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MARY L. COLOE, P.B.V.M., God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier, 2001). Pp. x + 252. Paper $24.95.
This book is Coloe's dissertation directed by Francis J. Moloney. C.'s thesis, presented in ten well-developed and well-argued chapters, is that the temple is the major symbol used to promote the understanding of Jesus' identity and mission in the Johannine community. For C., the temple is the dwelling place of God belonging to the historical, narrative, and ecclesiological worlds of the Fourth Gospel. C.'s focus is on the narrative level, though she remains in dialogue with historical criticism. Her argument is that Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospel, displaces the temple as the new locus of God's dwelling. Jesus exists, no longer as the historical Jesus, in the midst of the Johannine community, just as he does among today's Christians through the experience of the Spirit-Paraclete. This argument highlights the troubling, exclusivist theme of replacement-especially in light of the otherness of the Jews in the Gospel-and is by no means new in Johannine studies. What is enormously valuable, in...