The Role of Touch in Comprehending Love: Jesus’s Foot Washing in John 13

When Jesus humbly washes his disciples’ feet (John 13), he engages his friends up close using the sense of touch. This article explores how his touch conveys a quality of love that no other physical sense can capture. Sensory Anthropology reveals how touch is often overlooked and undervalued but is...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:What The Body Knows
Main Author: Hanger, Jeannine Marie (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies 2022
In: Journal for interdisciplinary biblical studies (JIBS)
Year: 2022, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, Pages: 39-60
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Jesus Christus / Bodily contact / John / Bible. Johannesevangelium 9,1-12
IxTheo Classification:HC New Testament
KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity
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Summary:When Jesus humbly washes his disciples’ feet (John 13), he engages his friends up close using the sense of touch. This article explores how his touch conveys a quality of love that no other physical sense can capture. Sensory Anthropology reveals how touch is often overlooked and undervalued but is quite potent. We confronted these dynamics most recently when the pandemic reversed our cultural rules around touch: almost overnight, touch became dangerous and distance a kindness. This rule-reversal proves analogous for our exploration of the foot washing. By employing Affect Theory, this study draws on these pandemic experiences alongside two tactile exchanges in the Fourth Gospel (John 9, 12) to examine how Jesus’s touch in the foot washing overturns the "rules" to convey a unique quality of love.
ISSN:2633-0695
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal for interdisciplinary biblical studies (JIBS)
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.17613/taf2-4f34