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CROSSING THE BOUNDARY: LIMINALITY AND TRANFORMATIVE WISDOM IN Q

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1999

ALAN KIRK
ALAN KIRK
Affiliation:
Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, Canada E4L 1G9
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Abstract

Leo Perdue has applied Victor Turner's anthropological model of separation, liminality, and reaggregation to elucidate the social function of ancient wisdom texts. Ancient wisdom texts project the rhetorical situation of liminality upon their recipients in the course of imparting instruction, the effect of which is to integrate recipients at a new level into social structure. Using Turner's model, correlated with Berger's and Luckmann's model of resocialization, this paper argues that John's threshold speech functions to throw Q's recipients into a state of liminality. It thus creates the conditions necessary for reception of Jesus’ wisdom which follows. These results are used to critique stratigraphies of Q which are based upon the notion that the juxtaposition of John's and Jesus’ speeches is anomalous.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 1999 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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