History of Research
Recently the thesis that generation theories in ancient so-called “medical” texts inform the Fourth Gospel has attracted the support of a few important scholars. Both Adele Reinhartz and Turid Karlsen Seim propose that “epigenesis” lies behind Jesus’s descent in the Fourth Gospel.[349] Reinhartz argues that the “Aristotelian theory of epigenesis”[350] constitutes the background of father-son and other constructs in the Gospel of John.[351] Seim has two articles treating this topic.
In the first essay, she argues that Jesus and his disciples constitute a familia dei for which mothers are superfluous.[352] The second essay, a seminar paper, the revised form of which appears in this volume, defends that in antiquity paternity - being impossible to prove - had to be constructed.[353] Seim claims that “medical texts” and specifically epigenesis aid the author of the Fourth Gospel in his construc- tion/identification of God’s paternity of Jesus.[354] Favoring an “engendered”[355] (so Adele Reinhartz) over a “socio-cultural” (so Thompson, Dodd) interpretation of the designation, Seim understands μονογενής in John 1:14, 18 (cf. John 3:16, 18; 1 John 3:16; Heb 11:17 [Abraham])[356] as indicating birth in the absence of a mother.[357] Her understanding of epigenesis supports this claim: “[According to Aristotle:] Only males are able to generate seed and this paternal seed provides the active principle of movement and life, whereas the mother’s role is to provide passive matter. A woman is by nature impotent.”[358] According to Seim, Marianne Meye Thompson’s thesis that the “living Father” replaces the common Jewish epithet “living God” in the Gospel of John supports this position, as does the overall thoughtworld of this Gospel insofar as God is considered the source of all life.[359] For Reinhartz, Jesus is literally begotten of God epigenetically because he receives God’s λόγο$ and πνεύμα.[360] As a result, his mission is to be the first exemplar of, and to perpetuate, a new species.[361] John 20 is decisive for both Seim’s and Reinhartz’s theses because Jesus, begotten by only a father, begets his disciples (in the absence of a female counterpart) when he imparts πνεύμα to them in 20:22. The next section takes up both clarification and justification of these interpretations.C.
More on the topic History of Research:
- The Cognitive (R)evolution: The End?
- Schumpeter and Samuelson
- Viola Lynne, Junge Marc-Stephan (eds.). Laboratories of Terror: The Final Act of Stalin's Great Purge in Soviet Ukraine. Oxford University Press,2023. — 565 p., 2023
- Abrams Peter A.. Competition Theory in Ecology. Oxford University Press,2022. — 336 p., 2022
- Conclusion
- Chapter 8 The Cossacks
- Oetzel John, Ting-Toomey Stella. The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Communication: Integrating Theory, Research and Practice. SAGE Publications,2013. — 912 p., 2013
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