The Discipleship Paradigm: Readers and Anonymous Characters in the Fourth Gospel

This volume examines the fourth Gospel narrative in terms of its character portrayal, especially the portrayal of anonymous characters. It focuses on how characterization impacts on readers, eliciting their involvement in the narrative, particularly the recognition of and response to Jesus’ identity, and how anonymity facilitates that participation. The first chapters examine the understanding of characterization in contemporary literary theory, after which the author explores other contemporaneous narratives for the function of anonymous characters in them. The final chapters examine specific character portrayals in the fourth Gospel, especially the disciple Jesus loved.