Golgatha erzählen. Das Sterben Jesu von Nazareth zwischen neutestamentlicher Überlieferung und literarischer Moderne

Abstract

Representations of a life’s end generally play a decisive role in biographical storytelling. As the very last chapter they give a final status to all previous events. It is against this background this paper aims at a synopsis of the New Testament’s accounts of the dying of Jesus juxtaposed with their modern literary appropriations. What happens with the structure of biographical narratives if death is not the last chapter? Grounded on a specific understanding of the notion of “narrative of dying”, the paper first identifies this very genre within the gospel’s passion narratives. The observations on the biblical basic script – among others the key role of the last words – are then related to two novels: Amos Oz’s Judas (2014) represents Jesus’s dying in a complex anachronic narrative which takes the betrayer’s viewpoint as its focus. Franz Heinrich Achermann’s The Antichrist (1939) includes the re-enactment of the Passion within a Sci-Fi novel, merging it with the Second Coming of Christ. The observations made give rise to final remarks regarding both the genre “narrative of dying” as the so-called ‘Jesus Novel’.