Theology

Bincy Mathew

The Johannine Footwashing as the Sign of Perfect Love

An Exegetical Study of John 13:1–20

[Die johanneische Fußwaschung als Zeichen der vollkommenen Liebe. Eine exegetische Studie von Johannes 13:1–20.]

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Was the footwashing in Jn 13:1–20 simply an act of service or humility? Bincy Mathew provides a critical and thorough exegetical analysis of the footwashing and shows that it is the symbolic prefiguration of Jesus' death on the cross enacted during the last supper to manifest his perfect love for his own.
The account of the footwashing in the Fourth Gospel has no proper parallel in antiquity. Bincy Mathew provides a critical and thorough exegetical analysis of the footwashing (Jn 13:1–20) and shows that an explanation of the footwashing as humble service or Christian humility or a reversal of social roles fails to fully capture the revelatory character of the footwashing. She argues that the footwashing is a symbolic prefiguration of Jesus' death on the cross enacted during the last supper to manifest his perfect love for his own and continue to make its effect through the disciples whom he sends. This loving action is Jesus' gift of life to those who commit themselves to this washing, which is expected to flow out from the participants of the footwashing to others unconditionally because the source of such action is the normative action of the Master and the Lord. In this book, Bincy Mathew addresses the literary, structural, and semantic unity of the footwashing pericope within the intra-textual contours of the Fourth Gospel.
Authors/Editors

Bincy Mathew Born 1979; 2016 PhD at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; since 2017 a visiting professor at various theological institutes in India.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4769-2692

Reviews

The following reviews are known:

In: Journal for the Study of the New Testament (JSNT) — 42 (2020), pp. 64–65 (David Wenham)
In: Recherches de Science Religieuse (RSR) — 109 (2021), pp. 359–360 (David Pastorelli)
In: Review of Biblical Literature — https://www.bookreviews.org/ (4/2020) (Steven M. Bryan)
In: RES – Review of Ecumenical Studies — 13 (2021), pp. 87–91 (Hans Klein)
In: Revue de l'histoire et de Philosophie Réligieuses — 99 (2019), pp. 573–575 (Christian Grappe)
In: Nouvelle Revue Théologique — 141 (2019), pp. 658–659 (Gonzague de Longcamp)
In: New Testament Abstracts — 63 (2019), S. 148–149
In: The Bible Today — Jul/Aug 2019, S. 263 (Donald Senior)
In: Bulletin for Biblical Research — 29 (2019), S. 583–585 (Russell Morton)