God the Father in the Gospel of John

This paper argues that underlying the "father-son" language that is used to describe the relationship between God and Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is the Aristotelian theory of epigénesis. According to this theory, the male sperm is viewed as the vehicle for the logos and pneuma of the father, which provide the form and essence of the offspring. Epigénesis provides a key to comprehending the revelatory function that Jesus plays in the world, but at the same time poses difficult problems for feminist theology by focusing attention on the masculinity of both God and Jesus.

The Son–Father Relationship and Christological Symbolism in the Gospel of John, 2014

I would like to express my gratitude to many who were instrumental in the completion of my doctoral journey in the Gospel of John. Asbury Theological Seminary gave me the opportunity to be part of the charter class and one of first graduates of the PhD Biblical studies program. I therefore wish to express appreciation and sincere thanks to my dissertation committee, my mentor Dr. David Bauer for supervision and careful reading of my drafts, and also to my reader Dr. Tom Thatcher for his expertise and deep insight in Johannine scholarship. I acknowledge with deep gratitude the generous financial support provided by my anonymous benefactors through Asbury United Methodist Church Tulsa, Oklahoma, with special thanks to Mary Ann Smith for her helpful coordination. I would like to thank my many friends at Centenary United Methodist Church, Lexington, Kentucky for their prayers and encouragement. Thanks also to Skye West and Maggie Thomson who helped with editing and proofreading. I am immensely grateful for the loving encouragement and supportive role of my parents and sisters, particularly my mother's constant and unequivocal support throughout my academic journey. The greatest thanks go to God my Father and His Son of whom I have written, and to the Holy Spirit whose grace carried me through. To God be the Glory. vi

Sophia, 2018

This paper deals with the possibility of an incarnation in the feminine in our age. In the first part, we discuss sexual genealogies in ancient Israel and address the problem of the extreme vulnerability of feminine life in the midst of an ancient sacrificial crisis. The second part opens with an analysis of Feuerbach's interpretation of the Trinity. The triadic logic, as found within various religious contexts, is also affirmed. Based on our analyses from the first and the second part, in the third part we address the problems of feminine vulnerability and fragility on one hand, and triadic thinking on the other hand, and relate them to an original proposal for the future matrixial theology of incarnation.

2015

Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 2014

2002

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2011

The Secret Revelation of John is replete with imagery of the divine Mother alongside the Father God and his Son Christ. It boasts of powerful female saviors-and even identifies Christ among them. Eve is not the cause of humankind's fall, but of its redemption. The sexual intercourse of Adam and Eve marks not original sin, but a step toward salvation. Yet readers find, too, an idealized divine world in the pattern of the ancient patriarchal household, and a portrait of another female figure, Sophia, whose bold and independent action leads to a fatherless world headed by a sexually violent and deviant bastard. The complexity of this imagery, nestled in a story that operates with oppositional strategies and parody, ensures that no single monolithic perspective on sex/gender will rule-and indeed it opens up a crack where it is possible that the wisefool Sophia is more completely the hero of the story than one might think. This essay aims to explore the complexities of SRJ's representation of gender and the implications of their strategic deployments. Long-excluded voices from texts rediscovered in Egypt over the last century often surprise expectations that were formed by reading Gnosticism's ancient detractors, like Irenaeus or Tertullian, for they speak of other desires, other goals, and other perspectives than those tersely summarized in the standard definitions. 1 The Secret Revelation of John (SRJ) is one of those stories that challenges many standard characterizations of Gnostic thought, whether as nihilistic and antinomian or (proto)-feminist and liberative. 2 Composed in the second century C.E. in Greek, quite possibly in Alexandria in Egypt, the Secret Revelation of John survives in four fourth-fifth century C.E. manuscripts, which represent three Coptic versions replete with notable variants. Instead, it offers a complex and tangled narrative that simultaneously reinscribes, negotiates, and critiques aspects of ancient Mediterranean society, including imperial and patriarchal social structures, as well as notions of sex and gender. the distinction of being the first work known to us to formulate a comprehensive narrative of Christian theology, cosmology, and salvation. Presented as a revelation from Christ to his disciple John, it tells of the true God and the divine world, the origins of the universe and humanity, the nature of evil and suffering, the body and sexuality, the path to salvation, and the final end of all things. At the heart of this deeply spiritual story lies a powerful social critique of injustice and a radical affirmation of God's compassion for suffering humanity. In contrast to Roman rulers who declared themselves the authors and enforcers of universal justice and peace, the story describes the world as a shadowed place ruled by ignorant and malevolent beings. It exposes their lies and violence as violations of the true God's purpose, and offers sure knowledge of one's true spiritual identity and destiny. Divine emissaries frequent this dark world, bringing revelations and working in secret to lift humanity out of ignorance and degradation, and restore them to their rightful place in the world of light under the rule of the true Father. The Secret Revelation of John is broadly structured as an intertextual reading of the first chapters of Genesis with Platonizing cosmology, especially that of the Timaeus. In contrast to other intertextual readings of Genesis 5 and the Timaeus in antiquity, such as that of Philo of Alexandria, the Secret Revelation of John does not read the two creation accounts in Gen 1.1-2.4a and 2.4b-3:24 as describing the realms of Being and becoming, respectively. Rather it reads the initial chapters of Genesis twice, first with regard to the origin of the transcendent divine realm, and again to recount the demiurgic fabrication of the material world below. 6 The use of Genesis to expound the creation of the lower world is widely recognized, speaking as it does of the creation of Adam and Eve, the stories of the snake and the Tree of Knowledge, the birth of Cain, Abel, and Seth, as well