{"title":"Hearing the non-violence in a silent departure (John 8:59 and 10:39)","authors":"Josiah D. Hall","doi":"10.1177/00346373231197429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00346373231197429","url":null,"abstract":"The provocative exchanges between Jesus and his interlocutors in John 8 and 10 both climax in the interlocutors rejecting Jesus’s claims and seeking to stone him before tersely describing Jesus’s escape from a premature death: in John 8:59, Jesus hides himself and departs from the temple, whereas in John 10:39, he merely departs. These enigmatic descriptions of departure create “narrative silences.” Considering ancient expectations for violent divine retribution against those who failed to recognize and honor a deity’s manifestation, I argue these “narrative silences” would have provoked an ancient audience to anticipate violent divine judgment. John, however, subverts this expectation. While maintaining that Jesus’s departure from the temple, and, later, from the world, are divine judgment in the form of the removal of the divine presence, John nevertheless presents this judgment as distinctively non-violent. This non-violent divine judgment in turn furthers the Gospel’s aim of convincing the audience to accept the Gospel’s claim that Jesus is the enfleshed divine presence.","PeriodicalId":21049,"journal":{"name":"Review & Expositor","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134912898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the list and at the well: Finding encouragement in Christ’s acknowledgment and ministry","authors":"Sarah Boberg","doi":"10.1177/00346373231197204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00346373231197204","url":null,"abstract":"This narrative is a personal account of the author’s experience as a called woman minister and her being included on Mike Law’s recent list in support of a Constitutional Amendment for the SBC not to “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as pastor of any kind.” Using the text of John 4, the author identifies the encouragement the Samaritan woman found in Christ’s acknowledgment of her and in sending her as a witness and how the Samaritan woman’s experience connects to the author’s own experience of encouragement found in her call and ministry.","PeriodicalId":21049,"journal":{"name":"Review & Expositor","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134911823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The woman saved from stoning: An answer to scapegoats and scapegoating","authors":"Jennifer Garcia Bashaw","doi":"10.1177/00346373231197200","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00346373231197200","url":null,"abstract":"According to René Girard, Jesus is the scapegoat to end all scapegoats. The Gospels reveal that his voluntary death as an innocent scapegoat unmasks the scapegoating process in which human societies participate and frees humanity from its power. Jesus’s passion is not the only episode from the Gospels that provides an antidote to scapegoating. In the story of the woman saved from stoning (John 8:2-11), Jesus calms a scapegoating storm, de-escalates a mob, and thwarts the scapegoaters. Jesus removes the scapegoat target from the woman’s back and focuses attention where it belongs: on the wrongs of the accusers. In his interactions with the woman, Jesus frees her from blame and treats her like a human being made in the image of God, not an object to be used. Jesus offers a glimpse into how to create a future without scapegoating, a future in which we turn our gazes to our own sins and treat those who are marginalized and targeted for blame not as scapegoats but as image-bearers worthy of love.","PeriodicalId":21049,"journal":{"name":"Review & Expositor","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134912340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A word from a seminarian . . . The grace of hearing and remembering","authors":"Sara Acosta","doi":"10.1177/00346373231197823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00346373231197823","url":null,"abstract":"First Samuel 1:1-20 is a multifaceted text, rich with ancient history and modern significance. A nuanced look at the passage’s cultural, theological, and pastoral contexts can equip laity and clergy alike to counsel women experiencing infertility grief, honoring the text while turning to a hermeneutic alternative to a dominant Deuteronomistic view.","PeriodicalId":21049,"journal":{"name":"Review & Expositor","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134912896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}