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.
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
Born 1984; 2014 PhD; Professor of New Testament studies at MF Norwegian school of Theology, Religion and Society.
