Johannine Magical Realism: A Trigger for Sacramental Realism in John 6:26–58
In this article, it is argued that magical realism, a contemporary literary genre, may be used to understand Jesus turning water into wine (John 2:1-11) and the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1-15) as a catalyst for interpreting John 6:26-58 as sacramental realism. I employ New Testament narra...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
NTWSA
2021
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| In: |
Neotestamentica
Year: 2021, Volume: 55, Issue: 2, Pages: 323-345 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Jesus Christus
/ Sacrament
/ Bible. Johannesevangelium 2,1-11
/ Bible. Johannesevangelium 6,26-58
/ Miracle of the bread
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| IxTheo Classification: | HC New Testament KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In this article, it is argued that magical realism, a contemporary literary genre, may be used to understand Jesus turning water into wine (John 2:1-11) and the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1-15) as a catalyst for interpreting John 6:26-58 as sacramental realism. I employ New Testament narrative criticism to highlight the rhetoric, setting, character, point of view and plot of John 2:1-11 and 6:1-15. Narrative criticism opens a window into magical realism to analyse the two key Johannine pericopes which undergird Jesus’s eucharistic discourse (John 6:26-58). After defining magical realism as a literary genre, the study demonstrates that the "magical" or miraculous change of water into wine and the feeding of the five thousand in John’s Gospel may be overlayed onto a magical realism framework. The study then examines another kind of realism, sacramental realism, for John 6:26-58. This, I demonstrate, was triggered by the preceding miracles examined in this article. Although one should not read modern genres into an ancient text, there are, nevertheless, significant characteristics of this genre already embedded in John’s Gospel. These Johannine passages point to Jesus’s eucharistic discourse in John 6:26-58 as sacramental reality. |
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| ISSN: | 2518-4628 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Neotestamentica
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/neo.2021.0033 |