Father John Dear.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: Mahler~commonswiki) Details Source DMCA
Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) January 31, 2024: I usually do not review reference books, because they are designed to be dipped into and consulted for specific targeted information, not read straight through. For example, biblical commentaries are usually designed to be used as reference books to be consulted for information about specific biblical texts.
The prolific American Catholic diocesan priest and advocate of and activist for nonviolence John Dear (born in 1959), of the diocese of Monterey, California, a former Jesuit (1982-2014), who lives in Cayucos, California, has designed his new 2024 book The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence (Orbis Books) as a biblical commentary on each of the three synoptic gospels.
Father John Dear himself says, "Matthew's Gospel includes 90 percent of Mark's Gospel; Luke's Gospel includes 50 percent of Mark's" (p. 148). These percentages regarding Mark's Gospel suggest that perhaps it would be most efficient to read Father John Dear's commentary on Mark's Gospel (pp. 148-221) first.
As an aside, I should point out here that now-former Harvard University president Claudine Gay's plagiarism in her published works has been in the news lately - just as the posthumously discovered plagiarism of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his published works was in the news at one time in the past. However, in ancient times, when the anonymous authors of the gospels known as Matthew, Mark, and Luke were composed and written down in ancient Greek, our modern notions of plagiarism had not yet been formulated.
Incidentally, on the reverse side of the title page in Father John Dear's new 2024 book The Gospel of Peace, we read "Includes bibliographical references and index." But the book does not include an index. No doubt an index would call attention to the understandable repetition in the book. Nevertheless, it would be helpful to have an index in the book.
Now, if you have no interest in the three synoptic gospels, then you will probably not be interested in the book. However, in honor of Rob Kall's fascination with bottom-up imagery, I should also mention here that Father John Dear says, "My hope and prayer are that every Christian from now on will read the Gospels from the perspective of Gandian/Kingian nonviolence, and that with this perspective, we might all choose Jesus's way and wisdom of active nonviolence, that we might carry on Jesus's bottom-up, people-power grassroots campaign of creative nonviolence for global disarmament, justice, and environmental sustainability" (p. xxix).
Now, Father John Dear, the former Jesuit, refers to the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuit order, when he says, "We are told to let our light shine, and if we do this, we glorify the God of peace, which is the ultimate goal; in the end, it is the only goal that matters. St. Ignatius put it this way: try to go even beyond that and bring 'greater' glory to God" (p. 21). It is true enough that St. Ignatius Loyola himself originally used the expression in Latin "Ad majorem Dei gloriam" (For the greater glory of God) that Jesuits popularized as a kind of motto - and made into an inscription: A.M.D.G.
The American Jesuit Renaissance specialist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) wrote perceptively about this expression in his article "A.M.D.G.: Dedication or Directive?" in the now-defunct Jesuit-sponsored journal Review for Religious, volume 11, number 5 (September 15, 1952): pp. 257-264; it is reprinted in volume three of Ong's Faith and Contexts, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Scholars Press, 1995, pp. 1-8).
Disclosure: I myself was in the Jesuits for a period of time (1979-1987).
Now, in the detailed table of contents in Father John Dear's new 2024 book The Gospel of Peace (pp. vii-xi), he provides far too much detail regarding specific contents of each of the three synoptic gospels for me to reproduce here. Suffice it to say that Father John Dear discusses "Matthew: The Mountaintop Sermon of Nonviolence" (pp. 1-147); "Mark: The Radical Discipleship of Nonviolent Resistance to Empire" (pp. 148-221); "Luke: The Grassroots Campaign of Peace, Nonviolence, and Compassion" (pp. 222-395). Father John Dear's "Conclusion" (pp. 396-397) is short and succinct.
In Father John Dear's "Acknowledgments" (pp. 402-403), he says that his new 2024 book "is the culmination of a series of books about Jesus: The Questions of Jesus [2004], Jesus the Rebel [2000], Lazarus Come Forth! [2011], The Beatitudes of Peace [2016], They Will Inherit the Earth [2018], and Walking the Way [2015; rpt. 2022]" (p. 402).
The dates of publication of these books (2000 to 2018) show that Father John Dear has been ruminating about the New Testament texts and nonviolence for more than two decades. In other words, his new 2024 book The Gospel of Peace represents a grand synthesis, a tour de force. Through Father John Dear's close commentary in his new 2024 book, he demonstrates that his understanding of nonviolence enables him to closely interpret the three synoptic gospels as coherent literary works. It is not unreasonable to conclude that each of the three anonymous authors understood the teaching of the historical Jesus.
Now, because Father John Dear ruminated on these matters for more than two decades, people who read his new 2024 book The Gospel of Peace should not expect to digest it perfectly the first time they read it.
Now, in Father John Dear's 2011 book Lazarus Come Forth! How Jesus Confronts the Culture of Death and Invites Us into the New Life of Peace (Orbis Books), he discusses the Gospel of John. The concise Wikipedia entry about the prolific Father John Dear lists the books he has written and edited.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
