Divine presence and absence in the Gospel of John Josiah D. Hall

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hall, Josiah D., author.

Series:

Monograph series (Society for New Testament Studies) ; 188.

Society for New Testament studies monograph series 188

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bible. John--Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bible.

Bible. John.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2026

Summary:

"Scholars have long recognized John’s dual focus on Jesus’s relationship to God’s presence and his impending physical absence. Yet attention to Jesus’s absence is often restricted to the Farewell Discourse. Josiah D. Hall here provides an innovative reading of John’s Gospel, arguing that tension between Jesus’s presence and absence develops throughout the narrative and is integral to the Gospel’s plot. Drawing on sources from across the ancient Mediterranean basin, Hall contends that John leverages conceptions of how deities would manifest their presence to clarify that Jesus is the enfleshed divine presence. Likewise, John depicts Jesus’s absence by drawing on motifs of divine departure, especially those that understand a deity’s absence as judgment. Attending closely to the paradoxical import of Jesus’s presence and absence in John, Hall provides insights on classic Johannine riddles, including John’s perspectives on the temple, the characters John labels as “the Jews,” and the Spirit-Paraclete’s relationship to Jesus"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

The tension between divine presence and divine absence

Signs of divine absence

Themes of divine absence : mapping variations

A constellation of divine presence and absence in John

Jesus, the enfleshed divine presence

The Johannine emphasis on divine presence

The developing tension between divine presence and absence

Divine absence and judgment in the absence of Jesus

Divine presence in Jesus’s absence

Divine presence and absence and the purpose of John’s Gospel

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed August 21, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Hall, Josiah D. Divine presence and absence in the Gospel of John

ISBN:

9781009882958

1009882953

OCLC:

1591562159

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license