Contextual Biblical Interpretation

The Thymic Semantics of Asian Contexts: What Does Jesus’ sorrow

in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46) Signify for a Korean Pastor’s Kid?

Sung Uk Lim,

Vanderbilt University

Introduction

This paper aims to reconstruct Jesus’ feeling of sorrow at Gethsemane (Matthew

26:36-46) from the thymic semiotic perspective. My assumption is that the Gospel of

Matthew, as Timothy B. Cargal rightly claims, is founded upon the non-Western,

Palestinian Jewish culture, which offers priority to the thymic category (euphoria v.s.

dysphoria) rather than the veridictory category (being v.s. seeming). One cannot

overemphasize the fact that meaning of a text is dynamically generated out of a plurality

of contexts of the text in a diachronic sense. This offers a good reason to draw attention

to the thymic category within the Jewish context in the exegesis of the Gospel of

Matthew, which was unmistakably aligned with the first-century Palestinian Judaism.

By the same token, the contexts of a reader as well as the contexts of a text are of

premium significance to the generation of meanings out of a text. In this sense, I shall

foreground my own specific context in which I personally read the given text of the

Gethsemane scene. As a Korean pastor’s kid (henceforth: PK), I myself feel sympathetic

with what Jesus would feel at Gethsemane in the face of his imminent death. In the

Korean Christian milieu, a PK is supposed to sacrifice him/her in an effort to meet the

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needs of the congregation of the church. For this reason, many, although not all, PK’s

grow up, emotionally hurt. In this respect, I shall explore Jesus’ pathos of grief at

Gethsemane.1 With this in mind, the paper attempts to fathom why Jesus is transformed

in such a way that he decides to submit to God’s will by forsaking his will, even though

he was abandoned by his Father as well as the disciples.

2. PK in the Korean Christian Context

To begin with, let me divide PK into two kinds in the settings of Korean ministry:

PK as “Perfect Kid”; PK as “Problematic Kid.” 2 Lay people have a prejudice that PK’s

are a “little pastor,” or “second pastor” just like their pastors.3 It is observable that PK’s

failing to satisfy the extreme needs of lay people are accused of not being a faithful PK.

Due to too much stresses, some PK’s, in reality, cause lots of problems in the school as

well as the church. To illustrate, some PK’s try in vain to be as perfect as their parents,

while other PK’s make a success of reaching the standards of lay people.

Ironically, pastors attempt to educate their children to meet the expectations from

lay people, which have little or nothing to do with those from God. In a sense, PK’s

consider it a sacrifice to be forced to live up to the expectations from the congregation as

1 On the pathos of Jesus in Gethsemane, see W. D. Davies and Dale. C. Allison Matthew 19-28: a Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 502-3. Davies and Allison portray Jesus as a “solitary figure” separated from his disciples and even worse, from his Father God. Cf. Algirdas Julien Greimas, “On Anger: A Lexical Semantic Study,” in On Meaning Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory trans. by Paul J. Perron and Fran H. Collins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 148-164. In this article, Griemas sheds light how to analyze such human feeling as anger. 2 Hyang Jin Lim, Reflections on the Christian Education for PK’s Development of Christian Self-Identity (PhD Dissertation: Yonsei University dissertation, 2008), 62. 3 Hai Young Kim, Korean Pastoral Kids form a Pastoral Counselling’s Perspective (MA Thesis: Ehwa Women’s University Thesis, 2005), 22.

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well as parents. PK’s sacrifices go further because their parents tend to take little care of

them. Striking is the remark of one Korean PK:

Whenever I really needed my parents, they always forsook me for the ministry

alone. I used to wait for them after the school as if an orphan. All the time I felt I

myself was forced to sacrifice myself for the church of my parents.4

This quotation pinpoints the reality of many, if not all, PK’s in Korean Christian

context. Many PK’s feel as if they were abandoned by the parents mainly concerned with

the ministry. Many Korean pastors still takes more priority over ministry than family

because they don’t consider the latter as part of the former. They have audacity to

sacrifice themselves as pastors and by extension, their own family for the sake of their

ministry. It is, of course, natural that PK’s find it a sacrifice to lead a life as a PK in

Korea.

PK’s sacrifice is featured with a lack of self-esteem and self-identity. The recent

survey by Yoon Joo Lee demonstrates that PK’s have a more difficult time establishing

self-esteem and self-identity.5 In addition, it turns out that PK’s have more problems in

such realms as goal-orientation, uniqueness, self-acceptance, self-insistence, and

relationship with others than non-PK’s. Lee argues that the main reason for this is a

dearth of the communication between pastors and PK’s.6 As a matter of fact, Korean

pastors are too busy with the ministry to communicate to their children in daily life. The

4 Jong Hwan Kim, “Don’t Consider PK’s as Pastoral Sacrifice Any More,” Ministry and Theology 192 (2005), 139.5 Yoon Joo Lee, Survey on Pastoral Kids’ Self-Identity (MA Thesis: Ehwa Women’s University thesis, 2001), 41-2. 6 Lee, 43.

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other, but equally important, reason is that PK’s have a rare chance to express their own

will and even emotion and, being forced to comply with the will of parents as pastors.

Here it should be remembered that many problems of PK’s derives from a patriarchal

family structure in Korea.

Even though it rejects the traditional, Confucian values, Korean Christianity still

remains Confucian in terms of a patriarchal family structure. Take hyo, filial piety, one of

the most significant Confucian tenets, for example. In general terms, hyo can be defined

as a reverence for the parents and ancestors. In other words, the Korean term hyo can

denote an obedience of children to parents. There is no doubt that in conjunction with

Confucianism, Korean Christianity has so far reinforced the powers of the household by

underlining patriarchal elements of Christianity. Especially, many pastors in Korea

believe that their authority as the household is impregnable in whatever situations. Hence,

Korean pastors expect their children to be absolutely obedient to their will. On the other

hand, PK’s think of their parents as “dictators.”7 In brief, Korean PK’s cannot have their

voices heard at home.

In short, we have thus far observed the sufferings of PK’s in the context of

Korean Christianity. First, PK’s are compelled to sacrifice themselves to satisfy the

expectations of the congregation. Second, they suffer from emotional aloofness from the

parents. Third, they have lower self-esteem and self-identity mainly because of non-

communication in relationship with the parents. Last, but not least, they go through the

oppression of their own emotion and will, being coerced absolutely to comply with the

will of the parents. With the aforementioned context, time has come for us to engage with

the text below.

7 Hai Young Kim, 12.

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3. Method: Greimas’s Semio-Structual Exegesis

The goal of this paper is to found a method of a semio-structural exegesis so as to

elucidate a system of convictions of the given text of the Gethsemane scene (Matthew

26:36-46). For this purpose, I take the structural semiotic model of A. J. Greimas called

the generative trajectory, wherein the meaning-making of a discourse is generated. For

Greimas, the meaning of a text is produced as a meaning-effect in which the diverse

facets of a text are to be interrelated and perceived in a different light.8 One should not

forget that a text itself is a mystery of meanings with multifaceted features of its own.

The result is that meaning as a meaning-effect produces a multiplicity of meanings and

one of its dimension is relational to other dimensions. As such, Greimas’s model sees

meaning as a “multidimensional and relational meaning-effect.”9 In this vein, Greimas’s

structural semiotics is a meta-theory to allow for all the different theories in the sense that

it strives to account for all the manifestations of meaning.10

Let me for a moment briefly sketch out the outline of Greimas’s semiotic model

of the generative trajectory made up of six components: fundamental semantics;

fundamental syntax; narrative semantics; narrative syntax; discoursive semantics

(thematization, figurativization); discoursive syntax (actorialization, temporalization,

spatialization). Each component involves a corresponding structure. One can identify

these components with a threefold feature. First, the entire semiotic structures are applied

to either syntactic or semantic components, which match syntax and semantics in

linguistics. Syntactic component concerns the syntagmatic construction of the narrative 8 Daniel Patte, The Religious Dimensions of Biblical Texts: Greimas’s Structural Semiotics and Biblical Exegesis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 31-32.9 Patte, 74. 10 Patte, 26-28.

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or discourse, whereas syntactic component the paradigmatic construction of them in

conjunction with value systems. Second, there exist two different relations: the one

governs semio-narrative structures; the other governs discoursive structures in relation to

enunciation. Third, the semio-narrative structure is divided between the fundamental

(deep) level and the surface structures. Hence, the generative trajectory can be diagramed

as follows:

[Generative Trajectory]Figure 1.11

Thus having been said, we can focus on the Gospel of Matthew as a religious text

with a multifaceted mystery whose meaning-generating dimension is closely concerned

with an aspect of the believing. As Daniel Patte describes, the generative trajectory of

meaning has to do with the faith as religious phenomenon embracing human experience.12

Above all, Patte defines believing in the three levels: (1) “being sure of the existence or

truth of anything”; (2) accepting as true on testimony or authority”; (3) believing

convinced of, as a result of study or reasoning.” In the terms of Patte, the first definition

11 On this, see A. J. Greimas and J. Courtes, Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary vol. 1. trans. by Larry Christ and Daniel Patte et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 134.12 Patte, 103-218.

Syntactic Components Syntactic ComponentsSemiotic

andNarrativeStructure

Deep Level

FundamentalSyntax

Fundamental Semantics

SufaceLevel

Narrative Syntax

FundamentalSemantics

DiscoursiveStructure

Discoursive Syntax

Discursivization:ActorializationTemporalizationSpatialization

Discoursive Semantics

ThematizationFigurativization

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applies to the convictional dimension of faith corresponding to the fundamental and

narrative semantics of the generative theory. The second applies to the discoursive

dimension of faith corresponding to the discoursive semantics of the generative theory.

The last applies to the syntactic dimension of faith (including theology, ethic, and

ideology) corresponding to the fundamental, narrative, and discursive structure of the

generative trajectory.

In terms of Greimas’s semiotic theory and corresponding aspect of religious

phenomenon of believing as proposed by Patte, I will, at first, reconsider the existing

biblical scholarship of Donald Senior’s typology in the structure of the discursive

semantics as a test case. Then, I shall perform my own thymic semiotic exegesis of the

text in the structure of the fundamental, narrative, and discoursive semantics with much

focus on the non-Western, or Palestinian Jewish context along with the Korean Christian

context.

4.1. Typology in the Structure of the Discoursive Semantics: A Case Study of

Donald Senior, Matthew (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998)

In the view of Greimas’s semiotics, Donald Senior in the commentary examines the

structure of discoursive semantics with attention to an Isaac-Jesus typology. Patte regards

the “discursive semantic dimension of believing” as “believing a truth on authority.”13 In

the discoursive structure, the enunciator aims to convince the enunciatee of the authority

of the enunciator as well as the trustworthiness of the message.14 At the same time, this

13 On this, see Daniel Patte, The Religious Dimensions of Biblical Texts: Greimas’s Structural Semiotics and Biblical Exegesis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 129-172.14 Patte, 131.

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persuasion strives to transform a reader into an enunciatee-believer who is keen to adopt

the message as true on the basis of the trustworthiness of the enunciator.15 It is a process

of figurativization, or an establishment of a new figurative world, which is structured by

the root-metaphor (an image), that a reader gets transformed into a believer-enunciatee

willing to receive the message based on the authority of the enunciator.16 As Patte states,

“the transformation of a person into an enunciatee-believer involves the transformation of

the figurative world that defines the identity of that person.”17 More precisely, a reader

can become a believer-enunciatee in such a way as to synthesize his/her figurative world

(symbolism) with that of the enunciator.18 This suggests that a figure (metaphor or

metonym) can be polysemic since it can convey both an older value and a newer value.19

In a word, the figurativization entails an integration of two different semantic universes

between the semantic universe of the enunciator and that of the enunciatee. From a

semiotic perspective, Senior makes explicit the way the figurativization functions by

means of a Isaac-like-Jesus typology, or metaphor.

In this Isaac-like-Jesus, Senior envisions Jesus as embodying “both the faith of

Abraham and the sacrificial spirit of Isaac” on the grounds that the wording of Mat

26:36-37 subtly alludes to Gen 22:5.20 It is worthwhile to remember Senior’s words: “The

Akedah Isaac or ‘binding of Isaac’ was a favored motif in rabbinic Judaism that stressed

the exemplary faith of Abraham and the willing sacrifice of Isaac.”21 As R. S. Barbour

notes, Abraham’s “blind faith” and Isaac’s voluntary offering allow a reader to make a

15 Patte, 132. 16 Patte, 136-7.17 Patte, 137. 18 Patte, 137. 19 Patte, 138. 20 Donald Senior, Matthew (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), 303. 21 Senior, 303.

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strong connection between the Akedah story and the Gethsemane story.22 In particular,

both Isaac and Jesus evoke the image of the son obedient to God calling for sacrifice. At

the typological level, the sacrifice of Isaac, in early Christianity, was considered as

foreshadowing the passion of Christ.23 Striking is a sermon of Bishop Melito of Sardis in

the second century, in which he underscores the importance of the sacrifice of the Lamb

both in the Akedah and the Passion:

For as a ram he was bound and a lamb he was shorn,

And as a sheep he was led to slaughter, and as a lamb he was crucified;

And he carried the wood upon his shoulders

And he was led up to be slain like Isaac by his father.

But Christ suffered, whereas Isaac did not suffer;

For he was a model of the Christ who was going to suffer.24

Such Isaac-like-Jesus metaphor makes it feasible for a reader to transform himself/herself

into a believer-enunciatee by synthesizing his/her semantic universe with the enunciator’s

semantic universe.

From a semiotic perspective, Senior in the commentary demonstrates an Isaac-

like-Jesus metaphor in the structure of the discoursive semantics. Transformed into

enunciatee, a reader is supposed to integrate his/her figurative world with enunciator’s

through a process of figurativization. One should not forget that even the same metaphor

22 R. S. Barbour, “Gethsemane in the Tradition of the Passion,” NTS 16 (1970), 238. On the relationship between the Akedah story and the Passion narrative, see G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1961), 193-227; J. E. Wood, “Isaac Typology in the N.T.,” NTS 14 (1968), 583-589. 23 Jensen, 37. 24 Melito of Sardis, Frag. 9-11, in Melito of Sardis on Pascha and Fragments, trans. S.G. Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 75-77.

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brings about polysemic meaning-effects according to the specificity of discourse.25

Greimas and Courtes strikingly notes: “Figurativization is characterized by the

specification and the particularization of the abstract discourse.”26 As Patte exemplifies,

one can differently construe the same metaphor, say, “Sabbath is a palace,” once it is

differently specified and particularized; the metaphor can be understood in terms of

“building process” or in terms of “source of power/strength.”27 This implies that the same

metaphor, “Jesus is like Isaac,” proposed by Senior can be understood in different ways

by setting it in different squares of figurative terms.

Donald Senior’s typology in the structure of the discoursive semantics: Senior

articulates an Isaac-like-Jesus typology, or metaphor in the structure of the discoursive

semantics. Senior envisions Jesus as embodying the faith of Abraham and the sacrificial

spirit of Isaac on the basis of the intertextuality between Matthew’s Gospel and Genesis.

Senior argues that Isaac and Jesus evoke the image of the son obedient to God calling for

sacrifice. Still, this exegesis fails to make a strong case for my own context by not

making room for the emotion of Jesus and Isaac. This has a good reason for me to

perform a thymic semiotic. Let me describe in more detail what is at stake, as below, in

my own exegesis.

4. 2. A Thymic Semiotic Exegesis in the Structure of the Fundamental, Narrative,

and Discoursive Semantics

25 Patte, 149. 26 A. J. Greimas and J. Courtes, Semiotics and Language, 119.27 Patte, 149-152.

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Conrtray to the veridictory category (being v.s. seeming) in the fundamental

semantics, which is deeply rooted in the Western culture, I in the paper assume that the

Gospel of Matthew, as Cargal succinctly contends, is established upon the non-Western,

or more precisely, Palestinian Jewish culture, which offers priority to the thymic category

(euphoria v.s. dysphoria) rather than the veridictory category (being v.s. seeming). There

is no doubt that meanings of a text are dynamically created out of a multitude of contexts

of the text and in a diachronic sense, not a synchronic sense.28 This has a good reason for

us to pinpoint the thymic category in the Jewish context in the exegesis of the Gospel of

Matthew, which was clearly aligned with the first-century Palestinian Judaism. By the

same token, the contexts of the reader are of greatest importance to the meanings of a

text. As noted above, I as a PK will engage in the given text within the context of Korean

Christian context.

Thus, the purpose of this part is to find the meanings of the Gethsemane story

from a thymic semiotic as advocated by Cargal. My expectation is that this exegesis

complements Patte’s analysis discussed in the preceding section. At this point, let us

focus on what Jesus feels in Gethsemane. In the Gethsemane story, Jesus expresses his

emotion of sorrow or grief twice as follows: “he began to be grieved and agitated.”

(h;rxato lupei/sqai kai. avdhmonei/n) (Matt 26:37); “I am deeply grieved”

(peri,lupo,j evstin h` yuch, mou e[wj qana,tou) (Matt 26:38). Prior to the

explication of Jesus’ feeling, one can first construct the structure of the fundamental

semantics from a thymic semiotic. The thymic category creates the square on the basis of

28 On the matter of the relationship between the text/art and its contexts, see Mieke Bal, On Meaning-Making: Essays in Semiotics (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1994), 144-150. Mieke Bal stands in support of the view of post-structuralism that the simiosis is to unfolded in the specific context of time and place. Bal takes a step further by saying that: “They (sings) are constituted by different viewers in different ways at different times and places (149).” In this view, it indeed matter what contexts constitute the reader/viewer as well as a text/art in the sense that different contexts impacts interpretation in a different fashion.

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the contrary opposition “euphoric” (what is felt to be good for me) v. s. “dysphoric”

(what is felt to be bad for me).29 Undoubtedly, this thymic category (in terms of euphoria

and dysphoria) interrelates to the veridictory category (in terms of reality and illusion). It

is by the application of the veridictory category that the thymic category is transformed

into a thymic axiologized (patternized) taxonomy. Note that the hierarchical relationship

between the thymic and veridictory categories consequently turns upside down. The

thymic square is diagramed in what follows:

Euphoric Dysphoric

Non-Dysphoric Non-Euphoric [Virtual Valuative Modalities]

Figure 2.

Then, this thymic taxonomy can be applied to what Jesus feels in Gethsemane in the

structure of the narrative semantics: euphoric (what is felt to be pleasing for Jesus) v. s.

dysphoric (what is felt to be grieving for Jesus). To take a step further, one can apply the

fundamental semantic category such as life/death to the thymic taxonomic as below:

Microcosm

Euphoric DysphoricPleasure SorrowMicrocosmic Life Microcosmic Death

29 Patte, The Religious Dimensions of Biblical Text, 121-122.

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Life Death

Non-Dysphoric Non-EuphoricNon-Sorrow Non-PleasureMacrocosmic Life Macrocosmic Death

Macrocosm [Acutualized Valuative Modalities]

Figure 3.

This is the case of the narrative semantics of the Gethsemane story one can

reconstruct. In the square the microcosmic life and death are non-cosmological life and

death, while the macrocosmic life and death are cosmological life (non-death) and death

(non-life). In the figure I have also demonstrated the second-generation terms of the

semiotic square. The contrary opposition of life and death occurs in the microcosmic

realm and the sub-contrary opposition of non-life and non-death in the macrocosmic

realm. The two deixes (relations of implication) entails either life (relative life on the

microcosmic level; absolute life on the macrocosmic level) or death (relative death on the

microcosmic level; absolute death on the macrocosmic level). Remember that I

conventionally put the positive deixis of euphoric connotations (life and non-death) on

the left and the negative deixis of dysphoric connotations (death and non-life) on the

right.

With this in mind, we can apply the above narrative semantics to another narrative

semantics as implied by the words of Jesus: “yet not what I want but what you want”

(plh.n ouvc w`j evgw. qe,lw avllV w`j su,) (26:39b). Here, it should be kept in

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mind that Jesus’ will and Father’s will takes place in the microcosmic realm in the sense

that they concerns the non-cosmological level. Note that the contrary of Jesus’ will and

Father’s will implies the sub-contrary of Satan’s will and God’s will at the cosmological

level. From the fact that the Gethsemane scene concerns the temptation (peirasmo,j) of

Jesus as well as his three disciples (Matt 26:41), it follows that this story evokes Jesus’

temptation by the Devil (Matt 4:1). This narrative fundamental semantics can be

illustrated in the following graph:

Jesus’ Father’sMicrocosmic MicrocosmicWill to Jesus’ Life Will to Jesus’ Death

Devil’s God’sMacrocosmic MacrocosmicWill to Jesus’ Death Will to Jesus’ Life

[Acutualized Valuative Modalities]

Figure 4.

As suggested in the verse of 39, there takes place the conversion between the

euphoric and dysphoric deixis by Jesus saying that he will follow up Father’s will, not his

own will. This means that the dysphoric deixis of Father’s microcosmic will to Jesus’

death and God’s macrocosmic will to Jesus’ life shifts into the euphoric deixis; to the

contrary, the euphoric deixis of Jesus’ microcosmic will to Jesus’ life and Devil’s

macrocosmic will to Jesus’ death into the dysphoric deixis. We can illustrate this new

semiotic square as below:

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Father’s Jesus’Microcosmic MicrocosmicWill to Jesus’ Death Will to Jesus’ Life

God’s Devil’sMacrocosmic MacrocosmicWill to Jesus’ Life Will to Jesus’ Death

[Conversion of Acutualized Valuative Modalities]

Figure 5.

Finally, I argue that this conversion of the narrative semantics can be construed

only in the discoursive semantics as suggested in the figurativization. As is the case of

Senior’s typology, the Gethsemane scene, to begin with, would remind a reader of the

Isaac’s sacrifice in Gen 22 by transforming him/her into an enunciatee-believer. In this

case, we can reconstruct the realized valuative modalities in the structure of the

discoursive semantics. There occur the contrary of the resurrected life and the non-

resurrected death and as a consequence, the sub-contrary of the permanent life and the

non-permanent death. Hence, there take place the euphoric deixis of the

resurrected/permanent life and the dysphoric deixis of the non-resurrected/permanent

death. We can illustrate this semiotic square as below:

Resurrected Non-ResurrectedLife Life

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Permanent PermanentLife Death

[Realized Valuative Modalities]

Figure 6.

For a reader, especially in the fundamental and narrative semantics, it would be

nonsense that Jesus transforms himself by taking Father’s will and at the same time, by

forsaking his will in the sense that death may be valued negative. It is in the structure of

the discoursive semantics that the transformation of Jesus can be made plausible to the

reader. In the very structure of the discoursive semantics, a reader is transformed into a

believer-enunciatee. As Patte notes, “Since a religious discourse aims at transforming the

addressee into a believer-enunciatee, the structure of the enunciator-enunciatee

relationship is always a process of transformation.”30 Through the discoursive process, an

enunciatee, who has a different semantic universe at the beginning, turns out to share

with the enunciator’s semantic universe at the end. This means that an enunciatee with

lack of knowledge about Jesus’ resurrection after his death is transformed into an

enunciatee with the knowledge of it via the figurativization of Jesus with Isaac. In this

respect, the system of figures has the power to realize the valuative modalities in the

structure of the discoursive semantics.

With the definitions of religion in mind, I argue that the discoursive aspect of

faith has effect on the convictional or semantic aspect of faith. As such, thymic semiotic

leads me to reconstruct Jesus’ feeling of sorrow at Gethsemane in the structure of the

fundamental and narrative semantics. Then I realize that it is in the structure of the

discoursive semantics that a reader can be transformed into a believer-enunciatee by

30 Daniel Patte, The Religious Dimensions of Biblical Texts, 158.

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adopting the semantic universe of the enunciator through the figurativization. In my own

context of being a pastoral kid, I believe that I myself need to be transformed into a

believer-enunciatee in order to understand Jesus’ transformation in Gethsemane and thus

find a meaning out of it.

Thus, my thymic semiotic exegesis in the structure of the fundamental, narrative,

and discoursive semantics: I posit such thymic semiotic exegesis in the Korean Christian

context, wherein a pastoral kid is expected to sacrifice him/her to meet the needs of the

congregation, therefore being emotionally hurt by them. My exegesis aims to grasp Jesus’

emotion of sorrow in Gethsemane and his transformation by submitting to his Father’s

will. Such exegesis helps me to reconstruct what Jesus feels in Gethsemane in the

structure of the fundamental and narrative semantics. What is more, I can understand

Jesus’ transformation in the structure of the discoursive semantics through a

figurativization of Jesus with Isaac. As a consequence, I realize that I myself have no

choice but to be transformed into a believer-enunciatee in order to understand Jesus’

transformation in Gethsemane and thus find a meaning out of it. Matthew’s Jesus in

Gethsemane remains a mystery of meanings at least for my own context.

Conclusion: from Han to Jeong

At this point, I would like to detail my own transformation out of the meanings

generated by the thymic semiotic. I believe that PK’s like me do not like to read the

Gethsamene account in Gethsemane along with the Akedah account mainly because

many pastors in Korean just highlights the sacrifice of a son obedient to the will of his

father. According to this interpretation, PK’s cannot make any rooms to engage with their

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own emotions of sorrow or grief, which they have to suffer from just because they are

PK’s. In this regard, the thymic semiotic indeed matters in the sense that it can deal with

the emotion of Jesus along with that of readers as PK’s.

In my view, PK’s emotion of grief or sorrow, which cannot engage with the text,

has to do with Korean concept of han, a “abysmal experience of pain.”31 The utter fact

that for PK’s, they cannot engage with Jesus’ emotion with their own signifies the

predominant emotion of han. It is worthwhile to note that PK’s cannot even address their

feelings to both their parents and lay people due to highest expectations upon them. So,

the thymic semiotic, for PK’s, is meaningful on the grounds that it provides a fresh way

of touching on their lived feeling of han, while engaging with the han of Jesus.

In this vein, the thymic semiotic has an effect of seeing both the han of both Jesus

and Korean PK’s just as they really are. If the thymic semiotic were to end with this

observation, it would not be so insightful to PK’s. I believe that the thymic semiotic also

offers a way of overcoming the han of both Jesus and PK’s through a Korean concept of

jeong, a “power of eros that forges its presence in the interval between the Self and the

Other.”32 As W. Anne Joh notes: “It [jeong] blurs the shaply constructed boundary

between the Self and the Other while allowing one to move beyond the edges of the Self

into the Other and vice versa.”33 Interestingly enough, jeong and han, as Jung Young Lee

argues, go hand in hand.34 With the help of the thymic semiotic, PK’s gain the power to

trespass between the Father God and the Son Jesus, and between the parents as the

31 Andrew Sung Park, The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), 15. 32 W. Anne Joh, “The Transgressive Power of Jeong: A Postcolonial Hybridization of Christology,” in Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire eds. Catherin Keller, Michael Nausner, and Mayra Rivera (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), 152-3.33 Joh, 153. 34 Jung Young Lee, “A Life In-Between: A Korean-American Journey,” in Journeys at the Margin: Toward an Autobiographical Theology in Asian-American Perpective (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999), 153.

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oppressive Other and themselves as the oppressed Self. Just as Jesus shows a way of

overcoming han via jeong, PK themselves are empowered to overcome their feelings of

han via jeong.

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