Pericope

Abstract: This dissertation examines John 13: 1-20, the pericope which describes Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. For a variety of reasons, there is no scholarly consensus concerning the meaning of this passage. In addition, very little reflection has been devoted to the place religious footwashing may have held in the Johannine community. This dissertation reexamines the fundamental issues raised by the passage and investigates the likelihood that footwashing was a community rite. Chapter one gives an overview of the prominent interpretations of John 13: 1-20 in the history of interpretation. This chapter also presents an elaboration of the dissertation's purpose, together with a preview of and justification for the methodology employed, which includes text-critical, background-historical, literary-exegetical, and historical-reconstructive components. In view of the decisive bearing on interpretation, the textual problem found in John 13: 10 receives considerable attention in chapter two. Here a decision is made in favor of the inclusion of the longer reading, because of superior external evidence and internal probability. In chapter three a survey of the practice of footwashing in Jewish and Graeco-Roman antiquity uncovers first-century attitudes to footwashing, which in turn leads to a more informed interpretation of footwashing's significance in John 13. The survey reveals that footwashing functioned as an act of hospitality, an expression of love, a sign of servitude, and a sign of preparation generally. Chapter four is devoted to a literary and exegetical analysis of the text of John 13: 1-20. This investigation indicates the pericope's literary context within the Fourth Gospel, as the first episode in both the "Book of Glory" (John 13-21) and the farewell materials (John 13-17). The role of the disciples in the preceding narrative (John 1-12) is also explored. An exegetical study follows, which seeks to interpret the text of John 13: 1-20 as it now stands in the Fourth Gospel. The analysis finds that the footwashing of John 13 is best understood as a sign for the forgiveness of the disciples' post-conversion sin. The analysis concludes with reflection scholarly discussion about the literary unity of the footwashing pericope. The evidence which makes likely that the Johannine community engaged in footwashing as a religious rite is explored in chapter five. This examination utilizes information from the implied readers in the Fourth Gospel, from actual readers of the Fourth Gospel in the early church, and from the practice of footwashing in early Christianity. An examination of similar categories of evidence suggests that footwashing signified the forgiveness of post-conversion sin for the Johannine community. The final section of the dissertation is devoted to a set of conclusions and suggestions for future research.

Abstract: Readers of the Gospel of Mark are familiar with the Second Evangelist's convention of breaking up a story or pericope by inserting a second, seemingly unrelated, story into the middle of it. A good example occurs in chapter 5 where Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, importunes Jesus to heal his daughter (vv 21-24). A woman with a hemorrhage interrupts Jesus en route to Jairus' house (vv 25-34), and only after recording the woman's healing does Mark resume with the raising ofJairus' daughter, who had died in the meantime (vv 35-43). Another example occurs in chapter 11 where Mark separates the cursing of the fig tree (vv 12-14) and its subsequent withering (vv 20-21) with Jesus' 'clearing of the temple (vv 15-19). This technique occurs some nine times in the Gospel: Mark begins story A, introduces story B, then returns to and completes story A. These inserted middles have been variously indentified as intercalations,' interpolations,2 insertions,3 framing,4 or, in German, as

Abstract: *) I would like to thank: Professor Nahum SARNA, and also Stephen MITCHELL, for their helpful criticisms of this paper. 1) We cannot deal here with the textual problems of this pericope, save to note the difficulty in v. 26a. Our translation deletes the definite article and assumes a nominal clause with the LXX. But see n. 3 below. 2) So J. BRIGHT, Jeremiah, The Anchor Bible, New York, 1965, pp. 32f. B. CHILDS sees this as evidence for the Urzeit-Endzeit pattern in Israel: namely that the acts at the close of the temporal cycle parallel the acts at its inception. This New-Final Chaos (Jer. iv 23 if) will be followed by a New-Final Creation (Isa. lxv 17), and so on. See Myth and Reality, London, 1960, p. 77. 3) The possibility of an asyndetic series cannot be excluded.

Abstract: Although consistently overlooked or dismissed, John 8.6,8 in the Pericope Adulterae is the only place in canonical or non-canonical Jesus tradition that portrays Jesus as writing. After establishing that John 8.6,8 is indeed a claim that Jesus could write, this book offers a new interpretation and transmission history of the pericope adulterae. Not only did the pericope's interpolator place the story in John's Gospel in order to highlight the claim that Jesus could write, but he did so at John 7.53-8.11 as a result of carefully reading the Johannine narrative. The final chapter of the book proposes a plausible socio-historical context for the insertion of the story.