Date of Award
2006
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Religious Sciences
Supervisor
Anders Runesson
Abstract
This thesis is an experiment in using Fredric Jameson's dialectical Marxist henneneutics, particularly as articulated in his The Political Unconscious, to read a specific New Testament text, the Prologue to the Gospel of John. The Prologue shall be read through three semantic horizons: the literary, the narrowly social and the broadly economic. It will be argued that the Prologue contains a co-occurrence of mythic narrative and metaphysical discourse; that this co-occurrence of mythic narrative and metaphysical discourse can be understood as a result of the co-o1ccurrence of lower and higher social strata within early Christian communities; and that this co-occurrence of lower and higher social strata can itself be understand as the: vestigial presence of formerly dominant modes of production within the mode of production that dominated the broader historical context in which these communities were located.
Recommended Citation
Bernier, Jonathan, "Myth and Metaphysics in the Fourth Gospel: A Dialectical Approach to John's Gospel" (2006). Open Access Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5610.
http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/opendissertations/5610
McMaster University Library