John the Baptist in Life and Death

by Yamasaki, Gary

• ISBN13: 9781850759164
• ISBN10: 1850759162
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-01
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Pr

Summary

In a narrative about Jesus, a character like John the Baptist would not be expected to play a role much beyond that of providing a baptism for Jesus. Yet the Matthaean narrator finds several other uses for John in the development of the narrative, not only while he is still alive, but also after he is dead. In examining John's role, Yamasaki deploys an audience-oriented critical methodology, an approach that chronicles the narrator's efforts to influence first-time readers' experience of the narrative as they proceed sequentially through the text. He traces John's characterization as 'forerunner', from a glowing introduction in ch. 3-albeit with a slight flaw in his ideological point of view on Jesus-through a progressive exacerbation of this flaw, to a rehabilitation of John in ch. 11. As a result of this rehabilitation, the narrator is able to continue to use John in his role as forerunner in the second half of the narrative, even after John's death has removed him from the story-line.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	7	(1)
Abbreviations	8	(4)
Part I A New Approach to the Study of John the Baptist
History of Research on John the Baptist	12	(21)
Historical Studies on John the Baptist	12	(18)
Redaction-Critical Analyses on John the Baptist	30	(3)
Methodology	33	(31)
Structure	64	(14)
Part II Exegesis
Pre-Information	78	(3)
John: Alive and Well	81	(20)
The Introduction of John	81	(14)
John's Baptism of Jesus	95	(6)
John: Bound and Determined	101	(28)
The Question on Fasting	103	(3)
John's Question on Jesus' Identity	106	(4)
Jesus' Ideological Point of View on John	110	(12)
The Parable of the Children	122	(7)
John: Dead and Gone	129	(14)
The Execution of John	129	(3)
Peter's Confession	132	(1)
Descent from the Mount of Transfiguration	133	(3)
Jesus' Confrontation with Jewish Leaders in Jerusalem	136	(7)
Conclusions	143	(6)
Appendix A Text-Critical Analysis of Matthew 21.29-31	149	(3)
Bibliography	152	(18)
Index of References	170	(4)
Index of Authors	174