Water Matters: An Exegetical Study of the Johannine Presentation of Water Concerns and its Dynamics in Relation to the Notion of ‘Living Water’ (ὕδωρ ζῶν) in John 4:1-15.

Water motif is dominant in the Johannine presentation of the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in John 4:1-42. In the first section of this dialogue in Jn 4:1-15, which focuses on the notion of ‘living water’ (ὕδωρ ζῶν), the evangelist also presents some of the concrete concerns related to the accessibility of water. A closer examination of this text-unit will enable us to trace certain socio-cultural, gender-based, religious, moral and ecological concerns underlying the Johannine presentation of water in Jn 4:1-15. However, it can be noted that most literature in scholarship on this topic focus mainly on the Johannine understanding of the symbolic overtones of the notion of ‘living water’ (ὕδωρ ζῶν). Consequently, it can be noted that the Johannine portrayal of water as a concrete reality and the various concerns related to its accessibility, which form the setting for the notion of ‘living water’ in John 4, have not been duly taken into consideration in scholarship. Hence, the present doctoral research aims at making an exegetical study of the Johannine presentation of concrete water concerns and its dynamics in relation to the notion of ‘living water’ (ὕδωρ ζῶν) in Jn 4:1-15. The historical-critical analysis of this text-unit will engage with the matters related to concrete water in Jn 4:1-15 and will examine how a comprehensive understanding of water, both in its literal and symbolic sense, matters in this Johannine narrative.