Behold, the Lamb of God! Johannine christology and the martyrdoms of Isaac

I propose that in aspects of John's presentation of Jesus, Early Jewish readers would have recognized a depiction of the only Son as the consummate(d) Isaac figure. From pre-existence and incarnation to martyred exaltation, some key components of John's Christology tread alongside (the Early Jewish) Isaac in his storied ascent of Moriah. Chapter 1 analyzes the constitutive role of historical contextualization for interpreting John's Christology, advancing a Bakhtinian socio-linguistic approach adequate to John's conflicted Jewish milieu. Chapter 2 highlights the Johannine community's experience of martyrdom (John 16:2) as decisive for discerning its specific conflicts and needs. Chapter 3 surveys the disputed ideals of martyrdom in Early Judaism, exploring the roles Genesis 22 plays in shaping both violent and non-violent configurations of faithfulness. Chapter 4 argues that these contested configurations of Abrahamic sonship inform the controversy in John 8:31--59, revealing the figure of Isaac as a living arena of conflict and potent apologetic in the local synagogue crisis.; Chapter 5 turns to aspects of John's larger portrait of the only Son as an ideal martyr-like-Isaac, applying the rhetoric of noble death to the figures of Isaac and Jesus. Beyond presenting a paradigm for a community facing martyrdom, these conventions clarify Jesus' idealized humanity and death while foregrounding John's distinctive glorification of the cross. Chapter 6 explores the evocation of the only Son as the consummate Isaac figure, the Passover Lamb of God whose atoning sacrifice embodies true Torah fidelity and Temple worship. The Abraham-Isaac Gestalt illuminates the Son's unity with the Father at the point of his obedience, thereby resolving perceived tensions in high and low Christologies and highlighting the dual revelatory roles of Jesus vis-a-vis divinity and humanity. Chapter 7 invites readers to reconsider the centrality of Jewish thought for Christian theology in light of John's Abrahamic depiction of God and to ponder the orienting potential of John's anti-violent theology of the cross for communities enmeshed in a world of religious violence and anti-Semitism.