Burke, Alexander J.

Dr. Alexander J. Burke, Jr., received his M.A. in English from Fordham University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He pursued a publishing career at McGraw-Hill Book Company for 27 years, where he managed, as President, the largest book company in the world. He founded and has run his own publishing company, Phoenix Learning Resources. He has been a full Professor of English at Hofstra University for eight years, where he has taught courses in English, publishing and scripture. He returned to academic pursuits in 1993 and earned his M.A. in Theology at the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, NY. Dr. Burke received his doctoral degree in Theology at Fordham University under the mentorship of Richard Dillon.

Raising of Lazarus and the Passion of Jesus in John 11 and 12

2003 0-7734-6694-0
This study holds that the fourth evangelist adopted and combined various traditions in chapters 11 and 12 into a single, unified eschatological statement, separately and specially conceived, as a complex literary and theological hinge of John’s Gospel, a bridge between Christ’s ministry to the world and his ministry to his disciples. The extent and unity of this statement has been disguised by the tendency to apply to John a pericopean mentality suitable for the Synoptics but foreign to John. When John 11 and 12 are viewed as a single, eschatological statement, an analysis of its three dominant literary forms (plot structure, sign and dialogue structure, and narrative dramatic structure) can help establish that the passage of 10:40-12:50 constitutes a tightly-knit literary unity. John shapes Jesus’ final discourse, 12:44-50 primarily as the natural conclusion of his eschatological statement, and secondarily as a summary of chapters 1-12 because the insertion of 11 and 12 is itself designed as the climax and summary of chapters 1-12. This new interpretation gives the passage a tight and comprehensive fit with the whole of John’s Gospel.