trace as such. In the framework of Johannine dualism, John’s Gospel conceives of Jesus’ family relationship at two contrasting levels, the heavenly (or spiritual) and the earthly (or biological), with emphasis on the former rather than the latter. In this regard, it is worthwhile to note that the Johannine prologue (John 1:18) introduces Jesus as the enfleshed Logos, the Word of God (John 1:14), adumbrating the conflict between his heavenly and earthly identities. For the most part, the Gospel of John has a tendency to emphasize Jesus as the only begotten Son of God rather than the son of Joseph and Mary. On the one hand, the heavenly family relationship between Jesus the Son and God the Father is persistently emphasized throughout the entire Gospel (John 1:14; 3:16–18, 35; 5:20; 8:16, 18, 28, 38, 49, 54; 10:17, 30; 14:7; 17:1, 5, 11, 21, 24–25). On the other hand, the earthly family relationship between Jesus and his father, brothers, and mother constantly remains in the background. First, even though Joseph is referred to as the father of Jesus (John 1:45; 6:42), he by no means shows up in the narrative. Second, Jesus’ brothers are negatively portrayed as disbelieving in him (John 7:5) after their first, neutral appearance (John 2:12). Third, the mother of Jesus is somewhat distantiated from him (John 2:1–11), although she is finally affiliated with and incorporated into a fictive family relationship with the Beloved Disciple at the foot of the cross (John 19:25–27). Thus, the implication is that the earthly or biological family can be deemed valuable only if it contributes to the creation of a new fictive family within the parameters of the heavenly or spiritual family. By incorporating his biological mother into the spiritual family of God, Jesus implicitly admits his racial/ethnic identity as a Galilean Jew. Yet, at the same time, he explicitly transgresses his earthly racial/ethnic identity by performing his heavenly identity as one who produces children of God. On Jesus’ heavenly and spiritual family, see Campbell, Kinship Relations in the Gospel of John, 6.
- 48.
Sandra Marie Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), 185.
- 49.
Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 143.
- 50.
Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:CXXII–CXXV.
- 51.
J. Massyngberde Ford, Redeemer Friend and Mother: Salvation in Antiquity and in the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 39–45.
- 52.
Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, 133.
- 53.
On the relationship between Logos and Sophia in the strands of Jewish wisdom tradition and Philo’s works, see Burton Lee Mack, Logos und Sophia: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie im hellenistischen Judentum, Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973); Martin Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 91–94. It is still a matter of dispute whether the Gospel of John relies only on Philo for the idea of the Logos. At a minimalist level, one can argue that Philo is one of the significant sources in understanding John’s religious and philosophical context. For instance, it is quite interesting to note that Philo presents the Logos, the ambassador (πρεσβευτής), or suppliant (ἱκέτης) of God the Supreme Being, as mediating between God and humanity (Quis rerum divinarum heres sit 205), just as John describes Jesus, the incarnation of the Logos, as mediating God and the world (κόσμος).
- 54.
Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, 60.
- 55.
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of the works of Philo are mine.
- 56.
Richard Arthur Baer, Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 62. In this light, the faculty of both “sowing” (σπείρειν) and “begetting” (γεννᾶν) relates to masculinity rather than femininity. Striking is Philo’s view that the masculine image of sowing and the feminine image of begetting are all included in the fathering image of Sophia.
- 57.
Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel, 42.
- 58.
Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, 93.
- 59.
Contra Baer, Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female, 66. Baer notes: “For Philo, God is asexual, i.e., completely beyond or outside of the male-female polarity” (66). I disagree with his view that the deity (e.g., God, Logos, and Sophia) is asexual. Instead, I would argue that Philo presents Sophia as freely playing with gender parameters rather than simply transcending them.
- 60.
Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, 83–173. Cf. On Philo and John, A. W. Argyle, “Philo and the Fourth Gospel,” Expository Times 63, no. 12 (1952): 385–386; “The Logos of Philo: Personal or Impersonal?,” Expository Times 65, no. 1 (1954): 13–14; Thomas H. Tobin, “The Prologue of John and Hellenistic Jewish Speculation,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52, no. 2 (1990): 252–269.
- 61.
Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, 114.
- 62.
My contention is that Jesus has masculine trait as Logos explicitly and feminine trait as Sophia implicitly. Jesus involves and goes beyond the limits of masculinity and femininity.
- 63.
Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:CXXIII; Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, 115–168.
- 64.
Cf. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:CXXII.
- 65.
On John’s gender fluidity, see Tat-siong Benny Liew, “Queering Closets and Perverting Desires: Cross-Examining John’s Engendering and Transgendering Word across Different Worlds,” in They Were All Together in One Place?: Toward Minority Biblical Criticism, ed. Randall C. Bailey, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Fernando F. Segovia (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 251–288.
- 66.
On this, see McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament, 383. It is worth remembering that the experience of a pregnant woman in a risky situation can be comparable to a seed that dies to produce many seeds (John 12:24). Moreover, Jesus compares his own death to the death of a seed. On the metaphor of a seed and a woman in labor, see Van der Watt, Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel According to John, 108–109.
- 67.
Ford, Redeemer Friend and Mother: Salvation in Antiquity and in the Gospel of John, 164–167.
- 68.
Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:130. Brown recognizes the use of the Greek verb γεννᾶν in connection with both fatherhood and motherhood, which means begetting by a man and birth from a woman, respectively. However, he leans toward begetting rather than birthing in the Gospel of John.
- 69.
Maarten J. J. Menken, ““Born of God” or “Begotten by God”?: A Translation Problem in the Johannine Writings,” in Jesus, Paul, and Early Christianity: Studies in Honour of Henk Jan De Jonge, ed. Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, Harm W. Hollander, and Johannes Tromp (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 337–343. See also Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 206; Brown et al., Mary in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars, 181 n. 407.
- 70.
Menken, “‘Born of God’ or ‘Begotten by God’?: A Translation Problem in the Johannine Writings,” 343.
- 71.
On John’s use of birth imagery in general, see Van der Watt, Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel According to John, 168–188.
- 72.
On the blending of masculinity and femininity in the characterization of Jesus in the ancient Mediterranean milieu, see Alicia D. Myers, “Gender, Rhetoric and Recognition: Characterizing Jesus and (Re)defining Masculinity in the Gospel of John,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament no. 38.2 (2015): 191–218. On the subversive character of Jesus’ masculinity in the Roman imperial context, see also Jason J. Ripley, “‘Behold the Man’? Subverting Imperial Masculinity in the Gospel of John,” Journal of the Bible and its Reception no. 2 (2015): 219–239.
- 73.
On the symbolic meaning of blood and water, see Fehribach, The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of the Female Characters in the Fourth Gospel, 127. For theological reflection on blood and water, see also Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 200–203. For Koester, the blood and water gushing from the wound of Jesus’ side are symbolic of the humanity and divinity of Jesus, respectively.
- 74.
Cf. Ford, Redeemer Friend and Mother: Salvation in Antiquity and in the Gospel of John, 195. As Ford suggests, it would be intriguing to notice that there is the theme of “the birth from above” (John 3:3, 7), as embodied in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus (John 3:1–16), which becomes complete with Nicodemus’ reappearance (John 19:39) in a macrostructure of inclusio.
- 75.
Cf. Fehribach, The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of the Female Characters in the Fourth Gospel, 121–131. In spite of agreement on female imagery, it is controversial whether such imagery stresses matrilineage or patrilineage. Adeline Fehribach charges the Gospel of John with the androcentric tendency to transplant birthing imagery from a female characteristic to a male characteristic. As she suggests, this birth motif in the Gospel of John derives from Genesis 2:21–22, which describes the creation of the first woman out of the side (πλευρά) of the first man, Adam. Like the birth story of the first woman, the birth story in John 19:34 is one of the examples of “male appropriation of the female generative ability” (126).
- 76.
On the masculinity of the Johannine Jesus in Roman imperial context, cf. Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 143–157; 75–84.
- 77.
J. Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)Versions of Biblical Narratives (Norcross, GA: Trinity Press International, 1993), 145–147. J. Cheryl Exum construes the clash between patriarchal and matriarchal ideology as that between a desire for unity and diversity.
- 78.
Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature, 237.
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Lim, S.U. (2021). Reading the Otherness Beyond. In: Otherness and Identity in the Gospel of John. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60286-4_6
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