Karl Barths Johannesrezeption als kreative Exegese

Karl Barth as a Johannine Theologian: Anne-Sophie Münch traces the reception of the Gospel of John through the whole of the Church Dogmatics and redescribes Barth’s scriptural hermeneutics as creative exegesis.

Anne-Sophie Münch contributes to Barth scholarship on Church Dogmatics (CD) with a study that exegetically examines and historically contextualizes Barth’s interpretation of the Gospel of John within its dogmatic framework. Drawing on recent work in reception criticism, Münch shows that the Gospel of John, alongside Paul, emerges as a central object of reception in Barth’s dogmatics. Particular emphasis is placed in the CD on the Prologue, John the Baptist, mission Christology, the “I am” sayings, the farewell discourses, the exaltation sayings, and Barth’s use of Johannine leitmotifs. To put it pointedly: Karl Barth is a Johannine theologian. Barth takes John seriously as a dogmatic theologian, and draws inspiration from John throughout, both theologically and stylistically. An analysis of 23 relevant examples of reception – which take into account all volumes of the CD, both in the main text and in the excursuses, and which situate these examples within the historical interpretive discourse while also relating them to contemporary Johannine scholarship – reveals six central strategies of reception. Beyond the reception of John, these reception strategies are significant for the scholarly discussion surrounding Barth’s scriptural hermeneutics: canonical, Johannine-Pauline, narrative, Christological, and Trinitarian exegesis, as well as a critique of the dogmatic tradition through exegesis. As a result, the author arrives at a new proposal for describing Barth’s scriptural hermeneutics – namely, as creative exegesis – and thus stimulates a more dynamic scholarly discussion of Barth’s scriptural hermeneutics. The criteria for creativity are, first, novelty, and second, usefulness or an awareness of problems. Within an existing system of rules, breaking the rules at selected points can thus be regarded as creative. Barth is a knowledgeable theologian who engages extensively with the texts in order to interpret them within a specific problematic context, by relating them to dogmatic questions in new ways, and, in some cases, by radically breaking with established rules.

Einleitung
Teil I: Stand der Forschung, Methodik und hermeneutische Grundlegung
1. Forschungsbericht und Anschlussperspektiven
1.1. Karl Barth als Exeget in der bisherigen Forschung
1.2. Methodik: Karl Barths Exegese im Lichte der Rezeptionskritik
1.3. Die These der Arbeit: Karl Barths Johannesrezeption als kreative Exegese
2. Die schrifthermeneutischen Grundlagen
2.1. Karl Barths Schriftverständnis unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der (neutestamentlichen) Exegese
2.2. Bibelwissenschaftliche Problematisierung des Kanonverständnisses Barths
2.3. Der Exeget und seine Zeit
Teil II: Die Johannesrezeption in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik
1. Der Johannesprolog
2. Johannes der Täufer und das Lamm Gottes
3. Die johanneische Sendungschristologie
4. Die ἐγώεἰμι-Worte
5. Die johanneischen Abschiedsreden und ihr literarischer Kontext
6. Die Erhöhung Christi am Kreuz
7. Johanneische Leitworte
Teil III: Synthese
1. Systematisierung der Rezeptionsstrategien
1.1. Kanonische Exegese
1.2. Johanneisch-paulinische Exegese
1.3. Narrative Exegese
1.4. Christologische Exegese
1.5. Trinitarische Exegese
1.6. Kritik der dogmatischen Tradition mittels Exegese
2. Ertrag
2.1. Methodischer Ertrag
2.2. Exegetischer Ertrag
2.3. Hermeneutischer Ertrag
2.4. Dogmatischer Ertrag

• By (author) Anne-Sophie Münch