Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature
Philadelphia, PA - November 19-22, 2005

Abstracts of Papers Read
in the Johannine Literature Section:

S19-16: Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005, 9:00 - 11:30 AM (Room 109-B - Pennsylvania Convention Center)

Theme: John and Empire

Felix Just, SJ, University of San Francisco, Presiding

• Warren Carter, Saint Paul School of Theology, John’s Gospel: Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
   
  ABSTRACT: While much contemporary scholarship views John's gospel as the "spiritual" and "anti-synagogal" gospel, John has seldom been viewed as a gospel involved in negotiating the Roman imperial world. This paper explores three ways in which the gospel engages Rome's empire. It considers the gospel's plot (the clash over power between Jesus, God's agent, and the Jerusalem-centered, temple-based, Rome-allied elite that results in Jesus' crucifixion), its central revelation of eternal life (physical transformation and establishment of God's purposes in a world dominated by the urbs aeterna and imperium sine fine), and the creation of a community of friends of Jesus (in contrast to those who are friends of Caesar).
   
• R.S. Sugirtharajah, University of Birmingham, Subjecting the Johannine Letters to Postcolonial Criticism (45 min)
   
  ABSTRACT: This study of the Johannine letters has three aims. One is to draw attention to colonial tendencies embedded in the text, which could well play into the hands of the present day empire-builders. Among the colonial characteristics of the text are: castigation of those who are not with us as the enemies of God, resentment of any diverse or plural thinking, and employment of the trope of the child as a way of control and domestication. The second is to unmask the hermeneutics of denial at work among some Western biblical interpreters who refuse to accept any influence outside the Hebraic and Hellenistic background, illuminating some of the ideas in the epistles for which there are no Jewish or Greek parallels. Re-invoking the now marginalized hypothesis that Buddhist ideas could have influenced early Christianity, the paper will demonstrate that some of the Johannine theological categories such as indwelling could have benefited from Eastern thinking . The third is to show how postcolonial criticism readily aligns itself with the insistence of the letters on seeking and finding truth, justice and love not in doctrinal or spiritual categories but in the tensions and conflicts of life. Here postcolonialism will concur with the writer of the epistles that ethical involvement, not theoretical or doctrinal fine-tuning, is paramount.

S21-116: Monday, Nov. 21, 2005, 4:00 - 6:30 PM (Room 103-A - Pennsylvania Convention Center)

Theme: John and the Visual Arts

Adele Reinhartz, Wilfrid Laurier University, Presiding

• Susan Ward, Rhode Island School of Design, A Visual Exegesis of Mary Magdalene in John 20
   
  ABSTRACT: After a brief discussion of representations of the Magdalene coming to the tomb, (John 20:1), the paper will concentrate on images of the interaction between the Risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene described in John 20:11-16, an episode called the noli me tangere, or touch me not. While earlier versions of the noli me tangere have minimal props and simply show two figures interacting, later medieval and Renaissance representations include elaborate details. Some are related to gardening and other recall Mary Magdalene's perceived status as a reformed prostitute as described in the Golden Legend (ca. 1275). Fifteenth- through seventeenth-century versions of the noli me tangere concentrate on the psychological nature of the interaction as the mimesis of human expression becomes a more important factor in visual representation. The final section of the paper will examine other iconographies of the Magdalene, which suggest alternative interpretations of her role. Even in the Middle Ages and Renaissance there are rare appearances of the Magdalene telling of the Apostles of Christ's resurrection. After 1700 the visual tradition of the Magdalene becomes less important as artists reinterpret John 20 in light of direct reinterpretations of the text and their personal ideas about the meaning of the story.
   
• David Rensberger, Interdenominational Theological Center, An Iconic Reading Strategy for the Gospel of John
   
  ABSTRACT: The narrative of the gospel of John is filled with passages that violate the reader's narrative expectations. Scholars have long observed such aporiae, often explaining them as resulting from redaction of sources, multiple editions, or even accidental transpositions. It may be worth asking, though, whether the aporiae have a function in themselves. Perhaps the communication that this text wishes to undertake is not something that can be accomplished within the framework of ordinary narrative logic; the "distortions" in the text may be deliberately intended as part of its communication. In the eastern Christian visual arts, a technique of visual communication was developed that was deliberately non-realistic. John Baggley writes, "[D]eliberate distortions of normal perspective... can lead to the recognition that our normal everyday world is also the scene where events of an inner or higher or spiritual world are taking place, a world where our normal values and assumptions are turned upside down" (Doors of Perception: Icons and Their Spiritual Significance). Perhaps some of the aporiae of John work like the technique of the later iconographers, deliberately using unrealistic depictions to present a reality "not of this world." To test this hypothesis, I will examine difficult passages from John to see whether their dilemmas of narrative logic can be read as pointers toward a reality that also violates logical expectations and turns assumptions upside down-the reality of the Logos made flesh and crucified. I do not claim that there is a direct historical connection between John and the technique of orthodox icon writers. I am simply asking whether the deliberately non-realistic aesthetic of the icons may provide the model for a reading strategy that takes positive account of the aporiae in the Johannine text.