The burden of ambiguity : Nicodemus and the social identity of the Johannine Christians

Nicodemus is an enigmatic literary character who is wavering in no man's land in John's narrative between Jesus' opponents and his true disciples. Some scholars have taken Nicodemus as an example of someone of inadequate faith who remains an outsider throughout the narrative, while others have traced his development from initial and tentative faith to open and public commitment to Jesus. The present article, however, agrees with those who have acknowledged that no single trait determines Nicodemus's portrait, but, in the end, this portrait remains ambiguous. In the article, a text-centered approach to Nicodemus is complemented by asking how this ambiguous literary character may have functioned as a symbol for those who shared John's dualistic tendencies. The article draws upon the social identity approach in order to explain how Nicodemus's ambiguity may have helped the Johannine Christians to accept the uncertainties in their social environment without abandoning the stereotyped and fixed thrust in their symbolic world.Nicodemus is an enigmatic literary character who is wavering in no man's land in John's narrative between Jesus' opponents and his true disciples. Some scholars have taken Nicodemus as an example of someone of inadequate faith who remains an outsider throughout the narrative, while others have traced his development from initial and tentative faith to open and public commitment to Jesus. The present article, however, agrees with those who have acknowledged that no single trait determines Nicodemus's portrait, but, in the end, this portrait remains ambiguous. In the article, a text-centered approach to Nicodemus is complemented by asking how this ambiguous literary character may have functioned as a symbol for those who shared John's dualistic tendencies. The article draws upon the social identity approach in order to explain how Nicodemus's ambiguity may have helped the Johannine Christians to accept the uncertainties in their social environment without abandoning the stereotyped and fixed thrust in their symbolic world.Nicodemus is an enigmatic literary character who is wavering in no man's land in John's narrative between Jesus' opponents and his true disciples. Some scholars have taken Nicodemus as an example of someone of inadequate faith who remains an outsider throughout the narrative, while others have traced his development from initial and tentative faith to open and public commitment to Jesus. The present article, however, agrees with those who have acknowledged that no single trait determines Nicodemus's portrait, but, in the end, this portrait remains ambiguous. In the article, a text-centered approach to Nicodemus is complemented by asking how this ambiguous literary character may have functioned as a symbol for those who shared John's dualistic tendencies. The article draws upon the social identity approach in order to explain how Nicodemus's ambiguity may have helped the Johannine Christians to accept the uncertainties in their social environment without abandoning the stereotyped and fixed thrust in their symbolic world.Peer reviewe

Trends in the Association of Obesity and Self-reported Health in 30 years of the Integrated Health Interview Series

This research examines the 30 year trend between obesity and self-rated health and shows virtually no change. This implies that the multi-decade public health campaign on excess weight has had very little traction

Assessing the economic benefits and resilience of complete streets in Orlando, FL: A natural experimental design approach

Complete Streets are designed to allow for safe access and use for all (e.g., pedestrians, bicyclists, transit commuters, motorists) to improve mobility and accessibility. Retrofitting Complete Street designs acts as an intervention by increasing active transportation activity and providing safety benefits (e.g., reducing motor vehicle involved crashes and injuries); however there is insufficient evidence related to economic benefits of this redesign. This study applied a natural experiment design to: (1) explore the economic benefits on single-family (SF) property value appreciation before-and-after the implementation of the Complete Street during the housing market boom (from 2000 to 2007), and (2) examine the economic resilience of Complete Street designs on maintaining SF property values during the housing market crash (from 2007 to 2011) at Edgewater Dr. in Orlando, FL. Propensity score matching was used to match intervention and control residences with similar building attributes. On average, SF homes exposed to Complete Streets had 8.2% and 4.3% higher home value appreciation and home value resilience than their counterparts in the adjacent non-exposed control area during housing market boom and recession, respectively. Further, on average, SF homes exposed to Complete Streets experienced relatively higher, at 2.7% and 1.6%, home value appreciation and home value resilience than their control counterparts around the nonadjacent auto-oriented control roads during housing market boom and recession, respectively. The implications of this study can inform local planning practice providing evidence that Complete Streets perform better than conventional street designs on maintaining a ‘healthy’ housing market in both economic boom and recession. The economic benefits found can be integrated with research that demonstrates public health and safety benefits of Complete Streets to address the current barriers in implementing Complete Streets and support for policies facilitating the implementation of Complete Streets nationally