AbstractThe question ‘Who is the Servant?’ is one which remains a debated topic among many interpreters of Isaiah 40–55. This article seeks to address the same question with the aid and perspective of narrative identity. Narrative identity, as explicated by Ricoeur and Frei, is a means of understanding a character within a literary plot, or real life, as displayed in a narrated sequence of events. A person's identity, especially within literature, is the constancy of the self in the tortuous events of a narrated sequence over time. This article seeks to adjudicate the question of the Servant's identity by observing the character of the Servant within the plot of Isaiah 40–55. The conclusion drawn is that the Servant is the unique means of God's reconciliation of both Zion and the nations. Also, the divine action and description of YHWH and the Servant begin to bleed in such a way that the Servant can be described as a unique member of the divine identity.
Christology is concerned with the identity of Jesus Christ. This essay explores Paul’s Christology with the help of the various categories that make up a concept of personal identity: name, narrative, character, relationships, and roles. In the case of Jesus Christ, however, the issue of identity is complicated by the fact that Paul not only understands Jesus to be a human individual, but also, in some sense, includes him in the divine identity of the one and only God. This essay explains this puzzle in terms of a Christology of divine identity.
John Barclay’s book Paul and the Gift complicates a simple opposition between categories of “history” and “being” when it comes to sketching a Pauline doctrine of God. On the one hand, Barclay sees Paul’s understanding of the divine identity as basically narratival and “actualist”: God defines his character in and through the Christ-event. But by tracing the Pauline and post-Pauline placement of Jesus in a pre-existent eternity and as the agent of creation, Barclay also shows that the patristic and later theological tradition’s deployment of the language of divine essence has real roots in the Pauline tradition as well.
This article takes part in the reopened discussion of the Johannine δόξα/δοξάζϵιν by interpreting the concept in light of the narrative structures in the Fourth Gospel. On the basis of Aristotle's definition of a whole and complete μῦθος and his distinction between πϵριπϵ́τϵια and ἀναγνώρισις it is shown that the main structure in the Johannine narrative concerns humans' recognition of Jesus' identity as son of God. As a consequence of being firmly integrated in this narrative structure, the Johannine concept δόξα/δοξάζϵιν basically denotes divine identity and recognition. Opposing a contemporary trend in Johannine studies it is finally argued that δόξα/δοξάζϵιν in the Fourth Gospel should be understood within the normal narrative sequence.
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel