Description: Recognizing the Stranger is the first monographic study of recognition type-scenes and motifs (anagnōrisis) in the Gospel of John. The book shows how the Gospel employs and transforms contemporary genre conventions in its portrait of Jesus as the divine stranger.
Brief description: Kasper Bro Larsen, Ph.D. (2006) is Assistant Professor of New Testament Studies at University of Aarhus, Denmark. He has published on various topics related to early Christianity, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, wisdom literature, and the Gospel of John.
Review Quotes: "Displaying a masterful command of ancient literature, Larsen has produced a major contribution to the literature on the Fourth Gospel, displaying admirable literary sensitivity and conceptual sophistication."
Harold W. Attridge, Yale University
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"In this engaging and articulate study Kasper Bro Larsen moves with confidence between contemporary literary theory, the classical discussions and exempla of 'recognition scenes', recent scholarship on the Fourth Gospel, and the detailed analysis of the text of John. He demonstrates persuasively how such scenes should not be viewed merely as aesthetic devices but how they fulfil a focal role in the Fourth Gospel's call to faith in the one who can no longer be seen in person. Recognizing the Stranger makes a decisive contribution not just to the study of the Fourth Gospel in its ancient literary environment but, more importantly, to how the Gospel through its narrative structures addresses profound theological questions about the possibility of faith and knowledge, and about the one in whom faith is held."
Judith Lieu, Professor of Divinity, Cambridge