Parish Scripture Institute Presentation

Saturday, September 26 in Mc Donnell Hall

Session 1: “What Makes the Gospel of John So Interesting ... and Complicated?"

People who read the Gospel of John often find it to be a simple gospel, built around symbols such as water, light, and darkness. There are great miracles from essential (healing of a man born blind, the raising of Lazarus) to convenient (changing water into wine; telling a Samaritan woman her whole past life).

But some parts are strange: Could Nicodemus really think Jesus meant he had to crawl back into his mother’s womb to be born again? And then there is living water. What could that possibly mean? Why doesn’t Jesus tell us more about how to live our daily lives in imitation of him?

In the first of two talks we will explore these and other questions about John’s Gospel that will give us a sense of what John was explaining about the importance of Jesus and his message--and how that has a meaning for us today.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Urban von Wahlde is a professor of Theology at Loyola University and has taught New Testament in that department since 1981. He is a former chairperson of the Theology department and he continues to teach scripture to undergraduates as well as to graduate students in the Master’s and Ph.D. programs.

A specialist on the Gospel of John, he is the author of over fifty articles in scholarly journals in the United States, Europe and Israel. He published a three volume commentary on the Gospel and Letters of John in 2010. His latest book publication appeared in April 2015 and is titled: Gnosticism, Docetism and the Judaisms of the First Century. He regularly gives lectures to both Protestant and Roman Catholic audiences in the Chicago areas as well as workshops on Scripture elsewhere in the United States.

Brought to you by the EVOLVE Adult Education Ministry

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