Abstract
This essay contends that Professor Dumbledore drinking a potion from a goblet administered by Harry Potter in the cave from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince evokes Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane from the Gospels and his request that "the cup" be removed from him. Even though the Gospels portray Jesus all alone, and Dumbledore has Harry with him, I argue that Harry Potter evokes the expanded Lukan account of Gethsemane, which contains a textually uncertain passage about an angel ministering to him (Luke 22.43–44). I argue further that this Lukan text informs Harry Potter specifically as mediated through visual representations of an angel holding a cup for Jesus in art (e.g., Francisco de Goya’s Christ in Gethsemane; Lo Spagna’s The Agony in the Garden), biblical illustrations (e.g., James Tissot), and Jesus films (e.g., La Vie du Christ, 1906; La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur, 1907; Christus, 1916; Jesus, 1973; The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988). The essay concludes with a reflection on the significance of this connection for reading the Gospels in the light of Harry Potter's use of this complex tradition.
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0000-0003-3815-7743
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