A Journey Round John: Tradition, Interpretation and Context in the Fourth Gospel 9780567664181, 9780567660299, 9780567660305

Citation preview

LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

534 Formerly Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

Editor Chris Keith

Editorial Board Dale C. Allison, John M.G. Barclay, Lynn H. Cohick, R. Alan Culpepper, Craig A. Evans, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Love L. Sechrest, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Robert L. Webb, Catrin H. Williams

A JOURNEY ROUND JOHN Tradition, Interpretation and Context in the Fourth Gospel

Wendy E. S. North

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2015 Paperback edition first published 2018 © Wendy E. S. North, 2015 Wendy E. S. North has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-0-56766-029-9 PB: 978-0-56768-166-9 ePDF: 978-0-56766-030-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data North, Wendy E. S. A journey round John : tradition, interpretation and context in the fourth Gospel / by Wendy E.S. North. pages cm. – (Library of New Testament studies ' volume 534) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-567-66029-9 (hardback) – ISBN 978-0-567-66030-5 (ePDF) – ISBN 978-0-567-66418-1 (xml) 1. Bible. John–Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. BS2615.52.N668 2015 226.5'06–dc23 2014048279 Series: Library of New Test ament Studies, volume 534 Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com) To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

For Clare and Joanna

CONTENTS Preface Abbreviations

ix xi

INTRODUCTION

1

Chapter 1 JUDAS ISCARIOT AND SATAN IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

21

Chapter 2 ‘IS NOT THIS JESUS, THE SON OF JOSEPH…?’ (JOHN 6.42): JOHANNINE CHRISTOLOGY AS A CHALLENGE TO FAITH

25

Chapter 3 ‘THE SCRIPTURE’ IN JOHN 17.12

45

Chapter 4 WITNESSES TO WHAT WAS ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË: 1 JOHN’S CONTRIBUTION TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF TRADITION IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

57

Chapter 5 JESUS’ PRAYER IN JOHN 11

78

Chapter 6 JOHN FOR READERS OF MARK? A RESPONSE TO RICHARD BAUCKHAM’S PROPOSAL

94

Chapter 7 MONOTHEISM AND THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: JESUS, MOSES, AND THE LAW

1

113

viii

Contents

Chapter 8 THE IMAGE OF MARTHA IN LUKE 10.38-42 AND IN JOHN 11.1–12.8 (co-written with B. J. Koet)

128

Chapter 9 ‘THE JEWS’ IN JOHN’S GOSPEL: OBSERVATIONS AND INFERENCES

148

Chapter 10 ‘BETHANY BEYOND THE JORDAN’ (JOHN 1.28) IN RETROSPECT: THE VIEW FROM JOHN 10.40 AND RELATED TEXTS

168

Chapter 11 THE ANOINTING IN JOHN 12.1-8: A TALE OF TWO HYPOTHESES

179

Chapter 12 ‘LORD, IF YOU HAD BEEN HERE…’ (JOHN 11.21): THE ABSENCE OF JESUS AND STRATEGIES OF CONSOLATION IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

193

Chapter 13 POINTS AND STARS: JOHN AND THE SYNOPTICS

207

Bibliography Index of References Index of Authors

220 234 247

1

PREFACE As a child, I was fascinated by the logic in Through the Looking Glass whereby Alice would arrive at her destination by setting off in a different direction entirely. Since then I have learned that in many people’s experience this contrariwise form of progress has been almost a rule of thumb. Similarly in my case, it was by not going towards it that I eventually encountered John’s Gospel, by then in my ¿nal undergraduate year. I had not expected the world to contain such a book. Not only did it astound me but also I knew at the time that I wanted to keep on thinking about it. What I had underestimated, however, was how long I would keep on thinking about it. Accordingly, nothing loth and despite offers to stay on, I set off in pursuit of the career I had planned. Suf¿ce it to say that three years later I was back at University with a lot of learning to do, but this time I knew why, and so began my research life with John. The essays in this book are representative of my work on John over a period of more than thirty years. Each is assigned a chapter and they appear here in chronological order. For convenience of reference, however, and lest the reader feel obliged to wade in at the beginning, I have provided an extended introduction that draws the essays together for discussion under the following topics: Christology; ‘the Jews’; eschatology; John and 1 John; and John and the Synoptics. I have never regretted journeying round John. I continue to think of it as a privilege as, I suspect, did C. H. Dodd when he commented on the originality and creativity of its author with the words, ‘There is no book, either in the New Testament or outside it, which is really like the Fourth Gospel’.1 In addition, my progress has brought me into the company of others similarly enthused, at departmental seminars and annual gatherings – among which the wonderfully enduring Seminar on the use of the Old Testament in the New deserves special mention – whose collegiality and generous friendship I continue to enjoy and to value enormously. It seems ¿tting at this point also to express my gratitude to three scholars 1. C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 6.

x

Preface

whom I can no longer thank in person: Max Wilcox, for being there ÒÈφ ÒÉÏýË and then later to supervise my Ph.D.; Anthony Hanson, for taking me on trust when I arrived into his of¿ce asking to do John and for becoming both mentor and friend; and Barnabas Lindars, for support in my work and extraordinary kindness. Finally, this book is dedicated to my daughters, Clare and Joanna, who grew up with the problem and survived to become people you would always want to have in your life. I thank them for being in mine.

1

ABBREVIATIONS AB ABR BBB BETL BibInt BZNW CBET CBQ CBQMS EKKNT ETL ExpTim FzB HTKNT ICC JBL JSJ JSNTSup JTS LNTS LXX

MNTC NA27 NCB NICNT NovT NovTSup NRSV NS

NTG NTOA NTS NTTS PNTC RB RSV

SBB SBL

Anchor Bible Australian Biblical Review Bonner Biblische Beiträge Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament Ephemerides Theologiae Lovaniensis Expository Times Forschung zur Bibel Herders theologischer Kommentar zun Neuen Testament International Critical Commentary Journal of Biblical Literature Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies Library of New Testament Studies Septuagint Moffat New Testament Commentary Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland, 27th ed. New Century Bible New International Commentary on the New Testament Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum Supplements New Revised Standard Version new series New Testament Guides Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus New Testament Studies New Testament Tools and Studies Pillar New Testament Commentary Revue Biblique Revised Standard Version Stuttgarter Biblische Beiträge Society of Biblical Literature

xii SBLDS SC SCC SHR SJLA SNTA SNTSMS SPCK StPB TynBul WBC ZNW

1

Abbreviations Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Sources Chrétiennes Studies in Creative Criticism Studies in the History of Religions Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity Studiorum Novi Testamenti Auxilia Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas Monograph Series Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Studia post-biblica Tyndale Bulletin Word Biblical Commentaries Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

INTRODUCTION

The Fourth Evangelist did not compose de novo; he deferred to what was known and drew out its meaning to allow it to speak to circumstances prevailing at the time. In this respect, tradition, interpretation of tradition, and the context that occasioned it are inextricably bound up with the making of the Fourth Gospel. It follows that these matters must also inform the task of understanding the Evangelist’s work and, hence, they are present with varying emphases in the essays that follow. For the purposes of this introduction, however, rather than deal in broad brush-strokes, I have chosen to discuss the essays under ¿ve speci¿c topics that have proved, in retrospect and also to my surprise, to thread through the collection. These are as follows: Christology, ‘the Jews’, eschatology, John and 1 John, and John and the Synoptics. In the case of each topic, reference to the essays forms part of a fresh discussion which also includes comment on key issues in recent debate and looks ahead to further research. I. Christology The most remarkable feature of this remarkable Gospel is that Jesus in John speaks and acts like God. As God’s Word-become-Àesh, he is the Son sent by God into the world, who speaks God’s words, does God’s works, declares he is one with the Father and, furthermore, is confessed as God towards the close of the narrative (1.14; 3.17; 5.17; 12.49-50; 10.30; 20.28). Thus, by contrast with the Synoptic accounts, where Jesus constantly proclaims the coming of God’s Kingdom, in John the Kingdom barely receives a mention and centre-stage is Jesus himself, constantly proclaiming his own identity. Given the boldness and power of John’s presentation, it was perhaps inevitable that his Christology would play a key role in the formulation of later Christian doctrine, notably the Nicene Creed, which declares the divinity of Jesus as the second Person of the triune God and, later, the Chalcedon De¿nition, which af¿rms that Jesus had a divine as well as a

2

A Journey Round John

human nature.1 And yet, it is precisely in respect of its later inÀuence that we encounter the dif¿culty in interpreting the Gospel itself: did John the Jew ascribe deity to Jesus the Jew, or is there some more nuanced explanation of this extraordinary presentation? I have become increasingly less persuaded over time that John’s Christology was the natural precursor of these later Christian formulae, even though they plainly drew inspiration from his text. Hence, I would not now subscribe to the viewpoint expressed in the essay on Christology in Chapter 2 although, as we shall see, I believe it has other merits. The essay in Chapter 7, however, charts a different course. Here I have attempted to understand John’s Christology from within the framework of Jewish monotheistic thinking. Given the Gospel’s life-situation of a ‘family row’ of Jew versus Jew,2 I have sought to identify some factor in the common heritage of the parties concerned, as the Gospel represents them, that could have furnished John with the foundation for his distinctive presentation of Jesus. If this approach is valid, then the implication would be two-fold: ¿rst, that John saw his Christology as a logical development from within Judaism itself and, second, that those who opposed him did so not because they belonged to Judaism of a different stripe, but because they objected to his Jesus-centred reinterpretation of their faith. Even so, however, the dif¿culty remains, for it could be argued that the net effect of John’s Christocentric application of his Jewish heritage was indeed to elevate Jesus to deity. In view of the importance and complexity of this topic, it may be helpful at this point brieÀy to outline some of the problems involved and indicate areas of progress. I will begin with a brief overview of the evidence. We can gather something of John’s position from those points in his narrative where he has Jesus defend himself against the charge of blasphemy, which is twice brought against him by ‘the Jews’, an emphasis that may well resonate with the dif¿culties faced by John’s readers at the time of writing (cf. 5.17-18; 10.30-33). It is noticeable that in these defence passages Jesus’ claims to an identity with God and to be due the same honour are justi¿ed not only by citing Scripture, notably Ps. 82.6, but also, and speci¿cally, by virtue of the fact that he exercises the powers devolved upon him by the Father who sent him (5.19-23; cf. 10.34-38). It is also worth observing here that Jesus’ insistence that he neither speaks nor acts of his own accord is a constant refrain throughout 1. For these formulae see, for example, J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: A. & C. Black, 1958), pp. 232, 339–40. 2. J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (2d ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 84. 1

Introduction

3

this Gospel (5.19-30; 7.16-18; 8.26-29; 10.37-38; 12.44-50; 14.10, 24; 17.7-8). Evidence like this supports the argument that John’s Christology has roots in the concept of agency, such that Jesus is seen as God’s representative and plenipotentiary on earth, and valuable work has been done in this area.3 Nevertheless, the Gospel’s magni¿cent Prologue (1.1-18), which functions to set out the parameters for the ensuing narrative, locates Jesus’ identity in relation to God ¿rmly within the cosmic sphere. Here we learn that the pre-existent Word (ÂŦºÇË) of God, that was with God and was God (¿¼ŦË) became Àesh in Jesus Christ, who uniquely revealed God. Here also, it would seem, John himself is operating on familiar territory. By contrast with the Gospel narrative, which is replete with guidance for his readers, his Prologue is remarkably unforthcoming: the ÂŦºÇË arrives into his opening sentence with the minimum of introduction and in 1.14 the epoch-changing assertion that the ÂŦºÇË became Àesh is conveyed with studied economy. To put it otherwise, while we may ask our questions John does not stay for an answer, a lack of speci¿city on his part that opens the Àoodgates to a multiplicity of interpretations. Even so, however, I remain to be persuaded that the Prologue was designed in the ¿rst instance as a catch-all to appeal to any audience.4 Instead, I shall focus on the Prologue as it stands, notwithstanding its resonance elsewhere, as crafted by John to be continuous with his narrative and hence to enquire what John intended his readers to derive from it in context.5 Seen in this light, the Prologue, I suggest, confronts us with two fundamental issues. The ¿rst is what John had in mind when he chose to use the term ÂŦºÇË in 1.1, 14. In other words, given his declaration that Jesus was the incarnation of the pre-existent ÂŦºÇË that was ¿¼ŦË, then the point at issue here is whether a proto-Chalcedon, or ‘God-man’ Christology,6 is our

3. P. Borgen, ‘God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel’, in Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (ed. J. Neusner; SHR 14; Leiden: Brill, 1968), pp. 137–48; repr. in J. Ashton, ed., The Interpretation of John (2d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997), pp. 83–95. 4. So P. M. Phillips, The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading (LNTS 294; London: T&T Clark International, 2006), pp. 89, 138–41. Whether or not one agrees with this approach, Phillips’s exploration of the intertextuality of ÂŦºÇË (pp. 73–141) makes excellent reading. 5. In agreement with B. Lindars, The Gospel of John (NCB; Oliphants, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1972), pp. 81–2. 6. So A. T. Hanson, Grace and Truth: A Study in the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SPCK, 1975), p. 72. 1

4

A Journey Round John

only option. In fact, ÂŦºÇË is capable of a broad range of meaning, which includes the notion of ‘concept’ or ‘plan’, which could suggest that John thought of Jesus as ÂŦºÇË in terms of his embodiment of God’s plan for the world, as beautifully conveyed by John Ashton.7 In any event, it is certain that John’s opening phrase ‘in the beginning’ and his references to light, life and darkness in 1.1-5 point us in the ¿rst instance to the creative and revelatory utterance of God in Genesis 1 and related passages such as Ps. 33.6 as uppermost in his mind. Moreover, given the huge inÀuence on John’s Prologue exerted by the ¿gure of Wisdom,8 the fact that he has preferred ÂŦºÇË when he could easily have used ÊÇÎĕ¸ (wisdom) looks all the more pointed.9 Perhaps, then, we come closest to what meaning John had in mind for ÂŦºÇË in the Gospel Prologue when we ¿nd him at home with the Scriptures, most notably with reference to Moses and the Torah. In that connection, it is interesting to observe that, in both Prologue and Gospel, he not only declares Jesus’ superiority to the Torah (and the Scriptures generally), but does so using the same vocabulary (1.16-17 [grace]; 6.32-33 [bread]). Seen in this light, his thoroughly Jewish reference in 10.35 to the Scriptures themselves as the ÂŦºÇË of God is well worth our attention.10 Finding John at home brings me to the second and related issue, which is his cultural background. If, as I have indicated, John was able to formulate his Prologue on the basis of what was already familiar, then we need to know how far it was possible within the framework of Jewish monotheism to bestow language appropriate to deity on ¿gures other than God. I have already blocked in some of that background in the essay in Chapter 7 with regard to the exalted status accorded Moses and the Law. In addition, we have the evidence from Philo of Alexandria, who was no less a monotheist for the fact that he could call the ÂŦºÇË ‘the

7. J. Ashton, ‘The Transformation of Wisdom’, in Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), pp. 5–35 (22–6). 8. See, especially, M. Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus (JSNTSup 71; Shef¿eld: JSOT Press, 1992). 9. R. B. Edwards rejects the assumption that John preferred ÂŦºÇË to ÊÇÎĕ¸ because of Jesus’ gender, pointing quite rightly to Paul’s reference to Jesus as ‘the wisdom of God’ (1 Cor. 1.24); see Discovering John: Content, Interpretation, Reception (2d ed.; London: SPCK, 2014), pp. 104–5. 10. See C. S. Keener, The Gospel of John, A Commentary (2 vols.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), pp. 360–3; also Edwards, Discovering John, p. 105. Edwards includes references in rabbinic theology to the pre-existence of Torah. Although the attestations she cites are somewhat later than John, the Prologue’s pre-existent ÂŦºÇË may belong to the same trajectory.

1

Introduction

5

second God’,11 and also from the Dead Sea Scrolls, where the Hebrew -'!+ (‘God’) in Psalm 82 is identi¿ed with Melchizedek, the king of Salem, in Genesis 14.12 Further valuable work has illustrated the resilience of Jewish monotheism with regard to instances where language of prayer and praise addressed to angels was accommodated into worship directed ultimately towards God.13 Finally, in a wide-ranging discussion, Ruth Edwards rightly reminds us that the claims in John’s Prologue are by no means out of place in the company of other Christological declarations in the New Testament itself, such as Phil. 2.6-7, Col. 2.9, and Heb. 1.1-4.14 It is well worth recalling in this context our earlier evidence that Jesus’ defence against the blasphemy charge in John’s narrative involves a claim to be due the same honour as God; honour which, supported by a citation from Psalm 82, includes being called ¿¼ŦË. In sum, I continue to think that John’s Christology was not the natural precursor of later Christian doctrine, although I am aware that there are excellent scholars who would not agree.15 What we might all agree on, however, is that the more we progress in our understanding of Judaism the more we shall succeed in understanding John and evaluating his achievement. And certainly in one respect, his achievement was considerable: by virtue of refocusing his Jewish heritage entirely on Jesus as the sole means of access to God, John had succeeded in charting a course for his own déraciné group – and ultimately for the emerging Church – towards a future without Judaism.16 11. Edwards, Discovering John, p. 105; further on Philo and ÂŦºÇË, see Phillips, Prologue, pp. 107–14. 12. For a discussion of this reference in 11QMelchizedek and further bibliography, see Ashton, Understanding (2d ed.), pp. 93–4. 13. L. T. Stuckenbruck, ‘ “Angels” and “God”: Exploring the Limits of Early Jewish Monotheism’, in Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (ed. L. T. Stuckenbruck and W. E. S. North; JSNTSup 263; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 45–70. 14. Edwards, Discovering John, pp. 107–8, 148–55. 15. Keener, Gospel, p. 281; M. Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 30–62; A. T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to St John (Black’s New Testament Commentaries 4; London: Hendrickson, 2005), pp. 98, 182, 272, 306; see further, W. E. S. North, ‘A Christology too Far? Some Thoughts on Andrew Lincoln’s Commentary on John’, and A. T. Lincoln, ‘From Writing to Reception: ReÀections on Commentating on the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 29 (2007), pp. 343–51 and pp. 353–72, respectively. 16. It is interesting to speculate how far Origen and later Arius, both of whom strove on the one hand to preserve the principle of monotheism while on the other insisting on the exalted status of the Son, had in their different ways come close to John’s meaning; for detail, see Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 128–32, 226– 31; see further M. Wiles, ‘In Defence of Arius’, JTS NS 13 (1962), pp. 339–47. 1

6

A Journey Round John

II. ‘The Jews’ The reception history of ‘the Jews’ in John’s Gospel is an appalling stain on Christianity’s past. From Irenaeus to Chrystostom to Martin Luther and beyond, John’s hostile ‘Jews’ references were perceived by an overwhelmingly Gentile Christian movement as an eternal indictment by Jesus of the Jews as a race. By the early part of the twentieth-century, this prejudice was suf¿ciently endemic in Western society to be ripe for exploitation by the Nazi propaganda machine.17 The present era of post-holocaust sensibilities has witnessed a virtual industry of scholarly endeavour devoted to ascertaining the identity of John’s ‘Jews’, with varying degrees of success. Complicating factors have included both the sensitivity of the topic and the complexity of the evidence in the text. Latterly, there has been the welcome addition of Jewish scholarly interest brought to bear on interpreting John, even when it has been at personal cost. As Adele Reinhartz has put it, every reference to ‘the Jews’ felt like a slap in the face.18 A particular focus of the discussion has been the issue of translation. John’s Greek expression ÇĎ `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ does double duty in that it can refer either to Jews in general or, in a Palestinian context, to Judaeans in particular. The proposal that it should be translated as the latter was ¿rst argued by Malcolm Lowe in 1976, and it continues to be inÀuential in prestigious scholarly publications today.19 In light of this development, it seems appropriate at this point to offer some remarks on the suitability or otherwise of this preference. Had John’s Gospel been written from within Palestine, the translation ‘Judaeans,’ speci¿cally referring to those who lived in the province of Judaea, just might work, except that one would then wonder what they were doing in Galilee in ch. 6 (vv. 41, 52), especially since John’s reference to the crowd there identi¿es them with the Galilaeans in ch. 4 (6.2; cf. 4.45; 2.23). There is ample evidence, however, in the shape of the author’s careful descriptions of the terrain and climate, to show that the Gospel was not penned in Palestine and, moreover, to suggest that John’s target audience had a Gentile component who would need to be 17. See the wise and comprehensive discussion on ‘the Jews’ in John by Ruth Edwards in Discovering John, pp. 131–41. 18. A. Reinhartz, Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John (New York: Continuum, 2005), p. 13. 19. M. Lowe, ‘Who Were the ǿȅȊǻǹǿȅǿ?’, NovT 18 (1976), pp. 101–30; see, for example, F. W. Danker, ed., A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (3d ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. viii, 478–9. 1

Introduction

7

told such things. It is unlikely, therefore, that such people could be expected to appreciate any nice distinction between ÇĎ `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ who hailed from Palestine and those from Judaea only. Nor is the argument strengthened by the observation that John’s hostile references to `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ cluster in Judaea.20 This is particularly evident in 7.1, where Jesus prefers to remain in Galilee rather than go to Judaea where, we learn, ÇĎ `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ were seeking to kill him. Yet nothing could be less surprising than this, given that John is retelling a known story in which Jesus meets his death in Judaea at the instigation of `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ whose power-base is precisely there. One can, of course, insist that the term `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ should in all cases be translated ‘Judaeans’ rather than ‘Jews’ on the principle that peoples in the ancient world were known by the territory from which they originated.21 Problems arise, however, in its application to John’s text, given that ‘Judaeans’ is generally understood to refer to the inhabitants of Judaea. Thus, for example, to use the translation ‘Judaeans’ of John’s Galilaean crowd in ch. 6 or, indeed, to use ‘Judaean’ of Jesus himself (4.9; cf. 18.35), is simply to court confusion. Finally, and crucially, this proposal does nothing to resolve the fundamental issue here, which is that Jesus in John’s narrative identi¿es himself as other than those people with whom modern-day Jews ¿nd common identity; nothing, that is, except perhaps to place it at a remove. As Adele Reinhartz puts it in a recent publication, ‘The use of “Judeans” to translate all occurrences of ioudaioi…merely sidesteps the issue without addressing the anti-Jewish or even anti-Semitic potential of texts such as the Gospel of John’.22 20. So P. F. Esler, ‘Translating Ioudaioi as “Judeans” in the Fourth Gospel’, in P. F. Esler and R. A. Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha: A Social-Scienti¿c and Theological Reading of John (London: SCM, 2006), pp. 159–64 (163); Esler refers to U. C. von Wahlde, ‘“The Jews” in the Gospel of John: Fifteen Years of Research (1983–1998)’, ETL 76 (2000), pp. 30–55 (54). 21. S. Mason, ‘Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History’, JSJ 38 (2007), pp. 457–512; Esler, ‘Translating Ioudaioi as “Judeans” ’; idem, ‘From Ioudaioi to Children of God: The Development of a NonEthnic Group Identity in the Gospel of John’, in In Other Words: Essays on Social Science Methods and the New Testament in Honor of Jerome H. Neyrey (ed. A. C. Hagedorn, Z. A. Crook and E. Stewart; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Phoenix, 2007), pp. 106– 37; idem, ‘Identity Matters: Judean Ethnic Identity In the First Century CE’ (2012); see online: http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/esl368002.shtml. 22. A. Reinhartz, ‘The Vanishing Jews of Antiquity’, in Jew and Judean: A Forum on Politics and Historiography in the Translation of Ancient Texts (ed. T. M. Law and C. Halton; Los Angeles: The Marginalia Review of Books, 2014), pp. 12– 30 (17); see also, in the same volume, R Sheridan, ‘Hiding from the Fourth Gospel’s Tragic Reception History’, pp. 123–36; see further online: www.marginalia .lareviewofbooks.org. 1

8

A Journey Round John

By the time I had completed the essay in Chapter 9 on John’s ‘Jews’, I had thoroughly tested the patience of colleagues with a series of false starts. It was not until I had grasped the value of the parentheses in John, courtesy of the painstaking work of Gilbert Van Belle,23 that I began to feel con¿dent in making progress. In general, this discovery was a growth point for me. Here, threaded throughout the Gospel itself, was a body of material that offered direct access to the Evangelist in communication with his readers during the process of composition. And the view was surprisingly intimate. In fact, John demonstrates an extraordinary care and concern for his Àock that those on the disapproving end of his pen can never have suspected. Here also, it seemed to me, was my entry point into a better understanding of John and how his ‘Jews’ references worked, and hence the direction of the discussion in the essay takes its cue from the detail on the parentheses at the start. The essay itself does not succeed in resolving the problem of John’s ‘Jews’. Nevertheless, it does, I believe, make some progress with regard to the identi¿cation of ‘the Jews’ in John’s narrative and also the logic of his deployment of the term in relation to other named groups. In addition, the contemporary referent suggested here would certainly make sense of John’s presentation of Jesus as hostile towards and disassociated from others who are Jewish. As for the future, it is clear that more work needs to be done, especially in tackling the bewildering array of references to ‘the Jews’ and other groups in John 7–8. Also, as I indicate in the essay, I believe that more can be learned if we broaden the discussion beyond the usual remit of John and the Synoptics. Even within the New Testament, the demonizing references in Rev. 2.9 and 3.9 merit our attention as, indeed, does the astonishing disparity between the six references to ‘the Jews’ in Luke’s Gospel and the 79 in Acts. III. Eschatology I defy anyone who reads Jn 3.16-21 for the ¿rst time not to be taken by storm. I continue to think of it as one of the most extraordinary pieces I have ever read. Here John turns aside from his narrative to reÀect on the implications of the entry of Jesus as God’s Son into the world of human society. In vv. 16-17 he emphasises that God sent his Son, not to condemn the world, but for love of it so that all who believe in him should 23. G. Van Belle, Les parenthèses dans l’évangile de Jean: Aperçu historique et classi¿cation, texte Grec de Jean (SNTA 11; Leuven: Leuven University Press/ Peeters, 1985), pp.63–104. 1

Introduction

9

gain eternal life and not perish. By v. 18, however, he turns his attention to condemnation. Here, all hinges on human response to God’s Son having come into the world: whoever believes is not condemned but whoever does not believe is condemned already. Finally, John sets out the judging process in terms of the light/darkness imagery of the Prologue. In the person of Jesus light has come into the world. That light is a discriminatory light and there are now only two possible choices for those who encounter it: either to shun the light and so condemn oneself, as evildoers will; or to come towards it, as will those who do the truth (vv. 19-21). In this remarkable passage, John makes it plain that the point when God’s Son entered human history was the point when the conditions of Judgement Day came into force. Judgement does not now wait until the eschaton; it is a present reality in that the criterion that determines one’s ¿nal fate is one’s response to Jesus. Thus, in a typically original move, John has taken the expectation traditionally associated with the end time and has drawn it back into the present to bear on acceptance or rejection of Jesus. The ¿nal verse of ch. 3 puts it in a nutshell: whoever believes in the Son possesses eternal life; to do otherwise is to experience the wrath of God (3.36). Here we have the basis for John’s ‘realized eschatology’, so-called in recognition of the fact that here and in other Gospel texts future eschatological expectations are seen as ful¿lled in present events (cf. 5.24; 9.39).24 And yet, what compounds the issue and sends us all back to the drawing-board is the presence of a number of texts that reÀect the conventional expectation of future judgement. The evidence includes 5.2829, the apocalyptic scene where the dead are called from their tombs to judgement by the Son of man, as well as several references to resurrection and judgement ‘at the last day’ (6.39, 40, 44, 54; 12.48). What, then, are we to make of John’s eschatology? Given his undeniable emphasis on the present, what meaningful role – if any – does he assign to the eschatological future? And under what circumstances would he choose to focus attention on the present to such a degree? This brings me to Chapter 1 of the present volume, which is a brief investigation of John’s treatment of Judas Iscariot. John’s description of Judas as ‘the son of perdition’ in 17.12 was my ¿rst encounter with his capacity to rearrange the eschatological landscape and it would not be my last. I was already familiar, of course, with Rudolf Bultmann’s celebrated commentary which, for all its idiosyncrasies and wrong turnings, 24. See, e.g., R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (2 vols.; AB 29, 29A; Garden City: Doubleday, 1966; London: Chapman, 1971), vol. 1, pp. CXVII–CXVIII.

1

10

A Journey Round John

still affords the reader discoveries of sudden brilliance.25 Bultmann resolved the problem of the passages relating to the future by ascribing them to someone else, namely, an ecclesiastical redactor bent on reconciling the dangerous radicalism of the Evangelist’s thought with traditional expectations. If the solution Bultmann arrived at was unlikely, he had nevertheless put his ¿nger on the real dif¿culty here, which is that explicit references to future expectation in John occupy only a small proportion of his text; small enough, perhaps, to be explained differently – or even explained away. Meanwhile, I was all for the radical and took the view that, having set out his case in 3.16-21, John had worked with that ‘realized’ framework in presenting differing responses to Jesus on the part of individuals and groups in the course of his narrative. This became formative for the essay in Chapter 2. While on the one hand, as already indicated, I would now wish to question the position I took on Christology at that point, on the other I would still broadly support the overall argument that ultimately John’s Gospel is not a study in Christology but a study in the reactions of those who encounter Jesus. The essay in Chapter 3 saw a return to Judas Iscariot and his eschatological status as ‘son of perdition’ (17.12). Originally a contribution to a festschrift in honour of Anthony Hanson, this piece seeks to argue that ‘the scripture’ in Jn 17.12 does not refer to Ps. 41.9 (quoted in 13.18) but instead to a saying or ‘word’ of Jesus in 17.12, variously represented also in 6.39 and 18.9. I am not now about to defend the plausibility of that thesis. It did not convince Anthony Hanson at the time and, to judge from my ¿nal paragraph, it did not really convince me. However, the process of making the case meant that I devoted a good part of the essay to a detailed investigation of John’s presentation of Judas Iscariot. Here I was able to ¿nd evidence to suggest that the association of the betrayer with the notion of eschatological perdition/destruction had been in John’s mind long before he made it explicit in 17.12. I began to develop a more rounded perspective on John’s eschatology in the course of completing an extended study of John’s composition of the raising of Lazarus,26 by which time developments in the discipline had provided me with food for further thought. In particular, Alan Culpepper’s justly celebrated Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel had by then given rise to a whole new narrative-critical approach to interpreting 25. He is still unmatched on Jn 1.14 in my estimation; see R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John (trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), p. 63. 26. W. E. S. North, The Lazarus Story within the Johannine Tradition (JSNTSup 212; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 2001).

1

Introduction

11

John.27 This is not to say, of course, that John’s literary sensibilities had previously gone unsung; rather, what Culpepper achieved was to provide literary tools to put the matter cleanly and analytically and, above all, to shift our gaze away from what lay behind the text to the meaning inherent in what was on its surface.28 A second inÀuence was the groundbreaking work by J. L. Martyn which, despite reservations in some quarters about the relevance of the Birkath ha-Minim, had successfully set the agenda for interpreting the Gospel against the backdrop of a painful rift between the Evangelist’s group and an increasingly hostile Judaism.29 Thus, the urgency of the Gospel’s life-situation seemed to provide a plausible context for John’s focus on response to Jesus in the present as the criterion for judgement. In addition, John Ashton had published the ¿rst edition of his magisterial study Understanding the Fourth Gospel, in which he had linked Martyn’s two-level approach to the Gospel with what he described as ‘intimations of apocalyptic’ to be found in its text, thus adding signi¿cantly to the range of resources on which John could have drawn.30 Finally, Jörg Frey had published his hugely impressive three-volume study in which he had ¿rmly rejected Bultmann’s ecclesiastical redactor in favour of the unity of John’s text.31 My own conclusions were as follows: ¿rst, like Frey, I argued that Jn 5.28-29 could not be separated off from the rest of John’s text but was integral to his composition at that point and, second, that the apocalyptic scene depicted in that passage had profoundly inÀuenced John’s narration of the Lazarus miracle. That connection told decisively in favour of 5.28-29 as integral to the Gospel, and it was one that Bultmann had not seen.32

27. R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). 28. Further on the impact of Culpepper’s book, its precursors and its legacy, see T. Thatcher and S. D. Moore, eds., Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature (SBL Resources for Biblical Study 55; Atlanta: SBL, 2008). 29. J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Harper & Row, 1968; Nashville: Abingdon, rev. ed., 1979; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 3d ed., 2003). 30. J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (1st ed., Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), pp. 383–406. 31. J. Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie (3 vols.; WUNT 96, 110, 117; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997, 1998, 2000). 32. Bultmann attributes Jn 11.43-44 to John’s signs-source; Gospel, p. 395 n. 4. 1

12

A Journey Round John

This brings me ¿nally to the essay in Chapter 12 in which I explored strategies of consolation in the Gospel. For me this broke new ground in several respects. First, it offered a perspective on the Gospel in which certain aspects of it came together in ways I had not previously grasped. Second, it encouraged me to tackle the broader issue of why John had chosen to write a Gospel and to present it quite as he did. Third, it signalled my ¿rst meaningful sortie into the reception-history of the Gospel, including an apt quotation from Kipling that had been a chance discovery. And ¿nally, it con¿rmed for me beyond doubt that the eschatological future had a strong role to play in John’s scheme of things, that its importance was not measured by the evidence that his explicit references to it are few, and that John’s deliberate choice of the raising of Lazarus as the centrepiece of his Gospel told crucially in favour of that estimate of his position. It remains simply to add that the debate continues. In the second edition of John Ashton’s book, published in 2007, he repeated his argument outlining the Gospel’s af¿nity with apocalyptic. This was subsequently taken up as the topic of a colloquium, and ‘intimations of apocalyptic’ took its place in the title of a book published in 2013, containing essays inspired by Ashton’s work. Here the reader interested in the eschatological component of the apocalyptic genre will ¿nd arguments both for and against a meaningful future eschatology in John.33 IV. John and 1 John The essay in Chapter 4 investigates the relationship between the Gospel and 1 John with the object of exploring the Epistle’s potential as a means of identifying tradition in the Evangelist’s text. Generally assumed to post-date the Gospel and to be the work of a different hand, the Epistle often suffers by comparison with its elder sibling, being perceived as the lesser piece in more senses than one. While this evaluation is perhaps unavoidable, nevertheless it also gains force from the assumption that the Epistle relates directly to the Gospel in some ancillary or satellite

33. Compare, e.g., L. T. Stuckenbruck, ‘Evil in Johannine and Apocalyptic Perspective: Petition for Protection in John 17’, and J. Leonhard-Balzer, ‘The Ruler of the World, Antichrists and Pseudo-Prophets: Johannine Variations on an Apocalyptic Motif’, in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic (ed. C. H. Williams and C. Rowland; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), pp. 200–232 and pp. 180– 99, respectively. 1

Introduction

13

fashion. The most inÀuential proponent of this hypothesis was Raymond Brown, who argued that 1 John was written to defend and reinterpret the Gospel’s teachings in a newly developed situation of schism.34 Nevertheless, and interestingly, when we turn to the Epistle, we quickly discover that it has an integrity all of its own. Far from languishing in the Evangelist’s shadow, its author launches con¿dently into the piece, claiming to be a guardian and transmitter of tradition ‘from the beginning’, from which he evidently derives his authority to speak to the matter in hand. In addition, we ¿nd that the content of his proclamation does not have a consistent bearing on the Evangelist’s text and, where the two do come into agreement, neither the order nor the surrounding argument in the Gospel is reproduced in 1 John. Accordingly, the essay in Chapter 4 presents the case in favour of the Epistle’s independence from the Gospel, arguing instead that the two are indirectly linked inasmuch as the epistolary author has appealed to and reproduced the tradition ‘from the beginning’ that the Evangelist also knew and expounded in his text.35 On this basis, it is proposed that where the two come into agreement, the Epistle can prove an effective means of identifying traditional material that went into the making of the Fourth Gospel. We move on directly to the essay in Chapter 5, which represents a ¿rst attempt to put this proposal into practice with reference to the form taken by Jesus’ prayer in Jn 11.41-42. In this case, appeal to 1 John helps identify this prayer of thanksgiving as the logical outcome of the wellknown ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion, variously represented in both Gospel and Epistle as well as in the Synoptics and elsewhere, and applied to Jesus on the lips of Martha in 11.22. It remains only to add here that Chapters 4 and 5 were later taken up into the full-scale analysis of John’s account of the raising of Lazarus mentioned previously, in which it proved possible to appeal to three such points of agreement between Gospel and Epistle as an effective means of identifying aspects of tradition that had played a part in the composition of John’s raising narrative.36

34. R. E. Brown, The Epistles of John (AB 30; London: Chapman, 1983), pp. 49– 115. 35. This is not to say, of course, that 1 John could not have been aware of the Evangelist’s work, but it is to say that he went about the business of answering to his readers’ needs by appeal to the tradition ‘from the beginning’, which is consistent with his claim to authority. 36. North, Lazarus, pp. 41–117. 1

14

A Journey Round John

As for the status of 1 John in relation to the Gospel, an absence of consensus continues to be conspicuous. On the one hand, there is the considerable body of work by Judith Lieu, in which she has consistently treated with the Epistle in its own terms.37 On the other, the Epistle’s direct dependence on the Gospel continues to be assumed, either in a version of Brown’s hypothesis38 or, in the light of more recent methodology, as an example of relecture.39 V. John and the Synoptics When I ¿rst hove into biblical studies in the mid-to-late 1960s, C. H. Dodd’s Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, published in 1963, was already established as the standard approach to source criticism in John.40 What is particularly striking about Dodd’s argument in this book is the sheer extent to which his perspective on the Gospel had become governed by form-critical presuppositions. As a consequence, we ¿nd that the scholar who, a decade earlier, had been attuned to what he called the masterful control of sources by the John’s powerful and independent mind41 had now set himself to detect discrete units of source material in this thematically coherent and least episodic of Gospels.42 I now believe that to adopt such a perspective on John’s text was a category mistake, and all the more so in view of the enormous inÀuence Dodd’s work came to exercise on subsequent generations of scholars. The fundamental problem with this approach is that, in the rush to discern the building blocks of tradition behind the text, sections of it are abstracted from the rest of John’s composition for comparison with equivalents elsewhere and, in the process, are loosened from the context 37. See, for example, J. M. Lieu, I, II, & III John: A Commentary (New Testament Library; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008); eadem, ‘Us or You? Persuasion and Identity in 1 John’, JBL 127 (2008), pp. 805–19. 38. See M. J. J. Menken, ‘ “Three that testify” and “The testimony of God” in 1 John 5,6-12’, in Studies in the Gospel of John and its Christology (Festschrift Gilbert Van Belle; ed. J. Verheyden et al.; BETL 265; Leuven: Peeters, 2014), pp. 595–613 (598–9). 39. See J. Zumstein, ‘Intratextuality and Intertextuality in the Gospel of John’, in Thatcher and Moore, eds., Anatomies of Narrative Criticism, pp. 121–35 (132–3). 40. C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). 41. See C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 6. 42. Note that Dodd has already prepared the ground in the Appendix to Interpretation, pp. 444–53. 1

Introduction

15

that may well hold the key to their construction. If, for example, we isolate John’s account of the anointing in 12.1-8, then the Lukan detail in the act of anointing can seem a sudden and unwonted intrusion into the text, which is the feature that allows Dodd to propose that the apparent confusion of detail betokens some cross-combination of tradition at the pre-text level.43 It is also worth quoting from Raymond Brown’s commentary on this passage, plainly inÀuenced here by Dodd. Brown observes that John’s account of the anointing is unlike Luke’s in that Mary sheds no tears but instead wipes off the ointment with her hair. He then remarks, ‘Such a confused transferral of details can best be explained on the level of contact during the oral stage of transmission’.44 Brown also suggests that John’s reference to Judas in this story as a thief who, as the keeper of the common purse, raised a protest at the expenditure of the ointment may contain a ‘remembrance [that] was lost in the Synoptic tradition’.45 From this perspective, then, explanations for the data are sought in terms of the underlying tradition. Place John’s story back in context, however, and a different explanation for the same data, this time based on evidence of points of continuity between John 11 and 12, lies to hand. Thus, the act of anointing looks less out of place when we note that John has already alerted his readers to this event, Lukan detail included, in 11.2. Furthermore, if, as Brown observes, John’s account of the anointing in ch. 12 is a less logical and more sticky version than Luke’s, we need to note that in 11.32-33 Mary has already shed her tears at Jesus’ feet. Looking further a¿eld, we may wish to reconsider Brown’s tradition-based approach to John’s reference to the thieving Judas in the light of what his readers already know from 10.10 about the thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy. My own interest in the issue of John and the Synoptics began in the 1990s, while in the process of analysing the raising of Lazarus in John 11,46 which was an unlikely point of departure given that John’s story has no Synoptic equivalent. Nevertheless, this was a process in which I covered a good deal of the rest of the Gospel, including related Synoptic passages, and as I did so I gradually became conscious of points of contact between John and Mark and, to a lesser extent, between John and Luke that began to strike me as more than coincidence. That thought lodged in my head and there it stayed, occasionally reminding me that it

1

43. 44. 45. 46.

See Historical Tradition, p. 172. Brown, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 451. Brown, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 453. North, Lazarus.

16

A Journey Round John

had always been a struggle with plausibility to maintain that John wrote in total ignorance of the Synoptics, especially when it came to the Gospel of Mark. There were also other prompts. I knew, of course, that C. K. Barrett had refused all along to countenance John’s independence of the Synoptics and, meanwhile, there was the burgeoning inÀuence of the work of Frans Neirynck and the Leuven school.47 In addition, I was particularly struck by Moody Smith’s suggestion that the relatively free use of Synoptic material evidenced in the apocryphal gospels may be instructive in the case of John.48 Finally, to complete the picture, when Andrew Lincoln’s excellent commentary on John was published in 2005, I found myself warming with fellow feeling to his remark that he embarked on it on the assumption that John was independent of the Synoptics and ended up with the certainty that he knew and used all three.49 It was shortly before the publication of Lincoln’s commentary that I completed the essay in Chapter 6, in response to Richard Bauckham’s article ‘John for Readers of Mark’, his second contribution to the inÀuential volume The Gospels for All Christians.50 On the hypothesis that John wrote for the Christian movement at large, Bauckham proposed that the Gospel should show evidence of accommodating readers who knew Mark but should not show similar evidence that it was designed for readers who knew speci¿cally Johannine traditions. In the essay, I have sought to demonstrate that Bauckham’s hypothesis cannot be sustained at the level of the exegesis of John’s text. More positively, however, I have also argued that his thesis raises important issues for our understanding of John, including adding to the plausibility of the argument that John and his readers had direct knowledge of Mark and also placing a questionmark against the tendency, sparked originally by Wayne Meeks’s justly

47. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John (2d ed.; London: SPCK, 1978), pp. 15–21, 42–54; see also F. Neirynck, ‘John and the Synoptics: 1975– 1990’, in John and the Synoptics (ed. A. Denaux; BETL 101; Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1992), pp. 3–62, and other essays in the collection. 48. D. Moody Smith, John Among the Gospels: The Relationship in TwentiethCentury Research (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp. 191–3. Smith later concludes that the analogy is problematic: see John Among the Gospels: Second Edition (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 236–7 with n. 58 49. Lincoln, Gospel, p. 32, noting that Lincoln refers to an editor as well as a writer in this connection. 50. R. Bauckham, ‘John for Readers of Mark’, in The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (ed. R. Bauckham; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), pp. 147–71. 1

Introduction

17

famous essay ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’, to treat the Gospel as the product of some isolated ‘in-group’ with a correspondingly restricted readership.51 The next stage in this progress is represented by the essay in Chapter 8. In this case, the Seminar on the Old Testament in the New furnished a rare opportunity to work in tandem with a colleague with research interests elsewhere in the New Testament, in this case with Bart Koet working on Luke and Acts. Indeed, given that our subject in both Gospels was Martha, sister to Mary, we very quickly found common cause in ‘getting Martha out of the kitchen’.52 As regards my own interest in John and the Synoptics, this was an instructive exercise. Whereas I had previously sat light on the issue of whether or not John made direct use of Luke’s work, here, in the case of Martha and Mary, the similarities between the two accounts were such as to persuade me that John was well aware of the depiction of the sisters in Luke 10. All of this, however, raised one crucial question: if John knew and used one or more of the Synoptics and he had proceeded differently from the Matthew/Luke method of using Mark, then by what means was it possible to detect how he could have worked? At this point, Gilbert Van Belle’s painstaking study of the parentheses in John came once more to my aid. For my purposes, there were two features in particular about this material that struck me as useful. The ¿rst was that John is evidently able to rely on his readers’ knowledge of tradition. What exactly did that store of knowledge contain? Oral tradition, certainly; but did it also include a knowledge of one or more of the Synoptics? The second feature about the parentheses that struck me as useful is that, as a narrator, John is much given to repetition, which is all part of the care package. Here he ensures that his readers do not lose the thread of his argument by constantly reminding them of the story so far and repeating material they already know from earlier in the Gospel. Hence I set myself the simple task of ¿nding out ¿rst and foremost how John works with material his readers know, material in this case that is already available in the Gospel itself. 51. W. Meeks, ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’, in Ashton, ed., The Interpretation of John, pp. 169–205; originally published in JBL 91 (1972), pp. 44–72. See further the recent comprehensive critique of the sectarian approach in D. A. Lamb, Text, Context and the Johannine Community: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings (LNTS 477; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), pp. 103–44. 52. See W. Carter, ‘Getting Martha out of the Kitchen’, in A Feminist Companion to Luke (ed. A.-J. Levine; Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings 3; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 2002), pp. 215–31. 1

18

A Journey Round John

At this point I will digress brieÀy to mention that the short study in Chapter 10 was a by-product of this exercise. While the whereabouts of ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan’ (Jn 1.28) continues to be debated and alternatives suggested, here I was able to draw evidence from his reminder in 10.40 and related texts which strongly suggests that John himself did not assume that the place where John baptized Jesus had a name. Returning to my thread, I come ¿nally to the essay entitled ‘Points and Stars: John and the Synoptics’, in Chapter 13, which is based on the detailed results of the task described above. As indicated, I began intratextually, analysing the ways in which John takes up and reuses material known to his readers that can be identi¿ed in the Gospel text. Moving on from intratextual to intertextual, I then examined how John was accustomed to work with the Jewish Scriptures, playing it safe by concentrating on the explicit quotations, and then even safer by relying on the meticulous scholarship of Maarten Menken for that purpose.53 Finally, I moved on intertextually to John and the Synoptics and put the information thus gleaned to work as a means of indicating whether, at those points where his witness coincides with theirs, John could have composed on the basis of his readers’ knowledge of one or more of the Synoptic texts. I cited two examples as test-cases: ¿rst, the story of the empty tomb in John 20 and, second, the anointing scene in John 12. Thus began a project that is ongoing. My decision to cross swords with C. H. Dodd in the essay in Chapter 11 on the anointing story in John became, in effect, an opportunity to enlarge on the second of the two test-cases mentioned above. In the essay itself, I have proposed an alternative to Dodd’s hypothesis by attempting to explain how, and why, John chose to depict the anointing scene as he did, working on the basis of the accounts in Mark and Luke. Meanwhile, the work continues as I engage with John once more, this time in analysing his composition of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in John 6. In this section, I have described my own gradual change of perspective on John and the Synoptics and the project I have embarked on as a result. This is already a growth point in Johannine studies that others will develop in other ways. However, it is a process that raises a question: if John has known and used the Synoptics, then how are we to evaluate the character of this particular, and very remarkable, contribution to our New Testament?

53. M. J. J. Menken, Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 15; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996).

1

Introduction

19

What it does, in my view, is to place the emphasis ¿rmly where it belongs, that is, less on John the tradent recording what he knew and more on John the exegete, choosing from the tradition his readers knew and interpreting it afresh in order to meet the needs of his Àock in crisis and chart their course for the future. In favour of this emphasis I would argue that there is evidence in the Gospel itself that suggests such a view may be consistent with John’s self-understanding. One thinks, for example, of his description of the Beloved Disciple, evidently a key identity ¿gure, resting in Jesus’ lap in 13.23 just as he has described Jesus himself in 1.18 in the lap of the Father whom he is uniquely able to interpret. Even more telling, perhaps, is the detail John gives in the ¿nal discourse material on the function of the Spirit-Paraclete in imparting to believers a new and hitherto unavailable insight into Jesus’ words and deeds beyond his lifetime (14.26; 15.26; 16.12-15), detail that would be meaningless had John not thought of himself as a bene¿ciary of the Spirit’s exegetical guidance. If so, then it means that what confronts us on the pages of John’s book is the fruits of his own highly creative exegesis, Spirit-guided as John himself would perceive the process, and in that regard his Gospel differs in degree, although not in kind, from the Synoptics. As a consequence, I do not believe it will progress our understanding of John’s achievement if we expect him to have built source material into his text in exactly the same ways. In other words, if John’s account differs from the Synoptics at those points where they coincide or, more particularly, where his version of a story differs from Matthew’s and Luke’s in having fewer Markan words or a more diffuse distribution of Markan material, that really does not tell us very much, and it is certainly not grounds for assuming he has worked from independent sources. As for the quest for tradition in John’s text, tradition John will certainly have used – that much is a given – but whatever else we do, we must come to terms ¿rst and foremost with John’s capacity to make his own, and thus to transform, whatever he had available to him. In sum, my own work continues along historical-critical (or diachronic) lines in that I interest myself both in the ¿nal meaning of the Gospel text and also its capacity to network with its predecessors. In such an endeavour, as I have argued elsewhere, I believe that the constraints imposed by history perform a necessary function in helping to preserve the text’s capacity to be other than ourselves and our meanings.54 54. W. E. S. North, ‘Why Should Historical Criticism Continue to Have a Place in Johannine Studies’, in What We Have Heard from the Beginning (ed. T. Thatcher; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), pp. 19–21. 1

20

A Journey Round John

There is, of course, a multiplicity of approaches to interpreting John today, including social-scienti¿c, narrative, reader-response, feminist, rhetorical and liberationist criticisms.55 For my own purposes, however, the newer perspective that interests me most is the developmental model of relecture.56 This in my view takes a properly complicated approach to how John could have worked to produce his text, not only by allowing fully for his capacity to deepen and extend the meaning of what was known, but also by recognizing that such creativity could involve continuing the interpretative process in the course of the composition.57 No-one engaged in analysing John 6 is likely to disagree.

55. See Edwards, Discovering John, pp. 19–22. For a comprehensive account of reader-response, rhetorical and sociolinguistic methodologies, see Phillips, Prologue, pp. 17–71. 56. I note that this ¿nds me in the good company of John Ashton; see J. Ashton, ‘Second Thoughts on the Fourth Gospel’, in Thatcher, ed., What We Have Heard, pp. 1–18 (18). 57. As described in Zumstein, ‘Intratextuality’, pp. 125–8; see further, p. 125 nn. 3–4 for information and bibliography on the history and development of the model and its application to John’s Gospel. 1

Chapter 1

JUDAS ISCARIOT AND SATAN IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL*

The references which the author of the Fourth Gospel makes to the devil are few. The devil is referred to by his name, Satan, only once, and this is at the scene of the Last Supper in ch. 13, where we are told that Satan entered into Judas Iscariot. As ‘the devil’ (ĝ »ÀÚ¹ÇÂÇË) he is described in ch. 8 as father to the murderous ‘Jews’ and in ch. 13 as Judas Iscariot’s seducer. In three further references (12.31; 14.30; 16.11) John designates him ‘the ruler of this world’ (ĝ ÓÉÏÑÅ ÌÇı ÁĠÊÄÇÍ ÌÇįÌÇÍ). As such, he is the antagonist of Christ, seen as responsible for the events culminating in Christ’s death, which, paradoxically, will bring about his own overthrow. Finally, if we assume a masculine rendering of the Greek ÌÇı ÈÇžÉÇı in Jn 17.15, then the devil is again referred to, this time as ĝ ÈÇžÉĠË, ‘the evil one’. Even so, these few references are signi¿cant, for the power of the devil is by no means underestimated in the thought of the Fourth Evangelist. Although John makes no reference to Satan’s coterie of evil spirits familiar to us from the Synoptic accounts, nevertheless Satan is seen to carry out his plans not only through the agency of ‘the Jews’, who in their rejection of Jesus have become the devil’s children, but, most notably, in the person of his willing henchman Judas Iscariot. Indeed, so close is the identi¿cation of Judas with Satan in this Gospel that in his commentary J. H. Bernard is prompted to suggest the possibility that John had a special animus against Judas.1 Is this suf¿cient to explain this Gospel’s portrait of Judas as a malevolent inÀuence, or

* Originally published under the surname Sproston as ‘Satan in the Fourth Gospel’, in Studia Biblica 1978. Vol. 2, Papers on the Gospels (ed. E. A. Livingstone; JSNTSup 2; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1980), pp. 307–11. 1. J. H. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), vol. 1, p. 224.

22

A Journey Round John

could it be that this ¿gure has some specialized role to play in the Johannine drama? What follows is an attempt to de¿ne the signi¿cance of the ¿gure of Judas in relation to Satan in Johannine thought. No Gospel paints a blacker portrait of Judas Iscariot than the Fourth Gospel. In each reference to Judas we ¿nd his character even more tarnished than in the Synoptic accounts. The ¿rst of these references is at the end of John ch. 6. The passage 6.66-71 is usually regarded as the Johannine counterpart to the Synoptic account of the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi. Here John, like Luke, omits the identi¿cation of Peter with Satan contained in Mark and Matthew. However, whereas Luke merely omits the tradition, it seems that in John it has been adapted in such a way that the designation of Peter as Satan in the earlier records is here transferred to Judas. Thus, in the Johannine account, it is Judas whom Jesus accuses of being a devil (6.70). In ch. 12 we ¿nd the Johannine account of the anointing of Jesus. In the Markan version the complaint about the waste of ointment is attributed to some of the bystanders (14.4) and in Matthew merely to ‘the disciples’ (26.8). But in John it is Judas who complains (12.4-5), after which the Evangelist adds an explanatory note pointing out that this remark was not made by Judas out of concern for the poor but because Judas was a thief, accustomed to stealing from the money-box which was in his possession (12.6). In John, Judas is the tool of Satan. Judas’s betrayal of Jesus is attributed directly to his susceptibility to Satanic inÀuence. Here John shows special links with the Lukan narrative since Luke also indicates Satanic inÀuence over Judas, but describes the entering of Satan into Judas before the meal (Lk. 22.3). John, however, makes two references to this. The ¿rst is at the beginning of ch. 13, where we are told that the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus. The second is during the scene of the Last Supper. At this point Satan actually enters into Judas, after which Judas goes to betray Jesus. That John informs us that Judas goes out into the ‘night’ (13.30), which signals the onset of the Passion (cf. 9.4), is undoubtedly signi¿cant of Judas’s choice for evil. We hear no more of Judas’s activities until ch. 18, when he arrives in Gethsemane at the head of the party sent from the Jewish authorities to arrest Jesus. But Judas’s arrival is by no means unexpected. At the end of ch. 14 Jesus has already warned his disciples that ‘the ruler of this world is coming’ (14.30). There can be little doubt that Jesus is referring at this point to Judas when he uses the devil’s title, ‘the ruler of this world’. This is made clear if we compare the Synoptic parallels. The Johannine passage ends with the words, ‘Rise, let us go hence’ (14.31). Where the 1

1. Judas Iscariot and Satan

23

same exhortation occurs in Mark and Matthew we see that in each case it is accompanied by the remark, ‘My betrayer is at hand’ (Mk 14.42; Mt. 26.46) and, moreover, that this is immediately before the arrival of Judas. Thus we may conclude that for the Fourth Evangelist the presence of Judas is synonymous with the presence of the devil. It seems from this brief survey that it would be more accurate to describe Judas in this Gospel as a symbol of evil rather than a common betrayer. Bultmann, commenting on Satan’s possession of Judas during the Last Supper, writes, ‘It is not a man who is acting here, but Satan himself, the antagonist of God and the Revealer’.2 But what has motivated John to present Judas in this light? As a dramatist, John prefers to use his characters symbolically. What role, then, in the Johannine scheme has Judas been singled out to play? In ch. 17 John gives us a vital clue. In v. 12, Jesus states that he has guarded all those given him by the Father; all, that is, except one, whom he describes as ‘the son of perdition’ (ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼţ¸Ë) – undoubtedly a reference to Judas Iscariot. What is the signi¿cance for John of the phrase ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼţ¸Ë? C. K. Barrett informs us that in the New Testament ÒÈŪ¼À¸ commonly means eschatological perdition or damnation.3 It seems, too, that its use in the Septuagint carries the same meaning.4 Moreover, we ¿nd the Hebrew equivalent of the Johannine phrase occurring in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the Manual of Discipline eternal perdition (=%f) is part of the lot of one who walks in the spirit of deceit (1QS 4.12) and members of the sect are instructed not to argue with the ‘men of perdition’ (1QS 9.17), but nevertheless to regard them with hatred (1QS 9.22). Similarly, in the Damascus Rule, those of the Covenant must separate themselves from the ‘sons of perdition’ and have as little contact with them as possible (CD 6.15; 13.14). From these references we may gather that in this Semitic phrase John is referring to Judas as one who is outside the circle of disciples and as such is a man destined for damnation. Judas is the man for whom Jesus does not pray and, as such, is destined to suffer the fate of one who does not believe in Jesus (cf. 3.16) and whom Christ does not have in his keeping (cf. 10.28). There remains one New Testament passage, however, which surely makes the most signi¿cant contribution of all to our understanding of John’s designation of Judas as ‘the son of perdition’. In 2 Thess. 2.3 precisely the same title is used in Paul’s description of the ¿nal enemy

1

2. Bultmann, Gospel, p. 482. 3. Barrett, Gospel, p. 508. 4. See Lindars, Gospel, p. 526.

24

A Journey Round John

whose appearance is the signal for the ultimate onslaught of evil before the Parousia. This eschatological ¿gure Paul describes as ‘the man of lawlessness…the son of perdition’. Moreover, we see that this ‘man of lawlessness’ is not Satan himself but one who executes Satan’s work, who is subject to Satan’s will, and whose downfall will signify the ¿nal collapse of the devil’s schemes (2 Thess. 2.8-9). For Paul this Antichrist (as he is later termed in the Johannine Epistles) has not yet come. Can we say, however, that for John this ‘son of perdition’ has already appeared in the person of Judas Iscariot? If we can, then John’s reference to Judas as ‘the son of perdition’ has become the key to our understanding of his harsh and uncompromising treatment of the character. In Johannine realized eschatology the ¿gure of Judas Iscariot has acquired the signi¿cance of Antichrist, the ‘son of perdition’. Referring to the Pauline text, C. K. Barrett comments on Jn 17.12, ‘It seems probable that John saw in Judas this eschatological character who must appear before the manifestation of the glory of Christ’.5 It follows, therefore, that John treats any statement that Judas might make with the utmost suspicion, and also that Judas, although distinct from Satan, may be accused by the Johannine Christ of being ‘a devil’ and referred to by him as ‘the ruler of this world’. In the Fourth Gospel, the portrait of Judas cannot be treated mercifully, for, as the destined ‘man of lawlessness’ in the Johannine scheme, Judas’s susceptibility to the will of Satan was a foregone conclusion. Whereas for Paul the glorious Parousia could not take place unless the Satanically inspired ‘son of perdition’ had ¿rst worked the ultimate evil, for the Fourth Evangelist, to whom the cruci¿xion of Christ was synonymous with his glori¿cation, it is the ¿gure of Judas which symbolizes the ¿nal apostasy.

1

5. Barrett, Gospel, p. 508.

Chapter 2

‘IS NOT THIS JESUS, THE SON OF JOSEPH…?’ (JOHN 6.42): JOHANNINE CHRISTOLOGY AS A CHALLENGE TO FAITH*

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ fourth sign, the feeding of the ¿ve thousand, provides the context for his claim that he is the bread of life (6.35; see v. 48) and for the subsequent disputing of that claim by ‘the Jews’ (6.41). The issue of Jesus’ identity is soon raised in the question posed by ‘the Jews’: ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ (6.42). What information about Jesus does the Evangelist expect his readers already to have grasped when faced with this issue? They know that ‘the Jews’ ’ information about Jesus’ parentage is correct: Jesus was unambiguously identi¿ed as the son of Joseph by the disciples in 1.45. Yet the Evangelist has already informed his readers that Jesus is at the same time, and paradoxically, he who has come down from heaven (cf. 3.13, 31; 6.33, 38). It follows that the readers ought to be able to recognize in the present context that Jesus’ opponents have not perceived and accepted Jesus’ heavenly origin. Consequently, they are now in a position to appreciate that when ‘the Jews’ ask this question there is an irony in the situation. ‘The Jews’ puzzle over the contradiction that the one who is the son of Joseph has come down from heaven, but Jesus’ reply, including as it does the appeal to believe and gain eternal life (6.47), makes it clear that ‘the Jews’ lack the faith which alone would enable them to accept that the claim of the man Jesus to heavenly origin is justi¿ed. The passage raises two important questions with regard to the Johannine presentation of Jesus: (1) What is the content of Johannine Christology? Speci¿cally, what does the Evangelist tell his readers about Jesus in his gospel so that to raise the issue of Jesus’ identity at any point is suf¿cient to perplex his opponents? * 97.

Originally published under the surname Sproston in JSNT 24 (1985), pp. 77–

26

A Journey Round John

(2) How does the Evangelist treat this presentation of Jesus in this and equivalent passages? This paper will begin by attempting to provide answers to these two questions, and this will lead to a consideration of the following two propositions: (A) that Johannine Christology has in the gospel a particular function in that it is used to serve the Evangelist’s purpose as expressed in 20.31; (B) that John’s gospel should not, ultimately, be treated as a study in the nature of the person of Christ. I. The Content of Johannine Christology We turn ¿rst to review brieÀy the content of Christology in the fourth gospel. In his book The Humanity and Divinity of Christ John Knox writes, ‘We can have the humanity without the pre-existence and we can have the pre-existence without the humanity. There is absolutely no way of having both.’1 To describe Jesus as at once pre-existent and fully human is to state a paradox which Knox at least2 ¿nds unacceptable, yet it seems clear that neither Jesus’ identi¿cation with the pre-existent Logos nor his real humanity is either modi¿ed or denied by the Fourth Evangelist. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in Johannine Christology, and certainly the most striking, is the identi¿cation of the man Jesus with the pre-existent Logos. This theme, introduced in the Prologue, is never relinquished throughout the gospel. It is implicit in John’s description of Jesus as sent into the world (e.g. 3.17; see 3.34; 5.23; etc.), in the ascending and descending motif (e.g. 3.13; 6.62), and in Jesus’ statements which refer to his ‘having come’ (e.g. 5.43; 7.28; 9.39). It is explicit in the claims placed upon the lips of Jesus himself: ‘before Abraham was, I am’ (8.58); ‘glorify thou me…with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made’ (17.5); ‘my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world’ (17.24). Thus John presents the man Jesus of Nazareth as one who, before the incarnation, was a divine being existing with God from eternity and as one who ‘remembers events which occurred in his pre-existent state’.3 1. J. Knox, The Humanity and Divinity of Christ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 106. 2. See further T. W. Manson, On Paul and John (ed. M. Black; Studies in Biblical Theology; London: SCM, 1963), p. 135; Hanson, Grace and Truth, p. 76. 3. Hanson, Grace and Truth, p. 72. This is contrary to the view of those who prefer to take a less literal interpretation of pre-existence in John, citing, for example, the Jewish principle of foreordination as fundamental to the Evangelist’s

1

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

27

Equally, however, the references to Jesus’ humanity are not lacking and there seems here no attempt to modify its reality.4 Ranging from the casual detail, such as weariness (4.6), thirst (4.7; 19.28), particular affection for certain individuals (11.5), and the factual statement of Jesus’ known human parentage (1.45; 6.42) to the emphasis on Jesus’ agitation in the face of death (cf. 11.33; 12.27; 13.21), the reality of his Àesh (6.53-56) and the Passion,5 the evidence seems to suggest that for the Evangelist the humanity of Jesus was not in question, but that it is simply assumed.6 Furthermore, a full recognition by John of the humanity of Jesus is surely indispensable to his purpose on two speci¿c counts. The ¿rst of these concerns John’s use of ‘glori¿cation’ to speak of Jesus’ cruci¿xion (7.39; 11.4; 12.23; 13.31; 17.1). He believes that the glory of God, possessed by Jesus and revealed by him only to the eye of faith throughout his incarnate life,7 is supremely evident in the thought (see especially J. A. T. Robinson, The Human Face of God [London: Westminster, 1973], pp. 145–55; Knox, Humanity, p. 108; A. Harnack, History of Dogma [London: Williams & Norgate, 1897–1910], vol. 1, pp. 318f., especially p. 328 n. 1). However, it is probable that the Evangelist’s own highly individualistic approach to the signi¿cance of Jesus has outgrown this principle and gone beyond it; see R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John (3 vols.; London: Burns & Oates; New York: Herder & Herder, 1968–82), vol. 1, p. 493; Hanson, Grace and Truth, pp. 67–9; J. D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM, 1980), pp. 239, 241. 4. Pace Knox, Humanity, p. 27; see also p. 80. 5. Käsemann’s statement that ‘the passion comes into view in John only at the very end’ is surely inaccurate (E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17 [London: SCM, 1968], p. 7). Examples such as the numerous references to the ‘hour’ of Jesus’ death (2.4; 4.21; 7.30; 8.20; 12.23; 13.1; 16.32; 17.1); the expectation of the ‘night’ of the Passion (9.4; 11.10; see 13.30); the comparison with the Passion of the destruction and raising of the Temple (2.19-22); the allegory of Jesus as the shepherd who gave his life for the sheep (10.11; see vv. 17 and 18); and the deliberate treatment of the Lazarus story in terms of Jesus’ own death and resurrection, are alone suf¿cient to indicate that the Passion is an underlying organic theme of the whole work. 6. Indeed, E. M. Sidebottom remarks that Jesus’ humanity is emphasized in John ‘more obviously and deliberately…than in the synoptics’ (The Christ of the Fourth Gospel in the Light of First-Century Thought [London: SPCK, 1961], p. 97); see also G. Sevenster, ‘Remarks on the Humanity of Jesus in the Gospel and Letters of John’, in Studies in John: Presented to Professor Dr. J. N. Sevenster (ed. T. C. de Kruijf; NovTSup 24; Leiden; Brill, 1970), pp. 185–93 (188). 7. Note the connection between Jesus’ revelation of »ĠƸ and the faculty of ÈţÊÌÀË in 2.11; 11.40. See also C. H. Dodd’s comment that ‘there is here no longer any 1

28

A Journey Round John

humiliation of the cross.8 We are left in no doubt that the incarnate Christ manifests the full glory of God,9 recognizable from the Old Testament as denoting God’s presence and the revelation of his nature,10 but there is a new factor here, namely, the means whereby such revelation takes place. This is nowhere else than in the Àesh of Jesus, that is, his incarnate life and, supremely, his death.11 Thus the humanity of Jesus is here seen by John as the indispensable medium of the revelation of the divine glory. Indeed, the very fact that for John salvation lies in the death of Jesus is in itself suf¿cient reason for his assuming that Jesus’ humanity was genuine.12 Secondly, we see the necessity of Jesus’ humanity in John’s presentation of one feature of the relation of the incarnate Son to the Father. The following evidence suggests that this relation is envisaged as one which the believer may attain and which is mediated by the Son. Jesus, who alone has seen the Father, mediates this vision to the disciple (1.18; 6.46; 14.9). Through him the disciples hear the words of the Father (8.28; 12.49; see 10.3-4, 27), and they inherit the glory of the incarnate Son with its connotation of suffering and death (17.22). The disciples are to participate in the relation of Son to Father in terms of unity (10.30; cf. 17.21), knowledge (10.14-15; cf. 17.25), and the love which ¿nds its expression in perfect obedience (8.29; 10.17; 14.31; cf. 15.10, 13-14; see also 13.34-35). Jesus, the one sent by the Father (see, e.g., 5.23-24; 6.44), whose works are proof of this (5.36; 14.10-11) will, after his thought of visible light or radiance accompanying Christ in His earthly life; but not less really, the Evangelist holds, the divine presence and power were apprehensible by those who had the faculty of faith’ (Interpretation, p. 207); see also Lindars, Gospel, p. 95. 8. Here undoubtedly the »ÇƸʿýŸÀ and ĨÐÑ¿ýŸÀ of the Suffering Servant (see Isa. 52.13) is the locus classicus for the Johannine understanding. 9. Contra Westcott, Hoskyns and Bernard, all of whom imply a distinction between the glory of the pre-existent Logos and that revealed by the incarnate Christ (B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John [London: Murray, 1908], pp. 240–1; E. C. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel [ed. F. N. Davey; 2d ed.; London: Faber & Faber, 1947], p. 506; Bernard, Gospel, vol. 2, p. 563). See rather Bultmann’s comment on 17.5 in which he insists that incarnation implies no diminution in glory (Bultmann, Gospel, p. 496). 10. See Hanson, Grace and Truth, pp. 5–10. 11. See Bultmann’s comment on 1.14 that ‘the »ĠƸ is not to be seen alongside the ÊŠÉÆ, nor through the ÊŠÉÆ as through a window; it is to be seen in the ÊŠÉÆ and nowhere else’ (Gospel, p. 63). 12. For this suggestion as well as much constructive criticism I am greatly indebted to Mr J. L. North, Barmby Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Hull. 1

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

29

death, delegate to the disciples the power to perform greater works (14.12). Even the risen Christ calls them ‘brethren’ since they are children of the same God (20.17).13 From this evidence we may draw two conclusions: ¿rst, that the relation of incarnate Son to Father is presented as a genuinely human relation to God since only thus can it be offered to the believer as a real possibility; and second, that in this case too the genuine humanity of Jesus is vital to the Johannine presentation. John’s Christology, then, presents us with a paradox: Jesus is fully human and yet fully identi¿ed with the divine pre-existent Logos. Both of these elements, moreover, are seen by the Evangelist as essential to what he wishes to say about Jesus. II. The Johannine Presentation of Jesus We will now attempt to assess how this paradoxical presentation of Jesus is treated by the Evangelist within the gospel-narrative. Here our initial passage from ch. 6 will be relevant, and further examples from the text will be considered. First of all, it should be pointed out that the Evangelist is fully aware of the disconcerting nature of his presentation of Jesus. This writer, who is prepared to state in his Prologue ĝ ÂŦºÇË ÊŠÉÆ ëºšÅ¼ÌÇ, is not one to shrink from the impact which this juxtaposition of humanity and divinity in the person of Jesus inevitably produces. Indeed, this Christological paradox, far from being avoided, seems to receive deliberate stress: nothing less than a literal interpretation of ÂŦºÇË as pre-existent divinity and an interpretation of ÊŠÉÆ as genuine humanity can do justice to John’s statement in 1.14,14 and in the body of the gospel the identity of Jesus continues to perplex those who encounter him. We have already noted that in ch. 6 ‘the Jews’, who know that Jesus is the son of Joseph, cannot understand how he can claim to have come down from heaven (6.41-42). To this other examples can easily be added. In ch. 7 the people 13. See further Manson, On Paul and John, p. 134; Sidebottom, Christ of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 139f., 147. 14. It is highly unlikely that John intended his readers to interpret ÊŠÉÆ in 1.14 to mean merely ‘Àesh’ (see, however, O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament [London: SCM, 1963], p. 187; J. E. Davey, The Jesus of St. John: Historical and Christological Studies in the Fourth Gospel [London: Lutterworth, 1958], p. 169). Most commentators agree that ÊŠÉÆ stands here for ‘the whole man’ (Brown, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 13). See also commentaries ad loc. by Hoskyns, Bernard (vol. 1), Macgregor, and especially Barrett (2d ed.), Sanders and Mastin, Lindars, Schnackenburg and Schlatter.

1

30

A Journey Round John

in Jerusalem, because they know ‘where this man comes from’, wonder how Jesus can be the Christ (7.27). Moreover, Jesus’ opponents’ perplexity over his claims soon turns to rage and rejection and they seek either to arrest him (see, e.g., 7.30; 11.57) or to stone him (see 8.59; 10.31) because, as they explain to Jesus, ‘you, being a man, make yourself God’ (10.33). Indeed, it is largely in the signs, and the discourses associated with them, that the issue of Jesus’ identity is constantly raised. That the man Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, should heal the sick, give sight to the blind, feed the hungry and raise the dead in itself calls for explanation: ‘When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?’ (7.31); ‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?’ (9.16); ‘Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’ (10.21). Thus the signs create an atmosphere of speculation about Jesus’ identity, for in them Jesus reveals more and more clearly who he is, and this forces a division of opinion about him. As we turn to consider in detail further examples from the ‘Book of Signs’ which elucidate John’s treatment of the paradox involved in the issue of Jesus’ identity, it will be seen that the raising of this crucial issue (either by a question put to Jesus or to others or a claim made by Jesus himself) is the ¿rst of two elements which are always present. The second element is the Evangelist’s analysis of the reaction to this issue. He will frequently indicate by skilful use of irony that Jesus’ opponents have failed to grasp what his own faith, which he presses upon his readers, knows to be true. Indeed, as we shall see, it is this perspective of faith which, to the Evangelist, is all-important. However, his emphasis is not on the kind of instant assent commanded by a super-human act. Thus it is not the recognition that Jesus can perform the miraculous that leads to faith: Jesus’ ability to do this is never ultimately disputed even by the authorities who oppose him (see 11.47), and the Evangelist certainly entertains the possibility that merely to witness the signs may not lead to faith (see 12.37). The real test which faces those who witness the signs is whether or not they have faith to see beyond the external and sensational and accept and understand the real meaning which John intends the signs to convey. Accordingly, he does not intend his readers to derive their faith from a display of ‘signs and wonders’ (see 4.48), for in these signs what Jesus in fact reveals is his glory (see 2.11), and to see in his work the glory of God demands the faculty of ÈţÊÌÀË (see 11.40). The ¿rst example is taken from Jesus’ third sign, the healing of the paralysed man. Here ‘the Jews’ ’ opposition to him begins to assume the quality of murderous intent. They initially oppose Jesus because he has healed on the Sabbath, thus breaking the Sabbath law (5.16). Jesus 1

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

31

answers them by claiming that this Sabbath activity of his is the activity of God (5.17), and this is why, John comments, ‘the Jews sought all the more to kill him’ (5.18). R. E. Brown doubts whether, in view of 14.28, John would intend his readers to understand from ‘the Jews’ ’ accusation that Jesus is ‘making himself equal with God’ (5.18) that this is substantially the truth which John wishes them to grasp.15 Yet Brown has failed to take into account that there is an irony in this situation, and that the Evangelist is probably exploiting it to the full. The claim Jesus makes in 5.17 (‘My Father is working still, and I am working’) is one he alone, as incarnate Logos, is fully justi¿ed in making, for John has already informed us that ¿¼ġË öÅ ĝ ÂĠºÇË (1.1), and the statement implies that as incarnate Logos Jesus is now at work with God in the new creation as he was in the old (see 1.3). The irony consists in the Evangelist’s presentation of ‘the Jews’ as failing to perceive what he has informed his readers is the truth of the matter, namely, that the claim of the man Jesus is justi¿ed since he is the Logos incarnate. ‘The Jews’ see in Jesus only a man who makes himself equal with God, and this is why they construe Jesus’ statement as blasphemy. Moreover, the passage beginning at 5.19 does nothing to diminish Jesus’ divinity, for as Son the honour given to the Father is his due (5.23), but instead it explains that Jesus’ equality with God is not to be understood in the sense that he is independent of God, but rather that he is the unique revealer of God (see 1.18). Here we may include the situation described in 10.33 which is a good parallel. ‘The Jews’ object to the fact that one who is so obviously human is claiming divinity: they stone Jesus ‘because you, being a man, make yourself God’ (10.33). Of course the form in which their objection is expressed indicates that they have already judged Jesus to be a blasphemer. But once more we encounter the Johannine irony, for, expressed in this form, namely, that Jesus is a man who makes himself God, the claim could be regarded as genuinely blasphemous. Yet it is also the case, as Lindars argues, that ‘what they say (when properly understood) is precisely the truth which John wishes to assert’.16 In this case even Brown has no reservations. He points out that the error in the statement ‘was not in the description of Jesus as divine’ but rather ‘that he was making himself God’.17

1

15. See Brown, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 214. 16. Lindars, Gospel, p. 373. 17. Brown, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 408.

32

A Journey Round John

Before he narrates the healing of the man born blind, John presents us with two whole chapters where an atmosphere of speculation about Jesus’ identity prevails. Throughout, the Evangelist’s approach to the question of Jesus’ identity is always an ironical one, and this irony is intended to be instructive to his readers. Thus, when the people of Jerusalem raise an objection to the authenticity of Jesus’ claim to Messiahship on the grounds that his origin fails to conform with their tradition that the origin of the Messiah would be unknown, their objection is dismissed as irrelevant (7.27-29).18 John does not enter into any discussion either on this point, or on the question of Jesus’ birthplace (see 7.4142), for he knows that Jesus’ claim to Messiahship does not rest on such proofs, but that faith alone can perceive it.19 In 7.28 Jesus does not deny his human origin.20 The irony consists in the fact that these people are able to see nothing more than this in Jesus. What they manifestly lack, as Jesus himself indicates, is knowledge of God, and this prevents them from recognizing in Jesus his divine commission (7.28, 29). In this way these people have demonstrated by the nature of the objection they raise

18. See Dodd, Interpretation, p. 89. 19. Although D. W. Wead’s analysis of Johannine irony is otherwise useful (see D. W. Wead, The Literary Devices in John’s Gospel [Theologischen Dissertationen 4; Basel: Komm. Friedrich Reinhardt, 1970], pp. 47f.), I cannot agree with his interpretation of the situation in these verses (see pp. 60–1). He suggests that the Evangelist relies upon his readers’ knowledge of the tradition of the virgin birth at Bethlehem, and so the answers the readers will supply to the questions about Jesus’ origin and the place of his birth will be those which prove that Jesus does, in this respect, actually ful¿l messianic expectations. That John knew the tradition of the virgin birth does not seem clear from the text, and still less can we assume that his readers knew of it: these verses show only that John knows of the traditional Jewish expectations about the Messiah. Furthermore, Wead’s emphasis on an underlying knowledge of and reference to the virgin birth leads him to the unconvincing assertion that the statement of Jesus’ human parentage in 1.45 is no more than ‘a formal mode of identi¿cation of the earthly situation in which Jesus lived’ (p. 62). Finally, I would suggest that Wead’s argument does not accord with the Evangelist’s emphasis on the necessity for faith rather than demonstrable proof (see 20.29, 31). 20. This point is made by Dodd (Interpretation, p. 89) and Bultmann (Gospel, p. 62 n. 4). It is, however, contrary to the view of Morna Hooker who interprets the passage beginning at 7.25 to mean that ‘the crowds do not believe in him because they think they know where he comes from – though of course they do not, since he is sent from God’ (M. D. Hooker, ‘The Johannine Prologue and the Messianic Secret’, NTS 21 [1974–75], pp. 40–58 [44]). However, this takes no account of the disciples’ confession of Jesus’ human origin in 1.45 (see on this, Dodd, Interpretation, p. 260 n. 1), nor of the irony involved in the present passage. 1

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

33

that, like ‘the Jews’,21 they have failed to perceive the truth of God in Jesus, and so lack the faith to recognize his Messiahship. Moreover, this is soon borne out in their reaction for, like the Pharisees, they attempt to arrest him (see 7.30, 32, 44). The debate between Jesus and ‘the Jews’ in ch. 8 follows much the same lines. As Logos incarnate Jesus is the bringer of life and light (8.12; see 1.4; 3.19) whose identity will be fully revealed at his ‘lifting up’ on the cross (8.28). That ‘the Jews’ lack the faith to recognize this is made clear when Jesus warns them that they will die in their sins unless they believe ĞÌÀ ëºļ ¼ĊÄÀ (8.24). It could be said that it is in the context of this warning that John presents to his readers a full-scale analysis of the character and fate of those who reject Jesus. Chapter 8 depicts what amounts to a complete breakdown in communication between the two sides, and the irony is ever present in ‘the Jews’ ’ constant failure to perceive in Jesus what to the eye of faith would be obvious. Lacking in faith ‘the Jews’ can only judge ‘according to the Àesh’ (8.15) (or ‘by appearances’, see 7.24). Thus when Jesus tells them he is going away, they take it that he means to commit suicide (8.21-22); when he speaks of the one who sent him, they do not understand that he speaks of the Father (8.26-27); ¿nally, when he claims pre-existence, their reaction indicates that they have judged him guilty of blasphemy (8.58-59). In this they show that their true origin is diametrically opposed to that of Jesus himself. In contrast to Jesus they are ‘from below’ and ‘of this world’ (8.23), for in their rejection of Jesus and desire for his death they cannot claim to be descendants of Abraham, the man of faith (8.40). On the contrary, they show that they have ranged themselves on the side of the ruler of this world who is thus their true father and with whom they will be judged (8.44; see 12.31). Moreover, even their questions: ‘Where is your Father?’ (8.19); ‘Who are you?’ (8.25); ‘Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?’ (8.53)22 are shown, ironically, to derive from 21. The question, ‘Who are “the Jews” in John’s Gospel?’, has not yet, it seems, received a satisfactory answer. That John carefully distinguishes between ‘the Jews’ and ‘the people of Jerusalem’ in ch. 7 (see especially 7.12-13) does not lend conviction to the argument either that Jesus’ opponents are invariably described as ‘the Jews’ (see, e.g., Bultmann, Gospel, p. 86) or that we should translate ÇĎ `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ in most cases simply as ‘the Judaeans’ (see Lowe, ‘Who Were the ǿȅȊǻǹǿȅǿ?’, pp. 101–30), despite Lowe’s reference to the distinction already referred to in 7.13 (p. 122). The suggestion that John refers to the Judaean authorities can be upheld only at the expense of the references to ‘the Jews’ in 6.41, 52 (see U. C. von Wahlde, ‘The Johannine “Jews”: A Critical Survey’, NTS 28 [1981–82], pp. 33–60, especially 42–4). 22. Cf. the Samaritan woman’s questions in 4.12. 1

34

A Journey Round John

the ignorance of unbelief. Like the people of Jerusalem, ‘the Jews’ lack the knowledge of God which would enable them to perceive that Jesus comes from God (8.19, 42, 54-55). As the Evangelist continues to narrate the events of the public ministry (chs. 9–12), the tension increases. The more clearly Jesus reveals in the signs who he is (see 9.5, 39; 11.25) the deeper the paradox of identity becomes and the more furious the controversy about him (see 9.27-29; 10.19-21; 11.45-47; 12.34). Again, it is made clear that it is always the faculty of faith which perceives in Jesus’ activity the activity of God. The man born blind, for example, recognizes immediately that Jesus is from God while the Pharisees remain ignorant (9.29-33) for he is able to believe in Jesus and they are not (9.35-38, 40-41), and when, later, ‘the Jews’ request Jesus to tell them plainly that he is the Christ, they are informed that this has already been made clear in the signs, but that their continued ignorance reveals their lack of faith (10.24-25). The faith which alone perceives the glory of God is also requested of the irresolute Martha who, although she has already af¿rmed her belief in Jesus (see 11.27), now quails before the reality of her brother’s return to life (11.40). Finally, when the crowd asks, ‘Who is this Son of man?’, the answer they receive is the only answer possible – an exhortation to believe in the light (12.34-36). A. The Function of Johannine Christology In the previous two sections we have attempted to assess the content of Johannine Christology and the Evangelist’s treatment of it within the gospel drama. The following conclusions have been reached: ¿rst, that John’s Christology consists of a paradoxical presentation in which the Evangelist claims for Jesus real humanity and full divinity; and secondly, that this is a paradox which John neither avoids nor attempts to resolve. Furthermore, it seems that he prefers to raise the issue of Jesus’ identity so as to bring into prominence the impact of his presentation, and that reaction to this issue is, for him, all-important. If these conclusions are correct, then we may surmise another, namely, that John’s interests do not lie in the area of attempting a solution to the paradox of pre-existence and real manhood in Jesus Christ23 such as was later undertaken, for example, by Chalcedon, but rather that he seeks to give us a deliberate and uncompromising expression of that paradox to carefully calculated effect. This leads us to suggest that the objective of a study of the divinity and humanity of Christ in John’s gospel cannot be

1

23. Pace Hanson, Grace and Truth, p. 73.

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

35

to attempt to resolve the paradox, but that the very dif¿culty it presents must have in some way served the Evangelist’s purpose. We must now attempt to ascertain what that purpose was, and how well it was served by the divine–human paradox in John’s Christology. At the end of the gospel proper, the Evangelist states his purpose quite clearly. He has written ‘that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name’ (20.31). John’s intention, therefore, is to persuade his readers to believe in the signi¿cance of Jesus as he himself understands it.24 But why is he so urgent that they should share his faith? John believes that as a result of the entry of the Logos into human history, as light into a world of darkness (see 1.4, 9; 3.19), a situation of judgement has come about. Thus whereas God’s intention in sending his Son is not to condemn the world but to save it (3.17; see 12.47), nevertheless the very presence of the Son in the world effects a judgement, for he challenges all who encounter him to make the momentous decision either to accept or reject him and thus to determine either their salvation or their condemnation (see 3.18-19; 5.24; 9.39; 12.48). Moreover, John makes quite clear to his readers what are the consequences of such a decision. He sees it as nothing less than a matter of life and death: those who react with faith enjoy eternal life (see, for example, 3.36), but those who do not believe will die in their sins (8.24). Thus, in this situation

24. The textual variant in 20.31 makes it dif¿cult to tell whether the Evangelist wrote ďŸ ÈÀÊ̼ŧ¾Ì¼ (meaning ‘that you may continue to believe’) or ďŸ ÈÀÊ̼ŧʾ̼ (meaning ‘that you may come to believe’). A strict reading here raises the problem as to whether or not this gospel was meant as a missionary tract, for ÈÀÊ̼ŧ¾Ì¼ would seem to imply that the gospel was meant as instruction to the faithful, whereas ÈÀÊ̼ŧʾ̼ suggests an appeal to a wider, non-Christian, readership. The general consensus of opinion is that ďŸ ÈÀÊ̼ŧ¾Ì¼ should be accepted as the better-attested reading, thus implying that the gospel was meant as a strengthening of the faith of those who already believe in Christ (so commentaries ad loc. by Brown, Schnackenburg, Lagrange, Lindars, Macgregor, Bernard). No doubt this work would naturally have the effect of encouraging the Johannine faithful: one would be perfectly justi¿ed, for example, in seeing a didactic purpose in the lengthy discourses which follow the situation beginning in ch. 13 in which Jesus con¿nes his work exclusively to ‘his own’. But was this John’s primary aim? Might it not be said that his purpose was one of awakening faith in any reader, Christian or otherwise, who had not yet achieved the maturity of the Johannine understanding? In this sense it is without signi¿cance whether we read here ÈÀÊ̼ŧ¾Ì¼ (‘continue to believe’) or ÈÀÊ̼ŧʾ̼ (‘come to believe’) and, in any case, as Lindars warns us, ‘it is hazardous to build anything on such a ¿ne point of detail as John does not use tenses with absolute precision’ (Lindars, Gospel, p. 617; see also Barrett, Gospel, p. 134). 1

36

A Journey Round John

where there are only two possible reactions to him, Jesus’ presence can have the effect either of life-giving or of judging.25 It now seems obvious, in view of this consideration, that John writes so that his readers may not ‘come into judgement’ (5.24) but that ‘believing’ they may have life (20.31). We have seen what John believes to be the consequences of the decision which all must make when they encounter the person of Jesus. But what is there about the incarnate Son which is so startling that it provokes this decision, and is so unique and unprecedented that a reaction to him can only be a reaction either of absolute faith or of absolute rejection? This is the point where, it seems, John’s paradoxical presentation of Jesus as both human and divine has crucial relevance, for what is startling about the man Jesus is that he makes, explicitly or implicitly, the inherently outrageous claim to be continuous in existence with the divine Logos. As we have seen, he claims to have come down from heaven (6.38), to be working with the Father (5.17), to be one with the Father (10.30), to be sent from God (see, for example, 7.29), to have existed before Abraham (8.58), and so on. This is the claim which Jesus’ opponents cannot comprehend and which causes them to reject him as a blasphemer (see 5.18; 10.33) thus bringing judgement upon themselves (see 8.24). Ironically, their information about Jesus, that he is the son of Joseph, is absolutely correct, yet they fail to understand that he is the preexistent Logos incarnate because this is something which, unlike his human origin, can never be demonstrated; only faith can comprehend this, and faith is what Jesus’ opponents manifestly lack. Thus it is that for all who encounter the person of Jesus, the moment when the paradoxical claim presents itself that this man is fully God is the moment at which all are forced to accept or reject him, and so it is also the moment in which they will irrevocably determine, by their reaction, their own destiny. Thus we may deduce that John’s presentation of Jesus has a particular function: it serves as a challenge to faith. Not only is this true for the characters who encounter Jesus within the gospel drama,26 but also for those who read the gospel.27 However, John’s readers have the Prologue 25. Dodd describes these effects as ‘obverse and reverse of the same process’ (Interpretation, p. 256). 26. John’s treatment of the character of Judas Iscariot provides us with the single exception to this rule. For the suggestion that in this gospel the already doomed ¿gure of Judas has acquired the signi¿cance of Antichrist, see my ‘Satan in the Fourth Gospel’, pp. 307–11 (see Chapter 1 in the present volume). 27. While the decision to come to absolute faith in an encounter with the person of Jesus is always the one which the Evangelist presses upon his readers, nevertheless 1

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

37

at their disposal, and thus are in a better position to understand which reaction to Christ the Evangelist would wish.28 At this point it will be helpful to add one further, and very telling, example from the text, for here a single character (in this case the Roman prefect himself) is seen in the process of having to come to a decision about Jesus. By the time John comes to narrate the trial of Jesus before Pilate (18.28–19.16) the lines of battle have been clearly drawn. Ironically, ‘the Jews’ in their rejection of Jesus are about to bring judgement upon themselves in their seeming triumph in procuring Jesus’ death (12.31-32) while Jesus himself continues to be presented, paradoxically, as ‘the man’ (19.5) who nevertheless claims kingship which is ‘not of this world’ (18.36) and whose mission in the world is ‘to bear witness to the truth’ (18.37). But there is one individual who has yet to be challenged to come to a decision about Jesus, and this is Pilate himself. In this scene Pilate is much more than simply a middleman who puts the questions.29 We must reckon once again with the now familiar Johannine irony, for in what is ostensibly the trial of Jesus, Pilate, vacillating between Jesus who represents the truth and ‘the Jews’ who are now irrevocably committed to ‘this world’, is in effect the one who is on trial. If we accept this, then we may see in Pilate the Evangelist’s deliberate presentation of one who, in an encounter with Jesus, is challenged to recognize the truth (18.37). The ¿gure of Pilate is thus the portrait of a man who now faces the decision which will determine his salvation or condemnation. We also see that John, with all the dramatic skill he displays so well, has issued in it should be noted that not all of the characters who encounter Jesus within the gospel-narrative achieve such a clear-cut decision. The Evangelist does also illustrate degrees of faith, but this is all part of his teaching technique (see, for example, F. J. Moloney, ‘From Cana to Cana [John 2.1–4.54] and the Fourth Evangelist’s Concept of Correct [and Incorrect] Faith’, in Livingstone, ed., Studia Biblica, vol. 2, pp. 185–213). 28. See R. E. Brown’s delightful ‘pedestrian parallel’ with the Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes, writes Brown, ‘is quite opaque to the bumbling Dr. Watson; the reader is brighter and understands some of the clues which Watson overlooks; but the reader is still challenged by Holmes who is more penetrating than the reader’ (The Community of the Beloved Disciple [New York: Paulist, 1979], p. 61). 29. Morna Hooker’s description of Pilate as such is undoubtedly true to a certain extent (see Hooker, ‘Johannine Prologue’, p. 45). For the questions put to Jesus by Pilate see 18.33 (see v. 37), 18.35, 38, and 19.9, 10. Yet the character of Pilate receives so much attention in these scenes that to describe him as no more than a middleman is probably to deprive him of his full signi¿cance in the Johannine scheme. 1

38

A Journey Round John

Pilate’s question, ‘What is truth?’ (18.38), a challenge to his readers to accept the claim already made by Jesus to embody the truth (14.6), in itself a reminder of his own description of the Logos in 1.14. The scenario for the trial is brilliantly handled. R. E. Brown in his commentary notes that it involves two stage settings: the ¿rst outside the praetorium where ‘the Jews’ are gathered; the second inside the building where Jesus is, so that Pilate in his dilemma ‘goes back and forth from one to the other in seven carefully balanced episodes’.30 Thus the Evangelist is able to give dramatic expression to Pilate’s agony of indecision. Yet Pilate’s story is ultimately a tragic one. This is not because he decides to reject Jesus – on the contrary, he shows throughout that his attitude towards Jesus is a favourable one (see 18.38; 19.4, 6) – but because he fails to come to a decision at all. In the Evangelist’s eyes this very indecision courts disaster, for Pilate is now caught up in the struggle between Jesus who reveals the truth of God and ‘the Jews’ who are the murderous children of the devil (see 8.44). The situation of judgement prevails, and for Pilate (as well as for the Evangelist’s readers) there can be no temporizing here. The danger is soon evident, for we see that Pilate, whom Brown calls ‘the would-be neutral man’,31 having failed to come to a positive decision in favour of the truth, is eventually coerced into the service of the world (19.12-16). From this and the previous examples we hope to have shown that Johannine Christology has a particular function. The paradox of genuine humanity and full divinity found here is not by any means due to an oversight on the Evangelist’s part but is indispensable to his purpose and serves as a challenge to faith. John recognizes that by its very controversial nature his Christology is the cutting edge which will divide all into two opposing categories, the one having gained eternal life and the other having come under judgement. Thus, from the very beginning of his gospel, when he asserts that the Logos which he has already described as divine and eternal actually became a historical person (1.14), John has de¿ned the nature of the incarnate Christ, to quote Barrett, ‘in the most paradoxical terms possible’.32 And as throughout the gospel that paradox is constantly stressed, and human reaction to it is constantly analysed, the Evangelist never ceases to challenge his readers to faith in Christ, for even though he has contrived to make the decision of acceptance or

30. Brown, Gospel, vol. 2, p. 858. 31. Brown, Gospel, vol. 2, p. 864. 32. C. K. Barrett, ‘The Prologue of St. John’s Gospel’, in New Testament Essays (London: SPCK, 1972), pp. 27–48 (47). 1

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

39

rejection as much a reality for them as for the characters in his gospelnarrative, nevertheless, he never fails to con¿rm in the episodes he relates that his aim in writing is ‘that you may believe’ (20.31). B. Johannine Christology: A Study in Human Reaction We turn now to our second and ¿nal proposition, which is that John’s gospel should not, ultimately, be treated as a study in the nature of the person of Christ. Barrett claims that it has been the universal instinct of Christendom to ¿nd in the Johannine Prologue ‘the climax of New Testament Christology’.33 Yet if we attempt to apply to John’s gospel the view of John Knox that in de¿ning a Christology there is absolutely no possibility of having both pre-existence and humanity then it becomes clear that the Fourth Evangelist is not prepared to offer assistance. Our conclusion has been that for John the humanity is as genuine as the pre-existent divinity and, moreover, that his sole interest has been to exploit the paradox created by the conjunction of the two in the person of the incarnate Jesus as a means of bringing his readers to faith. Thus, for example, while we are fully justi¿ed in regarding ¿¼ġË öÅ ĝ ÂĠºÇË (1.1) and ĝ ÂĠºÇË ÊŠÉÆ ëºšÅ¼ÌÇ (1.14) as Christological statements, nevertheless John is not prepared to de¿ne or analyse these tenets of his faith.34 How, then, are we to assess John’s Christology? In the previous section it was suggested that the Fourth Evangelist’s interests do not lie principally in the area of Christology as such, but that his presentation of Jesus should be seen to serve his purpose in challenging faith. Perhaps, then, this gospel is, in the last analysis, not to be treated as a study in the nature of the person of Christ. This is because once the Evangelist has made it clear at the beginning of his gospel that the man whose story he is about to relate is at the same time none other than the divine pre-existent Logos, every word and deed of Jesus is viewed, no longer from a Christological standpoint, but from the standpoint of the two contrasting human perspectives, the one of faith and the other of unbelief. In this way John’s story of the incarnate existence of the Logos has become, not a study of Jesus, but a study in human reaction to Jesus.

33. Barrett, ‘The Prologue of St. John’s Gospel’, p. 27. See also Dunn, Christology in the Making, p. 249. 34. See on this T. E. Pollard, Johannine Christology and the Early Church (SNTSMS 13; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 19. 1

40

A Journey Round John

John Robinson claims that the Fourth Evangelist is deliberately telling two stories of Christ and super-imposing them on each other. However, he de¿nes these two stories as ‘the story of the Logos’ and ‘the history of a human being’.35 We suggest that this is not the case, but that the humanity and divinity of Christ should be taken together as amounting to only one of the two ‘stories’ in this gospel. This is because the story of the real man, Jesus son of Joseph, who is at the same time, and paradoxically, the divine Logos is the story which faith alone can tell. This is the content of his own faith which the Evangelist presses upon his readers. Thus, for John, those who believe will not deny the reality of Jesus’ humanity, but will accept that the man Jesus is continuous in existence with the divine Logos. As Bultmann puts it, ‘The hearer overcomes the offence…through believing that God meets him in the claim of this man’.36 However, the Evangelist has not left it there, for he also presents us with another portrait contrasting with the ¿rst: this is the story, seen through the eyes of unbelief, of Jesus son of Joseph as a man who blasphemously claims to be God. Thus the gospel’s two stories correspond with the two different assessments which faith, and the lack of faith, will independently reach in an encounter with the man Jesus. This means that it is not the reality of Jesus’ humanity which is in dispute: followers and opponents of Jesus alike recognize that he is Joseph’s son and comes from Nazareth in Galilee,37 and speak of him quite naturally as a man.38 This constitutes the ‘given’, that is, what is obvious to all about Jesus. What matters, and where we encounter the gospel’s two ‘stories’, is the interpretation put upon the words and deeds of this man such that, to quote A. T. Hanson, ‘what means one thing to the twelve, chosen by Jesus himself, was a betray.39 What do those who believe see in Jesus? Their perspective will be governed by their acquisition of the spiritual sight, and knowledge of those ‘born anew’ through the faith which alone sees the Kingdom of God.40 They will identify Jesus as the Son of man, the unique mediator between God and humanity, and thus the sole means of eternal life.41 They will recognize that Jesus cannot be convicted of sin, for he speaks

1

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

Robinson, Human Face of God, pp. 176–7. Bultmann, Gospel, p. 447. 1.45; 6.42; 7.27, 41, 52. 4.29; 7.46; 9.16, 29, 33; 10.33; 11.47; 19.5. Hanson, Grace and Truth, p. 28. See 3.3; 9.39; 10.3-4, 14, 27; 11.40. See 1.51; 9.35-38; contrast 6.68; 10.7; 12.34; 14.6; cf. 1.18.

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

41

the words of God, does God’s will, and is sent by God.42 Jesus for them will be the Messiah, the true Son of God and their king.43 Because they recognize that Jesus is the Saviour of the world who is now working with God in creating anew, the life and the life-giver, the revealer of God, the light of the world, and the truth,44 those who believe, with the Evangelist, identify Jesus as the pre-existent Logos.45 In their view, therefore, Jesus’ claims to divinity and to an eternal existence with God are entirely justi¿ed.46 Those who believe, it seems, have understood correctly what is indicated in the signs and will, therefore, not take offence at the reality of the cross47 but will see its true signi¿cance. Accordingly, at the point where the man Jesus is most deeply humiliated and degraded, the eye of faith alone will perceive in Jesus’ human suffering his supreme revelation of that glory which he has possessed throughout his incarnate life.48 Faith thus attains its object, not by looking away from the man Jesus, but by perceiving the »ĠƸ ¿¼Çı revealed in his Àesh.49 It thus perceives precisely in, and not apart from, this very real humanity the creative and revelatory work of the divine pre-existent Logos.50 While 42. See 3.34; 6.38; 7.16-17; 8.26, 28, 42, 46; 12.49; 14.24. 43. See 1.41; 20.31; contrast 7.27, 40-43; 20.31 contrast 19.7; 18.36; see 1.49; 12.13. 44. See 1.29; 4.42; 5.17; 11.27; 12.47; cf. 1.12-13; 3.3, 16-17; 11.25; 14.6; cf. 1.4; 3.14-15; 5.21, 25-26; 6.27, 35, 48, 51; 8.19; 14.9; 17.2; cf. 1.18; 8.12; 9.5; cf. 1.4; 14.6; cf. 18.37, 45-46; cf. 1.14. 45. See 1.1-18. 46. See 5.17; 8.58; 17.5, 24; cf. 1.1; 20.28. 47. See 6.52-58. See also Bultmann’s interpretation of Jesus’ later question to the disciples (6.61-62). He sees it as indirectly a question of decision about the cross, the question being, ‘Will they overcome the ÊÁŠÅ»¸ÂÇÅ of the cross, or will it mean for them the judgment?’ (Gospel, p. 445). It is unlikely, therefore, given that the ascent here is a reference to Jesus’ death, that when Jesus refers to this he is really implying that this would bring a resolution to the dif¿culty experienced by the disciples on account of his previous words (see the suggestion in commentaries ad loc. by Macgregor, Lindars and Schlatter). It is much more likely to be the case that Jesus, noting that the disciples have taken offence at his verbal description of the paradox of the cross, is really raising the issue as to how they will react when his description becomes a reality. Interpreted in this way, Jesus’ question to the disciples is no less vitally a challenge from the Evangelist to his readers. 48. See 1.14; 2.11; 11.40. 49. See once again Bultmann’s comment on 1.14 (n. 11 supra). 50. See R. G. Hamerton-Kelly’s comment that ‘recognition that the earthly Jesus is the pre-existent Logos is of the essence of Johannine faith’ (Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man [SNTSMS 21; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973], p. 222). 1

42

A Journey Round John

fully accepting the ‘given’, that is, that the person encountered is indeed the son of Joseph, nevertheless faith is able to perceive ‘something else also’ in Jesus’ words and deeds: his identity as the divine pre-existent Logos. We are able also to distinguish a quite different portrait of Jesus. Here the Evangelist deliberately depicts Jesus as he appears from the standpoint of unbelief. This is to judge ‘according to the Àesh’ or ‘by appearances’, which judgement, Jesus warns, ‘is of no avail’.51 To judge by appearances is the equivalent of being ‘from below’ and ‘of this world’ which is ultimately doomed,52 and this implies a lack of spiritual sight, hearing, and knowledge of God, and an ambition to seek nothing but the glory of men and to labour for ‘the food which perishes’.53 The story of Jesus as told from this viewpoint is of a man who is a Sabbathbreaker and destroyer of the Temple, who speaks incomprehensibly of second birth from the womb, of the eating of his Àesh, and of killing himself.54 He claims wisdom beyond his learning, is demon-possessed, shows insolence to the High Priest, and is no more than a sinner and an evildoer.55 He possesses no credentials which would justify a claim to be from God; even his claim to Messiahship is false because he does not conform to certain traditions about the Messiah.56 Since, therefore, neither Jesus nor the Father to whom he claims to bear witness can be identi¿ed,57 he is indeed no more than a man who, when he speaks of a divine existence which makes him greater than Abraham and the prophets, can be regarded only as a blasphemer.58 Jesus’ death on the cross is thus not only a well-deserved punishment for blasphemy, but is even politically expedient, for in his popularity with the crowds this man represents a potential threat to the safety of the nation.59 Note that in this story, as in the previous one, the humanity of Jesus is not in question. But whereas the man Jesus son of Joseph is as much the subject of this portrait as he was of the ¿rst, it is obvious that here he is seen as a false pretender to something which the ¿rst portrait was prepared to include: his identity as the divine Logos. This means that for 51. 6.63; 7.24; 8.15. See here Lindars’s comment (ad loc.) that the subject under discussion in this verse is not Jesus but ‘the disciples’ capacity to perceive the truth’. 52. 8.23; see 12.31. 53. See 5.37-38, 44; 6.27; 7.28; 8.19, 47, 55; 9.39-41. 54. See 2.19-20; 3.3-4; 5.16; 6.52; 8.22. 55. See 7.15, 20; 8.48; 9.24; 10.20; 18.22, 30. 56. See 7.27, 41-42, 52; 9.29; 12.34. 57. See 8.18-19, 25; 10.24. 58. See 5.17-18; 8.58-59; 10.33. 59. See 11.47-50; 19.7; see also 18.14.

1

2. ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph…?’

43

John the humanity of the incarnate Logos has a very specialized role: it can either become the single factor about him which destroys the credibility of his claim to divinity; or it can provide for faith the key which will unlock the door to eternal life. The disparity between the two portraits stems, therefore, from a difference of approach: in the second case the vital element of faith is lacking which alone would have perceived the operation of the divine Logos in his very real humanity, and consequently Jesus is here rejected as a blasphemer. From the juxtaposition of these two portraits springs the gospel’s distinctive irony as, in the narrative, Jesus’ opponents constantly fail to perceive in his words and deeds what the faith of the Evangelist knows to be true. Here, once more, we see the Evangelist carrying out his stated purpose, for in highlighting in this way the contrast between these two understandings of Jesus, he makes it clear which of the two he intends his readers to choose. We must now sum up the ¿ndings of this paper and draw some conclusions. 3. Conclusions If we are to attempt an assessment of John’s Christology we are faced with the paradox that Jesus in this gospel is presented as being fully God and fully man, and moreover we have recognized that this is a paradox which seems to defy resolution. But the need to resolve the paradox does not arise if we take into account that the Johannine presentation of Jesus is orientated towards the Evangelist’s purpose to bring his readers to faith. We then see that it is precisely the claim to divinity of Jesus son of Joseph which challenges all who encounter him to acceptance or rejection, and that their reaction to his challenge will mean for them salvation or condemnation. Moreover, this is the challenge which, the Evangelist intends, will provoke his readers to that same decision. Nevertheless, his gospel is no less genuinely a call to faith, for even though his objective is to bring his readers to that point where they must decide for or against Jesus, he never fails to indicate to them that their decision of acceptance in faith is what he would wish. He achieves this by treating ironically every understanding of Jesus’ words and deeds which is reached by those who do not believe in him. By this means he enables his readers to understand that faith alone will ¿nd revealed in the genuine humanity of Jesus that truth which is essential for salvation, namely, that Jesus son of Joseph is none other than the incarnation of the divine pre-existent Logos. 1

44

A Journey Round John

If we accept these arguments then we must conclude that the unique Johannine presentation of Jesus, remarkable though it is, cannot be adequately understood except in the light of the Evangelist’s purpose. This is because for John his paradoxical Christology is not of interest as a separate phenomenon to be analysed or explained away, and his two portraits, in which he contrasts what is seen in Christ by the light of faith with what is imagined about him in the darkness of unbelief, represent no mere exercise of literary talent. On the contrary, all of this has its motivation in the Evangelist’s overriding concern to bring his readers to understand and accept the faith which he himself holds. And so he continues to seek from them that insight of faith which alone will recognize in the person of Jesus, the son of Joseph, that the divine pre-existent Logos has indeed entered human history.

1

Chapter 3

‘THE SCRIPTURE’ IN JOHN 17.12*

On behalf of those who, like myself, have been students of Anthony Hanson, I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his inspiration and encouragement. I hope he will regard the paper which follows, read at the British New Testament Conference at Manchester on 22 September 1985, as a worthwhile extension of his interest in the New Testament use of Scripture. In Jn 17.6ff. Jesus prays for those whom the Father has given him out of the world. In 17.11-12 he asks that they may be kept in the Father’s name as he himself has kept and guarded them, adding in 17.12 (RSV): ‘and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be ful¿lled’ (Á¸Ė ÇĤ»¼ĖË ëÆ ¸ĤÌľÅ ÒÈļ¼ÌÇ ¼Ċ Äü ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë, ďŸ ÷ ºÉ¸Îü ȾÉÑ¿ĉ). What is ‘the scripture’ that is here referred to as being ful¿lled? It is the majority view in the commentaries and elsewhere that the relevant text lies outside 17.12 and its context, and the assumption is that John refers to Ps. 41.9, already quoted with reference to Judas Iscariot in 13.18.1 Yet 13.18 and 17.12 have nothing in common beyond a reference to the ful¿lment of Scripture (a feature by no means exclusive to our two * Originally published under the surname Sproston in B. P. Thompson, ed., Scripture: Meaning and Method: Essays presented to Anthony Tyrell Hanson (Hull: Hull University Press, 1987), pp. 24–36, this study is reprinted here by kind permission of the University of Hull. 1. See the following commentaries ad loc.: Barrett, Gospel; Bernard, Gospel; Brown, Gospel; Bultmann, Gospel; Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel; M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean (5th ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1936); Lindars, Gospel; G. H. C. MacGregor, The Gospel of John (Moffatt New Testament Commentary; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959); J. N. Sanders, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St John (ed. and completed by B. A. Mastin; Black’s New Testament Commentaries; London: Black, 1968); A. Schlatter, Der Evangelist Johannes: wie er spricht, denkt und glaubt (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1960); Schnackenburg, Gospel. See also G. Reim, Studien zum alttestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangeliums (SNTSMS 22; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 45–7.

46

A Journey Round John

texts2) and a reference to Judas, in the one instance by means of an Old Testament ‘betrayal’ text and in the other by the phrase ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë (‘the son of perdition’). There is nothing beyond this to connect the two texts. Indeed, for the Evangelist to make a reference to an earlier text giving no verbal hint of its wording or context would be out of character with his usual explicit style of cross-referencing.3 A second possibility is that the Scripture referred to is actually contained within 17.12. This has much to recommend it in that whenever he uses ºÉ¸Îû (or its cognate verb) and ȾÉĠÑ, as in 17.12, it is clearly the Evangelist’s habit to ensure that the relevant quotation is immediately to hand.4 If 17.12 is no exception, it follows that the ‘scripture’ is actually quoted there in some form. However, we are still left with the problem of de¿ning what the Scripture is. On the one hand it may be contained in the reference to Judas as ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë. But then the whole clause ¼Ċ Äü ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë looks like a digression from the main argument prompted perhaps by the presence of ÒÈĠÂÂÍÄÀ already in the text. On the other hand there is the possibility that ÷ ºÉ¸Îû does not here refer to an Old Testament text but to the words of Jesus, ‘which thou hast given me…none of them is lost’. These words are an obvious, although imprecise, repetition of 6.39, and they reappear again in 18.9 accompanied by the Evangelist’s introductory words ďŸ È¾ÉÑ¿ĉ ĝ ÂĠºÇË ğÅ ¼čȼÅ.5 2. John uses a number of different formulae to introduce his quotations from Scripture (see, e.g., 7.38, 42; 10.34; 19.37). The formula common to 13.18 and 17.12 is ďŸ ÷ ºÉ¸Îü ȾÉÑ¿ĉ. It occurs twice more, in 19.24 and 19.36, but in neither case is there intended any connection with 13.18. 3. See, e.g., 4.46; 4.53, cf. 4.50; 11.2, 37; 12.1; 18.9, 32. 4. Apart from 17.12, where ºÉ¸ÎŢ and ȾÉŦÑ are used together, a quotation is always made: see 13.18; 19.24, 36. The same applies (apart from the general reference in 5.39) where ºÉ¸ÎŢ is used with other verbs: see 7.38, 42; 10.35(34); 19.28, 37. For the use of ºÉŠÎÑ with quotation (apart from the general references 1.45; 5.46) see 2.17; 6.31, 45; 8.17; 10.34; 12.14-16; 15.25. The use of ȾÉŦÑ and ÂŦºÇË in conjunction also always involves a quotation: see 12.38; 15.25; 18.9, 32. The single exception is ÇĤ»šÈÑ ºÛÉ Ā»¼ÀʸŠÌüÅ ºÉ¸ÎûÅ in 20.9, but here a quotation would not be to the point since the interest is centred not on the Scripture but on the fact that the beloved disciple ‘saw and believed’ (v. 8) without the aid of scriptural proof. I am unable to agree with Freed that 20.9 may refer to the written record of the Passion in the Synoptics (cf. Lk. 24.45-46), or that in general John quotes from the Synoptics (E. D. Freed, Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John [NovTSup 11; Leiden: Brill, 1965], pp. 56–8). What may be a parallel tradition cannot be said to amount to a quotation. 5. I note that this possibility has been suggested by Freed (Old Testament Quotations, pp. 57, 96, 98). However, by confusing what is said in 6.39 with the reference to Judas in 6.70 (later shadowed in 13.18) he has, in my opinion, weakened the 1

3. ‘The Scripture’ in John 17.12

47

The following is an attempt to clarify three points about ÷ ºÉ¸Îû in 17.12: ¿rst, that it is unlikely to be a reference to the Scripture quoted in 13.18; second, that it does not refer to ¼Ċ Äü ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë which is a digression about Judas prompted by the verb ÒÈĠÂÂÍÄÀ; and third, that it may be a reference to the Jesus-logion quoted already in 6.39 and to reappear again in 18.9. I. The Problem Posed by Judas Iscariot: 13.18 as Part of the ‘Choosing and Foreknowledge’ Theme It is one of the great af¿rmations of the Prologue to John’s gospel that those who come to believe in Jesus’ name are born of God and empowered to become ‘children of God’ (ÌñÁŸ ¿¼Çı) (1.12-13). As the gospel proceeds this theme is elaborated and nuances are added. Whoever believes in the Son will not perish (Äü ÒÈĠ¾̸À) but will gain eternal life (3.16). Those who come to Jesus are within the gift of the Father (6.65, see 6.44, 37) and what is so given him shall not perish (6.39) and cannot be snatched out of his hand nor out of the Father’s (10.28, 29, see 3.35). Chapter 17 adds that these faithful are to be kept,6 guarded,7 and protected from evil (17.11, 12, 15). What is said in 17.12, notwithstanding certain textual dif¿culties,8 is well within this framework: the faithful have been kept, and none of them is lost. Indeed the strong similarity between Ň »ñ»ÑÁÚË ÄÇÀ…ÇĤ»¼ĖË ëÆ ¸ĤÌľÅ ÒÈŪ¼ÌÇ (17.12) and ğ »ñ»ÑÁñÅ ÄÇÀ Äü ÒÈÇÂñÊÑ ëÆ ¸ĤÌÇı (6.39) is to be noted. Furthermore, we have in 18.9 the reappearance of this theme at the very point where Jesus does protect his disciples (18.8) so that the reference to 17.12/6.39 is unmistakable even though the wording is not identical: ÇĪË »š»ÑÁŠË ÄÇÀ, ÇĤÁ ÒÈŪ¼ʸ ëÆ ¸ĤÌľÅ ÇĤ»ñŸ. To quote J. N. Birdsall’s comment on 10.29, the overriding theme of passages such as these is ‘the unassailability of the Àock of God because of his guardian power’.9 But John cannot maintain this theme unless he can account for the tradition that one of the ‘Àock’, indeed one of the argument. Nevertheless, his case perhaps deserves more kindly treatment than it receives in Brown (John, vol. 2, p. 760) and Reim (Johannesevangeliums, p. 47 n. 84). 6. The verb È¾ÉšÑ is always used before ch. 17 with reference to the keeping of words or commandments. Only here does it refer to people. 7. The verb ÎÍŠÊÊÑ is used rarely before 17.12. See 12.25, 47 where it has a slightly different meaning. Its use in 17.12 may be due simply to the need for an alternative to ̾ɚÑ. 8. See the helpful discussion in Lindars’ commentary, Gospel, pp. 524–5. 9. J. Neville Birdsall, ‘John X. 29’, JTS NS 11 (1960), pp. 342–4 (344). This is also quoted by Barrett (Gospel, p. 382). 1

48

A Journey Round John

twelve, chosen by Jesus himself, was a betrayer. That he makes no attempt to deny this uncomfortable datum is to his credit; that he is able to turn it to his advantage is a measure of his theological ability. How, then, does John deal with the problem posed by the tradition about Judas Iscariot? There are a number of ways in which he does this. First, like Matthew and Luke, he is not slow in ¿nding an explanation in terms of ful¿lment of Old Testament Scriptures (see Mt. 27.9-10; Acts 1.16-20; Jn 13.18; note, too, the passing reference to Ps. 41.9 in Mk 14.18). Second, he makes of Judas a particular exception to the ‘unassailability’ theme and so he blackens Judas’ character at every turn. Judas is identi¿ed as a devil (6.70). He is the one who complains about the waste of ointment (12.4-5 cf. Mk 14.4; Mt. 26.8) not, the Evangelist adds, because he cared for the poor but because he was a thief (12.6). Judas is Satan’s pawn, subject to Satan’s will (13.2), possessed by him (13.27, cf. Lk. 22.3), and described in terms which refer to him (see 14.30, cf. 12.31; 14.31; cf. Mk 14.42; Mt. 26.46). In distinguishing Judas by the eschatological phrase ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë (17.12, cf. 2 Thess. 2.3) John intends perhaps to indicate that he is to be seen as the agent of the ¿nal enemy who brings about the ultimate onslaught of evil before the eschaton. Thus Jesus’ choice of Judas is woven into an overall eschatological scheme; he is the ¿gure which symbolises the ¿nal apostasy before Satan’s downfall at the cruci¿xion.10 Third, John draws some distinction between those who follow Jesus, in particular the chosen betrayer, and those who come to Jesus who are within the Father’s gift (6.64-65). These last will not be cast out (6.37, cf. 12.31), nor will they perish (6.39), but are drawn by the Father and will be raised up (6.44, see 6.39). Finally, he emphasises that Jesus’ choice of Judas was not fortuitous, but that the choice was deliberately made in the full knowledge of what was to come. The argument is threefold: (1) Jesus knows what is in man (2.24-25) and thus recognises Judas for what he is (6.70-71); (2) He chooses Judas, therefore, in the foreknowledge that Judas will betray him (6.64; 13.10-11; 13.18; 13.21-22); (3) This foreknowledge and the ful¿lment of prediction are seen as grounds for faith (13.19).11 10. See further Sproston, ‘Satan in the Fourth Gospel’ (see Chapter 1 in the present volume) 11. For the same theme but with different subject-matter see 14.29. Commenting on 13.19 Lindars remarks on the similarity between this theme in John and 1

3. ‘The Scripture’ in John 17.12

49

As indicated above, Jesus’ statement in 13.18 lies within this ¿nal category. It refers to Judas as part of the ‘choosing and foreknowledge’ theme, the Scripture having been placed alongside the statement in ‘proof-text’ manner.12 Accordingly, the text of 13.18a, Ĥ ȼÉĖ ÈÚÅÌÑÅ ĨÄľÅ ÂñºÑж ëºĽ Ç軸 ÌĕÅ¸Ë ëƼ¼ƊľÅ, has as its direct antecedent the ‘word’ of Jesus in 6.70: ÇĤÁ ëºĽ ĨÄÜË ÌÇİË »ļ»¼Á¸ ëƼ¼ƊľÅ; Á¸Ė ëÆ ĨÄľÅ ¼đË »ÀŠ¹ÇÂĠË ëÊÌÀÅ.13 In ch. 17, however, the theme of choosing is completely absent,14 and the thought is wholly concentrated on the notion of giving:15 the Father has given to the Son (vv. 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 22, 24); the Son has given to the disciples (vv. 2, 8, 14, 22); and the disciples are those given to the Son by the Father (vv. 2, 6 [twice], 9, 11, 12,16 24). Thus the thought is wholly on the fortunes of the ÌšÁŸ ¿¼Çı who are given to Jesus by the Father (6.37, 44, 65). The promise of eternal life (3.16), of being raised up (6.39, 44), neither perishing (3.16; 6.37, 39) nor being snatched away (10.28-29), holds good because of the protecting power of the Father (17.11, 12, 15). The theme of Jesus’ choice of Judas is far removed from the context of 17.12, and the text of 17.12 itself carries no notion of the ‘choosing and foreknowledge’ references of 6.70-71 and 13.18-19 which feature Judas, but rather addresses itself to the ‘unassailability’ theme pre-¿gured in 3.16; 6.39 and 10.28 and carried through to 18.9. It is Deutero-Isaiah’s pronouncements that ‘Yahweh is known to be the real God… because his word uttered in prophecy comes true, and he has foreknowledge of the saving events’ (Gospel, p. 455). 12. See M. Wilcox, ‘The Composition of John 13.21-30’, in Neotestamentica et Semitica (ed. E. Earle Ellis and Max Wilcox; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1969), pp. 143–56 (145, 156). 13. This is not, of course, to deny the inÀuence which the Scripture cited in 13.18 has had on parts of ch. 6. See John’s use ÈÉŪºÑ in 6.54-58. 14. The verb ëÁšºÇĸÀ (‘to choose’) reappears again in 15.16, 19 but not thereafter. 15. This chapter alone accounts for almost one-third of the 76 instances of »ţ»ÑÄÀ throughout the gospel. 16. There is some confusion in the text in 17.11, 12 as to whether the Ň »š»ÑÁÚË ÄÇÀ should read in both cases ÇĪË »š»ÑÁŠË ÄÇÀ, and thus refer, not to Ìġ ĜÅÇĸ immediately preceding it, but to the disciples. This confusion is understandable in the light of other similar references to the disciples in ch. 17 which use both masculine and neuter forms (see ÇĪË in v. 6, ĻÅ in v. 9, compare ğ in vv. 2, 24). The neuter form is probably to be preferred as the harder reading (compare ÈÜŠ𠻚»ÑÁñÅ ÄÇÀ in 6.39) despite the masculine reading in 18.9, which repeats 17.12 (see Lindars, Gospel, pp. 524–5). A double reference both to Ìġ ěÅÇĸ and the faithful may be intended in 17.12. 1

50

A Journey Round John

unlikely, therefore, that when John writes here ďŸ ÷ ºÉ¸Îü ȾÉÑ¿ĉ, giving no verbal reference to Ps. 41.9, that it is this Scripture as quoted in 13.18 that he has in mind. If, as argued above, 17.12 has no connection in thought with the ‘Judas’ references in 6.70-71 and 13.18-19, then the reference to Judas here begins to look like an apparently uncalled-for digression from the theme of the chapter.17 It may be, after all, that the Evangelist has chosen to pause here and remind us of this notable exception to his rule, but if it is a reminder, it does not come in the form of a reference to Ps. 41.9, but in the form of a reference to Judas himself. Here it is important to note the wording. Judas is not named but referred to as ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë, a phrase whose exact antecedents are dif¿cult to trace.18 However, that the Evangelist does refer to Judas Iscariot at this point, and in this particular form has, I suggest, much more to do with the presence of the verb ÒÈĠÂÂÍÄÀ (‘to destroy’) already in his text than with thematic considerations. II. Judas Iscariot and ÒÈļ¼À¸/ÒÈĠÂÂÍÄÀ in John’s Gospel Commentators generally accept that the phrase ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼţ¸Ë in Jn 17.12 is a reference to Judas Iscariot.19 This being the case, it follows that the Evangelist can use this phrase in the complete con¿dence that his readers will know to whom he is referring. It may be that the phrase, not used of Judas in any other New Testament writing, is already in his tradition as a form of description of the betrayer,20 its presence in 17.12 prompted by a play on words (ÒÈļ¼ÌÇ/ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë).21 What follows does 17. Schnackenburg (Gospel, vol. 3, p. 182; see n. 50) observes that ‘this consideration of the “son of perdition”…seems to be superÀuous in this context’ and cites an article by J. Becker who suggests that it may be the work of an editor. Schnackenburg himself, however, is not completely convinced that this digression should be excluded. 18. See the discussions ad loc. in commentaries by Schnackenburg, Lindars, Schlatter, Bernard and Hoskyns. Bultmann suggests that ¼Ċ Äü ÁÌ may have been in the source already as a general reference but that the Evangelist has particularised it to Judas (Gospel, p. 504 n. 2). 19. See ad loc. Schnackenburg, Brown, Lindars, Sanders and Mastin, Hoskyns, Schlatter, Macgregor, Bultmann, Barrett; also Freed (Old Testament Quotations, p. 97). 20. It is Schlatter’s view that the phrase was certainly not coined by John (Evangelist Johannes, p. 322, see also Barrett, Gospel, p. 508). 21. This feature is noted ad loc. by Lindars, Sanders and Mastin, Macgregor and Bernard; see Freed (Old Testament Quotations, p. 98). 1

3. ‘The Scripture’ in John 17.12

51

not rule out these considerations, but is an attempt to show that the connection between the ¿gure of Judas and the notion of perdition/ destruction is already a part of the Evangelist’s thinking before he reaches 17.12, such that the digression ¼Ċ Äü ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë would come naturally to his pen once he had used the verb ÒÈĠÂÂÍÄÀ. The evidence comes from the Johannine version of the anointing of Jesus (12.1-8). It is drawn ¿rst by comparing this story in John with its Synoptic counterparts, and second by examining the signi¿cance of John’s accusation that Judas was a thief (12.6). The similarities between the Johannine and Markan accounts of the anointing of Jesus are suf¿ciently remarkable as to suggest, at the very least, strong connections in the tradition at the pre-canonical level.22 In the main John appears to ‘follow’ the Markan sequence often to the point of close verbal correspondence.23 When it comes to the matter of the complaint about the ointment, however, John’s account speci¿es that it is Judas who speaks (12.4). At this point Mark simply makes some general reference (Mk 14.4). Matthew, however, does attribute the complaint to ‘the disciples’ (Mt. 26.8). Why is Judas featured at this point in John’s narrative? John certainly wishes to vilify Judas and uses the anointing tradition as an opportunity to do so. However, apart from his identi¿cation of Judas as the one who makes the complaint and his own gloss on Judas’ character added in 12.6, the similarity between his account and the Markan version continues to be striking (note that even the burden of the complaint is the same24). We should therefore allow the possibility that the ‘Judas’ references are a peculiarly Johannine contribution to the tradition. Why, then, has John chosen to draw Judas into the action? He may be familiar with the (Markan) setting of the incident which gives prominence to Judas (see Mk 14.1-2, 10-11), or have been motivated by Judas’ known interest in obtaining money for himself (see Mk 14.11; Jn 12.6) to see his presence during the incident as particularly apt.25 I suggest, however, that there is something more speci¿c than this. In the Markan account, at precisely the point where the Johannine parallel introduces the presence 22. See the lengthy discussion in Dodd’s Historical Tradition, pp. 162–73. See also commentaries by Brown and Barrett ad loc. 23. See Barrett, Gospel, p. 44. Note, however, that the detail of the actual anointing shows preference for Lk. 7.38 over against Mk 14.3. 24. Compare ÌÇıÌÇ Ìġ ÄįÉÇÅ Èɸ¿ýŸÀ…»¾Å¸ÉĕÑÅ ÌÉÀ¸ÁÇÊţÑÅ Á¸Ė »Ç¿ýŸÀ ÌÇėË ÈÌÑÏÇėË (Mk 14.5) with ÌÇıÌÇ Ìġ ÄįÉÇÅ…ëÈÉŠ¿¾ ÌÉÀ¸ÁÇÊţÑÅ »¾Å¸ÉţÑÅ Á¸Ė ë»Ŧ¿¾ ÈÌÑÏÇėË (Jn 12.5). 25. See Brown, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 453.

1

52

A Journey Round John

of Judas, there is the question: ¼ĊË Ìĕ ÷ ÒÈļ¼À¸ ¸ĩ̾ ÌÇı ÄŧÉÇÍ ºñºÇżÅм (Mk 14.4b, echoed in Mt. 26.8: ¼ĊË Ìĕ ÷ ÒÈļ¼À¸ ¸ĩ̾м). The question is not reproduced by John, but his knowledge of it (and on other grounds he evidently knows the whole tradition well) may have suggested to him that the speaker should be Judas. After all, what could be a more ¿tting irony than that the complaint about loss (ÒÈļ¼À¸) should be made by the ‘son of loss’? Thus, at precisely the point where ÒÈļ¼À¸ (in Mark, the only instance) appears in the tradition, John sees the opportunity to introduce Judas into his own narrative. Thereafter, with a reference to money and a Passion setting already to hand, he found this story tailormade for further vili¿cation of the betrayer. The second point involves John’s accusation in 12.6, that Judas was a thief (ĞÌÀ ÁÂñÈÌ¾Ë öÅ). That John shows a marked hostility towards Judas and takes every opportunity to blacken his character has already been noted,26 and no doubt the accusation that Judas was a thief is no exception to this policy.27 Yet this particular reference sits a little oddly. In other ‘Judas’ texts (6.70; 13.2, 27; 17.12) the intention is to imply that Judas is a creature of Satan whose fortunes are bound up with the train of events leading to the cruci¿xion and the collapse of the devil’s schemes (see 12.31-32). In describing Judas as a mere thief, however, accustomed to stealing from the money-box, John seems to have stooped, untypically, to the level of petty spitefulness. It is dif¿cult to see any reason for this particular accusation from within the Synoptic tradition.28 However, what John himself has to say about the thief earlier in his gospel may well prove to be to the point. In John 10 the ‘good shepherd’ material is used to distinguish between Jesus as the true leader and others (variously depicted as the thief, the robber, and the hireling) who are false. It is dif¿cult to de¿ne the sourcematerial for this allegory whose basis seems to shift between presenting Jesus as the door of the sheepfold (vv. 1, 7-9) and as the shepherd (vv. 23, 11-12).29 What is important for our purposes, however, is what is said 26. See p. 48 above. 27. That Judas had been in charge of the money-box and thus occupied a position of trust (12.6) must have been a particularly sore point. 28. For ÁšÈÌ¾Ë see Mt. 6.19, 20; 24.43; Lk. 12.33, 39; for ÁšÈÌÑ see Mt. 6.19, 20; 19.18; 27.64; 28.13; Mk 10.19; Lk. 18.20. In Mark ÁšÈÌ¾Ë does not appear at all and the only instance of the cognate verb is in a reference to the Ten Commandments (10.19). Both ÁšÈÌ¾Ë and ÁšÈÌÑ in Luke and Matthew appear in the sayings on heavenly treasure, the commandments, the parousia, and with reference (in Matthew) to stealing Jesus’ body from the tomb. 29. See the discussions ad loc. in commentaries by Barrett, Bultmann, and Lindars. 1

3. ‘The Scripture’ in John 17.12

53

of the thief alone in v. 10.30 In contrast to Jesus who comes to give life (ëºĽ ö¿ÇÅ ďŸ ½ÑüÅ ìÏÑÊÀÅ) we read that the thief (ĝ ÁšÈ̼Ë) comes only ‘to steal and kill and destroy’ (ďŸ ÁšÐþ Á¸Ė ¿įÊþ Á¸Ė ÒÈÇÂñÊþ). The verb ÒÈŦÂÂÍÄÀ (‘to destroy’) is applied only to the thief in this allegory and, I suggest, is the basis for John’s describing Judas as a thief in 12.6. This would give to John’s ĞÌÀ ÁšÈÌ¾Ë öÅ a properly sinister ring.31 Moreover, the similarity between ÇĤÏ ĞÌÀ ȼÉĖ ÌľÅ ÈÌÑÏľÅ ìļ¼Š¸ĤÌŊ (‘not that he cared for the poor’) in 12.6 and ÇĤ Ě¼À ¸ĤÌŊ ȼÉĖ ÌľÅ ÈÉǹŠÌÑÅ (‘he cares nothing for the sheep’) in 10.1332 is probably a further indicator that in 12.6 John had the ‘good shepherd’ material in mind. The purpose of the above argument has been to demonstrate that there is good reason to assume a strong association in John’s tradition between the ¿gure of Judas and the notion of perdition/destruction. I have suggested that this association may account for the presence of Judas in 12.4 at a point where the tradition known to him (and as represented in Mark) features the word ÒÈļ¼À¸. I have also suggested that the association of ÒÈŦÂÂÍÄÀ with ÁÂñÈÌ¾Ë in Jn 10.10 lies behind John’s statement in 12.6 that Judas was a thief. When we turn to 17.12 we see that it is of a piece with this tendency. Here ÒÈŦÂÂÍÄÀ appears in the text (Á¸Ė ÇĤ»¼ĖË ëÆ ¸ĤÌľÅ ÒÈŪ¼ÌÇ) and although the thought here concentrates on the unassailability of those in the Father’s keeping (see 6.39), the association between Judas and ÒÈŦÂÂÍÄÀ naturally triggers the digression ¼Ċ Äü ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë. What is more, this move may have gained further impetus by what the Evangelist has written in 10.28. The passage 10.27-29 is a piece of ‘good shepherd’ material held over from the earlier part of the chapter.33 Accordingly, 10.28, in contrasting the life-giving mission of Jesus with destruction (ÇĤ Äü ÒÈĠÂÑÅ̸À), picks up the theme of 10.10 where 30. It does not necessarily follow that what is said only of the thief in v. 10 must also apply to the ÂþÊÌŢË (see v. 1). R. E. Brown (Gospel, vol. 1, pp. 394–5) suggests that the Evangelist has now moved on from the ÁšÈ̾˅Á¸Ė ÂþÊÌŢË reference in v. 1 (plural in v. 8) so that the contrast in v. 10 between Jesus and the thief implies that this ¿gure is ‘a general representative of darkness who is a rival to the Son’. Lindars too, although he sees the mention of the thief in v. 10 as derived from v. 1, indicates here the beginning of ‘a new line of exposition’ where the description of the thief is ‘virtually…a new subsidiary parable’ (Gospel, pp. 359–60). 31. Both Lindars (Gospel) and Brown (Gospel) suggest the reference to killing in 10.10 is connected in thought with John’s description of the devil as a murderer in 8.44. 32. Noted by Brown (Gospel, vol. 1, p. 448). The expression in 10.13 is, however, used of the hireling. 33. So Lindars, Gospel, p. 354.

1

54

A Journey Round John

destruction has already been associated with the thief (ĝ ÁÂñÈÌ¾Ë ÇĤÁ ìÉϼ̸À ¼Ċ Äü ďŸ…ÒÈÇšÊþ). However, 10.28 also shows connections with 17.12. Thus the Á¸Ė ÇĤ»¼ĖË ëÆ ¸ĤÌľÅ ÒÈŪ¼ÌÇ in 17.12, pre¿gured in 10.28, may by this time carry the notion of the destruction wrought by the thief in 10.10. The thief is now known to be Judas (12.6), and thus a reference to him in the form of a play on ÒÈŪ¼ÌÇ is natural. If this argument is correct, then ÷ ºÉ¸Îû which the Evangelist has in mind in 17.12 has nothing to do with Judas either in the form of any known reference to ÒÈŪ¼À¸, or in the form of the quotation of Ps. 41.9 in 13.18. The clause ¼Ċ Äü ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼţ¸Ë, whose presence is accounted for by the existence of ÒÈĠÂÂÍÄÀ already in the text, is strictly a digression from the main argument of the verse, and indeed from that of the chapter as a whole. What, then, is ÷ ºÉ¸ÎŢ in 17.12? It remains to explore one further possibility, namely, that it refers to the ‘word’ of Jesus himself, cited already in 6.39 (10.28) and to be repeated again with the form ďŸ È¾ÉÑ¿ĉ ĝ ÂĠºÇË in 18.9. III. ‘The Scripture’ in 17.12 as a Reference to the ‘Word’ of Jesus In the work of the Fourth Evangelist we see the emergence of an attitude whereby the word or command of Jesus comes to be placed alongside Scripture and can be regarded as of equal weight. More recent studies in source criticism recognise that John preserves a collection of Jesus-Logia and uses it as the basis for his own midrashic style of composition.34 While this treatment of the sayings of Jesus is not exclusive to John,35 it is perhaps true to say that his readiness to treat the word of Jesus as he would a word of Scripture is explicit. In writing his account, the Evangelist orientates the narrative tradition available to him around the Jesus-logia and thus weaves it into his own exegesis of the sayings. He composes his gospel in this manner because he writes from a community in which there is a strong tradition of the preservation of Jesus’ words (and deeds) later to be interpreted, which 34. See B. Lindars, ‘Traditions Behind the Fourth Gospel’, in Essays on John by Barnabas Lindars (ed. C. M. Tuckett; SNTA 17; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), pp. 87–104, and Behind the Fourth Gospel (SCC 3; London: SPCK, 1971), pp. 43ff.; P. Borgen, ‘The Use of Tradition in John 12.44–50’, NTS 26 (1979–80), pp. 18–35; Wilcox, ‘The Composition of John 13.21-30’, pp. 155–6. 35. Borgen (Use of Tradition in John) compares John and Paul in this respect; see also M. Wilcox, ‘The Denial-Sequence in Mark XIV, 26-31, 66-72’, NTS 17 (1970–71), pp. 426–36 on Mark.

1

3. ‘The Scripture’ in John 17.12

55

tradition he also records (2.22; 12.16; 15.20 see 13.16).36 Accordingly, he is prepared to place the words of Jesus on a level with Scripture (2.22; 5.47; 13.18), he emphasises that Jesus’ words and commandments are to be kept (8.51, 52; 14.15, 21, 23; 15.10),37 and accepts that Jesus’ words, like Scripture, can be ful¿lled (18.9, 32).38 I suggest that in 17. 12 we have another instance of this concentration on ful¿lment of a Jesus-statement. The statement ¿rst appears in recognisable form in 6.39, is partly referred to in 10.28, and then repeated in 17.12 and 18.9, in these last two instances accompanied by a ful¿lment formula. In none of the instances beyond 6.39 is the quotation of the previous text precisely the same but the reference is unmistakable: 6.39 10.28 17.12 18.9

(ÈÜÅ) 𠻚»ÑÁšÅ ÄÇÀ Äü ÒÈÇÂñÊÑ ëÆ ¸ĤÌÇı [10.29 ğ »ñ»ÑÁñÅ ÄÇÀ] ÇĤ Äü ÒÈĠÂÑÅ̸À (ÌŊ ĚÅĠĸÌĕ ÊÇÍ) Ň »š»ÑÁŠË ÄÇÀ…ÇĤ»¼ĖË ëÆ ¸ĤÌľÅ ÒÈļ¼ÌÇ ÇĪË »ñ»ÑÁŠË ÄÇÀ, ÇĤÁ ÒÈŪ¼ʸ ëÆ ¸ĤÌľÅ ÇĤ»šÅ¸

The neuter Ň in 17.12 is to be preferred.39 It has already been used in 6.39 (probably attracted by reference to the neuter ÌÛ…ÁŠÊĸ̸, ďŸ ÄŢ ÌÀ ÒÈĠ¾̸À in 6.12), and in 17.12 it can also be made to refer to Ìġ ěÅÇĸ immediately preceding it. There is no doubt, however, that the statement in 18.9 refers to 17.12. That the two do not match in every detail does not seem to matter,40 and the mention of Ìġ ěÅÇĸ in 17.12 probably anticipates what is to happen in 18.5ff. where the protective power of God’s name is seen in action.41 36. It seems that the members of the Johannine community regarded themselves as peculiarly ¿tted to interpret Jesus’ words. The Beloved Disciple and the Paraclete, key ¿gures with whom the community associates itself, are presented as gaining or imparting an intuitive grasp of the mission and signi¿cance of Jesus, see 13.2324, 28; 20.8-9; 13.23, cf. 1.18 (the Beloved Disciple), and 14.26; 16.12-13 (the Paraclete). See further Brown, Epistles, pp. 94–6. 37. Brown, in his commentary The Epistles of John, argues that this oscillation between ÂŦºÇË and ëÅÌÇÂû is not merely fortuitous, but rather suggests a Semitic background where the Ten Commandments were the ‘words’ of God (see Exod. 34.28). Thus, to refer to Jesus’ command as a ‘word’ is implicitly to equate it with the Decalogue (p. 252). 38. Compare the references to ful¿lment of Scripture (13.18; 19.24, 36), the prophetic word (12.38), and the word in the law (15.25). For a discussion on the ‘word’ of Jesus as ful¿lled in John’s Gospel, see Freed, Old Testament Quotations, p. 57. 39. See the discussion in commentaries by Barrett and Lindars on 17.11. 40. In 18.32, where the ‘word’ of Jesus is again ful¿lled, the reference is obviously to Jesus’ prediction of his cruci¿xion given in 12.32. However, merely the quotation of the gloss in 12.33 is here deemed suf¿cient to recall the Jesus-statement. 41. See Brown’s commentary on the gospel, Gospel, vol. 2, p. 764. 1

56

A Journey Round John

I suggest, therefore, that for John there is no difference in meaning between ďŸ ÷ ºÉ¸Îü ȾÉÑ¿ĉ in 17.12 and ďŸ È¾ÉÑ¿ĉ ĝ ÂĠºÇË in 18.9 since both refer to the same Jesus-logion on the unassailability of those given him by the Father and in both cases the logion is quoted. If this case has been proven, then it means that John has used ÷ ºÉ¸ÎŢ, normally reserved by him to refer to an Old Testament text, to describe a ‘word’ of Jesus. That he can do this is probably because he is accustomed to treating the Jesus-Logia as he would treat texts from at ¸Ď ºÉ¸Î¸ţ. Whether it can be said, however, that in this instance42 John has in fact made a conscious move to call a Jesus-logion ‘scripture’ is another matter. A looser rendering of ÷ ºÉ¸ÎŢ here to convey some- thing like ‘tradition’ or ‘writing’ may be more suitable.43

42. Freed, however, claims something like this for the references in 7.42 and 20.9 (Old Testament Quotations, pp. 51, 58). 43. Freed is careful to avoid the conclusion that ºÉ¸ÎŢ in a case like this should be translated ‘scripture’ (Old Testament Quotations, pp. 51, 59). 1

Chapter 4

WITNESSES TO WHAT WAS ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË: 1 JOHN’S CONTRIBUTION TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF TRADITION IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL*

The distance from the Synoptics to John’s Gospel often seems not so much a step as a quantum leap, for while John also records the life of the historical Jesus he seems to have conceived of its signi¿cance independently and on a vastly different scale. As a result the ¿nal overall effect is one of transformation and change, and perhaps no more strikingly so than in his presentation of Jesus himself. According to John, Jesus’ story begins not in earthly time but with God before all time, and his entry into Palestinian society is the entry of the divine Word into human history. As the Word become Àesh Jesus wields the power of God with conscious majesty, seemingly oblivious to human doubt. No intriguing ‘messianic secret’ keeps the reader guessing about Jesus’ identity. On the contrary, his identity, origin and destiny are here openly proclaimed and attention is focused instead on human response to him. For all who encounter Jesus in John a ¿nal choice has to be made between stark alternatives – life or death, salvation or condemnation – because by virtue of his very presence in the world the conditions of Judgement Day have come into force. This is powerful and arresting imagery, but in fact what we see here probably has little to do with the historical Jesus; rather, it is the construct of a remarkable mind which has taken Jesus’ story and set it within the framework of God’s own confrontation with the world he created, loves and wishes to save. Even in these few brief remarks the distinctiveness of John’s approach becomes apparent and we are easily persuaded that this Fourth Gospel has been executed by a highly original and adventurous exponent of the * Originally published under the surname Sproston in JSNT 48 (1992), pp. 43– 65; reprinted in S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans, eds., The Johannine Writings: A Shef¿eld Reader (Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic Press, 2000), pp. 138–60.

58

A Journey Round John

genre. And yet, eccentric though John’s contribution may seem in this context, the mere fact that he has undertaken to produce a gospel, rather than a dogmatic treatise, has important implications for our attempts to understand his thinking. Speci¿cally, it suggests that John’s originality does not consist in inventing de novo, but that he has created his Gospel by a process of expanding and expounding on a tradition already known to him as a Christian before he took up his pen. This view of John as a receiver and interpreter of tradition ¿nds con¿rmation in certain editorial comments and attitudes in the Gospel itself. As regards his awareness of tradition, it should not be missed that John himself records that the disciples not only witnessed Jesus’ words and deeds but also remembered them after the event, a remembrance which would subsequently be informed by greater understanding (2.22; 12.16).1 Furthermore, John’s comments in 20.30-31 leave us in little doubt that he knew a number of miracle stories before he began writing, those recorded in the Gospel apparently being the result of the selection of such material as he deemed suitable to his purpose. On the other hand, there are other texts where John’s self-perception as an interpreter of tradition is given prominence. The presentation of the so-called Beloved Disciple is a good example of this attitude. This disciple is evidently intended as a key identity ¿gure for Johannine Christianity and is frequently portrayed as the only one of Jesus’ followers with the capacity to understand him and grasp his meaning. It is no accident, for example, that in 13.23 this disciple alone lies in Jesus’ lap just as in 1.18 Jesus himself is described as in the lap of the Father whom he is uniquely able to interpret.2 No doubt also the detail on the function of the SpiritParaclete in imparting to the faithful a new and hitherto unavailable insight into Jesus’ words and deeds would be pointless if John had not thought of himself as a bene¿ciary of the Spirit’s exegetical guidance.3 1. Compare also the injunction to remember Jesus’ word in 15.20. 2. Note also the Beloved Disciple’s access to ‘inside information’ in 13.25-26, his intuitive grasp of the meaning of the discarded graveclothes in 20.8-9 and his quick recognition of the risen Jesus in 21.7. As Mary’s adopted son (19.26-27) he is to be seen as Jesus’ Doppelgänger who faithfully reÀects his character and intentions. The overall intention here seems to be to promote the Johannine ideal. See further K. Quast, Peter and the Beloved Disciple: Figures for a Community in Crisis (JSNTSup 32; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1989), esp. pp. 159–62. 3. For descriptions of the Spirit’s exegetical functions see 14.26; 15.26; 16.1215. R. E. Brown’s comment on this captures the implications well: ‘The Fourth Evangelist must have regarded himself as an instrument of the Paraclete when in G[ospel of] John he reported what Jesus said and did but at the same time completely reinterpreted it’ (Epistles, p. 287). 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

59

From our point of view this evidence is valuable because it provides an insight into what has gone into the making of the Fourth Gospel. On this basis we may be con¿dent that two elements will be present in John’s text: on the one hand there will be material known from tradition, and, on the other, there will be the fruits of John’s own creative interpretation of that tradition. It follows therefore that one very valid point of entry into understanding the workings of John’s mind will be provided if we have some means of identifying in his text the tradition on which he has based his exegesis.4 However, all is not so simple. The problem is that the distinctive Johannine language and style do not alter signi¿cantly throughout the entire Gospel.5 So consistent is the style, in fact, that translators are occasionally left simply to guess where reported speech has ended and editorial comment has begun. Furthermore, the use and re-use of a limited and theologically orientated vocabulary strongly suggest a radical re-presentation of source material in the service of theme. None of this augurs well for the ‘scissors and paste’ approach to detecting John’s source material. The stylistic integrity suggests that whatever John has known he has preferred to express in his own idiom. Moreover, the strong thematic interest leaves us with no guarantee that John’s exegetical activity has not extended also to the source material itself, with the result that what ¿nally appears in his text has already been recast, and is therefore an interpreted and modi¿ed version of what he knew. There is nothing here to encourage us to accept R. T. Fortna’s viewpoint that it is possible to reconstruct intact out of John’s text some ¿xed and extensive pre-Johannine Grundschrift.6 4. This is not to defend the historical-critical method against all comers but merely to af¿rm its continuing value in John’s case in the light of evidence in the text which points to the author’s self-perception. However, no attempt to understand the mind of John can afford to ignore his immense literary talent, and I assume that the newer literary-critical approaches to interpreting John can inform already established methods and can in turn be informed by them. See Culpepper’s excellent Anatomy, esp. his remarks on p. 5. 5. So E. Ruckstuhl, Die literarische Einheit des Johannesevangeliums (Studia Friburgensia NS 3; Freiburg: Paulus, 1951), now reprinted (Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus 5; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987). Ruckstuhl has added two appendices to the reprint. The ¿rst (pp. 291–303) is a revision of his list of Johannine style characteristics in Einheit itself, and the second (pp. 304–31) is a revision and German translation of his essay ‘Johannine Language and Style: The Question of their Unity’, in de Jonge, ed., L’Evangile, pp. 125–47. For references to these see below. 6. Despite heavy criticism along these lines of his earlier book The Gospel of Signs (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), Fortna has not 1

60

A Journey Round John

Another approach – and one which injects a proper note of objectivity into the proceedings – is to look beyond the bounds of the Gospel itself to other literature, for example the Synoptic tradition or the Pauline letters, to discover there some correspondence with Johannine statements and so attempt to establish by means of external controls the tradition which John as a fellow Christian is likely to have known and drawn on.7 This is a well-tried method and the results can be extremely valuable, especially in those areas where John’s text appears to correspond closely with the content of these other writings so that the required degree of adjustment to the Johannine idiom is comparatively minor. Much of John’s miracles and Passion material has proved amenable to this approach, and even the highly compositional discourse material has to some extent been shown to rest on traditional Jesus sayings.8 Finally, however, it has to be questioned whether the actual extent of the tradition as John knew it can always be recovered by this means. Where verbal correspondence between John and the Synoptics is comparatively slight then some degree of speculation beyond these points of contact is inevitable.9 Moreover, it appears that there is more than substantially modi¿ed his position in his recent volume The Fourth Gospel and Its Predecessor (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989), see esp. pp. 6–8. It is particularly unfortunate that he has not devoted more serious consideration to Ruckstuhl’s detailed and swingeing criticisms of his handling of style characteristics (see Ruckstuhl, ‘Johannine Language’, pp. 129-41; and compare Fortna, Predecessor, p. 210 n. 509). For criticism of Predecessor, see the review by B. Lindars in SJT 43 (1990), pp. 526–7; idem, John (NTG; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1990), pp. 32–3; for some searing remarks on Fortna’s attitude, see M. Hengel, The Johannine Question (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity International, 1989), p. 201 n. 58. 7. See W. F. Howard, The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation (2d ed.; London: Epworth, 1935), pp. 215–29; Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 335– 65. Studies which appeal speci¿cally to the Pauline tradition include Wilcox, ‘Composition’, pp. 143–56; Borgen, ‘Tradition’, pp. 18–35; idem, ‘John and the Synoptics: Can Paul Offer Help?’, in Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament: Essays in Honor of E. Earle Ellis for his 60th Birthday (ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 80–194. As is well known, Barnabas Lindars published extensively in this area. For example, see his ‘Traditions’, pp. 107–24; idem, Fourth Gospel, esp. pp. 43–60. For further references to Lindars’s work, see below. 8. See B. Lindars, ‘Discourse and Tradition: The Use of the Sayings of Jesus in the Discourses of the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 13 (1981), pp. 83–101; idem, John, pp. 36–7. 9. I am indebted to Professor Max Wilcox for the suggestion that Jn 15.13 may be a version of the Son of man logion in Mk 10.45. I note also that Barnabas Lindars published on this, see his ‘Mark 10.45: A Ransom for Many’, ExpTim 93 (1981–82), 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

61

Synoptic-type tradition in John.10 For example, there is no miracle in the Synoptics which compares with the changing of water into wine at Cana in John 2 or with the raising of Lazarus in ch. 11. And how do we come to terms with a passage like Jn 3.16-21? This text is quintessentially Johannine and is usually assumed to represent, at least in part, the socalled Johannine kerygma.11 The Synoptics cannot help us here, and while similar statements in the Pauline corpus are enough to persuade us that John’s is a version of a common early Christian tradition,12 precisely what John knew, whether recast or not, continues to remain unclear. Dif¿culties such as these serve to highlight the need for a control which is not only external to the Gospel but which is also party to its distinctive style and theological perspective. There is, in fact, one document which ful¿ls our present requirements. In vocabulary, style and theology its af¿nity with the Fourth Gospel is undisputed and indeed unsurpassed by any other substantial document known to us. Its origin from within the same matrix which produced the Gospel is thereby declared, and its immediate intelligibility to the Johannine reader thereby guaranteed. It will be obvious by now that the document here referred to is 1 John. The object of this paper is to propose that the ¿rst Johannine epistle can serve as a control which will increase our understanding of the nature of the tradition that has gone into the Fourth Gospel, and hence will also allow us to pry a little further into the thinking of its author. Thus if we pp. 292–5; idem, Jesus Son of Man (London: SPCK, 1983), p. 79. While I would not disagree with this position (see below n. 43) nevertheless it should be pointed out that actual verbal contact between the Markan and Johannine texts is almost nonexistent. 10. This position is accepted even among those who argue that John composed his Gospel in direct dependence on one or more of the Synoptics. See F. Neirynck, ‘John and the Synoptics’, in de Jonge, ed., L’Evangile, pp. 73–106 (94); Barrett, Gospel, p. 17; see esp. M. D. Goulder’s proposals on Gospel interrelationships which allow much more freedom to John in this regard than to Matthew and Luke (Luke: A New Paradigm [2 vols.; JSNTSup 20; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1989], vol. 1, pp. 22–3). 11. The phrase ‘the Johannine kerygma’ heads a section in R. Schnackenburg’s commentary where he argues that 3.16-21 is part of a discourse composed by the Evangelist which was based on kerygmatic material. See Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 380. He and others take 3.16 to be the kernel of the Johannine Christian message. See Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 398; G. R. Beasley-Murray, John (WBC 36; Waco: Word, 1987), p. 51; Lindars, Gospel, p. 24; Barrett, Gospel, p. 216; Bernard, Gospel, vol. 1, p. 117. 12. See esp. Rom. 8.31-32; 2 Cor. 5.19; Gal. 1.4; 2.20; 4.4; 1 Tim. 1.15; 2.4; 3.16; Titus 2.11. 1

62

A Journey Round John

wish to learn more about tradition in John we must look ¿rst and foremost to 1 John.13 When we do turn to 1 John, however, we ¿nd that there is much which would seem to confuse our enterprise. We quickly discover that the author of the epistle has not obliged us with a straightforward second edition of the Gospel but that instead he has produced a piece which has an independence of its own. If we read 1 John with the Gospel freshly in mind we are immediately struck by the absence of reference to what are often substantial areas of the Gospel text. No one, of course, would expect to ¿nd narrative here because the epistle is not a narrative piece, but the differences go much deeper than that. Where, we might ask, is the Gospel’s identi¿cation of Jesus with the divine pre-existent ÂŦºÇË? The epistle’s ÂŦºÇË ÌýË ½ÑýË (1.1) is hardly a substitute, especially as other references show that ÂŦºÇË in the epistle means something like a preached message.14 And where do we hear of Jesus as the Lamb of God, the Good Shepherd or the True Vine? Indeed, we search in vain for the whole Gospel presentation of Jesus as sole mediator between God and humanity, who is invested with power over all Àesh to give life and to judge, and who declares his authority in the majesty of the ‘I am’ statements. There is no claim here, for example, that Jesus is the Light of the World but, instead, the epistle’s ¿rst announcement is that God – and not Jesus – is light (1.5). We do get a description of Jesus as ȸɊÁ¾ÌÇË in 1 Jn 2.1, and this seems to provide some tenuous link with Jn 14.16 where Jesus promises that the Father will send the Spirit as ÓÂÂÇË È¸ÉŠÁ¾ÌÇË, which implies that Jesus himself is also a paraclete. But then the Gospel goes into some detail in describing the functions of the Spirit as Paraclete (14.16, 26; 15.26; 16.7), and this identi¿cation between Spirit and Paraclete is unknown in 1 John.

13. In what follows it will be assumed that the Gospel pre-dated the epistle and that the two were not by the same author. However, my eventual conclusions do not rule out alternative views. 14. This meaning is explicit in 2.7 (see also 1.10; 2.5, 14; 3.18). Parallels in the body of the Gospel and elsewhere in the New Testament also support the meaning ‘message’ ÂĠºÇË in 1.1 rather than a reference to the personal Word of the Prologue (so Brown, Epistles, pp. 164–5; K. Grayston, The Johannine Epistles [NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1984], pp. 39–40). This is not the only instance where terminology familiar from the Gospel is invested with different meaning in 1 John. See further P. Bonnard’s study of these ‘mutations sémantiques’ in ‘La première épître de Jean: Est-elle Johannique?’, in de Jonge, ed., L’Evangile, pp. 301–5. 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

63

Reversing the reading process by beginning with 1 John does not seem to improve matters, for the result is much the same. Indeed, considering that the epistle is about one seventh of the length of the Gospel, the incidence of words it contains which are not to be found in the Gospel text is remarkably high (45 in all).15 Some of these ¿t in well enough with the Gospel subject matter, but it is not dif¿cult to ¿nd others, among them ÒÅÇÄţ¸, ÒÅÌĕÏÉÀÊÌÇË, ¹ţÇË, »ÇÁÀÄŠ½¼ÀÅ, ϸÊÄŦË and мͻÇÈÉÇÎŢ̾Ë, which would seem to indicate real differences. Given that the epistle does not always reÀect the contents of the Gospel, then, it will be in our interest to concentrate on what the two have in common. What material is common to John and 1 John gives every indication of a strikingly close verbal correspondence. We can trace from one document to the other not only the same words but also often the same phrases, and sometimes even whole sentences.16 Yet in this very feature there lies a further cause for confusion, for neither text will either introduce that common material or continue on from it in the same vein as the other. In each case, therefore, the setting and the surrounding argument are different. The following two examples will demonstrate the point. If we compare the sentence ¼ġÅ ÇĤ»¼ĖË îŪɸÁ¼Å ÈŪÈÇ̼ in Jn 1.18 with ¿¼ġÅ ÇĤ»¼ĖË ÈŪÈÇ̼ ̼¿š¸Ì¸À in 1 Jn 4.12 the correspondence is obvious.17 But what is equally obvious is that beyond this point all correspondence ceases. For the Evangelist the application of the statement is christological: he uses it as a basis to speak of Jesus as the sole exegete of the Father. This is not the case in 1 Jn 4.12. There the same sentence has been put in the context of the command to love one another and when, in 4.20, the theme of God’s invisibility returns, the interest centres on loving one’s brother whom one has seen. In 1 Jn 3.14 we note the con¿dent assertion ÷ļėË Çċ»¸Ä¼Å ĞÌÀ ļ̸¹¼¹ŢÁ¸Ä¼Å ëÁ ÌÇı ¿¸ÅŠÌÇÍ ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ½ÑŢÅ. Its equivalent is recognizable in the Gospel text at 5.24: ļ̸¹š¹¾Á¼Å ëÁ ÌÇı ¿¸ÅŠÌÇÍ ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ½ÑŢÅ. In 15. See the relevant lists in R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (3d ed.; Zurich: Gotthelf, 1982). 16. See the comprehensive lists in A. E. Brooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), pp. ii–iv; B. F. Westcott, The Epistles of St John (3d ed.; Cambridge: Macmillan, 1892), pp. xli–xliii. 17. The change in the verb is not signi¿cant since no difference in meaning is intended. For the argument that this is true in general of Johannine deployment of these verbs see Brown, Epistles, p. 162. 1 John’s use of ĝÉÜÅ as he returns to this theme at 4.20 demonstrates the point well. 1

64

A Journey Round John

1 Jn 3.11-18 we ¿nd the epistle writer once again concerned with the implications of the love command, and, to that end, this af¿rmation of the Christian status is directly related to that command in 3.14. In Jn 5.24, however, the love command is not in view. Instead, all hinges on hearing Jesus’ word and believing the Father who sent him, by which means judgement is avoided and life guaranteed. Thus, if we expect the epistle to have a consistent bearing on the Gospel, we will be disappointed. What we have, in fact, are two texts which have evidently issued from the same matrix but which make real contact with one another only intermittently and otherwise can seem to have little or nothing in common. It follows that the degree to which we can allow 1 John to function as a control to isolate tradition in the Gospel will depend on our reaching a much more precise understanding of how the contents of the two documents relate to one another. The clue to the relationship between the two lies, in fact, in the nature and character of the epistle itself, and hence we will now look more closely at 1 John in order to learn a little more about it. There is evidence in the epistle of a recent schism within the community. It seems that there has been a conÀict over christological doctrine (2.22-24; 4.2-3) and several of the group’s members have left (2.19). This suggests that what our author is obliged to tackle is the backlash of an exclusively Christian versus Christian controversy. Consequently we ¿nd him intent on assuring those who have remained that they alone hold to a proper understanding of the Johannine faith,18 while also offering advice on how to live out that faith in these new and uncongenial circumstances. Now this ‘in house’ controversy does not appear to correspond with the circumstances which precipitated the publication of the Gospel. The Gospel betrays evidence of the community’s recent estrangement from contemporary Judaism and of a hostility between Jew and Christian Jew. In the case of the epistle, however, hostility has entered the very ranks of the community and appears to have arisen as a consequence of its own Christian beliefs.19 At the outset, therefore, we should be aware that the 18. For the argument that the epistle writer was primarily intent on reassuring his own group rather than on polemizing against its past members, see J. M. Lieu, ‘Authority to Become Children of God: A Study of 1 John’, NovT 33, no. 3 (1981), pp. 210–28. 19. For a study of John and 1 John as polemical documents directed to entirely different situations, see R. A. Whitacre, Johannine Polemic: The Role of Tradition and Theology (SBLDS 67; Chico: Scholars Press, 1982). Even if Jn 6.66 indicates that the Evangelist himself was no stranger to schism, it can be plausibly argued that 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

65

problems which the epistle writer is concerned to resolve will not correspond with those which beset the Evangelist. Nevertheless, the clue to the epistle’s relationship to the Gospel does lie in this area. It is not contained in the fact of the schism itself nor in what may have led to it, but it is to be found in the particular method by which the author proceeds with his task of reassuring his own group in the aftermath of the trauma. We will now turn to examine this method in some detail. The author of 1 John begins by proclaiming himself to his readers as a genuine mediator of the Johannine tradition, for only on this basis can he claim to speak authoritatively to the matter in hand. Once he has assured them of his status, however, any distinction between writer and readers is soon dropped and an exploration of the issues at stake is seen to be undertaken as a joint enterprise. In his ¿rst four verses the epistle writer sets forth his credentials and at the same time announces the bene¿ts which his message will bring for all who heed him. Here the use of the language of original eye-witness together with the authoritative Johannine ‘we’ (contrast the ‘you’ who appear to be the addressees) is signally in evidence. Indeed, the words almost tumble over one another in the passage: ğ ÒÁ¾ÁĠ¸Ä¼Å, ğ îÑÉÚÁ¸Ä¼Å…ğ 뿼¸ÊÚļ¿¸…Á¸Ė îÑÉÚÁ¸Ä¼Å Á¸Ė ĸÉÌÍÉÇıļŠÁ¸Ė ÒȸººñÂÂÇļŠĨÄėÅ…ğ îÑÉÚÁ¸Ä¼Å Á¸Ė ÒÁ¾ÁĠ¸Ä¼Å, ÒȸººñÂÂÇļŠÁ¸Ė ĨÄėÅ ďŸ Á¸Ė ĨļėË ÁÇÀÅÑÅĕ¸Å ìϾ̼ ļ¿Џ ÷ÄľÅ…(ÁÇÀÅÑÅţ¸) ÷ļÌñɸ…ºÉÚÎÇļŠ÷ļėË…(ϸÉÛ) ÷ÄľÅ…20

The author is clearly taking his stand as a true representative of the Johannine tradition. His appropriation to himself of these verbs of perception and proclamation demonstrates that ‘what was from the beginning… concerning the word of life’ (1.1) has remained unchanged, is therefore reliable, and will be the burden of the witness he himself is about to give.21 His use of the ‘we’ here is the prerogative of the tradition the pressure here has resulted from the threat of persecution from outside and not from internal disputes over doctrine; see C. H. Cosgrove, ‘The Place Where Jesus Is: Allusions to Baptism and the Eucharist in the Fourth Gospel’, NTS 35 (1989), pp. 522–39, esp. 527–30. Thus, it is unlikely that Jn 6.66 and 1 Jn 2.19 are a match in cause as well as in effect (pace Hengel, Question, p. 52). 20. There is some textual disagreement over ÷ļėË and ÷ÄľÅ in v. 4, but the reading given here is probably to be preferred (so Brown, Epistles, pp. 172–3). 21. The presence of eye-witness language in a Johannine text need not imply that its author was one of the original disciples. For a discussion on a later generation’s capacity to identify with the original witnesses, see Lieu, ‘Authority’, pp. 213–14; eadem, The Second and Third Epistles of John: History and Background (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986), pp. 143–4; Brown, Epistles, pp. 160–1. 1

66

A Journey Round John

bearer,22 and in that regard is to be compared with the ‘we’ of apostolic authority which Paul occasionally adopts.23 In short, the author’s principal intention in this passage is to establish his undisputed access to the original, and therefore genuine and life-giving, Johannine Christian message. As a result of this the message itself is alluded to only in snatches during the course of this self-advertisement and information on it is kept to a minimum for the moment. In fact, the whole tenor of the beginning of 1 John is one of declaration of the author’s authoritative status in relation to his readers, and as such his introduction is perhaps better compared with what Paul has to say about himself at the beginning of Romans rather than treated, as is often the case, as a somewhat lacklustre version of the Prologue to the Gospel.24 Having formally declared his pedigree, the author is now content to put aside the we/you divide between himself and his audience. From 1.5 onwards, with the authoritative proclamation that God is light, this differentiation ceases and where necessary now takes the more personal I/you form.25 In effect the original ‘we’ has now been expanded to include the addressees themselves, and so that knowledge of tradition, 22. Brown identi¿es those who use the ‘we’ as tradition bearers and interpreters who constitute ‘the Johannine school’ (Epistles, pp. 94–7, esp. n. 221). See also the remarks by J.-W. Taeger on the role and function of the Traditionsträger with reference to 1 Jn 1.1-3 in ‘Der konservative Rebell: Zum Widerstand des Diotrephes gegen den Presbyter’, ZNW 78 (1987), pp. 267–87 (284). 23. In 1 Cor. 15.11 the ‘we’ is used as a guarantee that the tradition conveyed by Paul beginning at v. 3 is genuine apostolic teaching. The same claim to apostolic authority applies in the case of the ‘we’ in 1 Cor. 11.16; see also ‘we preach Christ cruci¿ed’ in 1.23. For an examination of Paul’s use of ‘we’ in 2 Corinthians, see M. Carrez, ‘Le “Nous” en 2 Corinthiens’, NTS (1980), pp. 474–86; for doubts on whether the authoritative ‘we’ of the Johannine authors can be equated with an apostolic claim as such, see Brown, Epistles, pp. 94–5, 159. 24. The epistle’s introduction inevitably suffers by comparison with the Gospel Prologue; see, e.g., J. L. Houlden, A Commentary on the Johannine Epistles (London: A. & C. Black, 1973), pp. 45–54; Brown, Epistles, pp. 179–80. However, whether its author intended to invite such a comparison is extremely doubtful. He has not used either ëÅ ÒÉÏĉ or ÈÉġË ÌġÅ ¿¼ŦÅ, both of which occur nowhere else in the Gospel except in the Prologue (compare 1 Jn 3.21 where ÈÉġË ÌġÅ ¿¼ŦÅ is used but in a different context). Meanwhile, in form and/or meaning his ÂŦºÇË, ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË and ÈÉġË ÌġŠȸ̚ɸ are all to be found in the Gospel but not in the Prologue (for ÂŦºÇË see n. 14 above, and compare Jn 5.24; 8.51, 52 and 6.63, 68 [with ģŢĸ̸]; for ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË see respectively Jn 15.27; 5.45). As for the Prologue’s ëÅ ¸ĤÌŊ ½Ñü öÅ (Jn 1.4), compare rather 1 Jn 5.11c, and even then Jn 5.26 is closer. These examples con¿rm that the epistle’s introduction is a thoroughly Johannine piece; what they do not con¿rm is that it was intended to direct the mind unerringly to Jn 1.1-18. 25. See, e.g., 2.7, 8, 12-14, 20-21, 26-27; 5.13. 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

67

properly the responsibility of a particular group within the community, is now regarded as the common property of the whole company as receivers of Johannine ‘truth’.26 From now on the author uses the ‘we’ to represent both himself and his readers; it will imply the shared experience as well as the shared knowledge of writer and readers alike. As the epistle writer embarks on his main task, his intention is to teach his group in a manner which not only affords reassurance in a new and unprecedented situation but which also provides a basis for future growth. In practice his campaign is twofold: on the one hand he reminds his readers of what they (and he) already hold to be true, and on the other hand he draws out the implications of those accepted truths in order to speak to contemporary community needs. Two examples of this method should suf¿ce to illustrate the point. 1 John 3.5-8 is part of a wider consideration of the privileged status of the ÌšÁŸ ¿¼Çı. This was begun at 3.1, where it was triggered by the mention of ëÆ ¸ĤÌÇı º¼ºšÅž̸À in 2.29. In 3.4 the subject of sin has been raised in this connection and sin has been equated with lawlessness. The author is about to assure his readers that those who adhere to the Johannine faith are not susceptible to this kind of sin27 and at the same time to advise them on how to identify those who are. Accordingly, in v. 5 he appeals to something they know about Jesus as basis for the argument which will follow: Á¸Ė Çċ»¸Ì¼ ğÌÀ ëÁ¼ėÅÇË ëθżÉŪ¿¾ ďŸ ÌÛË ÖĸÉÌţ¸Ë ÓÉþ, Á¸Ė ÖĸÉÌţ¸ ëÅ ¸ĤÌŊ ÇĤÁ ìÊÌÀÅ. The ëÁ¼ėÅÇË here certainly refers to Jesus, and the assumption that Jesus takes away sin is of a piece with the author’s previous description of Jesus in 2.2 as the expiation (ϸÊÄĠË) for the sins of the faithful, a statement which he had subsequently expanded at that point to include the sins of the whole world. As the argument develops throughout vv. 6-8 the positive and negative implications of the Jesus tradition in v. 5 are neatly balanced and the whole is rounded off by a further reference to the original statement. In v. 6 we are told that remaining in Jesus guarantees sinlessness while sinful behaviour demonstrates ignorance of Jesus. After the little warning 26. This sense of a common cause need not be affected even when the ‘we’ is used on occasion to declare an adverse position. For the argument that this feature is part of the author’s persuasive style of argumentation, see Lieu, ‘Authority’, pp. 221–2. 27. This is uncompromisingly stated in 3.9, and is logical in the context of a passage which contrasts the child of God with the child of the devil. This does not prevent the author from insisting in 1.8-10 that the faithful must acknowledge that they do sin. But in this case, as with sin committed by a ‘brother’ in 5.16-17, matters can be put right. For 1 John the true child of God is always potentially in receipt of God’s forgiveness, love and protection (1.9; 4.10; 5.18). 1

68

A Journey Round John

which begins v. 7 there follows an expanded and modi¿ed version of the contrast in v. 6, this time placing the emphasis ¿rmly on behaviour. Thus, in v. 7b ‘not sinning’ has become ‘doing righteousness’ and is traced to its origin in Jesus (ëÁ¼ėÅÇË again), while in v. 8a the character of the one who does sin receives a closer de¿nition as originating with the devil, the archetypal sinner. Finally, this allows the ëÁ¼ėÅÇË ëθżÉŪ¿¾ ďŸ ÌÛË ÖĸÉÌţ¸Ë ÓÉþ in v. 5 to be re-worked in v. 8b as ëθżÉŪ¿¾ ĝ ÍĎġË ÌÇı ¿¼Çı, ďŸ ÂŧÊþ ÌÛ ìɺ¸ ÌÇı »À¸¹ŦÂÇÍ. Taken as a whole this is a typical 1 John ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’ argument.28 In this case, however, the argument is based on something the community already believes about Jesus. In 1 Jn 3.16-18 we ¿nd the author in the midst of edifying his readers on how to put into practice the command to love one another. He has reminded them of this command in v. 11 and in vv. 12-15 he has told them how not to do it by citing the example of Cain, after which he has ¿rmly dissociated their own calling from the Cain stereotype. By v. 16 he is ready to provide a positive model. Note again the appeal to something known about Jesus which he now cites as the supreme de¿nition of loving behaviour: ëÅ ÌÇŧÌĿ ëºÅļÁ¸Ä¼Å ÌüÅ ÒºŠÈ¾Å, ĞÌÀ ëÁ¼ėÅÇË ĨÈòÉ ÷ÄľÅ ÌüÅ ÐÍÏüÅ ¸ĤÌÇı 쿾ÁÅ (v. 16a), after which the reader is exhorted to imitate Jesus with regard to his brother in faith (v. 16b, note the stress in the Á¸Ė ÷ļėË ĚμĕÂÇļÅ). In v. 17 he gives an example of how that principle should operate in day-to-day living. He expresses it negatively by way of criticism of those who do not respond in the appropriate manner, but nevertheless the application is clear enough. The principle in v. 16a of expending one’s life (ÌüÅ ÐÍÏüÅ ¸ĤÌÇı 쿾Á¼Å) has now become a matter of expending one’s means of life or livelihood (¹ĕÇË) so that to do this on behalf of those in need is seen as a practical expression of God’s love. At v. 18 the author sums up his argument in a nutshell: the right kind of loving behaviour (i.e. ëÅ Ò¾¿¼ĕß) is not lip service but loving ‘in action’ (ëÅ ìɺĿ). Thus, once again, we see the author citing a known tradition and expounding it in terms of ethical behaviour. We are now in a position to de¿ne the character of the epistle a little more closely. In the writer we have an authoritarian ¿gure, a member of the ‘we’ group who regard themselves as guardians and transmitters of original Johannine tradition. As a member of such a group, the author can legitimately reaf¿rm those truths shared by himself and his readers and accepted by all concerned as the group’s basic principles. As he works to meet the demands of new and disturbing circumstances brought 28. For other examples of this attitude in 1 John see 1.6; 2.4-6, 9-11, 15-17, 29; 3.12, 14; 4.8, 20. 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

69

about by a recent community crisis, he not only reminds his readers of their tradition but also interprets it afresh to allow it to speak directly to their needs. Thus, as in 1 Jn 2.7-8, the ‘old commandment’ – the word they have heard from the beginning – can also be expressed as a ‘new commandment’ inasmuch as it continues to remain true. On this basis we may take it that the epistle writer’s work consists essentially of a superstructure of argument built on a foundation of shared principles, and, moreover, that these principles are what the author understands to be basic constituents of the Johannine Christian tradition.29 I have suggested that the clue to the real nature of the link between John and 1 John, and hence to the bearing which the epistle can have on the matter of isolating tradition in the Gospel, lies in understanding the epistle writer’s methods. For if we think that in thus con¿ning our attention to the epistle we have by now travelled far from the world of the Evangelist, a moment’s consideration will tell us that indeed we have not. The fact is that our chief impression of the Gospel is often inÀuenced by the features which strike us most, in particular perhaps the magni¿cent Prologue and the magisterial ‘I am’ statements on the lips of the Johannine Jesus. Yet we must not allow our enthusiasm for such artistry to obscure the fact that the real points of correspondence with 1 John are also embedded in the Gospel text. These are the presence of the Johannine ‘we’ in conjunction with eye-witness language, and certain statements which correspond with the content of what 1 John had appealed to as original tradition. The Evangelist uses the ‘we’ to speak on behalf of the faithful community in the Prologue. It appears with an eye-witness verb in 1.14b, ‘we have beheld (뿼¸ÊŠÄ¼¿¸) his glory’ (compare Р뿼¸ÊŠÄ¼¿¸ in 1 Jn 1.1), and in v. 16 it is used where the faithful (÷ļėË ÈÚÅ̼Ë) are described as recipients of grace. Note also that in v. 14a the Evangelist says that the Word dwelt ‘among us’ (ëÅ ÷ÄėÅ), a phrase which ¿nds its parallel in 1 Jn 4.9, 16. It is also worth observing in this context that the ‘we’ appears again right at the end of the Gospel where the veracity of the Beloved Disciple’s witness is guaranteed (21.24). Although this verse is not usually attributed to the Evangelist, in the light of his use of the ‘we’ elsewhere it is surely a possibility that he himself has also penned this ¿nal comment.30 29. See further O. A. Piper’s excellent defence of the case for treating 1 John as a piece based on known tradition in ‘1John and the Didache of the Primitive Church’, JBL 66 (1947), pp. 437–51. 30. Among those who identify the ‘we’ in 21.24 as the Evangelist’s trademark as in the Prologue are P. S. Minear (‘The Original Functions of John 21’, JBL 102 [1983], pp. 85–98, esp. 95) and P. F. Ellis (The Genius of John [Collegeville: 1

70

A Journey Round John

We can also extend this comparison with the epistle by including the ‘you’ of direct address to the readers. In 20.31, a passage remarkably similar to Jn 5.13, the Evangelist turns aside from his narrative to tell his readers that he writes ‘that you may believe’ (ďŸ ÈÀÊ̼ŧ¾Ì¼)31 and ‘that believing you may have life’ (ďŸ ÈÀÊ̼ŧÇÅÌ¼Ë ½ÑüÅ ìϾ̼). We may also choose to add here the little aside to the readers ďŸ Á¸Ė ĨļėË ÈÀÊ̼ŧ¾Ì¼ in 19.35, assuming, of course, that that is also original to John.32 For the rest of the time the Evangelist does not speak directly to his readers nor represent them in person, and in that regard his work differs from that of the epistle writer. But the difference is only a matter of genre. A Gospel is, ostensibly at least, a narrative of the life of Jesus in times past, and hence its author will tend throughout to assume the low pro¿le of disinterested narrator. It follows that the gospel medium is a form of communication between writer and readers which is primarily indirect. It is not surprising, therefore, to ¿nd that the instances where the ‘we’ and ‘you’ are used directly in the Gospel occur largely outside the ‘time capsule’ of the narrative itself. However, this does not mean that the indirect form of communication cannot be effective, nor should we take it that the Evangelist has ceased his policy of representing and instructing his community once the narration has begun. We may be certain that the Evangelist’s readers would have identi¿ed readily with the faithful in the Gospel story. With this in mind we must surely take careful note of where the ‘we’ occurs on the lips of the faithful as the narrative proceeds, for this is probably the Johannine ‘we’ thinly disguised and as such is likely to introduce some known and commonly accepted formula. By the same token, those occasions where the Johannine Jesus addresses his ċ»ÀÇÀ as ‘you’ should not be ignored, for these will be the points where the Evangelist offers advice and instruction to his readers. Liturgical, 1984], p. 308). The reappearance of the ‘we’ here ¿ts in well with customary devices for framing a narrative (see Culpepper, Anatomy, p. 46), and the sentence ‘we know that his testimony is true’ looks like a typical Johannine endorsement formula which the Evangelist could well have used. J. Chapman points to the parallels in 19.35 and 3 Jn 12 (‘We Know That His Testimony Is True’, JTS 31 [1930], pp. 379–87, esp. 380–1) but has overlooked Jn 5.32, which is closer to 21.24 than 19.35, and is indisputably attributed to John himself. 31. The present subjunctive of ÈÀÊ̼ŧ¼ÀÅ, which implies the continuation and strengthening of faith, is to be preferred here to the aorist ÈÀÊ̼ŧʾ̼ which would be appropriate to conversion to faith (see Barrett, Gospel, p. 575). 32. G. R. Beasley-Murray recognizes, a ‘growing consensus’ of opinion among scholars that 19.35 is inauthentic because of its verbal links with 21.24 (John, p. 354). This argument relies far too heavily on the unquestioned assumption that 21.24 was not written by the Evangelist (see n. 30 above). 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

71

While the ‘we’ occurs naturally as part of the inevitable Gospel dialogue, there are occasions where it is used with the language of witness in a way evidently intended to resound beyond the con¿nes of the historical setting. For example, in 4.42 we read that the Samaritan villagers have heard (ÒÁ¾ÁŦ¸Ä¼Å) for themselves and now know (Çċ»¸Ä¼Å) that ‘this is truly the Saviour of the world’. There is also the confession of Peter in 6.69 who, as spokesman for the disciples, af¿rms that they have believed and have come to know (÷ļėË È¼ÈÀÊ̼ŧÁ¸Ä¼Å Á¸Ė ëºÅļÁ¸Ä¼Å) that Jesus is the Holy One of God. Furthermore, in view of the presence of eye-witness language, it may be feasible also to include in this category one of the instances where Jesus himself speaks in terms of ‘we’. John 3.11 begins with an address speci¿cally to Nicodemus (ÒÄüÅ ÒÄüÅ ÂñºÑ ÊÇÀ) but in what follows the personal pronouns change abruptly to the plural, and this has the effect of raising what is said to the level of general comment.33 Note how close the ğ îÑÉÚÁ¸Ä¼Å ĸÉÌÍÉÇıļŠhere comes to the Á¸Ė îÑÉÚÁ¸Ä¼Å Á¸Ė ĸÉÌÍÉÇıļŠin 1 Jn 1.2.34 Thus, the ‘we’ here is probably to be regarded as introducing an attitude of the Johannine faithful. The conviction that their witness is not received is certainly not untypical of the author’s own stance in the Prologue and elsewhere.35 While Jesus does address his disciples as ‘you’ earlier in the Gospel,36 this feature is signally in evidence in the last discourse material where Jesus instructs them privately and at length (chs. 13–16). The tone of assurance in these passages is quite marked, and the object seems to be not only to ensure community survival beyond the recent trauma of rejection by Judaism but also to provide a basis for the community’s continuing growth and development into the future.37 Indeed, not only in tone but also in actual content, this relatively narrative-free area of the Gospel approximates most closely to 1 John.38 33. See also v. 12 where the second person plural persists. 34. Compare also ÷ļėË Ì¼¿¼Úļ¿¸ Á¸Ė ĸÉÌÍÉÇıļŠin 1 Jn 4.14. 35. See Jn 1.11 and compare both 1.11 and 1.12 with 3.11 and 3.32-33. See also 12.37-40 where this attitude is underpinned by two texts from Isaiah. Presumably this thinking is also behind the epistle writer’s assumption that the world will listen only to false prophets (1 Jn 4.5). 36. Note, for example, the sudden shift in address from singular to plural at 1.51. 37. For the general tone of comfort and assurance, see, for example, 14.1, 3, 18, 27; 16.33. Note also how the subject of persecution is tackled here in a way designed to encourage fortitude and to ward off dismay at its onset (15.18–16.4). 38. As in 1 John note the use of the affectionate ̼ÁÅĕ¸ (13.33), the emphasis on the love command (13.34; 15.12), the theme of possession of the Spirit (14.16, 17, 26; 15.26; 16.7-15), the expectation of joy ful¿lled (15.11; 16.20, 22, 24) and the

1

72

A Journey Round John

On this evidence we may assume that the ¿rst point of correspondence between Gospel and epistle is con¿rmed. It seems that the Evangelist has also felt free to adopt the language of guarantee with which 1 John had defended his position as guardian and transmitter of original tradition. He has used the Johannine ‘we’ to represent his readers, he has also addressed them as ‘you’ and, as with 1 John, he has taken pains to encourage and instruct them. Moreover, he has pursued this policy not only directly but also indirectly by working through the Gospel medium. Both authors, it would seem, are tradition bearers who can address the community and put its case in the interests of providing a blueprint for the future against a background of recent crisis. We now turn to examine the second point, namely, that the two texts coincide speci¿cally in the terms of the tradition which the epistle writer has appealed to as the basis for his argument. With that in mind we must return to the two examples from the epistle given earlier in order to remind ourselves of the content of the traditional material cited by 1 John and to draw comparisons with relevant texts from the Gospel. In 1 Jn 3.5 the author referred to his readers’ knowledge (Á¸Ė Çċ»¸Ì¼) that Jesus was manifested ‘in order to take away sins’ (ďŸ ÌÛË ÖĸÉÌĕ¸Ë ÓÉþ). I suggested that this bore on a previous statement in 2.2 where Jesus was described as the expiation not only for the sins of the faithful but also for the sins of the whole world (ȼÉĖ ĞÂÇÍ ÌÇı ÁĠÊÄÇÍ). If we take the ďŸ ÌÛË ÖĸÉÌĕ¸Ë ÓÉþ of 3.5 together with the reference to ĝ ÁĠÊÄÇË in 2.2, we come up with something remarkably similar to the declaration of John the Baptist in Jn 1.29 that Jesus, the Lamb of God, ‘takes away the sin of the world’ (ĝ ¸ċÉÑÅ ÌüÅ ÖĸÉÌţ¸Å ÌÇı ÁŦÊÄÇÍ). Thus, we have good reason to assume that this part of Jn 1.29 was not newly minted by the Evangelist when he wrote but that at this point he was repeating the essential elements of a statement of a confessional nature about Jesus which was already part of the Johannine Christian tradition. Moreover, judging by the way it has been reÀected with only minor variation in both writings, it would seem that the verbal form of this statement has been fairly ¿xed. There are other indications in both texts which would support such a conclusion. For example, it is worth noting that, while both authors faithfully retail this information, neither consistently makes full use of the entire content of what he reports. Thus, in the Gospel the atoning quality of Jesus’ death is not denied but at the same time it is not a major theme, while in the epistle the sense of outreach to the world is assurance that prayer will be answered (14.13-14; 15.7, 16; 16.23, 24). For a chart of themes common to 1 John and the ¿nal discourses, see S. S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John (WBC 51; Waco: Word, 1984), p. xxx. 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

73

almost wholly absent and hence the writer’s reference to ĝ ÁĠÊÄÇË in 2.2 is untypically benevolent for him.39 It is also signi¿cant that neither author puts ¸ċɼÀÅ together with ÖĸÉÌţ¸ in any other context – indeed in 1 John ¸ċɼÀÅ never occurs outside 3.5 where this tradition is cited. Finally, it is also relevant to observe that outside these two references ¸ċɼÀÅ and ÖĸÉÌĕ¸ are never found together anywhere else in the New Testament. In 1 Jn 3.16 the model behaviour of Jesus (ĞÌÀ ëÁ¼ėÅÇË ĨÈòÉ ÷ÄľÅ ÌüÅ ÐÍÏüÅ ¸ĤÌÇı 쿾Á¼Å) is cited as the starting point of a brief treatment of the nature of loving in action. The most prominent Gospel reference to this is as a laudable principle placed on Jesus’ lips at 15.13 where, as in 1 John, it not only connects with the love command but serves as a de¿nition of loving in action. Indeed, mutatis mutandis the two texts are very similar: ëÅ ÌÇįÌĿ ëºÅļÁ¸Ä¼Å ÌüÅ ÒºÚȾÅ, ĞÌÀ ëÁ¼ėÅÇË ĨÈòÉ ÷ÄľÅ ÌüÅ ÐÍÏüÅ ¸ĤÌÇı 쿾Á¼Å (1 Jn 3.16) ļĕ½ÇŸ ̸įÌ¾Ë ÒºÚȾŠÇĤ»¼ĖË ìϼÀ, ďŸ ÌÀË ÌüÅ ÐÍÏüÅ ¸ĤÌÇı ¿ĉ ĨÈòÉ ÌľÅ ÎĕÂÑÅ ¸ĤÌÇı (cf. v. 14a, ĨļėË ÎĕÂÇÀ ÄÇį ëÊ̼) (Jn 15.13)

The Gospel makes other references to this principle of laying down life. For example, it is present in ch. 10 where it is applied to Jesus as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep: 10.11 ĝ ÈÇÀÄüÅ ĝ Á¸ÂġË ÌüÅ ÐÍÏüÅ ¸ĤÌÇı Ìĕ¿¾ÊÀÅ ĨÈòÉ ÌľÅ ÈÉǹÚÌÑÅ 17 ëºĽ Ìĕ¿¾ÄÀ ÌüÅ ÐÍÏûÅ ÄÇÍ 18 ëºĽ Ìĕ¿¾ÄÀ ¸ĤÌüÅ…¿¼ėŸÀ ¸ĤÌûÅ

It also appears in 13.37, again in the context of the love command (vv. 34, 35), where it supplies the verbal form of Peter’s foolhardy declaration of loyalty to Jesus, and in v. 38 Jesus echoes these words in querying Peter’s competence to perform the act: 13.37 ÌüÅ ÐÍÏûÅ ÄÇÍ ĨÈòÉ ÊÇı ¿ûÊÑ 38 ÌüÅ ÐÍÏûÅ ÊÇÍ ĨÈòÉ ëÄÇı ¿ûʼÀË;40 39. See especially J. M. Lieu’s remark that 1 John’s references to the world in 2.2 and 4.14 ‘sound like statements which have survived in tradition and they have no effect on the theology of the immediate context or of the Epistle as a whole’ (Second and Third Epistles, p. 183). We have already seen good reason to identify the title ÊÑÌüÉ ÌÇı ÁŦÊÄÇÍ in 4.14 as tradition because of the ‘we’ and the eyewitness language which herald it in Jn 4.42 (see p. 71). 40. Note also the formal similarity between these examples and the dictum of Caiaphas ďŸ ¼đË ÓÅ¿ÉÑÈÇË ÒÈÇ¿ÚÅþ ĨÈòÉ ÌÇı ¸Çı in 11.50. The application of this ‘prophecy’ to the ÌñÁŸ ÌÇı ¿¼Çı in 11.52 certainly implies that it is intended to bear the same meaning. 1

74

A Journey Round John

Here again we are almost certainly in touch with an element of Johannine Christian tradition which has been picked up by both authors and differently applied. Again we have language peculiar to the group (Ìĕ¿¾ÄÀ ÐÍÏûÅ is uniquely Johannine)41 in which they expressed their belief that Jesus had loved them by sacri¿cing his life on their behalf. On this evidence it seems that our second point of correspondence can also be con¿rmed. In the two examples from 1 John where it was possible to detect that the epistle writer was appealing to tradition, the close verbal correspondence with the Gospel has emerged precisely in the content of the tradition cited and not in the surrounding argument. We may also pause to reÀect that, since in these two cases the tradition in question has been expressed in an idiom distinctive to the Johannine writings, then it could not immediately have been discerned by adducing Synoptic or Pauline parallels. We have attempted to achieve a more precise understanding of the relation between John and 1 John by concentrating ¿rst on the epistle writer and his methods, and it seems that this approach has served us well. In 1 John we have seen a tradition bearer at work seeking to reassure his community in the wake of a crisis by citing known tradition and interpreting it to meet their needs. In the Gospel we have seen another tradition bearer at work similarly bent on reassurance, and on his own showing already known to us as a receiver and highly creative interpreter of tradition. Further comparisons have shown that material which the author of 1 John had appealed to as the basis of his argument may be recognized in the Evangelist’s text also. In other words, what the epistle writer identi¿es as original tradition the Gospel also contains. In view of these and our earlier ¿ndings it seems feasible to describe John and 1 John in the following terms. We are dealing with two documents which belong to different literary types and which have been addressed to the Johannine church at different stages in its fortunes. Thus, in terms of genre and orientation to particular circumstances, they are not alike. Nevertheless, they can be compared in certain fundamental respects as follows: in both cases the author responsible has had access to community tradition, and in both cases the procedure of citing tradition and interpreting it to meet present needs has been adopted. These common features have given rise to a third point of comparison and, in this case, a phenomenon which has, in effect, forged the link between John and 1 John as they are now known to us in their ¿nal form. This is the fact that there have been occasions when Gospel and epistle have coincided in reÀecting tradition with the same content. 1

41. So Ruckstuhl, Einheit (reprint), p. 298.

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

75

Thus, a picture emerges of John and 1 John as independent productions, which relate to one another by virtue of their mutual reliance on a body of tradition which was known to both authors and to their readers before either document was written. Moreover, it is a picture which makes sense of the results of my earlier attempts to compare them directly. It plausibly explains the pattern of striking but intermittent contact between them that we observed at that point, for it allows us to understand how material traceable directly from one text to another can be found in contexts where no such correspondence exists. It hardly needs to be stressed that this perspective on John and 1 John does not accord with the majority view that the epistle is directly related to the Gospel and was intended as some kind of explanatory adjunct to it.42 But there again we have seen no evidence to suggest that this was so. Neither 1 John’s declaration of his status as tradition bearer nor the terms in which he has couched his message have conveyed any impression that he has needed to defer to the work of a predecessor to make his case. More speci¿cally, it seems that the verbal parallels which exist between Gospel and epistle cannot be claimed as evidence that the epistolary author was referring directly to the Gospel itself. On the contrary, these are best described as instances of tradition overlap: they are points where the author of 1 John has repeated certain elements in the tradition ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË which the Evangelist, writing in another context, had also known and reproduced. In sum, our ¿ndings indicate that what links the epistle materially to the Gospel is the Johannine Christian tradition, or at least certain important aspects of it. Having thus speci¿ed the nature of what is common to John and 1 John I have at the same time supplied the evidence in favour of my initial proposal that the epistle could be made to function as a control to isolate tradition in the text of the Gospel. On this basis we may assume that where the epistle writer reminds his readers of what they ‘know’, or speaks of what they have ‘heard from the beginning’, or simply takes for granted a particular attitude, and where the equivalent (or near equivalent) occurs in the Gospel, then at such points the Evangelist has included known community tradition as part of his text. We will then be 42. There are, however, dissenting voices. See, e.g., G. Strecker, ‘Die Anfänge der johanneischen Schule’, NTS 32 (1986), pp. 31–47, esp. 40–1, and J. M. Lieu, The Theology of the Johannine Epistles (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), esp. p. 101. Both scholars have also found reason to regard the epistle as an independent piece which reÀects community tradition. Even Raymond Brown, undoubtedly the most inÀuential exponent of the direct dependence theory, does not exclude this position as a possible alternative to his own thesis (see Epistles, p. 86 n. 190). 1

76

A Journey Round John

in a position to judge how the Evangelist himself has chosen to build on this material in the process of composing the Gospel. To this extent, then, 1 John is surely quali¿ed to take its place alongside other means of identifying the tradition known to the Fourth Evangelist, and therefore it remains only to add some brief remarks on the potential value of the epistle’s contribution in this regard by way of conclusion. As with our other resources, the epistle offers only a limited insight into what the Evangelist knew. It cannot help us in terms of narrative, nor will it teach us anything radically new about the essentials of Johannine faith compared with what we could reasonably have guessed from passages elsewhere in the New Testament which express the same Christian sentiments.43 Nevertheless, in one important respect the epistle’s contribution is of outstanding value, because at the level of diction 1 John as a control is unsurpassed. In other words, given that the epistle is another Johannine piece, then in this instance we have a control in which the tradition is articulated using the distinctive style and vocabulary with which the Evangelist himself was familiar. This means that in those areas where 1 John does come into play we can be clearer than otherwise would be possible about the precise wording of the tradition the Evangelist knew, and hence can more easily discern its presence in his text. With this in mind, it is worth remembering that 1 Jn 4.9-10 offers the closest available parallel to Jn 3.16-17 in which the ‘Johannine kerygma’ is thought to be represented.44 As I hinted in my opening paragraph, this seems to have helped to provide the conceptual framework for John’s distinctive presentation of Jesus. Among other examples we may note that the Johannine version of the ‘ask and it will be given’ logion is common to both,45 as is also a jaundiced outlook on 43. For example, Jn 1.29/1 Jn 2.2; 3.5 can be compared with 2 Cor. 5.19 and 1 Tim. 1.15, both of which are also assumed to reÀect traditional formulae; for Jn 15.13 etc./1 Jn 3.16 compare esp. Gal. 2.20; Eph. 5.2 and the Son of man logion in Mk 10.45 (cf. I Tim. 2.5-6). This agreement over fundamentals is hardly surprising; it simply con¿rms that the Johannine group was a branch of the early Christian tree and not an alien life form. 44. As is often remarked, the bene¿ts of the mission of the Son in the 1 John passage are con¿ned to the believing community and do not extend to the world. However, this particularization looks like a deliberate modi¿cation. 1 Jn 4.14 shows that the author is fully aware of the universal scope of the divine intention (compare Jn 3.17; 4.42). Note, signi¿cantly, that this is precisely the point where the language of original eye-witness makes its appearance in his argument. 45. For the full range of references to this well-attested logion together with a proposal that it is an item of early tradition which was probably original to Jesus, see D. Goldsmith, “ ‘Ask, and it will be Given…”, Toward Writing the History of a Logion’, NTS 35 (1989), pp. 254–65. 1

4. Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË

77

the world as the sphere of inevitable opposition and hatred towards the faithful.46 In short, this is the stuff of which the Fourth Gospel was made, and which was no less inÀuential in the Evangelist’s thinking than other aspects of the early Christian tradition on which he drew.47

46. The world’s hatred is introduced in Jn 15.18-19 and 1 Jn 3.13 as an accepted fact of life whose abiding relevance is merely con¿rmed by present dif¿culties (see also Jn 7.7; 17.14). Barnabas Lindars describes this attitude as a Johannine ‘maxim’ which in this case has its roots in traditional Jesus logia; see Lindars, ‘The Persecution of Christians in Jn 15.18–16.4a’, in Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament (ed. W. Horbury and B. McNeil; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 48–69 (58). 47. I am hoping to publish further on how these traditions shared with 1 John have contributed to the making of the Gospel. 1

Chapter 5

JESUS’ PRAYER IN JOHN 11*

Anthony Hanson and Max Wilcox, co-founders of the Seminar on the use of the Old Testament in the New, identi¿ed the opening words of Jesus’ prayer in Jn 11.41 as an allusion to Ps. 118.21 (LXX 117.21), and did so working independently of one another. Hanson was ¿rst to get into print in an article in 1973. Wilcox published four years later, by which time the coincidence had been discovered.1 The aim of this study is to offer support for this joint identi¿cation by approaching Jn 11.41-42 from the broader perspective of the composition of the Lazarus story as a whole. I have argued elsewhere that the Fourth Gospel and l John are linked indirectly by virtue of their mutual reliance at points on the same traditional material.2 On that basis, I have proposed that the epistle can take its place alongside the Synoptic gospels and the Pauline literature as a control to isolate tradition in the Gospel text. I have also claimed that, with the added advantage of l John’s contribution to the identi¿cation of * The substance of this argument was given as part of a paper at a meeting of the Old Testament in the New Testament Seminar in 1994. For Lionel, ever Browning’s ‘not-incurious, picker-up of learning’s crumbs’, in appreciation of the joy of scholarship shared. Originally published in S. Moyise, ed., The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North (JSNTSup 189; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic Press, 2000), pp. 164–80. 1. See A. T. Hanson, ‘The Old Testament Background to the Raising of Lazarus’, in Studia Evangelica (ed. E. A. Livingstone; 6 vols.; Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 112; Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1973), vol. 6, pp. 252–5 (254); M. Wilcox, ‘The “Prayer” of Jesus in John XI.41 b-42’, NTS 24 (1977), pp. 128–32 (130 n. 5); see further A. T. Hanson, The New Testament Interpretation of Scripture (London: SPCK, 1980), p. 210 n. 21. 2. W. E. Sproston, ‘Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË: I John’s Contribution to our Knowledge of Tradition in the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 48 (1992), pp. 43–65, reprinted in The Johannine Writings (ed. S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans; The Biblical Seminar 32; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 1995), pp. 138–60. See Chapter 4 of the present volume.

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

79

tradition in the Gospel, we are now in a position to render a plausible account of the processes of creative interpretation of tradition which gave John’s text its ¿nal form. It is this approach that I intend to adopt in analysing John’s story of the raising of Lazarus and, in particular, the prayer John has Jesus offer immediately before the miracle. Before we embark on that, however, a brief description of my position on the Lazarus story in general will help speed the argument. First, I am in agreement with the view that the Lazarus story was not originally part of the Gospel but was added to it by John at a later stage, probably in the process of a second edition.3 This is an important point because it affects our understanding of how John has worked: it means that the story was almost certainly interpolated into already existing material and that therefore, in composing it, John also designed it to ¿t its new surroundings. While this policy of assimilation can be detected in relation to most other parts of the Gospel, nowhere is it more in evidence than with the material in ch. 12. Quite clearly, John has intended the two chapters to be taken as a unit. This is immediately obvious in 11.2, John’s typically heavy-handed reference directing us forward to the anointing in 12.3,4 and there are numerous other points of continuity – one study lists more than 505 – all of which suggest that the content of ch. 12 had no small part to play in the making of the Lazarus story. My second point concerns the Sitz im Leben of John’s narrative. The message to the reader here is overwhelmingly one of assurance, particularly in relation to the promise of resurrection to eternal life. This, together with the call to follow Jesus in times of personal danger (cf. 11.7-10, 16), convinces me that ch. 11 belongs to the same period as 16.2, the text in which John’s fears that the lives of his Àock may be forfeit on account of 3. See, e.g., Lindars, Fourth Gospel, p. 60; idem, Gospel, pp. 50, 381–2; Ashton, Understanding (1st ed.), pp. 201–3. 4. John’s prompt in 11.2 reads oddly because, as the Gospel now stands, the actual event does not take place until the following chapter. Nevertheless, this is best regarded as a casualty of John’s interpolation of the Lazarus story into an existing text rather than put down to the bungling intrusion of a later editor. Among commentators who accept 11.2 as authentic are Barrett (Gospel, p. 390); Beasley-Murray (John, p. 187), and K. Grayston (The Gospel of John [Epworth Commentaries; London: Epworth, 1990], p. 90). See also D. A. Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel: The Interplay of Form and Meaning (JSNTSup 95; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1994), who dubs the idea of a later editor ‘unnecessary’ (p. 193 n. 3). The verse is retained as genuine by G. Van Belle in his detailed study, Les parenthèses, p. 84. 5. P. Mourlon Beernaert, ‘Parallelisme entre Jean 11 et 12: Etude de structure littéraire et théologique’, in Genèse et structure d’un texte du Nouveau Testament: Etude interdisciplinaire du chapître 11 de l’évangile de Jean (ed. A.-L. Descamps et al.; Lectio Divina 104; Paris: Cerf; Louvain-La-Neuve: Cabay, 1981), pp. 123–49. 1

80

A Journey Round John

their faith are most clearly voiced, and which is also generally held to belong to a later stage in the Gospel’s composition. The ¿nal and, for my purposes, the most important point is the general character of the composition itself. For the most part, John’s story has every appearance of a superb piece of redaction based on detectable source-material which is largely outside the chapter itself. To put this another way, while I have no doubt that John’s account is grounded in a miracle story about Jesus raising someone from the dead, the sheer weight of theologizing John has obliged this miracle to bear has ensured that what lies before us is almost entirely extrapolated from other tradition-based material. It is precisely this extensive process of ‘signi¿cation’ which renders the ¿nal product vulnerable to the kind of analysis I intend to pursue with the help of 1 John. I. John 11.41-42: A Crux Interpretum As Hanson and Wilcox were well aware when they wrote, Jn 11.41-42 is notoriously dif¿cult to interpret. My ¿rst task, then, must be to examine the text of the prayer and attempt to establish its implications for John’s presentation of Jesus at that particular point in his narrative. Although John’s reference in 11.41 to Jesus lifting his eyes is a clear signal that what follows is intended to be understood in the context of prayer,6 the declaration, ÈÚ̼É, ¼ĤϸÉÀÊÌľ ÊÇÀ ĞÌÀ ôÁÇÍÊÚË ÄÇÍ. ëºĽ »ò Ā»¼ÀÅ ĞÌÀ ÈÚÅÌÇÌñ ÄÇÍ ÒÁÇį¼ÀË (RSV: ‘Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. I knew that thou hearest me always’), is not a petition at all; rather, it is a con¿dent acknowledgment that on this occasion, as always, Jesus has the ear of God. Needless to say, this representation of Jesus at prayer has evoked a series of responses from commentators. Broadly speaking, the range of opinion falls into three categories. First, there is the suggestion that the prayer is a complete arti¿ce, a hollow gesture whose sole purpose is to impress the bystanders (cf. 11.42b). Loisy’s phrase ‘prière pour la galerie’ (‘prayer to the gallery’) is to the point here, as is also Holtzmann’s report of the prayer dubbed by some as a Scheingebet (‘sham prayer’) or Schaugebet (‘show prayer’).7 6. So, e.g., Barrett, Gospel, p. 402; Brown, Gospel, pp. 427, 436; Bernard, Gospel, p. 397. 7. See A. Loisy, Le quatrième évangile (Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1903), p. 651; H. J. Holtzmann, Evangelium, Briefe und Offenbarung des Johannes (HKNT 4; Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1908), p. 139. R. Bultmann quotes Wrede and Heitmüller to this effect (Gospel, p. 409 n. 1). See also the references in Lagrange, Evangile, pp. 307–8, and Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, pp. 474–5. 1

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

81

Among modern commentators, Lindars inclines most to this view. Strictly speaking, he argues, the prayer is unnecessary but is included speci¿cally for the crowd.8 By and large, however, the suggestion of a pretence prayer is dismissed today on the grounds that this is no bid for self-aggrandizement on Jesus’ part, but a demonstration of the Son’s dependence on the Father which ensures that the miracle is for the glory of God (cf. 11.4, 40).9 A second response is to assume that Jesus’ thanks for having been heard presupposes not only that a petition has been made but also that the moment of request can be pin-pointed by sifting through the story so far. Accordingly, while suggestions vary, Jesus’ inner turmoil and distress at v. 33 proves the most popular option.10 The problem here is, of course, that John has not speci¿ed an actual moment of petition, which means that any proposal of this kind is forced to rely on conjecture. As for the suggestion that the petition was offered at v. 33, this is highly improbable given that the story itself makes clear that Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus as early as v. 11.11 The third approach, which is widely held, interprets the prayer as a demonstration of the Son’s perfect unity with the Father, which is such that Jesus’ petitions are always granted without their needing utterance. This was Bultmann’s position12 and, in fact, such is Bultmann’s towering inÀuence even yet that this theme of the Son’s constant prayerful attitude continues to echo in the work of most commentators on this passage up to the present time.13 There is much to be said for this third argument. On the one hand, it ¿ts in well with evidence elsewhere in the Gospel for 8. Lindars, Gospel, pp. 401–2. 9. See, for example, Barrett, Gospel, pp. 402–3; Brown, Gospel, pp. 436–7; D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Leicester: InterVarsity; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 418; Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 2, p. 339. 10. Bernard, for example, assumes that the aorist ôÁÇÍÊ¸Ë in v. 41 indicates some de¿nite act of prayer, perhaps before v. 4 (Gospel, p. 397). For the suggestion that the prayer was offered during the agony at v. 33, see Lagrange, Evangile, p. 308; Barrett, Gospel, p. 402; Sanders, Gospel, p. 275; also Davey, Jesus of St John, p. 126. 11. As Carson correctly remarks, v. 11 ‘assumes that the raising of Lazarus had been determined for some time’ (Gospel, p. 418). 12. Bultmann, Gospel, p. 408. 13. See Barrett, Gospel, p. 402; Brown, Gospel, p. 436; Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 2, p. 339; Beasley-Murray, John, p. 194; Lindars, Gospel, p. 401; Dodd, Interpretation, p. 256; H. Van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus (NovTSup 8; Leiden: Brill, 1965), p. 585; and especially R. H. Fuller, Interpreting the Miracles (London: SCM, 1963), pp. 107–8. Fuller is quoted approvingly by Beasley-Murray. See also R. A. Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John (Interpreting Biblical Texts; Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), p. 17. 1

82

A Journey Round John

Jesus’ utter dependence on and unity with the Father and, on the other, it makes it possible to maintain the view that Jesus really prays while also accounting for the fact that no petition is recorded earlier in the narrative. Yet even this interpretation is not without its problems. For example, it is dif¿cult to see why John would have chosen to present his readers with an insight into the Son’s unique union with the Father when it must, by de¿nition, exclude themselves. To put this another way, how far can we be certain that purely christological concerns were as much a priority to the Fourth Evangelist as they evidently are to those who interpret him for today? A second problem is that this interpretation is inconsistent with John’s presentation of Jesus at prayer elsewhere in the Gospel. Thus, if the meaning here is that uttered prayer on Jesus’ part is always unnecessary, it is noticeable that no such consideration has weighed in the case of the actual prayers John records at 12.27-28 and in ch. 17. Indeed, in the latter instance, John has no hesitation in presenting Jesus uttering petition to the Father, and doing so at considerable length. As this brief survey shows, it is no easy matter to arrive at an interpretation of John’s meaning in these verses that is satisfactory on all counts. However, if one conclusion is to be drawn from the discussion so far, it is surely that a strictly christological approach, whether devoted to defending the genuineness of the prayer or to extolling the unique qualities of the Son’s union with the Father, is unlikely to provide the key. In fact, with Christology so high on the agreed agenda in this case, it is perhaps not surprising that what has been missed by most is the simple observation that this prayer develops logically out of Martha’s con¿dence, earlier in v. 22, that Jesus can have from God whatever he asks. I suggest, therefore, that if we seek to unlock John’s meaning in vv. 41-42, we need to begin with the faith of Martha from a previous scene in his narrative. With that in mind, my next task will be to investigate the context and content of v. 22. II. Martha’s ‘Confession’ By the time Jesus ¿nally arrives at the outskirts of Bethany in v. 17, Lazarus has been dead and in the tomb four days. Martha goes out to meet Jesus and, as Mary will do later, she draws attention to the fact of Jesus’ absence during her brother’s fatal illness (v. 21, cf. v. 32). Unlike her sister, however, Martha has more to say. In v. 22, she adds, Á¸Ė ÅıÅ Ç軸 ĞÌÀ Ğʸ ÔÅ ¸ĊÌûÊþ ÌġÅ ¿¼ġÅ »ļʼÀ ÊÇÀ ĝ ¿¼ĠË (‘And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you’). In order to capture the full Àavour of what is being implied here, we need to be aware of 1

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

83

exactly what kind of statement this is. In the ¿rst place, we must surely resist any suggestion that this is some wistful, half-baked hint on Martha’s part.14 There is nothing tentative about Martha’s Ç軸 (‘I know’) here; it carries all the certainty of an agreed truth. Indeed, its presence tells us that Martha is as certain about this as she is, two verses later, about the fact that her brother will rise again at the last day, a conviction which draws on common assumption.15 As Bultmann rightly observes, v. 22 ‘is formulated not as a request but as a confession’.16 Even so, however, it is dif¿cult to see how the actual substance of the statement can be classed as ‘confessional’ in the usual Johannine sense. Thus, while Martha’s con¿dence in the power of Jesus’ prayer is no doubt proper to faith, it is scarcely of the same order as, for example, the lofty Christology of the triple title she bestows on Jesus at v. 27. In other words, if, according to John, Martha ‘knows’ that God always grants Jesus’ requests, what is the basis for that certainty in this case? In order to discover something of the background to the statement, we will need to consult 1 John on the issue of prayer. While Martha’s faith in Jesus as a man mighty in prayer is not reproduced in the Christology of the epistle writer, nevertheless, on the subject of prayer itself, we ¿nd 1 John lyrical indeed. Twice he refers to it in glowing terms and, on the second occasion, he signals clearly that this is a matter involving the shared knowledge of tradition. I will make this second reference my starting-point. As the epistle draws to its close, l John’s theme of assurance concentrates on the language of having and knowing.17 By 5.12, he has already stated that the faithful, those who have God’s witness (v. 10), are those who have life. This last thought is uppermost in his mind as he embarks on the ¿nal section. In 5.13, l John announces to his readers that his aim in writing is so that those who believe in the name of God’s Son may know that they have eternal life. This verse is often compared with the very similar 14. Pace Sanders, Gospel, p. 268; Lindars, Gospel, p. 394; Barrett, Gospel, p. 395; Bultmann, Gospel, p. 401; Brown, Gospel, p. 433; E. Haenchen, A Commentary on the Gospel of John (trans. R. W. Funk; 2 vols.; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), vol. 2, p. 61. 15. Although a well-known constituent of Pharisaism, belief in resurrection was widely held in Judaism at the time; see Barrett, Gospel, p. 395; Beasley-Murray, John, p. 190; Brown, Gospel, p. 434; Lindars, Gospel, p. 394; also Grayston, Gospel, p. 91. 16. Bultmann, Gospel, p. 401. 17. There are eight instances of ìϼÀÅ in 5.10-15 alone, and six of Ç軸 in vv. 13-20. 1

84

A Journey Round John

valedictory formula at Jn 20.31. Nevertheless, the Evangelist has nothing to match 1 John’s ďŸ ¼Ċ»ý̼ (‘that you may know’) here and the con¿dence that it implies.18 In fact, con¿dence or boldness (ȸÉɾÊţ¸) is 1 John’s next topic (5.14). This they all have before God (note the return of the ‘we’ of joint witness with ìÏÇļÅ) and it is such that if they petition God according to his will he hears them. In v. 15, this privilege is af¿rmed in the strongest possible terms (Çċ»¸Ä¼Å, twice): certainty of a favourable hearing19 carries the equal certainty that they have their requests granted. Having set out the principle, 1 John now turns to apply it in the case of intercessory prayer for an erring brother (vv. 16-17). Precisely what he means here by sin which is and is not ÈÉġË ¿ŠÅ¸ÌÇÅ (‘unto death’) is a dif¿culty not easy to resolve.20 Nevertheless, this does not obscure the point of the application, which is that prayer by one of the faithful in such an instance is guaranteed success. Thus, one who sees his brother sinning shall ask, and God will give him life (¸ĊÌŢʼÀ Á¸Ė »ļʼÀ ¸ĤÌŊ ½ÑŢÅ).21 With this ¿nal assurance on prayer, 1 John’s language of asking and being given by God takes us back to Martha’s address to Jesus in the very different setting of Jn 11.22: Ğʸ ÔÅ ¸ĊÌûÊþ ÌġÅ ¿¼ġÅ »ļʼÀ ÊÇÀ ĝ ¿¼ĠË (‘whatever you ask from God, God will give you’). So far, then, when it comes to what 1 John and his readers ‘know’ about prayer, and where his diction coincides with that of Martha in the Gospel, the focus is not on Jesus but on the privileged status of those who believe in him. In fact, this position is unaltered from the epistle writer’s previous reference to prayer where much the same terminology is used. I will now complete the evidence from the epistle with a brief examination of the earlier passage. Following an argument on conscience of some considerable obscurity (3.19-20),22 1 John turns to the subject of boldness (ȸÉɾÊţ¸) before God (v. 21, cf. 5.14). As in the later passage, this leads immediately to an 18. See especially R. E. Brown’s comments in Epistles, p. 634. 19. ëŠÅ with Çċ»¸Ä¼Å here does not imply a condition but draws a consequence (= ‘since’), so R. Schnackenburg, The Johannine Epistles (trans. R. and I. Fuller; New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 248; Brown, Epistles, p. 610. On the use of ÒÁÇŧ¼ÀÅ with the meaning ‘to hear favourably’, see I. H. Marshall, The Epistles of John (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 244; Smalley, 1, 2, 3, John, p. 295. 20. See the lengthy discussion in Brown, Epistles, pp. 612–19. 21. Despite the awkward shift, the implied subject of »ŪʼÀ here is almost certainly God and not the petitioner; see Schnackenburg, Epistles, p. 249; Marshall, Epistles, p. 246 n. 17; Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, p. 300; Grayston, Epistles, p. 142; see further, the discussion in Brown, Epistles, pp. 611–12. 22. See especially Brown’s remarks in Epistles, p. 453. 1

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

85

assurance of successful prayer (v. 22). The wording is slightly different here but the point is the same. Thus, whereas in 5.14 true prayer was according to God’s will, here it holds for those who keep God’s commandments and do what pleases him.23 Similarly, the assurance itself is slightly altered: whereas in 5.14-16 reference was made to asking and being heard or to asking and being given, here the form used is asking and receiving. In 3.23, however, the verbal parallelism resumes with the reference to belief in the name of God’s son (cf. 5.13). Thus, our initial impression is con¿rmed: when 1 John speaks of prayer whose answer is certain, he consistently refers it to the con¿dence of the faithful before God and not, as in Martha’s statement, to that of Jesus himself. Strictly speaking, then, as far as he is concerned, the tradition on prayer is about Christianity rather than Christology. If we take this perspective seriously, it suggests that if John and 1 John are linked through tradition in this case, the direct equivalent in the Gospel is not 11.22 but some other text related to it which is orientated towards discipleship. In fact, it takes the combined witness of both passages in the epistle to identify conclusively this key text as a Jesuslogion on prayer in the Gospel’s ¿nal discourse material. The logion appears in its entirety on Jesus’ lips in 16.23b-24: ÒÄüÅ ÒÄüÅ ÂñºÑ ĨÄėÅ, ÓÅ ÌÀ ¸ĊÌûʾ̼ ÌġŠȸÌñɸ ëÅ ÌŊ ĚÅĠĸÌĕ ÄÇÍ »ļʼÀ ĨÄėÅ. ïÑË ÓÉÌÀ ÇĤÁ ÿÌûʸ̼ ÇĤ»òÅ ëÅ ÌŊ ĚÅĠĸÌĕ ÄÇÍж ¸Ċ̼ė̼ Á¸Ė ÂûÄмʿ¼, ďŸ ÷ ϸÉÛ ĨÄľÅ Ă È¼È¾ÉÑÄñž. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Note the double ÒÄŢÅ opening, which can serve as a tradition signal,24 and the combination of ¸Ċ̼ėÅ not only with »À»ŦŸÀ as in 1 Jn 5.16/Jn 11.22 but also with ¸ĹŠÅ¼ÀÅ as in l Jn 3.22. Note also the reference to 23. On the equivalence of these expressions in Johannine thought, see especially W. Loader, The Johannine Epistles (Epworth Commentaries; London: Epworth, 1992), pp. 46, 74, and Marshall, Epistles, p. 200. 24. Barnabas Lindars’s suggestion that John’s characteristic double ÒÄŢÅ can signal a traditional Jesus-saying (see Fourth Gospel, p. 44; idem, Gospel, p. 48) is dismissed as ‘unnecessary’ by Margaret Davies, who prefers to de¿ne the formula as ‘a stylistic device which draws attention to crucial assertions’; see M. Davies, Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup 69; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1992), p. 269. However, Lindars himself did not resist the view that John was capable of using this feature purely for effect (cf. Behind the Fourth Gospel, p. 46). Moreover, since what John deems to be ‘crucial’ could well involve traditional material in any case, there is no reason to suppose that either position excludes the other. 1

86

A Journey Round John

Jesus’ name which is an accompanying feature in both 1 John passages.25 All told, including Jn 11.22, this logion is variously reproduced no fewer than seven times in the Gospel and epistle (Jn 11.22; 14.13-14; 15.7, 16; 16.23-26; 1 Jn 3.21-23; 5.14-16). It is not dif¿cult to identify New Testament equivalents to this tradition linking John and 1 John. This is clearly a version of the well-known ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion. Perhaps its most famous occurrence is in the Sermon on the Mount as ‘Ask, and it will be given you…for everyone who asks receives’, where it is part of a triple saying (Mt. 7.78//Lk. 11.9-10). However, in one context or another, this logion actually surfaces in all three Synoptics as well as in the epistle of James, and does so in much the same variety of form as in the Johannine texts (Mt. 7.7-8; 18.19-20; 21.22; Mk 11.24; Lk. 11.9-10; Jas 1.5-6; 4.2-3).26 A glance at its use in the New Testament as a whole quickly reveals that there are two features that are typical of its presentation. First, the giver in the saying is always assumed to be God27 so that the logion is consistently placed in a prayer context. Indeed, explicit reference to prayer is included 25. In fact, 1 John never uses the expression ‘in the name of Jesus/God’s Son’ except in connection with this logion (3.23; 5.13). This reinforces the impression that the two are organically linked in the Johannine tradition (cf. also Jn 14.13-14; 15.16; 16.26). 26. See further the studies of similarities in pattern and substance between the Johannine and Synoptic references by Dodd in Historical Tradition, pp. 349–52, and Brown (Gospel, pp. 634–5). The striking resemblances between Jn 16.23-24 and Mt. 7.7-8//Lk. 11.9-10 prompt W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison to suggest that the Johannine version may be an adaptation of the tradition from Q (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew [3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988–97], vol. 1, p. 685). See also Schnackenburg’s remark that these parallels are ‘another indication of the fact that the Johannine school preserved and gave further consideration to many early traditional statements of Jesus’ (Gospel, vol. 3, p. 160). On the link between the Epistle of James and the Q traditions, see P. J. Hartin, James and the Q Sayings of Jesus (JSNTSup 47; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1991), especially pp. 173–9 on asking and prayer. 27. The similitude which accompanies the Q references (Mt. 7.9-11; Lk. 11.1113) con¿rms that the giver is meant to be God, which means that the verb »Ç¿Ţʼ̸À in the logion is a ‘divine’ or ‘theological’ passive (see Davies and Allison, Matthew, p. 679; Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 3, p. 72; Loader, Epistles, p. 45; Grayston, Epistles, p. 116). The reference to Jesus himself as the respondent in Jn 14.13-14 is not really an exception to this rule: as the context makes clear, prayer in this case is to the glori¿ed Jesus in union with the Father (see, for example, Lindars, Gospel, p. 476; Barrett, Gospel, p. 461; Sanders, Gospel, p. 325). This evidence in general lends support to the argument that the intended subject of »ŪʼÀ in 1 Jn 5.16 is God (see above, n. 21). 1

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

87

in two of the Synoptic examples (Mt. 21.22; Mk 11.24); compare also the reference to having ȸÉɾÊţ¸Å ÈÉġË ÌġÅ ¿¼ŦÅ (‘con¿dence before God’) in the l John passages (3.21; cf. 5.14). Second, the logion usually appears hedged about with conditions and quali¿ers.28 This is hardly surprising: after all, it would not do for everyone to think that it was suddenly open season on requests! Accordingly, the instructions in the Synoptics and James are that the request itself be a matter of Christian agreement and that the asking be done in faith (Mt. 18.19; 21.22; Mk 11.24; Jas 1.6). Similarly, the Johannine texts refer to keeping God’s commandments, pleasing him, asking according to his will, and abiding in Jesus (1 Jn 3.22-23; 5.14; cf. Jn 14.15; 15.10, 12, 17; cf. 1 Jn 3.24).29 There is no quali¿er, however, in the case of Jn 11.22. Nor is the reason hard to ¿nd, for in this verse John has made the characteristically original move of applying the logion, not to those who believe in Jesus, but to Jesus himself – who, of course, invariably does God’s will, keeps his commandments, and pleases him always (Jn 4.34; 15.10; 8.29). Thus, in an interesting case of role reversal, what is proper to Christianity has, in the hands of the Fourth Evangelist, become Christology.30 On this showing, then, the basis for Martha’s certainty in 11.22 consists in the fact that her words to Jesus are a version of the ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion from tradition, although this identi¿cation is almost never made in the commentaries and elsewhere.31 In context, this application serves to focus attention on Jesus’ God-given powers and so provides a point of entry into the teaching on Jesus as life-giver and 28. This is recognized by most commentators, but see especially the discussion by Grayston (Epistles, p. 116). 29. For further references outside the New Testament corpus, see Goldsmith, ‘ “Ask, and it will be given’ ”, 254 nn. 2–4); Brown, Epistles, p. 461; Davies and Allison, Matthew, p. 680. 30. Pace C. H. Dodd, The Johannine Epistles (MNTC; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1946), p. 93; Brown, Epistles, p. 480; Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, pp. 206, 296; and D. Rensberger, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries; Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), p. 105, the attribution was not to Jesus ¿rst in this case. 31. Among commentators, Lindars comes closest in remarking that Martha’s words are ‘reminiscent” of Mt. 7.7 and in also citing the later references to the logion in John (Gospel, p. 394). Although listed by Goldsmith (‘“Ask, and it will be given…” ’, p. 254 n. 1), this reference is missing from the special studies of the logion by Dodd and Brown (see above, n. 26). More seriously, perhaps, it is also missing from J. D. Crossan’s Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition (Foundations and Facets; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), cf. p. 42, despite the author’s claim to cite all instances in the corpus speci¿ed (p. xiii). 1

88

A Journey Round John

agent of resurrection (vv. 25-26). This in turn prompts yet another expression of Martha’s faith, which draws the interview to a close. I will conclude my comment on this scene with a brief examination of her confession in v. 27. Asked if she believes what Jesus has told her, Martha gives her assent in full measure. In fact, so extensive is her response in v. 27 that it is the only occasion in the entire Gospel where John puts the three titles she uses all together. The ¿rst two are fairly standard Johannine fare and are linked again by John in his own statement of purpose in 20.31.32 The third, however, which is really more of a messianic description than a title,33 has probably been added with an eye to neighbouring material. The expression, ĝ ëÉÏŦļÅË (‘he who comes’), used here and in 6.14 with reference to Jesus’ mission in the world, is derived from Ps. 118.26. According to the Gospel tradition, this Scripture was applied to Jesus by others, most notably by the crowd on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mk 11.9 and parallels).34 John is well aware of that tradition. Indeed, at this stage he has already reproduced it in his own account of Jesus’ entry into the city, which is now in the following chapter (12.12-19). Given his general intention to present the material in chs. 11 and 12 as a unit, it is more than likely that the psalm reference to Jesus as ĝ ëÉÏŦļÅË in 12.13 has prompted his addition of the third element in Martha’s confession in 11.27. I have now completed my investigation of Martha’s statement in 11.22 and taken account of its immediate context. However, as I have already hinted, Martha’s con¿dence in Jesus here has a bearing on later events in John’s story. The logion expresses the certainty that requests made to God in prayer will be granted. I suggest that John’s christological application of it in v. 22 has virtually dictated the terms in which he eventually describes Jesus at prayer before raising Lazarus. With that in mind, I will now return to the prayer and its context and attempt to follow John’s tactics at that point.

32. For Jesus as ĝ ÏÉÀÊÌŦË, cf. 1.41, also 1.20; 3.28 (by default); for ĝ ÍĎġË ÌÇı ¿¼Çı cf. 1.34; 1.49; cf. 10.36. 33. On this point, see Beasley-Murray, John, p. 192; Ashton, Understanding (1st ed.), p. 254 n. 29. 34. See especially the discussion on references to Jesus as ĝ ëÉÏŦļÅÇË in the Synoptics, John, and elsewhere in the New Testament in J. K. Elliott, ‘Is ĝ ëƼ¿ŪÅ a Title for Jesus in Mark i.45?’, JTS NS 27 (1976), pp. 402–5.

1

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

89

III. The Prayer in Context By 11.38, a certain amount of water has passed under the Bethany bridge since Jesus and Martha last met. In the meantime, there has been Jesus’ intensely emotional encounter with Mary to a chorus of comment from a crowd of sympathizing Jews. Now, however, the stage is set for Jesus to return Lazarus to life. John fully intends that this miracle will be a ʾļėÇÅ (‘sign’) of Jesus’ teaching to Martha, a sample ful¿lment of the promise that those who believe in him now will be raised to life at the last day. To that end, he makes a point of including reminders of the earlier pericope in the present text: here is the tomb (v. 38, cf. 17); here is Martha – note also that she is admonished to remember what she was told (vv. 39-40, cf. 25-26); and here is the reference to Lazarus dead four days (v. 39, cf. v. 17). And here also, by the same token, is Jesus at prayer, predictably exhibiting the con¿dence that con¿rms the truth of Martha’s certainty in v. 22 that whatever Jesus asks, God grants. If the opening words of the prayer take the form of a second allusion to Psalm 118, that is surely less than surprising in this context of general reference to the earlier scene. Moreover, if the allusion itself, taken from v. 41 of the psalm, consists in an expression of thanks placed on Jesus’ lips, that is surely no more than the logical choice of wording in the circumstances. It may be, however, that the expression ¼ĤϸÉÀÊÌľ ÊÇÀ ĞÌÀ ôÁÇÍÊŠË ÄÇÍ (‘I thank thee that thou hast heard me’) has also held an attraction for John because it introduces a perspective on Jesus as one whom God hears. So far, I have argued from evidence within the Lazarus story itself that the prayer in 11.41-42 is the logical outcome of John’s application to Jesus of the ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion in v. 22 and that the two are plainly linked. Nevertheless, a glance at the presentation of the logion in 1 John 5 leads one to suspect that the link between it and the prayer in the Gospel text may rest on rather more than logic. Note the ease with which the author of the epistle accommodates the assurances that God hears the faithful into his references to the logion in 5.14-15. In fact, 1 John’s ÒÁÇŧ¼À ÷ÄľÅ (‘he hears us’) actually penetrates the logion there to become the mid-point between the asking stage and the receiving/ being given stage. It is worth reminding ourselves at this point that the epistle writer is not in the business of forging radical new policies; on the contrary, he is bent on assuring his readers of their loyalty to tried and tested teaching.35 This attitude, together with the comfortable manner in 35. Note, for example, 1 John’s appropriation to himself of the language of original eye-witness (1.1-4) and his appeal to the tradition ÒÈφ ÒÉÏýË (1.1; 2.7, 24). 1

90

A Journey Round John

which the hearing references are introduced into the logion, suggest that the association of the two is a familiar and longstanding one in Johannine circles. The likelihood of this is increased when we consider that the description of God as a ‘hearer’ of prayer, which is a distinctive feature of the Johannine writings,36 is also a signi¿cant element in the Old Testament presentation of God and in Judaism generally.37 Thus, the link we ¿nd in the epistle writer’s text probably goes back to the community’s Jewish roots. In other words, it is not impossible that what comes to light in 1 Jn 5.14-15 reÀects something of the network of unspoken communication between the Evangelist and his own readers in John 11. If this is so, then we may safely assume, for reasons behind the text as well as in it, that those who ¿rst heard the Lazarus story will have had no dif¿culty in connecting the reference to God hearing Jesus in the prayer with the statement of the logion earlier placed on the lips of Martha. In so doing, John’s readership, perhaps already in danger on account of their faith, will surely have been comforted. Here John has shown them Jesus at prayer, supremely ful¿lling all the promise of the ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion. He is not only aware of having been heard speci¿cally in relation to raising Lazarus from the dead (11.41), but also, with the words ëºĽ »ò Ā»¼ÀÅ ĞÌÀ ÈÚÅÌÇÌñ ÄÇÍ ÒÁÇį¼ÀË (‘I knew that thou hearest me always’) (v. 42), he is secure in the knowledge of the Father’s immediate af¿rming response to any petition he might make.38 In that security lies the Evangelist’s message to his beleaguered Àock, for it con¿rms them in their faith as Christians. On this basis, they can be certain that prayers offered by those who believe in Jesus will always be heard by God. Indeed, as the Johannine Jesus himself repeatedly insists in references to the logion elsewhere in the Gospel, those who continue his work in the world should ask the Father ëÅ ÌŊ ĚÅĠĸÌĕ ÄÇÍ (‘in my name’) and their requests will be granted (14.13-14; 15.16; 16.23-24).39 36. Apart from the Johannine references, the New Testament as a whole has only six instances where God is associated with verbs of hearing. Two of these are in quotations from the Old Testament (Acts 7.34; 2 Cor. 6.2) and the remaining four all use the ‘divine’ passive (Mt. 6.7; Lk. 1.13; Acts 10.31; Heb. 5.7). 37. See especially G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927–30), vol. 2, pp. 215, 231. 38. Pace Bultmann et al., the ideal of a constant prayerful attitude is not implied by this text (see above, pp. 81–2). 39. Schnackenburg is surely correct in insisting that the phrase ‘in my name’ is not a condition but represents a Johannine development of the logion which belongs to a context of mission (Gospel, vol. 3, pp. 72–3). See also Dodd, Historical 1

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

91

Thus, on this analysis, it seems that John’s purpose in 11.41-42 was neither to promote debate on whether or not Jesus really prays nor to afford a glimpse into the Son’s unique communion with the Father. On the contrary, when Jesus’ words are interpreted within the context of the story they were designed to ¿t, it emerges that what John has provided in this instance, and created through the medium of Scripture, is a demonstration of the power of Christian prayer in the person of Jesus himself.40 IV. Summary and Conclusion If the argument in this study offers a valid description of John’s methods, then I may claim to have established the following points with reference to Jesus’ prayer in 11.41-42. First, the prayer is a thanksgiving and not a petition because it is the corollary of John’s application to Jesus of the ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion on Martha’s lips in v. 22. Secondly, the allusion to Psalm 118 which opens the prayer comes as no surprise given that the inÀuence of the same psalm is already apparent in Martha’s confession in v. 27 and given also John’s general intention to remind his readers of that earlier scene before the raising miracle ¿nally takes place. Thirdly, the choice of wording from v. 21 of the psalm is not only entirely appropriate to the intended function of the prayer in relation to v. 22, but its content also serves John’s purposes well by enabling him to focus on Jesus as one whom God hears, a familiar concept in Johannine circles and one which, to judge from the evidence in l John, is intimately bound up with the ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion itself. My overall aim was to support the identi¿cation by Anthony Hanson and Max Wilcox of an allusion to Ps. 118.21 in Jn 11.41, and it is hoped that this compositorial approach to John’s narrative has plausibly achieved that aim. In the process of the investigation, however, certain factors have emerged which also have a bearing on the issue of John’s use of Scripture in general and its place in his scheme of things. I will comment brieÀy on these broader implications by way of conclusion.

Tradition, p. 351, and Brown, Gospel, p. 635, both of whom compare the partial parallel in Mt. 18.20. Thus, those who pray in Jesus’ name are those whom Jesus has sent, who represent him on earth and who ask in his place (see Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 3, pp. 73, 160; Lindars, Gospel, pp. 476, 492, 511; Sanders, Gospel, pp. 324, 342). 40. Among commentators I have consulted, only Hoskyns favours this ‘democratic’ approach to Jesus’ prayer in John 11 (Gospel, p. 475). 1

92

A Journey Round John

If these proposals on the nature and function of the prayer are correct, then we must allow that, even though the prayer has been partly framed using words from Scripture, Scripture itself has not dictated the subjectmatter of the prayer. That had already been settled by v. 22, at the point where John applied the ‘ask, and it will be given’ logion to Jesus. In other words, there is reason here to resist the view that John’s narrative is primarily Scripture-driven. This is really where Hanson’s proposal that John saw Psalm 118 as a kind of prophetic timetable of events in these chapters leaves us.41 In this instance, at least, it appears that Scripture is written into John’s narrative because it was already embedded in the Christian tradition from which he drew inspiration. Accordingly, as I have suggested, Martha’s ĝ…ëÉÏŦļÅÇË in 11.27 was taken from Ps. 118.26 in deference to the tradition in 12.13, and so a further reference to the same psalm in 11.41, as the earlier pericope is recalled, is hardly surprising. Perhaps, however, we should also look for something else in the immediate context of the prayer which has brought the psalm to John’s mind at that precise point, and so triggered the allusion. This is the real strength, in my opinion, of Wilcox’s observation that there must be more than coincidence in the fact that John refers in v. 41 to removing the stone immediately before alluding to a Scripture right next door to the well-known ‘stone’ text of Ps. 118.22.42 On this basis, Wilcox proposes, ¿rst, that the reference to Ps. 118.21 in the prayer is to be taken as part of a wider context including at least the ‘stone’ verse next to it and, secondly, that the mention of ‘stone’ in the story itself has somehow acted as a keyword which has linked narrative and psalm together at some unspeci¿ed pre-Johannine stage. My only reservation about this is that I see no reason to suppose that all this interesting editorial activity must have happened at the pre-Johannine level. Indeed, I have found nothing in my own investigation to indicate that John has relied on source-material of any kind for this prayer, far less on something that needed to be explained or ‘explained away’.43 The alternative is that the word ‘stone’ has acted as a keyword for John himself. If so, then the following scenario presents itself: as he turns to compose the prayer, probably with Psalm 118 in his head from Martha’s earlier words, John’s reference to the removal of the stone (v. 41a) puts him in mind of the rejection of the stone in the psalm, from which point it is but a short step to ¿nding the words of the neighbouring verse conveniently 41. See Hanson, ‘Old Testament Background’, p. 255; idem, New Testament Interpretation, p. 167. 42. See Wilcox, ‘“Prayer”’, pp. 131–2. 43. Wilcox, ‘“Prayer”’, p. 132.

1

5. Jesus’ Prayer in John 11

93

to hand for Jesus’ opening words. Even if we cannot be certain of the nuts and bolts, however, there can be little doubt that the link we ¿nd in v. 41 between the stone reference and the prayer is John’s own handiwork. Notice the nice little pun where ‘lifting the stone’ moves on to ‘lifting the eyes’ in a prayerful gesture (cf. 17.1) and so, ¿nally, on to the prayer itself.

1

Chapter 6

JOHN FOR READERS OF MARK? A RESPONSE TO RICHARD BAUCKHAM’S PROPOSAL*

The collection of essays edited by Richard Bauckham and entitled The Gospels for All Christians contains two contributions by the editor himself. The ¿rst, which is very much the ‘keynote’ essay of the volume,1 proposes that the four Gospels were written, not for local and distinctive Christian communities, but for general circulation among the churches and thus for all Christians. In his second contribution, ‘John for Readers of Mark’, he applies this thesis speci¿cally to the Fourth Gospel, arguing that if John’s Gospel shows evidence of accommodating a readership already familiar with Mark’s Gospel but not with Johannine traditions, then this con¿rms that ‘John was written, not for the “Johannine community”, but to circulate generally among the churches’.2 Since the publication of the volume in 1998, reactions to its radical challenge to the consensus view on Gospel audiences have been understandably mixed.3 So far as I am aware, however, there has as yet been

* Originally published in JSNT 25 (2003), pp. 449–68. 1. R. Bauckham, ‘For Whom Were Gospels Written?’, in Bauckham, ed., The Gospels, pp. 9–48. 2. Bauckham, ‘John for Readers of Mark’, p. 149. Bauckham has defended this thesis in a further article, ‘The Audience of the Fourth Gospel’, in Jesus in Johannine Tradition (ed. R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), pp. 101–11. 3. For an early critical evaluation, see P. F. Esler, ‘Community and Gospel in Early Christianity: A Response to Richard Bauckham’s Gospels for All Christians’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 235–48. This is followed in the same volume by a brief response from Bauckham; see Bauckham, ‘Response to Philip Esler’, pp. 249–53. More recently, David Sim has published a detailed critique concentrating on Bauckham’s ¿rst essay; see D. C. Sim, ‘The Gospels for All Christians? A Response to Richard Bauckham’, JSNT 84 (2001), pp. 3–27; see esp. p. 4 nn. 2–4 for a list of other responses to date, most of them favourable.

6. John for Readers of Mark?

95

no detailed response speci¿cally devoted to Bauckham’s second essay on John.4 Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to examine this contribution and to assess whether Bauckham offers a convincing alternative to the standard position that John wrote for his own Christian group. I will begin by summarizing Bauckham’s argument. I. Bauckham’s Argument Bauckham begins his essay with reference to the source-critical issue of whether or not the Fourth Evangelist was dependent on Mark’s Gospel when he wrote his own. He points out that the recent popularity of the view that John wrote independently of any knowledge of Mark has coincided with another, increasingly inÀuential, view that has taken the distinctiveness of the Fourth Gospel to imply that the community in which and for which it was written was largely isolated from the rest of the early Christian movement. As a result, the question of the independence of the traditions in the Fourth Gospel has become inextricably bound up with that of the isolation of the Johannine community from other Christian groups. Against this backdrop, Bauckham claims that the thesis of the volume as a whole, namely that all four canonical Gospels were written for general Christian use, offers a fresh approach to the question of the relationship of John to Mark. This approach tackles the issue, not from a source-critical perspective, but from the perspective of John’s implied readership. On the hypothesis that the Fourth Gospel was written for the Christian movement at large rather than for the Johannine community, Bauckham proposes that the Evangelist must have expected most of his readers to be familiar with Mark, which had become widely known among Christians by that time. Thus, if the overall thesis of the volume is correct, John’s Gospel should show evidence that it was designed to accommodate readers of Mark while not excluding others, but should not show similar evidence that it was designed for readers with a knowledge of speci¿cally Johannine Gospel traditions. Should this description prove to be true, then the way lies open for a discussion of whether John intended his Gospel as a replacement of Mark’s or as an addition to it.

4. Esler’s review has a section on this essay, cf. Esler, ‘Community and Gospel’, pp. 244–7. Otherwise, I have found only a brief, approving description of its contents in G. M. Burge, ‘Situating John’s Gospel in History’, in Fortna and Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition, pp. 35–46 (41–2). 1

96

A Journey Round John

Next, Bauckham draws attention to the many parentheses which are characteristic of the Fourth Gospel and signals his intention to argue that two in particular are designed to enable the Markan reader to relate John’s narrative to Mark’s. The ¿rst of these is 3.24, in which the Evangelist points out to his readers that John (the Baptist) had not yet been cast into prison. Bauckham claims that this functions to relate John’s chronological sequence to Mark’s by placing the events of 1.19–4.43 between Mk 1.13 and 1.14, the point where Jesus’ Galilean ministry begins. This is followed by other possible examples of such intertextual dovetailing of John’s Gospel with Mark’s. The second parenthesis is 11.2, John’s reference to the anointing of Jesus by Mary, sister to Martha. Bauckham claims that this verse serves to identify a named character in John as the anonymous female anointer of Mk 14.3 and that the narrative functions of 11.1-2 relate to Markan readers. He follows this with a survey of characterization in John in which he ¿nds that the Fourth Evangelist does not presume that his readers have prior knowledge of non-Markan characters; indeed, he notes, John introduces peculiarly Johannine characters as fully as any reader who had never heard of them could wish. Thus, Bauckham claims, the evidence outside 11.2 is consistent with his interpretation of the verse as directed to readers who could be expected to know Mark and, like 11.1-2, is inconsistent with the view that John wrote for his own community who were familiar with Johannine traditions. In conclusion, Bauckham sketches other, more theological, ways in which the Second and Fourth Gospels could be related by readers of Mark. He maintains that such people would perceive John’s account as extending and deepening Mark’s rather than correcting or invalidating it. Consequently, John’s Gospel, which intersects with Mark’s but has a narrative integrity of its own, would be read as complementing Mark’s, not supplementing or replacing it. Meanwhile, Bauckham’s own study has shown not only that 3.24 and 11.2 virtually require to be read as inviting Markan readers to relate the two Gospels in this complementary way but also that a knowledge of speci¿cally Johannine characters is not expected of the Fourth Gospel’s implied readers. These results, Bauckham claims ¿nally, provide a strong case in favour of the view that John’s target readership was not a Johannine community in isolation but Christians in general, many of whom could be expected to know Mark. The following response will not attempt a detailed coverage of all points in Bauckham’s essay but will focus speci¿cally on his interpretation of Jn 3.24 and 11.2, the two parentheses that lie at the heart of his argument. Even then, for reasons that will become clear, much more 1

6. John for Readers of Mark?

97

space will be devoted to discussion of the second text. The concluding section will include comment speci¿cally on Bauckham’s exegesis of John’s text and also generally on the implications of his approach for further interpretation of the Gospel. II. John 3.24 There is much to be said for Bauckham’s claim that the Evangelist’s remark on the timing of the Baptist’s imprisonment in 3.24 was directed to readers who knew Mark’s Gospel. In this context, Stephen Barton’s objection, elsewhere in the Bauckham volume, that Wayne Meeks’s inÀuential essay ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’ has led to an over-enthusiastic pursuit of the ‘in-group’, isolationist approach to John is a point well made.5 Since, as Bauckham himself argues, it is highly likely that the Second Gospel had enjoyed a wide circulation among Christians by the time the Fourth was completed,6 then the possibility that Mark was known also to the Fourth Evangelist and those for whom he wrote simply cannot be ruled out.7 In other words, whether or not we are fully persuaded of Bauckham’s argument on 3.24 in all its aspects, his overall point that John could and did presume a knowledge of Mark on the part of his readers is impossible to dismiss. Even so, Bauckham’s case is not made, for it does not con¿rm that John’s target readership, if presumed to know Mark, were not also members of his own community. For con¿rmation of his hypothesis that the Fourth Gospel was directed to Christendom at large and not to a 5. S. C. Barton, ‘Can We Identify the Gospel Audiences?’, in Bauckham, ed., The Gospels, pp. 173–94 (190–3). 6. Bauckham, ‘John for Readers of Mark’, pp. 147–8. Future references to this essay will specify page numbers only. 7. It would be a doughty scholar indeed who would exclude the possibility of such a link. Among commentators, Kingsley Barrett has consistently maintained that John knew Mark, or something so like it that it made little difference; cf. Barrett, Gospel, pp. 42–54. Even Barnabas Lindars, staunch advocate of John’s independence of the Synoptic tradition, accepted that John must at least have had sight of Mark; see Lindars, Fourth Gospel, p. 12. See further, Moody Smith, John Among the Gospels, esp. pp. 139–76; also the following essays in Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics: Neirynck, ‘John and the Synoptics: 1975–1991’, pp. 46–55; Barrett, ‘The Place of John and the Synoptics within the Early History of Christian Thought’, pp. 63–79; R. Kieffer, ‘Jean et Marc: Convergences dans la structure et dans les details’, pp. 109–25. See also, more recently, P. N. Anderson, ‘John and Mark: The Bi-Optic Gospels’, in Fortna and Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition, pp. 175–88. 1

98

A Journey Round John

speci¿cally Johannine readership, Bauckham must yet show that the Evangelist’s message could be directed to those who not only had a knowledge of Mark but who also had no knowledge of what he calls ‘speci¿cally Johannine traditions’ (p. 163). The evidence for this, he claims, is provided by Jn 11.2. For these reasons, and in order to test his hypothesis at its point of proof, this response will now concentrate on Bauckham’s exegesis of this second text. In what follows, his argument will be summarized under ¿ve points. Each point will be answered by detailed comment which will include further information from his original argument where appropriate. III. John 11.2 a. Summary Bauckham’s ¿rst concern, as it was in the case of Jn 3.24, is to argue that the parenthesis in 11.2 is integral to the Gospel and not a later gloss. He marshals ¿ve points in favour of the authenticity of the verse (pp. 161–3). The third point, which will become the focus of discussion below, may be summarized as follows: the form of 11.2a parallels that of other explanatory parentheses in John (1.44; 3.23; 11.18; 18.14, 40) and parallels ‘even more precisely’ John’s description of Caiaphas in 18.14, although the two differ in that ‘11:2 refers forward to an event still to be narrated (12:1-8) whereas 18:14 refers backward to an event already narrated (11:49-53)’ (p. 162). Comment. Bauckham’s defence of the authenticity of 11.2 is warmly to be welcomed. Here he joins a growing number of scholars who prefer to interpret the verse as John’s own rather than subscribe to the overworked hypothesis of a ¿nal editor.8 Of the range of evidence he offers in support of this case, his appeal to the closeness of the parallel between 11.2 and 18.14 is particularly telling – as, indeed, is his accompanying comment on the inconsistency of commentators who accept the authenticity of the later text but not of the earlier (p. 162)! In the light of this observation and in the interests of further points below, it will be helpful to take a closer look at this parallel by comparing 11.2 and 18.14 directly. In fact, as we shall see, the comparison can usefully be extended to include the immediately preceding verses. The texts are as follows:

1

8. See further, North, Lazarus, p. 134 with n. 56.

6. John for Readers of Mark? 11.1-2 1.

2.

99

18.13-14

Now a certain man was ill, 13. First they led him to Annas; Lazarus for he was the father-in-law of Bethany, the village of Mary of Caiaphas, and her sister Martha. who was high priest that year. It was Mary who anointed the 14. It was Caiaphas who had given Lord counsel to the Jews with ointment and wiped his feet that it was expedient that one with her hair, man should die whose brother Lazarus was ill. for the people.9

Once set out in this way, these two passages show an af¿nity which is obvious and striking. Note how the parallelism Bauckham has already emphasized with reference to 11.2 and 18.14 can be claimed also for the two verses that precede them. Note also how the two parentheses take their place in context, each a continuation of the argument begun in the previous verse. In both passages, the argument itself contains the following elements: (a) character A is introduced into the Gospel narrative (Lazarus in 11.1a; Annas in 18.13a); (b) character A is related – literally – to character B (Lazarus is brother to Mary, 11.2c; Annas is father-in-law to Caiaphas, 18.13b); and (c) two items of information are given about character B, the second item in some detail (Mary was Martha’s sister [11.1d], she anointed Jesus [v. 2a-b]; Caiaphas was high priest in that year [18.13d], he gave counsel to ‘the Jews’ [v. 14]). This detailed comparison leaves us in little doubt that 11.2 belongs in context and thus supports Bauckham’s case for the authenticity of the verse. That being granted, however, it is important to recognize also that the parallelism between these two passages provides a key point of reference when it comes to interpreting 11.2 as an original part of the Gospel. In the discussions that follow, we will have reason to return to this evidence more than once. b. Summary Turning now to consider 11.2 as part of the original Gospel, Bauckham picks up his earlier point that the verse refers forward to an event yet to be narrated (see under IIIa). In rejecting the view that 11.2 was intended for second- or third-time readers, he af¿rms, ‘As an explanation of the identity of a character by referring forwards to that character’s appearance later in the Gospel narrative, verse 2 is unique in the Gospel’ (p. 163).

1

9. The English translation is RSV, unless otherwise indicated.

100

A Journey Round John

Comment. Bauckham’s repeated description of 11.2 as referring ‘forward(s)’ to 12.1-8 does not take account of the orientation John has given the parenthesis and thus overstates its connection with the passage in ch. 12. We will begin with the orientation of 11.2. The problem with Bauckham’s description of the verse is that there is nothing in 11.2 to direct the mind of the reader forward. Instead, all the indications are that this parenthesis refers back, that is, it repeats information that is already known to the reader. This is easily demonstrated with reference to the parallels between 11.2 and 18.14 (above) and also by contrast with forward references in the Gospel generally. As the comparison set out above makes clear, what John says of Mary at the beginning of 11.2 (‘It was Mary who anointed the Lord’) exactly parallels the way he describes Caiaphas in 18.14 (‘It was Caiaphas who had given counsel to the Jews’). Now in the case of 18.14, as Bauckham rightly observes, John’s description refers back to the event narrated in 11.49-53 (p. 162). In the case of 11.2, however, it is not possible to point to a passage earlier in the Gospel to which the verse refers for the simple reason that the story is not there in the text. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this consideration has clearly not affected the orientation John has given the verse: as is plain from his use of the aorist participle of Mary in 11.2 (÷ Ò¼ĕиʸ, lit. ‘the one who anointed’) as of Caiaphas in 18.14 (ĝ ÊÍĹÇͼįʸË, lit. ‘the one who counselled’), John’s reference in 11.2 points unambiguously to something in the past. So far, then, 11.2 compares with 18.14 as a reference back but, unlike 18.14, it presumes information known to the reader that has not been given in the text. A glance at forward references in the Gospel in general soon illustrates the same point by way of contrast. Note, for example, John’s reference to the Baptist in 3.24, ‘For John had not yet been put in prison’, already analysed by Bauckham in the present essay. There the Evangelist’s ÇĥÈÑ, ‘not yet’, clearly indicates that this is an event yet to occur,10 and the same applies when John uses ÇĥÈÑ elsewhere, for example, with reference to Jesus’ hour (2.4; 7.30; 8.20), the gift of the Spirit (7.39) and Jesus’ ascent to the Father (20.17). More telling, perhaps, is John’s use of Ě¼ÀÅ, ‘to be about to’, to direct the reader forward to an event. He does this when referring to Jesus’ death: ìļ¼Š`¾ÊÇıË ÒÈÇ¿ÅûÊÁ¼ÀÅ, lit. ‘Jesus was about to die’ (11.51; cf. 12.33; 18.32) and to Judas’s betrayal of Jesus: ÇīÌÇË…ìļ¼Šȸɸ»À»ĠŸÀ ¸ĤÌĠÅ, lit. ‘he…was going to betray him’ (6.71; cf. 12.4 ).11 In this last instance note, crucially, that once the

1

10. Bauckham understands it as such, cf. p. 153. 11. Bauckham categorizes both 6.71 and 12.4 as forward references (p. 167).

6. John for Readers of Mark?

101

betrayal is in the past, John has Jesus refer back to Judas’s treachery using the aorist participle: ĝ ȸɸ»ÇįË Äš (ÊÇÀ), lit. ‘the one having handed me over (to you)’ (19.11, cf. 6.64; 13.2, 11, 21; 18.2, 5).12 In other words, evidence from elsewhere in the Gospel con¿rms that if John had wanted 11.2 to be taken as a forward reference, he would have written it differently. As it stands, 11.2 has no future aspect and, moreover, does not suddenly acquire one simply on the grounds that, unlike 18.14, it refers to an incident which does not appear in the Gospel narrative until later. On the contrary, both texts refer back to information already known to the reader, differing only in that in the case of 18.14 the information is written down earlier in the Gospel and in the case of 11.2 it is not.13 This in turn means that 11.2 does not direct the reader forward to the story in 12.1-8. Rather, it functions to bring to mind an event of which the reader is already aware, either through oral teaching or, possibly, from hearing an earlier version of the Gospel.14 The fact that John goes on to record that event in his Gospel does not alter the status of this reference. As for Bauckham’s claim that 11.2 is unique in the Gospel, this is indeed the case, but not in the terms he describes. Its uniqueness consists in the fact that 11.2 is a reference back to a story yet to be documented in the Gospel. As the forward reference that Bauckham would have it be, it would surely be rivalled by other examples of the type (see 6.71 and 12.4). c. Summary Bauckham draws attention to the fact that, of the three characters introduced in 11.1, ‘it is only Mary whose identity is explained’ in the following verse. He argues on this basis that 11.2 cannot have been intended for members of the Johannine community. This is because such people would be already familiar with the story in Jn 12.1-8 from its

12. Although, strictly speaking, those who have actually handed Jesus over to Pilate are the Jewish authorities (cf. 18.30, 35), the verb ȸɸ»À»ĠŸÀ, ‘to hand over, betray’, has been Judas’s tag throughout his Gospel appearances. In the last of these, John deliberately ranges Judas on the side of the arresting party (18.5), thus implying that Judas’s treachery now continues in the actions of the authorities. 13. In fact, Bauckham’s later argument on the narrative functions of 11.1-2 depends on there being information already known to the reader in v. 2 (p. 163; see under d. Summary below). This further highlights the inadvisability of assuming that the verse refers forwards. 14. It is often supposed that the Lazarus story belongs to a second edition of the Gospel; see further, North, Lazarus, p. 123. 1

102

A Journey Round John

oral transmission prior to its inclusion in the Gospel. This being the case, then they would know in advance of all three Bethany siblings. Therefore, had 11.2 been intended for them, ‘it would be inexplicable why these members of the Johannine community should be expected to have heard already of Mary, but not of Lazarus and Martha’ (p. 163).15 Comment. This third part of Bauckham’s argument is not only highly condensed but also relies for its logic on two unargued assumptions about the dynamics of John’s text in 11.1-2 and in general. These are as follows. First, Bauckham assumes that 11.2 was designed to explain Mary’s identity to the reader. The fact that he ascribes an explanatory role to this verse can be traced back to the point at the outset of his essay when he refers generally to the many parentheses contained in the Gospel as ‘parenthetical explanations’ (p. 150). Thereafter, although he is well aware that the parentheses perform different functions (p. 150), he continues to refer to them as ‘explanation(s)’ or as ‘explanatory’ without qualifying further (pp. 150–3, 161–70). Accordingly, when it comes to dealing with individual texts, such as 3.24, 11.2 and 18.14, this same generalization is applied across the board (pp. 151, 153, 159, 161, 162). If by ‘explanation’ here we mean an aside which gives information designed to smooth over some dif¿culty the reader might otherwise have with the text, then 3.24 surely quali¿es: there the careful note on the timing of the Baptist’s imprisonment is clearly intended for readers under the impression, contrary to v. 23, that John’s ministry had ended before Jesus’s began.16 It is not dif¿cult to ¿nd other parentheses in the Gospel that function in the same way, for example: 2.6b, which serves to explain the presence of the stone jars at the wedding-feast; 4.9b, which accounts for the Samaritan woman’s surprise at Jesus’ request for a drink; 12.6, which gives the ‘real’ reason why Judas carps about money; and 18.28b, which explains the Jews’ refusal to enter the praetorium. In all these instances, additional information is given to make clear something already in the text that may be unclear to the reader. But can the same be said for 11.2 and its parallel 18.14, both dubbed ‘parenthetical explanations’ by Bauckham? Let us begin with 18.14.

15. Parts of this argument are repeated on p. 164. 16. As Bauckham rightly points out, John’s readers could have gained this impression from a prior knowledge of Mk 1.14 (p. 153); see also Culpepper, Anatomy, p. 213. 1

6. John for Readers of Mark?

103

As we noted earlier in response to Bauckham’s second point, 18.14 differs from 11.2 in that the information it refers to is already contained in the Gospel. For our purposes this is extremely useful, for it enables us to observe precisely how the material in 11.49-53 is taken up in the later reference. The texts are as follows: 11.49-53 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish’. He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death.

18.13-14 13. 14.

First they took him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had given counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.

This comparison shows that John’s text in 18.13-14 is solid with reference to the earlier account from the point where the name ‘Caiaphas’ appears in v. 13. Thereafter, the detail of Caiaphas’s of¿ce is repeated word for word. Similarly, in v. 14, after mention of his giving counsel to ‘the Jews’ – which is clearly a verbal short-cut17 – Caiaphas’s advice is also repeated exactly. In other words, the parenthesis in 18.14 cannot be classed as an ‘explanation’ along the lines of 3.24: nothing new is given here to help the reader make sense of what is already stated; nor does it explain who Caiaphas is, because Caiaphas is known. Instead, we ¿nd that 18.14 takes its place as the second item of a two-part description designed as a reminder to the reader at this later point in the Gospel story of information already given about Caiaphas and his works.18

17. For the phrase ‘who had given counsel to the Jews’, compare ‘they took counsel’ in 11.53 (as shown) and John’s reference to the chief priests and Pharisees in 11.47, here simpli¿ed to ‘the Jews’; for the same substitution, compare 18.3 with 18.12. 18. Bauckham concurs with this (p. 166). 1

104

A Journey Round John

In the case of 11.2, it is equally dif¿cult to see why it should be classed as an ‘explanation’. If the object is to explain who Mary is, as Bauckham assumes, surely this is not achieved by describing in detail what Mary did, which is what happens in v. 2, and especially when her status as Martha’s sister is already indicated in v. 1. Moreover, if 11.2 is not a forward reference but refers back to what is known, as has been argued, then this makes it extremely unlikely that extra information has been imparted to the reader in this verse. Finally, if we recognize the force of the parallelism between 11.1-2 and 18.13-14 for interpreting 11.2, then it seems reasonable to infer that John wrote 11.2 as he did because he thought of it in relation to its non-Gospel referent in the same way that he thought of 18.14 in relation to 11.49-53. If so, then we may surely conclude that 11.2 is not an explanation but, like 18.14, is a reminder to the reader at that point in the Gospel story of what Mary did because Mary, like Caiaphas, is known. Second, Bauckham’s argument that Johannine community members should have known in advance of all three Bethany siblings relies on the assumption that stories circulating orally will have been reproduced by John exactly as known when he included them in his Gospel. This is impossible to prove or disprove categorically given that the tradition itself is not to hand. Nevertheless, there are other indicators that suggest that it is probably not the case. First, there is the fact that such a procedure would be quite untypical of John’s handling of source material in general. Indeed, in areas where we can be reasonably certain of the contours of his tradition – by comparing Synoptic equivalents, for example – it is generally understood that a considerable process of creative reinterpretation and recasting of sources has gone into the making of the Fourth Gospel.19 Thus, there is room for doubt that John’s composition of the anointing story, while certainly reÀecting the oral tradition John’s readers knew, would resemble it exactly in all respects.20 Second, it seems possible to detect that there is some discrepancy in this case between what John’s readers knew and the story as he relates it in the Gospel. This can be achieved by ¿rst deducing from 11.1-2 what John expects his 19. See Lindars, ‘Traditions behind the Fourth Gospel’; more recently, J. Beutler, ‘Synoptic Jesus Tradition in the Johannine Farewell Discourse’, in Fortna and Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition, pp. 165–73. 20. Indeed, can we be sure that any of the Gospels is free from arti¿ce of this kind? See H. K. Bond, ‘Caiaphas: ReÀections on a High Priest’, ExpTim 113 (2002), pp. 183–7, for the argument that the ‘High Priest’ in Mark’s Gospel is not named in order to convey the impression that he is representative of all of¿cial Jewish opposition to Christianity, not because his name was unknown to Mark’s readers (p. 183). 1

6. John for Readers of Mark?

105

readers to know at that point, and then comparing that information with the content of the story as it eventually appears in 12.1-8. Let us begin with 11.1-2. If we agree that 11.2 is not an explanation but a reminder of what Mary did, then we may suppose that the detail in that verse is already known to John’s readers. Furthermore, since Mary and Martha always appear as a pair in both Luke’s Gospel and John’s, it seems logical to infer that, if John’s readers knew of Mary, the reference to Martha in 11.1 would not come as a surprise. This leaves Lazarus as the unknown quantity, and John’s object here is clearly to introduce this new character to his readers.21 Now, since all of these characters, including Lazarus, are to be found in the story in ch. 12, we have reason to suppose that the presence of Lazarus at the meal in 12.2 is a narrative ‘extra’ which the Evangelist has edited in to the anointing tradition in the process of incorporating the story into his Gospel. If this argument is plausible, then Bauckham’s objection that 11.2 cannot have been intended for Johannine community members, on the grounds that they would have heard of all three characters from pre-Gospel tradition, is itself open to objection. On this showing, John’s retelling of the story as part of the Gospel narrative has occasioned the addition of Lazarus, whose identity was unknown to John’s readers before 11.1.22 d. Summary Bauckham describes the narrative functions of 11.1-2 as follows: ¿rst, these verses introduce Lazarus, Martha and Mary into the Gospel narrative by identifying Mary as the woman who anointed Jesus in the story already known to the reader, and the others as her siblings; and, second, they distinguish the Bethany where the family reside from the Johannine ‘Bethany beyond Jordan’ (1.28; cf. 10.40), where Jesus is at this point in the narrative (10.40-42). Thus, he claims, these two functions presuppose the information Markan readers/hearers already have, that is, they presume knowledge of a woman who anointed Jesus in the Bethany near Jerusalem. It follows that 11.1-2 would be inappropriate 21. Against Bauckham (p. 164 n. 20) and in agreement with Culpepper (Anatomy, p. 215). This need not mean that the miracle itself was unknown to John’s readers, since the name ‘Lazarus’ could well have been added by John himself; see North, Lazarus, pp. 120–1. 22. Strictly speaking, it is not essential to John’s narrative of the anointing to have Lazarus at table in 12.2; rather, his presence there serves to attract the crowd of believing ‘Jews’ (12.9; cf. 11.45) and thus provides John with a convenient editorial link through to the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem in 12.12-19 (cf. v. 17); see North, Lazarus, p. 135. 1

106

A Journey Round John

for readers/hearers of Luke, since the passage does not require a knowledge of Martha and Mary (cf. Lk. 10.38-42), but of a woman anointer in Bethany, which is precisely the information readers/hearers of Mark would possess (pp. 163–4). Comment. It will be obvious by now that the ¿rst of the narrative functions Bauckham ascribes to Jn 11.1-2 does not coincide with the conclusions reached in this response so far. Contrary to Bauckham, we have found that 11.2 does not explain Mary’s identity but is a reminder of her action, and that both Mary and Martha are known. Thus, it appears that these verses were designed to introduce only Lazarus to the reader and, moreover, that this has been achieved by relating this new character to a context that is already familiar.23 In support of this interpretation, it is worth adding at this point that John has evidently followed exactly the same procedure in 18.13-14 in the case of the unknown Annas.24 The second function Bauckham proposes here would certainly be typical of John’s carefulness as a narrator, although in this case it is dif¿cult to judge whether he left it as late as 11.1 to distinguish the two Bethanys. Note that the earlier Bethany comes with its own tag: it is Bethany ‘beyond Jordan’ (1.28; 10.40) and, as such, is already distinguished by its location from the Bethany in 11.1, which lacks that speci¿cation.25 Note also, and signi¿cantly, that John has chosen not to include the name ‘Bethany’ when he has Jesus return there in 10.40, even though it is clear from his description of ‘the place’ that he means exactly the same spot. This looks like a deliberate omission, presumably with an eye to possible readerly confusion at the mention of the same placename at the beginning of the Lazarus story. Thus, it is possible that the necessity of distinguishing the two Bethanys has not been as prominent in John’s mind in 11.1-2 as Bauckham supposes. Whether or not this is the case, what is absolutely certain here is that the speci¿cation John does tag on to the Bethany in 11.1, namely, that it is the village of Mary and Martha, would mean nothing at all to readers of Mark! In fact, despite Bauckham’s protestations, it has to be said that readers of Luke would probably ¿nd these verses a good deal less mystifying. Rather than Bauckham’s two proposals, I suggest that the functions of Jn 11.1-2 in context can be understood as follows. First, as already argued, these verses introduce Lazarus to John’s readers by linking him with the Bethany sisters who are already known. Second, the detail in

1

23. See M. Davies, Rhetoric and Reference, p. 357; North, Lazarus, p. 134. 24. See Culpepper, Anatomy, pp. 215, 216; North, Lazarus, p. 134 n. 56. 25. See Culpepper, Anatomy, p. 218.

6. John for Readers of Mark?

107

11.2 speci¿cally reminds them at that point of Mary’s role in anointing Jesus for burial.26 Thus, they are prepared for the scene later in vv. 32-33, when Mary will again be found at Jesus’ feet and Jesus will respond with emotions reminiscent of Gethsemane.27 e. Summary Bauckham’s ¿nal point concerns the differences between Jn 11.2 and 12.3 and how each of these texts compares with Mk 14.3. He observes that the description of Mary’s anointing of Jesus in Jn 11.2 naturally echoes John’s own version of the story in 12.3, rather than the Markan version (14.3), which lacks mention of the act of wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair.28 Nevertheless, he also notes that Jn 11.2, in stating the object of the anointing generally as ‘the Lord’, rather than Jesus’ feet (Jn 12.3) or his head (Mk 14.3), ‘permits identi¿cation with the Markan version a little more easily than the Johannine story itself does’. This underpins his claim that readers/hearers of Jn 11.2 who knew the Second Gospel ‘would not be impeded by the unfamiliar detail from recognizing the story they already knew from Mark’ (p. 165). Comment. On two separate counts there is evidence in the Fourth Gospel that conÀicts with Bauckham’s view that John composed 11.2 with the intention of easing the way for the Markan reader. The ¿rst involves the general observation that, whenever the same material appears in different parts of his Gospel, John does not always repeat it word for word. Thus, while in some instances – usually brief – the repetition is exact (e.g. 3.2, cf. 19.39; 6.71, cf. 12.4; 12.33, cf. 18.32), in others, the same material can be presented slightly differently (e.g. 6.39, cf. 17.12; 18.9), or can even reappear in summary form (e.g. 4.46, cf. 2.1, 9, 11; 21.20, cf. 13.23, 25). Especially relevant to what we ¿nd in 11.2 is the verbal short-cut we have already seen John take in his reminder of Caiaphas giving counsel to ‘the Jews’ in 18.14 (above). Similarly, text problems aside, we could

26. Contrary to Bauckham’s supposition (p. 151), 11.2 functions perfectly well in relation to the story in which John placed it and does not require the hypothesis that it was intended for Markan readers to account for its presence there. 27. As argued in North, Lazarus, pp. 152–3. Note also that the parallel in 18.14 serves conveniently to intrude the content of Caiaphas’s counsel into the trial scene where it is otherwise not recorded (cf. 18.24, 28). 28. This detail is, of course, present in Lk. 7.38. However, as Bauckham himself makes clear (p. 149), the issue here is not the source-critical question of what traditions may have gone into the Johannine version, but what readers who already knew Mark would make of John’s text as it stands. 1

108

A Journey Round John

add here his reference to Jesus as ‘the Lord’ in 6.23, which conveys the gist of 6.11.29 Examples like these show that if there is some difference in wording between 11.2 and 12.3, both of which deal with the same material, such variation is a common enough feature of John’s work to make it highly unlikely that he speci¿cally intended it in this case to be of signi¿cance to his readership. On the second count, the evidence involves all three anointing references in relation to one another and is best explained with the texts before us, as follows: Mark 14.3 And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of ointment of pure nard, very costly [ÄįÉÇÍ ÅŠÉ»ÇÍ ÈÀÊÌÀÁýË ÈÇÂÍ̼ÂÇıË], and she broke the jar and poured it over his head. John 11.2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. John 12.3 Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard [ÄįÉÇÍ ÅŠÉ»ÇÍ ÈÀÊÌÀÁýË ÈÇÂÍÌĕÄÇÍ] and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was ¿lled with the fragrance of the ointment.

As this comparison shows, Bauckham is correct in observing that Jn 11.2, by referring to ‘the Lord’ rather than specifying Jesus’ feet, conÀicts less with the Markan version than Jn 12.3 does. Nevertheless, as this comparison also shows, this is not all there is to be observed. Note the striking verbal parallel between Mk 14.3 and Jn 12.3 (as shown), arising from the fact that the same detailed description of the ointment appears in both texts. Assuming that Bauckham’s point here is to identify which Johannine reference to the anointing permits the Markan reader to relate the two versions more easily, then surely the direct verbal contact in the case of 12.3 would be much more likely to produce the desired effect. If so, then it becomes very dif¿cult to maintain that, when John composed 11.2, which is worded in such a way that it actually bypasses the detail about the ointment that is the crucial link with Mark, he intended the verse to cater for the Markan reader. In fact, contrary to 29. Bauckham claims that the textual evidence for omitting ‘after the Lord had given thanks’ in 6.23 is weak (p. 163). Among commentators, Barrett is much more cautious on this issue (Gospel, p. 285). Moloney, however, directs that the words be retained; see F. J. Moloney, The Gospel of John (Sacra Pagina 4; Collegeville: Michael Glazier, 1998), p. 206. 1

6. John for Readers of Mark?

109

Bauckham’s claim, one suspects that the readers of Mark would be much impeded by the unfamiliar detail in 11.2, especially on discovering that the woman called Mary not only anointed the Lord on his head (so Mark) but then used her hair to wipe his feet! IV. Summary and Conclusion Bauckham has claimed that John’s Gospel was written, not speci¿cally for his own community, but for the eyes and ears of Christians in general who, by and large, could be presumed to know the Gospel of Mark. In order to substantiate that claim, he has argued that two texts, Jn 3.24 and 11.2, were intended to invite readers of Mark to relate the two Gospel accounts. As I have indicated, the possibility that Mark was known in Johannine circles is one that cannot be ruled out. Consequently, while Bauckham’s proposal that 3.24 was directed to readers who knew Mark may test the boundaries of some existing concepts of John’s community, it does not actually shatter the mould. This leaves his interpretation of 11.2 as unequivocally directed to readers of Mark and not to John’s own community as the single basis upon which his whole argument is constructed. Thus, if Bauckham is to persuade us of his claim, his interpretation of 11.2 must be utterly secure. In this response, I have endeavoured to show that this is not the case; rather, that Bauckham’s exegesis suffers from imprecision of terminology, unargued assumptions, and a failure to take seriously the authenticity of the verse by interpreting it in line with other verses of the kind written by John. I am aware, however, that the process of answering Bauckham’s points has also necessitated a good deal of closely argued text-work. Perhaps, then, to clarify matters at this stage it would be useful to summarize the key aspects of John’s parenthesis in 11.2 that have ¿gured in this engagement with Bauckham’s work. There are three points as follows: First, it is clear from other examples in the Gospel that John has composed 11.2, not as a forward reference to the anointing story in ch. 12, but as a reference back to what his readers already know of the event before its narration as part of the Gospel. Thus, as a reference to information the reader is presumed already to know, 11.2 compares well with 18.14, which it closely parallels. Equally, as a reference to information already known to the reader from another source but not recorded in the Gospel, 11.2 may be compared with 3.24. Inasmuch, however, as 11.2 is a reference to information already known, which then becomes the subject of a later narrative, the verse is unparalleled in the Gospel. 1

110

A Journey Round John

Second, to judge from the similarities in the detail of the anointing between 11.2 and 12.3, it appears that much of the story, at least, was already known to John’s readers – either from oral tradition or, possibly, from an earlier edition of the Gospel – in advance of his later retelling of the event in the present text. Nevertheless, given John’s creativity as a redactor, the possibility remains that his readers were not already familiar with all of the detail that now appears in the story in ch. 12. I have attempted to show that this is so in the case of Lazarus, whose presence in 12.2 conveniently provides continuity to John’s story of events, but whose name is unknown to John’s readers before 11.1-2. Third, 11.2 functions, like its counterpart in 18.14, as a reminder to the readers of the action of a character from one story that is placed in another story to which the character’s action is relevant. Thus, the reminder of Caiaphas’s counsel to ‘the Jews’ in 18.14 serves to bring his position on Jesus into the Jewish trial where it is material to the scene (cf. 18.24, 28). Similarly, readers of 11.2 are reminded of Mary’s action because it needs to be borne in mind in the emotional scene later in the story where she and Jesus meet (vv. 32-33). Above all, however, this response has sought to show that what John expects his readers to know in 11.2 is that Mary, sister to Martha, anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. This combination of detail is available in no other Gospel record of the anointing but John’s (cf. 12.3), and the fact that he expects his readers to know this information in advance of its retelling in the Gospel is the strongest possible indicator that John wrote for people already in receipt of his teaching.30 In sum, if evidence there be that John intended his Gospel for Christianity at large and not for his own community, it is not to be found in 11.2. Even if we remain unpersuaded by Bauckham’s exegesis, however, it should not pass unnoticed that his argument as a whole raises important issues for the study of the Gospel in general. I will dwell brieÀy on three of these. First, Bauckham’s reader-centred perspective on John offers a potentially fruitful avenue of research into the information, and possibly also the literature, available to the community at the time of writing. His argument draws attention to the fact that John presumed his readers 30. I note that Loveday Alexander’s contribution to the Bauckham volume allows for the possibility that Johannine material circulated primarily ‘along a network of Johannine contacts within the wider community’; see L. Alexander, ‘Ancient Book Production and the Circulation of the Gospels’, in Bauckham, ed., ȉhe Gospels, pp. 71–105 (104). 1

6. John for Readers of Mark?

111

already had a knowledge of Gospel events. This means that at points John intended his Gospel to function against the background of another body of information about Jesus to which he could refer but did not need to record. While this state of affairs is not unique to the Fourth Gospel, nevertheless the clear evidence of such a reliance in John’s case increases the plausibility of the argument that he had Mark’s narrative as a point of reference alongside other traditional material available to members of his community.31 Equally, however, one could also argue that the fact that John does not appear to expect his readers to have heard of either Lazarus or Annas (cf. 11.1; 18.13), names common to his Gospel and to Luke– Acts (cf. Lk. 16.20, 23, 24, 25; 3.2, cf. Acts 4.6),32 makes it unlikely that they were aware of Luke’s writings. Second, on the assumption that John’s Gospel relates directly to Mark’s, Bauckham’s study tackles the dif¿cult issue of the precise nature of that relationship. He himself opts for complementarity rather than competitiveness, a dovetailing of events on John’s part with the minimum of disruption of Mark’s sequence, a proposal that allows the two Gospels to interact while preserving intact the independence of Johannine Gospel traditions. Nevertheless, it seems that Bauckham’s irenic argument cannot be sustained, for he is obliged to conclude that the ‘cleansing’ of the temple and the anointing in John must be read as major points of correction of Mark and claims to greater accuracy (pp. 159–60). And in any case, one wonders whether the whole source-critical issue can be so neatly side-stepped, or whether a knowledge of Mark on the part of John and his readers inevitably begs the question of his direct use of the Second Gospel in passages where the two accounts coincide. Surely also, co-operation or contradiction are not the only possible terms of engagement here, and perhaps John’s self-perception as Spirit-inspired interpreter of Jesus’ story offers a more promising alternative. Finally, Bauckham’s thesis is an invitation to rethink our views on the boundaries of the Johannine community and on the breadth of the readership envisaged by the Evangelist. What Meeks’s justly famous essay captured so well was the Gospel’s characteristic sense of isolation and difference in relation to the world outside the community, especially as viewed in its Jewish aspect. That feature notwithstanding, there yet remains good evidence of a strong sense of mission to the world in 31. This point is discussed by Moody Smith in John Among the Gospels, pp. 140–1. 32. In an uncharacteristic slip, Bauckham categorizes Annas as a character peculiar to John’s Gospel (p. 168). This error is duplicated in Esler, ‘Community and Gospel’, p. 246.

1

112

A Journey Round John

general (cf. 3.16-17; 8.12; 12.36-37; 17.18 etc.).33 Perhaps also, even the non-confessing believers still within the synagogue, whom John seems to chasten rather than to condemn (cf. 12.42-43), were not beyond the reach of his pen.34 Bauckham, of course, would prefer us to be much more radical than this, and to envisage a Gospel designed to be heard throughout the Christian movement, if not beyond.35 With this possibility in mind, I conclude with the following disquieting thought: if what John wrote was not tailored to the speci¿c circumstances of his own community but was the Gospel for all Christians, how close does that bring us to saying that it was the Gospel against all Jews?

33. This point has recently been stressed by Bauckham in ‘The Audience of the Fourth Gospel’, p. 111. 34. For this view see, for example, Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John, p. 45; B. W. Longenecker, ‘The Unbroken Messiah: A Johannine Feature and Its Social Functions’, NTS 41 (1995), pp. 428–41, esp. pp. 434–41. Note also that David Sim concedes in response to Bauckham that it is possible that one or more of the Evangelists envisaged a broader readership than their own local groups. Sim nevertheless insists that such readers would be geographically close and known to the Evangelist; cf. Sim, ‘The Gospels for All Christians?’, p. 24. 35. Bauckham has recently proposed that John wrote not only for the church at large but also for interested non-Christians; see ‘The Audience of the Fourth Gospel’, pp. 109–10. 1

Chapter 7

MONOTHEISM AND THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: JESUS, MOSES, AND THE LAW*

I. Introduction ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (Jn 1.1). In this magni¿cent opening statement, the Fourth Evangelist declares his position to whoever would know: the Word was neither ‘divine’ (¿¼ėÇË) nor was it a second god; rather, the Word was God, ¿¼ŦË. Right at the beginning of his Gospel, then, John states his case: whatever we are to learn in the story about to unfold, this is the witness of a monotheist,1 by which I mean in this context that John is a self-confessed adherent to the Jewish belief in one God.2 Yet the witness of John the monotheist to the life of Jesus seems at ¿rst the very celebration of the way to undermine the principle. As John’s Word then become Àesh, the Jesus we meet in the Gospel is omnipotent, omniscient, and seemingly oblivious to human doubt. As Son of man, he alone has descended from heaven and will return there (3.13; 6.62). As Son of God, he has been sent into the world, he does the works of God, speaks the words of God, wields God’s powers to give life and to judge, and declares himself to be one with the Father (3.17; 5.1930; 10.30; 12.49; 17.2). In fact, John not only describes Jesus in language

* Originally published in L. T. Stuckenbruck and W. E. S. North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (JSNTSup 263; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 155–66. 1. See esp. Bultmann, Gospel, pp. 33–4. 2. See also 5.44 and 17.3, where this position is echoed in the story itself. I explain my meaning aware that the appropriateness of using ‘monotheism’ language in interpreting biblical texts is open to question; see R. W. L. Moberly, ‘How Appropriate Is “Monotheism” as a Category for Biblical Interpretation?’, in Stuckenbruck and North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, pp. 216–34; see also, in the same volume, N. MacDonald, ‘The Origin of “Monotheism”’, pp. 204–15.

114

A Journey Round John

appropriate to God, but on two occasions he explicitly calls Jesus ¿¼ĠË (1.18; 20.28).3 In these respects, then, it appears that John has deliberately sought to present Jesus in the Gospel story as God on earth. Indeed, one almost hesitates to use the term ‘Christology’ of this phenomenon; it reads much more like Theology in a human environment. For all that, however, we must also be aware of the several indicators in the Gospel that John also thought of Jesus as real Àesh and blood in the normal sense. These range from the casual detail, such as weariness and thirst (4.6; 19.28), to the emphasis on Jesus’ agitation in the face of death and on the stark reality of the Passion (11.33; 12.27; 13.21; 19.1730). Most telling, perhaps, is his reference on two occasions to Jesus’ mother and his father Joseph (1.45; 6.42).4 On the basis of these observations, it seems clear that John was not only able to think of the person Jesus of Nazareth as the enÀeshment of the Word which was God, but also to claim such a thing under the Àag of Jewish monotheism. Even more to the point, perhaps, is that it evidently made theological sense to him to do that, as we may rightly judge from those passages in the Gospel where Jesus’ exalted claims are upheld in refutation of charges of ditheism made by ‘the Jews’ (5.17-30; 10.30-38; cf. 19.7). If this evaluation of John’s position is reasonably accurate, it poses important questions about the character of John’s monotheistic faith and the roots of his Christology. These may be expressed as follows. What is the background to this presentation? On what basis did John assume that he could ascribe deity to Jesus without compromising his devotion to the one God of Israel? Such considerations also point to a further complicating issue: if it was self-evident to John the Jewish monotheist that he could present Jesus as he did, why is it that others who shared that background did not also share his view? Why, indeed, on his own showing was he vehemently opposed by ‘Jews’ precisely on that score? It is obvious that if we hope to achieve even a partial resolution of these problems, we will need to be as clear as possible not only about the context in which John wrote but also about the issues that were at the heart of the conÀict in which he was a protagonist. Accordingly, beginning with a brief reminder of the immediate circumstances generally

3. Accepting the harder reading ¿¼ŦË, rather than ÍĎĠË, in 1.18, in agreement with Lindars, Gospel, pp. 98–9. 4. John does not dispute Jesus’ human parentage. The problem with ‘the Jews’ in 6.42 is not that their information is inaccurate but that they are able to see nothing more than this in Jesus; see esp. Bultmann, Gospel, pp. 62 n. 4, 104 n. 1, and 229 n. 5. 1

7. Monotheism and the Gospel of John

115

thought to have prompted the publication of the Gospel, this investigation will focus on John’s presentation of one particular group in that situation who appear to represent the middle ground between the hostile ‘Jews’ on the one hand and the Johannine Christians on the other. The preoccupations of this group will be taken to indicate those features which were of central concern to the Judaism with which John was familiar, and on that basis a description of the positions of all three groups as differing responses to these core elements will be attempted. Finally, conclusions will be offered on John’s Christology as a Jewish monotheistic concept. II. The Gospel’s Sitz im Leben Since the ground-breaking work of J. L. Martyn, it has become widely recognized that the Fourth Gospel can be interpreted on two historical levels: it not only relates the story of Jesus which is in the Evangelist’s past but also, in that process, conveys crucial information about contemporary circumstances which the Gospel is concerned to address.5 Three texts in particular, all referring to exclusion from the synagogue (9.22; 12.42; 16.2), are seen as key to the situation involving the Evangelist and his readers at the time of writing. The ¿rst two reÀect an innersynagogue situation where people go in fear of the authorities (‘Jews’, 9.22; ‘Pharisees’, 12.42), who have agreed to evict from that gathering any who confess belief in Jesus. The third text not only refers to exclusion from the synagogue but also envisages a time when killing believers will be seen as offering service to God (16.2).6 Bearing in mind the inevitable bias in these reports, it is dif¿cult to tell with any precision what happened to cause the rift in the ¿rst place.7 We

5. See Martyn, History and Theology (1979), pp. 24–36. 6. See Martyn, History and Theology (1979), pp. 38–42. 7. On the dif¿culties involved in reconstructing the speci¿c circumstances under which Johannine Christians were rejected by the synagogue, see J. M. G. Barclay, ‘Who Was Considered an Apostate in the Jewish Diaspora?’, in Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. G. N. Stanton and G. G. Stroumsa; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 80–98 (90–1, 93). Martyn’s hypothesis that there was a synagogue ban operated by Judaism against Christians at the time (History and Theology, pp. 43–62) has not gone uncriticised; see Ashton, Understanding (1st ed.), p. 108 n. 102; also J. M. Lieu, ‘Temple and Synagogue in John’, NTS 45 (1999), pp. 51–69 (61), and ‘Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel: Explanation and Hermeneutics’, in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000 (ed. R. Bieringer et al.; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1

116

A Journey Round John

must surely allow, however, that by the time John compiled and composed the Fourth Gospel such dif¿culties were in the past, and this means that whatever situation we do ¿nd reÀected in the Gospel is likely to tell us rather more about the consequences of such an upheaval than it does about a possible cause.8 This being the case, it seems reasonable to assume that these three texts indicate the following: ¿rst, that at the time of writing the Johannine group is already excluded from the Jewish community which is their natural home; second, that John knows of other believers less ready to confess their faith who have not been excluded; and, third, that he fears the situation is about to enter another, deadlier, stage in which the lives of his Àock may be forfeit.9 Clearly this is a serious state of affairs and, as already indicated, one in which the dispute between the two sides evidently has the Johannine Christology as its Àashpoint: according to ‘the Jews’, Jesus’ claims to equality with God are blasphemous and worthy of death (5.18; 10.33); according to the Johannine Jesus, they are liable to no such charge.

2001), pp. 126–43 (134). In the same volume, see also R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, ‘Wrestling with Johannine Anti-Judaism: A Hermeneutical Framework for the Analysis of the Current Debate’, pp. 3–44 (12 with n. 28); S. Motyer, ‘The Fourth Gospel and the Salvation of Israel: An Appeal for a New Start’, pp. 92–110 (94 with n. 10; 97–8); and M. C. de Boer, ‘The Depiction of “the Jews” in John’s Gospel: Matters of Behavior and Identity’, pp. 260–80 (267 with n. 25). See further the full discussion in A. T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2000), pp. 269–78. For the suggestion that the disaster of 70 CE had a fateful role to play, see P. Perkins, ‘If Jerusalem Stood: The Destruction of Jerusalem and Christian Anti-Judaism’, BibInt 8 (2000), pp. 194–204 (201–4). 8. For the view that the Gospel represents the Johannine group’s response to rejection rather than the attitudes that may have precipitated it, see B. J. Malina and L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), p. 9. A. T. Lincoln judges wisely that the Gospel was written at a point when suf¿cient time had elapsed for the Johannine group to assume an identity separate from that of the synagogue, but not enough time to heal the scars of the breach; see his Truth on Trial, p. 285. 9. See Martyn, History and Theology, pp. 66–81. J. M. Lieu observes, correctly, that John’s emphasis elsewhere rests on Temple rather than synagogue (‘Temple and Synagogue’, pp. 51–69). Nevertheless, his use of the hapax ÒÈÇÊÍÅŠºÑºÇË, dubbed ‘enigmatic’ by Lieu (p. 62), must surely still remain a key indicator to the Johannine situation post-70. Not only does the immediate context of 16.2 suggest a live issue, but it is important to note that 9.22 and 12.42 occur in editorial comment only, and that all three references apply exclusively to those who believe in Jesus, as distinct from Jesus himself (cf. 6.59). 1

7. Monotheism and the Gospel of John

117

If, as we suppose, this Gospel was forged out of conÀict between groups who were once close and who laid claim to the same cultural territory, can we specify some common factor in that shared background which could have been appropriated by both sides in radically different – and ultimately irreconcilable – ways? If we can, then we will surely have come close, not only to the bone of contention fundamental to this dispute, but also to the key feature within Judaism from which Johannine Christology took its cue and in relation to which it developed its distinctive shape. With that in mind, I will now attempt to place us right in the centre of that dispute by focusing on a group who appear to represent the middle ground between the other two opposing extremes. III. John’s Believing ‘Jews’ In his references to exclusion from the synagogue, John tells us that there are not two parties in the fray, but three. On the one hand, there are ‘Jews’/Pharisees who expel from the synagogue and seek to kill and, on the other, the Johannine faithful who are estranged and threatened, but 12.42 attests the existence of a third group who also believe in Jesus but stay low-pro¿le in the synagogue for fear of exclusion. These people are almost certainly the group John has in mind when he refers to ‘Jews’ who believe.10 For the most part, ‘the Jews’ in John’s gospel are presented as a hostile and menacing force (cf. 5.18; 7.1, 13, 19, 25; 8.37-39; 9.22; 10.2239; 11.8; 18.12, 40; 19.7, 12, 38; 20.19). Nevertheless, it is important to take account of the fact that not all John’s references conform to this stereotype. In some cases, John’s ‘Jews’ can be sympathetic and wellintentioned, often confused and mysti¿ed in response to Jesus rather than classically hostile.11 They can also believe in Jesus although, in John’s opinion, their faith is of a rather inferior, miracle-centred variety by contrast with genuine faith which, he insists, is based on Jesus’ word 10. The following paragraphs on ‘the Jews’ and on 10.41-42 summarize earlier research, see North, Lazarus, pp. 124–6, 132–4. 11. This more positive aspect of John’s presentation of ‘the Jews’ is not always reÀected in studies on the Gospel. For example, out of the twenty-four contributors to the recently published volume, Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, only three deal with this topic in any detail, of whom two (Dunn and Motyer) point out that it is insuf¿ciently recognized in the debate; see de Boer, ‘The Depiction of “the Jews” in John’s Gospel’; J. D. G. Dunn, ‘The Embarrassment of History: ReÀections on the Problems of “Anti-Judaism” in the Fourth Gospel’, pp. 47–67 (56–7); Motyer, ‘The Fourth Gospel and the Salvation of Israel’, p. 105. 1

118

A Journey Round John

(cf. 4.41-42, 48, 50; cf. 4.53; 5.24; 6.63, 68; 8.30-31).12 This non-hostile type seems to ¿nd its representative in Nicodemus, whom John dubs ‘a ruler of the Jews’ (3.1).13 Impressed by the signs and therefore less than trustworthy (3.2; cf. 2.23), Nicodemus comes to Jesus ‘by night’ and never quite leaves the darkness behind (3.2; 19.39). Failing to grasp the essentials of Johannine truth, he retains a perspective focused on law, and continues to the last to act secretly and to follow the customs of ‘the Jews’ (3.10; 7.51; 19.38-40).14 This particular representation of ‘the Jews’ resonates well with John’s reference in 12.42 to certain believers – even rulers, he says – who have not confessed their faith for fear of exclusion from the synagogue. We should not fail to note the blistering comment that follows in 12.43, in which he roundly accuses them of seeking human praise rather than God’s. It may well be, however, that in scolding them, John also held out the hope of winning these closetChristians round to his point of view. I now propose to build up a pro¿le of these ‘Jews’ with reference to John’s presentation of them in the Lazarus story and related material (10.40–12.19), which is where they feature most prominently. The relevant details are as follows: a. In 10.40-42, where John prepares the ground for the Lazarus miracle, he reintroduces the topic of signs (v. 41) and relates that to the belief on ‘the many’ (v. 42). Reference to the faith of ‘the many’ has previously been linked with the signs (2.23; 7.31) and associated with ‘the Jews’ (8.30-31;15 see also Nicodemus at 3.12, cf. 2.23; and ‘the Jews’ at 7.35, cf. v. 31). This refrain will be repeated again in relation to ‘the Jews’ who believe because of

12. See M.-E. Boismard, Moïse ou Jésus: Essai de Christologie Johannique (BETL 84; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988), p. 68; Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, pp. 204–5. 13. See Martyn, History and Theology (1979), pp. 87–8, cf. p.116, on ‘rulers’, including Nicodemus, as secret believers. 14. On these and other points relating to Nicodemus’ ambiguous presentation, see the bibliography in North, Lazarus, p. 125 n. 27, and add now J.-M. Sevrin, ‘The Nicodemus Enigma: The Characterization and Function of an Ambiguous Actor of the Fourth Gospel’, in R. Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 357–69. 15. This identi¿cation is clear whatever else we make of this dif¿cult text. On the problem of ‘the Jews’ who believe in 8.30-31, but who are then charged with seeking to kill Jesus, and behave accordingly (8.37-59), see Moloney, Gospel, p. 277. The abrupt shift to vehement denunciation at 8.37 suggests that John has hostile authorities in mind from this point onwards (cf. 5.18; 7.1, 19-20, 25; 11.8, 53; 12.10). 1

7. Monotheism and the Gospel of John

119

the Lazarus sign (11.45; cf. 12.11), and will make its ¿nal appearance, again in relation to the signs, in 12.42 (cf. v. 37), John’s reference to the low-pro¿le believers in the synagogue. b. In the story proper, these ‘Jews’ are ‘the many’ who arrive from Jerusalem to sympathize with Martha and Mary (11.19),16 and who follow Mary to the tomb to weep (vv. 31, 33). Never quite grasping the full implications of Jesus’ love for Lazarus, and ever alert to another miraculous cure (vv. 36-37), many believe on witnessing the sign, although some prove less than trustworthy (vv. 45-46). In ch. 12, a great crowd of these ‘Jews’ Àocks to Bethany, not only because of Jesus but also to see the spectacle of Lazarus risen from the dead (12.19). Later, their witness to the Lazarus sign is said to account for the enthusiastic reception Jesus is given on his entry into Jerusalem (vv. 17-18). c. Events on either side of the miracle deserve special attention. Before it takes place, Jesus gives voice to his thanksgiving prayer to the Father in order to appeal to the crowd standing by to believe that he was sent by God (11.41-42). In 11.45, many of the crowd, who are ‘the Jews’ who had come with Mary (cf. v. 31), are quick to respond.17 Following the miracle, John makes it abundantly clear that it is precisely the signs-faith of these ‘Jews’ which places Jesus’ life in danger. At the council meeting, the fear that all will come to believe in Jesus because of the signs drives the authorities to act decisively against him (11.4748, cf. v. 53). By extension, the same threat to life is applied to Lazarus, on whose account, we learn, many of ‘the Jews’ were going away and believing in Jesus (12.10-11). Finally, following the triumphal entry, it becomes plain to the authorities that this signs-based adulation is beyond their powers to control (12.1819). The obvious corollary is that Jesus must be stopped. On the basis of the evidence in these chapters, we may describe this group of ‘Jews’ as follows. These are ‘the many’ who believe, who are attracted by the miraculous and who readily accept on that basis that Jesus is sent from God. As John presents them, they are shallow and lacking in insight. More than that, however, their adulation represents a 16. Note that they are quite distinct from ‘the Jews’ who seek to stone Jesus referred to in 11.8. 17. The conclusion that 11.42 targets ‘the Jews’, rather than the disciples, represents a change from my earlier interpretation of this verse (see North, Lazarus, p. 158). 1

120

A Journey Round John

danger, for it immediately prompts the authorities to seek the lives of both Jesus and Lazarus in order to prevent any further loosening of their hold over these people. In addition to this material, it is worth noting those ‘Jews’ passages elsewhere in the Gospel in which these various characteristics are echoed.18 ‘The Jews’ in ch. 6, for example, are presented as the puzzled, non-hostile type (vv. 41-42, 52) and are continuous with the crowd who earlier followed Jesus because of the signs (v. 2). The equally puzzled ‘Jews’ at 7.35 relate to ‘the many’ impressed by the signs in v. 31, who have believed in Jesus on hearing his claim that he was sent by God (v. 29), and whose faith has spurred the authorities to take action against him (v. 32). Finally, there are ‘the Jews’ in 8.31, who are ‘the many’ who believe when Jesus claims that he always pleases the Father who sent him (vv. 29-30).19 So much, then, for John’s believing ‘Jews’, who occupy the uncomfortable middle ground between the other two radically opposed positions. What precisely is the nature of the faith in Jesus John attributes to these fence-sitters, and in what ways does it connect with and differ from the convictions of the other two sides, namely, the hostile ‘Jews’ on the one hand, and the Johannine Christians on the other? At this point, I defer gratefully to the work of a number of scholars who have convincingly argued that the signs-based faith we have found to be characteristic of these non-hostile ‘Jews’ represents an interest in Jesus as the prophet like Moses.20 The basic text here is Deut. 18.18-22. 18. Pace R. E. Brown, Gospel, pp. 427–8, the treatment of ‘the Jews’ in chs. 11 and 12 is not inconsistent with references earlier in the Gospel and therefore does not constitute evidence of the hand of a redactor. 19. Possibly also these ‘Jews’ reappear in 19.20 as ‘the many’ who read the title on the cross. Note that the Jewish authorities (‘the chief priests of the Jews’) act quickly to change the wording from what looks like a believable fact to a falsi¿able claim (v. 21). 20. These include: J. D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Signi¿cance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991); idem, ‘Let John Be John: A Gospel for Its Time’, in The Gospel and the Gospels (ed. P. Stuhlmacher; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 293–322; Martyn, History and Theology; W. A. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (NovTSup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1967); idem, ‘ “Am I a Jew?” ’: Johannine Christianity and Judaism’, in Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty (ed. J. Neusner; SJLA 12/1; Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 163–86; Menken, Old Testament Quotations, pp. 46–65; N. R. Petersen, The Gospel of John and the Sociology of Light: Language and Characterization in the Fourth Gospel (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993); and D. Moody Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University 1

7. Monotheism and the Gospel of John

121

This is where God promises Moses to raise up a prophet like him who will speak God’s words as commanded, and whom the people must hear upon pain of divine displeasure. The text goes on to describe another prophet, the false pretender, who presumes to speak in God’s name, or speaks in the name of other gods, but his word will not come true and he must be put to death. Deuteronomy 13.1-11 (LXX 13.1-12) elaborates on this false prophet: he is associated with signs and wonders and persuades the people to follow and serve other gods. His words must not be heeded and he must be put to death for leading the people astray. Finally, we must not ignore the epitaph on Moses at the end of Deuteronomy (34.1012). This states that no prophet has arisen since to compare with Moses, whom God knew face to face, and none like him for all the signs and wonders God sent him to do in Egypt.21 There are other, later, texts which develop this imagery and these are important because they are nearer John’s time. They range from Ecclesiasticus in the second century BCE to Samaritan material in the fourth century CE. Basically, they assume the following: ¿rst, that when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Law (Exod. 19.20; 20.21; 24.18; 32.31), he entered into heaven and there saw God himself; second, that on Sinai, God initiated Moses into the secrets of nature and thereby endowed him with power over the elements which is manifested in his miracles; and third, that Moses was made God’s vice-regent on earth, invested with God’s power and given God’s name.22 IV. Jesus, Moses, and the Law This investigation into John’s presentation of the non-hostile ‘Jews’ has led us to conclude that their faith derives from a kind of Jewish piety in which Moses the lawgiver was central and accorded the highest possible status in relation to God. For our purposes, this is a crucially important

Press, 1995), pp. 108, 126. See further Boismard, Moïse ou Jésus, pp. 44–71, who also conjectures that the Cana miracle, the cure of the of¿cial’s son, and the miraculous catch of ¿sh must have originally been the ¿rst three signs in John’s source, in reference to the three ‘signs’ performed by Moses in Exod. 4.1-9. 21. On these and other biblical texts concerning Moses, see Petersen, Sociology of Light, pp. 91–6. 22. For detail, see Dunn, Partings of the Ways, p. 223; idem, ‘Let John Be John’, p. 307; L. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (London: SCM, 1988), pp. 56–63; Meeks, Prophet-King, pp. 110–11, 120–5, 147–9, 156–9, 205–9, 241–4; idem, ‘ “Am I a Jew?” ’, p. 173; Menken, Old Testament Quotations, pp. 56–63. 1

122

A Journey Round John

point, for there is compelling evidence that Moses traditions have played a large part in the argument of the Gospel as a whole. Indeed, not only do John’s hostile ‘Jews’ declare their allegiance to Moses, but it is clear enough that John’s own presentation of Jesus has involved some considerable engagement with the status and signi¿cance of the lawgiver. In other words, in pin-pointing the Moses-centred piety behind the faith of John’s believing ‘Jews’, we have at once arrived at the factor which is common to all three groups as represented in the Gospel, although in each case that common ground has been differently construed. By the same token, I suggest, we have also completed our search for the key feature within Judaism which, above all, saw the distinctive Johannine Christology take direction and shape. With that in mind, the last section of this study will be devoted to an analysis of the position of all three groups in relation to Moses and the Law. I will leave John’s attitudes until last for a fuller comment. a. Moses and the Law: John’s Hostile ‘Jews’ These evidently hold fast to the Moses-centred, Torah-focused piety that we have recognized as the basis of the other two positions, but in this case, if there has been any movement at all, we must surely think in terms of entrenchment rather than progress. These are the self-styled disciples of Moses (9.28) whom they see as their advocate before God (5.45), and who engage in study of Torah as the source of eternal life (5.39). They appear to maintain this position with varying degrees of aggression. They reject outright the suggestion that Jesus is the prophet like Moses (9.29; 12.37) and are ready to threaten with exclusion those ‘Jews’ who are attracted to that idea (cf. 12.42). Any application of the Moses traditions to Jesus here is restricted to identifying Jesus as the false prophet, who presumes to speak God’s words and who leads the people astray (7.47, cf. v. 12; 7.52; 11.48; 12.11, 19),23 and so they will take action against him and see that he and his kind are put to death before more are seduced by his tricks and poached from under their noses (cf. 7.1, 32; 11.53; 12.10; 16.2).

23. In 7.12, 47, John’s verb is ȸŊÑ, as in Deut. 13.6 (LXX). See further, M. J. J. Menken, ‘Scriptural Dispute Between Jews and Christians in John: Literary Fiction or Historical Reality? John 9:13-17, 24-34 as a Test Case’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 445–60 (451, 457); also Lincoln, Truth on Trial, pp. 23– 4, 37, 105, 232; Martyn, History and Theology (1979), p. 115.

1

7. Monotheism and the Gospel of John

123

b. Moses, Jesus, and the Law: John’s Non-hostile ‘Jews’ As regards ¿delity to Moses and the Torah, strictly speaking this position is no different from that of John’s hostile ‘Jews’. Nevertheless, it also represents a distinct advance on the former in John’s terms in that Jesus is seen here to ful¿l the requirements of the prophet like Moses in accordance with the Torah. On the basis of the signs, these ‘Jews’ accept that Jesus is ‘the prophet’ (6.14), that he is sent by God (7.29; 8.29; 11.42; cf. Nicodemus at 3.2) and, in that regard, they expect him to repeat the Exodus miracle of the manna, which they already attribute to Moses (6.29-31).24 Nevertheless, given that they retain the Torah-centred focus of the ¿rst group (7.51),25 they are consistently presented by John as failing to grasp Jesus’ true meaning (cf. 3.4, 9-10; 6.41-42; 7.35-36; 8.22, 27; 11.36-37). He represents their signs-faith as untrustworthy (2.23-24; 4.48; cf. 11.46) and their closet-Christian position as a lilylivered compromise (12.42-43). The goal of this polemic, however, seems to be an appeal to win them over to the Johannine Christian faith (cf. 11.42; 12.44-50).26 c. Jesus: Johannine Christianity This third trajectory is at once the most radical and the most complex in relation to Moses and the Torah. There are four main elements to be taken into account:

24. See Menken, Old Testament Quotations, pp. 61–3. 25. On this aspect, see S. Freyne, ‘Vilifying the Other and De¿ning the Self: Matthew’s and John’s Anti-Jewish Polemic in Focus’, in ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs; Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 117–43 (127). 26. For this view, see de Boer, ‘Depiction’, p. 268 n. 28, p. 270 n. 34; Brown, Gospel, pp. LXXIII–LXXV; Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John, p. 45; Longenecker, ‘The Unbroken Messiah’; W. A. Meeks, ‘The Divine Agent and His Counterfeit in Philo and the Fourth Gospel’, in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. E. Schüssler Fiorenza; University of Notre Dame Center for the Study of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity 2; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), pp. 43–67 (58–9); S. Pancaro, The Law in the Fourth Gospel: The Torah and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus, Judaism and Christianity According to John (NovTSup 42; Leiden: Brill, 1975), p. 533; D. Rensberger, Overcoming the World: Politics and Community in the Gospel of John (London: SPCK, 1988), pp. 41, 114, 145; S. J. Tanzer, ‘Salvation Is for the Jews: Secret Christian Jews in the Gospel of John’, in The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (ed. B. A. Pearson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), pp. 285–300. 1

124

A Journey Round John

i) Moses as faithful witness. Moses and the Law are by no means rejected by the Johannine group. On the contrary, we hear that Moses wrote about Jesus (1.45; 5.46-47)27 and foreshadowed his cruci¿xion (3.14). John is clear that Scripture cannot be annulled (10.35) and he takes steps to demonstrate by scriptural exegesis that in Jesus the Law of Moses is not broken but ful¿lled (7.19-23; 10.34-36; cf. 15.25).28 For John, those who fail to keep the Law are the hostile ‘Jews’. They misinterpret the Scriptures, and they will have to answer to Moses himself for that (5.39-40, 45); they do not keep the Law, but seek instead to kill Jesus (7.19; cf. 19.7); indeed, they can even behave contrary to the point of law made by Nicodemus, while ironically scorning the rabble for their ignorance of it (7.49-51).29 ii) Jesus and Moses. There can be no doubt that the Deuteronomic picture of the prophet like Moses has hugely inÀuenced John’s Christology.30 Jesus is identi¿ed as a ‘prophet’ by the Johannine faithful (4.19; 9.17; cf. 1.21, 25), and the Gospel describes him as one ‘sent’ and the Father as the sender no fewer than 24 times. In true Exodus fashion, Jesus performs signs (cf., e.g., 2.23; 7.31; 9.16; 11.47; 12.37, esp. 6.14), his predictions are seen to come true (13.19; 14.29; 16.4) and he utters only the words of God as commanded (3.34; 7.16; 8.28, 40; 12.49-50; 14.10, 24).31 27. Boismard, following R. E. Brown, suggests that a precise reference to Deut. 18.18 is intended by this statement; see Boismard, Moïse ou Jésus, pp. 27–32; Brown, Gospel, p. 86. 28. See further, J. M. Lieu, ‘Narrative Analysis and Scripture in John’, in The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North (ed. S. Moyise; JSNTSup 189; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 2000), pp. 144–63 (158– 61); Meeks, Prophet-King, pp. 288–9. 29. See further, Pancaro, Law, pp. 156, 527–8. 30. So Boismard, Moïse ou Jésus, pp. 5–71; idem, ‘Jésus, le Prophète par excellence, d’après Jean 10.24-39’, in Neues Testament und Kirche: Festschrift für R. Schnackenburg (ed. J. Gnilka; Freiburg: Herder, 1974), pp. 160–71; Meeks, Prophet-King, esp. pp. 301–8; Martyn, History and Theology (1979), esp. pp. 102– 30; Menken, Old Testament Quotations, p. 57; idem, ‘Scriptural Dispute’, p. 453. According to P. N. Anderson, this agency typology is not only fundamental to John’s Christology but also underlies the whole presentation of the Father–Son relationship in the Gospel, see his ‘The Having-Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father–Son Relationship’, Semeia 85 (1999), pp. 33–57. Curiously, Anderson draws his evidence from Deut. 18.15-22 only (see pp. 36–40). 31. See, e.g., Boismard, Moïse ou Jésus, pp. 11–20 and 64–5; A. Reinhartz, ‘Jesus as Prophet: Predictive Prolepses in the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 36 (1989), pp. 3–16. On the Mosaic background to Jesus’ role as ‘paraclete’, see Pancaro, Law, pp. 256–8. It seems that the exalted Moses traditions persisted in Christianity in the east; see J. Neusner, Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian–Jewish Argument in 1

7. Monotheism and the Gospel of John

125

iii) Jesus, not Moses. Nevertheless, John has no intention of allowing Moses-enthusiasts to get these similarities out of proportion. Here, any overly exalted view of Moses is Àatly contradicted in favour of Jesus. 32 ‘No one has ever seen God’ in 1.18 must at least be partly aimed at the conviction that Moses had seen God (cf. also 5.37). This is true only of Jesus, John claims, in whom alone God is revealed (1.18; 6.46). Notice also the same Àat denial to Nicodemus, again in a Moses context, ‘No one has ascended into heaven’ (3.13). John insists there is only Jesus, the Son of man, who descended from heaven and will return there (6.62). 33 We can add here as anti-Moses polemic the sharp correction that it was God, not Moses, who gave the bread from heaven (6.32), and that it was not Moses, but the fathers, who gave circumcision (7.22). iv) Jesus, not the Law. If John was prepared to demote Moses in favour of Jesus, he was also prepared to take a yet more radical step, a step which the believing ‘Jews’ had evidently not taken, and which nonbelieving ‘Jews’ could only have greeted with outrage: Jesus in John’s Gospel is the living embodiment of the Word of God, the Torah found in Àesh and blood which surpasses and supplants the Law of Moses as the way to God.34 For this reason, the coming of Jesus is grace in place of grace (1.16),35 since the glory of God, to which Moses in the Law had Fourth-Century Iran (StPB 19; Leiden: Brill, 1971), pp. 68–72. Aphrahat claims that Christians may apply ‘the title of divinity’ to Jesus on the grounds that God did not withhold his name from righteous men like Moses, and cites Ps. 82.6 in support of his case (cf. Jn 10.34). Neusner rightly detects here an argument akin to John’s thinking (p. xii). 32. See esp. Dunn, Partings of the Ways, pp. 225–6. 33. See R. E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (London: Chapman, 1994), pp. 210–13; Dunn, ‘Let John Be John’, p. 310; Martyn, History and Theology (1979), pp. 121–35. Petersen describes this reaction to the Moses image as an example of ‘anti-language’, which not only derives from the image but also transforms it through contrast (Sociology of Light, pp. 5–6, 89–90, 98–9). For a recent and full treatment of John’s response to the Moses traditions in terms of legitimation, see J. F. McGrath, John’s Apologetic Christology: Legitimation and Development in Johannine Christology (SNTSMS 111; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 200l), esp. pp. 149–95. 34. Note that John himself refers to the Law as the word of God: 10.35, cf. 5.38; 12.38; 15.25. In this he echoes a Jewish commonplace; see further, Dodd, Interpretation, pp. 269–73; Brown, Epistles, p. 252. 35. So R. B. Edwards, ‘ŠÉÀÅ ÒÅÌĖ ÏŠÉÀÌÇË (John 1.16): Grace and the Law in the Johannine Prologue’, JSNT 32 (1988), pp. 3–15. See further, the discussion on Johannine Christology as supersessionist in Bieringer, Pollefeyt and VandecasteeleVanneuville, ‘Wrestling with Johannine Anti-Judaism’, pp. 32–3. 1

126

A Journey Round John

borne witness, is now accessible in a human being. I suggest that it is this fundamental shift on John’s part away from the centrality of Torah to the centrality of Jesus which accounts for the main contours of Johannine Christology as we meet it in the Gospel. Here, as is often remarked, the life-giving and sustaining properties Judaism traditionally associated with the Torah as God’s Word have been applied to Jesus wholesale.36 Hence, John describes Jesus in terms of bread, light, and living water, and has Jesus insist that in him alone is the eternal life which is sought by ‘the Jews’ in the Scriptures (6.35, 48; 8.12; 4.14 etc.; 5.39-40).37 Hence also, it follows that the inÀuence of Wisdom, already equated with the Torah in Judaism,38 looms large in his presentation of Jesus, and that the intimacy of the Father–Son relationship in the Gospel echoes that between God and his Word (10.30) or between God and Wisdom his darling child, his ÄÇÅǺ¼ÅûË (1.14, 18; 3.16, 18; cf. Wis. 7.22).39 V. Conclusion The approach adopted in this study has enabled us to see John’s Christology as one element in a spectrum of responses to Jesus, rooted in the Judaism John knew and which, for all the rows and rifts, was no less his own cultural home. Inasmuch as the three positions identi¿ed here40 are based on Moses and the Law, they are organically linked and come into agreement; inasmuch, however, as each has construed that basis differently in relation to Jesus, then they are seen to conÀict and, in the two cases of John and the hostile ‘Jews’, violently so.

36. See, e.g., Dodd, Interpretation, pp. 82–6, 336–7; Barrett, Gospel, pp. 233, 293, 336–7; P. Borgen, Logos Was the True Light and Other Essays on the Gospel of John (Trondheim: Tapir, 1983), pp. 104–5. 37. On Jesus as both Mosaic prophet and the meaning and purpose of the Torah as life-giving, see G. J. Brooke, ‘Christ and the Law in John 7–10’, in Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity (ed. B. Lindars; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1988), pp. 102–12 (112). 38. For the equation of Wisdom with the Torah, see Sir. 24.23; Bar. 4.1; Philo, Migr. 130; for Wisdom as the word of God, see Sir. 24.3; Prov. 2.6; Wis. 9.1-2; see further Dunn, Christology, pp. 170–1, 219–20; Pancaro, Law, p. 545. 39. See, e.g., Ashton, ‘The Transformation of Wisdom’, pp. 25, 31. 40. There may well be more. The range of speculation among factions in ch. 7, for example, suggests that John was familiar with pious conjecture of various kinds concerning the Messiah and access to heavenly knowledge; see further Dunn, ‘Let John be John’, pp. 311–12; idem, ‘The Embarrassment of History’, pp. 56–7; Freyne, ‘Vilifying’, p. 140. 1

7. Monotheism and the Gospel of John

127

The Fourth Evangelist emerges from this context as a Christian Jew for whom faith in the one God of Israel has become centred on Jesus. Seen against his particular background, the steps he has taken seem logical enough, for he has plainly worked on the assumption that all that was venerated in Judaism as the means to God must be superlatively true of Jesus. Thus, it follows that just as in the Judaism he knew Moses and the Torah were highly esteemed in relation to God, so also John’s Christology, in which those features are taken up, is correspondingly ‘high’. It also follows, I suggest, that just as Judaism clearly regarded its own ‘high’ claims for the Torah as consistent with monotheism, so John also is unlikely to have perceived his own position as in breach of that creed. In fact, the real conÀict here between John and his hostile opponents seems to lie not in the principle but in its application, for if these ‘Jews’ were prepared to exalt the Torah as God’s life-giving word, it is clear enough from the Gospel that they found John’s attribution of divine status to Jesus of Nazareth completely unacceptable. To do that, they insist, is blasphemy because it puts a human being on a level with God (5.18; 10.33). John’s reply is that the blasphemy charge is not justi¿ed in Jesus’ case because his whole life was so open to God that he never made a move or uttered a word except at God’s bidding (5.19-30; cf. 7.16-18; 8.26-29; 10.37-38; 12.44-50; 14.10, 24; 17.7-8). Eternal life thus consists in knowing the one God through Jesus, who seeks only the glory of the one who sent him (5.44; 7.18; 17.3). In such a scheme, God is not rivalled and monotheism is not breached. This brings me to a ¿nal thought. What do you do if you are a ¿rstcentury Jew and your belief in the one God is Jesus-shaped? It seems to me that there is more than one way to come to terms with that: either you safeguard monotheism by presenting Jesus in all his human vulnerability, denying that anyone is good but God, as in Mark’s gospel, for example, or you do it another way, which is by showing a human life so surrendered to God’s will that to encounter that person is to meet only God in word and action. We tend to think of John’s Christology as posing a problem to Jewish monotheism. What if John himself saw it as a solution?

1

Chapter 8

THE IMAGE OF MARTHA IN LUKE 10.38-42 AND IN JOHN 11.1–12.8* B. J. Koet and W. E. S. North

I. Introduction One of Ulrich Busse’s qualities is his ability to connect the insights, the knowledge and the questions of German exegetes of the past with new methods. As a former student of Haenchen he edited his commentary on John.1 In his own publications he demonstrates time and again how to dig in the goldmine of the nineteenth century to reveal the treasures hidden there. His main contributions are to the exegesis of the miracles in the Lukan literature and to the imagery in the Johannine Gospel. Thus, it is not unexpected that his Festschrift focuses on the same interests. While the theme of this book (miracles and imagery) is, in fact, only a combination of the topics of Busse’s two most important publications, such combinations often offer the opportunity to raise new questions. Although Busse’s work is full of examples that new questions and new solutions are often not new but are already dealt with in earlier * Co-written by B. J. Koet and W. E. S. North, this article was originally published in J. Verheyden, G. Van Belle and J. G. van der Watt, eds., Miracles and Imagery in Luke and John, Festschrift Ulrich Busse (BETL 218; Leuven: Peeters, 2008), pp. 47–66. It is reprinted here by kind permission of the publishers. I am grateful to my husband, Dr. J. Lionel North, for advice on translation. 1. Ernst Haenchen, Das Johannesevangelium: Ein Kommentar (aus den nachgelassen Manuscripten) (ed. Ulrich Busse; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1980). See, e.g., U. Busse, ‘Johannes und Lukas: Die Lazaruspericope, Frucht eines Kommunikationsprozesses’, in Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics, pp. 281–306. In this article Busse gives an overview of the different positions of nineteenth-century scholars on the relation between John and the Synoptics, see esp. pp. 284–8. He shows that present-day discussions are, to a great extent, a continuation of the discussions held in the nineteenth century.

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

129

literature, the authors of this article (both members of the annual Seminar on the use of the Old Testament in the New) are hoping that at least some new ground will be covered here. One author is more at home in Lukan literature2 while the other is more familiar with Johannine exegesis.3 Our joint contribution will focus on the image of only one of the characters common to both Gospels, namely Martha, whose activities are typi¿ed by the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ (so Lk.10.40, both verb and noun; Jn 12.2, verb only). Our aim is to discover what Martha’s »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸ consists of in Lk. 10.38-42 as well as how the same activity is perceived by John in 12.1-8. In exegetical literature some attention has already been paid to the relationship between these pericopae.4 In this article we will begin by sketching the features of Martha in Luke’s Gospel and then we will compare them with the way she is depicted in John.5 II. Martha as Minister of the Kingdom of God in Luke 10.38-426 a. Who Is Martha and What Role Does She Represent? Loveday Alexander refers to the fact that St Martha is the patroness of cooks and housewives and that she is often represented in homely dress 2. See, e.g., B. J. Koet, Dreams and Scripture in Luke–Acts: Collected Essays (CBET 43; Leuven: Peeters, 2006). 3. See, e.g., North, Lazarus. 4. A. Dauer, Johannes und Lukas: Untersuchungen zu den johanneischelukanischen Parallelperikopen Joh 4,46-54 / Lk 7,1-10 – Joh 12,1-8 / Lk 7,36-50; 10,38-42 – Joh 20,19-29 / Lk 24,36-49 (FzB 50; Würzburg: Echter, 1984). 5. Although the reason that we limit our research to Martha only is largely a practical one, we can also add that Martha is more important than Mary in Luke’s story. Carter, ‘Getting Martha out of the Kitchen’, p. 215, refers to the fact that Martha receives more attention from the writer than Mary does. In the same volume, L. Alexander (‘Sisters in Adversity: Retelling Martha’s Story’, pp. 197–213 [199]), argues that the traditional (i.e. male) exegetical preference for Mary must be treated by feminists with a good deal of suspicion because, in grammatical terms also, Martha is much more important: for the precise argument, see p. 206. 6. Understandably, there are quite a few articles on this passage in feminist literature. In Levine, A Feminist Companion to Luke, see also Pamela Thimmes, ‘The Language of Community: A Cautionary Tale (Luke 10.38-42)’, pp. 232–45. See also, e.g., E. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (London: SCM, 1983), p. 165; for a critical review of her position, see J. N. Collins, ‘Did Luke Intend a Disservice to Women in the Martha and Mary Story’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 28 (1998), pp. 104–11. For some other literature from a feminist angle, see T. K. Seim, The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke–Acts (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994), pp. 97–118; B. E. Reid, Choosing the Better Part? Women in the Gospel of Luke (Collegeville: 1

130

A Journey Round John

and with household or cooking utensils.7 She also argues that Martha is often presented in so-called popular exegesis in the well-known stereotypical role of the woman who does the housework. Quite a few women take offence at this story and ask why Jesus should reproach the woman who provides such care. The assumptions are that Mary’s elevation is achieved at Martha’s expense and even that Martha is humiliated. However, as I have argued elsewhere, it is quite possible to interpret the presentation of Martha in a way that contrasts with the negative stereotype.8 The story of Martha and Mary in Lk. 10.38-42, is Lukan Sondergut.9 It is part of a larger unit.10 In exegetical literature it is said that this passage is part of the so-called ‘great interpolation’ (Lk. 9.51– 19.28). Since Schleiermacher the name of the middle section of Luke’s Gospel in exegetical literature has been called ‘the Travel Narrative’.11 Liturgical, 1996), pp. 144–62; and S. Bieberstein, Verschwiegene Jüngerinnen – vergessene Zeugnissen: Gebrochene Konzepte im Lukasevangelium (NTOA 38; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag, 1998), pp. 123–43. 7. Alexander, ‘Sisters in Adversity’, pp. 197–8. For a very interesting, though highly abbreviated, article on ‘Martha’, providing documentary evidence both for her reception-history, traditional ‘Hausfrau’ role and also for her missionary ‘St.George-and-the-Dragon’ activity in Southern France, see ‘Maria und Martha, Christus bei’, in Lexicon der Christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 3 (ed. E. Kirschbaum; Freiburg: Herder, 1990), cc. 210–11, and ‘Martha von Bethanien’, in ibid., vol. 7, cc. 565–68. 8. Quite a few exegetes do not assume that Martha should be interpreted negatively; see, e.g., J. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, X–XXIV (2d ed.; AB 28B; Garden City: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 892. Note the interesting remark of F. Bovon (Das Evangelium nach Lukas [Lk 9,51–14,35] [EKKNT 3/2; Zurich: Benziger, 1996], p. 101), who confesses in a footnote that his female assistants helped him to see that he had a too negative image of Martha. Note also that the view that Martha is not the villain of the piece is not con¿ned to modern exegetes; see, e.g., Ambrose, Exp. Evang. Sec. Lucam 85-86. 9. For a redaction-critical investigation, see J. Brutscheck, Die Maria-MartaErzählung: Eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung zu Lk 10,38-42 (BBB 64; Frankfurt am Main: Hain, 1986). 10. For the coherence of these passages, see U. Busse, ‘Die Unterweisung im so genannten “Reisebericht”: Dargestellt an Lk 10,25-42’, in Die Weisheit – Ursprünge und Rezeption (ed. M. Fassnacht et al.; Münster: Aschendorff, 2003), pp. 139–53. 11. F. Schleiermacher, Über die Schriften des Lukas: Ein kritischer Versuch, vol. 1 (Berlin: Reimer, 1817), p. 161; see A. Denaux, ‘Old Testament Models for the Lukan Travel Narrative: A Critical Survey’, in The Scriptures in the Gospels (ed. C. M. Tuckett; BETL 131; Leuven: Peeters, 1997), pp. 271–330. For an account of historical-critical research into the Lukan Travel Narrative, see F. Noel, The Travel Narrative in the Gospel of Luke: Interpretation of Lk 9,51–19,28 (Collectanea 1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

131

I have already completed a comparison between Lk. 10.38-42 and Acts 6.1-7, trying to show that Martha’s occupation, her business, typi¿ed in Lk. 10.40 by the Greek word »À¸ÁÇÅñÑ (and in the Vulgate by ministrare), is far from lowly service; rather, Luke presents her as a woman of importance.12 In this context, we will use some of the material adduced there to focus further on the image of Martha in Lk. 10.38-42 before comparing it with the presentation of this woman in John. Martha is introduced in Lk. 10.38. On his journey to Jerusalem (cf. 9.51) a certain woman, named Martha, receives Jesus into her home.13 We should stress here that it is Martha who is the one who receives Jesus as her guest (10.38). Carter argues that she thus appears here as an embodiment of the positive responses named throughout ch. 10: ‘In receiving Jesus, Martha is a child of peace (Luke 10,6) who has encountered God’s reign (Luke 10,9)’.14 He adds that Martha’s receiving Jesus signi¿es embracing his eschatological mission, as is evident from the six uses of »ñÏÇĸÀ prior to ch. 10 (see Lk. 2.28; 8.13 and 9.48 [4×]). It also expresses openness to the word of God. Carter concludes that Martha appears as a model disciple, in contrast to those who do not receive Jesus’ messengers (see Lk. 9.52-53 and 10.10).15 This conclusion concurs to a certain extent with Loveday Alexander’s references to the fact that the scene is a dinner-party – a scene of hospitality. She points out that Luke is rather fond of these: Lk. 7.36-50; 11.37-52; 14.1-6, 7-11, 12-14, 15-24.

Biblica et Religiosa Antiqua 5; Brussels: Wetenschappelijk Comité voor Godsdienstwetenschappen, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 2004). But see R. von Bendemann, Zwischen ǻȅȋǹ und ȈȉǹȊȇȅȈ:

Eine exegetische Untersuchung der Texte des sogenannten Reiseberichts im Lukasevangelium (BZNW 101; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), who argues that, especially in regard to Lk. 11.1–18.30, other themes are more important than travelling: instruction of the disciples, the call to repentance and judgement announcements. 12. B. J. KȠet, ‘Luke 10,38-42 and Acts 6,1-7: A Lucan Diptych on diakonia’, in Studies in the Greek Bible: Essays in Honor of Francis T. Gignac, S. J. (ed. J. Corley and V. Skemp; CBQMS 44; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2008), pp. 163–85. 13. Some manuscripts: ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ÇĊÁĕ¸Å (‘in the house’); or most manuscripts: ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ÇĊÁĕ¸Å ¸ĤÌýË (‘in her house’; e.g. A, D, K), thus underlining Martha’s independent position. In response to Metzger’s view that he can see no reason for omitting such a reference if it is original, surely traditional (and thus often malecentred) propriety would suf¿ce; see B. M. Metzger, Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibel-Gesellschaft, 1994), p. 129. 14. Carter, ‘Getting Martha out of the Kitchen’, p. 217. 15. Carter, ‘Getting Martha out of the Kitchen’, p. 218. 1

132

A Journey Round John

Martha has a sister, named Mary. Bovon argues that although Mary is silent, she is the central ¿gure.16 I am not sure whether this is correct. Alexander refers to the fact that the two verbs describing Mary’s activities in 10.39 are grammatically subordinated to the main clause in this verse, which uses an impersonal idiom, i.e. ‘there was to her a sister’. She argues that these and other grammatical details serve to foreground Martha as the active partner of Jesus in this scene.17 Thus, Mary is ¿rst introduced as Martha’s sister and only then does she receive her name. This construction and the fact that their names begin in the same way (Martha and Mary) suggest that the sisters are to be understood in close relation to one another. We will ¿nd, in fact, that the attitudes they seem to represent are not to be opposed but are to be seen as complementary. Since the names of the sisters are connected in this way, it may be worth investigating their meaning. It is not uncommon in Luke’s Gospel (as elsewhere in the Gospels and in biblical literature in general) to make play with the names of protagonists. The names ‘John the Baptist’ and ‘Jesus’ are important examples of this (Lk. 1.14, 31). Fitzmyer argues that the name of the beggar in Lk. 16.20, ‘Lazarus’, is a grecized, shortened form of the Hebrew and Aramaic ‘Eleazar’ and that its meaning (‘God has helped’) is a ¿tting name for the beggar who was not helped by his fellow man.18 There is another example in Acts 20.9 where a boy is named ĥÌÍÏÇË (‘good fortune’; cf. the Hebrew expression ‘mazzeltov’) and that is precisely what he has. ÚÉ¿¸ means something like ‘mistress’ and Derrett remarks quite aptly that a really suspicious mind might suggest that the name had been invented for her.19 ¸Éĕ¸ is the Greek form of ‘Miriam’. Koehler–Baumgartner give as possible meanings: ‘the corpulent one’, but also ‘wished-for child’ or ‘beloved one’.20 However, in the Haggada, the name ‘Miriam’ is related to the bitterness of bondage in Egypt (!:/…‘bitter’; see e.g. Exod. Rab. 26.1). Here we may compare Pseudo-Philo, where the name is connected to the bitterness of the water in Mara: ‘These are the three things which 16. Bovon, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, p. 102. 17. Alexander, ‘Sisters in Adversity’, p. 206. 18. Fitzmyer, Luke X–XXIV, p. 1131. 19. J. D. M. Derrett, ‘Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42)’, in New Resolutions of Old Conundrums: A Fresh Insight into Luke’s Gospel (Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire: Drinkwater, 1986), pp. 162–74. 20. Sub verbo, p. 567. See also Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 12, s.v., p. 82: Hebrew; perhaps ‘wish’, or a compound of the Egyptian mer meaning ‘love’.

1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

133

God gave his people for the sake of three persons, that is, the well of the water of Mara for Maria’s sake…’ (LAB 20.8). Levy’s dictionary mentions that women with the Hebrew name ‘Mirjam’ often got the name ‘Martha’ in Aramaic popular language (Volkssprache).21 Strack– Billerbeck argue that there is no evidence for this supposition and that it would scarcely make sense to name the sisters in this way if their names were assumed to be interchangeable.22 While nowadays it would be quite unusual to give siblings names that are so alike, we may suppose that this similarity in Luke’s story is quite deliberate on the author’s part and intended by him to be picked up by his listeners. Thus, they will understand that the sisters are very closely connected and may also take this as an indicator of the close relation between their activities.23 Loveday Alexander argues that nothing that we have heard in 10.3839 about Martha is negative. Indeed, even her hospitality counts as a positive point in her favour.24 Mary also, as Carter argues, responds to Jesus in a positive way. The verb used to denote her listening (ôÁÇͼÅ, 10.39) appears in Lk. 10.16 as an antonym for ‘rejecting’ the disciples, Jesus and God, and hence, as a synonym for ‘receiving them’ (see also Lk. 10.23-24). To hear (and to act according to the Word) is the desired response to Jesus and his teaching (see Lk. 8.21).25 Thus, Mary is depicted as a disciple. She sits down at the Lord’s [sic] feet and is listening to his Word. Gerhardsson suggests that she sits among the other disciples.26 To be ‘sitting at (his) feet’ is to assume the position of a disciple at the feet of the master (see e.g. Lk. 8.35 and Paul’s pronouncement ‘brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel’ in Acts 22.3; for rabbinic tradition it suf¿ces here to refer to m. Aboth 1.4).

21. Strack–Billerbeck, vol. 3, p. 251. 22. Strack–Billerbeck, vol. 2, pp. 185–6. 23. One of Luke’s listeners understood this very well; see Augustine, Sermo 103: ‘Martha and Mary were two sisters; they were both real sisters not only in the Àesh but also in religion. Both belonged to the Lord; both served the Lord now in the Àesh with one heart’ (author’s translation). 24. Alexander, ‘Sisters in Adversity’, p. 210. 25. Carter, ‘Getting Martha out of the Kitchen’, p. 218. 26. B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Acta Seminarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis 22; Uppsala: Gleerup, 1961), refers to Riesenfeld, who has drawn attention to the formula ù Á¸ĕ (not in all the manuscripts). This seems to imply that she is not sitting alone at the feet of the Master, but with other disciples.

1

134

A Journey Round John

After the introduction of Martha and her sister (in that order) the focus is again on Martha. In v. 40, we ¿nd ‘Mistress’ Martha bustling about with much diakonia.27 Martha the householder receives Jesus the teacher (into her house) and her hospitality is summarized as being ‘distracted with much »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸’.28 It is only now that we hear of some tension between the siblings.29 She reproaches Jesus: ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone to serve [»À¸ÁÇżėÅ]?’30 b. Martha’s diakonia But what exactly is the problem here? Is it the amount of diakonia which is the burden, or is it the diakonia itself? It is often, but not always, assumed that this service is of a more inferior kind. It is crucial for the interpretation of this passage to determine the meaning of »À¸ÁÇżėÅ and »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸.31 Martha’s occupation, her business, is typi¿ed in Lk. 10.40 by the Greek word »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸. It is the only time in the Gospels that this word is used. However, in Acts, which I, like most NT scholars, take to be the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, it occurs eight times. The most important parallel to Lk. 10.38-42 is Acts 6, where an opposition is at stake which resembles the one in Lk. 10.38-42. In addition to the parallel in theme, it is important to note quite a few remarkable verbal similarities between Acts 6.1-7 and Lk. 10.38-42.32 At this point, it is worth referring to the studies of the Australian scholar John N. Collins. He has seriously questioned the assumption that lowly, caring service is the category within which diakonia is to be interpreted. Having examined the diakon- words against the background of Greek literary activity across the 800 years spanning the classical and

27. See also the Vulgate: ‘But Martha had her hands full with a lot of serving’ (author’s translation). It can be no coincidence that the verb ȼÉÀÊÈÚÑ is often used in a military context, e.g. to describe the activities of a general; cf. Liddell–Scott– Jones, p. 1386. However, in Lk. 10.40 the form is passive. 28. Bieberstein, Verschwiegene Jüngerinnen, p. 137, rightly refers to the fact that in 10.38-42 Martha’s qualities are above all positive. She gives the meaning of her name as evidence of this. 29. For the theme of disputes between siblings in the Bible, see Alexander, ‘Sisters in Adversity’, pp. 209–10. 30. Here we ¿nd the same verb as in Acts 6.2; see Koet, ‘Luke 10,38-42 and Acts 6,1-7’. 31. The opportunity to consult A. Hentschel, Diakonia im Neuen Testament: Studien zur Semantik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rolle von Frauen (WUNT 2/226; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), has not yet arisen. 32. See Koet, ‘Luke 10,38-42 and Acts 6,1-7’. 1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

135

Hellenistic eras,33 Collins’s most important conclusion is that the Greek diakon- terms were ‘Àoaters’. Context, he argues, determines the sense in each instance; as he puts it, ‘to come closer to what the Greek word said to the Greek mind we need to reach out into the range of ideas it is associated with’ adding that ‘to know a word, it helps to know the company it keeps’.34 In the light of this methodology, Collins concludes that the diakon- terms were not necessarily used to express the notion of lowly service. The verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ can also designate the carrying out of orders and the performance of deeds, including quite different duties35 ranging from contract-killings to waiting on people at their meal. It seems to be possible to depict the common denominator of the range of activities as activities of an ‘in-between’ kind. Central notions expressed by diakonia are something like ‘mediation, intercession, agency, and mission in the name of a principal’. Thus the notion of ‘mandate’ can be prominent.36 Commensurate with this is the fact that the diakon- words often designate honourable tasks of duty or of¿ce. The usage was not part of everyday language but had a more formal character, and included a recognisable place in religious contexts. What does Collins’s investigation contribute to our inquiry into the image of Martha in Lk. 10.38-42? We ¿nd the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ 37× in the NT: 6× in Matthew; 5× in Mark; 8× in Luke; 3× in John; 2× in Acts; 5× in Paul; 3× in the Pastoral Epistles; 2× in Hebrews and 3× in 1 Peter. Most of the passages in Matthew have a parallel in Mark (Mt. 4.11/Mk 1.13;37 Mt. 8.15/Mk 1.31; Mt. 20.22 [2×]/Mk 10.45; Mt. 27.55/Mk 15.41; there is no Markan parallel to Mt. 25.44). Although Mark and Matthew use the substantive »ÀÚÁÇÅÇË (Mt. 22.13; 23.11; Mk 9.35 and Mt. 20.27/Mk 10.43), it is not

33. See J. N. Collins, Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 11. 34. Collins, Diakonia, p. 3. 35. Collins, Diakonia, p. 89. 36. To a certain extent this interpretation resembles the description given in older lexicons like that of C. G. Bretschneider, Lexicon manuale Graeco-Latinum in libros Novi Testamenti, I (Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Barth, 1829), s.v. »ÀÚÁÇÅÇË. He says that a diakonos is: ‘a messenger, who is sent with a message or to do something or to carry something’ (author’s translation). See also Liddell–Scott–Jones, s.v., p. 398. 37. Here the angels are ministering to Jesus. In the Middle Ages sometimes angels were dressed in the clerical vestments of deacons; see, e.g., The Mérode Triptych by the Master of Flémalle: D. de Vos, The Flemish Primitives: The Masterpieces (Amsterdam: University Press, 2002), pp. 26–34, 27–8. 1

136

A Journey Round John

used in Luke–Acts. As we saw above, Luke is the only Gospel writer who uses the substantive »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸ (1× in Luke; 8× in Acts). It is only in Lk. 4.39 that there is a parallel to his use of the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ (4.39/Mt. 8.15/Mk 1.31; we ¿nd the verb also in Lk. 8.1; 12.37; 17.8; 22.26, 27 [2×]).38 Thus, we see that, to a certain extent, Luke exhibits an independent use of the concept of »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸/»À¸ÁÇżėÅ. The ¿rst time that Luke uses »À¸ÁÇżėÅ, he shares it with Mark and Matthew. Although Schotroff’s suggestion that Peter’s mother-in-law becomes Jesus’ servant here is quite tempting, the story is too succinct to yield conclusive results.39 The second passage where Luke uses »À¸ÁÇżėÅ (8.1-3) is also succinct. However, there is slightly more context in this case. In 8.3, we learn that some women who are healed by Jesus share their ‘substance’ with Jesus and the Twelve. The women mentioned here are comparable to the wealthy women in Acts; for example, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, is quite clearly a woman who belongs to high society and is a person of consequence. Seim argues that the expression ÒÈġ ÌľÅ ĨȸÉÏĠÅÌÑÅ ¸Ĥ̸ėË in Luke presupposes that these women have means at their own disposal.40 In 8.1, Luke tells us that Jesus is proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God and he quite explicitly states that he does so with the Twelve (Á¸Ė ÇĎ »ļ»¼Á¸ ÊİÅ ¸ĤÌŊ). Grammatically, and thus also logically, these women are closely linked to the Twelve and their service is to be understood as assisting in their work. As in Lk. 10.38-42, sharing one’s belongings (e.g. one’s wealth) is related to the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ; the women in 8.3 are depicted, like Martha in 10.38-42, as women who are independent and in socially well-to-do positions. Moreover, sharing one’s wealth with an important teacher like Jesus is not the same as doing menial housework, such as the laundry, but involves service to the Kingdom of God.41 38. For cognates, see D. Jonas, ‘Diakonein – Diakonia – Diakonos: Studien zum Verständnis des Dienstes, (“Diakonie”) bei Markus und Lukas’, in Diakonische Konturen: Theologie im Kontext sozialer Arbeit (ed. V. Herrmann et al.; Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg 18; Heidelberg: University Press, 2003), pp. 63–126 (68–9). 39. L. Schotroff, ‘Dienerinnen der Heiligen: Der Diakonat der Frauen im Neuen Testament’, in Diakonie – Biblische Grundlagen und Orienierungen. Ein Arbeitsbuch zur theologischen Verständigung über den Diakonischen Auftrag (ed. G. K. Schäfer and T. Strom; 3d ed.; Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg 2; Heidelberg: University Press, 1998), pp. 222–42 (237). 40. Seim, The Double Message, p. 64. 41. Therefore, I disagree with Seim, The Double Message, p. 72. She argues that the healing of the women has the effect of con¿rming their conventional role. In 1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

137

Luke also uses the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ in 12.37. Here it is the Lord who serves his slaves. Is this lowly service that the Lord performs here, or is the Lord the steward who, as master of the house, shares his riches with the watchful servants? From the reference to ‘girding’, it is clear that a quite speci¿c type of service is meant, namely, serving at table. Serving at table, however, is not always lowly service. As is clear from the few instances of the word diakonos used in one of the Greek translations of Esther, this service is quite ¿tting in the context of royal banquets.42 Moreover, the context in Luke, with its reminiscences of the (eschatological) wedding feast (v. 36), suggests that the latter kind of service may well be in view. The next pericope where we ¿nd the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ is in Jesus’ saying about the unpro¿table servants. After his teaching to the disciples in 16.1-13 and his narration to the Pharisees of the story about the poor man Lazarus, Jesus directs himself again to his disciples in 17.1-4. In 17.7-10, he answers the apostles with a special lesson for them. Using images from domestic life,43 Jesus seems to warn them not to expect special reward for their work. After the analogy, there follows a rhetorical question and then its application. Fitzmyer argues that the details in the parable seem to be out of place if the parable was originally addressed either to ‘disciples’ or apostles.44 However, Paul S. Minear suggests that the three activities ascribed to the servant correspond to the duties assigned to the apostles in the early church. He even argues that the duties in the ¿eld and those in the house correspond to the distinction between the duties of travelling Evangelists and those of sedentary deacons.45 Although this last suggestion seems to me rather unlikely, Minear’s remarks are not totally inappropriate. The disciples are supposed to watch over the Àock they were given charge of as shepherds of the ekklesia (compare Paul’s statement in Acts 20.28; see also Lk. 12.32). Lk. 10.38-42, as well as in Lk. 8.3, this seems not to be the case. It could even be argued on this basis that the use of »À¸ÁÇżėÅ in Lk. 4.39 does not indicate that Peter’s mother-in-law takes on the traditional serving role in the family. 42. See B. J. Koet, ‘Diakonie ist nicht nur Armenfürsorge: Neue exegetische Erkenntnisse zum Verständnis von Diakonie’, in Lernen ware eine schöne Alternative: Religionsunterricht in theologischer und erziehungwissenschaftlicher Verantwordung (FS Helmut Hanisch; ed. M. Sander-Gaiser et al.; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsansta, 2008), pp. 303–18. 43. J. H. Elliott, ‘Temple versus Household in Luke–Acts: A Contrast in Social Institutions’, in The Social World of Luke–Acts (ed. J. H. Neyrey; Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), pp. 211–40 (227). 44. Fitzmyer, Luke X–XXIV, p. 1145. 45. P. S. Minear, ‘A Note in Luke 17,7-10’, JBL 93 (1974), pp. 82–7. 1

138

A Journey Round John

They are also supposed to sow the seed of the word of God (Lk. 8.4-15) and to plough (see Lk. 9.62). And what about the ‘deaconing’ or service here? Again, the fact that the servant has to be girded, makes it quite clear that the context is that of serving at table. The person who ‘deacons’ has the important duty of serving at table for the master of the house. The last passage in Luke where we ¿nd the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ is the pericope where a dispute arises between the disciples during the Passover meal (Lk. 22.24-30). It is quite clear that this passage has some features in common with Mark’s version, but also that Luke has followed his own agenda. John Collins pays some attention to the Markan and Lukan passages in his book Deacons and the Church.46 In the context of this article, it will be possible only to summarize some of his arguments. Although the passage about the Son of man occurs in Mark as Jesus travels to Jerusalem, in Luke, by contrast, the passage occurs, as indicated above, during the Passover meal (22.24-30). While in Mark and Matthew the narrative moves directly to the events leading to the arrest of Jesus, in Luke Jesus delivers a discourse consisting of teaching which has been placed elsewhere in other Gospel narratives. The dispute about greatness (to some extent related to the question in 22.23 about the one who would betray Jesus) clearly stands in some relationship to the dispute in Mk 10.35-45.47 After the introduction of the dispute in 22.24 (ÎÀÂÇżÀÁĕ¸; see 1 Cor. 11.16), Jesus teaches his disciples something about leadership. It is not inappropriate that, as elsewhere in his Gospel, he uses the context of a meal for this lesson (e.g. Lk. 14.1-26 and maybe also 10.38-42). Collins argues that Luke, in the interests of his Hellenistic audience, frames the scene in ch. 22 as a Hellenistic symposion. He also suggests that some of the details are more suited to a Hellenistic audience (compare, e.g., Mk 10.42 with Lk. 22.25: Hellenistic readers were used to Hellenistic rulers and executors of royal decrees were seen as ‘benefactors’). While in Mk 10.43 Jesus overturns the value system of royal honours and public esteem (the one who would be great in contrast to the servant or slave of all), Luke shifts to a contrast more appropriate for a symposion-like meal: the presider in contrast with the one who waits at table. 46. J. N. Collins, Deacons and the Church: Making Connections Between Old and New (Gracewing [Hertfordshire]: Morehouse, 2002), pp. 39–47. 47. For Êͽ¾ÌñÑ in Lk. 22.23, see B. J. Koet, ‘Some Traces of a Semantic Field of Interpretation in Luke 24,13-35’, in Five Studies on the Interpretation of Scripture in Luke–Acts (SNTA 14; Leuven: Peeters, 1989). 1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

139

In v. 27, Luke uses a present participle (ĸË ĝ »À¸ÁÇÅľÅ) instead of the noun »ÀÚÁÇÅÇË. Collins argues that, according to his own studies, Greek writers preferred the participle to the noun as giving a more immediate sense of the waiter in action. Thus, Luke seems to use the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ in a way that his Hellenistic readers would understand. Greek writers used the diakon- words for waiters at table almost exclusively in formal language and in composing accounts of formal meals. Collins adds that such formal meals were also religious acts.48 The reason the apostles as leaders have to serve at table is that in doing so they follow Jesus, their leader. However, because the Lord serves, the apostles will eat and drink at Jesus’ table in his Kingdom (v. 30). Because Luke adds that they will sit on twelve thrones, it is clear that this meal will be like a royal wedding. Jesus’ service is not the service of a slave; rather, he is like a steward, a courtier, who distributes wine and food to the guests. He is the king who serves.49 In Acts, the companion volume to Luke, there are only two occurrences of the verb »À¸ÁÇżėÅ. While in Acts 6.2 it is related to service at table, in 19.22 the verb is used to depict the relation between Paul and his assistants Timothy and Erastus. Thus, the relation in which Timothy and Erastus stand to Paul compares well with that between the apostles and Jesus. In the light of these contexts and lexical possibilities of »À¸ÁÇżėÅ in Luke, we can interpret the position of Martha in Lk. 10.40 as one of important social status and her work as comparable to the work done by the apostles. Martha is the householder who serves her guests.50 While Martha is described as reproaching Jesus about Mary’s attitude, this should not be taken to imply that her own service is lowly. In fact, her activities are as well attuned to her being a disciple as to her being the mistress of the house. Jesus’ reaction to her reproach (v. 41) is to call Martha by name twice. Elsewhere in Scripture a double call can be the beginning of a call narrative; see Acts 9.4; 22.7; 26.14, but above all Exod. 3.4; cf. Gen. 22.11 and 1 Sam. 3.10.51 Jesus’ answer to her is that 48. Collins, Deacons and the Church, p. 44. Cf. Derrett, Martha and Mary, p. 167: Mk 10.45 suggests a priest-waiter. 49. See also the use of »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸ in the Testament of Job 11.1-3. Cf. Collins, Diakonia, pp. 165–6. 50. Jonas, ‘Diakonein – Diakonia – Diakonos’, argues that this service is itself not wrong. However, he criticizes the way Martha serves (p. 94): ‘It is neither her hospitality nor her service that provokes criticism but her anxious care and the restlessness that she spreads through her indefatigable activity’ (author’s translation). 51. See also Derrett, Martha and Mary, p. 166. 1

140

A Journey Round John

she is being anxious (ļÉÀÄÅêË)52 and that she is troubled about much, but that only one thing is necessary.53 Mary has chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her.54 From this it would appear that being a disciple, on the one hand, and being engaged in acts of service, on the other, are to be seen in opposition to one another: Mary is doing the learning while Martha is restricted to »À¸ÁÇÅĕ¸. Jonas suggests that Jesus, in his answer, does not even refer to the semantic ¿eld of service.55 However, one can argue that Jesus’ word is precisely the one food which needs to be served. J. Duncan M. Derrett refers to the use of ļÉĕË in the Greek translation of the Bible as a share of food (e.g. Gen. 34.34; Neh. 8.12; Est. 9.19; Qoh. 11.2). He mentions that ļÉĕË can also indicate a share in priestly service (Josh. 18.7). He also refers to Lk. 4.4 (the quote from Deut. 8.3) as the background to this passage: ‘Man cannot live by bread alone’.56 Thus, although at ¿rst glance it seems that Jesus does not take Martha’s question seriously, the fact that spiritual food and material food are connected suggests that he does. While in Lk. 10.38-42 this link is implicit, in Acts 6.1-7, serving at table (vv. 1-2) and serving the word (v. 4) are closely and explicitly linked. In Lk. 10.42, Jesus stresses that listening to ‘the Word’, namely his teaching, is the good part.57 As Fitzmyer argues, in a way this is to repeat the Lukan message in 8.15, 21.58 However, this is not to say that the roles played by the sisters are to remain ¿xed. Although the good part shall not be taken from Mary, Martha is not excluded from it. She can also learn and thus further ful¿l her role as Jesus’ disciple. In this story, Jesus underlines that learning is the better part that cannot be taken away from anyone. This concurs to a certain extent with Jesus’ enigmatic pronouncement in Lk. 19.26 (par. Mt. 25.29): ‘To all those who have, more 52. Liddell–Scott–Jones, p. 1104. 53. ÇÉ͹ڽÑ, ‘to be troubled’; hapax New Testament. 54. That this sentence is quite dif¿cult to interpret (or to digest), is clear from text-critical records. There are quite a few text-critical variants; see, e.g., Reid, Choosing the Better Part?, p. 149; J. L. North, ‘Praying for a Good Spirit: Text, Context and Meaning of Luke 11.13’, JSNT 28 (2005), pp. 167–88 (167–72). 55. Jonas, ‘Diakonein – Diakonia – Diakonos’, p. 94: ‘We must notice in this connection that Jesus did not include the vocabulary of service in his answer’ (author’s translation). 56. Derrett, Martha and Mary, p. 167. 57. See R. Neuberth, Demokratie im Volk Gottes: Untersuchungen zur Apostelgeschichte (SBB 46; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001), p. 74. 58. Fitzmyer, Luke X–XXIV, p. 892. 1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

141

will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away’ (NRSV; ÒÉ¿ûʼ̸À – this Greek word is derived from the same root as in 10.42). Thus, the message here is a lesson for Martha. Indeed, Lk. 10.38-42 can be considered – at the risk of some slight exaggeration – as Martha’s call to a fuller form of discipleship. Martha’s work is certainly not to be typi¿ed as lowly service. She is the mistress, the owner of the house and, in this capacity, she also serves the Kingdom of God. She can receive an important guest like Jesus and, as manager of the household, can even admonish him and ask him to teach Mary a lesson. The comparison apparent in this story is not an opposition between lowly work and superior position, but is intended to clarify the priority between two important virtues. I conclude this paragraph with a reference to the commentary of Ambrose of Milan. Having dealt with the story of the Good Samaritan, he says: ‘This story is about mercy, but virtue has more than one form’. Following this, Ambrose stresses that Martha and Mary both have their qualities. It may be that Mary’s desire for wisdom is the perfect work, but Martha’s ministerium is also good. As Ambrose says: ‘Martha is not criticised for her good service but Mary is distinguished because she has chosen the better part’ (Exp. Evang. Sec. Lucam 86) (author’s translation). Ambrose recognizes that Martha’s work is perfectly acceptable: she is in charge of the house, she performs an important service for her guest and she is a minister of the Kingdom. We will now turn to consider the presentation of Martha in John’s Gospel. III. Martha the Mother of Discipleship in John 11.1-12.8 a. Martha as Learner in John 11.1-44 In John 11 and 12, Martha and her sister Mary reappear in terms which echo Luke’s description of them in 10.38-42. As in Luke, John places the sisters at home in their village (Áļľ, Jn 11.1, 30; cf. ÇčÁÇË/ÇĊÁĕ¸, Jn 11.20, 31; 12.3; cp. Lk. 10.38)59 and their different yet complementary character traits are recognisable in his own narrative. Thus, in John 11, it falls to the active and articulate Martha to be ¿rst to exit the house in order to meet Jesus on the Bethany road (v. 20) where, as in Luke, she begins by addressing Jesus as ‘Lord’ (ÁįÉÀ¼) and becomes the recipient of the teaching that is key to understanding the narrative (vv. 21-27; cf. Lk. 10.40-42). After returning to the house to call Mary (v. 28), she is soon outdoors again at Lazarus’s tomb, where she has more to say to her Lord, 59. There is some textual variation in Luke as to which word is used with ‘house’ and in some witnesses the reference is omitted altogether; see above, n. 13. 1

142

A Journey Round John

forewarning him of the stench from her brother’s corpse (v. 39). In 12.18, although Martha’s role is more peripheral to the action, the Lukan scene continues to resonate both in the setting, which is a meal at the family home with Jesus as guest, and also in the detail that the one who serves is Martha (»À¸ÁĠżÀ, 12.2; cp. Lk. 10.40). Mary also conforms recognizably to the Lukan picture of her in 10.39 as sitting at the Lord’s feet and hearing his word (ȸɸÁ¸¿¼Ê¿¼ėʸ ÈÉġË ÌÇİË ÈĠ»¸Ë ÌÇı ÁÍÉĕÇÍ ôÁÇͼŠÌġÅ ÂĠºÇÅ ¸ĤÌÇı). In Jn 11.20, it is Mary, not Martha, who remains sitting in the house (ëÅ ÌŊ ÇċÁĿ ëÁ¸¿ñ½¼ÌÇ), which is where she hears (ôÁÇÍʼÅ) and responds to the call of Jesus, referred to here as ‘the Teacher’ (ĝ »À»ÚÊÁ¸ÂÇË…ÎÑżė ʼ) (vv. 28-29). Upon meeting Jesus she, like Martha, addresses him as ÁįÉÀ¼.60 She also utters the same opening words (v. 32, cf. v. 21), perhaps yet another indicator that the sisters, like their names, are to be seen as a matching pair. Thereafter, as in Luke, Mary remains silent. It is particularly noteworthy that whenever John singles her out for special comment, he consistently stations Mary at Jesus’ feet (ÈÉġË ÌÇİË ÈĠ»¸Ë: 11.32; cf. 11.2; 12.3). Evidence like this strongly suggests that John was well aware of the depiction of the sisters that we ¿nd in Luke’s Gospel. In view of this, and also in view of the growing scholarly consensus that John was familiar with one or more of the Synoptics,61 we will assume in what follows that John composed his own account in the knowledge of Luke’s text. If we agree, however, that John’s presentation of the sisters was inÀuenced by Luke’s, we must also recognize that he has not left matters there. Indeed, he has evidently felt free to introduce these women into two non-Lukan accounts. In 11.1-44, they appear in a miracle story that John has staged at Bethany near Jerusalem and where, he informs us, they live with their brother Lazarus, who eventually becomes the bene¿ciary of Jesus’ miraculous powers (11.1-2, 43-44).62 In 12.1-8, the 60. Note here also the sisters’ joint address to Jesus as ‘Lord’ in v. 3 and its further use by Martha in vv. 27, 39. Note especially that in the parenthetical v. 2 John himself uses ÁÍÉĕÇË, which is a rarity in his Gospel prior to the resurrection (see elsewhere only 4.1; 6.23; otherwise on Jesus’ lips in 13.13-14, 16; 15.15, 20); comp. its frequency in Luke 10 (vv. 39, 40, 41). 61. See, e.g., Lincoln, Gospel, pp. 26–39; Neirynck, ‘John and the Synoptics’. Apropos of Jn 11, Busse, argues elegantly that a knowledge of the Synoptics is assumed in the communication process; cf. ‘Johannes and Lukas’, p. 303. 62. The name ‘Lazarus’ is otherwise known in the New Testament only from a parable in Lk. 16.19-31, which may have attracted John’s interest in view of v. 30, where Lazarus’s return from the dead is contemplated. Whether or not that was so, it is interesting to note that John seems familiar with the name; see further, North, Lazarus, pp. 119–21. 1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

143

sisters are present at John’s version of Jesus’ anointing. In detail, the act itself is strikingly akin to Lk. 7.38, but John’s identi¿cation in 12.3 of Mary as the anointer is a link Luke has not made.63 Thus, if John can be said to have taken up and developed Luke’s material for his own purposes, it becomes important to investigate how, in that process, John himself has conceived of the signi¿cance of Martha, whom both he and Luke identify as the woman who served Jesus. In Jn 11.1-2, we ¿rst meet Martha together with her sister. It is worth noting, by contrast with the detailed descriptions in Lk. 10.38-39, that the pair seem to require no introduction to John’s readers; rather, they function in these verses to supply a context for the inclusion of Lazarus in the story as their brother.64 In v. 3, the sisters act in tandem, sending to ‘the Lord’ (cf. also v. 2) to say that Lazarus, whom Jesus loves, is ill. In v. 5, however, John not only takes pains to stress Jesus’ love for the whole family, but he makes a point of naming Martha ¿rst. This prominence could imply that Martha is in charge of the household, as we have argued is the case in Luke.65 From a narrative perspective, it could also serve the purpose of anticipating the fact that, when the sisters next appear in the story, Martha will take the initiative and be ¿rst to meet Jesus on the Bethany road (cf. also v. 19).66 John devotes a considerable amount of text to this encounter, which alone suggests its importance, and hence we need to examine it in detail. In v. 21, Martha opens the dialogue with the words, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’. Perhaps we are intended to detect here some hint of reproach, bearing in mind Martha’s complaint to Jesus in Lk. 10.40. Yet, taken at face value, Martha’s words do no more than state the fact of the matter as far as she is concerned, namely, that she is facing the reality of the death of a loved one which, had Jesus been present, would not have occurred. The fact that the same expression of grief is later voiced by Mary (v. 32) may indicate, not only that the 63. John may well have reasoned that the name of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet must be the same as that of the woman who faithfully sat at them; see North, Lazarus, p. 119; on this development, see also B. M. Metzger, ‘Names for the Nameless in the New Testament: A Study in the Growth of Christian Tradition’, in New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic (NTTS 10; Leiden: Brill, 1980), pp. 23–43 (42). 64. See C. M. Conway, Men and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization (SBLD 167; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), p. 137. 65. Note also that the order in which John places the sisters and the anonymity of Mary here compare well with Luke’s introduction of the women in 10.38b-39a. 66. Note, by contrast, that Mary is listed before Martha in v. 1, but then it is she who becomes the focus of interest in the following verse. 1

144

A Journey Round John

sisters are alike, but also that this is a signi¿cant component of John’s story and thus, perhaps, that death and bereavement are pressing issues as far as his readers are concerned.67 If this is so, it is well worth noting the care John has taken to ensure that the readers themselves are in a more knowledgeable position than Martha at this stage. Not only have they learned that it was Jesus’ deliberate intention to stay away from Bethany until Lazarus was dead beyond hope of recovery (cf. vv. 6-7, 17),68 but also they have twice been assured that this decision, despite appearances, is to be regarded positively: ¿rst, where the delay has been prefaced by John’s insistence on Jesus’ love for the whole family (v. 5) and, second, where Jesus has pronounced Lazarus’s death – or ‘sleep’ – an occasion for faith on the disciples’ part (vv. 11-15). From the readers’ perspective, therefore, the fact that Martha remarks on Jesus’ absence functions as a reminder that Jesus is in absolute control of events here and also that grounds for hope exist, even though Martha herself is unaware of them. This is not to say, however, that Martha’s statement is entirely negative, for in fact her trust in Jesus’ powers is such that she is sure that Lazarus would have survived had Jesus been present. Her next words (v. 22) place the fact of this trust beyond doubt, as Martha goes on to af¿rm her certainty (Á¸Ė ÅıÅ Ç軸), in words which anticipate the form Jesus’ prayer will later take (vv. 41-42), that God will give Jesus whatever he asks.69 With Jesus’ condolence in v. 23, ‘Your brother will rise again’ (ÒŸÊÌûʼ̸À), John steers the conversation towards the subject of resurrection. Placed on Jesus’ lips, of course, these words could imply that something more immediate than the general resurrection of the dead is in view, for Jesus has already expressed his intention to ‘wake’ Lazarus from death (v. 11) and, at the end of the story, will do precisely that (vv. 43-44). Yet the fact that Martha construes Jesus’ words eschatologically in v. 24 does not constitute a misunderstanding on her part.70 As we have seen, Martha herself knows nothing of Jesus’ intentions and, in any case, her thoroughly Jewish conviction (Ç軸 again) that her brother will rise at the last day (cf. e.g. Dan. 12.2) is exactly the turn John intends the conversation to take at this point. He has now prepared the ground for Jesus’ reply, which is at once the pedagogical high point of the narrative 67. See Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, pp. 105–26. 68. In fact, the credibility of John’s revivi¿cation miracle hinges upon the fact that Jesus remains absent from Bethany for four days, the point at which it was assumed that death was irreversible; see further, Lindars, Gospel, pp. 392–3. 69. See further North, Lazarus, pp. 102–17. 70. Pace Conway, Men and Women, p. 141.

1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

145

and the key to the meaning of the Lazarus sign. Jesus’ words in vv. 2526 do not take issue with Martha’s expectation of a future resurrection;71 rather, what Martha needs to understand is something else also, namely, that the certainty of resurrection to life at the last day hinges utterly upon belief in Jesus in the present. Asked by Jesus if she believes this, Martha answers in the af¿rmative, and there is nothing in the remainder of v. 27, where she enlarges on her answer with the most comprehensive confessional statement in the entire Gospel, to suggest that she has not grasped Jesus’ meaning.72 Martha’s next encounter with Jesus takes place at the entrance to Lazarus’s tomb (vv. 38-40). Here she responds to Jesus’ instruction to remove the stone with a warning about the stench of her brother’s corpse after four days (v. 39), at which point Jesus reminds her of his previous teaching (ÇĤÁ ¼čÈÇÅ ÊÇÀ…), which he now couches in terms of the faith necessary to see the glory of God (v. 40). There are two observations to be made about Martha’s reappearance and demeanour at this point. The ¿rst concerns Martha’s perception of events as a character within the drama. While it may be tempting to recognise in Martha’s caveat a touch of the short-sighted practicality too often visited upon her in Luke,73 it is important to keep in mind the fact that, as John’s story goes, Martha is still unaware of Jesus’ intention to return her brother to life in the present. On the contrary, what Martha gave full assent to was Jesus’ teaching that belief in him in the present guarantees resurrection to life by him at the last day (vv. 25-27). Thus, her horri¿ed reaction at Lazarus’s tomb (v. 39) is logical enough in terms of what she personally has understood up to this point. The second observation relevant to Martha’s reappearance here concerns John’s own requirements as the architect of this narrative. Time has gone on since Martha’s meeting with Jesus, and meanwhile considerable attention has been focused on Jesus’ encounter with Mary and its consequences (vv. 29-37). Now that John is about to draw the narrative to its close, which will take the spectacular form of Jesus calling 71. Pace Bultmann, Gospel, p. 402. 72. In agreement with Bultmann, Gospel, p. 404 n. 5; also S. M. Schneiders, ‘Women in the Fourth Gospel and the Role of Women in the Contemporary Church’, in The Gospel of John as Literature: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Perspectives (ed. M. W. G. Stibbe; NTTS 17; Leiden: Brill, 1993), pp. 123–43 (135– 6); pace Lincoln, Gospel, pp. 324–5. 73. See, e.g., Bernard, Gospel, p. 395; see further the discussion in Conway, Men and Women, p. 149. Note that we have already seen reason to dismiss this stereotypical assessment of Martha in Luke. 1

146

A Journey Round John

Lazarus back to life out of the tomb (vv. 43-44; cf. 5.28-29), he needs to ensure that the circumstances of this miracle and the crucial message of hope it signi¿es are once more brought to the fore for his readers. In other words, by returning Martha at this point, John can conveniently provide a réprise. Accordingly, in v. 39, we ¿nd the heavy-handed reminder that Martha is sister to the dead man and her warning to Jesus which repeats the number of days post mortem (cf. vv. 17, 21). Similarly, Jesus’ own reminder to Martha of his previous words (v. 40) looks back to the key teaching in vv. 25-26 together with Martha’s response (v. 27), while also relating the whole to the glory of God that faith like Martha’s will see in this ¿nal sign (v. 4; cf. 2.11). Even the form Jesus’ prayer will now take (vv. 41-42) is, as indicated earlier, anticipated in Martha’s trusting words to Jesus in v. 22. b. Martha’s diakonia in John 12.1-8 The above analysis of Martha’s part in the Lazarus story demonstrates that by the time John comes to picture her serving Jesus at supper in 12.2, his readers have already been told a great deal about her, none of which has given the slightest impression that he has sought to con¿ne her role to domestic duties. Indeed, if the feminist objective for Martha in Luke can be expressed as ‘Getting Martha out of the Kitchen’,74 be it noted that the Fourth Evangelist has not only got Martha out of the kitchen but, in fact, has got her entirely out of the house. Nor has he restricted her role to practical matters, since he has evidently seen no inconsistency between her capacity to understand and believe Jesus in the most crucial teaching episode of the Lazarus account (11.25-27) and her Lukan-style service to him at table (12.2; cf. Lk. 10.40). Indeed, even in this second regard, John has not been prepared to leave matters there. As the Gospel continues, his readers quickly learn of the high value placed upon such acts of service as Martha’s. Further in ch. 12 (v. 26), they hear that whoever serves Jesus (ëÚÅ ëÄÇĕ ÌÀË »À¸ÁÇÅĉ, cf. also 26c) will follow him and, as his servant (»ÀÚÁÇÅÇË), will be with him and be honoured by God.75

74. So Carter, see above, n. 5. 75. Note also that, in ch. 13, Jesus himself, as ‘Teacher and Lord’ to the disciples (v. 13), performs his own act of service, although the relevant word here is »ÇıÂÇË (v. 16). ÀÚÁÇÅÇË appears elsewhere in John only in 2.5, 9 with reference to the servants who obey Jesus and who are aware, unlike the master of the feast, that the water has become wine. Whatever else we make of these details, we may surely assume that service at a formal banquet is not to be equated with housework. 1

8. The Image of Martha in Luke 10.38-42 and in John 11.1–12.8

147

IV. Conclusion Who is Martha and what role does she represent? How ¿rmly is the fact that she is the patroness of cooks and housewives rooted in the biblical stories in which she appears? Are we to say, for example, that in Luke Mary’s elevation is achieved at Martha’s expense and humiliation? Focusing on the image of Martha in both Lk. 10.38-42 and Jn 11.1–12.8, the authors of this article have found it possible to arrive at a different interpretation. Martha’s work in Luke is certainly not to be typi¿ed as lowly service; rather, she is the mistress and owner of the house who is depicted as a woman who serves the Kingdom of God. In her capacity as manager of the household, she not only receives an important guest like Jesus but can even admonish him and ask him to teach Mary a lesson. Luke 10.41-42 can be regarded as Martha’s call to a fuller form of discipleship. The comparison apparent in the Lukan passage is not one of opposition between inferior work and superior position, but is intended to clarify the priority between two important virtues, one being to receive the master and the other being to learn from the teacher. While in Lk. 10.41-42 Martha is invited to grow in discipleship by learning from Jesus’ teachings, in John’s interpretation of Luke’s material, her capacity to do so has not only been recognized but also exploited to the full. Thus, it is as true for John as it is for Luke that the image of Martha presented in the text in no way ¿ts the stereotype of cook-cumhousewife with which subsequent tradition was to endow her; on the contrary, in both learning and doing, Martha is esteemed by John as a model of discipleship. As such, she is named ¿rst in the family who are ¿rst in the Gospel to be described as loved by Jesus.76

1

76. See Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, pp. 75–103 (77–9, 89–91).

Chapter 9

‘THE JEWS’ IN JOHN’S GOSPEL: OBSERVATIONS AND INFERENCES*

Of the many fascinating aspects of the Fourth Evangelist’s work, one of the most intriguing is surely the large number of parentheses, or asides to the reader, that together form a key characteristic of John’s writing style. The de¿nitive study of these is by Gilbert Van Belle, whose cumulative list contains over 500 instances throughout the Gospel, some of which are quite lengthy (e.g. 3.16-21; 3.31-36; 12.37-43).1 The asides are devoted to passing on to the reader several different types of information during the course of the narrative, including the meaning of Hebrew and Aramaic terms (e.g. 1.38, 41, 42; 9.7; 19.17; 20.16), indications of time and descriptions of place (e.g. 1.28, 39; 4.5-6; 5.2; 8.20; 10.23; 11.38; 12.1; 18.1), which Scripture is ful¿lled and when (e.g. 1.23; 2.17; 12.1415, 38-40; 13.18; 19.24, 28, 36-37), ‘inside information’ on various characters (e.g. 2.24-25; 4.27; 7.5; 9.22; 11.51-52; 12.6; 13.28-29; 18.40; 19.8; 20.14; 21.12) and what not to approve of (e.g. 2.24-25; 12.43). In addition, John ensures that his readers do not lose the thread of his argument by constantly reminding them of the story so far, not only by repeating material from earlier chapters (e.g. 4.46, cf. 2.1-11; 13.33, cf. 8.21; 18.13-14, cf. 11.49-50; 19.39, cf. 3.2; 21.20, cf. 13.23-25), but also even by doubling back on himself within the same paragraph (e.g. 2.9, cf. vv. 5-8; 5.11, cf. v. 8; 7.36, cf. v. 34; 13.11, cf. v. 10; 16.19, cf. vv. 16-18; 18.16, cf. v. 15; 20.8, cf. v. 4). Most notably, perhaps, he

* Originally published in J. G. Crossley, ed., Judaism, Jewish Identities and the Gospel Tradition: Essays in Honour of Maurice Casey (London: Equinox, 2010), pp. 207–26, this article is reprinted here by kind permission of Taylor & Francis Books (UK). 1. See Van Belle, Les parenthèses, pp. 63–104. Excluding overlaps, these amount to some 425 instances, accounting for almost 40% of John’s text.

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

149

peppers his narrative with explanations, ‘readers’ helps’, for his audience: he provides the meaning of Jesus’ words (e.g. 2.21; 6.71; 7.39; 11.13; 12.33; 13.11; 21.19); he explains Jewish customs and attitudes (e.g. 2.6; 4.9; 6.4; 7.2; 10.22; 18.28; 19.40); and in general shepherds them along through the narrative, fussing the while with explanatory comments on why things happen quite as they do. We learn, for example, that John was baptising at Aenon ‘because there was much water there’ (3.23), that there was a charcoal ¿re in the High Priest’s courtyard ‘because it was cold’ (18.18), and that the soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ tunic because it was seamless with no obvious place to tear it (19.23, cf. v. 24).2 In other words, when it comes to getting his message across to his readers, John is a born pedant; everything necessary is explicitly communicated, false impressions are carefully ruled out, and nothing is left to chance. Reference to John’s parentheses may seem an unlikely way to begin an essay on his treatment of ‘the Jews’. Nevertheless, the parentheses have a part to play in this context, not only because they provide a rich source of information about the author and what he presumes of his audience, but also because they offer us two particularly valuable insights into John’s use of the expression ‘the Jews’. First, they attest the fact that John has striven to communicate with the utmost clarity. This means that, however confusing the evidence may at times appear to us, John himself was under the impression that this was not so; he thinks he is being clear. This encourages us to suppose that there exists in his text some peculiarly Johannine logic by which his ‘Jews’ references make sense. The second insight emerges by default: in an author whose penchant for clari¿cation is so pronounced, it becomes especially revealing to note those points where explanation is not forthcoming, for these are likely to be areas where he assumes his readers’ knowledge in such matters. There are some interesting examples here which suggest that John’s readers are already familiar with the Gospel story,3 but what is important for our purposes is that this category of assumed knowledge also includes ‘the Jews’: the term drops into John’s text without ceremony in 1.19 and thereafter it appears some 69 times in the Gospel, all similarly unremarked. In other words, John’s expression ‘the Jews’

2. See further the categorisation in Van Belle, Les parenthèses, pp. 106–12. On 19.23 as explanatory, see Lindars, Gospel, p. 578. 3. Note that ‘Simon Peter’ is so named before he acquires his epithet (1.40, cf. v. 42), that references are made in passing to the imprisonment of the Baptist and to the choosing of the twelve (3.24; 6.70), and that in 11.2 John’s readers are reminded in advance about Jesus’ anointing by Mary (12.1-8).

1

150

A Journey Round John

belongs to the area of information shared between writer and readers at the point of communication, that is, it is knowledge that is contemporary with the writing of the Gospel. Let me underline that last remark by adding that we can infer from the information he gives that there are some people in John’s audience who cannot be presumed to know the geography or locations of Palestine, for example, that there is a pool in Jerusalem near the Sheep gate with ¿ve porticoes (5.2-3), that the Sea of Tiberias (its Roman name) is also called the Sea of Galilee (6.1, 23; 21.1), that Bethany is about two miles outside Jerusalem (11.18) and so on,4 and yet even these people need no telling when it comes to the identity of ‘the Jews’.5 I will return to this second insight – on the contemporary relevance of the term – later in this discussion. But for now I want to concentrate on the ¿rst, that is, that there is likely to be some logic that lends clarity to John’s references. With that in mind, I will begin by trying to ascertain who ‘the Jews’ are in the Gospel story, that is, what group of people the term denotes.6 Once enter this ¿eld of enquiry, however, and logic and clarity can seem in short supply. The identity of John’s ‘Jews’ has occasioned much expenditure of academic ink, especially in view of today’s postholocaust sensitivities, a preoccupation well attested in recent times by the publication of the 612-page Leuven volume on Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel.7 For all the industry, however, there seems little progress towards an agreed solution. Is John referring to all ethnic Jews, or just some of them?8 Does he have in mind Jewish authorities rather than the general populace?9 Are they not just ‘Jews’ but really 4. See further B. Witherington, III, John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 1995), p. 33. 5. Such geographical information strongly suggests that John’s target audience has a Gentile component; see also Witherington, John’s Wisdom, pp. 32–3. 6. This is what John Ashton means by ‘reference’ rather than ‘sense’; see J. Ashton, ‘The Jews in John’, in Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), pp. 36–70 (38–9, 52–4, 62, 64–5). 7. Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism. No attempt will be made within the modest con¿nes of this essay either to address all the issues raised in this important volume or to engage with the vast amount of literature available on John’s ‘Jews’. Note that the ‘Select Bibliography’ in this volume alone occupies 22 pages! 8. Much depends here on whether John’s polemic is seen as anti-Jewish or intraJewish; see the discussion in Bieringer et al., ‘Wrestling with Johannine AntiJudaism’, pp. 24–8. 9. See, e.g., von Wahlde, ‘The Johannine “Jews” ’. Von Wahlde arrives at this conclusion by reducing the number of ‘Jews’ references to those he terms ‘typical’ or ‘characteristic’ of Johannine usage (cf., e.g., pp. 37, 38, 46–54). His methods have

1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

151

Jewish-Christians?10 Is ‘the Jews’ an example of ‘anti-language’ where the term is relexicalized to convey a new meaning for Johannine insiders only?11 Or does he really mean only ‘Judaeans’, that is, inhabitants of the province of Judaea?12 This last option, which focuses on a possible translation of `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ, is often appealed to and has recently gained highpro¿le approval in Danker’s latest edition of BAG.13 However, this meaning will work only in the absence of John 6, where ‘the Jews’ turn up in Galilee, and besides, it is dif¿cult to see how John could have expected those readers with no knowledge of Palestine to grasp it.14 Matters are not improved when we turn to survey the evidence in the Gospel itself, for while it is true that the so-called hostile references tend to stick in the mind, in reality they account for only 40% of the total and John’s expression ‘the Jews’ does duty in a variety of other ways: some instances occur purely in descriptions of Jewish festivals and rites (e.g. 2.6, 13; 6.4; 7.2; 19.31, 40), while others refer to ‘Jews’ who are not hostile but instead fall into the category of the well-meaning but mysti¿ed (e.g. 6.41-42; 7.35-36; 8.22; 11.19, 36-37; 12.9). Yet more positively, we note that John has no dif¿culty in identifying Jesus as a ‘Jew’ (4.9, cp. 18.35), or as ‘the King of the Jews’ from the Passion tradition (18.33, 39; 19.3, 19, 21[bis])15 and, ¿nally, that he has Jesus himself announce that ‘salvation is of the Jews’ (4.22). To complicate not gone uncriticised; see Casey, Is John’s Gospel True?, pp. 120–3; S. Motyer, Your Father the Devil? A New Approach to John and ‘the Jews’ (Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), pp. 51–2. 10. See, e.g., H. J. de Jonge, ‘The “Jews” in the Gospel of John’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 239–59. 11. See, e.g., Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary, pp. 7–15, 46–8. 12. See esp. Lowe, ‘Who Were the ǿȅȊǻǹǿȅǿ?’ 13. Danker, A Greek–English Lexicon, pp. viii, 478b; see further the review by J. L. North in JTS 54 (2003), pp. 271–80 (277–80). Note also the remarks favouring ‘Judaeans’ in Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary, pp. 44–6. 14. For further objections to the ‘Judaeans’ hypothesis with reference to Lowe’s article, see Ashton, ‘The Jews’, pp. 66–8; Casey, Is John’s Gospel True?, pp. 116– 20; G. Harvey, The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 35; Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 84–7. See further the important argument by S. J. D. Cohen that it was only before the end of the second century BCE that `ÇÍ»¸ėÇË always and everywhere meant ‘Judaean’ (The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties [Hellenistic Culture and Society 31; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999]), pp. 69–106 [104]). 15. See also the references to Jesus as ‘King’ at 18.37(bis); 19.12, 14, 15, cp. 6.15; and as ‘King of Israel’ at 1.49; 12.13. 1

152

A Journey Round John

matters further, we also ¿nd that John can introduce references to ‘the Jews’ in company with other named groups, like Pharisees, chief priests and crowds. Chapters 7 and 8, in particular, present what seems a bewildering combination of references, with Pharisees and chief priests intent on arrest (7.32, cf. vv. 45, 47-48), with ‘Jews’ who are hostile and ‘Jews’ who believe (7.1, 19, 35; 8.22, 31, 37) and with muttering crowds who fear ‘the Jews’ but can also believe (7.12-13, 31). And so, our quest for the identity of ‘the Jews’ in John’s story must take account not only of the variety of usage of the term but also the fact that there are other named groups on the scene. Rather than plunging in at the deep end with chs. 7 and 8, I propose to begin by observing John at work in a later passage. The text I have in mind is basically 10.40–12.19, which focuses on the raising of Lazarus and its immediate repercussions, but I will also draw in some references from the remainder of ch. 12. In this section of the Gospel, we ¿nd the same groups in play as in chs. 7 and 8, but the advantage in this case is that their introduction into the narrative is rather more gently paced, thus allowing us a little more breathing-space to appreciate how they interact as the story unfolds. We begin with 10.40-42, which is where John lays the groundwork for the Lazarus miracle. Following the recent attempts to stone and seize him in Jerusalem (vv. 31-33, 39), Jesus has withdrawn to a place of safety across the Jordan, which is the site of the Baptist’s earlier ministry (v. 40, cf. 1.28). The crowd’s remark about the Baptist in v. 41 reintroduces the topic of signs and the scene concludes with the Evangelist’s comment in v. 42, ‘many believed in him there’. This link between the signs and the belief of the many is not new to the Gospel’s readers. It was ¿rmly established as early as 2.23, at which point signs-faith was presented as less than trustworthy (vv. 24-25, cf. also 4.45, 48). The same link also ¿gures in 7.31, where the interest of the many who believe there is clearly focused on signs. These signs-faith passages also indicate a further link, this time with ‘the Jews’. In 3.1-2, for example, the description of Nicodemus, designated ‘a ruler of the Jews’, is deliberately evocative of the disparaging comment on signsfaith in 2.23-25. Similarly, the many who show interest in the signs in 7.31 are evidently ‘the Jews’ in v. 35. It is worth adding in this context that this link between the many who believe and ‘the Jews’ is explicit in 8.30-31. My overall point here is that the reference to faith based on signs in 10.41-42 is not an isolated instance but forms part of a series with a history of associations already in the text. This backdrop suggests that the reference has been carefully placed here to prepare the reader for 1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

153

a narrative in which Jesus performs a sign and many believe who are ‘Jews’. A glance ahead at 11.45 and 12.11, both of which repeat this refrain with speci¿c reference to ‘the Jews’, lends support to this suggestion.16 Once embarked on the story proper, however, we soon discover that John’s ¿rst reference to ‘the Jews’ does not describe the miracle-minded adulation of the introduction but something altogether more sinister: in 11.8, Jesus’ proposal to re-enter Judaea is met by the disciples’ grim reminder of the recent attempt on his life by ‘the Jews’. That being the case, however, it is important to note that the wording of this warning is so speci¿c to the earlier scene in Jerusalem in 10.31-33 that it is entirely clear which people are intended. This brings us to a further point, which is that this description of ‘the Jews’ seeking Jesus’ death is also not new but belongs to another of John’s refrains that has a history of its own in the text. References to ‘the Jews’ seeking to kill Jesus begin at 5.18. This intention becomes a recurring threat in chs. 7 and 8 (7.1, cf. vv. 19, 20, 25; 8.37, 40) and it translates into the action of stoning in 8.59 and 10.31. Consequently, the disciples’ caveat in 11.8, ‘the Jews were but now seeking to stone you’, while referring to what ‘the Jews’ do in the previous chapter, also forms part of a series which reiterates a stock behaviour pattern already familiar to John’s readers. At 11.19, ‘the Jews’ who arrive on the scene in Bethany are anything but sinister. John tells us that they have come from nearby Jerusalem expressly to console Martha and Mary over the death of their brother (vv. 18-19). They remain in the house with Mary and eventually follow her when she leaves, expecting to join her in weeping at the tomb, and so arrive at the place on the Bethany road where Mary meets Jesus (vv. 20, 31). There their sympathetic presence is part of the scene that prompts Jesus’ answering grief (vv. 33-35). Never quite grasping the deeper implication of Jesus’ love for Lazarus and with mention of miracles already made by some (vv. 36-37), many of these ‘Jews’ believe because of the sign, although those who report to the authorities prove less than trustworthy (vv. 45-46). We meet them again in the following chapter. The context for this occasion is already provided by John in 11.55 in his note that ‘the Passover of the Jews’ was at hand and that many had gone up to Jerusalem to ready themselves for the feast (cf. also 12.1). In 12.9, a

16. For a discussion of these and further points relating to John’s believing ‘Jews’, see North, Lazarus, pp. 125–6, 131–4. 1

154

A Journey Round John

great crowd of these ‘Jews’ Àocks to Bethany. What attracts them, we learn, is not only Jesus but also the spectacle of Lazarus back from the dead as a result of the sign. Indeed, in vv. 17-18, this crowd’s witness to that sign is presented as the reason for the tumultuous reception accorded Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem, and this, in turn, creates a situation the Pharisees in v. 19 are helpless to prevent. For our present purposes, we need to take special note of three aspects of John’s narrative surrounding the miracle itself. The ¿rst concerns Jesus’ prayer in 11.41-42. At this point, John has ensured that the company at the tomb includes ‘the Jews’, who will witness the sign (cf. vv. 31, 34). As we see from v. 41, this prayer is not a petition; instead, Jesus merely expresses his thanks to the Father for having been heard. In v. 42, the point in his having spoken aloud is made clear: it is a deliberate appeal to the bystanders to believe that Jesus was sent by God. As we have already noted, many of ‘the Jews’, on seeing the sign, were quick to respond (v. 45). Second, there is the fact that John is at pains to stress that it is precisely the faith of these ‘Jews’ that places Jesus’ life in danger. At the council meeting in 11.47-48, it is the fear that everyone will believe in him if he carries on performing signs that makes it politic for the authorities to act decisively against Jesus (cf. vv. 50, 53).17 Indeed, in the wake of this council decision, John tells us, Jesus no longer went about publicly among ‘the Jews’ but retired instead to the relative obscurity of Ephraim (v. 54).18 In ch. 12, we ¿nd the danger to Jesus extended, by association, to Lazarus. In vv. 10-11, the chief priests take counsel to kill Lazarus also (v. 10, cp. 11.53) because, as living proof of Jesus’ sign, Lazarus has become a magnet to ‘the Jews’ and this is encouraging many of them to go away and believe (v. 11, cf. v. 9). Whatever the authorities’ plans, however, the crowd’s signs-based enthusiasm continues unabated (vv. 12, 17-18) and at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem the worst fears of the authorities, already expressed in 11.48, are realized. In 12.19, the Pharisees are forced to admit that the situation is beyond their control; now everyone – ĝ ÁĠÊÄÇË, tout le monde – has gone after Jesus. It follows that he must be stopped.

17. The political nature of the authorities’ decision is underlined here by repeated concern for the survival of the ì¿ÅÇË (11.48, 50, 51, 52; otherwise only 18.35); cf. also ÂÚÇË (11.50; cf. 18.14). 18. Cf. Lindars, Gospel, pp. 408–10, for a discussion of this location. 1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

155

Our ¿nal observation here also concerns what happens after the miracle. Note, crucially, that when John draws the hostile authorities into the action at 11.46, he does not call them ‘Jews’; instead, he refers to them by specifying different groups. Accordingly, in vv. 47-53, those who condemn Jesus to death in the council scene are chief priests and Pharisees. This speci¿cation looks like a deliberate change of tack on John’s part. It constitutes a sudden departure from his previous hostile ‘Jews’ references in 11.8 and 10.31, even though the council’s intention to kill Jesus makes it plain that the same people are meant (cf. 11.53). We may add here that it is also at variance with his later reminder of the council’s proceedings in 18.14, where he resumes his reference to the authorities as ‘the Jews’. Further evidence that this change is not random is provided by the fact that, once adopted in the council scene, John continues this practice of referring to the authorities in speci¿c groups throughout the remainder of chs. 11 and 12. Thus, in 11.57, those who seek information leading to Jesus’ arrest are the chief priests and Pharisees, those who plan to kill Lazarus in 12.10 are the chief priests, and those who despair at Jesus’ overwhelming popularity in v. 19 are, as we have seen, the Pharisees. The ¿nal example of this speci¿cation is at 12.42, which is the last in the series of references to the many who believe (see above). This stipulates that while many, even rulers, believed in Jesus, they did not confess because of the Pharisees. We are reminded of the very similar comment in 9.22, where those so feared are ‘the Jews’. It is now time to formulate some characteristics of John’s use of the term ‘the Jews’ on the basis of these observations in the Lazarus story and related material. There are two key features that emerge from this enquiry. First, the evidence suggests that John uses the expression ‘the Jews’ in a general sense, that is to say, as a term which can accommodate within its scope people with different responses towards Jesus as well as different social groups. On the one hand, there are ‘the Jews’ who seek to kill. Their ¿rst mention in our passage is at 11.8, which is not only a reminder of 10.31 but also the reiteration of a stock behaviour pattern recognizable from earlier references. Those who earn this description are evidently people in authority: they are the chief priests and Pharisees in the council scene (11.47-53), who are also identi¿ed as ‘the Jews’ in 18.14.19 Further on this point, we are reminded that John can use the

1

19. For the same identi¿cation, see 18.3, 12.

156

A Journey Round John

terms ‘Jews’ and ‘Pharisees’ interchangeably in 9.22 and 12.42 for those with the power to exclude from the synagogue. On the other hand, there are also ‘Jews’ who are the many who believe because of the signs, again a response to Jesus that resonates with earlier references. This second type receives a cautiously favourable press from John. Shallow but wellintentioned, they become the target of an appeal by Jesus to believe in his mission from the Father (11.42) even though, as John makes abundantly clear, their belief in Jesus places his own life at risk as well as that of Lazarus whom he loves (cf. 11.45-48; 12.10-11). For the most part, these signs-seeking ‘Jews’ seem to be the crowd, the common people rather than the authorities. As such, they eventually become part of the ‘great crowd’ attending the feast who welcome Jesus into Jerusalem in ch. 12 (cf. 12.9, 12, 17-18). This general sense of the term has two important implications for our understanding of John’s referent for ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel story. First, it tells us that the term is capable of use as a reference to all ‘Jews’ without quali¿cation. In fact, we have seen this usage in John’s reference to ‘the Passover of the Jews’ in 11.55. Passover is a feast typically observed by all Jews, authorities and people alike; it is part of their perceived identity as a distinct people.20 The second implication is that the term ‘the Jews’ can also serve as an alternative means of referring to those speci¿c social groups that fall within its scope. In such cases, its referent would not be Jews in general but would be certain ‘Jews’ in particular - and which ‘Jews’ in particular would, of course, depend upon context. Thus, as we have seen, John can use the expression ‘the Jews’ to refer to the Pharisees and the chief priests who seek to kill (11.8, cf. 10.31; 11.47-53, cf. 18.14; 11.57; 12.10, 19; 12.42, cf. 9.22) but equally he can use it of the signs-seeking crowd (11.19, 31, 33, 45, 54; 12.9, 17, cf. vv. 12, 18) and this multivalence is possible because all concerned are ‘Jews’. Whenever this happens, however, it is important to bear in mind that the frame of reference of ‘the Jews’ is not restricted to any single group. Let me illustrate this brieÀy from John 1. When John says in 1.19 that those who interrogated the Baptist were sent by ‘the Jews’ and in 1.24 that they had been sent by the Pharisees, his second comment is a speci¿cation: in 1.24, he is informing his readers which ‘Jews’ did the sending. Thus, while the comment certainly implies that the Pharisees are ‘Jews’, it does not imply that all ‘Jews’ are Pharisees.21

20. See Casey, Is John’s Gospel True?, pp. 117, 120. 21. Thus, the terms ‘Jews’ and ‘Pharisees’ are not equivalent in John’s text and so do not constitute evidence of separate literary strata, pace U. C. von Wahlde, ‘The

1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

157

The second key feature belongs to the realm of narrative tactics and harks back to the point I made at the beginning of this essay about John’s concern for clarity of communication. In this connection, there are two characteristics to note. First, where the particular referent of ‘the Jews’ is unambiguous to the reader, John appears to retain the term without seeking to specify further. We have noticed this with his ‘Jews’ reference in 11.8. There the reminder is so speci¿c to the previous scene in ch. 10 (cf. v. 31) that it leaves no doubt as to which group of ‘Jews’ is intended. The same can be said for the reminder in 18.14. In this case, the general term ‘the Jews’ suf¿ces to recall the chief priests and Pharisees in the council scene because, again, it is plain from the reference which ‘Jews’ in particular are meant. The second narrative tactic is as follows: where different social groups of ‘Jews’ coincide in his narrative, John then acts to avoid possible confusion, that is, he distinguishes the authorities from other ‘Jews’ on the scene by referring to them in speci¿c groups. We have seen him make this distinction at 11.46 – when the authorities arrive on a scene already peopled by ‘Jews’ who are the crowd – and we have seen him maintain it throughout the remainder of the public ministry. Our analysis of the Lazarus story and related texts has enabled us to identify two key features of John’s use of ‘the Jews’ in that section of the Gospel. Put brieÀy, they are as follows: ¿rst, that ‘the Jews’ is a general term which can refer not only to Jews as a whole but also, depending on context, to those individual social groups that fall within its ambit; and second, that while clarity prevails John will normally use the general term, but he can suddenly shift to the speci¿c in his references to the authorities at points in his narrative where confusion of groups may arise. It now remains to be seen how far these features have been reproduced on the broader canvas of the Gospel as a whole. With that in mind, let us turn to the following chart that maps the distribution of references to ‘the Jews’ and relevant groups throughout the entire document.

Terms for Religious Authorities in the Fourth Gospel: A Key to Literary Strata?’, JBL 98 (1979), pp. 231–53 (243–4); idem, ‘The Johannine “Jews”’, p. 33; see esp. the common-sense objections in J. Painter, The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991), pp. 82–3. 1

158

A Journey Round John ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel: Distribution of Groups

Key to ‘Jews’ column: A = Authorities; C = Crowd; H = Hostile; K = King; NC = National Customs/N = Nation chs.

‘Jews’

1

19 (A)

2

6 (NC), 13 (NC) 18 (A), 20 (A)

3

1 (NC) 25 (sg.)

4

Pharisees Chief Priests/ Crowd HP (incl. Rulers) 19 [P + 24 Levites]

1

[45 Galileans]

1 (NC), 10 (A) 13 15 (A), 16(AH) 18 (AH)

6

1 No crowd; ‘Jews’/ Pharisees alternated. 2 3 Nicodemus

1 9 (sg.) (N) 9 (N), 22 (N)

5

1 (R)

Comment

2 4 (NC) 5, 22, 24

4 (sg.) Jesus; ‘Jews’ not Samaritans. 5 Distinction between groups is clear. 6 No authorities; ‘Jews’/crowd alternated.

41 (C), 52 (C) 7

1 (AH), 2 (NC) 11 (AH)* 12, 12 13 (AH), 15 (AH)

___ __________ _____ (7) 32, 32 35 (C)* 45 47, 48 8 13 _ _ _ 22 (C), 31 (C) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 48 (AH), 52 (AH) 57 (AH)

1

7.1-26 Distinction between groups is clear.

20 (CAH?) [25 Jerusalemites] 26 (R) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ‘Many believe’; 31 authorities 32 32 distinguished by reference to 40 speci¿c groups; 43 ‘Jews’/crowd 45 alternated. 48 (R) 49 8 _______ __________ _________ NB. From 8.37 ‘hostile’ argument returns.

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel 9

13, 15, 16

9 No crowd; ‘Jews’/ Pharisees alternated.

18 (AH), 22 (2xAH) 40 10

159

19 (AH), 24 (AH)* 31 (AH), 33 (AH)

10

11

8 (AH) 19 (C), 31 (C) 33 (C), 36 (C) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 42_ _ _ _ _ _ (11) 45 (C) 46, 47 47 49 (HP), 51 (HP) 54 (C), 55 (NC) 57 57 9 (C) 12 9 10 11 (C) 12, 17, 18 19 29, 34 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 42_ _ _ _ 42 (R)_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 13–17 13.33 (C)*

11.1-44 Distinction between groups is clear._ _ _ _ ‘Many believe’; authorities distinguished by reference to speci¿c groups; [12] ‘Jews’/crowd alternated.

18

18 No crowd; ‘Jews’/Chief Priests alternated.

3

3 10 (HP)

12 (AH) 13 (HP)

_________ 13-17

14 (AH) 15 (HP), 15 (HP) 16 (HP), 19 (HP) 20 (NC) 22 (HP), 24 (HP) 26 (HP) 31 (AH), 33 (K) 35 (sg.) (N) 36 (AH), 38 (AH) 39 (K) 19

35

3 (K)

(sg.) Pilate; ‘Jews’ not Romans. 19

6 7 (AH), 12 (AH) 14 (AH) _ _ _ 19 (K)_ _ _ _ _ _ _ 20 (C) _ _ _ 21 (K2x), 21 (C) 31 (AH), 38 (AH) 40 (NC), 42 (NC) 20

1

19 (AH)

15 _____ _________ _______ _________ ‘Many read’; A _ _ _ _ _ 21_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ distinguished_

20

160

A Journey Round John

First, a word of explanation about the chart itself. In the column to the left are the ‘Jews’ references,22 which I have attempted to categorize as in the key at the top of the chart.23 To the right of this are three more columns containing references to the different social groups we have discussed in relation to the Lazarus section: Pharisees (19×); chief priests and rulers (25×);24 and the crowd (20×). Also, I have added in square brackets occasional references to other groups that appear outside the Lazarus material. The column on the far right is given over to what I hope is helpful comment. Let us begin with ‘the Jews’ column. The evidence here looks consistent with the use of the term in its general sense that we noted as a key feature in the Lazarus section. Thus, we have nine more instances, to match John’s ‘Passover of the Jews’ reference in 11.55, where the term is used indiscriminately to denote all Jews. These refer to Jews as a people with their distinctive national customs, and hence I have labelled these ‘NC’. I would also probably want to include here the references labelled ‘N’ in chs. 4 and 18 (4.9 [bis], 22; 18.35) because here again the distinction is not between Jew and Jew but between the Jewish nation and other nations. For example, in 4.22, salvation is declared to be from ‘the Jews’ rather than the Samaritans; and in 4.9 and 18.35, Jesus himself is recognized as ‘a Jew’, that is, as a member of the Jewish nation as distinct from Samaritans or Romans.25 The second aspect we observed of this 22. There are 69 references in all. The list includes 3.25, although there is a problem with the text in this case; for the detail and a suggested solution, see J. W. Pryor, ‘John the Baptist and Jesus: Tradition and Text in John 3.25’, JSNT 66 (1997), pp. 15–26. The reference to ÌüÅ `ÇÍ»¸ĕ¸Å ºýÅ in 3.22 is excluded. 23. It is impossible, of course, to achieve certainty in all cases. I have marked with an asterisk four texts where identi¿cation seems most open to debate (so also, e.g., Dunn, Partings of the Ways, p. 156 n. 65). My decisions in these cases may be defended as follows: (1) 7.11: comparison with 11.57 indicates a probable reference to hostile authorities, cp. also 7.1, 13; (2) 7.35: as argued above, this probably refers to ‘the many’ who believe in v. 31; (3) 10.24: the reaction in v. 31 together with the parallel in Lk. 22.67 suggest a reference to hostile authorities; (4) 13.33: a reminder of the common people in 7.35, a situation repeated in 8.21-22 (note John’s ÈÚÂÀÅ). Note also that the ‘crowd’ at 7.20 is probably a reference (for once!) to the hostile authorities (cf. v. 19; cp. 8.48). 24. Note that the Greek for High Priest and chief priest is the same (ÒÉÏÀ¼É¼įË). There are also nine references to ĨȾÉñ̸À (7.32, 45, 46; 18.3, 12, 18, 22, 36; 19.6) who, with the single exception of 18.36 (where they serve Jesus), are priestly minions. 25. Note especially Pilate’s pointed reference to Ìġ ì¿ÅÇË Ìġ ÊĠÅ in 18.35, probably an echo of the authorities’ decision in 11.47-53 to preserve the Jewish nation at the expense of one of its own (see above, n. 17). 1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

161

general sense of ‘the Jews’ is that the term can serve as an alternative means of referring to individual social groups, be they hostile or harmless, that fall within its scope. Again, the evidence overall looks consistent with this. Accordingly, there are ‘Jews’ who are hostile, who oppose Jesus and seek to kill him. In the chart, these hostile references26 apply without exception to ‘Jews’ who have authoritative powers.27 This is consistent with the fact that in chs. 9, 18 and 19, the context shows that the term ‘the Jews’ functions as an alternative form of reference to authoritative groups like Pharisees and chief priests. There are also ‘Jews’ who are non-hostile with an interest in the signs. These are well represented in chs. 11 and 12 but are less in evidence overall (only 15 instances). Nevertheless, they do have the stage to themselves in Galilee in ch. 6, where ‘the Jews’ in vv. 41, 52 functions as an alternative reference to ‘the crowd’ who follow Jesus impressed by the signs in the earlier part of the chapter (6.2, 5, 22, cf. v. 30).28 The second key feature we observed consists of narrative tactics which, I have suggested, are governed by John’s desire for clarity of communication. The ¿rst tactic is that where he judges that the particular referent of ‘the Jews’ is unambiguous to the reader, John will normally retain the general term. We have already noted this in 11.1-44 and I have indicated in my comments column that the same seems to be the case in ch. 5 and in 7.1-26. The second tactic applies where different social groups of ‘Jews’ coincide in his narrative, at which point John will suddenly shift from the general to the speci¿c in his references to the authorities in order to distinguish them from other ‘Jews’ on the scene. This brings us to the areas of the chart where the data are in bold print. We have already examined the area beginning at 11.45, and so we will begin there. Note that in this section all parties are on stage, that Pharisees and chief priests are suddenly speci¿ed as such, and that ‘the Jews’ is retained as an alternative reference to the remaining people on the scene, who are the crowd. In fact, as the chart shows, John makes 26. These number 28 in all, and are ‘Jews’ who persecute Jesus (5.16, cf. v. 20), make accusations against him (8.48, 52; 10.20, 33), reject his claims (8.56-57; 10.24-25), seek his death (5.18; 7.1, 11, 15, cf. v. 19; 8.59; 10.31; 11.8; 18.14), and eventually achieve their aim by coercing Pilate into having him cruci¿ed (18.31, 3840; 19.7, 12, 14-15). 27. For example, they have the power to send others (1.19), to question Jesus’ authority (2.18), to decide on the validity of the signs (5.15-16; 9.18), to exclude from the synagogue (9.22), to supply of¿cers in an arrest (18.12, 36), and are generally feared in consequence (7.13; 9.22; 19.38; 20.19). 28. Note already the reference to Galilaeans in the context of signs in 4.45, 48 (cf. 2.23). 1

162

A Journey Round John

exactly the same shift in reference on two other occasions in the Gospel. We see this happen brieÀy in 19.20-21. In 19.20, John tells his readers that ‘many of the Jews’ read the title ‘the King of the Jews’ on Jesus’ cross, adding in explanation that the place of cruci¿xion was near the city. Clearly, these ‘Jews’ are the ordinary citizens, the common people. In v. 21, the authorities then rush to persuade Pilate to change the wording from what looks like a fact to a falsi¿able claim. Note especially here John’s careful distinction of these authorities from the general populace; these are, he says, ‘the chief priests of the Jews’.29 The other example occurs at 7.31, again a point where all groups come into play. As in ch. 11, the belief of ‘the many’ prompts the authorities to act, at which point they are referred to in speci¿ed groups while ‘the Jews’ is retained as an alternative reference to the crowd. I suggest that this observation may help sort out some of the complexities involved in chs. 7 and 8 even if others yet remain to be resolved. It is time to draw some conclusions from this investigation and to discuss the implications of the results for John’s situation in relation to Judaism. If we now return to the question of the identity of ‘the Jews’ in John’s Gospel story, I believe we can answer with some con¿dence that John uses the term generally to denote Jewish people – not just Judaeans, not just authorities, not just Jewish Christians, and not relexicalised as a component of an anti-language. As Jewish people, John’s ‘Jews’ can be either the nation as a whole or can be subdivided into recognisably Jewish social groups, any of which may be speci¿ed by name or referred to in context by using the general term. A second point to emerge here is that the groups that come under John’s rubric ‘the Jews’ are not all of the same kind.30 Some, usually the common people, are presented as responding favourably towards Jesus and can come to believe in him because of the signs. By contrast, there are those ‘Jews’ in authority, who are implacably hostile towards Jesus and who conspire in seeking his death. Overall, then, this is a rather more nuanced picture than is usually supposed; not all of John’s ‘Jews’ are on the poisonous end of his pen. In this connection, it is worth noting a further point made on the chart, which is that there are no crowd references in John’s trial scene in chs. 18 and 19 (18.28–19.16);31 instead, the only speci¿ed group of ‘Jews’ in attendance, who engineer 29. This distinction is probably anticipated in 19.15. 30. So Casey, contra von Wahlde, in Is John’s Gospel True?, pp. 122–3; see also Bieringer et al., ‘Wrestling with Johannine Anti-Judaism’, p. 19. 31. See further, Culpepper, Anatomy, p. 131.

1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

163

Jesus’ death, are the priestly authorities. There is no parallel in John to the notorious Mt. 27.25. In other words, ‘the Jews’ John is gunning for are the hostile authorities, not ‘Jews’ as a whole. At this point, I would like to move on to the second of the two insights that my brief appeal to John’s parentheses was able to offer us, namely, that ‘the Jews’ is one of the terms in the Gospel which is conspicuous by its lack of explanation. Thus, it seems that John’s ‘Jews’ were a known quantity to author and audience alike when this Gospel was written, and hence that the term has contemporary relevance and meaning. There are other factors about the Gospel itself, and in relation to the Synoptics, that point also to this contemporary application. Note, for example, the interesting statistic that out of the 70 or so instances of ‘the Jews’ in John’s text, 32 feature in the parentheses32 while only four are placed on Jesus’ lips, three of them non-hostile and none of them in the notorious conÀict passages (cf. 4.22; 13.33; 18.20, 36). Note also that where the Synoptic writers, who use the term only ¿ve or six times apiece, come into line with classical Johannine use, they do so in asides to their own readers. A text that readily comes to mind here is Mk 7.3-4 where, in explaining Jewish customs to his readers, Mark attributes these to ‘the Pharisees, and all the Jews’ (v. 3). We may also specify Mt. 28.15, in which the author tells his readers that the tale about the disciples stealing Jesus’ body from the tomb ‘has been spread among Jews to this day’.33 And yet, if we do agree that John’s ‘Jews’ are Jewish people and that their identity was a matter of common knowledge to writer and readers at the time, we are presented with an oddity. This consists in the fact that John the Jew, biographer of Jesus the Jew, perceives ‘the Jews’ as an alien group.34 Indeed, as is often remarked, those in the Gospel who are regarded as authentic witnesses to Jesus, such as John (the Baptist), the disciples, and even Moses, Abraham and Isaiah, are not categorised as ‘Jews’. Moreover, Jesus himself is presented in frequent and bitter confrontation with these people, disassociating himself from ‘their law’ (15.25, cf. 8.17; 10.34) and excluding them from his private discourse with the disciples (cf. 13.33). Despite the impression of distance, 32. The references are as follows: 1.19; 2.6, 13; 4.9, 22; 5.1, 16, 18; 6.4; 7.1, 2, 13, 35; 8.22; 9.22; 10.19, 31; 11.19, 33, 45, 55; 12.11; 13.33; 18.12, 14, 38; 19.21(bis), 38, 40, 42; 20.19. 33. Note also that where John’s narrative coincides with the Synoptic record, his own preference for ‘the Jews’ is in marked contrast to the rich variety of social groups contained in the other Gospels; see esp. Jn 5.10, cp. Mt. 12.2 and //s; Jn 10.24-25, cp. Lk. 22.66-67; Jn 18.38-40, cp. Mt. 27.20-21 and //s. 34. So, correctly, Casey, Is John’s Gospel True?, p. 122; see already, Bultmann, Gospel, p. 86. 1

164

A Journey Round John

however, John appears to know this group and its constitution well: well enough, in fact, to have Jesus hurl purple rhetoric at some while appealing to others to decide in his favour. In short, it seems that John’s ‘Jews’, however alien they may appear in his text, are representative of a Jewish community with whom John the Jew remains heavily engaged.35 Precisely what the terms of engagement are in John’s case is extremely dif¿cult to determine.36 Complicating factors include the problem that we are constrained to second-guess the situation from a text that is narrating another story and also the dif¿culty, in a sophisticated text like John’s, of how to determine where rhetoric stops and reality begins. In other words, how far exclusion from the synagogue has already played a part in the establishment of John’s own group seems unclear since in 9.22 and 12.42 he applies it to others; and if we are not prepared to accept the rhetoric that ‘the Jews’ had the devil’s DNA, then how do we know that the boundaries between the two opposing groups were as clear-cut in reality as John would prefer us to think?37 In fact, as I read it, John’s text in its ¿nal form strongly suggests that his own group and the Jewish community known to him are in deadly rivalry (cf. esp. 9.28; 12.11), that John 35. In agreement with Maarten Menken, who argues, on the basis of the scriptural disputation in ch. 9, that the conÀict between John’s community and the synagogue was ongoing when the Gospel took its ¿nal form; see Menken, ‘Scriptural Dispute’, pp. 459–60. 36. See, e.g., the discussion in A. Reinhartz, ‘The Johannine Community and its Jewish Neighbors: A Reappraisal’, in ‘What Is John?’. Vol. 2, Literary and Social Readings of the Fourth Gospel (ed. F. F. Segovia; SBL Symposium Series 7; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), pp. 111–38, in which she points out that, despite references elsewhere to exclusion from the synagogue, John 11 implies that relations between the two communities persisted at the social level. Later evidence from inscriptions, supplied by Paul Trebilco in ‘The Christian and Jewish Eumeneian Formula’, in Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire (ed. J. M. G. Barclay; Library of Second Temple Studies 45; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 66–88, suggests that even in the third century Christian and Jewish communities in Phrygia were closely related. 37. On symbolical boundaries in John, see P. F. Esler, The First Christians in Their Social Worlds: Social-scienti¿c Approaches to New Testament Interpretation (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 84–90; on the whole issue of rhetoric against Jews deployed to a purpose in John and in early Christianity in general, see esp. the valuable discussions by Judith Lieu in ‘History and Theology in Christian Views of Judaism’, in The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (ed. J. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak; London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 79–96; eadem, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996); eadem, Neither Jew Nor Greek? Constructing Early Christianity (Studies of the New Testament and Its World; London: T&T Clark International, 2002). 1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

165

knows of Christian Jews within the opposing camp (9.22; 12.42), and that he is intent on weaning them away.38 Indeed, I would add, so con¿rmed is he in the rightness of this course that he is persisting in it even at the risk of a death-threat from those Jewish authorities equally determined that he should not succeed (cf. the blasphemy charge in 5.18; 10.33; 16.2, cf. 15.18–16.1). There is much in such a situation that would help explain the demonization of those ‘Jews’ who oppose Jesus in the conÀict passages.39 Even so, however, we still have not arrived at the nub of the problem, which may be stated thus: if this is indeed a Jew versus Jew situation, a ‘family row’ where ‘home’ is the Jewish heritage, as John Ashton has it,40 why does John call his opponents ‘Jews’ and apparently disdain the name for himself? Does this mean that he has become suf¿ciently disaffected from Judaism to repudiate his Jewish identity? Yet, for all Maurice Casey’s careful argument to prove that John has taken Gentile self-identi¿cation, I am not persuaded that this perspective rings true to the Gospel.41 My own impression is that John reads much more like a Christian Jew whose faith in the God of Israel has become utterly Jesuscentred. In this connection, his occasional use of the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Israelite’ (1.31, 47, 49; 3.10; 12.13) is probably a point in favour of his Jewish identity, since there seems no evidence extant of Gentile use of these terms to refer to Jews.42 Add to that the points that John has no problem about Jesus’ own identity as a Jew among Jews (4.9; 18.35), that in 1.16 he sees Jesus’ coming as grace replacing grace already given, and that he interprets Jesus’ redemptive death in terms of the whole 38. See North, Lazarus, p. 126 with n. 28. 39. On the special role played by the vili¿cation of unbelieving ‘Jews’ in encouraging others to join John’s group, see Freyne, ‘Vilifying’, p. 140. 40. Ashton, Understanding (1st ed.), pp. 140, 151. 41. Pace Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Cambridge: James Clarke; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), esp. pp. 27–31; idem, Is John’s Gospel True?, pp. 124, 126–7. Note that if John can seem distanced from ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel, he seems no more closely identi¿ed with ‘the Greeks’ (cf. 7.35 [bis]; 12.20) nor, for that matter, with the world at large, which he clearly perceives as a place of mission (cf. 3.16-17; 4.42; 8.12; 9.5; 17.18) but not as ‘home’ (8.23; 15.19; 17.6, 14, 16; 18.36). Moreover if, as suggested above, the charge levelled against John is that of blasphemy, then this implies that even his opponents identify him as a Jew, punishable under the Law. 42. So W. Gutbrod, `ÊɸûÂ, in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (ed. G. Kittel; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), vol. 3, p. 371. Danker’s Lexicon (p. 481) has no evidence to the contrary. 1

166

A Journey Round John

nation (11.50-51), and perhaps we may judge that after all, and despite everything, Jesus’ pronouncement that ‘salvation is from the Jews’ (4.22) continues to be true for John also. Another suggestion is that John is using ‘the Jews’ as an ‘outsiders’ term, while preferring ‘Israel’ and ‘Israelite’ to describe his own Jewish group.43 Yet John’s use of ‘Israel/Israelite’ is so infrequent and unevenly distributed (see above) that it is dif¿cult to see it posing as a suf¿ciently robust alternative to ‘the Jews’.44 Moreover, the fact that John can place a special religious value on the terms ‘Israel/Israelite’ would not, it seems, be unusual in a Jewish author45 and so may not be a feature of his text that relates directly to his particular circumstances. In addition, as Casey and others point out, there is evidence to show that Jewish writers can use both ‘Jew’ and ‘Israelite’ with equal ease both in self-reference and in communication with one another.46 If this is so, then it suggests that the fact that John uses ‘the Jews’ to refer to Jewish people is unremarkable and that, regardless of what he may think of some of them, the expression itself is not freighted with in-built overtones of ‘them’ rather than ‘us’. If so, then our problem becomes the more acute: why does John present Jesus and the disciples over against people who are ‘Jews’? I would like to close by tentatively offering a suggestion about that use and by drawing out its implications. If, as the evidence suggests, the referent of ‘the Jews’ was common knowledge to John and his readers at the point of communication, then this invites us to consider whether it was also a matter of general knowledge at the time. In fact, recent studies on Diaspora Judaism by John Barclay and others contain much to persuade us that this might make sense. Here we learn that Diaspora 43. See, e.g., Dunn, Partings of the Ways, p. 145; see further the discussion in Harvey, True Israel, pp. 6-7. 44. The references in 1.31, 47, 49 in particular may well be prompted by John’s desire to present Nathanael as the guileless Jacob/Israel, the man who sees God (cf. Gen. 27.35; 28.12 [cp. Jn 1.51]; 32.28-30). 45. See, e.g., Harvey, True Israel, pp. 46, 103, 217, 219–23, 233–4. 46. See Casey, Is John’s Gospel True?, pp. 124–5; idem, ‘Some Anti-Semitic Assumptions in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament’, NovT 41 (1999), pp. 280–91, esp. p. 282; Harvey, True Israel, pp. 39–40; see also Meeks, ‘ “Am I a Jew?”’, who refers to a letter (probably) from Bar Kochba to his lieutenants describing the feast of Tabernacles as ‘the [k]itreiabolƝn Ioudaiǀn’ (p. 181 with n. 67); see further L. Devillers, ‘La Lettre de Soumaïos et les Ioudaioi johanniques’, RB 105 (1998), pp. 556–81, esp. pp. 574–8. I am grateful to my friend and colleague James Crossley for drawing my attention to the similar reference to the (handwashing) custom of ‘all the Jews’ (ÈÜÊÀ ÌÇėË `ÇÍ»¸ĕÇÀË) in The Letter of Aristeas 305. 1

9. ‘The Jews’ in John’s Gospel

167

Jews were known generally as ÇĎ `ÇÍ»¸ėÇÀ, that they welcomed the name and traded on it in their dealings with Rome, that they adhered to those feasts and customs distinctive to all Jews, that they were known to venerate Moses, and that, even post-70, they retained a high regard for the priesthood and a view of the Temple in Jerusalem as the symbolic centre of their faith.47 And so, I conclude tentatively as follows: ¿rst, that in using the expression ‘the Jews’, John was picking up on the common parlance of the day for a Jewish Diaspora community;48 second, that his presentation of this community as other than Jesus and the disciples stems from his desire to promote his own group as an alternative and authentic form of Judaism; and ¿nally, that it is his retrojection of this term into the past of Jesus’ story that gives rise to the Gospel’s presentation of Jesus as a ¿gure to be distinguished from people who are Jewish, a situation wholly inappropriate to Jesus’ own life and circumstances and, as time would tell, a fateful merging of horizons.

47. J. M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117CE) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), pp. 276–8, 333, 407–8, 415–22, 426–44; see further T. Rajak, ‘The Jewish Community and its Boundaries’, in Lieu, North and Rajak eds., The Jews Among Pagans and Christians, pp. 9–28 (17–18); and M. H. Williams, The Jews Among the Greeks and Romans: A Diasporan Sourcebook (London: Duckworth, 1998), esp. pp. 51–62. 48. If so, then, among New Testament writers, John’s usage is surely most appropriately compared with that of Luke in Acts (79×; contrast 6× in the Gospel), which records the irruption of early Christianity into the Gentile world and its engagement with Diaspora Judaism; see esp. P. Ellingworth, ‘“The Jews” in Recent Translations of the Gospels and Acts’, in I Must Speak to You Plainly: Essays in Honor of Robert G. Bratcher (ed. R. L. Omanson; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), pp. 53–71 (66). Compare also Rev. 2.9; 3.9, where ‘those who say that they are Jews’ in Philadelphia and Smyrna are vili¿ed as unworthy of the name; on these texts in relation to Jewish Christian identity, see J. Lambrecht, ‘“Synagogues of Satan” (Rev 2:9 and 3:9): Anti-Judaism in the Book of Revelation’, in Bieringer et al., eds., AntiJudaism, pp. 514–30. 1

Chapter 10

‘BETHANY BEYOND THE JORDAN’ (JOHN 1.28) IN RETROSPECT: THE VIEW FROM JOHN 10.40 AND RELATED TEXTS*

Introduction As is often the case, the present study arose unexpectedly as part of a larger project. The project involved gathering information on how John repeats material which his readers already know from earlier in the Gospel. It could be expected, therefore, that sooner or later Jn 10.40 in relation to 1.28 would come into the exercise; what could not be expected, however, was that this investigation would take on a life of its own and that 10.40 and related texts would give rise to a fresh perspective on the enigmatic reference to ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan’ in the earlier verse. I embarked on the investigation already aware of Pierson Parker’s article, in which he argues that ÈñɸŠin the phrase ÈñɸŠÌÇı `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ in 1.28 must mean ‘opposite’ rather than ‘across’, so that Bethany then is opposite the place on the Jordan where John had baptized.1 While perhaps plausible for 1.28, it will not do for 10.40, where John uses exactly the same phrase and the usual meaning ‘across’ is the only option.2 In other words, Parker’s thesis obliges exactly the same wording in John to be read with two different meanings, which does not happen elsewhere and rather defeats the function of 10.40 as a reminder. Indeed, it is one of the weaknesses of his case that in instances of ÈñɸŠelsewhere in the Gospel, which Parker neglects to investigate, the usual meaning ‘across’ seems to suf¿ce. * Originally published in B. J. Koet, S. Moyise and J. Verheyden, eds., The Scriptures of Israel in Jewish and Christian Tradition: Essays in Honour of Maarten J. J. Menken (NovTSup, 148; Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 129–40, this article is reprinted here by kind permission of the publisher Koninklijke Brill NV. 1. P. Parker, ‘Bethany Beyond Jordan’, JBL 74 (1955), pp. 257–61 (260); see North, Lazarus, p. 132 n. 46. 2. So Parker, with a verb of movement (‘Bethany’, p. 260).

10. ‘Bethany Beyond the Jordan’

169

The problem of the whereabouts of ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan’ seems to have arisen with Origen, in the early third century. Origen, who lived in Palestine (maritime Caesarea), went to look for a place named Bethany on the east bank of the Jordan but failed to ¿nd it. Despite the fact that, as he states, almost all the witnesses available to him, including Heracleon’s commentary, read ¾¿¸Åĕ¸ Origen decided on ¾¿¸¹¸Éê, with the result that it found its way into the manuscript tradition and exists today as a minority reading. Even more of a minority reading is ¾¿¸É¸¹ê, which is probably just a variant form.3 In recent times, the tendency has been not so much to question the textual evidence as to propose that ¾¿¸Åĕ¸ is a corruption of another, similar, place-name. The strongest contender for this is Batanaea, the name of a region north and east of the Sea of Galilee, which has a Hebrew equivalent in the Old Testament name Bashan. Advocates of this proposal include William Brownlee, Don Carson, Andreas Köstenberger, Rainer Riesner and Douglas Earl.4 This proposal relies on conjecture in the absence of manuscript support, a precarious exercise at the best of times,5 and one which I ¿nd less than compelling. In particular, I ¿nd it dif¿cult to believe that when John – that most painstaking of narrators – tells his readers in 10.40 that Jesus crossed over the Jordan from Judaea, what he meant them to understand, without further indication, was that Jesus not only crossed over the Jordan from Judaea but also journeyed four days north to Batanaea. 3. For Origen’s text with French translation and notes, see C. Blanc, Origène. Commentaire sur saint Jean (5 vols.; SC 157; Paris: Cerf, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 284–7. The major textual witnesses and the logic of Origen’s choice are set out accessibly in D. S. Earl, ‘ “(Bethany) Beyond the Jordan”: The Signi¿cance of a Johannine Motif’, NTS 55 (2009), pp. 279–94 (279–80). Earl reports that UBS4 reads ¾¿¸Åĕ¸ in 1.28, but only with a C rating (p. 279 n. 2). This estimate reÀects a modern judgement, which presumably takes account of Origen’s failure to locate Bethany beyond the Jordan as well as his own alternative proposal. Nevertheless, the fact that ¾¿¸Åĕ¸ appears in к66 and к75, both of which antedate Origen, means that its claim to originality remains considerable. For the fullest and most recent discussion of this issue, see W. Willker, A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels (6 vols.; 8th ed.; Bremen: Published online, 2011), vol. 4, pp. 33–8. Available online at: http://wwwuser.uni-bremen.de/wie/TCG/TC-John.pdf. 4. W. H. Brownlee, ‘Whence the Gospel According to John?’, in John and Qumran (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; London: Chapman, 1972), pp. 166–94; Carson, Gospel, pp. 146–7; A. Köstenberger, John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), pp. 65–6; R. Riesner, ‘Bethany Beyond the Jordan (John 1:28): Topography, Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel’, TynBul 38 (1987), pp. 29–63; Earl, ‘ “(Bethany) Beyond the Jordan” ’. 5. In agreement with Parker, ‘Bethany’, p. 258. 1

170

A Journey Round John

I had just arrived by my own route at the conclusion that the Bethany in 1.28 was probably the familiar (Judaean) Bethany, across the Jordan from the place where John had baptized, only to come across an article by Brian Byron, in which he claimed exactly that.6 However, I am not convinced by Byron’s supporting argument, which is that John has a Jesus-–Joshua parallel in mind so that the phrase ‘across the Jordan’ (from east to west into Palestine) resonates with Pentateuchal references to entry into the Promised Land.7 I have other objections to Byron’s approach,8 but I think the most crucial is that he, like all the others, neglects the obvious fact that 1.28 is a parenthesis directed to the reader.9 This means that the point here is not what soaring theological heights the Evangelist was capable of but what he could expect of his readership. Given that not all of them were aware, for example, that the Sea of Tiberias was known locally as the Sea of Galilee (6.1) or that Messias meant Christos (1.41; 4.25),10 he can scarcely have been able to rely on their grasp of scriptural subtlety in the form of a three-word phrase. However, what he could rely on, as Gospel evidence shows, was their common knowledge of the Jesus-tradition.11 The argument in this study falls into three main sections. In the ¿rst, I will focus on the text of 1.28 and suggest a possible alternative reading. In section II, I will explore the implications of related texts later in the Gospel, paying special attention to John’s reminder to his readers

6. B. F. Byron, ‘Bethany Across the Jordan or Simply Across the Jordan’, ABR 46 (1998), pp. 36–54. 7. Byron, ‘Bethany’, pp. 44–54. The problem here is that the argument will hold only if John’s use of ‘across the Jordan’ in 1.28 is inÀuenced by the Pentateuch alone. In later Old Testament usage, as Byron admits, the direction indicated by the phrase can be either easterly or westerly (‘Bethany’, p. 40 n.6). 8. Not least that the insistence on discerning theological symbolism at the Gospel’s every turn, which is true of others as well as Byron (see above, n. 3; Byron, ‘Bethany’, pp. 53–4), can function to obscure more straightforward possibilities. In this case, for example, John could be repeating ‘Bethany’ from the Jesus-tradition he knew (cf. Mt. 21.17; 26.6; Mk 11.1, 11, 12; 14.3; Lk. 19.29; 24.50) and was capable of describing its whereabouts (Jn 11.18). Also worth bearing in mind is the evidence in 9.7, which suggests that when John intends a place-name to have signi¿cance for his readers he points it out. 9. For a comprehensive study of John’s parentheses, see Van Belle, Les parenthèses, esp. pp. 108, 112. 10. For these and other indicators of a non-Jewish component in John’s audience, see Witherington, John’s Wisdom, pp. 32–3; see also Van Belle, Les parenthèses, pp. 108 n. 4; 106. 11. On this point, see especially Culpepper, Anatomy, pp. 222–3. 1

10. ‘Bethany Beyond the Jordan’

171

in 10.40. Finally, in the third section, I will return to 1.28 and attempt to interpret it in context, with the bene¿t of hindsight as afforded by these later texts. I. John 1.28: Reading the Text a. Punctuation Matters With the aid of BibleWorks software,12 I have consulted ten Greek editions of the New Testament, eight of which, including NA27, punctuate 1.28 with a comma after ‘Jordan’. This inevitably prejudices one’s understanding of the verse, because then the phrase ÈñɸŠÌÇı `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ (‘beyond the Jordan’), although not placed next to ‘Bethany’ in John’s Greek sentence, is nonetheless taken to describe its whereabouts (hence ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan’). It is thus distinguished from the Bethany near Jerusalem in Judaea, which is the traditional Bethany known from the Synoptics and from later in John. However, since the text originally lacked punctuation, then if we dispense with the intrusive editorial comma, the way lies open for a different reading of John’s verse. b. Suggested Reading Largely in agreement with Byron,13 I suggest that 1.28 may be read as follows: ‘These things happened at Bethany[,] on the far side of the Jordan where John was accustomed to baptize’,14 that is, the Bethany in question is in Judaea, situated on the other side of the Jordan river from the east bank where John did his baptizing. This is at least a plausible alternative to the common reading, and one which can be supported by references later in the Gospel. Before we turn to these, however, it is worth noting that the account of the baptism of Jesus which follows 1.28 is not the actual event but is a later reminiscence by the Baptist, who was ignorant of Jesus’ identity at the time (1.31-34) but is certainly not now (1.29, 36 – ‘Lamb of God’). Thus, there is nothing here to compel us to assume that the place where John gave his witness is the same as the place where he baptized.

12. BibleWorks 7 (Norfolk, VA: BibleWorks, 2006). 13. For Byron’s reading, see ‘Bethany’, pp. 41–2. 14. I take ‘was accustomed to baptize’ to be the force of John’s periphrastic imperfect öÅ…¹¸ÈÌĕ½ÑÅ here. Also, in agreement with Byron, I take the adverbial clause (ĞÈÇÍ ÁÌÂ.) as qualifying `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ only (see Byron, ‘Bethany’, p. 41 with n. 8).

1

172

A Journey Round John

II. Exploring Related Texts a. John’s Use of ÈñɸŠin 3.26 and in Chapter 6 i) 3.26. This is where the Baptist’s disciples refer to Jesus as the one who was with John ‘across the Jordan’. Assuming John the Baptist and Jesus are both in Judaea at this point, which seems to be implied,15 then from this standpoint the phrase ÈñɸŠÌÇı `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ in this verse must indicate the east bank where John had baptized Jesus. Note that in this case we have the same referent as in 1.28 and the place is not named.16 ii) 6.1, 17, 22, 25. These four references all feature John’s use of ÈñɸŠin relation to the Sea of Galilee. In two cases the phrase ÈñɸŠÌýË ¿¸ÂÚÊÊ¾Ë applies from a westerly standpoint, that is, the direction across the sea implied by the context is from west to east (6.1, 22). Equally, however, the remaining two references have the same phrase used from an easterly standpoint, that is, the direction implied by the context is from east to west (6.17, 25). To sum up so far, these references help establish that John uses ÈñɸŠwith the usual meaning ‘across’, with reference to water,17 and that the direction in each case is a matter of the mental standpoint adopted by the reader in response to indications in the context. With regard to 1.28, this suggests not only that ÈñɸŠshould be translated ‘across’ and not ‘opposite’, but also that John’s phrase ÈñɸŠÌÇı `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ can be read to mean from east to west or from west to east depending on context. b. John’s Reminder in 10.40 In 10.40, John brings Jesus’ public ministry to a close by sending him back to the point where it began, namely, to the place where he was baptized by John. Thus, the second reference to ‘where John baptized’ in 15. So 3.22 and the proximity implied in 3.23 and the ċ»¼ ÇīÌÇË ¹¸ÈÌĕ½¼À in 3.26. 16. Note also that while ‘he who was with you across the Jordan’ in 3.26 must refer to the point when John baptized Jesus, the immediately following ‘to whom you bore witness’ does not refer to the baptism but rather to the scene of the Baptist’s witness in 1.19-34, subsequent to the event. This awkward shift is probably the casualty of John’s decision not to begin with an account of the baptism but to have the Baptist recall the event in the course of his witness (cf. 1.32-34). Hence, the added mention of ‘witness’ in 3.26 is necessary to ¿x the reference to the opening scene in John’s narrative, where the baptism event ¿gures indirectly. Gilbert Van Belle is surely correct in distinguishing ‘to whom you bore witness’ as parenthetical to the main sentence (see Van Belle, Les parenthèses, pp. 110, 252). 17. As he does also in 18.1, with reference to the Kidron.

1

10. ‘Bethany Beyond the Jordan’

173

10.40 forms an inclusio with the ¿rst in 1.28. The verbal parallels are well in evidence (underlined) and the intention here is clearly to remind the reader of what was stated in the earlier verse: 10.40

¸Ė ÒÈý¿¼Å ÈÚÂÀÅ ÈñɸŠÌÇı `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ ¼ĊË ÌġÅ ÌĠÈÇÅ ĞÈÇÍ öÅ `ÑÚÅÅ¾Ë Ìġ ÈÉľÌÇÅ ¹¸ÈÌĕ½ÑÅ Á¸Ė ìļÀżŠëÁ¼ė. 1.28 ̸ı̸ ëÅ ¾¿¸Åĕß ëºñżÌÇ ÈñɸŠÌÇı `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ ĞÈÇÍ öÅ ĝ `ÑÚÅÅ¾Ë ¹¸ÈÌĕ½ÑÅ.

John’s statement in 10.40 is precise, and deliberately so. It is essential to his narrative at this point that Jesus be sited in a place of personal safety, away from the death-threats of the authorities in Judaea (10.31-33, 39), when he learns of Lazarus’s illness. By this means, John has set the stage for Jesus to make the conscious decision in ch. 11 to lay down his life in order to give life to Lazarus whom he loves (cf. 11.3, 5, 8, 36; 15.13).18 Accordingly, we learn in 10.40 that Jesus travels west, starting from Judaea (10.22; cf. 11.8) and returning (ÈÚÂÀÅ) across the Jordan to the east bank, literally ‘to the place where John at ¿rst did his baptizing’ – the addition of Ìġ ÈÉľÌÇÅ here probably functions to ¿x the reference to the baptizing mentioned in 1.28, rather than to the later scene in ch. 3 of the Baptist’s activity at Aenon near Salim (3.23).19 What can we learn about John’s understanding of 1.28 from his reminder to his readers in 10.40? There are three important points here, which relate respectively to the content of 10.40, its immediate context, and to its place in the broader context of similar references elsewhere in the Gospel. 1. The content of 10.40 con¿rms beyond doubt that the Evangelist understood that Jesus was baptized by John on the east bank of the Jordan, across the river from Judaea. What it does not con¿rm, however, is that he thought the place (ĝ ÌĠÈÇË) so precisely pinpointed here, was called Bethany. 2. In the immediate context in 11.1, John does actually refer to Bethany. This is the village of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, the siblings whose house will become the scene of the anointing in 12.1-8. Clearly this is the Judaean Bethany, conveniently close to Jerusalem, John tells us, for a crowd of ‘Jews’ to Àock there to console the sisters (11.18-19). It is also the Bethany to which 18. See further North, Lazarus, p. 132. 19. Compare especially John’s Ìġ ÈÉľÌÇÅ in 19.39, with reference to Nicodemus’s ¿rst appearance in the Gospel story in 3.1-2, not at 7.50-52.

1

174

A Journey Round John

Jesus will travel for Lazarus’s sake, crossing back over the Jordan into Judaea and personal danger (cf. 11.8). For our purposes, the point to note is that if John has thought of two Bethanys here, he gives no indication of it. In other words, not only does he not use the name in relation to the place of baptism in 10.40 but also, when he does use ‘Bethany’ – in the next breath, as it were – he does not seem conscious of any potential for confusion of the two. Where, we ask, is the familiar Johannine aside to the reader to ward off possible misunderstanding? That question becomes the more pressing when we recall John’s immediate and incisive ‘not Iscariot’ in 14.22 at the mention of another Judas among the disciples.20 3. My third point concerns the reminder in 10.40 as it appears in the broader context of similar references throughout the Gospel. John has a particular fondness for reminding his readers of previous passages. Gilbert Van Belle, in his book on the Johannine parentheses, lists 29 such instances throughout the Gospel.21 Out of these, there are six, including 10.40, which are reminders of places John has speci¿ed earlier. In what follows I have listed the remaining ¿ve, in Gospel order, and have added 10.40 below the dotted line for comparison purposes. 4.46 (cf. 2.1; also vv. 7, 9, 10) Ϣ ¿¼Å ÇħÅ ÈÚÂÀÅ ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ¸ÅÛ ÌýË ¸ÂÀ¸ĕ¸Ë, ĞÈÇÍ ëÈÇĕ¾Ê¼Å Ìġ ĩ»ÑÉ ÇčÅÇÅ. 4.54 (cf. 4.3, 43, 45, esp. 47) ÇıÌÇ [»ò] ÈÚÂÀÅ »¼į̼ÉÇŠʾļėÇÅ ëÈÇĕ¾Ê¼Å ĝ `¾ÊÇıË ë¿ĽÅ ëÁ ÌýË Џ ÇÍ»¸ĕ¸Ë ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ¸ÂÀ¸ĕ¸Å. 6.23 (cf. vv. 10-12) Ó¸ ö¿¼Å ÈÂÀÇ[ÚÉÀ]¸ ëÁ À¹¼ÉÀÚ»ÇË ëººİË ÌÇı ÌĠÈÇÍ ĞÈÇÍ ìθºÇÅ ÌġÅ ÓÉÌÇÅ ¼ĤϸÉÀÊÌûʸÅÌÇË ÌÇı ÁÍÉĕÇÍ. 11.30 (cf. v. 20) ÇĥÈÑ »ò ë¾Âį¿¼À ĝ `¾ÊÇıË ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ÁļľÅ, ÒŬ Џ öÅ ìÌÀ ëÅ ÌŊ ÌĠÈĿ ĞÈÇÍ ĨÈûÅ̾ʼŠ¸ĤÌŊ ÷ ÚÉ¿¸. 20. Compare here also 1.8 (John not the light) and 7.22 (circumcision not from Moses). C. K. Barrett’s suggestion that ‘11.1, 18 seem carefully worded so as to distinguish Bethany near Jerusalem from the other Bethany’ (Barrett, Gospel, p. 175) is open to two objections: ¿rst, that the content of 11.1 is designed to locate Lazarus for the reader, not Bethany (see North, Lazarus, p. 134, cf. 121–2); and, second, that 11.18 functions perfectly well in situ to indicate how conveniently close to Jerusalem Bethany was for ‘the Jews’ to come down to console Martha and Mary (11.19). 21. Van Belle, Les parenthèses, pp. 110–11. 1

10. ‘Bethany Beyond the Jordan’

175

12.1 (cf. 11.1, also v. 18) o ÇħÅ `¾ÊÇıË ÈÉġ ðÆ ÷Ä¼ÉľÅ ÌÇı ÈÚÊϸ ö¿¼Å ¼ĊË ¾¿¸Åĕ¸Å, ĞÈÇÍ öÅ Ú½¸ÉÇË, ğÅ ôº¼ÀɼŠëÁ żÁÉľÅ `¾ÊÇıË. …………………………………………………………………………… 10.40 (cf. 1.28)

¸Ė ÒÈý¿¼Å ÈÚÂÀÅ ÈñɸŠÌÇı `ÇÉ»ÚÅÇÍ ¼ĊË ÌġÅ ÌĠÈÇÅ ĞÈÇÍ öÅ `ÑÚÅÅ¾Ë Ìġ ÈÉľÌÇÅ ¹¸ÈÌĕ½ÑÅ Á¸Ė ìļÀżŠëÁ¼ė.

On the whole, John’s reminder in 10.40 compares favourably with the other ¿ve examples. Note, for instance, the similar use of ÈÚÂÀÅ in 4.46 and especially the ĞÈÇÍ clause after the mention of place, brieÀy describing the events that occurred there, which we ¿nd in 10.40 and in four out of the other ¿ve examples (4.54 excepted), a very typical format. It is also worth adding here that 4.46, like 10.40, forms an inclusio with its earlier referent. There is, however, one further – and crucial – comparison which deserves our attention. This is the fact that only in 6.23, 11.30 and 10.40 does John refer to the original location as ĝ ÌĠÈÇË (‘the place’; parallels underlined). This contrasts with the remaining three reminders, all of which have place-names: Cana in Galilee in 4.46; Judaea and Galilee in 4.54; and Bethany in 12.1. Now there is a very good reason why John has preferred ĝ ÌĠÈÇË in 6.23 and 11.30, and that is the fact that in both instances the original venue is not named. On this basis, then, it would seem that when he also referred in 10.40 to ĝ ÌĠÈÇË where John had originally baptized Jesus, he did so on the assumption that there was no place-name to repeat.22 Furthermore, as his reminder in 12.1 demonstrates, John was quite capable of repeating the name ‘Bethany’ had he seen reason to do so. The results of this investigation into his reminder in 10.40 have shown that, as far as John is concerned, the location in 1.28 where Jesus was baptized by John was on the east bank of the Jordan, across the river from Judaea, but was a place without a name – as, indeed, we noted in 3.26. Assuming that John is consistent here in his repetition of the earlier information (and I know of no such case where he is not), then we must take this into account as we return to examine 1.28 in context. Before we do so, however, there are two further points to bear in mind. The ¿rst is the evidence from ch. 6 that John uses ÈñɸŠin the usual way to mean ‘across’ or ‘on the other side of’ so that, in practice, the point of departure can be either on the east side (of the relevant stretch of water) or on 22. Note also John’s further reference to this spot as ĝ ÌĠÈÇË in 11.6; contrast the very similar follow-up reference in 7.9, in which he repeats ‘Galilee’ from 7.1. A further contrast consists in the fact that John readily names the place (Ephraim) to which Jesus retires from danger for a second time (11.54).

1

176

A Journey Round John

the west, with the direction in each case a matter of the standpoint adopted by the reader in response to the context. The second point is that John has speci¿ed three venues in this section of the Gospel. These are: ¿rst, the unnamed place of baptism on the east bank of the Jordan in 10.40, which John evidently perceives as a place of refuge from the Judaean authorities; second, Bethany in Judaea in 11.1, on the other side of the Jordan from the place of baptism, which is where Jesus will put himself in harm’s way; and is conveniently close to the third venue, Jerusalem, for many of ‘the Jews’ to come down to console the sisters, as in 11.18-19. III. John 1.28 in Context As is well known, the role of the Baptist in John’s scheme of things is that of prime witness to Jesus before the event. This exalted position is already accorded him in the Prologue, where he, like Jesus, is said to be sent from God (1.6-8, 15), and the content of his witness becomes the topic that launches John’s narrative in 1.19. The Baptist’s testimony, when confronted by envoys from the Jerusalem authorities (1.19, 24; cf. 5.33-36), consists in, ¿rst, emphatically denying that he is the Christ or that he has any prophetic status except that of embodying the words of Isaiah’s prophecy (1.20-23); and, second, when questioned about the purpose of his baptism, in pointing to someone unrecognised by his audience to whom his own allegiance is absolute (1.25-27). It is at this point that the Evangelist breaks into his narrative with the geographical reference for the bene¿t of his readers. I have suggested that John’s communication in 1.28 can be read as follows: ‘These things happened at Bethany[,] on the far side of the Jordan river where John was accustomed to baptize’. In other words, the intended reference is to Bethany in Judaea, which is on the other side of the Jordan river from the east bank, where John did his baptizing. The following four arguments are offered in support of this reading: a. The fact that ÈñɸŠhere denotes a direction from east to west is in keeping with John’s use of the term elsewhere. b. This reading would yield a pattern of venues consistent with that found in the section beginning at 10.40, namely: ¿rst, the east bank of the Jordan where John baptized, which is not named; second, Bethany in Judaea, on the other side of the Jordan; which is conveniently close to the third venue, Jerusalem, mentioned by John in 1.19, for a delegation to be sent there from ‘the Jews’ (authorities in this case). 1

10. ‘Bethany Beyond the Jordan’

177

c. With regard to 1.28 itself, it is important for us to recognise that in 1.19-27 John has not related the actual story of the baptism of Jesus such as we get in the Synoptics, but instead has focused on the content of the Baptist’s witness, which is given at some later stage, subsequent to the event. It is equally important for us to be aware that so far John has given no indication of place. Up to this point, his readers, who are evidently familiar with the Baptist’s story (cf. 3.24) and who have heard his words ‘I baptize with water’ in 1.26, are more than likely to assume that the setting is at the Jordan river, known from tradition to be where John baptized (cp. Mt. 3.6; Mk 1.5; Lk. 3.3), and speci¿cally, perhaps, at the east bank of the Jordan, the place John describes so precisely in 10.40. It is in this context, I suggest, that John’s aside to his readers in 1.28 makes best sense. Here he does two things: ¿rst, he locates the Baptist’s interview at Bethany in Judaea; and, second, anticipating that this setting may be contrary to his readers’ expectations, he provides them with guidance, that is, he describes the new location he has preferred from the standpoint of the traditional venue that they know. The scene, he insists, is at Bethany, on the far side (looking from west to east) of the Jordan river where John was accustomed to baptize. It is worth reminding ourselves at this point that providing guidance and readers’ helps in general is a constant feature of John’s narrative style throughout the Gospel.23 In this case, note the similar example in 11.30 where he anticipates his readers’ expectation that Jesus will have already arrived in Bethany, and informs them to the contrary. d. Finally, I shall attempt to account for John’s choice of Bethany in Judaea as the location of the Baptist’s interrogation by those sent from the Jerusalem authorities. Here it is relevant to note that John presents the Baptist not only as prime witness but also as model witness. This is particularly evident in 1.20, where we learn that the Baptist, when questioned by these envoys, ‘confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ” ’. This text resonates verbally with 9.22 and 12.42,24 in which we learn of people who fear ‘the Jews’, speci¿cally the Pharisees, who have the power to evict from the synagogue anyone who confesses that Jesus is the Christ. The links with the Baptist’s 23. See further, Van Belle, Les parenthèses, p. 109. 24. Note that ĝÄÇÂǺñÑ occurs twice in 1.20 and elsewhere only in 9.22 and 12.42.

1

178

A Journey Round John

confession in negative form in 1.20 and the deliberate, almost wooden, emphasis on his demeanour strongly suggest that John intends his response here to be seen as exemplary.25 But if, for his own reasons, he has presented the Baptist being questioned by agents from the Jewish authorities – the same authorities who, later in the narrative, will breathe death-threats against Jesus – then surely the place of baptism east of the Jordan is the least likely setting John would choose, for in his scheme of things this is a place of safety, away from such people, the place to which Jesus will return and take refuge later in 10.40. On the contrary, the obvious choice for this encounter is in Judaea, at Bethany, conveniently close to Jerusalem to be within the authorities’ reach, and in harm’s way. V. Conclusion In this study, I have attempted to understand Jn 1.28 in the light of evidence elsewhere in the Gospel and with particular reference to the Evangelist’s reminder to his readers in 10.40. How far the interpretation of 1.28 offered here has successfully captured John’s intentions remains to be seen. Does it work? Or does it torture the meaning out of it to make it work? I am not sure. Nevertheless, on the basis of the evidence we have uncovered on 10.40 and related texts, I believe we may claim with some con¿dence that a place east of the Jordan called Bethany, or Bethabara, or Batanea, or any other variation of the name, was not a feature on John’s mental map of Palestine.

25. Note the involvement of the same people: 1.19, 24: ‘the Jews’, speci¿cally the Pharisees.

1

Chapter 11

THE ANOINTING IN JOHN 12.1-8: A TALE OF TWO HYPOTHESES*

The fact is that the thought of this gospel is so original and creative that a search for its ‘sources’, or even for the ‘inÀuences’ by which it may have been affected, may easily lead us astray. Whatever inÀuences may have been present have been masterfully controlled by a powerful and independent mind.

So wrote C. H. Dodd in the introduction to his volume entitled The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.1 By the time he came to write the Appendix to that volume, however, he had reached the conclusion that the character of the Fourth Gospel consisted of a rendering of oral tradition that was independent of the Synoptic witness and that the task of estimating the forms of the various units of this pre-Gospel tradition, that is, a search for its ‘sources’, was a possible one.2 Ten years later, Dodd published Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, which was devoted to developing that task. This essay will focus exclusively on that section of Historical Tradition in which Dodd argues, in support of his overall hypothesis, that John composed his account of the anointing on the basis of oral tradition available to him and not in literary dependence on either Mark or Luke or both.3 Following a summary and a critique of Dodd’s argument, I shall propose that the alternative hypothesis that John did indeed rely on relevant Synoptic material in composing 12.1-8 can be sustained in this case. In order to demonstrate this, I shall attempt a detailed description of how and why John chose to depict the anointing scene as he did. * Originally published in T. Thatcher and C. H. Williams, eds., Engaging with C. H. Dodd on the Gospel of John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 216–30. This article is reprinted here by kind permission of the publisher. 1. Dodd, Interpretation, p. 6. 2. Dodd, Interpretation, pp. 451–2. 3. Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 162–73.

180

A Journey Round John

I. John 12.1-8: Dodd’s Hypothesis a. Summary and Critique Dodd’s argument that John composed his account of the anointing on the basis of independent oral tradition may be summarized in four points. First, Dodd regards Jn 12.1-8 as ‘a completely self-contained unit’. Having isolated it as such, he then compares and contrasts it in detail with its Synoptic counterparts in Mk 14.3-9 and in Lk. 7.36-50.4 Second, Dodd ‘tentatively’ adopts the alternative hypothesis that John is dependent on Mark.5 He ¿nds least problematic those points of abbreviation, expansion and attachment of names to anonymous characters that we ¿nd in John’s account. Dodd regards these largely as examples of secondary or ‘legendary’ development. There are two aspects of John’s account, however, that in Dodd’s view pose serious challenges to the dependence hypothesis. The ¿rst is John’s description of the act of anointing, in which, it would seem, John is as directly dependent on Luke as he was earlier on Mark. Dodd is aghast at the thought: ‘I ¿nd it very dif¿cult to conceive of John, with Luke (ex hypothesi) in his hands, deliberately transferring this description to a character of whom he never suggests anything like a shady past, and embodying it in a story, derived from Mark, whose point is something entirely different’.6 The second serious challenge, according to Dodd, involves the aphorism about the anointing of Jesus’ body for burial. Whereas in Mark Jesus clearly regards the act as an anticipatory embalming of his body for burial (14.8), in John, according to whom the embalming of Jesus’ body does take place before burial (19.39-40), the saying takes the form, ‘Let her keep it [the ointment] for the day of my burial’ (12.7) even though, in the event, Mary is not present nor her spices used. Dodd comments as follows: ‘I can easily conceive of the Evangelist as taking over from some source a statement which, though it needs some adjustment to the implications of his narrative elsewhere, does not Àatly contradict it, but I do ¿nd it hard to imagine him going out of his way to introduce such a statement by way of a “correction” of Mark’.7 It is on these two bases, namely, the description of the act of anointing in Lukan terms in a Markan setting and the substitution of the Johannine form of the reply of Jesus about the ointment for the Markan, that Dodd rejects the hypothesis of John’s direct dependence on both Mark and Luke.8

1

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 162–6. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 166. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 167. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 168. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 169.

11. The Anointing in John 12.1-8

181

Third, Dodd digresses to consider two examples where ‘certain details of a story seem to have wandered from one pericopé to another’. The ¿rst is Lk. 10.25-28, where what Dodd calls a ‘mechanical application of the theory of documentary sources’ would suggest that Luke has ‘copied’ from Mk 10.17 and 12.29, transferring the latter ‘strangely enough’ from Jesus to the lawyer in dialogue with him. Dodd ¿nds this ‘completely incredible as an account of the actions of a reasonable person’, and proposes instead that a ‘cross-combination’ of data has occurred during the period of oral transmission of the tradition rather than in composition from literary sources.9 The second example involves Mt. 9.27-31 and 20.29-34 in relation to Mk 10.46-52. In the case of the second Matthaean passage, Dodd considers that ‘literary dependence [on Mark] is hardly in doubt’. Nevertheless, the theory that Matthew also wrote up the earlier passage in dependence on Mark ‘has no probability’. In this case, Dodd argues, the passage takes the form of ‘a typical narrative pericopé’ that suggests an independent unit from tradition. Dodd therefore rejects any proposal that Matthew ‘copied’ from Mark in this instance and points once more to what is ‘surely a more plausible hypothesis’ that the phenomenon of varying combinations of details occurred during oral transmission of the tradition and prior to the ¿nal form in which it was written down.10 Fourth and ¿nally, Dodd offers his own hypothesis in relation to the three accounts of the anointing with which he began. He proposes that the variations and cross-combinations of detail already observed in these texts arose in the course of oral transmission prior to the Gospels, that each Evangelist independently recorded a separate strand of tradition, and that the strands overlapped. Some contribution by each Evangelist is also envisaged, but not to the substance of the story. As regards the form of John’s account, Dodd submits that ‘this hypothesis explains more of the facts, and leaves fewer dif¿culties unexplained, than the hypothesis of literary dependence of John on Mark or Luke or both’. Accordingly, when it comes to the central motif of the anointing account, John’s version is associated with that strand of tradition that speci¿es washing and anointing the feet and also with Jesus’ acceptance of the act as preparatory for his burial, rather than, as in Luke, an expression of love and gratitude for sins forgiven.11 Hence, in John, we have the act described ‘essentially as in Luke, but simply and without the pointed elaboration’. Dodd concludes with the observation that the anointing of

1

9. Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 169–70. 10. Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 170–1. 11. Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 172–3.

182

A Journey Round John

the head, as in Mark’s account, would suggest kingship, and so the absence of this suggestion in John tells against the theory that John was dependent on Mark, for ‘the idea of an anointing, as of a king or priest, which is also an embalming of the dead, would be congenial to his conception of the messianic King whose throne is a cross’.12 Having summarized Dodd’s argument in favour of the hypothesis that John composed the anointing story on the basis of independent oral tradition, I will now proceed to a critique of his argument. This may be expressed in three points. First, Dodd’s implementation of a form-critical approach in relation to Jn 12.1-8 fails to do justice to the control John exercises over his narrative and the measures he takes to ensure its continuity and Àow. Indeed, this narrative cohesion is particularly marked in chs. 11 and 12, which John has clearly intended to be taken as a literary unit, ‘un grand diptyque’.13 To remove Jn 12.1-8 from its context, therefore, is to set it adrift from those factors in John’s narrative that most make sense of its construction. Accordingly, when Dodd isolates John’s account as a discrete unit and compares it with its Markan and Lukan counterparts, he ¿nds himself confronted with a decidedly Lukan version of the anointing in a context which otherwise owes much to Mark, and cannot imagine why this should be so. Restore Jn 12.1-8 back to its broader context, however, and the inevitability that John’s anointing in 12.3 would favour Luke’s version immediately becomes apparent; as apparent, in fact, as it already was to John’s readers. They have been primed to expect this as early as 11.2, in an aside that takes the form of a reminder. In view of this, it is worth adding that when a tearful Mary falls at Jesus’ feet later in the same story (11.32), John’s readers will probably have thought of this as consistent with her known role. Second, and more generally, Dodd’s form-critical approach means that he makes his case at the expense of the creativity of the Evangelists themselves. This is especially marked in the case of John, whose capacity to dominate whatever material was available to him Dodd is well aware of, yet John is restricted here to tinkering round the edges of a pericope but not with its central motif. The same, however, is evident in the restraints Dodd places on Luke as regards the shape of his dialogue in 10.25-28 and even on Matthew, whose literary dependence on Mark is ‘hardly in doubt’, but who cannot be thought to ‘copy’ from Mark twice.

1

12. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 173. 13. So Beernaert, ‘Parallelisme’, p. 135; see also North, Lazarus, p. 124.

11. The Anointing in John 12.1-8

183

The third and ¿nal point concerns the cogency of the argument Dodd offers his readers in rejecting the hypothesis that John composed 12.1-8 in dependence on Mark and Luke. Here it must be said that if we expect academic rigour we shall be disappointed. In fact, for the large part, Dodd’s argument does not consist of reason but of opinion. For example, we are dissuaded from the idea that John could have transferred from Mark to Luke’s version of the anointing in 12.3 on the grounds that Dodd ¿nds this ‘very dif¿cult to conceive of’, and the more so given that Luke’s anointer has a shady past.14 Note, secondly, that for Dodd ‘the actions of a reasonable person’ do not include Luke’s creative rewriting of Mark. The third example, where Dodd objects to John’s dependence on Mark in the case of Jesus’ reply about the ointment (Jn 12.7), repays close attention. Here Dodd sets out two possibilities: either John is taking over a statement from ‘some source’ which he then adjusts to the implications of his narrative, which action Dodd ‘can easily conceive of’, or John is going out of his way to ‘correct’ Mark, which Dodd ¿nds ‘hard to imagine’. Note how these alternatives block out a third possibility, namely, that John is not ‘correcting’ Mark but adjusting Mark to the implications of his narrative. We must not conclude this section without recognising that Dodd’s argument in Historical Tradition belongs to its time – in this case largely to the 1950s when the research was undertaken – and hence, however inÀuential his work was to become, future developments that may seem commonplace today inevitably fall outside its compass. Even so, however, this is a wilful piece, and to rely on what Dodd can or cannot imagine or conceive of may tell us a great deal about Dodd but will leave us no wiser about the Fourth Evangelist. In fact, by far the most telling is Dodd’s ¿nal argument, in which he refers to John’s interest in the concept of Jesus’ death as king which, had he known it, would have prompted him to prefer Mark’s story of anointing the head. II. John 12.1-8: The Alternative Hypothesis How and why did John choose to depict the anointing scene as he did? In what follows, I will attempt to answer that question by adopting the hypothesis that Dodd rejects, namely, that John was directly dependent on Mark and on Luke when he composed this account. Working on that assumption, I will ¿rst comment brieÀy on the form the act of anointing takes in the anticipatory aside in 11.2 and then will offer a verse by verse analysis of how John created the anointing story itself in 12.1-8. 1

14. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 167.

184

A Journey Round John

a. John 11.2 In 11.2, John points his readers to the act of anointing which is yet to take place. It is important to reckon with the fact, noted earlier, that this parenthesis takes the form of a reminder. Its usefulness for our purposes is that it affords a glimpse into what John’s readers have already learned about the anointing before it is woven into his narrative in the following chapter. Two observations immediately strike us about the information given in this verse. The ¿rst is its unmistakeable resemblance to Lk. 7.38 both in the act of anointing Jesus’ feet and in the detail that the anointer wipes his feet with her hair. The second observation is its notable difference from the Lukan verse in that Luke’s anonymous anointer has acquired a name: in John she is Mary, sister to Martha, otherwise known to us only from Luke’s engaging little sketch about the sisters in 10.3842. This identi¿cation is unique to John’s Gospel and can be categorised as an example of what Dodd calls secondary or ‘legendary’ development; a classic case, then, of supplying ‘Names for the Nameless’, as Bruce Metzger puts it.15 In other words, at some point prior to the completion of John’s account as we have it, perhaps in an earlier edition,16 the anointer in Luke 7 and the sister who heard Jesus’ word in Luke 10 have become fused into one. In the case of an author like John, given a knowledge of Luke’s Gospel and also given a mind practised in linking the Scriptures by verbal agreement,17 the identi¿cation of the anonymous anointer as Mary will not have proved dif¿cult, for on that basis it would surely seem logical that the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet must have been the woman who faithfully sat at them.18 A ¿nal point on 11.2 concerns how it serves John’s purposes as narrator. By placing the reminder at the beginning of the Lazarus story, he not only constructs a link in the minds of his readers between the two stories in which Mary ¿gures but also establishes from the outset her role as the woman who anointed Jesus for burial. We will now turn to the anointing story itself in 12.1-8 to attempt a detailed description of how John created his account on the basis of his knowledge of Mark and Luke. b. John 12.1-8 i) Introductory Material. From the narrative point of view, John’s anointing account contains a network of details that link it with the previous chapter and also prepare the ground for events to come. This is

1

15. 16. 17. 18.

Metzger, ‘Names for the Nameless’, p. 42. See North, Lazarus, p. 123. See Menken, Old Testament Quotations, pp. 52–3. North, Lazarus, p. 119.

11. The Anointing in John 12.1-8

185

particularly true of the characters and location in the ¿rst three verses, which will already be familiar to John’s readers from the previous chapter. Again Lukan inÀuence is in evidence as we learn that Martha now serves the meal (12.2; cf. Lk. 10.40) and Mary, who had previously sat in the house and later fallen at Jesus’ feet (11.20, 32), now takes centre-stage to anoint them (12.3; cf. Lk. 7.38; 10.39). The third familiar character to attend the meal is Lazarus (12.1-2), here tagged post eventum with a typical Johannine identifying phrase, ‘whom Jesus had raised from the dead’ (12.1).19 Lazarus will take no part in the action, but then that is not to the point, for his very presence here will provide continuity with events later in the chapter. Thus, in 12.9, news that Lazarus is at table with Jesus will draw the great crowd of ‘Jews’, who had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead and who now Àock to see the spectacle of him risen. In turn, the witness of these people to the raising miracle will account for the presence of the crowd who greet Jesus at his entry into Jerusalem (12.17-18). The village of Bethany (12.1) is also familiar from the previous chapter as the whereabouts of the family home (11.1, 18). In returning Jesus to Bethany for the anointing, however, John’s choice of setting betrays the inÀuence of Mark (Mk 14.3; cf. Mt. 26.6). ii) The Anointing. In 12.3, John embarks on the act of anointing in ¿ne Markan form: his description of the ‘ointment of pure nard’ (ÄŧÉÇÍ ÅŠÉ»ÇÍ ÈÀÊÌÀÁýË) taken up by Mary is a striking verbal parallel with Mk 14.3. Having taken up her ‘pistic nard’, however, Mary then proceeds to anoint Jesus’ feet and wipe them with her hair, and at once we are in the narrative world of Luke’s anointer in 7.38. Thus, it would seem that we have a sudden and deliberate shift on John’s part in favour of Luke’s account over against Mark’s, a transfer that Dodd ¿nds ‘very dif¿cult to conceive of’.20 Assuming, then, that John has exercised choice in the matter – and bearing in mind Dodd’s point that John would be more inclined to favour the anointing of the head – how may we account for this preference? The following four points may help clarify John’s position. First, it is worth reiterating what has been noted above, namely, that John’s readers have been alerted to the fact that the anointing would be patterned after Luke’s account as early as 11.2. Thus, whatever else the story contains, the anointing in 12.3 was always going to be as we have it and, accordingly, John’s readers will not have been disconcerted. Dodd, on the other hand, is plainly disconcerted, but then this is a consequence of his having isolated John’s story from its broader context.

1

19. See Van Belle, Les parenthèses, p. 107 and n. 3. 20. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 167.

186

A Journey Round John

Second, Dodd’s insistence in Historical Tradition that ‘there is only the slightest possible contact’ between the Markan and Lukan accounts of the anointing understates the evidence.21 These narratives exhibit a number of correspondences not only along general lines, where Jesus is in a house reclining at a meal, but also, and strikingly, in the speci¿c detail in Mk 14.3 and Lk. 7.37 that the woman brings to the anointing an alabaster jar of ointment (ÒŠ¹¸ÊÌÉÇÅ ÄŧÉÇÍ). It is entirely possible that an author like John, practised as he was in working with the Scriptures, would have already linked these texts on the basis of verbal agreement. If so, then the shift from Mark to the link text in Luke for the anointing detail in the very next verse (7.38) is a move John was quite capable of making. This brings us to our third point. If by now we know how John could have incorporated Lukan anointing material into his own story, we have yet to discover why Luke’s version of the anointing of the feet has proved more attractive to him than the anointing of the head as in Mark. This is where we need to take account of the larger literary unit of which 12.1-8 is a part, a concept denied to Dodd’s form-critical approach, which focuses on the pericope in isolation. In John’s presentation of the Bethany family in chs. 11 and 12, he depicts for the ¿rst time in his Gospel a relationship between Jesus and a speci¿c set of individuals that consists of love, so that these siblings, in their natural expressions of love towards Jesus and to one another, become prototypical of the love later commanded of the disciples.22 This keynote is struck as early as 11.3, where the sisters’ message to Jesus describes Lazarus as ‘he whom you love’ (ĜÅ ÎÀ¼ėË) and Jesus’ love for the family and their reciprocal devotion to him is in evidence throughout (e.g. 11.5, 27, 36; 12.2). Indeed, for love of Lazarus, Jesus will emerge from safety into personal danger (11.7-8, 47-53) and so will lay down his life for Lazarus his ‘friend’ (ÎţÂÇË, 11.11; cf. 15.12-13).23 It is in this context of love and its expression in action that Mary’s deed in 12.3 is best understood, for the very extravagance of the gift that Mary lavishes upon Jesus mirrors Jesus’ own act of self-giving love for the family. It is also in this context that John’s deliberate preference for Luke’s version of the anointing makes sense,24 for what distinguishes Luke’s anointer above all is, as Jesus makes clear to the Pharisee in 7.47, that ‘she loved much’.

1

21. 22. 23. 24.

Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 162. So, rightly, Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, pp. 77–91. North, Lazarus, pp. 49–51. So Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, p. 58.

11. The Anointing in John 12.1-8

187

The fourth point also helps explain John’s preference for Luke’s version of the anointing. Here we focus on John’s concern in his anointing story to prepare the ground for events to come. The link in this case is forged by the physical pose struck by Mary and by the actual process of anointing. As will become clear as John’s narrative unfolds, Mary’s posture and act in 12.3 pre¿gure those of Jesus himself in 13.310, as he washes and wipes the feet of his disciples whom, according to 13.1, he loved to the end. It should not escape our notice in this context that John uses the verb ëÁÄŠÊʼÀÅ, ‘to wipe’, only three times in his Gospel: in the anticipatory reminder in 11.2, in the actual anointing in 12.3, and in the footwashing in 13.5.25 It is, moreover, precisely the verb used by Luke in 7.38 (cf. v. 44). iii) A Johannine Parenthesis. Following his description of the anointing in 12.3, John informs his readers that the house was ¿lled with the fragrance of the ointment. This detail is unique to John and its purpose here is two-fold.26 First, it serves to underscore the extravagance of Mary’s gift. Indeed, as John has informed us, the amount of costly ointment Mary expends on Jesus is a ‘pound’ (about 12 ounces), far too much for an alabaster phial and a deliberate exaggeration on John’s part. He clearly sees this excess not only as a ¿tting response to Jesus’ own self-giving but also deems it proper in relation to the actual anointing of Jesus’ body for burial later in ch. 19. Thus, Mary’s largesse here becomes prophetic of the extraordinary amount of spices brought by Nicodemus to embalm Jesus’ body in 19.39. The second purpose of this aside is to provide a link at the narrative level between the act of anointing and the complaint about the expenditure involved, for if the fragrance ¿lled the house then everyone, including Judas Iscariot, could smell it. iv) Judas’s Objection. This brings us to 12.4-6 and to Judas’s starring role as the person who complains. By contrast, Mark attributes this objection to some of the bystanders (Mk 14.4) while Matthew makes a general reference to the disciples (Mt. 26.8). It is John’s custom in such 25. Further on links between Jn 12 and 13, see M. Sabbe, ‘The Footwashing in Jn 13 and Its Relation to the Synoptic Gospels’, ETL 57 (1982), pp. 279–308 = idem, Studia Neotestamentica. Collected Essays (BETL 98; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1991), pp. 409–41; idem, ‘The Anointing of Jesus in John 12,1-8 and its Synoptic Parallels’, in The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck (ed. F. van Segbroek et al.; BETL 100; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), vol. 3, pp. 2051–82 (2057). 26. Possibly also some contrast with the stench of death in 11.39 is intended; see Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, p. 67; North, Lazarus, pp. 160–1 n. 159. 1

188

A Journey Round John

situations to name a single individual rather than an anonymous group,27 but why in this case should he choose Judas Iscariot? There are two aspects of Mark’s story likely to prompt him to do so. The ¿rst concerns the fact that Mark’s anointing story forms the centre of a typical Markan ‘sandwich’ structure, with the outer layers in this case given over to the authorities’ dark intentions towards Jesus on the one hand and to Judas’s betrayal of him on the other (Mk 14.1-2, 10-11). As a consequence, Judas Iscariot’s name comes ¿rst and foremost in Mk 14.10 and, for John’s purposes, lies conveniently to hand.28 Indeed, the similarity between Mark’s description of Judas and John’s reference to him in 12.4 is quite marked. The second likely prompt in Mark’s story concerns the words that begin the objection in Mk 14.4, which are also taken up in Mt. 26.8: ‘Why this waste [of ointment]?’; ¼ĊË Ìţ ÷ ÒÈŪ¼À¸ ¸ĩ̾. John himself does not repeat these opening words but concentrates instead on Judas and his treachery (12.4). What is interesting about this is that Judas and ‘waste’ or ‘loss’ (ÒÈŪ¼À¸/ÒÈŦÂÂÍÄÀ) are already connected in John’s mind. In 12.6, John accuses Judas of being a thief (ĞÌÀ ÁšÈÌ¾Ë öÅ), another aspect of his character-assassination of the betrayer (e.g. 6.70; 13.2, 27). The thief, however, has already made an appearance in the Gospel as one of the ¿gures in John’s presentation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd in ch. 10. In 10.10, John has contrasted Jesus, who gives life in abundance, with the thief who comes ‘to steal and kill and destroy/waste’ (ďŸ ÁšÐþ Á¸Ė ¿ŧÊþ Á¸Ė ÒÈÇšÊþ), which background is surely intended to resonate here: Judas is the thief who steals your life. A further reference in 17.12 makes the link between Judas and ÒÈŪ¼À¸ unmistakable. At this point in Jesus’ ¿nal prayer, he speaks of those given to him by the Father, whom Jesus has guarded, so that none has perished ‘except the son of perdition/loss’ (¼Ċ Äü ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼţ¸Ë), who is undoubtedly Judas. I suggest, therefore, that the question about ÒÈŪ¼À¸ in Mark’s text (the only instance of that language in Mark) has been a further prompt to John’s choice of Judas in 12.4. After all, what could be more ¿tting than that the complaint about loss (ÒÈŪ¼À¸) should be made by the son of it? In the complaint itself in 12.5, the Markan inÀuence we have thus far suspected becomes unmistakable. Here John follows Mk 14.5 almost word for word, even including the ‘three hundred denarii’. Indeed, in this respect John proves more faithful to Mark’s text than Matthew, who patently follows Mark but who has not sought to reproduce this detail (cf. Mt. 26.9). A ¿nal point here is that Judas, the money box and the poor, in John’s vili¿cation of him in 12.6 will surface again

1

27. See Sabbe, ‘The Anointing of Jesus’, p. 2073. 28. So also Sabbe, ‘The Anointing of Jesus’, pp. 2064, 2075.

11. The Anointing in John 12.1-8

189

in 13.29, where the betrayer’s ¿scal duties will become an explanation in the minds of some disciples for his sudden exit from the company during supper (v. 30). v) Final verses. The last two verses of John’s account show every sign of abbreviation and adjustment of Mk 14.6-8. In Jn 12.7, Jesus’ command ‘Leave her’, appropriately adjusted to the singular (ÓÎ¼Ë ¸ĤÌŢÅ), obviously echoes Mk 14.6a but then John follows this immediately with an explanation of the woman’s act, which does not occur in Mark until 14.8b. The aphorism about the poor, that John has left until last (12.8),29 abbreviates Mk 14.7 by omitting the reminder about continuing to give to the poor in favour of the pleasingly balanced statement, ‘The poor you always have with you; but me you do not always have’. Matthew also has omitted Mark’s reminder here (cf. Mt. 26.11). However, this need not mean that the aphorism was not original to John, as Dodd would prefer to argue;30 rather, since Matthew also is given to abbreviating Mark, the fact that he and John have abbreviated in the same manner in this instance need be nothing more than coincidence. Having reviewed how John has redacted his Markan source in 12.7-8, we will now attempt to discover why he chose to conclude his anointing story in this way. c. John 12.7 We turn ¿rst to Jesus’ enigmatic answer to Judas. According to Mk 14.8, Jesus’ interpretation of the woman’s act is that she was beforehand in anointing his body for burial (ÈÉǚ¸¹¼Å ÄÍÉţʸÀ Ìġ ÊľÄŠ ÄÇÍ ¼ĊË ÌġÅ ëÅ̸ÎÀ¸ÊÄŦÅ). Matthew’s version in 26.12, although with some alteration of Mark, retains the same anticipatory force: the anointing was ‘to prepare me for burial’ (ÈÉġË Ìġ ëÅ̸ÎÀŠÊ¸À ļ). John, however, has Jesus insist that Mary keep the ointment for the day of his burial (ďŸ ¼ĊË ÌüÅ ÷ĚɸŠÌÇı ëÅ̸ÎÀ¸ÊÄÇı ÄÇÍ Ì¾ÉŢÊþ ¸ĤÌŦ), which is not the same thing at all. It is clear from the extent of the rewording, in which only Mark’s ëÅ̸ÎÀ¸ÊÄŦË has been retained, that John has found Mark’s statement inappropriate at this point and has chosen to alter it. The reason for the alteration is undoubtedly the fact that in John’s Gospel, and only in John’s Gospel, Jesus’ body is actually embalmed before burial (19.40, cf. ëÅ̸ÎÀŠ½¼ÀÅ). This means that John cannot leave matters Markan as they stand; on the contrary, the anointing by Mary cannot be ¿nal in 29. He has not taken up Mk 14.9. This omission need not surprise us, for John does not generally repeat the whole of his source. 30. Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 165–6. 1

190

A Journey Round John

itself but must somehow take account of an actual embalming which is yet to take place. If this is a fair assessment of John’s position at this point, then it is well worth asking how far his choice of words in v. 7 has successfully got him out of dif¿culties. If Mary is to keep the ointment, are we to suppose that she has not expended the whole of it but has kept some back for the later event? This interpretation is not impossible, yet John – ever one to keep his readers fully informed – has not indicated as much. Could we argue, then, that Jesus’ words look back to v. 5, so that in v. 7 we have Jesus insist that Mary’s purpose was to keep the ointment for the day of his preparation for burial, that is, for the day she anoints him? This interpretation is also not impossible, and yet it is not the most natural inference to draw from the words ‘for the day of my burial’, which surely point, not to ‘this day’, but ahead, to some future day for which the ointment is to be kept. And if we agree on this future option, we then arrive at what Dodd rightly describes as ‘a more serious dif¿culty still’,31 which is that in John’s description of that future day, when Jesus’ body is actually anointed (19.39-40), Mary and her ointment are nowhere to be found. In sum, John’s alteration of his Markan source in 12.7, necessary though it may have been, not only sits awkwardly in context but also, and more seriously, is inconsistent with the actual burial scene later in his Gospel. Why, then, has John’s alteration of his Markan source taken this particular form? There are two factors to bear in mind here. First, there is the evidence from our analysis so far to suggest that John’s indebtedness to Mark in this composition has been considerable. Second, there is evidence elsewhere in the Gospel to suggest that John’s readers also were familiar with Mark, so that in communicating with them John could comfortably rely on that knowledge. Now, if we accept the future reference of John’s words in 12.7, ‘Let her keep it for the day of my burial’, then we must take it that Jesus insisted that Mary be allowed to keep some ointment for his actual burial. And what we need to appreciate at this point is that this meaning would not have fazed those with a knowledge of Mark. True, according to Mark, there is no scene of the embalming of Jesus’ body as there is in John 19, but equally, according to Mark, we do have a scene in which women take spices to Jesus’ tomb to anoint his body, even though, as it turns out, this proves unnecessary (16.1; cf. Lk. 23.56; 24.1). In sum, it would seem that John, already working with Mark in his head, has had dif¿culty with Mark’s narrative at one point (14.8) and has looked to Mark’s narrative at another (16.1)

1

31. Dodd, Historical Tradition, p. 168.

11. The Anointing in John 12.1-8

191

to supply the future orientation he needs.32 Put otherwise, Jesus’ words in Jn 12.7 make Markan sense. In terms of the burial scene in John 19, however, it would seem that the inconsistency remains; Mary gets no closer to anointing Jesus’ body for burial and her extravagant act in 12.3 must be seen as prophetic of the later event.33 As regards Johannine sense, then, 12.7 may well be an oversight. Has John’s need for a future orientation blinded him to the mismatch? Has he adjusted his source to meet the needs of the moment and then given it no further thought? After all, even Homer nods. d. John 12.8 In leaving the aphorism about the poor until last, John has caused it to appear less well integrated into the account than it is in Mark. Nevertheless, its position is entirely adequate to John’s needs, for it both answers Judas’s question about the poor and also functions to keep the theme of Jesus’ impending death, which has cast its dark shadow over this whole section of the Gospel, to the forefront of the reader’s mind.34 In his ¿nal words here, Jesus articulates for the ¿rst time what he has known from the moment he decided to return to Judaea (11.7-8), namely, that his remaining time on earth will soon end. Indeed, the brevity of Jesus’ life at this stage is the circumstance that sums up the whole point of the anointing, for it is precisely this that the intuitive Mary, in her extravagant response, perceives to be the cost of Jesus’ gift of life to Lazarus. III. Conclusion And so to conclude this tale of two hypotheses, the ¿rst proposing that John composed his anointing account independently of Mark and Luke and on the basis of oral tradition and the second proposing that John composed the same account in full knowledge of Mark and Luke and directly on that basis. Given the differences between the two, surely both cannot be right; given Dodd’s own comment on how the search for John’s sources may easily lead us astray, then surely both can also be wrong. In defence of the second hypothesis as argued herein, however, 32. Since arriving at this conclusion, I have discovered that C. K. Barrett had arrived at the same some decades ago! He comments, ‘The confusion…is best explained as due to John’s continuing to follow his Marcan source, and thus proves to be a strong argument for his use of Mark’ (Barrett, Gospel, p. 414). 33. Pace Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, pp. 68–74, there is no suggestion in John that the spices borne by Nicodemus were provided by Mary. 34. So also Sabbe, ‘The Anointing of Jesus’, p. 2064. 1

192

A Journey Round John

I would want to claim that it places us closer to the Evangelist at work by taking due note of the creative processes that could have gone into the making of this piece; processes, moreover, that are in evidence elsewhere in his Gospel. Thus, we have seen John construct his account in accordance with the larger literary unit of which it is part while, at the same time, paving the way for future events. We have also seen him interact with his readers – a common feature this – drawing attention to the extravagant expenditure of the ointment and also to the black intent of Judas Iscariot. He has in the composition-process deferred to Mark and also to Luke, but is governed by neither; instead, he has felt free to abbreviate, to adjust, and also to exercise choice for his own purposes, preferring Luke’s version of the anointing to Mark’s. And even where there has been inconsistency, there has also been logic. In John’s hands, there are no details that wander by themselves from one pericope to another – the tears of Luke’s anointer, for instance, are absent from John 12 but are already given to Mary in 11.33;35 there is no ‘legendary development’ that he has been innocent of; there is no ‘correction’ of Mark, but creative interpretation, accomplished through the agency of the Spirit-Paraclete, as John himself would name that process; nothing, in short, that is not deliberate or by design. In all this, we have done no more than respect what Dodd himself had already recognized as of the essence of this Gospel, namely, the powerful and independent mind of the Fourth Evangelist.

35. The same may apply to the unusual ëĹÉÀÄŠÇĸÀ in Mk 14.5, which is absent from Jn 12, but attributed to Jesus in 11.33, 38; see North, Lazarus, pp. 152–3.

1

Chapter 12

‘LORD, IF YOU HAD BEEN HERE…’ (JOHN 11.21): THE ABSENCE OF JESUS AND STRATEGIES OF CONSOLATION IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

I. Introduction ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’ are the words with which Martha greets Jesus on the Bethany road in Jn 11.21. Whether we are intended to detect some note of reproach here is not clear.1 What is abundantly clear, however, both from these words and from the circumstances in which they are uttered, is that Martha is suffering the grief and pain of bereavement. We may add to that the point that she and Mary had noti¿ed Jesus about Lazarus’s illness while their brother was still alive (11.3), which bespeaks a painful backdrop to Martha’s words here of time spent in anguished waiting for Jesus to come. But Martha’s Lord had not come; Lazarus had died, and Jesus had been absent. As Martha’s encounter with Jesus proceeds, the tone becomes increasingly positive. She af¿rms her belief that God grants Jesus’ requests (v. 22)2 and the dialogue which ensues culminates in Jesus’ magisterial statement, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’, which, with its implications for all who believe, forms the pedagogical key to the miracle that is to come (vv. 25-26). Even so, we are not yet done with Martha’s initial pain-¿lled words, for they reappear on the lips of her sister later in v. 32.

1. A. T. Lincoln, for example, comments on the ‘overtones of complaint’ about Jesus’ delay in Martha’s words but also on her faith in his healing powers; see Lincoln, Gospel, p. 323. 2. This looks like an application to Jesus of the familiar ‘ask, and it will be given you’ logion (see, e.g., Mt. 7.7-8/Lk. 11.9-10; Jn 16.23-24; 1 Jn 5.13-16) and anticipates the con¿dent form of Jesus’ prayer in 11.41-42; see Chapter 5 of the present volume.

194

A Journey Round John

The fact of this repetition, voiced as it is by Mary, who is otherwise the silent sister in both Luke and John (cf. Lk. 10.38-42) – and made the more memorable by her grief-stricken behaviour (vv. 32-33) – suggests that the issue of Jesus’ absence in circumstances such as these is intended to make its mark on the reader. So much for the sisters’ perception of events upon Jesus’ arrival at Bethany. However, this is augmented signi¿cantly by what John has already told his readers before this point. In 11.6, he has speci¿cally informed them that when Jesus heard that Lazarus was ill he remained two days longer in the place where he was. It is noticeable that John supplies no explanation for this curious delay; no objection by Jesus, for example about his ‘hour’ or his ‘time’ not yet having come, that we ¿nd in other instances of negative response earlier in the Gospel (2.4; 7.6; cf. 4.48).3 Instead, we have an assurance in the previous verse of Jesus’ love not only for Lazarus but for the entire Bethany family, an aside that looks designed to ward off any impression on the reader’s part that Jesus’ inaction was out of indifference.4 What John’s readers know in advance, therefore, which signi¿cantly augments the sisters’ perception of events at Bethany, is that Jesus had not only been absent when Lazarus died (cf. 11.14) but that, for some unspeci¿ed reason, he had deliberately remained where he was. In the light of these observations, this study will attempt to account for the following aspects of the Lazarus story: ¿rst, John’s concern to impress the sisters’ plight on the minds of his readers and, second, the unexplained delay – painstakingly glossed by John – before Jesus sets out for Bethany. As we proceed, our investigation will broaden in scope and we will discuss not only the Lazarus story as a whole but also its position in the Gospel and the Gospel’s overall shape, before we return to the two points of detail I have highlighted here. We will begin, however, by exploring the implications of the absence of Jesus for John’s ¿rst readers.

3. Pace C. H. Giblin, ‘Suggestion, Negative Response, and Positive Action in St John’s Portrayal of Jesus (John 2.1-11; 4.46-54; 7.2-14; 11.1-44)’, NTS 26 (1980), pp. 197–211 (219), Jesus’ announcement in 11.4 is not part of the negative response, but declares John’s special interests for the bene¿t of the reader. Jesus’ actual response to the sisters’ news is not recorded until 11.6 (note John’s resumptive oıÅ at the beginning of the verse, as he takes up the story-line from v. 3). 4. North, Lazarus, p. 137.

1

12. ‘Lord, if you had been here…’

195

II. Jesus’ Absence and the Pressure of Persecution In a very real sense, the absence of Jesus is the situation that informs the Gospel at every turn. The story of Jesus that John relates to his readers belongs to the past as far as they are concerned and hence their access to the events of Jesus’ life is inevitably at second hand. If the past is blocked off, the future by contrast is brimming with promise, for the Day of Judgement will surely come when Jesus will return and raise the faithful to eternal life.5 For John and his readers, however, that glorious day has yet to dawn. In the meantime, they are betwixt and between; denied a part in the past, they live in hope of the future – and Jesus remains absent. The situation John faces here is more than simply the delay of the parousia; rather, it is the fact that there are circumstances in play capable of testing that hope to destruction. The major destabilising factor in this case, it seems, is persecution.6 This brings us to the vexed question of the life-situation of the Gospel; vexed not only because of the lake of academic ink expended on it but also because, by its very nature, a sophisticated text like John’s, crafted to deal with a situation rather than replicate it, is unlikely to offer up pristine fact at the best of times.7 Suf¿ce it to say that, broadly speaking, the Gospel shows strong signs of a painful rift having taken place between John’s group and the Jewish community known to that group. More speci¿cally, the evidence from those areas where the dispute between Jesus and ‘the Jews’ is at its most rancorous suggests that the Àashpoint is the Johannine Christology and that the charge of blasphemy, which issue John tackles not once but twice (5.18; 10.33), has been brought against those for whom he writes. At this point, it will be helpful to turn our attention to the strongly worded 16.2,8 in which John presents Jesus looking ahead beyond his lifetime to the fate of his followers. In 16.2b, following a third reference 5. As Jörg Frey has successfully shown, the hope of Jesus’ return at the eschaton was alive and well in Johannine circles; see J. Frey, ‘Eschatology in the Johannine Circle’, in Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by the Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar (ed. G. Van Belle, J. G. van der Watt, and P. Maritz; BETL 184; Leuven: University Press, 2005), pp. 47–82 (57–65). 6. Frey, for example, pictures the community struggling with persecution, aware of the absence of Jesus and in growing doubt over the promise of the parousia (‘Eschatology’, pp. 68–9). 7. On these points, see Chapter 9 above and further bibliography there. 8. Rightly in my view, Barnabas Lindars identi¿es chs. 15–17 as part of the latest stratum of the Gospel, supplementary material for which John himself was also responsible; see Lindars, Gospel, pp. 50–1, 467–8. 1

196

A Journey Round John

to exclusion from the synagogue, Jesus points to a time to come when killing believers will be seen as an act of service to God: ‘An hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God’ (NRSV) (ìÉϼ̸À Ĺɸ ďŸ ÈÜË ĝ ÒÈÇÁ̼ĕÅ¸Ë ĨÄÜË »ĠÆþ ¸Ìɼĕ¸Å ÈÉÇÊÎñɼÀÅ ÌŊ ¿¼Ŋ). Two features about this statement persuade me that the situation being described here is closer to reality than it is to rhetoric. The ¿rst is John’s use of the phrase ¸Ìɼĕ¸Å ÈÉÇÊÎñɼÀÅ, ‘to offer service’. This is a hapax legomenon in the Gospel, which could suggest that John has a speci¿c circumstance in mind that he has been disinclined to gloss.9 The second feature relates to the subject-matter of the discourse leading up to this particular verse. From 15.18 onwards, John has laboured the point that to be hated and persecuted by the world is to follow faithfully in Jesus’ footsteps and to bear witness to him. This is the stuff of martyrdom; imitatio Christi in this case involves a willingness to lay down one’s life.10 In 16.1, the reason for this teaching is stated, namely, to prevent the disciples from ‘falling away’ (ďŸ Äû ÊÁ¸Å»¸ÂÀÊ¿ý̼),11 and it is only at this point, when he is satis¿ed that the case for remaining faithful in adversity has been conclusively made, that John has Jesus predict that those who will exclude them from the synagogues will also seek their lives (cf. 16.4). Thus, it is not only the content of 16.2 but also the lengths to which John has gone to provide context to cushion the blow that suggest that this description has a basis in reality. If this is so, then surely under such circumstances the hope of the parousia will have burned with a peculiar intensity. Rejected and threatened with death by the community which is their natural home, John’s group will have looked to their allegiance to Jesus and, speci¿cally, to the cherished promise of his coming in judgement for deliverance from such extremity. Thus, while the situation John faces here may focus on the delay of the parousia, this issue has been lent urgency by adverse circumstances. Already perhaps a cause of unease, it now sits at the heart of the matter, for persecution has lent such fervour to the hope for Jesus’ return, so much hangs upon it, that there is a very real danger that Jesus’ continued absence will cause a ‘falling away’ on a scale that will threaten 9. See North, Lazarus, p. 48 with n. 11. 10. So already, in fact, in Jn 15.12-13. The Evangelist’s literal application of the injunction to lay down one’s life in imitation of Jesus is thrown into relief by the treatment of the same material in 1 Jn 3.16-18, where martyrdom is not envisaged. In the Epistle, to lay down one’s life (ÐÍÏû) is taken metaphorically to mean to lay down one’s ‘means of life’ (¹ĕÇË), or worldly goods. 11. A reference to apostasy, cf. 6.61; see Lincoln, Gospel, pp. 412–13.

1

12. ‘Lord, if you had been here…’

197

the integrity of John’s group. The prayer in John 17, for example, peppered as it is with the call for unity and including reference to secondgeneration believers (17.20-21), may well reÀect the fact that such disaffection was already a reality at the time of writing.12 How, then, is John to ensure the survival of his group beyond this crisis? How does he deal with Jesus’ absence in their lives and at the same time stiffen the sinews and chart a course for the future? What he cannot do, of course, is hasten the eschaton. Indeed, according to Mark, not even Jesus can do that, for that day or that hour is known only to God (Mk 13.32; cf. Acts 1.7). In what ways, then, does John seek to bring reassurance and hope to his beleaguered Àock? Put simply, his strategy is two-fold and its keynote is consolation: consolation on the one hand for the absence of Jesus by presenting the Spirit as Jesus’ presence in their midst and advantageously so; and consolation on the other for the louring threat of death by presenting resurrection to life on Judgement Day as a guarantee now for those with faith in Jesus. Let us explore these two aspects of John’s strategy in greater detail. III. John’s Consolatory Strategy a. Jesus Now i) The Spirit-Paraclete. One of the most extraordinary features of this Gospel is John’s presentation of the Holy Spirit as Jesus’ Doppelgänger. While references to the Spirit are by no means lacking in the earlier part of the Gospel, it is quite clear that John has reserved his most detailed and distinctive treatment of the Spirit’s role for the ¿nal discourse material. Thus, in keeping with the Synoptics, he refers to the Spirit’s descent at Jesus’ baptism (1.32-33) and, in following chapters, he goes on to stress the need for believers to be born of the Spirit and to worship in Spirit and truth (3.5; 4.24). By 7.39, however, he is already warming to his theme that the bene¿ts bestowed by the Spirit will become available when Jesus departs and this promise is later made good in ch. 20 when, contrary to the timing in Luke–Acts (Lk. 24.49; Acts 2.4), Jesus bestows the Spirit on the disciples on his ¿rst post-resurrection meeting with them (20.22). It is not until the ¿nal discourse material, however, that John applies the term ȸÉÚÁ¾ÌÇË to the Spirit. The ¿rst instance of this, in 14.17, sets the tone. Here Jesus refers to the Spirit as ‘another Paraclete’ who will remain with the disciples when he is gone. Thus, in the words of

1

12. See, e.g., Lindars, Gospel, p. 516.

198

A Journey Round John

Raymond Brown, ‘the Paraclete is the presence of Jesus when Jesus is absent’.13 In further ‘Paraclete’ passages, John continues to link the two ¿gures in tandem. Thus, just as Jesus was ‘the Truth’, so the Paraclete is the ‘Spirit of Truth’ (14.6; cf. 14.17; 15.26; 16.13) and just as the world could not accept Jesus, so it cannot accept the Paraclete (15.18; cf. 14.17). Further similarities with Jesus include descriptions of the Paraclete as one who is sent, as one who witnesses, who speaks only what he hears, and who declares the things to come (3.17; cf. 14.26; 15.26; 16.7; 19.37; cf. 15.26; 8.28; cf. 16.1, 4; cf. 16.13).14 In sum, John’s readers can scarcely have failed to ¿nd here the reassurance that Jesus had not left his followers ‘orphaned’, as he puts it in 14.18, but was ever present to them in the person of the Spirit.15 ii) ‘To Your Advantage’. A further facet of John’s consolation of his Àock with regard to their possession of the Spirit is to convey to them that this places them at an advantage over those who were with Jesus at the time. To the point here is the Spirit’s function as interpreter of Jesus’ words and deeds; to the point also is the lack of this resource in the case of the ¿rst disciples before Jesus’ glori¿cation, a factor that signi¿cantly affects John’s treatment of them in the course of the Gospel narrative. In the ¿nal discourse material, the Spirit is presented as reminding and teaching the disciples about Jesus’ words and guiding them into all the truth, expounding to them the revelation of God that took place in Jesus (14.26; 16.12-15). In this exegetical role, we learn, the Spirit will bring no new revelation but will continue to point back to the signi¿cance of Jesus’ life and work; it is Jesus himself who has more to say (16.12) and it is into his truth that the interpreter-Spirit is to guide the disciples.16 Thus, in Jesus’ own words, ‘It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you’ (16.7).

13. Brown, Gospel, p. 1141. 14. See further the evidence in Brown, Gospel, pp. 1140–1. 15. Further on the theme of consolation in the ¿nal discourses, see G. L. Parsenios, Departure and Consolation: The Johannine Farewell Discourses in Light of Greco-Roman Literature (NovTSup 117; Leiden: Brill, 2005). Parsenios refers to ‘the overarching concern of the discourses to render Jesus present in his absence, to bring future generations into the presence of their Lord’ (p. 154). See also P. Holloway, ‘Left Behind: Jesus’ Consolation of His Disciples in John 13,31– 17,26’, ZNW 96–97 (2005–2006), pp. 1–33. 16. As C. K. Barrett comments, ‘There is no independent revelation through the Paraclete, but only an application of the revelation in Jesus’ (Gospel, p. 467). 1

12. ‘Lord, if you had been here…’

199

Without that advantage, the disciples in the Gospel narrative generally fare badly when it comes to understanding Jesus. John, meanwhile, is at pains to point out that a proper grasp of the signi¿cance of events was not available until after Jesus’ death and resurrection, when memory and understanding would go hand in hand (2.22; 7.39; 12.16). Consequently, the disciples join the ranks of the bafÀed in taking Jesus’ words literally (4.31-34; 11.11-14; cf. Nicodemus in 3.4) and their incomprehension functions as a foil to his teaching (10.6; 14.5-11, 22; 16.16-20). Peter, in particular, reprises his Markan role both in his enthusiasm to follow Jesus when he cannot and in his denials of Jesus despite vows to the contrary (13.36-38; 18.17-18, 25-27; cf. Mk 14.29-31, 66-72). In fact, according to John, he even exceeds his Markan brief in his readiness to wield the sword at Jesus’ arrest (18.10-11; cf. Mk 14.47). It is particularly remarkable that even in ch. 20, the setting where Jesus’ ¿rst followers encounter their risen Lord, John continues to point up the inadequacy of their status. In the case of Mary Magdalene, for example, in the moving scene where she ¿rst mistakes Jesus for the gardener (20.11-17), John’s message to the reader consists in how she reacts on recognizing him. Holding on to Jesus is a failure to understand a necessary process; Jesus cannot be detained on earth, for the Paraclete’s exegetical guidance will not become possible unless Jesus ascends to the Father (v. 17). When it comes to Thomas, however, John is prepared to tread a good deal less delicately. Already in his previous appearances in the Gospel, Thomas has shown a thorough lack of grasp, both of Jesus’ actions in 11.1617 and especially in 14.5 of the meaning of Jesus’ words. This last example is essential background to the scene in ch. 20, where Thomas, who has not yet seen the risen Jesus, refuses to believe unless he is able to handle the evidence (vv. 24-25). Upon doing so, Thomas exclaims, ‘My Lord and my God’ (v. 28), famous words that are frequently taken as the climactic Christological confession of the Gospel.18 This may be so, yet there is more here for John’s readers when this declaration is taken in context. What Thomas has ¿nally tumbled to, in fact, connects with what Jesus has said in 14.7, namely, that to know and see Jesus is to know and see the Father. Even more to the point here, however, is that Thomas’s confession is not the goal of John’s argument. 17. See North, Lazarus, pp. 56–7. 18. See, e.g., Lincoln, Gospel, p. 503; also G. Van Belle, ‘Christology and Soteriology in the Fourth Gospel: The Conclusion to the Gospel of John Revisited’, in Van Belle, van der Watt and Maritz, eds., Theology and Christology, pp. 435–61 (442, 454, 457), and in the same volume, J. van der Watt, ‘Double Entendre in the Gospel According to John’, pp. 463–81 (479 and n. 67).

1

200

A Journey Round John

This comes in the words of v. 29, in which Jesus contrasts Thomas, who has needed physical contact with the risen Lord before coming to faith, with those who are blessed, to whom that experience is not available and who yet believe (v. 29). Thus, even in the scenes following the resurrection, John’s message is the same: just to have ‘been there’ and to have witnessed the events at ¿rst hand does not constitute an advantage; those who are blessed are subsequent generations of believers, who have access to authentic faith through the exegetical guidance of the Paraclete.19 b. Judgement Now The second aspect of John’s consolatory message to his readers is to af¿rm that the conditions of Judgement Day are already in force, thus turning the hope of eternal life in the future into a present reality for those who believe in Jesus. The key text here is 3.16-21, in which John turns aside from his narrative to set out his understanding of the impact of Jesus’ life in the cosmic setting of God’s dealings with the world he created and wishes to save. Put brieÀy, John’s argument is as follows. God sent his Son into the world as a salvi¿c act of love with the offer of eternal life for all through belief in Jesus (v. 16). Nevertheless, the inevitable consequence of Jesus’ revelation of God in the world is judgement, and this comes about because of human response to the shedding of that light. Thus, those who believe, who do the truth and come to the light, are saved while those who shun the light because of their evil deeds ‘already stand condemned’ – ô»¾ ÁñÁÉÀ̸À – as John puts it chillingly in v. 18 (cf. 19-21; and the summary in 3.36). In other words, John has been able to take the scenario conventionally associated with the eschaton and bring it to bear on the here and now. He has done that on the understanding that in the person of Jesus the future judge is present20 and by doing that he has caused the whole judging process to hinge on acceptance or rejection of Jesus. There is much in 19. As John Ashton remarks, the purpose of this beatitude is to show how mistaken John’s readers would be to think of Jesus’ contemporaries ‘as somehow privileged over against themselves’ (Understanding, p. 364). The single exception to this rule, of course, is the so-called Beloved Disciple, who never gets it wrong. Whatever may be the history behind this ¿gure, he seems to be portrayed by John as another Jesus Doppelgänger, who remained after Jesus was gone. In his ¿rst appearance in 13.23, he rests in Jesus’ lap just as Jesus rests in the Father’s lap in 1.18; in 18.15 he enters with Jesus into the ¸ĤÂû (a term that does double duty both for the courtyard of the High Priest and also for the fold of the sheep in 10.1-3), which Jesus the Good Shepherd enters; and in 19.26-27 he takes Jesus’ place in the family as Mary’s son. 20. So Lindars, Gospel, p. 224. 1

12. ‘Lord, if you had been here…’

201

John’s presentation of Jesus’ ministry that resonates with this eschatological shift. Note, for example, that ‘the Jews’ who oppose Jesus in ch. 8 are already condemned as the devil’s kind (8.37-59). Note, similarly, the condemnation in ch. 9 of the Pharisees, who wilfully reject Jesus as the light of the world (8.12; 9.5, 35-41; cf. 15.22, 24). Judas Iscariot also merits John’s eschatological treatment, not only as Satan’s creature (6.70-71; 13.2, 30) but also as ‘the son of perdition’ (ĝ ÍĎġË ÌýË ÒÈѼĕ¸Ë, 17.12), the phrase used by Paul in 2 Thess. 2.3 of the instigator of the ¿nal apostasy before the parousia (cf. 2 Thess. 2.3-12). Note, ¿nally, that in John 12 the overthrow of these Satanic powers is accomplished at the cruci¿xion, when this world is judged and its ruler cast out (12.31; cf. 16.33).21 c. Preliminary Conclusion and Comment For those second-generation disciples for whom he writes, John has provided comfortable words indeed. What he has done, in fact, is turn their whole situation around; loss of the past has become gain in the present, and hope for the future is now present certainty. I have proposed that this has been achieved by a two-fold strategy: on the one hand, by John’s presentation of the Spirit-Paraclete as Jesus’ continuing presence in their midst, whose function to guide them and foster growth in understanding places them at an advantage over the ¿rst disciples and, on the other, by his eschatology which, with its emphasis on judgement in the present, con¿rms that those who oppose them, who may look powerful and threatening now, are already condemned in God’s sight because they have wilfully rejected Jesus. Thus, to belong to the group that John represents remains the only and ultimate decision to make. With the advantages conveyed by the Spirit-Paraclete, they are possessed of the means to go forward and expound the meaning of Jesus for a new day. Moreover, should their lives be forfeit, they know that eternal life is theirs already and that resurrection to life by Jesus awaits them at the eschaton. This last point, on present assurance of future destiny, could bear some further comment. It would, I believe, be a serious misjudgement of John’s position to argue on the basis of his emphasis on the present that he has all but set aside the conventional future expectation of the eschaton.22 As regards Gospel evidence, John makes direct mention of 21. On the impact of the heavenly Son of man ¿gure on John’s Christology and his perception of Jesus’ death, see J. Ashton, ‘The Johannine Son of Man: A New Proposal’, NTS 57 (2011), pp. 508–29 (526). 22. In agreement with Frey, ‘Eschatology’, p. 81. 1

202

A Journey Round John

the eschaton not only in the form of repeated references to ‘the last day’ in chs. 6, 11 and 12 (6.39, 40, 44, 54; cf. 11.24; 12.48) but also, and spectacularly, in 5.28-29, where he supplies the full Daniel-inspired apocalyptic picture with Jesus, Son of man (v. 27), calling the dead from their tombs to resurrection to life or to judgement, a description not unworthy of the author of Revelation. The relative infrequency of these references, however, is not a measure of John’s estimate of the importance of the event; rather, it is an indicator that this is tradition he shares with his readers, which he takes as a given and sees no need to press further. In fact, it is one of several examples in the Gospel that illustrate John’s tendency to rely on his readers’ knowledge of tradition (cf. 3.24; 6.70; 20.30-31). I would argue that John’s emphasis on the present is best expressed by Barnabas Lindars’s phrase ‘anticipated eschatology’,23 that is, John continues to hold to the conventional future expectation of the eschaton but, in response to the needs of the moment, he focuses on the case for the conditions of Judgement Day now.24 As an example of this capacity to hold together both present and future aspects, it is well worth observing that while John has Jesus declare in ch. 12 that the ruler of this world is cast out at the cruci¿xion (12.31-33), as we have seen, in ch. 17 he has Jesus pray that his followers, who remain in the world when he is gone, may be kept from the evil one (17.15). Satan may have been judged – and in that regard the cruci¿xion is decisive – but John is keenly aware that until the eschaton, when sentence is carried out, he remains dangerous.25 IV. Broadening the Scope Up to this point, we have examined what I have described as a two-fold strategy pursued by John in answer to the immediate needs of his readership. Thus, in the absence of Jesus, he has consoled them with the 23. Lindars, Gospel, p. 224. 24. This itself is not without precedent in the tradition; see Ashton, Understanding (2d ed.), p. 409; Lincoln, Truth on Trial, pp. 213–14; North, Lazarus, p. 81 n. 62. Indeed, there can scarcely be anything more ‘realized’ than Jesus’ response in Lk. 23.43 to the penitent thief on the cross: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’. 25. L. T. Stuckenbruck ably demonstrates that the petition in Jn 17.15 was a familiar one in Second Temple Jewish texts and was based on the certainty that, although evil continues to hold sway, its days are numbered and its destruction awaits; see Stuckenbruck, ‘ “Protect them from the Evil One” (John 17:15): Light from the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in John, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate (ed. M. L. Coloe and T. Thatcher; SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature 32; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), pp. 139–60. 1

12. ‘Lord, if you had been here…’

203

assurance that their Lord is present in their midst in the form of the Spirit-Paraclete and has underscored the advantage of their situation; also, in the lapse of time before the eschaton, he has consoled them with the assurance that their faith in Jesus, who is present and future judge, means that resurrection to life by him at the last day is guaranteed. In the process of this investigation, I have appealed to material that is distinctive to the Fourth Gospel by contrast with the Synoptics. I have begun to wonder whether there is more that is distinctively Johannine that could plausibly be drawn in here, rather than such differences being attributed, as is often suggested, to John’s reliance on non-Synoptic tradition.26 This, in turn, prompts me brieÀy to consider a much broader question that is not often posed, which is, ‘Why did John produce a Gospel?’ Why not a dogmatic treatise, or some other similar distillation of truths? Why not an Epistle for that matter, given that we already have three of them out of that stable in our New Testament canon? Put otherwise, what was it about the Gospel genre that so suited John’s purpose? I tentatively suggest the following as one possible answer to that question: A Gospel was the ideal medium through which John could effectively echo and engage with the plight of a readership rejected and threatened with death by hostile Jews.27 Let us stay with that thought for a moment and consider the Gospel that lies before us.28 For John, the parallels with Jesus’ story were already to hand – and he could make the most of that by setting as much of the action as possible in Judaea, that area where Jesus’ own life was constantly under threat from those ‘Jews’ who opposed him. We note, for example, that John’s narrative is distinctive in that he puts the Temple incident up-front in ch. 2. He may have had a number of reasons for doing so, but surely one of them was that he could set the tone of menace in a Jerusalem setting right at the outset of the ministry.29 What is also distinctive about John’s narrative is that as the centrepiece of his work, the great hinge of his Gospel plot that will 26. For the inÀuential thesis that the Gospel is underpinned by special Judaean traditions, see Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 244–7. 27. It is important to recognize that not all of John’s ‘Jews’ are hostile and that the only ‘Jews’ speci¿ed in John’s trial scene are authorities, not crowds (cf. 18.3; 19.6, 15, 21). 28. I refer here strictly to the Gospel as we now have it, which I take to be a second edition in which John has inserted new material and also transposed existing material; for detail, see Lindars, Gospel, pp. 50–1, 380–1; see also n. 8 above. 29. So also John Ashton, who argues that one likely reason for the Evangelist’s transposition of the Temple episode was to alert his readers to interpret the whole of Jesus’ public career as lived out under the shadow of the cross (Understanding [2d ed.], pp. 337–8). 1

204

A Journey Round John

cost Jesus his life, he has chosen to place the raising of Lazarus. Crafted with an eye to the apocalyptic picture in 5.28-29, this miracle, in which Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb, conveys the assurance that those who die, who believe in Jesus, will be raised to life by him at the eschaton. V. Conclusion And so we return to the Lazarus story which, I have implied, was placed centre-stage by John to showcase the reward awaiting those who give their lives for their faith.30 John has chosen from the miracles tradition he knew (cf. 20.30-31) a story of Jesus raising someone from the dead and has re-told it in such a way that it comes to signify a truth about Jesus. That truth is embedded in the narrative in Jesus’ declaration to Martha that he is the resurrection and the life for those who believe, who now possess life that death cannot vanquish (11.25-26), and the miracle when it comes does not disappoint, with Lazarus emerging alive from the tomb in answer to Jesus’ call to be released by him from the trappings of death (11.43-44). John’s readers, already familiar with the apocalyptic tradition contained in 5.28-29, can scarcely have missed the point: this is a sign of what will take place on Judgement Day for those who remain faithful to Jesus. It is at this level of eschatological signi¿cance, I suggest, that the two aspects of this story which prompted our investigation in the ¿rst place seem to make best sense. First, in the anguished words, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’, uttered by both Martha and Mary (11.21, 32), I suspect that John has sought to give voice to his readers’ dashed hopes over the delay of the parousia, their distress as they face the reality of death in their midst in the absence of Jesus. This brings us to the second aspect of the story, which is Jesus’ response – or rather, the lack of it – to the news of Lazarus’ illness (11.6), behaviour that John was so anxious to ensure his readers did not take amiss (11.5). Why does Jesus remain where he is? What is he waiting for? Earlier moments of deliberate delay in the Gospel have been explained as 30. I ¿nd less than convincing the claim by P. F. Esler and R. A. Piper that death from natural causes is part of the problem, taking their cue from the fact that the Lazarus story involves death from illness; see Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, pp. 107–8, 111. In my view, this approach equates the medium (the miracle story) too strictly with the message it is intended to signify. On this logic, one could proceed to equate Lazarus’s return to life with resurrection to eternal life – which it patently is not (cf. Jn 12.10). 1

12. ‘Lord, if you had been here…’

205

Jesus waiting for his ‘hour’ or his ‘time’ (2.4; 7.6, 8) which, as the story unfolds, turns out to be a reference to his death. Yet no such explanation is forthcoming in this case. What we can draw on, however, both from these earlier examples and also from John’s presentation generally, is that Jesus never does anything on his own authority but constantly waits upon the will of God (see, e.g., 4.34; 5.30; 7.16-17; 8.28, 29; 12.48-50). I suspect that this is also the point here and that, before this sign of the eschaton, John has brieÀy pictured Jesus waiting for God – God who alone can determine the day or the hour, as Mark has it – to appoint the time of his return. If this is so, then John has sought to assure his readers in the absence of Jesus that Jesus loves his own and knows their plight31 and will surely return in God’s good time. In the meantime, as Jesus’ words to Martha con¿rm, eternal life is theirs through belief in Jesus, and so to face death is to do so in the utter assurance that they will be raised to life by him on Judgement Day. Once again, as with the ¿nal discourse material in chs. 15 and 16, John has produced the stuff of martyrdom. I will close with two brief examples from the reception history of the Gospel. In this study, I have placed the raising of Lazarus in the context of John’s strategy of consolation for those facing death on account of their faith in Jesus. How John’s original readership responded to this message we cannot know. What we do know, however, is the extent to which John’s story very quickly ful¿lled this consolatory role among succeeding generations of believers. Charles Hill records that the raising of Lazarus is portrayed no fewer than 53 times among paintings in the catacombs, some of which are found in the earliest sections. As Hill himself comments, ‘The story of Lazarus, with its revelation of Jesus as “the resurrection and the life”…held an obvious meaning for Christians in the face of death’.32 My second example is about bereavement. This brings us full circle to where this study began, with the anguished words of Martha and Mary as they gave expression to their grief following Lazarus’s untimely death. On returning to this aspect of John’s story, I have suggested that John had intended the sisters’ distress to resonate with his persecuted readers’ own experience and also that he had gone out of his way to assure them that, in the lapse of time before the parousia, Jesus loved his own and knew their plight. At this point, I turn to the work of Rudyard Kipling. In addition, I must apologise to all Kipling enthusiasts since it was only 31. This is echoed in the narrative where Jesus’ grief for love of Lazarus answers that of Mary (11.35-36). 32. C. E. Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 156–7. 1

206

A Journey Round John

recently that I discovered that Kipling had been responsible for many of the words that were engraved on public monuments after the First World War, and poignantly so in that Kipling himself had lost a son in that conÀict. As we shall see, Kipling also derives consolation from John’s text, not from the Lazarus story this time but from another of John’s scenes that has ¿gured in this investigation. Here is the end of a short story Kipling published in 1926: A man knelt behind a line of headstones – evidently a gardener, for he was ¿rming a young plant in the soft earth. She went towards him, her paper in her hand. He rose at her approach and without prelude or salutation asked: ‘Who are you looking for?’ ‘Lieutenant Michael Turrell – my nephew’, said Helen slowly and word for word, as she had many thousands of times in her life. The man lifted his eyes and looked at her with in¿nite compassion before he turned from the fresh-sown grass toward the naked black crosses. ‘Come with me’, he said, ‘and I will show you where your son lies’. When Helen left the cemetery she turned for a last look. In the distance she saw the man bending over his young plants; and she went away, supposing him to be the gardener.33

33. J. Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Gardener’, in Debits and Credits (Montana: Kessinger, 2004); see also http://www.greatwar.nl/books/gardener/gardener.html.

1

Chapter 13

POINTS AND STARS: JOHN AND THE SYNOPTICS*

I. Introduction We may never know who the Fourth Evangelist was, but there is no mistaking the distinctiveness of his contribution to the New Testament witness to the life of Jesus of Nazareth. From the slow-moving, authoritarian Greek style, the cosmic scale of the setting, and the theological self-awareness of the central character, to the layering of irony, the often blistering polemic and the ever-present parentheses to guide his readers, we know him well enough, do we not? In other words, we are aware that what dominates this account from beginning to end is the powerful and creative mind of its author. It is precisely John’s originality and control over his subject-matter that so beset us when we try to discover from his text the nature of the tradition on which he drew. That he did work from tradition we may be sure: his descriptions of the function of the Spirit-Paraclete, in imparting a fresh and hitherto unavailable insight into what was remembered, readily testify that he saw himself as an interpreter of Jesus’ words and deeds (14.26; 15.26; 16.12-15; cf. 2.22; 12.16). Nevertheless, our problem remains, for what confronts us on the page is the ¿nished, polished exegesis; in Robert Browning’s terms, what John has given us are the stars he knew and named, and this leaves us to guess at the points.1 * This article has been accepted for publication in P. N. Anderson, F. Just, S. J., and T. Thatcher, eds., Jesus, John and History, vol. 3 (Atlanta: SBL [forthcoming]). It appears here by kind permission of co-editor, Paul Anderson. 1. I allude here and in my title to Robert Browning’s poem A Death in the Desert (1864). The crucial lines are these, attributed to the Evangelist: ‘What ¿rst were guessed as points, I now knew stars, / And named them in the Gospel I have writ’. I note that my friend and colleague Paul Anderson precedes me in deriving inspiration from this extraordinary poem; see P. N. Anderson, ‘On Guessing Points and Naming Stars: Epistemological Origins of John’s Christological Tensions’, in The Gospel of John and Christian Theology (ed. R. Bauckham and C. Mosser; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 311–45 (311).

208

A Journey Round John

One possible approach is to take account of the fact that John was retelling a story already known to his readers; this is noticeable, for example, in his passing references to events such as the imprisonment of John the Baptist in 3.24 and the choosing of the twelve in 6.70. What exactly did that bank of shared knowledge contain? Undoubtedly, oral tradition will have been a component. But could John also rely on his readers’ knowledge of one or more of the Synoptic texts? In order to judge whether that was so, we need to begin by observing how John composes on the basis of known material we can readily identify. With that in mind, we will ¿rst ¿nd examples within the Gospel itself, and thereafter we will proceed beyond its bounds to John’s use of the Jewish Scriptures. II. Within the Gospel – Intra-textual Evidence a. References to Earlier Characters, Events and Sayings I will begin this section by examining in detail two instances where John makes further reference to a character who is already known to his readers from earlier in the Gospel. We turn ¿rst to Nicodemus. Nicodemus ¿rst appears at the beginning of ch. 3, where he receives a less than enthusiastic press from John. In 3.1 (RSV), he is described as ‘a man of the Pharisees’ and ‘a ruler of the Jews’. Here the use of ÓÅ¿ÉÑÈÇË (‘man’) links Nicodemus with John’s disparaging remarks on signs-faith at the end of the previous chapter (2.23-25) and meanwhile his status as a Pharisee and a ruler of ‘the Jews’ is scarcely a recommendation in John’s scheme of things. In 3.2, we learn that Nicodemus came to Jesus ‘by night’, yet another feature that radiates disapproval. All told, then, these characteristics do not augur well for Nicodemus’s fortunes and we are not surprised when, for all his good intentions, he fails to grasp Jesus’ meaning in what follows and eventually disappears off the scene, unremarked (vv. 3-10). To the point here is that John has now established Nicodemus’s character in the minds of his readers and this means that, in future references, he can rely on their knowledge of this material and will draw on it accordingly. How he does that will now engage our attention. Nicodemus arrives back into John’s narrative at the end of ch. 7 (vv. 50-52). Here, he brings up a point of law which countermands the intention of his fellow-Pharisees to condemn Jesus without a hearing and, needless to say, he gets no thanks for his trouble. For our purposes, it is important to observe the form of John’s reference to Nicodemus on this occasion. Note that the amount of information taken up from the original reference is limited; in 7.50, there is a truncated version of 3.2 and a reference to Nicodemus as ‘one of them’, that is, a Pharisee. 1

13. Points and Stars

209

However, we must not overlook the wording of vv. 48-49, before Nicodemus appears. There the Pharisees insist that none of the rulers or of the Pharisees has believed in Jesus, only the accursed rabble ignorant of the law. And pat comes Nicodemus – ruler, Pharisee, and with faith of a kind at least – whose presence and words falsify his colleagues’ claims and expose their own ignorance of the law. The last we see of Nicodemus is in ch. 19, where John draws him in to partner Joseph of Arimathea in the story of Jesus’ burial (vv. 38-42). Brave Joseph, it appears, loses some of his courage in John’s account when, operating secretly for fear of ‘the Jews’ (v. 38), he seems drawn towards Nicodemus’s twilight existence. Again, we note that the amount of original detail taken up is limited. True, Nicodemus’s approach to Jesus by night is fully reproduced this time (v. 39) but there is no mention of rulers or Pharisees. What we do have, however, not speci¿c to Nicodemus but applied to the actions of both men in the context, are references to ‘the Jews’ (vv. 40, 42). To sum up on Nicodemus, John proceeds on the basis of the known material in ch. 3 as follows. First, the reintroduction of Nicodemus into John’s narrative in chs. 7 and 19 appears motivated by John’s own interests. In ch. 7, Nicodemus’s appearance serves to undermine the claims of the Pharisees to present a united front and to be authorities on Torah. In ch. 19, placing Nicodemus alongside Joseph of Arimathea serves John’s theme of double-male witness, in this case to the fact that Jesus’s body was buried in the proper manner. Second, in neither reference is the original material reproduced in full. Instead, a choice of characteristics is made to serve the needs of the new context in each case. Thus, in ch. 7, Nicodemus as ruler and Pharisee is clearly key to wrong-footing the claims of the ‘opposition’ there and, in ch. 19, while there is still ‘something of the night’ about Nicodemus, the focus shifts to both men as witnesses, and the tendency is to present them as a matching pair: both are men of social standing; both adhere to the customs of ‘the Jews’; and, in the process, Joseph’s character is drawn into Nicodemus’s darker ambit. Third, in both references, echoes of the original material appear as part of the new context. Thus, Nicodemus’s position as ruler and Pharisee goes before him in 7.48 and the references to ‘the Jews’ in ch. 19 apply to the customs adhered to by both characters (vv. 40, 42). Our second character is Caiaphas, whom we meet ¿rst in ch. 11. The scene is the council meeting, convened by the chief priests and Pharisees after the Lazarus miracle, and the business of the day is what to do about Jesus (11.47-53). In vv. 49-50, Caiaphas, described by John as ‘being 1

210

A Journey Round John

High Priest that year’ (cf. also v. 51), advises the council on the expediency of allowing one man to die for the people rather than putting the whole nation at risk. In the parenthesis in vv. 51-52, John goes to town on this, claiming it as an unwitting prophecy by Caiaphas and enlarging on its meaning with reference to Jesus. The scene closes in v. 53 with the council’s decision (ë¹ÇͼįʸÅÌÇ) to put Jesus to death. John eventually returns to Caiaphas in ch. 18. In 18.13, the arresting party takes Jesus ¿rst to Annas. At this point, John launches into another parenthesis in which he ¿rst informs his readers that Annas was fatherin-law to Caiaphas and then spends time reminding them about Caiaphas. Again, our interest centres on how he works with the information his readers already know. In v. 13b, he repeats the tag that Caiaphas was High Priest that year. This is essential in this context, for it distinguishes Caiaphas from Annas as High Priest in of¿ce. In v. 14b, John also repeats a shortened version of Caiaphas’s expedient. In v. 14a, however, he makes two interesting moves: ¿rst, instead of ‘the Chief Priests and Pharisees’, who hear Caiaphas’s judgement in the scene in ch. 11 (cf. v. 47), he substitutes the general equivalent ‘the Jews’; and, second, he draws into the reminder an echo from the context of the original reference by using the words ‘who had given counsel’ (ĝ ÊÍĹÇͼįʸË) of Caiaphas (cf. 11.53). To sum up on Caiaphas, we can say that John proceeds on the basis of the known material in ch. 11 as follows. First, as in the case of Nicodemus, the reintroduction of the character into his narrative apparently serves John’s purposes. His objective in ch. 18 is two-fold: ¿rst, to identify Annas by relating him to a character already known to his readers; and, second, to introduce Caiaphas’s judgement into the trial scene where otherwise it is not dealt with. Second, again as with Nicodemus, the material in the original is not reproduced in full, only what is deemed appropriate to the new context. There are, however, two further features we have observed in the case of John’s later reference to Caiaphas: ¿rst, that an expression in the original material is substituted with an equivalent; and, second, that an echo from the context of the original reference is drawn in to become part of the reminder. So much for John’s treatment of Nicodemus and Caiaphas. I have so far investigated seven further examples where John makes reference to information he has already given his readers. These comprise four more characters: Judas Iscariot (6.71; 12.4; 13.2, cf. vv. 11, 18, 21, 26-30; 18.2, cf. vv. 3, 5),2 Lazarus (11.1, cf. vv. 2, 5, 11, 14, 43-44; 12.1-2, 9, 1

2. Compare 17.12; 19.11.

13. Points and Stars

211

10, 17), Mary, sister to Martha (11.1-2, cf. vv. 28-29, 31-33; 12.3), and the Beloved Disciple (13.23-25; 18.15-16; 19.26-27; 20.2-10; 21.7, 2023); a reference to an event: Jesus breaking bread (6.11, 23); and two Jesus-Sayings: his promise that none of the faithful shall perish (6.39; 17.12), and his prediction of the manner of his death (12.32-33; 18.32). All told, then, we have nine examples where John has deliberately sought to reproduce material known to his readers from earlier in the Gospel. In fact, what we have seen him do with Nicodemus and Caiaphas is variously echoed in these other examples, and so at present there are ¿ve characteristics to note as follows: i. ii. iii. iv. v.

The reintroduction of the data into his text appears to further John’s own agenda. The material is not reproduced in its entirety; rather, there is selection and adaptation of data appropriate to the new context. Echoes of the original material can reappear as part of the new context. Elements in the original can be replaced by equivalent expressions. Echoes of the context of the original can become part of the new reference.

b. New Composition Based on Earlier Gospel Material What we have seen so far has yielded some telling points on how John tends to reproduce known information. Nevertheless, the function of these references is essentially retrospective, that is, John’s purpose in these cases is to call to mind the same material in a later context rather than to develop and extend the material itself. If we wish to catch him at his creative best, we need to look for material which is less speci¿c to individuals and events in the narrative and more generally concerned with themes and concepts. This brings us to the following two examples in which John has used earlier discourse material as a basis to generate fresh composition. First, there is John’s account of what took place in the courtyard of the High Priest. In 18.13, John records that after his arrest Jesus was taken to the High Priest for questioning. In this respect, he and the Synoptic writers are in agreement (Mt. 26.57; Mk 14.53; Lk. 22.54). All four Evangelists also agree that Peter followed Jesus to the courtyard, the ¸ĤÂû, of the High Priest (Mt. 26.58; Mk 14.54; Lk. 22.54; Jn 18.15) and that Peter, before he began to deny Jesus, was questioned by a servantgirl, a ȸÀ»ĕÊÁ¾ (Mt. 26.69; Mk 14.66; Lk. 22.56; Jn 18.17). Nevertheless, there are also points where John’s account departs from the Synoptic witness and it is these differences that will occupy us here. 1

212

A Journey Round John

According to John, Peter is accompanied by ‘another disciple’ (v. 15). This disciple enters the courtyard along with Jesus and is also responsible for admitting Peter who, meanwhile, has had to kick his heels outside the door (v. 16). Once Peter has entered, however, John’s account resumes its parallels with the other three and the story of Peter’s denials proceeds. In other words, we seem to have an extra little scene involving Peter, the Beloved Disciple (I assume it is he), and Jesus. Two questions arise at this point. First, on what basis has John composed this interpolation into the Passion story? And, second, what message is it intended to convey to his readers? In answer to the ¿rst question, the key to the basis for the composition lies in the vocabulary. The focus on entering into the ¸ĤÂû by the door (¿įɸ) and on admittance by the doorkeeper (¿ÍÉÑÉĠË) harks back to the Good Shepherd material in 10.1-3.3 Second, the message to the reader concerns the Beloved Disciple and is consistent with John’s presentation of him in 13.23-25, namely, that he is close to Jesus and akin to him. Note that in this case he enters the ¸ĤÂû together with Jesus (ÊÍżÀÊý¿¼Å, v. 15) and unhindered. Note also that, as in 13.24, he is the point of access to Jesus for Peter. What can this more complex example contribute to what we know of John’s tendencies in reproducing material known to his readers? There is certainly some agreement with the points we have already listed but I will concentrate here on what new evidence this example has to offer. First, there is a deference to the vocabulary of the earlier passage: note how the word ȸÀ»ĕÊÁ¾ (‘servant-girl’) in 18.17, which belongs to the common Gospel tradition, is actually displaced by ¿ÍÉÑÉĠË (‘doorkeeper’) in v. 16, the term drawn from the imagery in ch. 10. Second, this displacement has caused an awkwardness in the Àow of the narrative that John has had to make good: note how he deliberately equates ȸÀ»ĕÊÁ¾ with ¿ÍÉÑÉĠË in v. 17, as he carefully stitches his way back into the main story. Third, there is an existing verbal link between the common Gospel tradition in ch. 18 and the imagery in ch. 10. Note that the word ¸ĤÂû – which simply means an enclosure open to the sky – does double duty as the fold of the sheep in 10.1 and as the courtyard of the High Priest in 18.15. This may have acted as a catchword for John, which has keyed him in to exploit this moment in the Passion narrative to introduce his own composition.

3. So M. W. G. Stibbe, John (Readings: A New Biblical Commentary; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic Press, 1996), pp. 183–4.

1

13. Points and Stars

213

Our second example of fresh composition based on earlier discourse material is the story of the raising of Lazarus in 11.1-44. In essence, this is a revivi¿cation miracle, that is, Jesus brings the dead Lazarus back to life as we know it. In John’s hands, however, this miracle becomes a sign of the resurrection of the dead on Judgement Day. Few would deny that the discourse material in ch. 5 (notably vv. 21, 24-25, 28-29) has played a fundamental role in the making of the Lazarus story. Indeed, the teaching in the earlier discourse virtually explodes into the Lazarus account, informing not only the miracle itself but also much that precedes it, in particular the teaching to Martha in 11.25-26 which is the pedagogical key to its signi¿cance. When the miracle ¿nally takes place in vv. 43-44, John’s readers can scarcely have missed the point. They already know that Lazarus is dead and buried (vv. 14, 17, 38) and here, in response to the mighty voice of Jesus the Son of God (cf. 11.4; 5.25), he comes forth from the tomb alive. Even so, however, there is more to John’s composition than the inÀuence of the earlier discourse, for in certain respects Lazarus’s raising also betrays a distinct likeness to the resurrection of Jesus himself. Note the removal of the stone at the entrance to the tomb (11.38, 39, 41), the body bound in the graveclothes, and especially the cloth, the ÊÇÍ»ÚÉÀÇÅ (v. 44), all of which resonate with John’s account of Jesus’ own burial and empty tomb in chs. 19 and 20 (19.40; 20.1, 5-7). In so constructing the return to life of Lazarus, therefore, John has sought not only to assure his readers that those who believe in Jesus will be raised to life by him at the last day but also to anchor that hope in Jesus’ own resurrection and life-giving power. What does this second example of composition based on discourse contribute to our knowledge of how John works with material known to his readers? As with the ¿rst example, there are agreements with the points already listed, but we will concentrate here on what is new. The main point here is John’s capacity to compose his text on more than one basis. On the one hand, the eschatological discourse in ch. 5, which enshrines the promise to the believer, is well in evidence here. On the other, however, light touches consistent with John’s Passion narrative point to Jesus’ own resurrection as the foundation on which this promise rests. c. Summary of Intratextual Evidence This investigation has shown that when John composes his text on the basis of material known to his readers, and which can be identi¿ed in the Gospel, the following nine redactional characteristics are in evidence: 1

214

i.

ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix.

A Journey Round John

What material he chooses to take up appears to serve his own agenda. He does not repeat the material in full. Echoes of the original can appear in the new context. Elements in the original can be replaced by equivalent expressions. Echoes of the context of the original can become part of the new reference. Deference to the vocabulary of the original can be marked. There may be an awkwardness in the Àow of the narrative which causes problems. Different materials may be linked on the basis of verbal agreement. He may choose to construct his text on more than one basis.

III. Outside the Gospel – Inter-textual Evidence Old Testament Quotations We move now beyond the Gospel text to examine John’s explicit quotations from the Jewish Scriptures. Here, I shall do no more than defer gratefully to the meticulous scholarship of Maarten Menken on this topic. In his conclusion, Menken is doubtful whether evidence about John’s methods in quoting Scripture can provide information relevant to his treatment of other sources.4 He points out that John will have worked with the Scriptures in conformity with the laid-down procedures and generally accepted techniques that he shared with his Jewish contemporaries. In addition, he doubts whether John will have perceived the Scriptures and the traditions about Jesus as enjoying the same sacrosanct status. While these are valid points, it is also worth considering the possibility that these Scriptural procedures can have engendered in John a certain habit of mind. To the point here is the remarkable degree of overlap there is between Menken’s ¿ndings and the conclusions we have already arrived at independently. Indeed, ¿ve of the nine characteristics on our list are supported by his evidence: (1) the introduction of the data into his text appears to further John’s agenda; (2) he selects from his source only what he needs and adapts it to context; (3) material from the original context can be integral to the reference; (4) there is a marked deference to the vocabulary of the original; and (5) he links texts where there is verbal agreement.5

1

4. Menken, Old Testament Quotations, pp. 208–11. 5. Menken, Old Testament Quotations, pp. 206–7.

13. Points and Stars

215

IV. John and the Synoptics: Two Test-Cases It is time to put these results to work as indicators of whether, at those points where his witness coincides with theirs, John composed on the basis of his readers’ knowledge of one or more of the Synoptic texts. I have investigated the following two examples as test-cases: ¿rst, the scene in 20.3-10 in which Peter and the Beloved Disciple race to the empty tomb; and, second, 12.1-8, in which Mary anoints Jesus’ feet. a. The Race to the Tomb (John 20.3-10) The evidence here suggests that John has composed this account on the basis of the much slighter narrative about Peter in Lk. 24.12. Textcritically, the Lukan verse has had an uneven journey towards authenticity but is now generally accepted as part of his text, as in NA27. In John 20, Luke’s narrative appears to have been shared out between Peter and the Beloved Disciple: both disciples run to the tomb (v. 4); the Beloved Disciple stoops to see the Ě¿ĠÅÀ¸ (‘graveclothes’) from outside the tomb (v. 5); Peter then sees the Ě¿ĠÅÀ¸ from inside the tomb (v. 6); and, ¿nally, both Peter and the Beloved Disciple go home (v. 10). If John has composed here on the basis of his readers’ knowledge of Luke’s text, we ought to ¿nd some correspondence between his methods in this case and the redactional characteristics we have already observed. i.

ii. iii.

1

John’s agenda is well served by choosing Luke’s verse. This text already gives him one male disciple who saw the evidence of the graveclothes, and sharing the data between two of them, who see the evidence independently (note this), supplies the double-male witness he needs to demonstrate that the woman’s report was veri¿ed according to Torah (cf. Jn 8.17). His choice here of the Beloved Disciple, who has partnered Peter before (13.23-25; 18.15-16), allows John the opportunity to showcase the Beloved Disciple’s exemplary response in v. 8. This will come into its own later in the chapter by contrast with Thomas, who refuses to believe without physical sight of the risen Jesus (20.25-29, cf. esp. v. 29). Not all of the Lukan verse is repeated. Peter’s puzzled reaction at the close is not taken up. Echoes of the Lukan material appear in the context of the Johannine passage. Note how the Lukan vocabulary has overÀowed into John’s description of Mary Magdalene’s actions in 20.2 (running) and 20.11 (stooping).

216

iv. v.

vi.

vii.

A Journey Round John

No equivalents. [Not applicable] Echoes from the context of the Lukan verse become part of the Johannine passage. In the parenthesis in v. 9, John points out that the disciples did not as yet know the Scripture that Jesus would rise from the dead. The occasion when they are given to know precisely that is not described in John but in Lk. 24.45-46. A marked deference to Lukan vocabulary. Note that here John uses the Lukan Ě¿ĠÅÀ¸ for the graveclothes (vv. 5-7), by contrast with his Á¼ÀÉĕ¸À in the case of Lazarus in 11.44. Note also that in v. 10 he uses the expression ÈÉġË ¸ĨÌÇįË – or ÈÉġË î¸ÍÌÇįË in a variant reading – for the disciples’ return home. Again, the vocabulary is Lukan and contrasts with John’s ¼ĊË ÌÛ ċ»À¸, which he uses three times elsewhere (1.11; 16.32; 19.27). Finally, note John’s use of the verb ÒÅĕÊ̾ÄÀ with îÁ żÁÉľÅ in ‘rise from the dead’ in v. 9, as in Lk. 24.46 (cp. Acts 17.3), by contrast with the six other occurrences of this phrase in the Gospel where he uses 뺼ĕɼÀÅ (2.22; 5.21; 12.1, 9, 17; 21.14). Awkwardness in the Àow of the narrative. In this case, the problem is not caused by the source but by what John wants to do with it. In v. 8, he chooses his moment to showcase the faith of the Beloved Disciple, who has already pierced through to belief in Jesus’ resurrection. However, as far as Luke’s story-line is concerned, this is time out of joint, because the only thing that happens next in Luke, as in Jn 20.10, is that both disciples go home. In other words, I suspect that John’s parenthesis in v. 9 is not a comment on the faith of the Beloved Disciple in v. 8, but that his ºÚÉ clause here is prospective and designed to explain, on the grounds that certain events had yet to take their course, why no action was taken here; note his resumptive ÇħÅ in v. 10.

Six out of our nine indicators are represented in this case. b. The Anointing of Jesus (John 12.1-8) In general, John’s account of the anointing appears to shadow Mark’s closely. When it comes to the act itself, however, it suddenly favours the anointing of Jesus’ feet as in Luke 7. This looks like a wrench, which is dif¿cult to explain from a redaction point of view when the pericope is taken in isolation. However, when it is seen in continuity with the Lazarus story in the previous chapter, as John himself intended, the switch to Luke appears much less abrupt. In fact, John anticipates this version of the anointing in the reminder to his readers as early as 11.2. 1

13. Points and Stars

217

A further point of continuity is that the sisters Mary and Martha, again Lukan material (cf. Lk. 10.38-42), ¿gure prominently both in the Lazarus story and in the anointing, with Mary playing the key role in 12.3. If John composed this piece on the basis of his readers’ knowledge of both Mark and Luke then, again, we ought to ¿nd some correspondence with our list of characteristics. i.

ii. iii.

iv. v.

vi. vii.

1

John’s agenda. John’s preference for Luke’s version of the actual anointing is consistent with his presentation of the Bethany family throughout this section of the Gospel. As Esler and Piper correctly point out, this is the ¿rst time in the Gospel that a relationship of love between Jesus and a speci¿c set of individuals comes to the fore, and so these siblings, in their expressions of love towards Jesus and to each other, become prototypical of what is later commanded of the disciples. Each individual has a role to play, and ‘Mary is the one who displays love in an act of extravagant devotion’.6 It is surely in this context that we should note that what distinguishes Luke’s anointer above all is, as Jesus points out to the Pharisee in 7.47, that ‘she loved much’. Neither text is repeated in full. This is manifestly the case here with Mark, and even with Luke. Echoes of Markan and Lukan material appear in the context of the Johannine passage. Note that the unusual ëĹÉÀÄŠÇĸÀ (‘reproach’) in Mk 14.5 occurs in relation to Jesus in Jn 11.33, 38 (‘deeply moved’). Note also that the woman’s tears in Luke 7 are shed by Mary at Jesus’ feet in Jn 11.32, 33. Johannine equivalents. Note John’s preference for ÈÇÂįÌÀÄÇË (‘costly’) in 12.3 instead of Mark’s ÈÇÂÍ̼ÂûË in 14.3. Echoes from the context of the material become part of the Johannine passage. Note how, in Jn 12.4, Judas Iscariot is singled out as the complainant, and compare the very similar statement about Judas in Mk 14.10. Marked deference to vocabulary. [Not applicable] Awkwardness in the Àow of the narrative. John’s version of the act of anointing makes a great deal less sense than Luke’s: in Lk. 7.38, the woman weeps, wipes Jesus’ feet dry with her hair, and then anoints them; in Jn 12.3, however, Mary anoints Jesus’ feet and then wipes them with her hair, a less logical and more sticky alternative. The problem is, of course, that John has omitted the tears. But then, as we have seen, he has already relocated this detail to Mary’s encounter with Jesus in ch. 11 (vv. 32, 33).

6. Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, pp. 75–103 (89).

218

viii.

ix.

A Journey Round John

Linking materials by verbal agreement. Despite their obvious differences, the anointing accounts in Mark and Luke also exhibit some striking correspondences, not least the words ÒÂÚ¹¸ÊÌÉÇÅ ÄįÉÇÍ (‘alabaster jar of ointment’) in both (Mk 14.3; Lk. 7.37). This is surely enough to key in an author like John to connect the two. John’s text constructed on more than one basis. As I hope to have demonstrated, this composition may well be a case in point.

Eight out of nine indicators are represented in this case. V. Conclusion The approach adopted in this study began with the evidence that John composed his Gospel on the basis of his readers’ knowledge of tradition. In order to discover something of his methods, we have examined instances within the Gospel itself (intra-textual evidence) where John reintroduces and develops information already imparted to his readers in the text. Moving beyond the Gospel, we have then brieÀy discussed his handling of quotations from the Jewish Scriptures (inter-textual evidence), which would also be familiar territory to his readers. From these investigations we were able to compile a list of nine redactional characteristics. We then used these characteristics as indicators of whether John composed on the basis of the Synoptic Gospels in two test-cases: the Race to the Tomb in 20.3-10; and the Anointing of Jesus in 12.1-8. If this argument is valid, then in two instances we have grounds for supposing that where John’s Gospel coincides with the Synoptic witness the Fourth Evangelist composed his account in direct dependence on the Synoptics themselves. To labour Browning’s analogy once more, the stars John knew and named began as points in the Synoptic texts. This has signi¿cant consequences for the endeavour to glimpse the historical Jesus through the lens of the Johannine Passion narrative, for it means that, in these two cases at least, John has based his composition on Synoptic data and has nothing new of historical value to contribute. Nevertheless, the present study is essentially work in progress; other examples remain to be investigated and a full evaluation of John’s relation to the Synoptics must wait until that point.7 It is also worth 7. There are also other ways of evaluating the evidence of Johannine–Synoptic links. Note, for example, the proposal that Luke wrote in awareness of the Johannine tradition; see P. N. Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered (London: T&T Clark International, 2006), pp. 112–16, 1

13. Points and Stars

219

adding that the method adopted here is necessarily con¿ned to those texts where the Fourth Gospel coincides with the Synoptics, and so cannot address those areas where John proceeds independently of the other three. However, if one pointer in particular can be said to emerge from this exercise, it is surely that any endeavour to detect tradition in the Fourth Evangelist’s work must reckon fully with his capacity to rework, recast and generally make his own whatever information he had available.

and especially M. A. Matson, In Dialogue with Another Gospel? The InÀuence of the Fourth Gospel on the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of Luke (SBLDS 178; Atlanta: SBL, 2001). 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, L., ‘Ancient Book Production and the Circulation of the Gospels’, in Bauckham, ed., The Gospels, pp. 71–1105. —‘Sisters in Adversity: Retelling Martha’s Story’, in Levine, ed., A Feminist Companion to Luke, pp. 197–1213. Anderson, P. N., The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered (London: T&T Clark International, 2006). —‘The Having-Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father–Son Relationship’, Semeia 85 (1999), pp. 33–57. —‘John and Mark: The Bi-Optic Gospels’, in Fortna and Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition, pp. 175–88. —‘On Guessing Points and Naming Stars: Epistemological Origins of John’s Christological Tensions’, in The Gospel of John and Christian Theology (ed. R. Bauckham and C. Mosser; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 311–45. Ashton, J. ‘The Jews in John’, in Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), pp. 36–70. —‘The Johannine Son of Man: A New Proposal’, NTS 57 (2011), pp. 508–29. —‘Second Thoughts on the Fourth Gospel’, in Thatcher, ed., What We Have Heard from the Beginning, pp. 1–18. —‘The Transformation of Wisdom’, in Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), pp. 5–35. —Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). —Understanding the Fourth Gospel (2d ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Barclay, J. M. G., Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117CE) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996). —‘Who Was Considered an Apostate in the Jewish Diaspora?’, in Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. G. N. Stanton and G. G. Stroumsa; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 80–98. Barrett, C. K., The Gospel According to St John (2d ed.; London: SPCK, 1978). —‘The Place of John and the Synoptics within the Early History of Christian Thought’, in Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics, pp. 63–79. —‘The Prologue of St. John’s Gospel’, in New Testament Essays (London: SPCK, 1972), pp. 27–48. Barton, S. C., ‘Can We Identify the Gospel Audiences?’, in Bauckham, ed., The Gospels, pp. 173–94. Bauckham, R., ‘The Audience of the Fourth Gospel’, in Fortna and Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition, pp. 101–11. —‘For Whom Were Gospels Written?’, in Bauckham, ed., The Gospels, pp. 9–48. —‘John for Readers of Mark’, in Bauckham, ed., The Gospels, pp. 147–71. —‘Response to Philip Esler’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 249–53.

Bibliography

221

Bauckham, R., ed., The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998). Beasley-Murray, G. R., John (WBC 36; Waco, TX: Word, 1987). Beernaert, Mourlon P., ‘Parallelisme entre Jean 11 et 12: Etude de structure littéraire et théologique’, in Genèse et structure d’un texte du Nouveau Testament: Etude interdisciplinaire du chapître 11 de l’évangile de Jean (ed. A.-L. Descamps et al.; Lectio Divina 104; Paris: Cerf; Louvain-La-Neuve: Cabay, 1981). Bendemann, R. von, Zwischen ǻȅȋǹ und ȈȉǹȊȇȅȈ: Eine exegetische Untersuchung der Texte des sogenannten Reiseberichts im Lukasevangelium (BZNW 101; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001). Bernard, J. H., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928). Beutler, J., ‘Synoptic Jesus Tradition in the Johannine Farewell Discourse’, in Fortna and Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition, pp. 165–73. Bieberstein, S., Verschwiegene Jüngerinnen – vergessene Zeugnissen: Gebrochene Konzepte im Lukasevangelium (NTOA 38; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag, 1998). Bieringer, R., D. Pollefeyt and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, ‘Wrestling with Johannine Anti-Judaism: A Hermeneutical Framework for the Analysis of the Current Debate’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 3–44. Bieringer, R., et al., eds., Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2001). Birdsall, J. N., ‘John X. 29’, JTS NS 11 (1960), pp. 342–4. Blanc, C., Origène. Commentaire sur saint Jean (SC 157; 5 vols.; Paris: Cerf, 1970). Boer, M. C. de, ‘The Depiction of “the Jews” in John’s Gospel: Matters of Behavior and Identity’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 260–80. Boismard, M.-E., ‘Jésus, le Prophète par excellence, d’après Jean 10.24-39’, in Neues Testament und Kirche: Festschrift für R. Schnackenburg (ed. J. Gnilka; Freiburg: Herder, 1974), pp. 160–71. —Moïse ou Jésus: Essai de Christologie Johannique (BETL 84; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988). Bond, H. K., ‘Caiaphas: ReÀections on a High Priest’, ExpTim 113 (2002), pp. 183–7. Bonnard, P., ‘La première épître de Jean: Est-elle Johannique?’, in de Jonge, ed., L’Evangile, pp. 301–5. Borgen, P., ‘God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel’, in Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (ed. J. Neusner; SHR 14; Leiden: Brill, 1968), pp. 137–48. Repr. in J. Ashton, ed., The Interpretation of John (2d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997), pp. 83–95. —‘John and the Synoptics: Can Paul Offer Help?’, in Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament: Essays in Honor of E. Earle Ellis for his 60th Birthday (ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 80–194. —Logos Was the True Light and Other Essays on the Gospel of John (Trondheim: Tapir, 1983). —‘The Use of Tradition in John 12:44-50’, NTS 26 (1979–80), pp. 18–35. Bovon, F., Das Evangelium nach Lukas (Lk 9,51–14,35) (EKKNT 3/2; Zurich: Benziger, 1996). Bretschneider, C. G., Lexicon manuale Graeco-Latinum in libros Novi Testamenti I (Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Barth, 1829). 1

222

Bibliography

Brooke, A. E., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957). Brooke, G. J., ‘Christ and the Law in John 7–10’, in Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity (ed. B. Lindars; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1988). Brown, R. E., The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New Jersey: Paulist, 1979). —The Epistles of John (AB 30; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1983). —The Gospel According to John (AB 29, 29A; 2 vols.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971). —An Introduction to New Testament Christology (London: Chapman, 1994). Brownlee, W. H., ‘Whence the Gospel According to John?’, in John and Qumran (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972), pp. 166–94. Brutscheck, J., Die Maria-Marta-Erzählung: Eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung zu Lk 10,38-42 (BBB 64; Frankfurt am Main, Bonn: Hain, 1986). Bultmann, R., The Gospel of John (trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971). Burge, G. M., ‘Situating John’s Gospel in History’, in Fortna and Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition, pp. 35–46. Busse, U., ‘Johannes und Lukas: Die Lazaruspericope, Frucht eines Kommunikationsprozesses’, in Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics, pp. 281–306. —‘Die Unterweisung im so genannten “Reisebericht”: Dargestellt an Lk 10,25-42’, in Die Weisheit – Ursprünge und Rezeption (ed. M. Fassnacht et al.; Münster: Aschendorff, 2003). Byron, B. F., ‘Bethany Across the Jordan or Simply Across the Jordan’, ABR 46 (1998), pp. 36–54. Carrez, M., ‘Le “Nous” en 2 Corinthiens’, NTS (1980), pp. 474–86. Carson, D. A., The Gospel According to John (Leicester: InterVarsity; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991). Carter, W., ‘Getting Martha Out of the Kitchen’, in Levine, ed., A Feminist Companion to Luke, pp. 215–31. Casey, M., From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Cambridge: James Clarke; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991). —Is John’s Gospel True? (London: Routledge, 1996). —‘Some Anti-Semitic Assumptions in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament’, NovT 41 (1999), pp. 280–91. Chapman, J., ‘We Know That His Testimony Is True’, JTS 31 (1930), pp. 379–87. Cohen, S. J. D., The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Hellenistic Culture and Society 31; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Collins, J. N., Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). —‘Did Luke Intend a Disservice to Women in the Martha and Mary Story’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 28 (1998), pp. 104–11. —Deacons and the Church: Making Connections Between Old and New (Gracewing [Hertfordshire]: Morehouse, 2002). Conway, C. M., Men and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization (SBLDS 167; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999). 1

Bibliography

223

Cosgrove, C. H., ‘The Place Where Jesus Is: Allusions to Baptism and the Eucharist in the Fourth Gospel’, NTS 35 (1989), pp. 522–39. Crossan, J. D., Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition (Foundations and Facets; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). Cullmann, O., The Christology of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1963). Culpepper, R. A., Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). —The Gospel and Letters of John (Interpreting Biblical Texts; Nashville: Abingdon, 1998). Danker, F. W., ed., A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (3d ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Dauer, A., Johannes und Lukas: Untersuchungen zu den johanneische-lukanischen Parallelperikopen Joh 4,46-54 / Lk 7,1-10 – Joh 12,1-8 / Lk 7,36-50; 10,38-42 – Joh 20,19-29 / Lk 24,36-49 (FzB 50; Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1984). Davey, J. E., The Jesus of St. John: Historical and Christological Studies in the Fourth Gospel (London: Lutterworth, 1958). Davies, M., Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup 69; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1992). Davies, W. D., and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988–97). Denaux, A., ‘Old Testament Models for the Lukan Travel Narrative: A Critical Survey’, in The Scriptures in the Gospels (ed. C. M. Tuckett; BETL 131; Leuven: Peeters, 1997), pp. 271–330. Denaux, A., ed., John and the Synoptics (BETL 101; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992). Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42)’, in New Resolutions of Old Conundrums: A Fresh Insight into Luke’s Gospel (Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire: Drinkwater, 1986), pp. 162–74. Devillers, L., ‘La Lettre de Soumaïos et les Ioudaioi johanniques’, RB 105 (1998), pp. 556–81. Dodd, C. H., Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). —The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953). —The Johannine Epistles (MNTC; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1946). Dunn, J. D. G., Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM, 1980). —‘The Embarrassment of History: ReÀections on the Problems of “Anti-Judaism” in the Fourth Gospel’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 47–67. —‘Let John Be John: A Gospel for Its Time’, in The Gospel and the Gospels (ed. P. Stuhlmacher; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 293–322. —The Partings of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism and their Signi¿cance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991). Earl, D. S., ‘ “(Bethany) Beyond the Jordan”: The Signi¿cance of a Johannine Motif’, NTS 55 (2009), pp. 279–94.

1

224

Bibliography

Edwards, R. B., Discovering John: Content, Interpretation, Reception (2d ed.; London: SPCK, 2014). —‘ŠÉÀÅ ÒÅÌĖ ÏŠÉÀÌÇË (John 1.16): Grace and the Law in the Johannine Prologue’, JSNT 32 (1988), pp. 3–15. Ellingworth, P., ‘ “The Jews” in Recent Translations of the Gospels and Acts’, in I Must Speak to You Plainly: Essays in Honor of Robert G. Bratcher (ed. R. L. Omanson; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), pp. 53–71. Elliott, J. H., ‘Temple versus Household in Luke–Acts: A Contrast in Social Institutions’, in The Social World of Luke–Acts (ed. J. H. Neyrey; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), pp. 211–40. Elliott, J. K., ‘Is ĝ îƼ¿ŪÅ a Title for Jesus in Mark 1.45?’, JTS NS 27 (1976), pp. 402–5. Ellis, P. F., The Genius of John (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1984). Esler, P. F., ‘Community and Gospel in Early Christianity: A Response to Richard Bauckham’s Gospels for All Christians’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 235–48. —The First Christians in their Social Worlds: Social-scienti¿c Approaches to New Testament Interpretation (London: Routledge, 1994). —‘From Ioudaioi to Children of God: The Development of a Non-Ethnic Group Identity in the Gospel of John’, in In Other Words: Essays on Social Science Methods and the New Testament in Honor of Jerome H. Neyrey (ed. A. C. Hagedorn, Z. A. Crook and E. Stewart; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Phoenix, 2007), pp. 106–37. —‘Identity Matters: Judean Ethnic Identity in the First Century CE’. Online: http:// www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/esl368002.shtml. —‘Translating Ioudaioi as “Judeans” in the Fourth Gospel’, in Esler and Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, pp. 159–64. Esler, P. F., and R. A. Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha: A Social-Scienti¿c and Theological Reading of John (London: SCM, 2006). Fitzmyer, J., The Gospel According to Luke, X–XXIV (2d ed.; AB 28B; Garden City, NY: Yale University Press, 1986). Fortna, R. T., The Fourth Gospel and its Predecessor (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989). —The Gospel of Signs (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Fortna, R. T., and T. Thatcher, eds., Jesus in Johannine Tradition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001). Freed, E. D., Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John (NovTSup 11; Leiden: Brill, 1965). Frey, J., ‘Eschatology in the Johannine Circle’, in Van Belle, van der Watt and Maritz, eds., Theology and Christology, pp. 47–82. —Die johanneische Eschatologie (WUNT 96, 110, 117; 3 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997, 1998, 2000). Freyne, S., ‘Vilifying the Other and De¿ning the Self: Matthew’s and John’s Anti-Jewish Polemic in Focus’, in ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs; Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 117–43. Fuller, R. H., Interpreting the Miracles (London: SCM, 1963). Gerhardsson, Ǻ., Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Acta Seminarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis 22; Uppsala: Gleerup, 1961).

1

Bibliography

225

Giblin, C. H., ‘Suggestion, Negative Response, and Positive Action in St John’s Portrayal of Jesus (John 2.1-11; 4.46-54; 7.2-14; 11.1-44)’, NTS 26 (1980), pp. 197–211. Goldsmith, D., ‘ “Ask, and it will be Given…”, Toward Writing the History of a Logion’, NTS 35 (1989), pp. 254–65. Goulder, M. D., Luke: A New Paradigm (JSNTSup 20; 2 vols.; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1989). Grayston, K., The Gospel of John (Epworth Commentaries; London: Epworth, 1990). —The Johannine Epistles (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1984). Gutbrod, W., `ÊɸûÂ, in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (ed. G. Kittel; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), vol. 3, p. 371. Haenchen, E., A Commentary on the Gospel of John (trans. R. W. Funk; Hermeneia; 2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). —Das Johannesevangelium: Ein Kommentar (aus den nachgelassen Manuscripten) (ed. Ulrich Busse; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1980). Hamerton-Kelly, R. G., Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man (SNTSMS 21; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973). Hanson, A. T., Grace and Truth: A Study in the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SPCK, 1975). —The New Testament Interpretation of Scripture (London: SPCK, 1980). —‘The Old Testament Background to the Raising of Lazarus’, in Studia Evangelica (ed. E. A. Livingstone; Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 112; 6 vols.; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1973), vol. 6, pp. 252–5. Harnack, A., History of Dogma (London: Williams & Norgate, 1897–1910). Hartin, P. J., James and the Q Sayings of Jesus (JSNTSup 47; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1991). Harvey, G., The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 35; Leiden: Brill, 1996). Hengel, M., The Johannine Question (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity International, 1989). Hentschel, A., Diakonia im Neuen Testament: Studien zur Semantik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rolle von Frauen (WUNT 2/226; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). Hill, C. E., The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Holloway, P., ‘Left Behind: Jesus’ Consolation of his Disciples in John 13,31–17,26’, ZNW 96–97 (2005–2006), pp. 1–33. Holtzmann, H. J., Evangelium, Briefe und Offenbarung des Johannes (HTKNT 4; Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1908). Hooker, M. D., ‘The Johannine Prologue and the Messianic Secret’, NTS 21 (1974–75), pp. 40–58. Hoskyns, E. C., The Fourth Gospel (ed. F. N. Davey; 2d ed.; London: Faber & Faber, 1947). Houlden, J. L., A Commentary on the Johannine Epistles (London: A. & C. Black, 1973). Howard, W. F., The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation (2d ed.; London: Epworth, 1935). Hurtado, L., One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (London: SCM, 1988). 1

226

Bibliography

Jonas, D., ‘Diakonein – Diakonia – Diakonos: Studien zum Verständnis des Dienstes (“Diakonie”) bei Markus und Lukas’, in Diakonische Konturen: Theologie im Kontext sozialer Arbeit (ed. V. Herrmann et al.; Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg 18; Heidelberg: University Press, 2003), pp. 63–126. Jonge, H. J. de, ‘The “Jews” in the Gospel of John’, in Bieringer et al., eds., AntiJudaism and the Fourth Gospel, pp. 239–59. Jonge, M. de, ed., L’Evangile de Jean (BETL 44; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1977). Käsemann, E., The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17 (London: SCM, 1968). Keener, C. S., The Gospel of John, A Commentary (2 vols.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003). Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Doctrines (London: A. & C. Black, 1958). Kieffer, R., ‘Jean et Marc: Convergences dans la structure et dans les details’, in Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics, pp. 109–25. Kipling, J. Rudyard, ‘The Gardener’, in Debits and Credits (Montana: Kessinger, 2004). Kirschbaum, E., ed., Lexicon der Christlichen Ikonographie (Freiburg: Herder, 1990). Knox, J., The Humanity and Divinity of Christ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). Koet, B. J., ‘Diakonie ist nicht nur Armenfürsorge: Neue exegetische Erkenntnisse zum Verständnis von Diakonie’, in Lernen ware eine schöne Alternative: Religionsunterricht in theologischer und erziehungwissenschaftlicher Verantwordung (FS Helmut Hanisch; ed. M. Sander-Gaiser et al.; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsansta, 2008), pp. 303–18. —Dreams and Scripture in Luke–Acts: Collected Essays (CBET 43; Leuven: Peeters, 2006). —‘Luke 10,38-42 and Acts 6,1-7: A Lucan Diptych on diakonia’, in Studies in the Greek Bible: Essays in Honor of Francis T. Gignac, S. J. (ed. J. Corley and V. Skemp; CBQMS 44; Washington, DC: Catholical Biblical Quarterly, 2008), pp. 163–85. —‘Some Traces of a Semantic Field of Interpretation in Luke 24,13-35’, in Five Studies on the Interpretation of Scripture in Luke–Acts (SNTA 14; Leuven: Peeters, 1989). Köstenberger, A., John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004). Lagrange, M.-J., Evangile selon Saint Jean (5th ed.; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1936). Lamb, D. A., Text, Context and the Johannine Community: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings (LNTS 477; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014). Lambrecht, J., ‘ “Synagogues of Satan” (Rev 2:9 and 3:9): Anti-Judaism in the Book of Revelation’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 514–30. Law, T. M., and C. Halton, eds., Jew and Judean: A Forum on Politics and Historiography in the Translation of Ancient Texts (Los Angeles: The Marginalia Review of Books, 2014). Lee, D. A., The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel: The Interplay of Form and Meaning (JSNTSup 95; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1994). Leonhard-Balzer, J., ‘The Ruler of the World, Antichrists and Pseudo-Prophets: Johannine Variations on an Apocalyptic Motif’, in Williams and Rowland, eds., John’s Gospel, pp. 180–99. 1

Bibliography

227

Levine, A.-J., ed., A Feminist Companion to Luke (Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings 3; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 2002). Lieu, J. M., I, II, & III John: A Commentary (New Testament Library; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008). —‘Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel: Explanation and Hermeneutics’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 126–43. —‘Authority to Become Children of God’, NovT 33, no. 3 (1981), pp. 210–28. —‘History and Theology in Christian Views of Judaism’, in The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (ed. J. M. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak; London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 79–96. —Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996). —‘Narrative Analysis and Scripture in John’, in The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North (ed. S. Moyise; JSNTSup 189; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 2000), pp. 144–63. —Neither Jew Nor Greek? Constructing Early Christianity (Studies of the New Testament and Its World; London: T&T Clark International, 2002). —The Second and Third Epistles of John: History and Background (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986). —‘Temple and Synagogue in John’, NTS 45 (1999), pp. 51–69. —The Theology of the Johannine Epistles (NT Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). —‘Us or You? Persuasion and Identity in 1 John’, JBL 127 (2008), pp. 805–19. Lincoln, A. T., ‘From Writing to Reception: ReÀections on Commentating on the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 29 (2007), pp. 353–72. —The Gospel According to St John (Black’s New Testament Commentaries 4; London, New York: Hendrickson, 2005). —Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2000). Lindars, B., Behind the Fourth Gospel (SCC 3; London: SPCK, 1971). —‘Discourse and Tradition: The Use of the Sayings of Jesus in the Discourses of the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 13 (1981), pp. 83–101. —The Gospel of John (NCB; London: Oliphants, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1972). —Jesus Son of Man (London: SPCK, 1983). —John (NTG; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1990). —‘Mark 10.45: A Ransom for Many’, ExpTim 93 (1981–82), pp. 292–5. —‘The Persecution of Christians in Jn 15.18–16.4a’, in Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament (ed. W. Horbury and B. McNeil; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 48–69. —‘Traditions behind the Fourth Gospel’, in Essays on John by Barnabas Lindars (ed. C. M. Tuckett; SNTA 17; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), pp. 87–104. Livingstone, E. A., ed., Studia Biblica 1978. Vol. 2, Papers on the Gospels (JSNTSup 2; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1980). Loader, W., The Johannine Epistles (Epworth Commentaries; London: Epworth, 1992). Loisy, A., Le quatrième évangile (Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1903). Longenecker, B. W., ‘The Unbroken Messiah: A Johannine Feature and Its Social Functions’, NTS 41 (1995), pp. 428–41. 1

228

Bibliography

Lowe, M., ‘Who Were the ǿȅȊǻǹǿȅǿ?’, NovT 18 (1976), pp. 101–30. MacDonald, N., ‘The Origin of “Monotheism” ’, in Stuckenbruck and North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, pp. 204–15. MacGregor, G. H. C., The Gospel of John (Moffatt New Testament Commentary; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959). Malina, B. J., and L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). Manson, T. W., On Paul and John (Studies in Biblical Theology; London: SCM, 1963). Marshall, I. H., The Epistles of John (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978). Martyn, J. L., History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Harper & Row, 1968; Nashville: Abingdon, rev. ed., 1979; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 3d ed., 2003). Mason, S., ‘Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History’, JSJ 38 (2007), pp. 457–512. Matson, M. A., In Dialogue with Another Gospel? The InÀuence of the Fourth Gospel on the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of Luke (SBLDS 178; Atlanta: SBL, 2001). McGrath, J. F., Apologetic Christology: Legitimation and Development in Johannine Christology (SNTSMS 111; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Meeks, W., ‘ “Am I a Jew?”: Johannine Christianity and Judaism’, in Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty (ed. J. Neusner; SJLA 12/1; Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 163–86. —‘The Divine Agent and his Counterfeit in Philo and the Fourth Gospel’, in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. E. Schüssler Fiorenza; University of Notre Dame Center for the Study of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity 2; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), pp. 43–67. —‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’, in The Interpretation of John (ed. J. Ashton; 2d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997), pp. 169–205; originally published in JBL 91 (1972), pp. 44–72. —The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (NovTSup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1967). Menken, M. J. J., Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form (CBET 15; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996). —‘Scriptural Dispute Between Jews and Christians in John: Literary Fiction or Historical Reality? John 9:13-17, 24-34 as a Test Case’, in Bieringer et al., eds., AntiJudaism, pp. 445–60. —‘ “Three that testify” and “The testimony of God” in 1 John 5,6-12’, in Studies in the Gospel of John and its Christology (Festschrift Gilbert Van Belle; ed. J. Verheyden et al.; BETL 265; Leuven: Peeters, 2014), pp. 595–613. Metzger, B. M., Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibel-Gesellschaft, 1994). —‘Names for the Nameless in the New Testament: A Study in the Growth of Christian Tradition’, in New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic (NTTS 10; Leiden: Brill, 1980), pp. 23–43. Minear, P. S., ‘A Note in Luke 17,7-10’, JBL 93 (1974), pp. 82–7. —‘The Original Functions of John 21’, JBL 102 (1983), pp. 85–98.

1

Bibliography

229

Moberly, R. W. L., ‘How Appropriate Is “Monotheism” as a Category for Biblical Interpretation?’, in Stuckenbruck and North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, pp. 216–34. Moloney, F. J., ‘From Cana to Cana (John 2.1–4.54) and the Fourth Evangelist’s Concept of Correct and Incorrect Faith’, in Livingstone, ed., Studia Biblica 1978, vol. 2, pp. 185–213. —The Gospel of John (Sacra Pagina 4; Collegeville: Michael Glazier, 1998). Moody Smith, D., John Among the Gospels: The Relationship in Twentieth-Century Research (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). —John Among the Gospels: Second Edition (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001). —The Theology of the Gospel of John (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Moore, G. F., Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927–30). Morgenthaler, R., Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (3d ed.; Zurich: Gotthelf, 1982). Motyer, S., ‘The Fourth Gospel and the Salvation of Israel: An Appeal for a New Start’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 92–110. —Your Father the Devil? A New Approach to John and ‘the Jews’ (Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997). Neirynck, F., ‘John and the Synoptics’, in de Jonge, ed., L’Evangile, pp. 73–106. —‘John and the Synoptics: 1975–1990’, in Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics, pp. 3– 62. Neuberth, R., Demokratie im Volk Gottes: Untersuchungen zur Apostelgeschichte (SBB 46; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001). Neusner, J., Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian–Jewish Argument in Fourth-Century Iran (StPB 19; Leiden: Brill, 1971). Noel, F., The Travel Narrative in the Gospel of Luke: Interpretation of Lk 9,51–19,28 (Collectanea Biblica et Religiosa Antiqua 5; Brussells: Wetenschappelijk Comité voor Godsdienstwetenschappen, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 2004). North, J. L., ‘Praying for a Good Spirit: Text, Context and Meaning of Luke 11.13’, JSNT 28 (2005), pp. 167–88. —Review of F. W. Danker (ed.), A Greek–English Lexicon, JTS 54 (2003), pp. 271–80. North, W. E. S., ‘A Christology too Far? Some Thoughts on Andrew Lincoln’s Commentary on John’, JSNT 29 (2007), pp. 343–51. —The Lazarus Story within the Johannine Tradition (JSNTSup 212; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 2001). —‘Why Should Historical Criticism Continue to Have a Place in Johannine Studies?’, in Thatcher, ed., What We Have Heard from the Beginning, pp. 19–21. Painter, J., The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991). Pancaro, S., The Law in the Fourth Gospel: The Torah and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus, Judaism and Christianity According to John (NovTSup 42; Leiden: Brill, 1975). Parker, P., ‘Bethany Beyond Jordan’, JBL 74 (1955), pp. 257–61.

1

230

Bibliography

Parsenios, G. L., Departure and Consolation: The Johannine Farewell Discourses in Light of Greco-Roman Literature (NovTSup 117; Leiden: Brill, 2005). Petersen, N. R., The Gospel of John and the Sociology of Light: Language and Characterization in the Fourth Gospel (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993). Perkins, P., ‘If Jerusalem Stood: The Destruction of Jerusalem and Christian AntiJudaism’, BibInt 8 (2000), pp. 194–204. Phillips, P. M., The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading (LNTS 294; London: T&T Clark International, 2006). Piper, O. A., ‘I John and the Didache of the Primitive Church’, JBL 66 (1947), pp. 437– 51. Pollard, T. E., Johannine Christology and the Early Church (SNTSMS 13; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Pryor, J. W., ‘John the Baptist and Jesus: Tradition and Text in John 3.25’, JSNT 66 (1997), pp. 15–26. Quast, K., Peter and the Beloved Disciple: Figures for a Community in Crisis (JSNTSup 32; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1989). Rajak, T., ‘The Jewish Community and its Boundaries’, in Lieu, Rajak, and North, eds., The Jews Among Pagans and Christians, pp. 9–28. Reid, B. E., Choosing the Better Part? Women in the Gospel of Luke (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1996). Reinhartz, A., Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John (New York: Continuum, 2005). —‘Jesus as Prophet: Predictive Prolepses in the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 36 (1989), pp. 3–16. —‘The Johannine Community and its Jewish Neighbors: A Reappraisal’, in ‘What Is John?’. Vol. 2, Literary and Social Readings of the Fourth Gospel (ed. F. F. Segovia; SBL Symposium Series 7; Atlanta: Scholars, 1998), pp. 111–38. —‘The Vanishing Jews of Antiquity’, in Law and Halton, eds., Jew and Judean: A Forum on Politics and Historiography in the Translation of Ancient Texts (Los Angeles: The Marginalia Review of Books, 2014), pp. 12–30. Reim, G., Studien zum alttestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangeliums (SNTSMS 22; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). Rensberger, D., 1 John, 2 John, 3 John (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries; Nashville: Abingdon, 1997). —Overcoming the World: Politics and Community in the Gospel of John (London: SPCK, 1988). Riesner, R., ‘Bethany Beyond the Jordan (John 1:28): Topography, Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel’, TynBul 38 (1987), pp. 29–63. Robinson, J. A. T., The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973). Ruckstuhl, E., ‘Johannine Language and Style: The Question of their Unity’, in de Jonge, ed., L’Evangile, pp. 125–47. —Die literarische Einheit des Johannesevangeliums (Studia Friburgensia NS 3; Freiburg: Paulus, 1951). Reprinted as Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus 5; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag: Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987.

1

Bibliography

231

Sabbe, M., ‘The Anointing of Jesus in John 12,1-8 and its Synoptic Parallels’, in The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck (ed. F. van Segbroek et al.; BETL 100; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), vol. 3, pp. 2051–82. —‘The Footwashing in Jn 13 and Its Relation to the Synoptic Gospels’, ETL 57 (1982), pp. 279–308 = idem, Studia Neotestamentica. Collected Essays (BETL 98; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1991), pp. 409–41. Sanders, J. N., A Commentary on the Gospel According to St John (ed. and completed by B. A. Mastin; Black’s New Testament Commentaries; London: Black, 1968). Schlatter, A., Der Evangelist Johannes: wie er spricht, denkt und glaubt (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1960). Schleiermacher, F., Über die Schriften des Lukas: Ein kritischer Versuch (vol. 1; Berlin: Reimer, 1817). Schüssler Fiorenza, E., In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (London: SCM, 1983). Schnackenburg, R., The Gospel According to St. John (3 vols.; New York: Herder & Herder; London: Burns & Oates, 1968–82). —The Johannine Epistles (trans. R. and I. Fuller; New York: Crossroad, 1992). Schneiders, S. M., ‘Women in the Fourth Gospel and the Role of Women in the Contemporary Church’, in The Gospel of John as Literature: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Perspectives (ed. M. W. G. Stibbe; NTTS 17; Leiden: Brill, 1993), pp. 123–43. Schotroff, L., ‘Dienerinnen der Heiligen: Der Diakonat der Frauen im Neuen Testament’, in Diakonie – Biblische Grundlagen und Orienierungen. Ein Arbeitsbuch zur theologischen Verständigung über den Diakonischen Auftrag (ed. G. K. Schäfer and T. Strom; 3d ed.; Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg 2; Heidelberg: University Press, 1998), pp. 222–42. Scott, M. Sophia and the Johannine Jesus (JSNTSup 71; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1992). Seim, T. K., The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke–Acts (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994). Sevenster, G., ‘Remarks on the Humanity of Jesus in the Gospel and Letters of John’, in Studies in John: Presented to Professor Dr. J. N. Sevenster (ed. T. C. de Kruijf; NovTSup 24; Leiden: Brill, 1970), pp. 185–93. Sevrin, J.-M., ‘The Nicodemus Enigma: The Characterization and Function of an Ambiguous Actor of the Fourth Gospel’, in Bieringer et al., eds., Anti-Judaism, pp. 357–69. Sheridan, R., ‘Hiding from the Fourth Gospel’s Tragic Reception History’, in Law and Halton, eds., Jew and Judean, pp. 123–36. Sidebottom, E. M., The Christ of the Fourth Gospel in the Light of First-Century Thought (London: SPCK, 1961). Sim, D. C., ‘The Gospels for All Christians? A Response to Richard Bauckham’, JSNT 84 (2001), pp. 3–27. Smalley, S. S., 1, 2, 3 John (WBC 51; Waco, TX: Word, 1984). Sproston, W. E., ‘Satan in the Fourth Gospel’, in Livingstone, ed., Studia Biblica 1978, vol. 2, pp. 307–11. —‘Witnesses to What Was ÒÈЏ ÒÉÏýË: I John’s Contribution to Our Knowledge of Tradition in the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 48 (1992), pp. 43–65.

1

232

Bibliography

Stibbe, M. W. G., John (Readings: A New Biblical Commentary; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 1996). Strecker, G., ‘Die Anfänge der johanneische Schule’, NTS 32 (1986), pp. 31–47. Stuckenbruck, L. T., ‘ “Angels” and “God”: Exploring the Limits of Early Jewish Monotheism’, in Stuckenbruck and North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, pp. 45–70. —‘Evil in Johannine and Apocalyptic Perspective: Petition for Protection in John 17’, in Williams and Rowland, eds., John’s Gospel, pp. 200–232. —‘ “Protect them from the Evil One” (John 17:15): Light from the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in John, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate (ed. M. L. Coloe and T. Thatcher; SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature 32; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), pp. 139–60. Stuckenbruck, L. T., and W. E. S. North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (JSNTSup 263; London: T&T Clark International, 2004). Taeger, J.-W., ‘Der konservative Rebell: Zum Widerstand des Diotrephes gegen den Presbyter’, ZNW 78 (1987), pp. 267–87. Tanzer, S. J., ‘Salvation Is for the Jews: Secret Christian Jews in the Gospel of John’, in The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (ed. B. A. Pearson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), pp. 285–300. Thatcher, T., ed., What We Have Heard from the Beginning (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007). Thatcher, T., and S. D. Moore, eds., Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature (SBL Resources for Biblical Study 55; Atlanta: SBL, 2008). Thimmes, P., ‘The Language of Community: A Cautionary Tale (Luke 10.38-42)’, in Levine, ed., A Feminist Companion to Luke, pp. 232–45. Trebilco, P., in ‘The Christian and Jewish Eumeneian Formula’, in Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire (ed. J. M. G. Barclay; Library of Second Temple Studies 45; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 66–88. Van Belle, G., ‘Christology and Soteriology in the Fourth Gospel: The Conclusion to the Gospel of John Revisited’, in Van Belle, van der Watt and Maritz, eds., Theology and Christology, pp. 435–61. —Les parenthèses dans l’évangile de Jean: Aperçu historique et classi¿cation, texte Grec de Jean (SNTA 11; Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1985). Van Belle, G., J. G. van der Watt and P. Maritz, eds., Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by the Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar (BETL 184; Leuven: University Press, 2005). Van der Loos, H., The Miracles of Jesus (NovTSup 8; Leiden: Brill, 1965). Vos, D. de, The Flemish Primitives: The Masterpieces (Amsterdam: University Press, 2002). Wahlde, U. C. von, ‘The Terms for Religious Authorities in the Fourth Gospel: A Key to Literary Strata?’, JBL 98 (1979), pp. 231–53. —‘The Johannine “Jews”: A Critical Survey’, NTS 28 (1981–82), pp. 33–60. —‘ “The Jews” in the Gospel of John: Fifteen Years of Research (1983–1998)’, ETL 76 (2000), pp. 30–55. Watt, J. van der, ‘Double Entendre in the Gospel According to John’, in Van Belle, van der Watt and Maritz, eds., Theology and Christology, pp. 463–81. 1

Bibliography

233

Wead, D. W., The Literary Devices in John’s Gospel (Theologischen Dissertationen 4; Basel: Komm. Friedrich Reinhardt, 1970). Westcott, B. F., The Gospel According to St. John (London: J. Murray, 1908). —The Epistles of St. John (3d ed.; Cambridge: Macmillan, 1892). Whitacre, R. A., Johannine Polemic: The Role of Tradition and Theology (SBLDS 67; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982). Wilcox, M., ‘The Composition of John 13.21-30’, in Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in Honour of Matthew Black (ed. E. E. Ellis and M. Wilcox; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1969), pp. 143–56. —‘The Denial-Sequence in Mark XIV, 26-31, 66-72’, NTS 17 (1970–71), pp. 426–36. —‘The “Prayer” of Jesus in John XI.41b-42’, NTS 24 (1977), pp. 128–32. Wiles, M., ‘In Defence of Arius’, JTS NS 13 (1962), pp. 339–47. Williams, C. H., and C. Rowland, eds., John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013). Williams, M. H., The Jews Asmong the Greeks and Romans: A Diasporan Sourcebook (London: Duckworth, 1998). Willker, W., A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels (6 vols.; 8th ed.; Bremen: published online, 2011). Online: http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/wie/TCG/TCJohn.pdf. Witherington III, B., John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 1995). Zumstein, J., ‘Intratextuality and Intertextuality in the Gospel of John’, in Thatcher and Moore, eds., Anatomies of Narrative Criticism, pp. 121–35.

1

INDEXES INDEX OF REFERENCES HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT Genesis 14 5 22.11 139 27.35 166 28.12 166 32.28-30 166 34.34 140 Exodus 3.4 4.1-9 19.20 20.21 24.18 32.31 34.28

139 121 121 121 121 121 55

Deuteronomy 8.3 13.1-12 LXX 13.1-11 13.6 LXX 18.15-22 18.18-22 34.10-12

140 121 121 122 124 120 121

Joshua 18.7

140

1 Samuel 3.10

139

Nehemiah 8.12

140

Esther 9.19 Psalms 33.6 41.9

140

82 82.6 117.21 LXX 118 118.21 118.22 118.26 118.41

4 10, 45, 48, 50, 54 5 2, 125 78 89, 91, 92 78, 91, 92 92 88, 92 89

Proverbs 2.6

126

Ecclesiastes 11.2

140

Isaiah 52.13

28

Daniel 12.2

144

NEW TESTAMENT Matthew 1.31 136 3.6 177 4.11 135 6.7 90 6.19 52 6.20 52 7.7-8 86, 193

7.7 7.9-11 8.15 9.27-31 12.22 18.19-20 18.19 18.20 19.18 20.22 20.27 20.29-34 21.17 21.22 22.13 23.11 24.43 25.29 26.6 26.8 26.9 26.11 26.12 26.46 26.57 26.58 26.69 27.9-10 27.20-21 27.25 27.55 27.64 28.13 28.15

87 86 135 181 163 86 87 91 52 135 135 181 170 86, 87 135 135 52 140 170, 185 48, 51, 52, 187, 188 188 189 189 23, 48 211 211 211 48 163 163 135 52 52 163

Index of References Mark 1.5 1.13 1.14 1.31 7.3-4 7.3 9.35 10.17 10.19 10.35-45 10.42 10.43 10.45 10.46-52 11.1 11.9 11.11 11.12 11.24 12.29 13.32 14.1-2 14.3-9 14.3

14.4 14.5 14.6-8 14.6 14.7 14.8 14.9 14.10-11 14.10 14.11 14.18 14.29-31 14.42 14.47

177 96, 135 96, 102 135, 136 163 163 135 181 52 138 138 135, 138 60, 76, 135, 139 181 170 88 170 170 86, 87 181 197 51, 188 180 51, 96, 107, 108, 170, 185, 186, 217, 218 48, 51, 52, 187, 188 51, 188, 192, 217 189 189 189 180, 189, 190 189 51, 188 188, 217 51 48 199 23, 48 199

14.53 14.54 14.66-72 14.66 15.41 16.1 Luke 1.13 1.14 1.31 2.23 2.28 3.2 3.3 4.4 4.39 7 7.36-50 7.37 7.38

7.44 7.47 8.1-3 8.1 8.3 8.4-15 8.13 8.15 8.21 8.35 9.48 9.51–19.28 9.51 9.52-53 9.62 10 10.6 10.9 10.10 10.16 10.23-24 10.25-28

211 211 199 211 135 190

90 132 132 138 131 111 177 140 136, 137 184, 216, 217 131, 180 218 51, 107, 143, 184– 7, 217 187 186, 217 136 136 136, 137 138 131 140 133, 140 133 131 130 131 131 138 17, 131, 142, 184 131 131 131 133 133 181, 182

235 10.38-42

10.38-39 10.38 10.39 10.40-42 10.40

10.41-42 10.41 10.42 11.1–18.30 11.9-10 11.11-13 11.37-52 12.32 12.33 12.36 12.37 12.39 14.1-26 14.1-6 14.7-11 14.12-14 14.15-24 16.1-13 16.19-31 16.20 16.23 16.24 16.25 16.30 17.1-4 17.7-10 17.8 18.20 19.26 19.29 22.3 22.24-30 22.24

106, 128– 31, 134–8, 140, 141, 147, 184, 194, 217 133, 143 131, 141 132, 142, 185 141 129, 131, 134, 139, 142, 143, 146, 185 147 142 140, 141 131 86, 193 86 131 137 52 137 136, 137 52 138 131 131 131 131 137 142 111, 132 111 111 111 142 137 137 136 52 140 170 22, 48 138 138

236 Luke (cont.) 22.25 22.26 22.27 22.30 22.54 22.56 22.66-67 22.67 23.43 23.56 24.1 24.12 24.45-46 24.46 24.49 24.50 John 1 1.1-18 1.1-5 1.1 1.3 1.4 1.6-8 1.8 1.9 1.11 1.12-13 1.12 1.14

1.15 1.16-17 1.16 1.18

1.19–4.43 1.19-34

Index of References

138 136 136, 139 139 211 211 163 160 202 190 190 215 46 216 197 170

156 41, 66 4 31, 39, 41, 113 31 33, 35, 41, 66 176 174 35 71, 216 41, 47 71 1, 3, 10, 28, 29, 38, 39, 41, 126 176 4 125 28, 31, 40, 41, 55, 58, 63, 114, 125, 126, 200 96 172

1.19-27 1.19

1.20-23 1.20 1.21 1.23 1.24 1.25-27 1.25 1.26 1.28

1.29 1.31-34 1.31 1.32-34 1.32-33 1.34 1.36 1.38 1.39 1.40 1.41 1.42 1.44 1.45

1.47 1.49

1.51 2 2.1-11 2.1

177 149, 156, 161, 163, 176, 178 176 88, 177, 178 124 148 156, 176, 178 176 124 177 18, 105, 106, 148, 152, 168, 170–3, 175-78 41, 72, 76, 171 171 165, 166 172 197 88 171 148 148 149 41, 88, 148, 170 148, 149 98 25, 27, 32, 40, 46, 114, 124 165, 166 41, 88, 151, 165, 166 40, 71, 166 61, 203 148 174

2.4 2.5-8 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.13 2.17 2.19-22 2.19-20 2.21 2.22

2.23-25 2.23-24 2.23

2.24-25 3 3.1-2 3.1 3.2

3.3-10 3.3-4 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.9-10 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13

27, 100, 194, 205 148 146 102, 149, 151, 163 174 146, 148, 174 174 27, 30, 41, 146 151, 163 148 27 42 149 55, 58, 199, 207, 216 152, 208 123 6, 118, 124, 152, 161 48, 148, 152 9, 208, 209 118, 152, 173 118, 208 107, 118, 123, 148, 208 208 42 40, 41, 103 123, 199 197 123 118, 165 71 71 25, 26, 113, 125

Index of References 3.14-15 3.14 3.16-21 3.16-17 3.16

3.17

3.18-19 3.18 3.19-21 3.19 3.22 3.23

3.24

3.25 3.26 3.28 3.31-36 3.31 3.32-33 3.34 3.35 3.36 4 4.1 4.3 4.5-6 4.6 4.7 4.9

4.14

41 124 8, 10, 61, 148, 200 8, 41, 76, 112, 165 23, 47, 49, 61, 126, 200 1, 26, 35, 76, 113, 198 35 9, 126, 200 9, 200 33, 35 172 98, 102, 149, 172, 173 96–8, 100, 102, 103, 109, 149, 177, 202, 208 160 172, 175 88 148 25 71 26, 41, 124 47 9, 35, 200 6, 160 142 174 148 27, 114 27 7, 102, 149, 151, 160, 163, 165 71, 126

4.19 4.21 4.22 4.24 4.25 4.27 4.29 4.31-34 4.34 4.41-42 4.42 4.43 4.45 4.46

4.47 4.48

4.50 4.53 4.54 5 5.1 5.2-3 5.2 5.8 5.10 5.11 5.13 5.15-16 5.16 5.17-30 5.17-18 5.17 5.18

124 27 151, 160, 163, 166 197 170 148 40 199 87, 205 118 41, 71, 73, 76, 165 174 6, 152, 161 46, 107, 148, 174, 175 174 30, 118, 123, 152, 161, 194 46, 118 46, 118 174, 175 161, 213 163 150 148 148 163 148 70 161 30, 42, 161, 163 114 2, 42 1, 31, 36, 41, 46 31, 36, 117, 118, 127, 153, 161, 163, 165, 195

237 5.19-30 5.19-23 5.19 5.20 5.21 5.23-24 5.23 5.24-25 5.24

5.25-26 5.25 5.26 5.27 5.28-29

5.30 5.32 5.33-36 5.37-38 5.37 5.38 5.39-40 5.39 5.43 5.44 5.45 5.46-47 5.46 5.47 6

6.1 6.2 6.4

3, 113, 127 2 31 161 41, 213, 216 28 26, 31 213 9, 35, 36, 63, 64, 66, 118 41 213 66 202 9, 11, 146, 202, 204, 213 205 70 176 42 125 125 124, 126 46, 122 26 42, 113, 127 66, 122, 124 124 46 55 6, 18, 20, 22, 29, 49, 120, 151, 161, 172, 202 150, 170, 172 6, 120, 161 149, 151, 163

238 John (cont.) 6.5 6.10-12 6.11 6.12 6.14 6.15 6.17 6.22 6.23

6.25 6.27 6.29-31 6.30 6.31 6.32-33 6.32 6.33 6.35 6.37 6.38 6.39

6.40 6.41-42 6.41 6.42 6.44 6.45 6.46 6.47 6.48 6.51 6.52-58 6.52 6.53-56

Index of References

161 174 108, 211 55 88, 123, 124 151 172 161, 172 108, 142, 150, 174, 175, 211 172 41, 42, 52 123 161 46 4 125 25 25, 41, 126 47-49 25, 36, 41 9, 10, 47– 9, 53–5, 107, 202, 211 9, 202 29, 120, 123, 151 6, 25, 33, 161 25, 27, 40, 114 9, 28, 47– 9, 202 46 28, 125 25 41, 126 41 41 6, 33, 42, 120, 161 27

6.54-58 6.54 6.61-62 6.61 6.62 6.63 6.64-65 6.64 6.65 6.66-71 6.68 6.69 6.70-71 6.70

6.71

7–8 7

7.1-26 7.1

7.2 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.11 7.12-13 7.12

49 9, 202 41 196 26, 113, 125 42, 66, 118 48 48, 101 47, 49 22 40, 66, 118 71 48–50, 201 22, 46, 48, 49, 52, 149, 188, 202, 208 100, 101, 107, 149, 210 8 33, 126, 152, 153, 162, 208, 209 161 117, 118, 122, 152, 153, 160, 161, 163, 175 149, 151, 163 148 194, 205 77 205 175 160, 161 33, 152 122

7.13

7.15 7.16-18 7.16-17 7.16 7.18 7.19-23 7.19-20 7.19

7.20 7.22 7.24 7.25 7.27-29 7.27 7.28 7.29 7.30 7.31

7.32

7.34 7.35-36 7.35

7.36 7.38 7.39

7.40-43 7.41-42 7.41 7.42

33, 117, 160, 161, 163 42, 161 3, 127 41, 205 124 127 124 118 117, 124, 152, 153, 160, 161 42, 153, 160 125, 174 33, 42 32, 117, 118 32 30, 40-42 26, 32 32, 36, 120, 123 27, 30, 33, 100 30, 118, 120, 124, 152, 162 33, 120, 122, 152, 160 148 123, 151 118, 120, 152, 153, 160, 163, 165 148 46 27, 100, 149, 197, 199 41 32, 42 40 46, 56

Index of References 7.44 7.45 7.46 7.47-48 7.47 7.48-49 7.48 7.49-51 7.50-52 7.51 7.52 8

8.12

8.15 8.17 8.18-19 8.19 8.20 8.21-22 8.21 8.22

8.23 8.24 8.25 8.26-29 8.26-27 8.26 8.27 8.28

8.29-30 8.29 8.30-31 8.31

33 152, 160 40, 160 152 122 209 209 124 173, 208 118, 123 40, 42, 122 21, 33, 152, 153, 162 33, 41, 112, 126, 165, 201 33, 42 46, 163, 215 42 33, 34, 41, 42 27, 100, 148 33, 160 148 42, 123, 151, 152, 163 33, 42, 165 33, 35, 36 33, 42 3, 127 33 41 123 28, 33, 41, 42, 124, 198, 205 120 28, 87, 123, 205 118, 152 120, 152

8.37-59 8.37-39 8.37 8.40 8.42 8.44 8.46 8.47 8.48 8.51 8.52 8.53 8.54-55 8.55 8.56-57 8.58-59 8.58 8.59 9–12 9 9.4 9.5 9.7 9.16 9.17 9.18 9.22

9.24 9.27-29 9.28 9.29-33 9.29 9.33 9.35-41 9.35-38

118, 201 117 118, 152, 153 33, 124, 153 34, 41 33, 53 41 42 42, 160, 161 55, 66 55, 66, 161 33 34 42 161 33, 42 26, 41 30, 161 34 161, 164, 201 22, 27 34, 41, 165, 201 148, 170 30, 40, 124 124 161 115–17, 148, 155, 156, 161, 163–5, 177 42 34 122, 164 34 40, 42, 122 40 201 34, 40

239 9.39-41 9.39 9.40-41 10

10.1-3 10.1 10.2-3 10.3-4 10.6 10.7-9 10.7 10.8 10.10 10.11-12 10.11 10.13 10.14-15 10.14 10.17 10.18 10.19-21 10.19 10.20 10.21 10.22-39 10.22 10.23 10.24-25 10.24 10.27-29 10.27 10.28-29 10.28 10.29 10.30-38 10.30-33 10.30 10.31-33

42 9, 26, 34, 35, 40 34 52, 73, 157, 188, 212 200, 212 52, 53, 212 52 28, 40 199 52 40 53 53, 54, 188 52 27 53 28 40 27, 28 27 34 163 42, 161 30 117 149, 173 148 34, 161, 163 42, 160 53 28, 40 49 23, 47, 49, 53–5 47 114 2 1, 28, 36, 113, 126 152, 153, 173

240 John (cont.) 10.31

10.33

10.34-38 10.34-36 10.34 10.35 10.36 10.37-38 10.39 10.40–12.19 10.40-42 10.40

10.41-42 10.41 10.42 10.45 10.55 11

11.1–12.8 11.1-44 11.1-2

Index of References 11.1 30, 155–7, 160, 161, 163 30, 31, 36, 40, 42, 127, 161, 165, 195 2 124 46, 125, 163 4, 124, 125 88 3, 127 152, 173 118, 152 105, 152 18, 105, 106, 152, 168, 169, 172–8 117, 118, 152 118 118, 152 163 163 15, 61, 78, 79, 88, 90, 91, 120, 141, 155, 161, 162, 173, 182, 186, 202, 209, 210, 217 128, 141, 147 141, 142, 161, 213 96, 99, 101, 102, 104–6, 110, 142, 143, 211

11.2

11.3

11.4 11.5

11.6-7 11.6 11.7-10 11.7-8 11.8

11.10 11.11-15 11.11-14 11.11 11.13 11.14 11.16 11.17

11.18-19 11.18

99, 104–6, 111, 141, 143, 173– 6, 185, 210 15, 46, 96, 98–100, 102–10, 142, 143, 149, 182– 5, 187, 210, 216 142, 143, 173, 186, 193, 194 27, 81, 146, 213 27, 143, 144, 173, 186, 204, 210 144 175, 194, 204 79 186, 191 117–19, 153, 155– 7, 161, 173, 174 27, 211 144 199 81, 144, 210 149 194, 210, 213 79, 199 82, 89, 144, 146, 211, 213 153, 173, 176 98, 170, 174, 175, 185

11.19

11.20

11.21-27 11.21

11.22

11.23 11.24 11.25-27 11.25-26

11.25 11.27

11.28-29 11.28 11.29-37 11.30 11.31-33 11.31

11.32-33 11.32

11.33-35 11.33

11.34 11.35-36

119, 143, 151, 153, 156, 174 141, 142, 153, 174, 185 141 82, 91, 142, 143, 146, 193, 204 13, 82–9, 91, 92, 144, 146, 193 144 144, 202 145, 146 88, 89, 146, 193, 204, 213 34, 41 34, 41, 83, 88, 92, 142, 186 142, 211 141 145 141, 174, 175, 177 211 119, 141, 153, 154, 156 15, 107, 110, 194 82, 142, 143, 182, 185, 193, 204, 217 153 27, 81, 114, 119, 156, 192, 217 154 205

Index of References 11.36-37 11.36 11.37 11.38-40 11.38

11.39-40 11.39

11.40

11.41-42

11.41

11.42

11.43-44

11.44 11.45-48 11.45-47 11.45-46 11.45

11.46 11.47-53

11.47-50 11.47-48 11.47

119, 123, 151, 153 173, 186 46 145 89, 148, 192, 213, 217 89 89, 142, 145, 146, 213 27, 30, 34, 40, 41, 81, 145, 146 13, 78, 80, 82, 89, 91, 119, 144, 146, 154, 193 78, 80, 81, 90–3, 154, 213 80, 90, 119, 123, 154, 156 11, 142, 144, 146, 204, 210, 213 213, 216 156 34 119, 153 105, 119, 153, 154, 156, 161 123, 155, 157 155, 156, 160, 186, 209 42 119, 154 30, 40, 103, 124, 210

11.48 11.49-53 11.49-50 11.50-51 11.50 11.51-52 11.51 11.52 11.53

11.54 11.55 11.57 12

12.1-8

12.1-2 12.1

12.2

122, 154 98, 100, 103, 104 148, 209 166 73, 154 148, 210 100, 154, 210 73, 154 103, 118, 119, 122, 154, 155, 210 154, 156, 175 153, 156, 160 30, 155, 156, 160 15, 18, 22, 79, 88, 105, 109, 110, 119, 120, 141, 146, 152, 154–6, 161, 182, 186, 187, 192, 202 15, 51, 98, 100, 101, 105, 129, 142, 146, 149, 173, 179, 182– 4, 186, 215, 216, 218 185, 210 46, 148, 153, 175, 185, 216 105, 110, 129, 142, 146, 185, 186

241 12.3

12.4-6 12.4-5 12.4

12.5 12.6

12.7-8 12.7 12.8 12.9

12.10-11 12.10

12.11

12.12-19 12.12 12.13 12.14-16 12.14-15 12.16 12.17-18 12.17 12.18-19

79, 107, 108, 110, 141–3, 182, 183, 185–7, 191, 211, 217 187 22, 48 51, 53, 100, 107, 188, 210, 217 51, 188, 190 22, 48, 51–4, 102, 148, 188 189 180, 183, 189–91 189, 191 105, 151, 153, 154, 156, 185, 210, 216 119, 154, 156 118, 122, 154–6, 204 119, 122, 153, 154, 163, 164 88, 105 154, 156 41, 88, 92, 151, 165 46 148 55, 58, 199, 207 119, 154, 156, 185 105, 156, 216 119

242 John (cont.) 12.18 12.19 12.20 12.23 12.25 12.26 12.27-28 12.27 12.31-33 12.31-32 12.31 12.32-33 12.32 12.33 12.34-36 12.34 12.36-37 12.37-43 12.37-40 12.37 12.38-40 12.38 12.42-43 12.42

12.43 12.44-50 12.47 12.48-50 12.48 12.49-50 12.49 13–16 13 13.1

Index of References 13.2 156 119, 122, 154–6 165 27 47 146 82 27, 114 202 37, 52 21, 33, 42, 48, 201 211 55 55, 100, 107, 149 34 34, 40, 42 112 148 71 30, 119, 122, 124 148 46, 55, 125 112, 123 115–19, 122, 155, 156, 164, 165, 177 118, 148 3, 123, 127 35, 41, 47 205 9, 35, 202 1, 124 28, 41, 113 71 21, 22, 35, 146, 187 27, 187

13.3-10 13.10-11 13.10 13.11 13.13-14 13.13 13.15 13.16 13.18-19 13.18

13.19 13.21-22 13.21 13.23-25 13.23-24 13.23 13.24 13.25-26 13.25 13.26-30 13.27 13.28-29 13.28 13.29 13.30 13.31 13.33 13.34-35 13.34 13.35 13.36-38 13.37 13.38 14 14.1

48, 101, 188, 201, 210 187 48 148 101, 148, 149, 210 142 146 212 55, 142, 146 49, 50 10, 45–50, 54, 55, 148, 210 48, 124 48 27, 101, 114, 210 148, 211, 212, 215 55 19, 55, 58, 107, 200 212 58 107 210 48, 188 148 55 189 22, 27, 189, 201 27 71, 148, 160, 163 28 71, 73 73 199 73 73 22 71

14.3 14.4 14.5-11 14.5 14.6 14.7 14.9 14.10 14.12 14.13-14 14.15 14.16 14.17 14.18 14.21 14.22 14.23 14.24 14.26

14.27 14.28 14.29 14.30 14.31 15–17 15 15.7 15.10 15.11 15.12-13 15.12 15.13-14 15.13 15.15 15.16 15.17 15.18–16.4 15.18–16.1 15.18-19

71 22 199 199 38, 40, 41, 198 199 28, 41 3, 124, 127 29 72, 86, 90 55, 87 62, 71 71, 197, 198 71, 198 55 174, 199 55 3, 41, 124, 127 19, 55, 58, 62, 71, 198, 207 71 31 48, 124 21, 22 22, 28, 48 195 205 72, 86 28, 55, 87 71 186, 196 71, 87 28 60, 73, 76, 173 142 49, 72, 86, 90 87 71 165 77

Index of References 15.18 15.19 15.20 15.22 15.24 15.25

15.26

15.27 16 16.1 16.2

16.4 16.7-15 16.7 16.11 16.12-15 16.12-13 16.12 16.13 16.16-20 16.16-18 16.19 16.20 16.22 16.23-26 16.23-24 16.23 16.24 16.26 16.32 16.33 17 17.1 17.2

196, 198 49, 165 55, 58, 142 201 201 46, 55, 124, 125, 163 19, 58, 62, 71, 198, 207 66 205 198 79, 115, 116, 122, 165, 195, 196 124, 196, 198 71 62, 198 21 19, 58, 198, 207 55 198 198 199 148 148 71 71 86 85, 86, 90, 193 72 71, 72 86 27, 216 71, 201 23, 49, 82, 197, 202 27, 93 41, 48, 49, 113

17.3 17.4 17.5 17.6 17.7-8 17.7 17.8 17.9 17.11-12 17.11 17.12

17.14 17.15 17.16 17.18 17.20-21 17.21 17.22 17.24 17.25 18 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.5 18.8 18.9

18.10-11 18.12

18.13-14

113, 127 49 26, 41 45, 49, 165 3, 127 49 49 49 45 47, 49 10, 23, 24, 45–7, 4956, 107, 188, 210, 211 49, 77, 165 9, 21, 47, 49, 202 165 112, 165 197 28 28, 49 26, 41, 49 28 22, 160–2, 210, 212 148 101, 210 155, 160, 203, 210 101, 210 47 10, 46, 47, 49, 54–6, 107 199 103, 117, 155, 160, 161, 163 99, 103, 104, 106, 148

243 18.13

18.14

18.15-16 18.15 18.16 18.17-18 18.17 18.18 18.20 18.22 18.24 18.25-27 18.28–19.16 18.28 18.30 18.31 18.32

18.33 18.35

18.36

18.37 18.38-40 18.38 18.39 18.40 18.45-46 19

99, 103, 111, 210, 211 42, 98– 104, 107, 109, 154– 7, 161, 163, 210 211, 215 148, 200, 211, 212 148, 212 199 211, 212 149, 160 163 42, 160 107, 110 199 37, 162 102, 107, 110, 149 42, 101 161 46, 55, 100, 107, 211 37, 151 7, 101, 151, 154, 160, 165 37, 41, 160, 161, 163, 165 37, 41, 151 161, 163 37, 38, 163 151 98, 117, 148 41 161, 162, 187, 190, 191, 209, 213

244 John (cont.) 19.3 19.5 19.6 19.7

19.8 19.9 19.10 19.11 19.12-16 19.12 19.14-15 19.14 19.15 19.17-30 19.17 19.19 19.20-21 19.20 19.21

19.23 19.24 19.26-27 19.27 19.28 19.31 19.35 19.36-37 19.36 19.37 19.38-42 19.38-40 19.38 19.39-40

Index of References 19.39 151 37, 40 38, 160, 203 41, 42, 114, 117, 124, 161 148 37 37 101, 210 38 117, 151, 161 161 151 151, 162, 203 114 148 151 162 120, 162 120, 151, 162, 163, 203 149 46, 55, 148, 149 58, 200, 211 216 27, 46, 114, 148 151 70 148 46, 55 46, 198 209 118 117, 161, 163, 209 180, 190

19.40

19.42 20 20.1 20.2-10 20.2 20.3-10 20.4 20.5-7 20.5 20.6 20.8-9 20.8 20.9 20.10 20.11 20.14 20.16 20.17 20.19 20.22 20.24-25 20.25-29 20.28 20.29 20.30-31 20.31

21.1 21.7 21.9 21.11-17 21.11 21.12 21.14 21.17

107, 118, 148, 173, 187, 209 149, 151, 163, 189, 209, 213 163, 209 18, 199, 213, 215 213 211 215 215, 218 148, 215 213, 216 215 215 55, 58 46, 148, 215, 216 46, 56, 216 215, 216 215 148 148 29, 100 117, 161, 163 197 199 215 1, 41, 114 32, 200, 215 58, 202 26, 32, 35, 36, 39, 41, 70, 84, 88 107, 150 58, 211 107 199 107 148 216 199

21.19 21.20-23 21.20 21.24 26.8 Acts 1.7 1.16-20 2.4 4.6 6 6.1-7

149 211 107, 148 69, 70 22

6.1-2 6.2 6.4 7.34 9.4 10.31 17.3 19.22 20.9 20.28 22.3 22.7 26.14

197 48 197 111 134 131, 134, 140 140 134, 139 140 90 139 90 216 139 132 137 133 139 139

Romans 8.31-32

61

1 Corinthians 1.23 1.24 11.16 15.3 15.11

66 4 66, 138 66 66

2 Corinthians 5.19 61, 76 6.2 90 Galatians 1.4 2.20 4.4

61 61, 76 61

Index of References Ephesians 5.2

76

Philippians 2.6-7

5

Colossians 2.9

5

2 Thessalonians 2.3-12 201 2.3 23, 48, 201 2.8-9 24 1 Timothy 1.15 2.4 2.5-6 3.16

61, 76 61 76 61

Titus 2.11

61

Hebrews 1.1-4 5.7 James 1.5-6 1.6 4.2-3 1 John 1.1-4 1.1-3 1.1 1.2 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.8-10 1.9 1.10 1.14 1.16

5 90

86 87 86

89 66 62, 65, 69, 89 71 65 62, 66 68 67 67 62 69 69

2.1 2.2 2.4-6 2.5 2.7-8 2.7 2.8 2.9-11 2.12-14 2.14 2.15-17 2.19 2.20-21 2.22-24 2.24 2.26-27 2.29 3.1 3.4 3.5-8 3.5 3.6-8 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.11-18 3.11 3.12-15 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.16-18 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19-20 3.21-23 3.21 3.22-23 3.22 3.23 3.24 4.2-3 4.8

62 67, 72, 73, 76 68 62 69 62, 66, 89 66 68 66 62 68 64 66 64 89 66 67, 68 67 67 67 67, 68, 72, 73, 76 67 67, 68 68 68 67 64 68 68 68 77 63, 64, 68 68, 196 68, 73, 76 68 62, 68 84 86 66, 84, 87 87 85 85, 86 87 64 68

245 4.9-10 4.9 4.10 4.12 4.14 4.16 4.20 5 5.10-15 5.10 5.11 5.13-20 5.13-16 5.13 5.14-16 5.14-15 5.14 5.15 5.16-17 5.16 5.18

76 69 67 63 73, 76 69 63, 68 89 83 83 66 83 193 66, 83, 85, 86 85, 86 89, 90 84, 85, 87 84 67, 84 85, 86 67

3 John 12

70

Revelation 2.9 3.9

8, 167 8, 167

APOCRYPHA Wisdom of Solomon 7.22 126 9.1-2 126 Ecclesiasticus 24.3 126 24.23 126 Baruch 4.1

126

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA Letter of Aristeas 305 166

246

Index of References

Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 20.8 133

CD 6.15 13.14

23 23

Testament of Job 11.1-3 139

MISHNAH Aboth 1.4

133

DEAD SEA SCROLLS 1QS 4.12 23 9.17 23 9.22 23

MIDRASH Exodus Rabbah 26.1 132

CLASSICAL AND ANCIENT CHRISTIAN AUTHORS Ambrose Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam 85–86 130 Philo On the Migration of Abraham 130 126

INDEX OF AUTHORS Alexander, L. 110, 129, 130, 132–4 Allison, D. C. 86, 87 Anderson, P. N. 97, 124, 207, 218 Ashton, J. 2, 4, 5, 11, 20, 79, 88, 115, 126, 150, 151, 165, 200–203 Barclay, J. M. G. 115, 167 Barrett, C. K. 16, 23, 24, 35, 38, 39, 45, 51, 61, 70, 79–81, 83, 86, 97, 108, 126, 174, 191, 198 Barton, S. C. 97 Bauckham, R. 16, 94, 97, 103, 105, 107, 108, 111, 112 Beasley-Murray, G. R. 61, 70, 79, 81, 83, 88 Beernaert, M. P. 79, 182 Bendemann, R. von 131 Bernard, J. H. 21, 28, 61, 80, 81, 145 Beutler, J. 104 Bieberstein, S. 130, 134 Bieringer, R. 116, 117, 125, 150, 162 Birdsall, J. N. 47 Blanc, C. 169 Boer, M. C. de 116, 123 Boismard, M.-E. 118, 121, 124 Bond, H. K. 104 Bonnard, P. 62 Borgen, P. 3, 54, 60, 126 Bovon, F. 130, 132 Bretschneider, C. G. 135 Brooke, A. E. 63 Brooke, G. J. 126 Brown, R. E. 9, 13, 15, 29, 31, 37, 38, 47, 51, 53, 55, 58, 62, 63, 65, 66, 75, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 91, 120, 123–5, 198 Brownlee, W. H. 169 Brutscheck, J. 130 Bultmann, R. 10, 11, 23, 28, 32, 33, 40, 41, 45, 80, 81, 83, 113, 114, 145, 163 Burge, G. M. 95 Busse, U. 128, 130, 142 Byron, B. F. 170, 171

Carrez, M. 66 Carson, D. A. 81, 169 Carter, W. 17, 131, 133 Casey, M. 5, 151, 156, 162, 163, 165, 166 Chapman, J. 70 Cohen, S. J. D. 151 Collins, J. N. 129, 135, 138, 139 Conway, C. M. 143–5 Cosgrove, C. H. 65 Crossan, J. D. 87 Cullmann, O. 29 Culpepper, R. A. 11, 59, 70, 81, 102, 105, 106, 112, 123, 162, 170 Danker, F. W. 6, 151 Dauer, A. 129 Davey, J. E. 29, 81 Davies, M. 85, 106 Davies, W. D. 86, 87 Denaux, A. 97, 130 Derrett, J. D. M. 132, 139, 140 Devillers, L. 166 Dodd, C. H. 14, 15, 28, 32, 36, 51, 60, 81, 86, 87, 90, 91, 125, 126, 179–83, 185, 186, 189, 190, 203 Dunn, J. D. G. 27, 39, 117, 120, 121, 125, 160, 166 Earl, D. S. 169 Edwards, R. B. 4–6, 20, 125 Ellingworth, P. 167 Elliott, J. H. 137 Elliott, J. K. 88 Ellis, P. F. 69, 70 Esler, P. F. 7, 94, 95, 111, 144, 147, 164, 186, 187, 191, 204, 217 Fitzmyer, J. 130, 132, 137, 140 Fortna, R. T. 59, 60 Freed, E. D. 46, 50, 55, 56 Frey, J. 11, 195, 201 Freyne, S. 123, 126, 165 Fuller, R. H. 81

248

Index of Authors

Gerhardsson, B. 133 Giblin, C. H. 194 Goldsmith, D. 76, 87 Goulder, M. D. 61 Grayston, K. 62, 79, 83, 86, 87 Gutbrot, W. 165 Haenchen, E. 83, 128 Hamerton-Kelly, R. G. 41 Hanson, A. T. 3, 26, 27, 34, 40, 78, 92 Harnack, A. 27 Hartin, P. J. 86 Harvey, G. 151, 166 Hengel, M. 60, 65 Hentschel, A. 134 Hill, C. E. 205 Holloway, P. 198 Holtzmann, H. J. 80 Hooker, M. D. 32, 37 Hoskyns, E. C. 28, 45, 80, 91 Houlden, J. L. 66 Howard, W. F. 60 Hurtado, L. 121 Jonas, D. 136, 139 Jonge, H. J. de 151 Käsemann, E. 27 Keener, C. S. 4, 5 Kelly, J. N. D. 2, 5 Kieffer, R. 97 Kipling, J. R. 206 Knox, J. 26, 27 Koet, B. J. 128, 129, 131, 134, 137, 138 Köstenberger, A. 169 Lagrange, M.-J. 45, 80, 81 Lamb, D. A. 17 Lambrecht, J. 167 Lee, D. A. 79 Leonhard-Balzer, J. 12 Levine, A.-J. 129 Lieu, J. M. 14, 64, 65, 67, 73, 75, 115, 116, 124, 164 Lincoln, A. T. 5, 16, 116, 122, 142, 193, 196, 199, 202 Lindars, B. 3, 23, 28, 31, 35, 47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 60, 61, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85–7, 91, 97, 104, 114, 144, 149, 154, 195, 197, 200, 202, 203

Loader, W. 85, 86 Loisy, A. 80 Longenecker, B. W. 112, 123 Lowe, M. 6, 33, 151 MacDonald, N. 113 MacGregor, G. H. C. 45 Malina, B. J. 116, 151 Manson, T. W. 26, 29 Marshall, I. H. 84, 85 Martyn, J. L. 11, 115, 116, 118, 120, 122, 124, 125 Mason, S. 7 Matson, M. A. 219 McGrath, J. F. 125 Meeks, W. 17, 120, 121, 123, 124, 166 Menken, M. J. J. 14, 18, 120–4, 164, 184, 214 Metzger, B. M. 131, 143, 184 Minear, P. S. 69, 137 Moberly, R. W. L. 113 Moloney, F. J. 37, 108, 118 Smith, D. M. 16, 97, 111, 120, 121 Moore, G. F. 90 Moore, S. D. 11 Morgenthaler, R. 63 Motyer, S. 116, 117, 151 Neirynck, F. 16, 61, 97, 142 Neuberth, R. 140 Neusner, J. 124, 125 Noel, F. 130, 131 North, J. L. 140, 151, 186, 199 North, W. E. S. 5, 10, 13, 15, 19, 94, 98, 101, 105–7, 113, 117–19, 128, 129, 142–4, 148, 153, 165, 168, 173, 174, 179, 182, 184, 187, 192–4, 196, 202, 207 Painter, J. 157 Pancaro, S. 123, 124, 126 Parker, P. 168, 169 Parsenios, G. L. 198 Perkins, P. 116 Petersen, N. R. 120, 121, 125 Phillips, P. M. 3, 5 Piper, O. A. 69 Piper, R. A. 144, 147, 186, 187, 191, 204, 217 Pollard, T. E. 39

Index of Authors Pollefeyt, D. 116, 125, 162 Pryor, J. W. 160 Quast, K. 58 Rajak, T. 167 Reid, B. E. 129, 130, 140 Reim, G. 45, 47 Reinhartz, A. 6, 7, 124, 164 Rensberger, D. 87, 123 Riesner, R. 169 Robinson, J. A. T. 27, 40 Rohrbaugh, L. 116, 151 Ruckstuhl, E. 59, 60, 74 Sabbe, M. 187, 188, 191 Sanders, J. N. 45, 81, 83, 86, 91 Schlatter, A. 45, 50 Schleiermacher, F. 130 Schnackenburg, R. 27, 45, 50, 61, 81, 84, 86, 90, 91 Schneiders, S. M. 145 Schotroff, L. 136 Schüssler Fiorenza, E. 129 Scott, M. 4, 118 Seim, T. K. 129, 136 Sevenster, G. 27 Sevrin, J.-M. 118 Sheridan, R. 7 Sidebottom, E. M. 27, 29 Sim, D. C. 94, 112

249

Smalley, S. S. 72, 84, 87 Sproston, W. 21, 25, 36, 45, 48, 57, 78 Stibbe, M. W. G. 212 Strecker, G. 75 Stuckenbruck, L. T. 5, 12, 202 Taeger, J.-W. 66 Tanzer, S. J. 123 Thatcher, T. 11 Thimmes, P. 129 Trebilco, P. 164 Van Belle, G. 8, 79, 148, 170, 172, 174, 177, 185, 199 Van der Loos, H. 81 Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, F. 116, 125, 162 Vos, D. de 135 Wahlde, U. C. von 7, 33, 150, 156, 157 Watt, J. G. van der 199 Wead, D. W. 32 Westcott, B. F. 28, 63 Whitacre, R. A. 64 Wilcox, M. 49, 54, 60, 78, 92 Wiles, M. 5 Williams, M. H. 167 Willker, W. 169 Witherington III, B. 150, 170 Zumstein, J. 14, 20