Ole Jakob Filtvedt examines Jesus' encounters with some of the key characters in John through ancient notions of self and self-perception. He explores how characters recognize Jesus and their own needs, offering fresh insights into the interplay of revelation and self-awareness in John's narrative.
In this study, Ole Jakob Filtvedt engages with recent scholarly discussion on ancient notions of self and self-perception, applying these concepts to the encounters between Jesus and John the Baptist, Nicodemus, the Jews and Pharisees, Peter, and Pilate. The author demonstrates that these encounters involve a relationship between two sets of questions. The first set concerns
revelation : Do the characters recognize who Jesus is and what he has to offer? The second concerns
self-perception : Do the characters recognize what they lack and what they need? By exploring how these two sets of questions relate to each other, the study probes whether there is a connection in John between the degree to which characters recognize who Jesus is and the degree to which they recognize their own situation.
Table of contents:
1.1 Starting Points, Key Terms, Basic Thesis, and Questions of Research
1.2 Revelation and Self-Perception in John: Beyond Bultmann
1.3 What We Do and Do Not Mean by Self-Perception
1.4 Textual Basis and Hermeneutical Challenges
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Nicodemus and the Baptist as Parallel Figures
2.3 Approaching the Question of the Baptist's Self-Perception
2.4 Unworthy and Inferior
2.5 Knowing that He Once Did not Know: 1:31-33
2.6 Associating Himself with the Earth (3:31)
2.7 Two Key Issues in Jesus' Encounter with Nicodemus
2.8 The Limits of the Flesh and the Necessity of Birth from Above (3:6-7)
2.9 The Man who Thought he Knew Jesus: Exposing the Ignorance of Israel's Teacher
2.10 Conclusions
3.1 The Thesis of the Present Chapter
3.2 Blindness, Sight and Self-Perception in 9:39-41
3.3 Revelatino and Conflict: Jesus' Dialogue with his Brothers (7:3-9)
3.4 The Offense of Freedom: John 8:31-36
3.5 Identifying and Confronting the Slaves to Sin
3.6 Ironic Denial that One Needs Help: An Ancient Trope Expressed in Epictetus
3.7 Conclusions
Excursus: The Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)
4. Peter: Imitation and Limitation
4.1 The Thesis of the Present Chapter
4.2 The Misunderstanding: Role Confusion
4.3 The Problem: Imitation and Limitation
4.4 Towards a Solution: Imitation and Dependence (21:18-19)
4.5 Conclusions: Peter, Revelation and Self-Perception
5.1 Recognizing Truth that Runs Contrary to Appearance
5.2 Pilate Facing the True Kind - and Himself
5.3 Revelation and Self-Perception: Jesus and Pilate
6.1 Our Key Findings and Primary Contribution to Scholarship
6.2 Shedding New Light on Well-Known Passages
