This book seeks to discuss John's references to Jesus' emotions in the light of the current debate regarding Johannine Christology. The Fourth Gospel refers to Jesus' love, joy, and zeal. At times it also portrays him as troubled, deeply moved, and in tears. Do these expressions of emotion underscore Jesus' humanity or his divinity? The study is set against the background of the emotions of God as found in earlier Jewish literature, as well as against that of the emotions of Jesus in the Synoptics and the remainder of the New Testament. Voorwinde argues that the covenant provides the most consistent perspective for viewing both the emotions of Yahweh in the Old Testament and the emotions of Jesus in the Gospels. The Johannine Jesus is found to fulfil the hitherto incompatible roles of covenant Lord and covenant sacrifice. Rather than being expressive only of his humanity Jesus' emotions are also found to underscore his divinity. This is due to the unique genius of this Gospel with its paradoxical presentation of Jesus whose divinity is manifested most eloquently in his weakness, suffering, and death. Only his tears at the grave of Lazarus can be explained as a human emotion pure and simple. All the other emotions, because of their strong connections to the cross, highlight both Jesus' humanity and divinity, albeit for various reasons and in highly nuanced ways. JSNTS 284

This book seeks to discuss John's references to Jesus' emotions in the light of the current debate regarding Johannine Christology. The Fourth Gospel refers to Jesus' love, joy, and zeal. At times it also portrays him as troubled, deeply moved, and in tears. Do these expressions of emotion underscore Jesus' humanity or his divinity? The study is set against the background of the emotions of God as found in earlier Jewish literature, as well as against that of the emotions of Jesus in the Synoptics and the remainder of the New Testament. Voorwinde argues that the covenant provides the most consistent perspective for viewing both the emotions of Yahweh in the Old Testament and the emotions of Jesus in the Gospels. The Johannine Jesus is found to fulfil the hitherto incompatible roles of covenant Lord and covenant sacrifice. Rather than being expressive only of his humanity Jesus' emotions are also found to underscore his divinity. This is due to the unique genius of this Gospel with its paradoxical presentation of Jesus whose divinity is manifested most eloquently in his weakness, suffering, and death. Only his tears at the grave of Lazarus can be explained as a human emotion pure and simple. All the other emotions, because of their strong connections to the cross, highlight both Jesus' humanity and divinity, albeit for various reasons and in highly nuanced ways. JSNTS 284>

In the past the passions were regarded as sicknesses of the soul due to Adam's sin. As the Redeemer, Christ shares in our humanity and experiences the passions, but given his divine status he quickly overcomes the passions by his superior reason as the Word. In effect, Christ is displayed as a Stoic sage who is unperturbed by the passions. The book is critical of this traditional perspective for its inability to think of the Incarnation as the Word's real participation in our humanity. Christ is not a Stoic sage who displays an uninvolved holiness, but the Word become flesh who displays an astonishing breadth and intensity of emotional life, which reveals what it means for the fullness of divinity to dwell bodily in him. Reformed theology moved beyond the traditional perspective in affirming the strong emotions of Christ as proof of his humanity, but Christ's divinity was given insufficient attention. The book proposes a complex view of Christ's emotions, which are regarded not merely as proof of his humanity, but reveal the personal attributes of divinity communicated to his humanity. To observe Christ's emotions is to witness the mutual interaction of humanity and divinity in his person, which accomplishes our salvation (deification). To imitate Christ, then, means that Christ's emotions become the emotions of his followers, so that by seeing as God sees and feeling as God feels, they go forth in obedience to Christ's commandment to love one another as he has loved us, which is to live the way of the cross for the sake of the ongoing embodiment of God in the world.

Examines the emotions of Jesus presented by in the gospels, and shows how this may be applied in studying these texts.

From early on, Christians passed down the account of Jesus’s agony at the prospect of his own death and his prayer that the cup should pass from him (Gethsemane). Yet, this is a troublesome aspect of Christian tradition. Jesus was committed to his death, but as it approached, he prayed for his escape, even as he submitted himself to God’s will. Ancient critics mocked Jesus and his followers for the events at Gethsemane. The ‘hero’ failed to meet the cultural standards for noble death and masculinity. As such, this story calls for further reflection and interpretation. The present book unfolds discourses from the earliest centuries of Christianity to determine what strategies were developed to come to terms with Gethsemane.

Revised thesis (Ph. D.)--Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky., 2006.

Essential reading for biblical studies students and scholars interested in cutting-edge critical theory The current global ecological crisis has prompted a turn to the nonhuman in critical theory. This book breaks new ground in biblical studies as the first to bring nonhuman theory to bear on the gospels and Acts. Nonhuman theory, a confluence of several of the main theoretical streams that have issued forth since the heyday of high poststructuralism, includes affect theory, posthuman animality studies, critical plant studies, object-oriented new materialisms, and assemblage theory. Nonhuman theory dismantles and reassembles the Western concept of “the human” that coalesced during the Enlightenment and testifies to other conceptions of the human and of the nonhuman, not least those found in the canonical gospels and Acts. Stephen D. Moore’s exegetical explorations and defamiliarizations of these overly familiar texts and excavations of their incessantly erased strangeness are the central feature of this provocative book. Features New paths in biblical ecotheology and ecocriticism A significant contribution to the analysis of emotions in biblical texts Class resource for courses in methods for biblical studies, the gospels, and the Bible and ecology

Why does the Gospel of Mark make specific and repeated reference to the compassion of Jesus in the miracle stories? This volume discusses the function that compassion has in the Markan characterization of Jesus, particularly in how the terminology employed depicts Jesus as entering the suffering of others. In doing so, it underscores how this portrayal is exceptional among the stories of miracle workers in ancient Greco-Roman and Jewish literature. In Mark, this compassion toward the suffering other is a central feature of the kingdom of God, an attribute the Markan audience is challenged to emulate.

In Mapping Metaphorical Discourse in the Fourth Gospel, Beth M. Stovell examines the metaphor of Jesus as king throughout the Fourth Gospel using an interdisciplinary metaphor theory incorporating cognitive and systemic functional linguistic approaches with literary approaches.

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 anastoixei sis, which is the Stoic term for the transformation of heavily elements into lighter and pneumatic ones.