Fictive-friendship and the Fourth Gospel
The phenomena of friendship and giftship in antiquity have been the focus of much anthropological interest, yet those terms are still used much too broadly, wherein any one can be friends and anything exchanged is a gift. This article argued that proper friendship requires equality of exchange and s...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2011
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| In: |
HTS teologiese studies
Year: 2011, Volume: 67, Issue: 3 |
| Further subjects: | B
Friendship and Giftship in Antiquity
B Gospel of John B Anthropological Exegesis B Patronage and Clientage B Equality of Exchange and Status |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The phenomena of friendship and giftship in antiquity have been the focus of much anthropological interest, yet those terms are still used much too broadly, wherein any one can be friends and anything exchanged is a gift. This article argued that proper friendship requires equality of exchange and status. When inequality of exchange is present, we will almost always also have inequality of status. These two things together naturally and necessarily result in the absence of frank speech. At this point, proper friendship (defined by frank speech) and the exchange of gifts (defined by equality of value) are impossible, and we have fictivefriendship, a term I have introduced in this article. Fictive-friendship refers to the practice, often but not exclusively amongst elites, of using friendship language to mask relationships of dependence (patronage and clientage). I closed my argument by looking at two examples of fictive-friendship in the Gospel of John. |
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| ISSN: | 2072-8050 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: HTS teologiese studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.4102/hts.v67i3.997 |
