The Death of Jesus and the Politics of Place in the Gospel of John

This books findings are rich and intriguing: In his death Jesus--the chief architect in the production of space in the Christian realm--founds an alternative community that reorders space and creates a new reality for believers. This new community which dwells in this radical new space successfully resists the domination of oppressive regimes and mindsets such as the Roman Empire. Suffering is transformed here. Many recent biblical studies have utilized various methodologies and historical-critical viewpoints which have been helpful. However drawing on theories of space and postcolonial approaches Dr. Ajer breaks new ground in Johannine studies a new terrain that will yield much fruit. The new understandings of space provide a key with which we may unlock more of the mysteries of the Fourth Gospel as Ajer here demonstrates with powerful new discoveries and insights into Johns Passion narrative. With a carefully formulated hermeneutical strategy employing the spatial theory of political geography Dr. Ajer in this book provides a new insightful interpretation of the death of Jesus in the Gospel of John that cracks open a possibility of construing a politically charged anti-imperial message of liberation from a seemingly innocuous and overly spiritualized text of the Johannine gospel. --Eugene Eung-Chun Park Dana & David Dornsife Professor of New Testament San Francisco Theological Seminary The scholarly conversation on the significance of Jesuss passion in the Fourth Gospel had until recently focused mostly on the historical literary and theological aspects of this narrative. Few studies had discussed its political and spatial aspects. The present study by Peter Ajer takes these less-travelled roads with a political reading of the passion narrative in John that is also sensitive to spatial questions. --Jean-Francois Racine Associate Professor of New Testament Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and Graduate Theological Union Peter Claver Ajer holds a PhD in biblical studies (New Testament) with a complementary concentration in the allied field of political science (peace and conflict studies). He is currently adjunct faculty in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at University of San Francisco. He has been a visiting lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at University of the Pacific and guest speaker in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at University of California Berkeley.