“Dematerializing” Religion: Reading John 2–4 as a Chiasm 543 example, make much of the comparison between Nicodemus as the hesitant Jewish male religious leader and the responsive female Samaritan and “moral outcast” (75). Yet the two accounts are not placed back-to-back but are separated by John the Baptist’s witness in 3,22-36, thus making an authorial contrast between Nicodemus and the Samaritan at least less obvious. Even upon granting such an intended comparison, a strict contrast between concentric and progressive ways of reading narratives is unnecessary. Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman is a good example for both reading strategies. A concentric perception finds in 4,20-26 (key-term proskunevw) the story’s center of theology while a sequential reading identifies a progressing Christology from Jesus as ΔIoudai'o" in 4,9 to him as the swth;r tou' kovsmou in 4,42. When taken together, 2,12-22 and 4,1-42 introduce the reader to a temple Christology that negotiates the new faith in contrast with material forms of Jewish and Gentile worship. 3. Salvation & Judgment (3,1-21+3,22-36) a) The Parallel Make-up of 3,1-21 and 3,22-36 Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus and following monologue (3,1- 21) together with John the Baptist’s last witness in the Gospel (3,22- 36) stand at the center of the concentric design in John 2–4 and “form a diptych” (76). The two stories are separated by a shift of place from Jerusalem to Judea (3,22) and a shift of personal from Jesus and Nicodemus to John the Baptist, his disciples and the Jews. Yet the literary and theological unity of the chapter is evident from their make-up marked by various parallels. (a) Both episodes progress from a narrative exposition (2,23-25; 3,22-24) to a dialogue (3,1-12; 3,25-30) and finally to a monologue (3,13-21; 3,31-36) (77), although scholars disagree on the exact point of transition from dialogue to monologue in Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus (78): (75) CARSON, The Gospel According to John, 216. KÖSTENBERGER, John, 112. M.M. PAZDAN, “Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman: Contrasting Models of Discipleship”, BTB 17 (1987) 145-148. (76) MOLONEY, The Gospel of John, 89. (77) So first Y. IBUKI, “Gedankenaufbau und Hintergrund des 3. Kapitels des Johannesevangeliums”, Bulletin of Seikie University 14 (1978) 9-33, esp. 11. (78) Some propose that the monologue begins already in 3,11 (cf. DODD, Interpretation, 301, 305); others in 3,13, e.g., U. SCHNELLE, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (ThHK 4; Leipzig 1998) 73; others in 3,14, e.g., K. WENGST, Das