It is the Spirit that Gives Life: A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in John's Gospel (Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Fur Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft)
Gitte Buch-Hansen
Language: English
Pages: 502
ISBN: 3110225972
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Since Origen and Chrysostom, John´s Gospel has been valued as the most spiritual among the New Testament writings. Although Origen recognizes the Stoic character of John´s statement that ""God is pneuma"" (4:24), an examination of the gospel in light of Stoic physics has not yet been carried out. Combining her insight into Stoic physics and ancient physiology, the author situates her thesis in the major discussions of modern Johannine scholarship - e.g. the role of the Baptist and the function of the Johannine signs - and demonstrates new solutions to well-known problems. The Stoic study of the Fourth Gospel reveals a coherent narrative tied together by the spirit. The problem with which John´s Gospel wrestles is not the identity of Jesus, but the transition from the Son of God to the next generation of divinely begotten children: how did it come about? A reading carried out from a Stoic perspective points to the translation of the risen body of Jesus into spirit as the decisive event. The provision of the spirit is a precondition of the divine generation of believers. Both events are explained by Stoic theory which allows of a transformation of fleshly elements into pneuma and of multiple fatherhood. In fact, in his Commentary on John, Origen described Jesus´ ascension as an event of anastoixeiôsis, which is the Stoic term for the transformation of heavily elements into lighter and pneumatic ones.
Department of Biblical Exegesis at the Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen, and generously placed their knowledge and works at the seminar’s disposal. Introduction to the exegetical section 167 in terms of Aristotle’s theory of generation, in scholarship called the epigenesis. The question of parenthood in the Fourth Gospel is by Seim situated within the ancient cultural discourse on family. Both argue in favour of an understanding of the Johannine incarnation that corresponds to the virgin birth
socio-scientific terms finds its counterpart in German Protestant exegesis where Jesus’ discourse is claimed to be incomprehensible as well. The obscurity, however, is here referred to God’s mystery in the incarnation; the possibility of a rebirth is impervious to human reasoning. The shortcoming of human reasoning is embodied in the character of Nicodemus. See Hofius’ essay “Das Wunder der Wiedergeburt” (1996). The vertical God-human dichotomy in Protestant exegesis is in the socio-scientific
substrate in any particular being is applied by the Stoics to their only true Being, namely Nature considered as an organic Whole. Stoics then speak of the two principles of the universal Whole (a)rxa_j tw~n o#lwn du&o). On the one hand, we have the passive principle (to_ pa&sxon), which represents the substrate or prime matter (h9 u(lh/) that makes up the Whole. The passive principle is substance viewed abstractly or apart from its formative qualities (th\n a!poion ou0si/an). On the other hand,
the expression is incorporeal [kai\ di0ko&twj, fasi/n: touti\ me\n ga_r a)ci/wma& e0sti, to_ de\ a)ci/wma lekto&n, to_ de\ lekto_n a)sw&maton]. On the other hand, truth is a body in so far as it is held to be “knowledge declaratory of all true things [a)na&palin de\ h9 a)lh/qeia sw~ma& e0sti paro&son e0pisth/mh pa&ntwn a)lhqw~n a)pofantikh\ dokei= tugxa&nein],” and all knowledge is “a particular state of the regent part [pa&sa de\ e0pisth/mh pw~j e1xon e0sti\n h9gemoniko&n] … and according to
of Adele Reinhartz’ semiotic approach to the narratives or “tales” of the Fourth Gospel was discussed. I suggested that the semiotics of New Criticism were subjected to the post-structuralist revision of the sign-relation found in New Historicism. According to New Historicism, no textual signifiers are immediately available at the surface of the text; they first come into being through the grid of categories that, as a “vision device”, is applied to the text, in this case Stoic physics. The Stoic