Engaging with C. H. Dodd on the Gospel of John : Sixty Years of Tradition and Interpretation 9781107290303, 9781107035669

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ENGAGING WITH C. H. DODD ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

C. H. Dodd’s Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, published in 1963, marked a milestone in New Testament research and has become a standard resource for the study of John. Historically, biblical scholars have concentrated on the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. However, Dodd’s book encouraged scholars to take John seriously as a source for the life of Jesus. This volume both reflects upon and looks beyond Dodd’s writings to address the implications, limitations and potential of his groundbreaking research and its programmatic approach to charting a course for future research on the Gospel of John. Leading biblical scholars demonstrate the recent surge of interest in John’s distinctive witness to Jesus, and also in Dodd’s work as the harbinger of advancements in the study of the Fourth Gospel. This volume will be invaluable to all those studying the New Testament, Johannine theology and the history of the early Church. t o m t h a t c h e r is Professor of Biblical Studies at Cincinnati Christian University. His books include Jesus in Johannine Tradition (2000), Why John Wrote a Gospel (2006), What We Have Heard from the Beginning (2007), and John, Jesus, and the Renewal of Israel (with Richard Horsley, 2013). ca tri n h . w i llia ms is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She is the author of I am He: The Interpretation of ’Anî Hû’ in Jewish and Early Christian Literature (2000), and co-editor of John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic (with Christopher Rowland, 2013).

ENGAGING WITH C. H. DODD ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN Sixty Years of Tradition and Interpretation

edi t ed by TOM THATCHER AND CATRIN H. WILLIAMS

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107035669 © Cambridge University Press, 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United Kingdom by CPI Group Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data Engaging with C.H. Dodd on the Gospel of John : sixty years of tradition and interpretation / edited by Tom Thatcher and Catrin H. Williams. pages cm isbn 978-1-107-03566-9 1. Dodd, C. H. (Charles Harold), 1884–1973. 2. New Testament scholars–England. 3. Bible. John–Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Thatcher, Tom, 1967– editor of compilation. bs2351.d6e54 2013 226.50 06092–dc23 2013003648 isbn 978-1-107-03566-9 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Epigraph

[W]hatever theologians may say, it is the plain duty of the historian to make use of every possible source of information in the effort to learn the facts about an historical episode which on any showing was a significant and influential one. [In the case before us,] it is not axiomatic that the Synoptic account is better based than the Johannine. [Indeed,] to assume that the Synoptic picture is exhaustive or exclusive would be to beg the very question we are discussing. [For] even the boldest flights of Johannine theology have a firm starting point in the tradition . . . [and] where John is to all appearance composing most freely, there is, sometimes at least, an older tradition behind him. But is there such a thing as an historical tradition in the gospels at all? Quotations from C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel: 2, 139 n. 2, 87, 161, 334, 1.

Contents

List of contributors 1

page ix

The semeiotics of history: C. H. Dodd on the origins and character of the Fourth Gospel

1

Tom Thatcher

part i: approaching the problem: reflections on dodd’s context and method 2 C. H. Dodd as a precursor to narrative criticism

31

R. Alan Culpepper

3

Progress and paradox: C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann on history, the Jesus tradition, and the Fourth Gospel

49

Craig R. Koester

4 Symbolism in John’s Gospel: an evaluation of Dodd’s contribution

66

Jan van der Watt

5

C. H. Dodd on John 13:16 (and 15:20): St John’s knowledge of Matthew revisited

86

Gilbert Van Belle and David R. M. Godecharle

6

John and the rabbis revisited

107

Catrin H. Williams

7 Characters who count: the case of Nicodemus Jaime Clark-Soles

vii

126

Contents

viii

part ii: history and tradition in the fourth gospel 8 C. H. Dodd, the historical Jesus, and realized eschatology

149

Urban C. von Wahlde

9 Historical tradition(s) and/or Johannine redaction? A reflection on the threefold repetition of Pilate’s statement ‘I find no guilt in him’ (John 18:38b; 19:4, 6)

163

Hellen Mardaga

10 Incidents dispersed in the Synoptics and cohering in John: Dodd, Brown, and Johannine historicity

176

Paul N. Anderson

11

Reflections on a footnote

203

John Ashton

12

The anointing in John 12:1–8: a tale of two hypotheses

216

Wendy E. S. North

13

Eucharist and Passover: the two ‘loci’ of the liturgical commemoration of the Last Supper in the early church

231

Michael Theobald

part iii: future directions 14 The Fourth Gospel and the founder of Christianity: the place of historical tradition in the work of C. H. Dodd

257

John Painter

Index

285

Contributors

paul n. anderson is Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox University, Newberg, Oregon. john ashton is Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College and was formerly Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Oxford. jaime clark-soles is Associate Professor of New Testament at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. r. alan culpepper is Dean of the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, Atlanta. david r. m. godecharle is a doctoral student in New Testament Studies at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology. craig r. koester is Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, St Paul, Minnesota. hellen mardaga is Assistant Professor of New Testament at the Catholic University of America, Washington. wendy e. s. north is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Durham, having previously taught at the University of Hull. john painter is Professor of Theology at St Mark’s School of Theology, Charles Stuart University, Canberra. tom thatcher is Professor of Biblical Studies at Cincinnati Christian University. michael theobald is Professor of New Testament at the Catholic Theological Faculty, University of Tübingen. gilbert van belle is Professor Ordinarius of New Testament at the Catholic University of Leuven. ix

x

List of contributors

urban c. von wahlde is Professor of New Testament at Loyola University of Chicago. jan van der watt is Professor of Source Texts of Judaism and Christianity at Radboud University of Nijmegen. catrin h. williams is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

chapter 1

The semeiotics of history: C. H. Dodd on the origins and character of the Fourth Gospel Tom Thatcher

In 1963, Cambridge University Press released C. H. Dodd’s Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (HTFG – cited in this chapter as ‘1963: page number’), still today the definitive study of the origins and character of the Johannine Jesus tradition. Appearing at a time when Jesus scholars viewed John’s account as a Christological treatise whose imaginative claims lay outside the scope of their discipline, Dodd’s conclusions were largely left to the interests of Johannine specialists. Fifty years later, however, the core concerns of Dodd’s book have migrated from the margins toward the mainstream, as evident from the surging wave of interest in the potential value of the Fourth Gospel as a source for the historical Jesus. The present collection of essays will engage Dodd as a dialogue partner to reflect on the current state of research into the origins and character of the Gospel of John and its distinctive witness to the Jesus of history, with particular attention to methodological and conceptual shifts over the past half century and to avenues of inquiry that will likely characterize the next several decades of research. This introductory chapter will contextualize the discussion to follow by reviewing key themes in Dodd’s argument, particularly those points where his research anticipated and/or illuminates current debate. Still today, HTFG is stunning for the breadth and depth of its analysis, and both this volume and its 1953 precursor, Dodd’s The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (IFG – cited in this chapter as ‘1953: page number’), would arguably rank among the dozen most significant studies of the Johannine literature produced in the twentieth century.1 Viewed from the hindsight of a half century of subsequent research, however, two obvious 1

Much of the content of HTFG was first elaborated in Dodd’s ‘Sarum Lectures’ at Oxford in 1954–5, two years after the release of IFG, and Dodd specifically describes HTFG as ‘an expansion of the Appendix to that book’ (1963: vii). These two volumes, then, should be read side by side, with IFG outlining the broader research programme within which HTFG’s narrower interests may be located.

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lacunae in Dodd’s treatment are particularly striking. First, in contrast to the tastes of more recent biblical scholarship, both IFG and HTFG lack a methodological introduction – one might call Dodd an ‘applied theorist’ in the sense that he rations out his research paradigm while explaining certain specific conclusions, waving his finger toward a global theory but never fixing the reader’s gaze directly upon it. The present chapter will fill this void by offering detailed outlines of Dodd’s model for understanding the character and development of the Johannine tradition and of his method for reconstructing that tradition from the Fourth Gospel. Secondly, and more significantly, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel is a book that does not quite live up to its title – or, perhaps better, that achieves its ultimate objective only in a very qualified sense. At first glance, one has the impression that Dodd’s study will be primarily concerned with the relationship between the Gospel of John and the Jesus of history, and that he will seek to trace elements of the Johannine tradition to their points of origin in the actual past – either the actual past of Jesus’ life, or the actual past of the Johannine Christians who told stories about him. In point of fact, however, Dodd very rarely arrives at any definite conclusion regarding the authenticity of specific elements of John’s presentation, and nowhere offers a summary overview of the Fourth Gospel’s distinctive contribution to the Jesus database. This striking ambivalence has substantially reduced the impact of Dodd’s work on subsequent Jesus research and, ironically, has tended to confirm the general consensus that the Fourth Gospel is not useful as a source for Jesus. As will be seen, the two gaps noted above are closely related, in as much as Dodd’s inability to draw firm historical conclusions is a function of his model of, and method for analysing, the Johannine tradition. While Dodd’s personal assessment of the Fourth Gospel’s historicity is clearly positive, and while he categorically rejects any notion that the Synoptics should be privileged over the Fourth Gospel as sources for Jesus, his research paradigm inherently magnifies the distance between Jesus, the tradents of the Jesus tradition, and the Fourth Evangelist to such an extent that it is ultimately impossible to say what the Gospel of John might tell us about the Jesus of history. In this respect, while HTFG anticipated the recent surge of interest in the Fourth Gospel’s potential historical value, Dodd’s work remains an effective case study in the limits of historical criticism and a convenient illustration of the obstacles that future research on John and Jesus must overcome. The discussion in this chapter will proceed in three steps, reflecting both the interests of the present volume and the innate logic of Dodd’s

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argument in IFG and HTFG. First, I will offer a detailed reconstruction of the origins and evolution of the Johannine Jesus tradition, as Dodd conceives it. As will be seen, Dodd suggests that the Fourth Gospel emerged from a nebulous mass of memories that gradually evolved into fixed forms and sequences before being adapted by the Fourth Evangelist for integration into a running narrative of Jesus’ career. Dodd’s conceptions of the social locations of the Fourth Evangelist and his audience and of the narrative dynamics of the Fourth Gospel are important elements of this paradigm, in as much as the current text of the Fourth Gospel reflects John’s systematic attempt to translate Christian collective memory into terms and themes that would be comprehensible to his implied reader. Secondly, I will outline Dodd’s research method, the means by which he moves backward from the text of the Fourth Gospel to and through the Johannine tradition. While neither IFG nor HTFG includes a sustained methodological discussion, a close reading of both books exposes a persistent set of questions and criteria that guide Dodd’s analysis of specific units and sequences in the Fourth Gospel. Thirdly and finally, I will briefly review Dodd’s assessment of the historical value of the Fourth Gospel’s presentation. As will be seen, Dodd’s ambivalence on this point is a natural, and perhaps inevitable, accident of inherent tensions in his research model. This chapter will close with a brief overview of the structure and scope of the remainder of the present volume.

Jesus to John: Dodd’s model of oral tradition HTFG (1963) is grounded in the premise that the canonical Gospels are built on ‘a living tradition’ which was both vital to, and shaped by, ‘the conditions, interests and needs of various groups within the [Christian] community at different times’ (1963: 7). While Dodd never explicitly outlines the history of this tradition or its precise characteristics, his overall discussion suggests that the oral Jesus material underwent two major stages of development before its incorporation into the written Gospels that are available today. In Stage 1, the Johannine tradition existed as a body of framed, fluid memories of Jesus – ‘memories’ in the sense that the traditional material originated in the personal recollections of Jesus’ associates; ‘fluid’ in the sense that these memories were unfixed and thus subject to normal forces of mnemonic decay, with porous boundaries between discrete recollections and regular exchange of details and settings; ‘framed’ in the sense that even the earliest Christian preaching was heavily coloured by terms and themes drawn from the Jewish Scriptures. In Stage 2 of the tradition, this amorphous mass of memory was gradually

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Tom Thatcher Table 1.1 The evolution of the Johannine Jesus tradition

Stage 1: A mass of plastic and porous memories of Jesus emerging from the recollections of a group of Judean disciples. These Jewish Christians framed Jesus’ words and deeds in terms drawn from the Old Testament. Stage 1 traditional materials did not bear fixed forms, and details from discrete episodes often migrated from one story to another in memory and performance. Stage 2: In service of preaching, teaching, and evangelism, Stage 1 traditional materials were gradually hammered into fixed forms and rudimentary sequences. Stage 2 units were characterized by distinct structural outlines that included clear opening and closing conventions. Allegorizing tendencies were minimal. Stage 3: The Fourth Evangelist, seeking to appeal to a late-first century Hellenistic audience, organized traditional units into a narrative Gospel with distinctly evangelistic purposes. In the process, John imposed Hellenistic religious ideals on the more primitive material and adjusted individual oral units to reflect his own literary style and theological concerns, thus producing the Fourth Gospel’s distinctive ‘signs’ and discourses.

hammered into fixed forms and sequences in service of the Church’s need for a relatively stable body of gospel material to inform its preaching and teaching. Finally, John’s adaptation of available oral tradition in service of his own literary and theological interests may be viewed as a third and final stage in the traditioning process.2 A brief review of each of these three stages will be helpful here (see also Table 1.1), in as much as each has left a significant imprint on the shape and substance of the Fourth Gospel. The primary task of the historical criticism of the gospels is the recovery of this tradition in its unity and variety, as a function of the continuing life of the Church. [1963: 7]

Stage 1: framed, fluid memory In Dodd’s view, the Johannine tradition originated in the personal memories of associates of the historical Jesus. Of course, the same could be said of the traditions that underlie Matthew, Mark, and Luke, a fact which 2

Dodd acknowledges the possibility that some of this traditional material may have come to John in the form of written notes but essentially treats these as aides-mémoire for oral recall. In Dodd’s model, the production of such documents does not represent a distinctive stage in the evolution of the Johannine tradition (1963: 424).

The semeiotics of history

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raises the obvious question of why the Johannine and Synoptic presentations are so dramatically different, not only in tone but also in raw content. Dodd resolves this dilemma by positing that the Johannine tradition emerged from Judean disciples who may have been associated with ‘priestly circles’ in Jerusalem (1963: 244–5, 426). Necessarily, then, John’s base tradition would reflect ‘a geographically southern standpoint’ and ‘a psychologically metropolitan outlook’ quite in contrast to that of Mark’s tradition, which was apparently grounded in the witness of the Twelve, who were, of course, rural Galileans (quotations from 1963: 263; cf. 245–6). Particularly significant among this group of Judean witnesses was the mysterious figure whom John calls ‘the disciple Jesus loved’, an unknown individual whose unique relationship with Christ made him ‘the principal guarantor’ of the Johannine tradition (1963: 128; cf. 128 n. 2, 133–4, 134–5 n. 1, 302, 338, 395, 401 n. 2, 428 n. 2, 431, 452). Of course, this Beloved Disciple and his Judean associates communicated their memories of Jesus in Aramaic (1963: 64, 306–9, 341 n. 1, 343, 346, 348, 350 n. 1, 383, 424–5) and were acutely aware of the topography and the religious and political climates of pre-70 ce Roman Palestine (1963: 150–1, 180, 244–5, 263, 309–10). The preaching of these individuals was, predictably, directed toward their Jewish co-religionists in the Palestinian synagogue, so that their memories of Jesus were shaped in dialogue with rabbinic reasoning and were not substantially engaged with the concerns of the Pauline Gentile mission (1963: 412–13, 425–6). The basic tradition, therefore, on which the evangelist is working was shaped (it appears) in a Jewish–Christian environment still in touch with the synagogue, in Palestine, at a relatively early date, at any rate before the rebellion of A.D. 66. [1963: 426]

As these Judean disciples, and their own disciples and converts, began to publish their recollections orally, a ‘tradition’ concerning Jesus’ activities and teachings gradually emerged. Consistent with the conclusions of form criticism, Dodd characterized this emergent tradition as plastic and porous. Stage 1 memories of Jesus were essentially episodic, a mass of recollections of striking events that were not conceived or communicated as elements of an overarching story of Christ’s career and thus were not tied to specific contexts (1963: 172–3). Because the boundaries of these individual units were not fixed, details could easily wander from one event to another, and memorable sayings might attach themselves to a variety of situations (1963: 55–6, 104 n. 1, 345 n. 1). In more extreme instances, memory might attribute a saying of John the Baptist to Jesus or vice versa

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(1963: 331), and the content of a pericope might be spontaneously recast into different genres during live performances of the material (see e.g. 1963: 363–4). Yet even at Stage 1, certain organizing principles had begun to influence the shape of oral units. Dodd frequently insists that citations of, or allusions to, testimonia from the Jewish Scriptures were an essential characteristic of the primitive tradition, serving as ‘the firm scaffolding’ on which many oral pericopae were built (1963: 31, cf. 49). The appropriation of language and motifs from these sacred texts tied Jesus’ activities to the great tradition of Judaism, thus providing the essential theological rationale for Christian claims about the significance of Christ’s life and death. The interest which certain facts acquired from their association with specific prophecies fixed these facts in the corporate memory of the Church, and determined their place in the tradition. [1963: 49]

Stage 2: fixed forms and sequences Over time, as the early Christians repeated stories about, and sayings of, Jesus in typical life settings – preaching, the instruction of catechumens, evangelism, and so forth – the fluid memories of Stage 1 began to take a more definite shape. Dodd does not define this traditioning process precisely, but the metaphors he uses to describe it – ‘crystallization’ and ‘digestion’ – suggest an organic process through which individual oral units became more fixed and more reflective of the growing institutional needs of the Church (1963: 249–50, 292). The resultant Stage 2 tradition included both distinct episodes and stock transitional scenes, the latter of which could be utilized in live performance to string specific sayings and stories together into rudimentary sequences, some of which became relatively fixed. It will be helpful here briefly to survey HTFG’s characterization of the fixed forms and sequences at Stage 2 of the Jesus tradition, in as much as Dodd views these as the primary database for the composition of the Gospels. In Dodd’s conception, the gradual digestion of Stage 1 oral materials led to certain structural changes in traditional memories of Jesus. Most notably, Stage 2 saw the emergence of fixed pericopae characterized by narrative wholeness and evidencing distinctive generic features appropriate to the contexts in which the material was typically recited. Stage 2 units evidenced ‘wholeness’ in the sense that they did not assume the audience’s knowledge of any preceding or subsequent events, and thus included clear opening and closing statements that provided settings and resolutions for

The semeiotics of history

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the action (see e.g. 1963: 152–4, 160–73, 311). Stage 2 traditional units also demonstrated a dramatic ‘unity of time and place’ in the sense that they did not shift the temporal or geographical focalization of the story toward the location of the reader, a move that Dodd associates with the allegorizing tendencies typical of the evangelists’ literary interests (1963: 160; see e.g. 160–1). Finally, Stage 2 saw the evolution of the oral genres that have been widely documented by form critics. While John clearly played more loosely with these traditional outlines than, say, Mark or Luke, Dodd nevertheless regularly finds traces of standard form-critical patterns beneath the Fourth Gospel’s stylized presentation and cites these as proof that John is adapting traditional material (see e.g. 1963: 162–4, 174–6, 181–3, 188–95, 315–16, 366–87). As noted above, in Stage 2 of the tradition some self-contained, structured pericopae were combined into rudimentary narrative and dialogue sequences that became relatively fixed. The former (narrative sequences) connected several distinct episodes in a running string, while the latter (dialogues) gathered up multiple traditional sayings in the context of a specific exchange (1963: 322–7, 389–90).3 The most significant and sustained traditional narrative sequences, as evident from parallels in all four canonical Gospels, were the miraculous feeding in Galilee (see 1963: 221–2) and the passion, the latter of which was clearly ‘framed in tradition as an independent whole’ (1963: 28; cf. 21–2). While this process did not produce a running story of Jesus’ life, Stage 2 did see preliminary attempts to fix the meaning of individual incidents and teachings through integration into larger narrative contexts.

Tradition to Gospel: John’s compositional strategies In Dodd’s model, Stage 3 in the evolution of the Johannine tradition is represented by the work of the Fourth Evangelist himself. Some seven decades after Jesus’ death, John gathered up independent oral units and rudimentary traditional sequences and shaped them into a narrative that reflected his own literary style and that served his own theological interests and rhetorical purposes. To understand the significance of this shift from living memory to physical document, it will be helpful to review Dodd’s conception of John’s social location, purposes for writing a gospel, and implied audience. These three issues are particularly relevant to the concerns of the present volume, in as much as Dodd’s methodology, 3

Following this principle, Dodd would locate Q, whether a written document or a stable body of oral materials, at Stage 2 of the tradition (see 1963: 360–1).

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historical conclusions, and exegetical observations are grounded in his understanding of the Fourth Gospel’s provenance. John’s social location While Dodd clearly admires the erudition and theological genius of the Fourth Evangelist, his comments on this individual’s specific identity are notoriously vague. At the same time, IFG and HTFG are clearly guided by a coherent set of working assumptions about several key aspects of the Fourth Evangelist’s identity. Three such aspects will be briefly noted here, all of which are significant for Dodd’s larger programme. First, and most basically, the Fourth Evangelist lived in Ephesus and wrote his Gospel sometime ‘towards A.D. 100’, shortly after the publication of the Synoptics and Acts and about the same time as the composition of Revelation (1963: 263; cf. 115, 128, 258–9, 305, 424; 1953: 9). The Fourth Gospel, then, was produced in a major cosmopolitan centre with a diverse population, an ideological melting pot where the cross-pollination of religious and philosophical ideas was a cultural norm. Secondly, while the Fourth Evangelist is clearly interested in, and frequently draws upon, currents in rabbinic and speculative Jewish thought, his overall posture toward the Law of Moses and the Jewish customs that proceed from it ‘is external and detached’, reflecting the mindset of a person who ‘feels himself to be outside the Jewish system’ (1953: 82; cf. e.g. 88–93). Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly here, the Fourth Evangelist, as Dodd conceives him, is not in substantial dialogue with those trajectories of early Christianity that produced the Synoptic Gospels and the Pauline letters. Of course, John subscribes to the basic premises of the universal Christian kerygma, and obviously has chosen to articulate his views about Jesus through the vehicle of a narrative Gospel, a distinctly Christian literary form (1953: 6). At the same time, Dodd goes out of his way to stress that John’s thinking did not develop in dialogue with other New Testament authors or the theological trajectories that they represent (see e.g. 1953: 4–6, 193–6, 196 n. 1). Overall, the Fourth Evangelist is engaged with Hellenistic culture, disenfranchised from Judaism, and essentially indifferent to the beliefs and practices of other Christians. John’s purpose and audience In Dodd’s reading, the distinctive language, themes, and structure of the Fourth Gospel are a function of the Fourth Evangelist’s rhetorical purposes and implied audience. Concisely, Dodd views the Gospel of John as an

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evangelistic document addressed to ‘a wide public’ that consists ‘primarily of devout and thoughtful persons’ of a Hellenistic mindset (quotations from 1953: 9; cf. 309, 371). John thus goes out of his way to make his Jesus story comprehensible to intelligent pagans and Diaspora Jews, avoiding anything that would be offensive or unintelligible to his ideal readers (see e.g. 1953: 313–14, 316–17). While John’s account would be meaningful to Christians, who would necessarily perceive theological truths in the story that the uninitiated could not grasp, the Fourth Gospel is an evangelistic tract, not a textbook for catechumens. [T]he [fourth] gospel could be read intelligently by a person who started with no knowledge of Christianity beyond the minimum that a reasonably well-informed member of the public interested in religion might be supposed to have by the close of the first century . . . If he was then led to associate himself with the Church and to participate in its fellowship, its tradition and its sacraments, he would be able to re-read the book and find in it vastly more than had been obvious at first reading. [1953: 8–9]

Seeking to win a lost world, the Fourth Evangelist strings oral gospel materials into a connected narrative driven by themes that resonate with Hellenistic religious thought.4 Prominent among these themes are: • a material dualism that sharply differentiates the material world from the metaphysical realm of ideas/truth/spirit (1953: 61–5, 213–27) • the notion that all things in the material world, including human beings, are expressions or imitations of this divine realm (1953: 170–8) 4

Dodd reconstructs the ideal reader of the Fourth Gospel through exhaustive analysis of a wide range of ancient religious and philosophical texts, including primarily rabbinic documents, Philo’s writings, and the Corpus Hermeticum. Dodd also considers Gnostic and Mandaean texts as possible parallels to Johannine thought, but ultimately discounts these due to the late date of the available documents (see 1953: 98–128). Somewhat puzzling here is Dodd’s failure to engage with the work of Josephus, whose writings must have been, by Dodd’s own criteria, the closest available parallel to the Fourth Gospel in terms of date, authorial agenda, and implied audience. While Dodd occasionally refers to Antiquities, Jewish War, or Life to clarify or corroborate some specific element of the Fourth Gospel’s presentation (see 1963: 257, 280, 294 n. 1, 310 n. 1, 348), Josephus is never cited as a significant parallel to the Fourth Evangelist’s attempt to translate Jewish theological themes into Hellenistic idiom. Obviously, the Dead Sea Scrolls were not available at the time IFG was written (see 1953: 242, 242 n. 3), but HTFG does occasionally interact with the then-available Qumran documents, most particularly in discussing the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of John the Baptist’s ministry and message (1963: 252–5, 263 n. 1, 281, 289, 298, 300 n. 1). Overall, Dodd views the occasional connections between the scrolls and Johannine thought as accidental parallels reflecting a common religious milieu, not as evidence of any specific contact between the Qumran sectarians and the Johannine tradition (1963: 15–16 n. 3; cf. 321, 359–60 n. 5).

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•

the belief that the residue of the divine image in humanity makes it possible for human beings to aspire to knowledge of the truth (1953: 28–9, 58–61) • a corresponding belief that knowledge of this higher realm must somehow be mediated to material human beings, a process that is typically articulated in a mythical narrative framework of descent/ ascent from the world above to the world below, or vice versa (1953: 43–4, 66–9; 72–3) • a tendency to personify or anthropomorphize this process of mediation in terms of a specific agent, often using a ‘Logos’ framework that portrays the revealer figure as a ‘divine man’ who is, in some respects, an archetype of humanity (1953: 33–6, 43–44, 70–3, 163–8, 207–11) the notion that access to this revelation, ‘knowing God’, is the highest • good, granting life and light to those who receive it (1953: 55–8, 144–50, 151–63, 176–8, 179–86, 201–7) • portrayal of the receipt of this life and light as an existential crisis that amounts to total transformation or ‘rebirth’ (1953: 52, 223–7) • the corresponding notion that rebirth results in a mystical union between individual human beings and divine truth (1953: 187–97) finally, a belief that human beings may be categorized on the basis of • their receipt/knowledge or rejection/ignorance of this divine reality (1953: 201–7). In Dodd’s reading, Johannine theology, as evident from the text of the Fourth Gospel, is essentially the product of a sustained attempt to translate Stage 2 traditional materials into the idiom of this global Hellenistic myth. ‘Signs’ and discourses Viewed within the historical setting that Dodd envisions, John’s primary challenges in writing a Gospel are obvious. The Judean disciples of Jesus whose memories formed the substance of Stage 1 of the Johannine tradition were not engaged in the same intellectual currents that shaped the thinking of John’s implied audience. The same could be said of the anonymous Stage 2 Christians whose preaching and teaching gradually imposed distinct forms and rudimentary sequences upon earlier traditional material. John, then, was faced with the obstacle of translating a mass of disconnected stories and sayings that had been hammered on the anvil of the Hebrew Bible into a coherent narrative of Jesus’ life that would persuade Hellenistic readers to accept him as the archetypal ‘Word of

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God’ in flesh. John rose to the occasion by ingeniously transforming traditional accounts of Jesus’ activity into ‘signs’ of his revelatory mission and identity, and in the process composed the Fourth Gospel’s distinctive discourses as a means of elaborating the theological significance of Jesus’ life in culturally relevant terms. It will be helpful here briefly to review Dodd’s conception of the Fourth Gospel’s ‘signs’ and discourses, which he essentially views as products of the Fourth Evangelist’s social location and implied audience, in as much as this element of Dodd’s analysis is critical both to his interpretation of specific passages in the Fourth Gospel and to his overall evaluation of the character of the Johannine tradition. Dodd’s reading of the Fourth Gospel is predicated on the thesis that John, embracing the Hellenistic religious outlook outlined above, views all of Jesus’ deeds and words as ‘signs’ of his divine identity. Essentially, John aligned traditional units on the grid of a descent/ascent mysticism, portraying Jesus as the physical personification of the metaphysical Logos who reveals the truth that brings liberating life to human beings. As such, the deeds of the Johannine Jesus function as symbols or ‘verba visibilia’, physical manifestations of metaphysical ideals (1953: 342 n. 3; cf. 140). This premise is, in Dodd’s view, essential to the Fourth Evangelist’s hermeneutic in handling tradition: for John, ‘everything He [Jesus] did or said or suffered must be scrutinized for inner meanings’ (1953: 434). Dodd’s conception of the semeiotic nature of the Fourth Gospel’s narrative significantly informs his understanding of the origins and function of the Johannine discourses. As noted above, Stages 1 and 2 of the Johannine tradition preserved only isolated aphorisms and parabolic sayings, sometimes collected into very rudimentary dialogue sequences. Obviously, then, the Fourth Gospel’s elaborate discourses ‘must be accepted as an original literary creation [of the Fourth Evangelist] owing, so far as form is concerned, little or nothing to the primitive Christian tradition’ (1963: 321). As the Fourth Evangelist’s own creations, then, the discourses should be viewed as a product of John’s larger purposes for writing a Gospel. Following this premise, Dodd envisions that John wove individual sayings into larger and more complex discourses that recontextualized their meaning, thus allowing the traditional words of Jesus to function as revelatory commentary on the semeiotic narratives to which they are now attached (see 1953: 451–2; 1963: 54, 321, 349–50 n. 1, 354–5). But for John a ‘sign’ is something that actually happens, but carries a deeper meaning than the actual happening. [1953: 300]

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In Dodd’s paradigm, then, the word ‘sign’ describes the function of the Fourth Gospel’s total narrative rather than the specific form of any individual episode within it. Put another way, Dodd views every element of John’s presentation as a ‘sign’ of some metaphysical reality, now localized in Jesus. The temple incident (1953: 300–3, 385); the extra bread that the disciples pick up after the feeding of the 5,000, distinctive of the feeding miracle itself (1963: 207, 224 n. 2); the narrative setting of John 7 and 8, the feast of Tabernacles and the various concepts associated with this festival in Jewish collective memory (1953: 351–2); the triumphal entry (1953: 371); the foot-washing (1953: 401–2); the entirety of the passion story (1963: 438–41) – all these things are, in Dodd’s view, ‘signs’, despite the fact that the Fourth Evangelist does not designate them specifically as such. So thoroughgoing is John’s programme to translate Christian tradition into Hellenistic idiom that every element of the Fourth Gospel’s presentation, aside perhaps from incidental topographical and chronological notes that came to John embedded in specific pericopae, may be viewed as an intentional attempt to portray the historical Jesus as the concrete expression of the highest aspirations of Hellenistic faith and philosophy. [I]t is characteristic of his [John’s] mind that he seeks symbols of spiritual truth in the most banal features of nature and human experience. [1953: 434]

John to Jesus: Dodd’s method of analysis As noted earlier, neither IFG nor HTFG includes a methodological introduction. In the course of his discussion, however, Dodd betrays a consistent and coherent research model for identifying Stage 1 and Stage 2 traditional material in the Fourth Gospel.5 By way of summary, Dodd’s analysis of any given narrative or sayings unit in the Fourth Gospel proceeds from the premise that every element of the Fourth Gospel is

5

While Dodd generally assumes that the Fourth Gospel is based on the more fixed Stage 2 tradition, he occasionally suggests that John also drew from the more fluid Stage 1 oral material. Stage 1 source material is evident, in Dodd’s view, in cases where an episode in the Fourth Gospel seems to reflect a traditional structure yet does not follow a standard form-critical pattern. See, for example, Dodd’s conclusion on the origins of the Lazarus story (1963: 228) and his analysis of short Johannine dialogue units that bear some semblance to the synoptic presentation but do not evidence close formal parallels (1963: 329).

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Table 1.2 Tests of Tradition: Dodd’s Law of Independence Dodd’s Theory: John has drawn this passage/unit from an independent oral tradition. Test

Result

Conclusion

1. Is this passage built on OT testimonia?

Yes

2. Does this passage follow a recognizable traditional pattern/outline?

Yes

John has drawn the passage from tradition, because Stage 1 tradition was heavily coloured by the Jewish Scriptures. John has drawn the passage from tradition, and has retained elements of its original oral outline. John has likely reshaped a traditional unit to fit the context in which it now appears in his narrative Gospel.

No 3. Does this passage parallel the Synoptic Gospels? (a) What types of agreement are evident?

Language

Form

‘Sense’

(b) Does John omit Synoptic material that might have served his own interests?

Yes

Similarities in language suggest that John and the Synoptics are grounded in common tradition; differences demonstrate that John has not used the Synoptics as sources. Terms that are essential for telling a story on this topic cannot be counted as evidence of dependence. Similarities in form suggest that John and the Synoptics are both grounded in common tradition; differences in language and content demonstrate that each evangelist has developed traditional material to fit its current context in a narrative Gospel. The expression of similar concepts/ themes suggests that John and the Synoptics are grounded in common tradition; differing language, forms, and contexts for expressing these common themes demonstrates that John has not used the Synoptics as sources. John has drawn the passage from tradition; otherwise, how can one explain his failure to exploit the potential of the Synoptic material he has overlooked?

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Table 1.2 (cont.) Tests of Tradition: Dodd’s Law of Independence Dodd’s Theory: John has drawn this passage/unit from an independent oral tradition. Test

Result

Conclusion

(c) Would literary dependence require that John conflated several Synoptic passages?

Yes

John has drawn the passage from tradition; one can scarcely imagine that John would combine details from several different Synoptic versions of a story.

Yes

John has adapted traditional materials to fit his own literary style and the larger narrative presentation of the Fourth Gospel. John has drawn the passage from tradition; why would John invent details that do not reflect his own style and purposes, or that would be irrelevant to the interests of his audience? John has reworked traditional materials in service of his own theological programme.

4. Does this passage bear distinctly Johannine features? (a) Does this passage reflect John’s literary style and/or purposes for writing?

No

(b) Does this passage reflect distinctly Johannine theological interests?

Yes No

5. Does this passage include or create narrative aporias?

Yes

6. Can Dodd believe that the passage/detail is not traditional?

Yes

No

John has drawn the passage from tradition; why would John invent details that do not serve his own theological programme? John has drawn the disruptive scene or element from tradition, and has done a poor job of integrating it into his larger presentation. John has composed this passage, perhaps incorporating traditional materials, or has added his own details to an existing traditional unit. The Fourth Gospel’s discourses, for example, are the Fourth Evangelist’s own compositions. John has drawn the passage from tradition.

Dodd’s Law: The vast majority of the Fourth Gospel is based on independent oral tradition.

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derived from oral tradition; he then subjects the passage(s) in question to a series of tests that might force him to revise this working hypothesis (see Table 1.2). Should the passage fail these tests, Dodd judges it to be an original composition of the Fourth Evangelist; should it pass the tests, Dodd judges that John has drawn the base material for his presentation from oral tradition, of course modifying traditional units as necessary in service of his peculiar literary and theological agendas. The fact that the very large majority of the Fourth Gospel passes these tests to Dodd’s satisfaction reinforces his initial impression, thus leading him to conclude that the Gospel of John is based on independent oral tradition and should be considered a potential witness to the life and message of the historical Jesus. HTFG may be fairly described as an exhaustive application of this research model to every element of John’s presentation. Since Dodd does not explicitly articulate specific criteria for identifying traditional units in the Fourth Gospel, it will be most appropriate here to describe his ‘tests’ as a series of questions that guide his investigation. Of course, not all of these questions are applied to every pericope or section of the Fourth Gospel, in as much as some are inherently more relevant to certain episodes than to others. Taken together, however, these tests inform Dodd’s overall and individual conclusions on the origins, character, and historical value of the Fourth Gospel’s presentation. Premise: John has drawn from oral tradition Dodd’s analysis proceeds from the working assumption that every individual element of the Fourth Gospel – every event and transitional sequence, and many short sayings units – is prima facie traditional.6 This means, for Dodd, that the story, saying, or detail in question (a) was not composed by John himself, and thus did not originate in the creative genius of the Fourth Evangelist, and, especially, (b) was not derived from the Synoptics. In order to qualify as ‘traditional’, then, a pericope, saying, or detail must have existed in some form before the composition of the Fourth Gospel, but cannot have been directly

6

Excluding, of course, the larger narrative arrangement of individual episodes and the frameworks of the Johannine discourses, both of which represent John’s distinctive contribution to the evolution of the tradition (see discussion above).

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derived from other written Gospels. HTFG is, essentially, an exhaustive attempt to validate this hypothesis. The passage therefore raises in a pointed way the question which must always be at the back of our minds in this investigation: is it an over-ruling maxim that wherever we find teaching in the Fourth Gospel which goes beyond the Synoptics, it must necessarily be credited to the evangelist and denied to the earlier tradition? And if this assumption seems to be a begging of the question, is there, apart from it, any reason at all why such a passage as this, which by every formal test should belong to the common tradition, and associates itself quite naturally with part of that tradition as known from the Synoptics, should not be accepted as representing an element in the tradition as primitive and authentic as anything which they contain, although for one reason or another they have not taken it up? [1963: 369]

Test 1: does this pericope utilize terms and/or themes drawn from testimonia? As noted earlier, Dodd argues that the earliest memories of Jesus were framed by a common stock of testimonia drawn from the Jewish Scriptures. This being the case, any evidence that a particular saying, pericope, or detail in the Fourth Gospel’s account is grounded in a testimonium would suggest (to Dodd) that the unit in question originated in the tradition rather than in the Synoptics or John’s own creative genius. Indeed, it would be difficult to explain why the Fourth Evangelist, seeking as he does to translate distinctly Christian concepts into Hellenistic religious ideals, would feel motivated to anchor events from Jesus’ life in the narrower ideological confines of the Jewish Scriptures. In Dodd’s argument, then, a positive answer to the above question – this pericope does, in fact, betray close connections to a text or theme from the OT – almost always indicates that the passage/detail under consideration is traditional (see e.g. 1963: 36–40, 46–7, 123–4, 161–2). Test 2: is this pericope built on a traditional outline? As noted earlier, Dodd argues that fixed patterns emerged in Stage 2 of the Jesus tradition, before the composition of written Gospels. Following this principle, any clear evidence that a particular narrative unit or sayings sequence in the Fourth Gospel reflects a common traditional outline would indicate that John has drawn upon and reworked established tradition (see 1963: 8–9). In Dodd’s argument, similarity of narrative form

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demonstrates that John and the Synoptics are both drawing upon Stage 2 traditional materials, while differences in terminology, detail, and tone demonstrate that John’s account is not dependent upon the others. A notable example may be taken from Dodd’s analysis of the elaborate resurrection appearances in the Fourth Gospel. A survey of all four canonical Gospels reveals that their appearance stories are based on two traditional patterns, which Dodd labels ‘concise’ (apophthegms) and ‘circumstantial’ (tales). Because these underlying outlines are common to the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, it seems likely (to Dodd) that John has drawn his resurrection stories from a stock of traditional pericopae that were ‘already formed at an early date’ (1963: 143–4). Where similarity of fundamental form is combined with the apparent play of similar motives[/motifs], it is difficult not to believe that John is reading back to the common tradition. [1963: 323]

Test 3: does this pericope evidence close parallels with the Synoptics? For Dodd, the Fourth Gospel’s potential historical value is a function of the independence of its witness, and it would be fair to say that HTFG’s primary, if implicit, programme is to demonstrate systematically that John did not utilize the Synoptics as sources (see also 1953: 453). Dodd’s discussion of a given passage/episode typically begins by identifying possible parallels between some element of the Johannine and Synoptic presentations and then weighing the similarities and differences. Verbal similarities might suggest literary dependence, while differences in ‘the sequence of words and actions’, thematic development (‘conception’), and/or the significance attributed to a scene would tend to demonstrate John’s independence (quotations from 1963: 50–1). Notably, in HTFG the differences always outweigh the similarities, with the result that parallels between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics function negatively to disprove theories of literary dependence and positively to support Dodd’s argument that John is drawing on oral tradition. The prima facie impression is that John is, in large measure at any rate, working independently of other written gospels. [1953: 449]

Because the issue of literary (in)dependence is so central to Dodd’s analysis, and because ‘dependence’ can be established on a number of different grounds, it will be helpful here to consider briefly several related sub-questions that fall under the larger heading of this third test.

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What types of agreement are evident? In considering whether a specific passage or detail in the Fourth Gospel may derive from the Synoptics, one must first determine whether, and in what ways, the respective texts are actually parallel. Dodd’s approach suggests that agreement can be established on three main grounds: language, form, and ‘sense’. In cases where John’s account enjoys a fairly direct parallel with a Synoptic passage, Dodd will offer exhaustive comparisons of the language of the two texts, sometimes producing harmonization tables that lay the several versions side by side (see e.g. 1963: 79, 85, 98, 139, 163–4, 175, 182, 189, 202–3). As a rule, these tabulations demonstrate that the parallel accounts are sufficiently similar to suggest origin in a common tradition, but insufficiently similar to demonstrate literary dependence.7 In cases where John’s account finds no direct parallel in the Synoptics in terms of content, one may nevertheless establish agreement on the basis of form. For Dodd, when a uniquely Johannine scene follows an outline that Mark or Luke has used to tell similar stories, one may safely conclude that John has derived the scene in question from the stock of common Christian tradition (see e.g. 1963: 390– 6). Finally, when verbal and formal parallels fail, one may establish agreement between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics on the basis of ‘sense’. If the ‘substance’ or ‘spirit’ of a certain episode in the Fourth Gospel reflects a common theme in the tradition, that event, saying, or detail likely originated in the tradition. Following this premise, Dodd treats Luke 22:42 and John 12:27–8 as parallel on the grounds that they make essentially the same point, despite the obvious differences in content, language, and form between the two passages (1963: 69–70). Does John omit material that he might have included if he were using the Synoptics as sources? Dodd sometimes establishes the Fourth Gospel’s independence by highlighting instances where John fails to mention Synoptic events, themes, or details that might have served his own literary or theological purposes. For example, Mark says that darkness fell over the land as Jesus hung on the cross (15:33), and that the veil in the temple was ripped apart at the moment of Jesus’ death (15:38). The former detail would fit well with John’s light/darkness dualism, while the latter would seemingly serve as ‘a perfect climax’ to John’s temple Christology. This being the case, Dodd can scarcely imagine why John would have failed 7

Dodd frequently reduces the statistical significance of verbatim parallels by arguing that certain terms are essentially inevitable in accounts of certain types of events. For example, Dodd notes that Mark’s and John’s respective accounts of the Sea Crossing include a large number of common words, such as ‘boat’, ‘embark’, ‘across’, ‘sea’, ‘wind’, etc. These verbatim parallels do not, however, demonstrate literary dependence, since ‘without these it is difficult to see how the story could be told at all’ (1963: 197, 197 n. 2; cf. 99–100).

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to include these events in his own account if he were, in fact, aware of them from Mark’s Gospel (1963: 129–30, 129 n. 1). While some might object that arguments from silence are insufficient grounds for historical reconstruction, Dodd insists that those who advocate dependence theories must explain John’s omission of these pregnant details (1963: 130; cf. 336–7, 344–5). Would the proposed instance of literary dependence require that John knew and combined more than one Synoptic account? For Dodd, it is essentially unimaginable that John would have had multiple documents before him while composing his Gospel, drawing details from one and then another in the course of developing his own narrative. Nor does it seem likely that John, while copying one Synoptic passage, would accidentally or intentionally insert words and details that he recalled from other contexts (see 1963: 28, 54, 139, 239, 330). Building on this premise, Dodd regularly highlights instances where John’s account of an incident seems to parallel more than one Synoptic version of a similar event, following the logic that any evidence of conflation would demonstrate the Fourth Gospel’s independence. To take one notable example, close comparison of the feeding stories in John 6, Mark 6, and Mark 8 reveals that the Fourth Gospel variously agrees with both Marcan accounts in wording and details, while John’s description of the setting of the episode seems most similar to Matt. 15. In Dodd’s view, this phenomenon permits of only two explanations: John either has drawn from all three Synoptic stories to produce a composite image, or has taken his feeding narrative from an independent oral tradition that overlapped with the Synoptic tradition(s) at some point in its history. Since the former conclusion is ‘incredible as an account of our evangelist’s method of composition’, the weight of the evidence favours the latter (1963: 205–11, quotation from 209; cf. 99–107, 166–7). Where a theory of conflation is indicated, the cogency of the evidence in favour of dependence is pro tanto weakened. [1963: 103]

Overall, Dodd’s answers to the above questions affirm his preclusion that John has not used the Synoptics as sources, but has instead drawn material from an independent stream of tradition. The Fourth Gospel, therefore, may potentially serve as an independent witness to the life of the historical Jesus. Test 4: does this pericope bear an excess of distinctly Johannine features? Obviously, when a passage in the Fourth Gospel reflects John’s distinctive literary style or overtly serves his peculiar theological interests, one could

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reasonably argue that the saying or episode in question is the Fourth Evangelist’s own creative composition. As noted above, Dodd himself appeals to this criterion to demonstrate that the Fourth Gospel’s discourses are a product of John’s literary genius. The word ‘excess’ in the above question is, however, critical. Because the Fourth Evangelist substantially reworked the oral materials that he incorporated into his Gospel (Stage 3 of the traditioning process), one should expect that every individual passage in the Fourth Gospel would evidence some level of Johannine colouring. The question, then, is whether the presence of these Johannine features provides overwhelming evidence that the Fourth Evangelist himself is the source of any given passage, and ‘overwhelming’ evidence is, of course, always hard to come by. Since John’s editorial hand may manifest itself in many different ways, Dodd’s fourth test may be divided into two sub-questions, one relating to the Fourth Evangelist’s distinctive literary style and the other to Johannine theological tendencies. In theory, a positive answer to either sub-question – this passage clearly reflects John’s compositional style and/ or theological interests – could suggest that the unit in question is a Johannine composition. In actual practice, however, Dodd typically concludes that John has reconfigured traditional kernels in service of his own literary and theological agendas. To what extent does this passage reflect John’s compositional style and/or his distinctive rhetorical purposes? While Dodd does not offer a summary overview of John’s literary style, his analysis frequently alludes to the Fourth Evangelist’s compositional tendencies. As has been widely noted, John prefers the specific to the general, replacing vague allusions in the tradition with precise references to times, places, and individual characters (see e.g. 1963: 226, 228, 228–9 n. 2, 238). John also sometimes utilizes a ‘two stages’ technique when presenting simultaneous events, switching from foreground to background in order to increase the emotional intensity of a scene (see e.g. 1963: 96–7). John evidences a taste for ‘lively interchange of dialogue’ (1963: 228; cf. 231–2), and in general one may say that John’s style was characterized by a ‘great dramatic vigour’, which perhaps cannot be defined precisely but which is certainly evident, to Dodd, upon close reading of the Gospel (1963: 141; cf. 56, 92, 121–2). Consistently, after noting the presence of these Johannine stylistic features in a particular passage, Dodd concludes that John has simply reworked traditional units. Stylistic evidence thus does not detract from Dodd’s working hypothesis that the episode in question is based on oral tradition. Alongside considerations of style, John’s distinctive literary ‘mark’ may be defined in terms of his peculiar purposes for writing a gospel.

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As noted above, Dodd envisions that the Fourth Gospel’s ideal reader is a non-Christian, Hellenistic Jew or pagan who lives in Western Asia Minor around the year 100 ce. Building on this premise, Dodd regularly considers whether a certain element of the Fourth Gospel’s presentation would be meaningful to such an individual, following the logic that John would be unlikely to invent details or introduce terms that would seem confusing or insignificant to his readers. Thus, for example, John’s indication that Jesus was arrested in a garden ‘across the Kidron’ (18:1) would hold ‘no possible interest for readers at Ephesus in the late first century’ and therefore was likely embedded in the traditional account of the story (1963: 68). Similarly, the reference to Ephraim in the transitional note at John 11:54 must be traditional because ‘an author writing at Ephesus late in the first century would scarcely be aware of, or interested in, an obscure Palestinian town’ (1963: 242–3). For Dodd, any element of John’s presentation that cannot be explained as a function of his evangelistic purposes is likely traditional. Does this pericope bear the imprint of Johannine theology? Of course, one could reasonably argue, and many scholars have in fact argued, that any passage in the Gospels that overtly serves the theological interests of the evangelists was likely produced by the evangelists themselves. This principle is readily applicable in the case of the Fourth Gospel, simply because John’s account so often and so obviously bears the imprint of his Christological concerns. In Dodd’s argument, however, a positive answer to the above question – this unit does reflect John’s theological interests – does not necessarily weigh against the traditional, or even the historical, value of a pericope or detail. The criterion of theological colouring ingeniously serves to support Dodd’s working hypothesis in two distinct ways. First, when the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics are loosely parallel but their presentations clearly disclose the respective evangelists’ distinct theological interests, Dodd concludes that each author has charged a common traditional unit with his own ideological values – the similarities point to a common origin, while the differences disclose the respective agendas (see e.g. 1963: 62, 75–6, 198–9). Secondly, when John’s account seems to include details that do not obviously support his own theological interests, Dodd asserts that those details most likely originated in the tradition, again following the principle, noted above, that John tends to economize by eliminating things that do not serve his literary or theological purposes (see e.g. 1963: 74).8 8

As a variation on this theme, Dodd occasionally suggests that the theological value that John attaches to a particular incident is inherent in the event itself, and thus does not reflect the Fourth Evangelist’s distinctive compositional tendencies. See e.g. 1963: 96–8, 185–5, 210–11.

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Notably, while theological considerations occasionally lead to negative judgements (cf. 1963: 259–61, 351), Dodd consistently concludes that a given unit is built on a ‘kernel’ of traditional material, which John has reworked to reflect his own theological agenda. A theological motive . . . has selected this element in the common tradition, and isolated it for special emphasis. [1963: 75]

Test 5: does this pericope include or create narrative aporias? In many respects, Dodd’s reading of the Fourth Gospel anticipated the rise of narrative criticism by insisting that the current text should be viewed as the coherent, intentional product of a single author.9 Working from this premise, IFG rejects displacement and developmental theories while systematically demonstrating that the Gospel of John can be read as a thematically unified narrative (see e.g. 1953: 289–90, 342, 354–62, 378–9, 382–3, 399–400, 406–9, 412–13 n. 1, 415–16). At the same time, however, Dodd acknowledges that certain scenes, and certain details within specific scenes, disrupt the aesthetics of John’s presentation. While these aporias do not demonstrate dislocation or redaction, they do serve, in Dodd’s argument, as evidence that John has done a poor job of integrating traditional materials into his account. Thus, any ‘violent shift’ in imagery or meaning in the flow of a pericope, or any sense of discontinuity in the movement from one scene to the next, counts as proof that John is drawing from the bank of orality (1963: 186 and 188; cf. 62, 94–5, 148–9, 178, 186–8, 235–41, 324, 391–3).10 Test 6: does it seem intuitively likely that this scene or detail is based on tradition? As noted earlier, HTFG is grounded in the working assumption that the Fourth Gospel is based on oral traditional materials. When the above tests fail to support this hypothesis, Dodd will sometimes appeal, as a last resort, to what might be called ‘the criterion of intuition’: if it seems intuitively 9

10

Excluding John 21, which Dodd labels an ‘appendix’ because it ‘falls outside the design of the book as a whole’ (1953: 290; cf. 383; 1963: 148–50). Dodd’s application of this principle – perceived discontinuities reveal that John is weaving together traditional units – is perhaps most striking in those instances where he argues that an aporia has arisen due to John’s misunderstanding of the base tradition. See e.g. 1963: 93–5; 94–5 nn. 1, 2, and 3; 167–8.

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likely, for reasons that cannot be clearly articulated, that some detail in the Fourth Gospel was drawn from oral tradition, one may safely conclude that the unit in question was, in fact, drawn from oral tradition. As it feels, so it is. Obviously, a subjective criterion of this kind cannot be applied systematically, so it will perhaps be most helpful here simply to illustrate how this sixth and final test functions within Dodd’s larger methodological programme. Commenting on John 19:33–5, which records the ‘piercing’ of Jesus’ dead body, Dodd observes that the ‘water and blood’ that flow from Jesus’ side carry symbolic connotations that are central to Johannine theology. This fact, and the fact that the piercing is attested in no other ancient source, would suggest to many scholars that John invented the scene in an attempt to anchor his pervasive water symbolism in the events of Jesus’ death. Against this conclusion, however, Dodd appeals to the narrator’s intrusive attempt to validate the Beloved Disciple’s testimony. ‘Was our author [John] the kind of person to say, “an eyewitness has given evidence of this”, and to go out of his way to affirm the authenticity and veracity of this evidence, when all he is offering to his readers is a deeply suggestive symbol? . . . For my part, I confess I cannot bring myself to believe that he was that kind of person’ (1963: 135–6, quotation from 135). In this and similar instances, failure of imagination becomes a point of method. Yet I cannot for long rid myself of the feeling (it can be no more than a feeling) that this pericope has something indefinably firsthand about it. [1963: 148]

Overall, one may say that HTFG’s methodology is essentially ‘negative’ in the sense that Dodd articulates an informed hypothesis and then systematically attempts to disprove it. Dodd’s hypothesis states that the Fourth Gospel is based, both generally and in specific details, on an independent oral tradition that emerged from the memories of associates of the historical Jesus. Dodd’s various ‘tests’ work to neutralize any evidence that might force him to substantially revise this working premise, thus allowing him to elevate his theory to the status of a law.

The Gospel of John and the Jesus of history At first glance, Dodd’s model and method promise to produce positive assessments of the Fourth Gospel’s historicity. Dodd’s method systematically

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validates the premise that the Fourth Gospel is based on an independent oral tradition, and Dodd’s model traces the roots of that tradition to the memories of Judean disciples of Jesus. Yet despite these positive prospects, and despite Dodd’s frequent assertions in support of the veracity of John’s account, the reader of IFG and HTFG is consistently struck by the ambivalence of Dodd’s conclusions on the historicity of any given detail or pericope in the Fourth Gospel. Dodd’s reticence on this point is to be explained not as a failure of desire or effort – he clearly wishes to elevate the Fourth Gospel’s status as a potential source for Jesus – but rather as a failure of method. Specifically, certain elements of Dodd’s research model are inherently in tension, so that aspects of his theory that would tend to promote the Fourth Gospel’s historicity are counterbalanced, and in general outweighed, by aspects that tend to problematize positive conclusions. These tensions may be conveniently reviewed by surveying elements of Dodd’s approach that weigh respectively for and against John’s historical claims. In favour of John’s claims In many respects, Dodd’s research model is inherently weighted in favour of the Fourth Gospel’s historicity. Three such elements of his approach may be briefly noted here, all of which are critical to the larger argument of HTFG. First, Dodd categorically rejects the consensus view that the Synoptics are inherently superior to the Fourth Gospel as potential sources for Jesus. HTFG argues, to the point of redundancy, that each Gospel, and each episode within each Gospel, must be evaluated on its own terms, always making allowance for the differing intentions of the respective evangelists and the different life settings from which the texts emerged (1963: 4–5). For example, Dodd notes that Mark portrays the triumphal entry as ‘an unmediated outburst of enthusiasm’, whereas John stages the scene as ‘a planned ovation’. It is difficult to tell which presentation is historically more likely, since one could argue either that (a) John turned a spontaneous demonstration into a calculated acclamation to emphasize Jesus’ royal status, or (b) that Mark turned a calculated acclamation into a mob action because he, ‘writing at Rome’, wished to minimize the political implications of the scene (1963: 154–6, quotations from 156). Similarly, the Synoptics include a wide range of passion predictions that point both to Christ’s resurrection and to his parousia, whereas in the Fourth Gospel Jesus’ passion predictions are limited entirely to his ‘return’ from the tomb.

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In Dodd’s view, ‘we have no right to say’ that one version or the other is inherently more likely to reflect Jesus’ actual teaching, and in fact the weight of the evidence would suggest that ‘the oracular sayings which he [John] reports have good claim to represent authentically, in substance if not verbally, what Jesus actually said to his disciples’ about his ‘departure’ (1963: 416–20, quotations from 418, 420). If nothing else, Dodd’s sustained attempt to level the playing field paved the way for more recent efforts to assess the Fourth Gospel’s value as an independent witness to Jesus. Secondly, Dodd’s reading everywhere assumes that Johannine theology, even in its most abstract flights of metaphysical fancy, is solidly grounded in the story of Jesus. In Dodd’s construction, the psychology of the Fourth Evangelist is characterized by a profound historical consciousness, and the Johannine tradition ‘unquestionably . . . intends’ to refer to its point of origin – John and the tradents of tradition who came before him believed that they were recounting authentic events from Jesus’ career (1963: 7, emphasis original; cf. 1953: 200, 422–3, 439, 444). ‘To a writer with the philosophical presuppositions of the evangelist there is no reason why a narrative should not be at the same time factually true and symbolic of deeper truth, since things and events in this world derive what reality they possess from the eternal Ideas they embody’ (1953: 142–3). True or false, the Fourth Gospel is history, not allegory. [T]he more clearly the theological position of the Fourth Gospel is examined, the more clearly it is seen to involve a reference to history. [1963: 4]

Thirdly and finally here, while Dodd acknowledges that testimonia were a dynamic force in Stage 1 of the Johannine tradition, he everywhere insists that OT texts should be viewed only as frames for gospel memory, not as sources of gospel memory. Stated in the language of recent Jesus research, Dodd asserts that the Fourth Gospel is history remembered, not prophecy historicized, and the few exceptions to this rule would suggest that ‘the scale on which this motive has acted upon the tradition is strictly limited’ (1963: 47). In the traditioning process, Scriptures were chosen ‘to find an explanation for attested facts . . . The facts themselves exerted pressure upon their [Christians’] understanding of prophecy and fulfilment, and dictated the selection of testimonies’ (1963: 49). To take one particularly notable example, Dodd observes that many scholars argue that John’s

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crurifragium scene (John 19:31–7) is a fictional account generated from the language of Ps. 33:21 and Zech. 12:10, both of which are explicitly cited in the passage. This argument, however, cannot withstand the ordeal of Ockham’s Razor, for ‘surely the simpler hypothesis is that he [John] has followed information received, and that it was the remembered facts that first drew the attention of Christian thinkers to the testimonium’ (1963: 132). Overall, for Dodd, the traditioning process used Scripture only to build, never to birth, memories of Jesus. [T]he framers of the tradition were in bondage to facts. [1963: 216]

Against John’s claims Against the above presumptions that would weigh in favour of the Fourth Gospel’s historicity, Dodd’s model draws energy from a number of working premises that ironically problematize his generally positive appraisal of John’s presentation. Three such premises will be highlighted here, two of which derive from HTFG’s dependence on the predominant form-critical conclusions of its day and one of which derives from Dodd’s own understanding of the Johannine ‘signs’. First, both IFG and HTFG adopt a typical form-critical posture toward the question of authorship, demonstrating a calculated indifference to the specific identity of the Fourth Evangelist while evidencing a profound concern for the life experiences and intellectual currents that influenced the anonymous tradents of the Johannine tradition (see especially 1963: 9–18). On the surface, Dodd appropriates the conclusions of form criticism simply to avoid the impasse created by debates over the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, a question he judges to be ‘incapable of decision’ (1963: 18). Looking deeper, however, Dodd’s form-critical methodology destabilizes the function of ‘the author’ in discussions of the origins and intentionality of the Gospels. Specifically here, in both IFG and HTFG the Fourth Evangelist is not simply a product of his social milieu, nor a person who is in positive or negative dialogue with trends in his social milieu, but is rather a cipher for that milieu itself. Put another way, in Dodd’s vocabulary, the title ‘the/our evangelist’ does not refer to a specific individual who wrote a book about Jesus, but rather to the trace of a vast intertextual web of ancient Hellenistic beliefs, personified in reference to the Fourth Gospel’s intentionality toward its prospective readers. Positively, this posture allows Dodd to focus on the Fourth Gospel’s goals, objectives, and

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historical setting without debating the Fourth Evangelist’s identity; negatively, milieus and traces cannot be brought to the witness stand, in as much as they do not make truth claims whose values can be tested. Ultimately, then, while Dodd’s form-critical approach to authorship is immanently serviceable to the task of interpretation, it offers very little to an evaluation of the Fourth Gospel’s historicity. I am not in this book discussing the question of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. [1953: 449]

Secondly, like other form-critical studies of its day, HTFG is beset by an inability to establish clear referents for the Fourth Gospel’s narrative. In Dodd’s argument, any given episode in the Fourth Gospel can refer either to the life of Jesus or to the Sitz im Leben of the underlying traditional unit, so that even a positive historical assessment may simply mean that the text is accurately referring to events that occurred in the 50s or 80s ce, rather than the 30s. Thus, for example, Dodd suggests that John’s story of the first disciples (John 1:19–51) is largely an allegory for the experience of the Christian preacher in dialogue with a Jew who, despite initial scepticism, eventually believes and thus proves himself a true Israelite (1963: 311–12); John 4:31–8 refers to the situation of ‘the missionary church occupied with the work of evangelization in the wide world’ (1963: 400–3, quotation from 400); John 5:19–47 is ‘a reflection of the experience of Christian missionaries’ (1963: 297); John 8:31–58 speaks to controversies between Jewish and Gentile Christians (1963: 330); the story of the blind beggar standing trial before his accusers in John 9 would doubtless remind the Christian reader of ‘his own situation in the world’ (1963: 357, 357 n. 1); this same Christian reader would find numerous echoes of her own sacramental experiences in many of the Fourth Gospel’s episodes (1953: 8, 297–8, 309–11, 333, 338–9). While Dodd’s assessments here may be accurate, his form-critical approach obviously problematizes the question of the Fourth Gospel’s historical value, and his discussion often gives the impression that John is allegorizing gospel tradition to write a history of Christian experience. The Sitz im Leben for such discussions is to be sought not so much in the situation in Palestine during the Ministry of Jesus as in the controversies which, best known to us from the epistles of Paul, continued for some time to agitate the Church in the GraecoRoman world. [1963: 380]

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A third and final tension in Dodd’s method relates to his conception of the Fourth Gospel’s ‘signs’. While Dodd everywhere stresses that the signs anchor abstract principles to concrete events, closer inspection reveals that this theme is articulated in both IFG and HTFG as a theological principle, not as an argument in favour of historicity. While it is important for the evangelist that what he narrates happened, John is a ‘historian’ rather than a ‘chronicler’, which means that he is ultimately more concerned with the significance of the total gospel message than with the historical verity of any individual unit of tradition (1953: 444–6, quotations from 444, 445). This being the case, the question is not, ‘To what extent does the Fourth Gospel reflect the actual past of Jesus’ career?’, but rather, ‘To what extent does this work [Fourth Gospel], retelling in a fresh medium of thought the episode out of which Christianity arose, offer a true and valuable account of its significance in history?’ (1953: 446). Manifestly, a historical narrative does not need the actual past in order effectively to signify a metaphysical principle; this being the case, there is no need for Dodd to discriminate narrative realism from historical reality. Put another way, while Dodd’s understanding of the ‘signs’ does much to explain the retrospective posture of Johannine theology, it does little to support Dodd’s own claims about the historical value of John’s presentation. Overall, then, one may say that HTFG succeeds in accomplishing its implicit objectives while failing to fulfil its primary obligation. Positively, Dodd offers detailed narrative analyses of almost every individual incident in John’s account, successfully maintains that the Fourth Gospel is not dependent on the Synoptics as sources, and persuasively argues that John has drawn much of his information about Jesus from an old and independent tradition. In all these respects, Dodd overcomes obstacles that previous generations of research had found insurmountable in attempting a sustained analysis of the Fourth Gospel’s historical value. Negatively, Dodd clears the playing field only to discover that the rules of the game limit the outcome to a tie, and his research method ultimately fails to permit definitive conclusions. HTFG establishes, as a fact of history, that a Johannine tradition existed; whether or not that tradition was itself ‘historical’ in the sense that it touches on the actual past of Jesus’ career remains to be seen.

part i

Approaching the problem: reflections on Dodd’s context and method

chapter 2

C. H. Dodd as a precursor to narrative criticism R. Alan Culpepper

From the vantage point of sixty years since the publication of The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel it is illuminating to read Part III of that book, ‘Argument and structure’, as a precursor to the interpretation of the Gospel as narrative. The term ‘precursor’ rather than ‘forerunner’ is chosen deliberately. While Dodd’s work may be seen as a predecessor to narrative criticism, and although Dodd may have been a ‘voice crying in the wilderness’ in his own generation, he was not a herald or one who prepared the way for something greater. Narrative criticism emerged, in part, from Dodd’s work and owed much to his emphasis on the logic of the current form of the Fourth Gospel. Dodd proposed to ‘follow the argument of the gospel chapter by chapter’ (289),1 and took it as the duty of an interpreter ‘at least to see what can be done with the document as it has come down to us before attempting to improve upon it’ (290). In doing so, he shook the foundations of those (Bultmann et al.) who proposed that the Gospel suffered disarrangement that impaired, if not destroyed, ‘any continuity which the argument may once have possessed’ (289). Before reviewing the basis for claiming that Dodd was a precursor to narrative criticism it is important to set his work in its historical context, and principally as a response to Bultmann’s commentary on John (1941). Moody Smith’s Yale dissertation, The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel (1965), offers the definitive interpretation of Bultmann’s literary theory regarding the composition history of the Fourth Gospel, which involved sources, redaction, and displacement in an effort to explain the Gospel’s apparent gaps, inconsistencies, and repetitions. As Smith explains: Assessing the evidence of confusion in the present text of the gospel, Bultmann concludes that the original order was disturbed at a very early date and the present one established by a redactor who found the text in 1

References to Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953), are placed in parentheses in the text.

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R. Alan Culpepper fearful disarray. Bultmann proposes to rearrange, and thus restore, the text. The fact that an allegedly superior textual order can be produced by rearrangement is taken to support the displacement theory. [Smith 1965: xiii]

Bultmann contended that the Evangelist drew on three principal sources: (1) a written discourse source which he called the Offenbarungsreden (revelation discourses) and which contained a foundational version (Vorlage) of the Prologue; (2) a collection of miracle stories, the Semeia Quelle; and (3) a source of the Johannine passion narrative. The Evangelist, a theological and literary giant, composed the Gospel, giving it its definitive, creative form. Subsequently, the text of the Gospel suffered extensive destruction, although Bultmann never ventured to explain how this destruction occurred. An ‘ecclesiastical redactor’, who held a more traditional theology, arranged the present text of the Gospel from what remained of the Evangelist’s work and added interpolations which Bultmann believed ‘espouse eschatological and sacramental doctrines foreign to the evangelist’s thought’ (Smith 1965: xiv). In order to appreciate the original conception of the Evangelist, it is therefore necessary to identify and set aside the redactor’s interpolations and rearrange the text of the Gospel, in the process removing inconsistencies and recovering the original order of the Gospel material. In a daring move, Bultmann follows the order of the Evangelist’s text of the Gospel, as he reconstructed it, in his commentary. The current text, however, is the only source for this hypothetical original.2 Narrative criticism as it emerged in the 1980s followed Dodd’s lead in attempting to understand the Gospel in its current form, not a reconstructed earlier form. Moreover, it focused on the literary features of the Gospel narrative rather than the history it recounts or the history of its composition. The literary features of the Gospel and their function within the narrative captured the attention of the interpreter: the role of the narrator, narrative asides, the handling of narrative time, plot, characterization, symbolism, irony, and the roles of the implied author and the implied reader. As we shall see, although Dodd worked within the conceptual frame of historical criticism, he nevertheless emphasized the unity and coherence of the Gospel and aspects of its literary structure that would receive more detailed treatment by later generations of interpreters: the episodic nature of the Fourth Gospel, the relationship between signs and discourses, and the development of a symbolic network through the course 2

See Smith’s insightful discussion of four ‘facets of Bultmann’s displacement theory which place a rather heavy strain upon the historical imagination’ (1965: 176–7).

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of the narrative. In the process of reading the Gospel as a continuous argument, therefore, Dodd tilled the soil for others to come later and read the Gospel as a coherent narrative.3 While I was writing Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design, I returned regularly to this part of The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.4 It is no coincidence therefore that the subtitle of Anatomy echoes Dodd’s statement that the present order of the Gospel is not ‘fortuitous’ but was deliberately devised by somebody who ‘had some design in mind’ (290).

Reading Dodd reading John Because Dodd’s work is not read or cited as much as it once was,5 and the aim of this volume is to celebrate his contributions to Johannine scholarship, an extended summary of Part III of The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel may be justified. In the following pages we will focus on the structure of the Gospel, especially the role of narratives, discourses, and monologues; the function of appendixes; the development of its argument and leading themes; and the synthesis between the literary and historical perspectives on John in Dodd’s work. Dodd provides only a very general overview of the structure of the Gospel at the outset and then offers more detailed comments in the course of unfolding its argument section by section, so we will follow his lead here. His interest in structure serves the greater interest in exposing the artistry in the progression of the Gospel’s argument, which in turn Dodd accepted as prima facie evidence that efforts to reconstruct some earlier order or sequence of the Gospel are unwarranted. While Dodd was not the first to recognize the Prologue as a discrete unit or the division between chapters 12 and 13, he treated the Gospel in three parts: 3

4

5

For introductions to narrative criticism, see Moore (1989), esp. ‘Part One: Gospel Criticism as Narrative Criticism’, 3–68; Powell (1990); Stibbe (1992: 5–92); and Thatcher and Moore (2008: 1–35). Only Raymond E. Brown and Wayne C. Booth are cited more frequently than Dodd in Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. In order to check out this impression, I compiled the references to Dodd in five recent collections of essays by Johannine scholars, with these results: Lozada and Thatcher (2006), references on five pages (one in my chapter); Thatcher (2007), references on seventeen pages, including significant interaction with Dodd by John Ashton on five of these pages; Thatcher and Moore (2008), six references (all but one in my chapter). As might be expected, Dodd’s work figures more prominently in the essays in the John, Jesus, and History volumes, but the references here are usually to Dodd’s work on historical tradition in John rather than its argument and structure: Anderson, Just, and Thatcher (2007), references on twenty pages; Anderson, Just, and Thatcher (2009), references on eleven pages.

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A. The Proem (John 1) B. The Book of Signs (John 2–12) C. The Book of the Passion (John 13–20) Dodd called John 21 an appendix, but did not recognize it as part of the structure of the Gospel. Nor did he give it the same degree of attention that he accorded the rest of the Gospel – a point to which we shall return below. Dodd’s analysis of the structure of the Gospel pays particular attention to the ways the author used narratives and discourses to advance the Gospel’s themes and argument. In general the discourses follow the narratives and interpret their themes, but that is not always the case. The Proem The Proem is composed of two sections: the Prologue (1:1–18) and the Testimony (1:19–51). John’s testimony regarding Jesus is more detailed than Mark’s but uses the same elements. In John, however, it is the Baptist rather than the voice from heaven that designates Jesus as the Messiah. The call or ‘vocation stories’ that follow serve to corroborate the Baptist’s testimony. Jesus’ declaration at the end of the chapter, while different in idiom, echoes the thematic statement in Mark, ‘The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is upon you’ (Mark 1:15). The expected, eschatological events will shortly be realized in history. The Gospel itself is therefore ‘a realized apocalypse’: ‘The whole series of “signs” which follows, culminating in the supreme sign of the cross and resurrection, is the vision of the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’ (294). In contrast to this realized eschatology, the Prologue articulates the role of the Logos ‘based upon the philosophical conception of two orders of being, distinguished not by succession in time, but by the greater or less measure of reality which they possess’ (295). The Word of God, which framed the heavens, a shadow of which can be seen in the Torah, came to full expression in Jesus. The two parts of the Proem are therefore complementary: ‘The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have beheld His glory’ and ‘You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’ The Book of Signs The Book of Signs develops the affirmations of the Prologue in seven episodes. Appropriately, the first (2:1–4:42) declares ‘The New Beginning’, and here we begin to see the Evangelist’s technique in the use of narratives

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and related discourses and monologues that interpret the theme of the narrative. The first narrative is the miracle at Cana (2:1–11), with its realism, ‘eye for character’, detail, and Johannine irony. The comment that this was the first of the signs and that it revealed Jesus’ glory (2:11) prompts the reader to search for its deeper meaning. It may have Eucharistic significance, but the narrative does not suggest it. Dodd found what he took to be an important clue to its meaning in a passage about Melchizedek in Philo, where Melchizedek brought forth ‘wine instead of water’ (Leg. Alleg. III.79). This wine stands for all those things Philo associated with the higher, spiritual life. The water, explicitly identified with Jewish ceremonial observance, represents the ‘old order in religion [that] is superseded by a new order’ (299), and this takes place ‘on the third day’ – as does the whole ministry of Jesus for this Evangelist. The scene in the temple, which appends Johannine comments to common tradition, develops further the idea of replacement of the old order by a new one (301). Both Jesus’ response to the authorities who do not understand and the Evangelist’s comments link this replacement with Jesus’ death: ‘the new order in religion which Christ inaugurates is that of the Church which is His Body’ (302). Two discourses follow. In the first Jesus is approached by Nicodemus, a representative of the old order that is being superseded. Again, the expected transformation or new birth is available here and now. The enlightened can pass from the lower realm of σάρξ to the higher realm of πνεῦμα and thereby gain ζωὴ αἰώνιος. Dodd made the intriguing suggestion that the ‘amen, amen, I say to you’ formula in 3:11 and elsewhere serves to mark transitions from dialogue to monologue in John (see 328 n. 3, 358, 409). The monologue that follows in 3:11–21 connects the argument to the Prologue. By receiving the Logos, one gains the right to become God’s child (connecting this discourse with 1:12–13). In the monologue the Evangelist ‘slips in’ a new theme that will become clear later in the narrative: the Son of Man will be ‘lifted up’ (3:14). As Dodd observed, ‘there is something cryptic, or oracular, about the saying which awaits further explication’ (307). Nevertheless, it is clear that Christ’s coming opens the way to rebirth to eternal life. It is also the coming of the light that judges darkness, another theme that will be developed later. John 3:22 introduces a change of scene, and from verse 31 onwards the discourse becomes more general. As elsewhere, dramatic dialogue ‘melts imperceptibly into monologue’ (308). Unlike verses 22–30, verses 31–6 echo language and ideas from the dialogue with Nicodemus and the discourse in 3:11–21. The whole of 3:22–6, therefore, appears to be an

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appendix that recapitulates the leading ideas of the preceding discourse, linking the ideas of water and spirit with baptism. Significantly, Dodd observed that ‘it is doubtful how far it is possible, here or elsewhere in this gospel, to draw a clear line between reported dialogue or discourse and the evangelist’s reflections’ (308; cited in Culpepper 1983: 42 n. 52). In retrospect the reader becomes aware that all of John 3 is concerned with initiation into eternal life. The second discourse, the wonderful dialogue with the Samaritan woman, falls into two parts (vv. 7–15 and 16–27). The first develops the idea of living water with characteristic Johannine irony, extending further the water symbolism of the previous chapters. The new order of religion in Christ, symbolized earlier by the wine at Cana and the new temple in his body, is the worship of God in spirit and truth (4:23). The action takes place on two stages, Jesus at the well on the front stage, and the Samaritan village on the back stage. The two merge with the coming of the Samaritans, whose declaration of Jesus as the Saviour of the world reminds the reader of the chorus in a Greek drama. The dominant theme of the first episode is clearly ‘the inauguration of a new order of life’ (316). In a sense this is the message of the whole Gospel, but there are many elements yet to be expressed fully. Regarding structure, Dodd found that ‘in chs. iii and iv alike, the main discourse, or dialogue, has a supplement or appendix’ (3:22–36 and 4:31–42) that develops a point that the discourse implies but leaves obscure (317). Cross-references and symbolism link the discourses, providing a rich texture and coherence to the Gospel. The theme of Jesus’ dependence on the Father, for example, while it is introduced in his dialogue with the disciples, is elaborated in the next chapter. The second episode, ‘The Life-Giving Word’ (4:46–5:47) is comprised of two healing narratives, the nobleman’s son (4:48–52) and the cripple at Bethesda (5:1–18), and a discourse in two parts. In both narratives ‘the life-giving Word is the pivot of the story’ (318). The reference to Cana links the first narrative in this episode with the earlier Cana story in the first episode. The healing at the Pool of Bethesda is likewise linked with the preceding episode by the water motif. The pool, like the water of purification or Jacob’s well, offers the possibility of life, but it is ineffectual. The first part of the discourse (5:19–30) elaborates the theme of God’s perpetual activity; the theme of 5:31–47 is μαρτυρία. Dodd’s analysis is brilliant. Philo (De Cher. 86–90; Leg. All. 1.5–6; Quaest. in Exod. ad Exod 25.22) and the rabbinic materials (Gen. Rab. 11.10; 30.9) isolate two divine activities that are perpetual: ζωοποιεῖν (giving life, saving) and κρίνειν

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(judging): ‘creative goodness and kingly authority’ (323). The former continues even on the Sabbath. Therefore, Jesus’ life-giving work on the Sabbath was exempt from the Sabbath law. The Son can exercise divine functions only because he acts in complete unity with the Father. Consequently, the Son is not a second deity. The second part of the discourse, which is concerned with μαρτυρία, extends the theme of the first part, declaring that ‘the μαρτυρία of God is accessible to men in two ways. First, the works of ζωοποίησις and κρίσις which Christ performs are manifestly divine activities’, and secondly, ‘the testimony of God is given through the Scriptures, which, rightly understood, bear witness to Christ’ (329). In sum, the two symbolic narratives in the second episode represent ‘Christ as conferring life by His word’ (331). Christ ‘exercises the functions of Deity’ through a subordination of Son to Father ‘so complete that it amounts to unity’ (331–2). The third episode, ‘bread of life’, spans John 6, once again a narrative followed by a discourse. The reference to Passover signals the reader to look for ‘more than the surface meaning’ (333), which Dodd took to be the Eucharistic significance of the narrative. The feeding leads to the crowd’s recognition of Jesus as a prophet. Balancing the significance of verisimilitude and historicity, Dodd observed that ‘the story is more perspicuous, better motivated, and dramatically more effective than the Synoptic version, whether or not it is more historically credible’ (334). The discourse develops the theme of bread of life in three stages. The first stage draws on the reference to manna but repudiates the materialistic strain of eschatology in some Jewish and Christian circles, taking the manna instead as a symbol for the Torah. The bread of life, therefore, is parallel to the living water in John 4, and the juxtaposition of Moses and Jesus in the Prologue underlies the themes of these chapters. The second stage (vv. 35–50) identifies the bread of life clearly with Jesus, while the third stage (vv. 51–9) ascribes the divine function of giving life to Jesus. This part of the discourse requires the present order of the Gospel, with John 5 preceding John 6. The Eucharistic overtones are unmistakable to the Christian reader, while the text requires ‘the non-Christian religiously minded public’ (339; Dodd’s view of the intended reader) to hold in mind the statement about eating the flesh and drinking the blood, awaiting further enlightenment. The rest of the chapter (6:60–71) is an appendix in which the idea of πνεῦμα reappears. The life given by the bread of life is ‘essentially ἐκ πνεύματος’ (341). Returning to the relationship between narrative structure and historicity, Dodd entertained the question of the significance the Evangelist

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attached to the sequence of events, noting that the Evangelist’s sequences ‘seem nearly always to be more than merely temporal’ (344). The discourse develops a progression from false conceptions of the function of the Messiah to more adequate conceptions. The incidents reflect a similar progression, moving from seeking to make Jesus king by force to separating his disciples from the crowd, walking on the water, and pronouncing the formula ἐγώ εἰμι. The fourth episode, ‘Light and Life’ (John 7–8), ‘the central block of the Book of Signs’ (345), consists of a series of seven controversy dialogues around the theme of ‘the manifestation and rejection of the Logos as light and life’ (352). The exchanges are polemical, short and sharp, with no extended speeches. Repeated statements emphasize that Jesus was in danger. The setting is the Feast of Tabernacles. Again the Evangelist employs a double stage, with Jesus in the foreground confronting the crowd, and the authorities in the background plotting against him (347). The theme of judgement and references to Jesus retiring and hiding provide dramatic unity to the dialogues (see 7:4, 10). Ironically, ‘Tabernacles is the occasion when Jesus manifests Himself as Messiah in Jerusalem’ (351), uttering the solemn formula ἐγώ εἰμι at the time of the libation ceremony. Dodd suggested that the whole episode ‘might be taken as a large-scale illustration . . . of the blinding or πώ ρωσις of Israel’ (352). Synoptic parallels may be recognized in the conflicts with the authorities and the declaration that the coming of Jesus brought not peace but division (Luke 12:51–3; 17:34–5). The fifth episode (John 9–10) contains the narrative of the healing of the blind man followed by ‘a dialogue in the form of a trial scene’ (354). John 10 may be divided into two sections: a discourse on the shepherd and the flock (vv. 1–21) and a controversy dialogue similar to those in John 7–8 (vv. 22–39). Dodd argued that John 10:22–39 is an appendix to the fifth episode in 9:1–10:21, marked by a change of time and place. The healing of the blind man picks up the symbol of water again. Rich in irony, the theme of this episode is ‘not the coming of light as such, but its effect in judgment’ (358). Since there is no change of setting at the beginning of John 10, ‘it would in fact be quite possible to read ix. 41–x. 5 as what it formally is, a single speech of Jesus’ (359). The idea that Jesus gives life by giving himself now leads to the reality that he will do so through his death, like a shepherd who lays down his life for his flock. The appendix in John 10:22–39 then moves to a definitive resolution of the theme of the relationship of Father and Son that pervades the Book of Signs in the declarations that ‘I and the Father are one’ and ‘the Father is in me and I in

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the Father’. The appendix, therefore, is not merely a repetition of earlier material, nor could it be moved to another place in the Gospel. The sixth episode (11:1–53) develops Jesus’ assertion, ‘I give to them eternal life’, through the narrative of the raising of Lazarus. The earlier pattern of a sign followed by an interpretative discourse is now abandoned in favour of an interweaving of narrative and dialogue so that the dialogues with the disciples and Martha interpret the sign, while the raising of Lazarus is delayed. The sign picks up the theme of Christ as the giver of life from the discourse in John 5, with close parallels to 5:28, so that the raising of Lazarus can be understood as a dramatic representation of the resurrection. Indeed, ‘Christ is Himself both resurrection and life’ (366). When Jesus goes to Judea to raise Lazarus, he is also ‘going to face death in order to conquer death’ (367). Earlier, cryptic allusions to Jesus’ death have been followed by reports of the actions of the authorities. So here the appended report of the meeting of the council follows the dialogue about the Good Shepherd in the previous chapter. The seventh episode (12:1–36) contains two narratives (the anointing at Bethany and the Triumphal Entry) and a discourse that points to the approaching passion and its significance. As in the earlier episodes, the theme of the discourse clarifies the meaning of the episode. In this instance, the discourse images death and resurrection through the aphorism of the seed (12:24), the principle of gaining life through dying, and Jesus’ death as both judgement and ‘lifting up’. The anointing at Bethany, then, can readily be understood as an anointing for Jesus’ burial, although John does not make the anointing an explicit prolepsis, as Mark does (370 n. 1). The Triumphal Entry, likewise, ‘is a σημεῖον of the universal sovereignty of Christ as Conqueror of death and Lord of life’ (371). The coming of the Greeks subtly confirms the universality of Christ’s work. Without Jesus’ death there can be no gathering of humankind: ‘The whole Lazarus incident signifies that Christ is the ζωοποιῶν by virtue of the surrender of His own life’ (374). As in the parable of the seed, selfrenunciation leads to life. The journey of ascent, from the ‘below’ to the ‘above’ (3:12–13) requires that Jesus be ‘lifted up’ (3:14; 8:28; 12:32). John 12:37–50 is an epilogue or appendix not only to episode seven but to the whole Book of Signs. In the first part (vv. 37–43) the Evangelist comments on the story; the second part (vv. 44–50) gives a resumé of Jesus’ preaching. The language of earlier sections is repeated, especially Jesus as the giver of light and life, but no new themes are introduced. While the Book of Signs is an organic whole, ‘its movement is more like that of a musical fugue’ (383). Each episode contains, at least implicitly, the

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whole of the Gospel (384). Themes, especially life, light and judgement, and the passion and glory of Christ, are introduced, dropped, and later taken up again. The narratives and discourses of each episode develop a single theme, while most of the episodes are followed by an appendix recapitulating the leading ideas of the episode and linking it to other episodes (384). The appendices tie up ideas that will be further explored later, and after later elaboration will cast the episode in a new light (387). John 3:25–36, for example, picks up πνεῦμα from 3:5 and points forward to 7:39, where Jesus is the giver of both spirit and living water. John 4:27–42, the appendix to the dialogue with the Samaritan woman, introduces the idea that Christ’s ‘food’ is to do the will of God. The theme of his obedience to the Father is then elaborated in 5:19–30. The appendix to the discourse on giving life and judgement (5:41–7) looks back to 2:11, which declared that Jesus’ signs manifest his glory. Likewise, John 6:60–71 looks back to the ἀνάβασις of the Son of Man in 3:13 and the spirit and the utterances of God in 3:34, connecting both with eternal life, a main theme of the discourse in 6:26–59 (387). John 10:22–39 is an epilogue, longer and more elaborate than the other appendices, but it functions in the same way, taking up ideas from John 7–8 and in its concluding sentence pointing forward to the further elaboration of the relationship of the Father and Son in the Farewell Discourses. Similarly, the appendix to the sixth episode points forward to the passion narrative. The last paragraph of the exposition of the Book of Signs gathers up the main points of Dodd’s argument, both with respect to the integrity and thematic development in John 2–12 and also the implications of his analysis for the theory that the Gospel suffered destruction and must be rearranged if one is to recover its original order: The Book of Signs, we conclude, exhibits a design and structure which respond sensitively to the development of the highly original ideas of the author. It constitutes a great argument, in which any substantial alteration of the existing order and sequence would disturb the strong and subtle unity which it presents, and which I take to be characteristic of the creative mind to which we owe the composition of the Fourth Gospel. [389].

The Book of the Passion Dodd called John 13–20 ‘The Book of the Passion’ and noted that in this section the (Farewell) Discourses precede the narrative but interpret the meaning of Jesus’ death, just as the earlier discourses following the signs had interpreted their meaning. The Fourth Evangelist carried further a

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tendency already at work in the tradition when he placed the ‘esoteric’ teaching at the table, but, Dodd contended, ‘ethical instruction formed no part of the evangelist’s purpose’ (391). The theme of the Farewell Discourses is ‘what it means to be united with Christ’ (418). The Evangelist treated Jesus’ death and resurrection as eschatological events. Jesus’ death was his ascent, and his return to the disciples was the Second Coming (395). Themes from earlier in the Gospel appear in the Farewell Discourses also, such as the relationship between Father and Son. ‘In a real sense,’ Dodd observed, ‘it is the risen and glorified Christ who speaks’ in these discourses (397). The point of view is that of the risen Christ speaking through Jesus the night before his death.6 By characterizing Jesus’ death and resurrection as eschatological events, the Evangelist effectively reinterpreted the eschatological beliefs of the early Church and the new life into which Jesus’ death and resurrection brought Jesus’ disciples (399). Dodd acknowledged that the logic of the discourses is not always obvious, but maintained nevertheless that the interpreter’s duty is to seek to discover their plan and the structure of their argument. John 14 begins, he argued, closely echoing the traditional eschatology of the early Church: Jesus was going ‘to prepare a place’ for the disciples. Christ’s return, however, is cast in new terms. The risen Christ will return in God’s love and in the Spirit. The new command given in the previous chapter is thereby placed in a new light also. The love of the disciples for one another, and their experience of Christ’s love is itself ‘the true “epiphany”’ (405). The bold reinterpretation, however, is central to the main theme of the Farewell Discourses, namely ‘the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ, as departure and return’ (406). Along the way, secondary themes (Christ’s indwelling with the disciples and the role of the Paraclete) that will be developed later in the discourse are introduced. John 14:27–31 serves as an appendix to the first part of the discourse, recapitulating some of the main themes of the foregoing material. Noting that the language of John 14:31 employs military terminology, Dodd resolved the historical aporia of Jesus’ statement, ‘Arise, let us go from here’ (NASB), by understanding it to mean ‘let us go to meet the advancing enemy’ (408), or ‘up, let us march to meet him [the ruler of the world]!’ (409). The monologue then continues uninterrupted from 15:1 to 16:15, and John 16 ends with another brief epilogue, spoken by Jesus. 6

Following Dodd’s lead, I explored this insight in Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel in the chapter on ‘Narrator and Point of View’ (Culpepper 1983, 37–40).

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This second section of the Farewell Discourses moves from the immediate crisis of Jesus’ departure and return to the situation of the Church after this crisis, considering in succession their relationship with the risen Lord, the hostility of the world, the theme of mutual indwelling, and the role of the Paraclete. The order makes sense, and attempts at rearranging the discourse material fail to note that the Spirit is called ‘another paraclete’ in 14:16, but this sense is lost if 15:26–7 or 16:7–11 are placed before 14:16 (cf. Bultmann 1971: 615; Smith 1965: 203–6). The reference then would have to mean another paraclete besides the one already mentioned (414)! In fact, however, the Evangelist was developing his bold reinterpretation of Christ’s return in the work of the Spirit in the Church. At John 16:16 the Evangelist brings the discourse back to its starting point and its main theme. The disciples’ failure to comprehend his meaning, at the end of the chapter, subtly underscores Jesus’ assurance that he has overcome the world – the victory does not depend on the disciples. The prayer in John 17 announces the fulfilment of Jesus’ work, revealing God’s name and transmitting all that the Father had given him to say. The main theme of the prayer, however, is what it means to be united with the crucified and risen Christ (418). While the prayer instructs, it also imparts union to his disciples, and in so doing it is the sequel to the allegory of the vine. The prayer is also Jesus’ spiritual ascent to the Father, and through the prayer he ‘draws’ all people to himself and eternal union with God (419). It is, for Dodd, ‘the climax of the thought of the whole gospel’ (420). When he turned to the passion narrative, Dodd asked how and to what extent the passion narrative is shaped by Johannine theology (423). After noting six elements from the Synoptic accounts that do not appear in John’s passion material and fifteen elements in John that are absent from the Synoptics, Dodd claimed that John’s passion account is ‘a straightforward story, with only a minimum of intruded interpretative elements’, and those that are evident ‘do not depend on the Johannine theological interpretation’ (431). Unlike the narrative of the raising of Lazarus, the passion narrative is more like the accounts of the earlier signs, whose meaning is not woven into the narrative but interpreted by the accompanying discourses.7 Nevertheless, Dodd found Johannine theology in five passages.

7

I would argue that in this instance Dodd was so intent on defending the basic historicity of the Johannine passion material that he did not adequately appreciate the degree to which the Johannine passion narrative incorporates Johannine theology through its symbolism, themes, and implicit commentary – a reading of the material in John 19–21 I have developed in the following articles: Culpepper (1997), (2005), and (2006).

C. H. Dodd as a precursor to narrative criticism 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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The Evangelist’s comment, that Jesus’ giving himself to the band that came out to arrest him fulfilled his word that he had lost not one of those who were given to him (18:9; 17:12), connects Jesus’ arrest with the earlier discourse on the Good Shepherd (10:15, 27–8). In light of this connection, Jesus’ self-surrender is a sign of the meaning of his death for ‘his own’: he chose to die. A similar comment following the crowd’s response to Pilate (18:32) alludes to the manner of Jesus’ death and therefore recalls the three ‘lifting up’ sayings in John (3:14; 8:28; 12:32). The process of salvation is carried out by the descent and ascent of the Son of Man. The ultimate sign is cast in Johannine terms: ‘Thus, paradoxically in a sense and yet not illogically, the death of Christ is at once His descent and His ascent, His humiliation and His exaltation, His shame and His glory; and this truth is symbolized, for the evangelist, in the manner of His death – crucifixion . . . which is, nevertheless . . . His exaltation from the earth’ (435). Jesus’ response to Pilate (18:37), that he came to bear witness to the truth, expresses the Evangelist’s understanding of true kingship as ‘essentially the sovereignty of ἀλήθεια’ (435). Behind the whole question of kingship lurks the question of the authority to judge. Pilate claims this authority, but the reader knows from John 5:27 that it is ‘the divinely assigned prerogative of Christ’ (436). Ironically, Pilate finally confesses Jesus’ kingship by placing the inscription on the cross. Pilate’s ironic ecce homo pronouncement may also be taken as a veiled confession. Jesus’ dying pronouncement, ‘It is finished’ (τετέλεσται), extends the earlier declaration of completion in 17:4, which encompassed the disclosure of God’s ‘name’ and the deliverance of God’s ῥήματα (words, message), to the historical fact of Jesus’ death as the consummation of the sacrifice. The description of the water and blood that flowed from Jesus’ side (19:34–5) recalls the enigmatic words in John 6:55 and 7:38. The reader can now see that Jesus’ death was his glorification.

Taken together, these five references show that the Evangelist understood Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion as ‘a σημεῖον on a grand scale’ that gathered up the whole series of σημεῖα (438). Other metaphorical images, such as Moses’ serpent, living water, the good shepherd, the grain of wheat, and the woman in travail, are also clarified by the passion narrative. This sign differs from the preceding signs, however, in that it has eternal

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consequence: ‘Though individual men may miss its significance, nevertheless the thing has happened and history is different: the whole setting of human life in this world is different’ (439). This absolute expression of divine ἀγάπη had to happen in history. It united the temporal and the eternal, Word and flesh. The preceding signs are signs of this event. The Gospel could not end with Jesus’ death, but for John his death so fully accomplishes his exaltation that the resurrection can hardly have the same significance as it has in the other Gospels. There is nothing in John, therefore, that resembles Matt. 28:16–20, which is ‘in all essential respects a proleptic parusia-scene’ in which Christ comes in glory to rule over the world (440). The differences between the resurrection appearances in John and those in Matthew and Luke may be explained ‘if we allow full weight to the Johannine doctrine that Christ is glorified and exalted in His death’ (441). In dying, Jesus went to the Father, ‘and this is to live, in the fullest sense possible’ (442). With Thomas’s confession the perception of Jesus ‘through the sight of mortal eyes has yielded to the stage at which faith is the medium of the saving vision of Him’ (443), and all believers are included in Christ’s final beatitude. The rest, ‘however true and however moving, is mere postscript’ (443).

Dodd’s reading of John as a step toward narrative criticism By taking John as a coherent unity Dodd challenged the most influential theory (Bultmann’s) of the composition history, disarrangement, and redaction of the Gospel just at the time it was gaining acceptance among English-speaking scholars. Both Dodd and Bultmann offered interpretations of John that blended theological interpretation with analysis of themes and structure. Both found the Fourth Evangelist to be a literary and theological genius, but whereas Bultmann found it necessary to reconstruct the work of the Evangelist from the Gospel left to us by the redactor, with the exception of John 21 and a few later glosses Dodd accepted the Gospel as we have it as the work of the Evangelist. Dodd found a coherent argument and theological vision in the text of the Fourth Gospel as it has come down to us. He also saw its artistry in introducing, developing, and weaving together its characteristic themes and symbols. The way in which these unfold in the Gospel is one of his main arguments that its current order is intelligible as it is and does not require rearrangement. Nevertheless, Dodd worked within the paradigm of historical criticism, and, as the last chapter of The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel and its sequel a decade later (Historical Tradition in the

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Fourth Gospel ) show, he was profoundly interested in the historical reliability of the tradition on which the Fourth Evangelist drew. Given this orientation, it is understandable that Dodd focused on ‘Argument and structure’ rather than such literary elements as the narrator, characterization, or plot. Nevertheless, he recognized the role of symbolism, irony, and the intended reader. Dodd wrote a chapter on John’s symbolism (133–43), which concludes with the observation that ‘the book as a whole, narrative and discourse, [is] bound together by an intricate network of symbolism’ (143). The contiguous discourses related to the narratives show that the narratives are to be understood symbolically (134). John’s symbols (living water, bread of life, true vine, good shepherd, etc.) are virtually absorbed into that which they signify (see Culpepper 1983: 185). The allegory of the vine, for example, must be understood ‘out of a rich background of associations which the vinesymbol had already acquired’ (137). Similarly, ‘bread’ was a commonly understood symbol for Torah or Wisdom. ‘Water’, while more complicated and varied in its associations, was widely used as a symbol of life. John’s treatment of events as σημεῖα is closer to the Hebrew prophets than to Philo. They are signs that events (or events about to happen) are part of the fulfilment of God’s purpose in history. In this sense, Dodd contended, ‘the events narrated in the Fourth Gospel are intended to be understood as significant events, σημεῖα’ (142). The Fourth Evangelist ‘writes in terms of a world in which phenomena – things and events – are a living and moving image of the eternal, and not a veil of illusion to hide it, a world in which the Word is made flesh’ (143). Here Dodd approaches the concept of the narrative world but remains rooted in the historical. Tracing narrative coherence in terms of argument and thematic development led Dodd to focus on the role of narrative, discourse, monologue, and appendices or epilogues in John. The first sign, the wedding at Cana, and the second sign, the healing of the royal official’s son, have no accompanying discourse that interprets the sign. The next two signs, in John 5 and 6, are followed by lengthy discourses that interpret the significance of the preceding sign. With John 9 the narrative scenes that follow the healing weave the discourse into the narrative, creating a literary gem. In John 11 the meaning of the raising of Lazarus is interpreted by the discourses with the disciples and Martha in advance of the sign (see Culpepper 1983: 73 n. 28). Similarly, the Farewell Discourses interpret the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection in advance. Thematic development is so important in John that Dodd commented

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that the order or sequence of the material seems ‘nearly always to be more than merely temporal’ (344). At the end of most of the episodes in the Book of Signs and sections of the Farewell Discourses the Fourth Evangelist includes an appendix that summarizes the theme of the preceding section, connects it with other themes, and anticipates coming material. Dodd even devotes some pages to discussion of the role of the appendices in the Book of Signs (386–8). The appendices serve as a series of links in the narrative (384). Dodd called John 21 an appendix, but did not list it as part of the structure at the outset, nor did he discuss John 21 at the end except in one paragraph ‘for the sake of completeness’ (431). John 20:30–1 provide a ‘formal conclusion’ for the Gospel, so chapter 21 ‘has the character of a postscript, and falls outside the design of the book as a whole’ (290). After building his analysis of the argument of the Gospel to a brilliant statement of the climactic role of the passion narrative, his last line of Part III of The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel reads: ‘the rest [John 21], however true and however moving, is mere postscript’ (443). Dodd’s identification of the progression of appendices embedded in the structure of the Gospel might lead readers to expect that he would have given John 21 a more significant place in the Gospel’s argument. By dropping John 21 from consideration, Dodd conformed to the widespread acceptance of the view that the last chapter is a later addition, not part of the Evangelist’s original conception of the Gospel, but he failed to build on his observations about the way the Evangelist used appendices at the end of sections throughout the Gospel.8 While Dodd maintained a historical frame of reference, treating the Fourth Gospel as interpretation of historical tradition, he recognized its literary features and often commented in passing on literary elements that would later receive detailed analysis by narrative critics: the Evangelist’s ‘eye for character’ (297, 308), the role of the man at the Pool of Bethesda (319) and Pilate (436) as representative characters, the use of characters as a Greek chorus (315), dramatic verisimilitude (315, 333, 334), recognition (334), dramatic περιπέτεια (358), action on two stages (315, 347), misunderstanding (301), and Johannine irony (315, 351, 357, 371, 377, 385, 436–7). Similarly, while Dodd did not distinguish the author from the implied author or the narrator, he recognized the significance of editorial comments (341) and the subtle shifting in temporal point of view in the 8

In Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, I too equivocated on whether John 21 should be seen as an integral part of the Gospel or a later addition to it (Culpepper 1983: 45). I subsequently embraced the view that John 21 was part of the Evangelist’s original plan for the Gospel (Culpepper 2006: 369–71).

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Farewell Discourses (397–8, 403). Neither did he distinguish between the intended reader, the implied reader, and the narratee, but Dodd concluded that the Gospel was written on two levels. While ‘those who have sufficient command of the material’ could grasp the whole significance of the Gospel from each episode (316, cf. 338; see Culpepper 1983: 225), the Gospel was written so that ‘the less instructed outside public’, i.e. ‘a serious and intelligent Hellenistic reader’ (316), ‘the non-Christian religiously minded public’ (339, cf. 366), would find its meaning built up step by step. Dodd’s work has become a classic precisely because its analysis of the historical, literary, and theological elements of the Gospel is so perceptive. While Dodd wrote before the advent of narrative criticism with its attendant freeing of literary analysis from historical criticism, his work represents a synthesis between literary and historical perspectives that may now be salutary for both camps. Dodd read John in tandem with the Synoptics and maintained a continuing conviction regarding the basic historicity of the narrative. Because Dodd read John with such a keen eye for both literary coherence and historical tradition, his work is still illuminating today. WORKS CITED Anderson, Paul N., Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher (eds.), 2007. John, Jesus, and History, I: Critical Appraisals and Critical Views. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. 2009. John, Jesus, and History, II: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Bultmann, Rudolf, 1941. Das Evangelium des Johannes. Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1971. The Gospel of John. Trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray et al. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Culpepper, R. Alan, 1983. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. 1997. ‘The Theology of the Johannine Passion Narrative: John 19:16b–30’. Neotestamentica 31: 21–37. 2005. ‘Designs for the Church in the Gospel Accounts of Jesus’ Death’. New Testament Studies 51: 376–92. 2006. ‘Designs for the Church in the Imagery of John 21:1–14’. In Jörg Frey, Jan G. van der Watt, and Ruben Zimmermann (eds.), Imagery in the Gospel of John: Terms, Forms, Themes and Theology of Figurative Language. WUNT 200. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 369–402. Dodd, C. H., 1953. Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lozada, Francisco, Jr., and Tom Thatcher (eds.), 2006. New Currents Through John: A Global Perspective. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Moore, Stephen D., 1989. Literary Criticism and the Gospels. New Haven: Yale University Press. Powell, Mark Allan, 1990. What is Narrative Criticism? Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Stibbe, Mark W. G., 1992. John as Storyteller: Narrative Criticism and the Fourth Gospel. SNTSMS 73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, D. Moody, Jr., 1965. Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel: Bultmann’s Literary Theory. New Haven: Yale University Press. Thatcher, Tom (ed.), 2007. What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies. Waco: Baylor University Press. Thatcher, Tom, and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), 2008. Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

chapter 3

Progress and paradox: C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann on history, the Jesus tradition, and the Fourth Gospel Craig R. Koester C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann were two of the dominant voices in Johannine studies in the mid-twentieth century. They were born in the same year, in 1884, and as itinerant graduate students attended lectures at the University of Berlin.1 Their research interests included the Synoptic tradition, the Pauline writings, and the Hellenistic context of early Christianity. Later in their careers they produced landmark works on John’s Gospel along with commentaries on the Johannine Epistles. Both agreed that the Fourth Gospel had little if any direct connection with the Synoptic tradition and could best be understood as an independent composition. In their studies of Johannine thought and language they noted significant affinities with religious currents in the ancient world, and both had deep regard for the Gospel’s theological perspective, and especially its emphasis on the present reality of salvation. Intriguing differences emerge, however, when we ask how they dealt with the historical significance of Jesus in the Johannine tradition and its implications for theology. In his The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Dodd concluded that John’s Gospel was essentially a theological work but one that conveyed its message through an historical narrative. The Evangelist sought ‘to expound the meaning of facts, and not to invent a dramatic plot’ (1953: 447), because for John the eternal reality was ‘conclusively revealed and embodied in an historical Person, who actually lived, worked, taught, suffered, and died’ (1953: 444). Therefore, Dodd went on to write Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, where he tried to trace elements in the Gospel back to their earliest recoverable form in order to show that John merits ‘serious consideration as a contribution to our knowledge of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ (1963: 423). Dodd understood the process as one in which the Gospel writer received an 1

Bultmann studied in Berlin in 1904–5 and Dodd in 1907. Dodd completed most of his studies at Oxford and Bultmann at Tübingen and Marburg.

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historical tradition concerning Jesus and then narrated it with a certain amount of freedom in order to disclose its significance for the cultured audience of antiquity. Yet throughout the process of elaboration Dodd discerned a high level of continuity between the Johannine narrative and what was given historically in Jesus (1953: 444). Bultmann saw things quite differently. He fully agreed that John’s Gospel locates God’s revelation in ‘a definite human being in history: Jesus of Nazareth’ (1955: 41). The historicity of Jesus’ life and death is a given, which in no way can be compromised. Bultmann insists that God’s self-revelation does not consist in general truths that are available at all times and places, because the revelation comes within time, at a particular moment, in the person of Jesus (1971: 307–8). But at this point Bultmann parts company with Dodd. Rather than asking how much the Fourth Gospel can tell us about the historical Jesus, Bultmann points out how little it says, for the Gospel’s purpose was not ‘the transmitting of historical tradition about Jesus’ (1955: 69). Rather it presents only ‘the fact (das Dass) of the Revelation without describing its content (ihr Was)’ (1955: 66). For Dodd the historicity of Jesus was theologically indispensable because it was the ground of the Gospel’s plausibility. He assumed that there was a progressive movement from the events of Jesus’ life into the tradition of the early Church, which was creatively presented in John’s Gospel. If the continuity were lost the integrity of the Gospel’s message would be lost. Therefore, he thought that tracing the historical underpinnings of the Gospel was congruent with its essential character. But for Bultmann the historicity of Jesus was indispensable because it was offensive and presented a revelation that was inherently implausible. The claim that God was revealed in a mere man who died by crucifixion undercuts human plausibility systems and can only be accepted by faith. Therefore, Bultmann thought that tracing the Gospel’s historical underpinnings ran counter to its essential character. Doing so was a human attempt to make plausible what was implausible, thereby diminishing the radical character of Christian faith (1955: 69; 1971: 308). The differences between Dodd and Bultmann on historical questions point to differences in world-views that remain valuable for us to consider. As interpreters their perspectives were shaped by the theological traditions out of which they came and by the historical contexts within which they worked. We do well to ask not only how they saw things but why they saw things as they did, to look not only at the conclusions they reached but at the assumptions they made and the values they held. For convenience we will organize our work around the three main elements in the title of

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Dodd’s book, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. We will first consider their attitudes toward history, then turn to their perspectives on tradition about Jesus, and finally consider the implications for the Fourth Gospel.

History: the revealed and the hidden Dodd approached history as the sphere in which God’s activity was revealed. He assumed that history transmitted the memory of what had occurred along with the significance of the event for a group of people. History included both event and interpretation, and for Christians the principal events were Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and their elaboration by the believing community. The historical process provided for continuity as the message of Jesus was transmitted from one generation to the next, even as it allowed the message to be expressed in new ways in order that its significance could be made clear in changing contexts. This perspective was informed by the theological tradition of the Congregational Church in which Dodd was raised. He was ordained into its ministry in 1912 and served as a parish pastor for a number of years (1912–15, 1918–19). The Congregationalists generally followed a moderate form of Calvinism, but did not transmit the faith through written creeds. The Manual of Congregational Principles from the period stated that ‘Congregationalism ensures the permanence of true Faith, not by imposing a creed on those who enter the church, but by requiring that those who enter the church shall first be “in Christ”’ (Dale 1892: 188). Their practice assumed that the central truths of Christianity were to be handed down through the living community of faith. Later we will find that Dodd’s biblical work similarly envisioned oral tradition as a source of continuity within early Christianity. Another feature of Congregational theology that informed Dodd’s work was the notion that Christianity had a stable underlying substance that could be expressed in multiple forms. The Manual distinguished the ‘substance’ or ‘supreme facts of the Christian Gospel’, which were of abiding significance, from the changing ‘theological forms’ in which those truths were expressed (Dale 1892: 189). As long as one’s beliefs maintained the essential connection with the person of Jesus the forms of expression could vary. Another feature of this tradition was that meaning could be progressively disclosed over time. The Manual pointed out that the ‘same truths rarely receive the same intellectual expression in two successive centuries’, so if the written creed of one generation is not meaningful to

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the next, the message should be reformulated. Over time the Church might find that ‘the new terms in which the great Christian truths are stated are more exact than the old’ (1892: 189). The outlook on history and tradition that Dodd received through the Congregational Church was refined during his graduate studies, as he attended lectures by Adolf von Harnack in Berlin. Von Harnack was known for his multi-volume History of Dogma, which demonstrated how formulations of Christian doctrine had indeed changed over the centuries, in large part through the Church’s appropriation of Greek philosophical thought. When von Harnack defined dogma as ‘a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the Gospel’, he explained that the early Church used philosophy ‘for the purpose of making the Gospel intelligible’ to the people of that time, so that the process could fit Christianity’s aim of bringing ‘Divine life to humanity’ (1894: I, 17–18). The problem with dogma was that it later became a tool that the Church used to enforce compliance with its own authority, so von Harnack countered that changing historical circumstances warranted changing formulations of the Christian message. Von Harnack’s goal was not to move back behind all dogmatic formulations in order to repristinate the earliest recoverable form of Christianity. Rather, through historical study he tried to identify ‘the essence of Christianity’, which persisted over time.2 He said that either the Gospel is ‘identical with its earliest form, in which case it came and went with its time and has departed with it; or else it contains something which, under differing historical forms, is of permanent validity’. For him the ‘latter is the true view’ (1901: 13–14). He derived the essential features of Christianity from the Synoptic accounts of Jesus’ teaching, which he said focused on the kingdom of God, God’s identity as Father, the infinite value of the human soul, and the higher righteousness with its command to love. The idea is that Jesus’ essential teachings then influenced those who followed him and took shape in the early Church (1901: 31). This sense of meaningful continuity within historical change characterized Dodd’s work as well.3 A major challenge to this world-view came from the devastating results of World War I. In the wake of the vast and apparently senseless carnage, many found it difficult to see how the ideals that von Harnack had 2

3

The ‘essence of Christianity’ is a literal translation of the title of von Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christentums, which was published in 1900. The English translation, entitled What Is Christianity?, appeared in 1901. Dodd’s biographer Frederick W. Dillistone commented that ‘it is doubtful if Dodd ever deviated to any substantial degree from the attitude to history embodied in Harnack’s work’ (1976: 54).

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summarized could make sense of a shattered world. Although Dodd made few direct comments about the war in his writings, he responded to the challenge of that time by reasserting the idea that meaning was disclosed through the progression of history. In his book The Meaning of Paul for Today, written just after the war, he cast Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees as a drama in which ‘irreconcilable ideals’ rally ‘for a battle royal on the whole front of man’s religious destiny’ (1920: 13). The analogy to the situation of Europe is apparent in his language. The cross – seemingly like the war itself – was the outcome of a ‘passionate conflict of human interests, in which ancient good, become uncouth, overcomes the better that might be, and the stirrings of the human spirit are baffled by historic necessity’. Yet despite the confusion, meaning comes through the events that follow, when at Easter ‘the defeat is forgotten and the divine Victor holds the stage’, and the effects of Jesus’ victory are played out historically through the ministry of Paul (1920: 14–15). Dodd recognizes that the significance of events – whether the cross or the war – may not always be apparent at the time, but one may discern meaning by tracing their effects in the ongoing flow of history. The perspectives that Dodd developed early in his career would later shape his work on John’s Gospel. Two points should be noted. First, Dodd remained convinced that meaning was disclosed through history, which included both events and the significance that events had for people. The central message of Christianity revolves around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, which are the events that reveal divine action. When speaking of the Fourth Gospel Dodd could say that the biblical writer envisions ‘a world in which phenomena – things and events – are a living and moving image of the eternal, and not a veil of illusion to hide it, a world in which the Word is made flesh’ (1953: 143, italics added). Secondly, he assumed that the revelation given in Jesus could retain its essential character even as it was stated in new and different ways. Dodd insisted that the Fourth Gospel preserved the essential features of Jesus’ historical ministry, even as it recast those events ‘in order to bring out the meaning’ (1953: 447). The changes were not a departure from the underlying tradition but a way of ensuring its continuity by making it intelligible to readers whose religious interests and experiences reflected a Hellenistic world-view (1953: 9). Bultmann was shaped by a different theological tradition, which in turn affected his outlook on history. As the son of a Lutheran pastor he was grounded in the idea that people cannot justify themselves before God. The Lutheran tradition insisted that all human attempts at self-justification

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were doomed to failure. Rather, justification was God’s action, which occurred when the proclaimed word evoked faith in people. Luther had insisted that it was not enough ‘to preach the works, life, and words of Christ as historical facts, as if the knowledge of these would suffice’ (1957: 357). Luther noted that the apostle Paul said almost nothing about Jesus’ life or teachings, and yet was an effective preacher because he communicated the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection for people (1960: 360). Luther’s primary interest was in the effect of the word and how it evoked faith in a way that not only went beyond reason but even worked contrary to reason. The Lutheran tradition had a deep sense of paradox, insisting that God’s presence and actions were not directly evident to the senses but were hidden under their opposites. People might want to see the glory and majesty of God in the visible things of this world, yet God is hidden in the suffering and humiliation of Jesus on the cross. The paradox is that the God who has hidden his glory in the shame and suffering of Jesus also reveals himself there. God makes his power to save known through the weakness of crucifixion. The same paradox characterizes the experience of faith. Luther insisted that it is precisely in a person’s despair – namely in the place where God seems most absent – that God actually makes himself known as the one who is gracious and saving (Althaus 1966: 25–34). Bultmann shared this classic interest in the dynamics of faith, particularly given the increasing secularism of modern life. Although he, like Dodd, attended lectures at the University of Berlin, he thought the approach taken by von Harnack and others was too deeply enmeshed in European cultural norms. It seemed to equate Jesus’ message about the kingdom with ethical ideals that people were to work out socially. Later, at the University of Marburg, Bultmann was attracted to the thinking of the Neo-Kantians, who wanted to distinguish personal religious experience from culture, and he was intrigued with the history-of-religions work of Adolf Jülicher and Johannes Weiss, who construed Jesus’ message of the kingdom in apocalyptic terms, as something that broke into history through the agency of God. By relating this idea to the life of an individual, he could speak of divine revelation as that which brings one world to an end and gives rise to another (Dennison 2008: 43–70). World War I heightened the problem of history and divine revelation for Bultmann. It was during the war, in 1917, that he published an essay entitled ‘On the Hidden and the Revealed God’. The essay begins by recalling the catastrophic change that occurred as the older world of

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peacetime vanished before the terrifying onslaught of contending powers. What the war revealed was the magnitude of the destructive forces within human beings, now bound in incomprehensible conflict. Bultmann said that in such a world ‘God must be a hidden and mysterious God, full of contradictions and riddles’ (1960: 27). The goal was not to solve the riddles or to harmonize the contradictions – that would be impossible. Rather, people were called to kneel before ‘the hidden God of the riddle’, trusting that in that way they might encounter ‘the revealed God of grace’ (1960: 34). Only by trusting in the word through which God called people could they move forward into the future when everything in their experience called that future into question. Hiddenness and paradox fit Bultmann’s developing interest in existentialist philosophy and would characterize his later work on John’s Gospel. Where Dodd stressed the revelatory aspect of history, Bultmann stressed its enigmatic quality. For Dodd, the incarnation showed how the visible realm of things and events disclosed the eternal and were ‘not a veil of illusion to hide it’ (1953: 143), but Bultmann said the opposite. The Gospel proclaimed that ‘the Word became flesh and we beheld his glory’, but that statement is paradoxical. Divine glory ‘is not to be seen alongside the σάρξ, nor through the σάρξ as through a window; it is to be seen in the σάρξ and nowhere else’; and that means ‘the revelation is present in a peculiar hiddenness’ (1971: 63). If the revelation is to evoke faith, it must do so despite appearances and not because of them.

Tradition about Jesus: continuity and discontinuity Modern historical studies of Jesus compounded the difficulty of finding a secure basis for Christian belief. Interpreters in the nineteenth century wanted to look behind the traditional Church dogmas about the dying and rising Son of God in order to recover what they assumed would be a more historically accurate picture of Jesus the Galilean teacher. By the early twentieth century, however, it became clear that critics had created a Jesus in their own image, projecting their own ethical ideals onto the figure from the ancient past. Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus, published in German in 1906, pointed out the failure of modern scholarship to recover the Jesus of history. Where many had downplayed the eschatological aspect of Jesus’ message in order to make it more palatable for modern readers, Schweitzer insisted that the expectation of the kingdom’s imminent in-breaking was central for Jesus. Such beliefs do not conform to the modern world-view, which means the ‘historical Jesus will

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be to our time a stranger and an enigma’ (1968: 399). For Schweitzer it was the Jesus who arises spiritually within people who remains significant. Dodd recognized the value of Schweitzer’s critique and had no desire to write another life of Jesus, yet he also resisted Schweitzer’s conclusions and responded in two ways: one was by seeking to show the continuity between the historical person of Jesus and the witness of the New Testament. The other was by balancing the futuristic aspect of Jesus’ message with a greater emphasis on the present reality of God’s kingdom. Dodd understood that modern interpreters do not have direct access to the historical Jesus and that what is known of Jesus is mediated through the tradition of the early Church. Yet he insisted that Christianity is a historical religion. ‘It depends upon a valuation of historical events as the medium of God’s self-revelation in action’ (1938: 19). Dodd endeavoured to show that beneath the various New Testament witnesses to Jesus was an underlying pattern in which the essential features of Jesus’ life and work are attested and interpreted. Central to the pattern is Jesus’ suffering and death by crucifixion, which is recounted at length in the Gospels and more briefly in Paul’s letters, the speeches in Acts, 1 Peter, and Hebrews. Sources outside the Gospels also make occasional references to Jesus’ life and teachings in ways that are generally congruent with the gospel accounts. Dodd’s logic took several steps. First, the New Testament writings were to some extent independent of each other and thus provided multiple forms of attestation to the same underlying pattern. Secondly, this means that the pattern must have been rather firmly fixed at an early period in the Church’s history. Thirdly, Dodd inferred that this persistent early pattern must have been created by the actual events of Jesus’ ministry (1938: 73). Where Congregational theology envisioned different creedal forms expressing the same substance, and where von Harnack discerned the ‘essence’ of Christianity beneath its varied dogmatic expressions, Dodd saw a historical substratum under the multiplicity of New Testament witnesses. He could speak of ‘The Historical Tradition in the New Testament’, so that theological interpretation could reasonably be said to rest on valid testimony to the events themselves (1938: 41–74). Of particular importance was evidence that Jesus understood the kingdom of God to have arrived in his own ministry, rather than to be coming cataclysmically in the future as Schweitzer had thought. Through studies of the parables, which had a good claim to preserve the teachings of Jesus, Dodd concluded that Jesus envisioned his work as the climax of history. In Jesus’ miracles, preaching, and the conflict leading to crucifixion, the time of fulfilment arrived. God confronted people with his kingdom.

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In Jesus, ‘It is the hour of decision. It is realized eschatology’ (1935: 197–8). Dodd noted multiple forms of attestation to this belief in the writings of the early Church. For example, Peter’s sermon in Acts said, ‘This is what was spoken by the prophet’ (Acts 2:16). Paul wrote, ‘If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation’ (2 Cor. 5:17); and Hebrews said that the faithful have ‘tasted the powers of the age to come’ (Heb. 6:5). Johannine eschatology seemed to be congruent with the emphasis on the present reality of the kingdom that Dodd found in other early Christian writings. He charged that Schweitzer’s portrait of the apocalyptic Jesus had led to ‘an impoverished, a one-sided, and finally an incredible view of the facts – I mean, of the facts, as part of history’ (1953: 446). Given the breadth of the evidence for realized eschatology in early Christian tradition and its probable reliance on Jesus himself, Dodd could say that the statement ‘the hour is coming and now is’ in John 4:23 was ‘essentially historical, and probably represents the authentic teaching of Jesus’ (1953: 447). For Bultmann, however, Dodd’s attempt to ground John’s realized eschatology in the preaching of Jesus was ‘impossible’ (1963a: 21). Bultmann maintained that what little could be discerned historically indicated that Jesus proclaimed a kingdom that was coming in the future. For Jesus the present moment was the time of decision, not because he had brought in the kingdom but because he was preparing people for the kingdom’s imminent arrival. That is why he called them to turn to God, ready to abandon all earthly ties in order to obey God’s command to serve. In the early Church, however, a major shift took place when the Jesus who proclaimed the coming kingdom became the centre of the Church’s proclamation. Bultmann insisted that Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah but pointed to another, who would bring judgement and salvation in the future. Only after Jesus’ death and the rise of the belief in his resurrection did his followers declare that he was the Messiah, the Man who would soon arrive on the clouds of heaven to establish the kingdom. When the message that now focused on Jesus as the bringer of salvation was taken into the Hellenized world, Jesus was identified with titles already used for agents of redemption in the Gentile world: Son of God, Saviour, and Lord or Kyrios. Salvation was understood as a mystery cult in which people participated in Jesus’ dying and rising through the sacraments (1956: 86–93, 175–9). Where Dodd emphasized continuity in the way Jesus’ message was elaborated for a Hellenized world, Bultmann emphasized the discontinuity. Where Dodd saw the essence of Jesus’ message being given new forms so that it could speak to the Hellenized world in meaningful ways, Bultmann stressed the opposite. He saw early Christianity as a syncretistic phenomenon, which

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was being redefined by the Hellenized world, as it absorbed beliefs and practices from the wider cultural context. Most notable was that early Christianity seemed to have adopted the structures of Gnostic myth, which promised deliverance from the material world below into the higher realm above. Where the earliest Christians had turned Jesus into the apocalyptic Man, who would soon appear on the clouds of heaven, the Hellenized Christians turned him into the pre-existent Gnostic redeemer, who descends from the higher world of light to awaken sleeping souls to the truth of their heavenly origin. The Gnostic redeemer wears his body only as a cloak, which he abandons as he returns to upper realm from which he came (1956: 162–71). Dodd’s study of the parables may have reinforced his sense of continuity between the preaching of Jesus and that of the early Church, but Bultmann disagreed. In his work on The History of the Synoptic Tradition, first published in German in 1921, he concluded that the legacy of Jesus had been decisively reshaped in the process of transmission. The Gospels expressed the faith of the Hellenistic Church. ‘The Christ who is preached is not the historic Jesus, but the Christ of the faith and the cult’ (1963b: 370). Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom was transformed into the proclamation of his death and resurrection, which become salvific through the sacraments of the Church. For Bultmann, the Synoptic Gospels were ‘expanded cult legends’ (1963b: 371). Such a devastating critique of the Jesus tradition had an important theological function for Bultmann, because it undercut the human attempt to justify one’s faith in Jesus. No one can find security by moving back through the unbroken tradition of the Church to lay hold of Jesus himself. Bultmann was convinced that the early Church – like the Church of his own time – was being shaped by the forces of culture around it. Therefore, faith had to be an act of discontinuity, in which people are confronted by the disruptive word of God, which calls them away from worldly securities and into a life of obedience without external guarantees – including the guarantees of tradition. And for Bultmann, the Gospel of John was one of the most important New Testament voices calling for such a radical view of faith.

The Fourth Gospel: plausibility and offence Dodd’s two major studies of the Fourth Gospel were written at a time when the negative results of critical scholarship had made it difficult to speak about the historical basis of Christianity. He noted that many found

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it convenient to say that New Testament texts were written ‘from faith to faith’, but Dodd found this approach problematic (1963: 1). It gave the impression that people were to believe in the early Church’s belief; they were to have faith in faith, and this for Dodd was inadequate. He had previously insisted that ‘Christianity recognizes no spiritual revelation which is not directly related to the historical reality of Jesus’, and this would inform his work on John (1938: 58). As we have seen, Dodd could acknowledge a Gospel writer’s freedom to elaborate the tradition so long as the historical substance was maintained. In The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Dodd presupposes that the Gospel is based on a kerygma that was essentially ‘a proclamation of the facts about Jesus in an eschatological setting that indicates the significance of the facts’ (1953: 6). The flow of Dodd’s book traces the kerygma’s outward movement and mode of addressing a Hellenized world. As long as the Gospel’s tether to the historical events and essential teachings of Jesus was intact, Dodd could readily acknowledge that the Evangelist gave the tradition new forms of expression, using the language and imagery of Hellenistic Judaism to make the message plausible for readers whose outlook was reflected in the Hermetic writings, which Dodd called ‘the higher religion of Hellenism’. Given the way the Fourth Gospel recast the tradition, Dodd granted that the speeches it ascribed to Jesus were not historical, yet they were valid elaborations of the underlying historical tradition (1953: 444–5). Ten years later Dodd’s Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel tried to establish a more secure basis for claiming that the new Johannine forms preserved reliable historical substance. He acknowledged the criticism of scholars like Bultmann when he noted that New Testament writings may indeed ‘contain an element of myth or legend, typology or symbolism’, and their contents may have been ‘transmitted through the dubious channels of popular tradition’; yet he insisted that such phenomena did not exclude them ‘as sources for history’ (1963: 1–2). His goal was to work for ‘a clear and well-based conception of the historical facts upon which our religion is founded’, taking John as his focus (1963: 432). As we look more closely at this work it is striking that Dodd and Bultmann agreed about two key points. One is that the Fourth Gospel is largely independent of the Synoptics. Where John includes episodes that appear in one or more of the other Gospels, the connections come from a shared tradition rather than from the literary dependence of John upon the Synoptics. The second point of agreement is that the historicity of Jesus is

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essential for John. It informs the Gospel’s entire theological message and can in no way be compromised. So given these agreements it is all the more remarkable to see how differently these two scholars worked out the implications. John’s independence from the Synoptics was noted at the conclusion of Dodd’s first major study of the Fourth Gospel (1953: 449) and it became a central feature of his later work (Smith 2001: 53–62). Dodd thought that the traditions used by the Fourth Evangelist had been transmitted in oral form and had a good claim to historical reliability. His previous work on the kerygma of the early Church had convinced him that a major function of tradition was to preserve older material. The oral tradition would ‘guard and hand on what was remembered or believed concerning that which Jesus had done, said and suffered’. It was characterized by ‘continuity’, as something ‘unbroken from its earliest days’ (1963: 7). If the oral tradition used by the Fourth Evangelist was independent of the Synoptics, and yet pointed to many of the same events and teachings as the Synoptics, then it seems likely that the memory of those events and teachings came from the earliest phases of the Church’s life. And if that is true, then one could plausibly infer that the primitive tradition came from the historical ministry of Jesus himself (1963: 431–2). Dodd built his case on the assumption that the final form of John’s Gospel gave the oral tradition a generally coherent form, so that what was true of one part of the Gospel would be true of other parts (1953: 289–90). He began with John’s passion narrative, which traces a series of events like those in the Synoptics, while narrating them in an independent fashion. He argued that John’s interpretative use of Old Testament testimonies presupposed an underlying tradition about events. Dodd insisted that the Evangelist did not create the events of Jesus’ crucifixion in order to fit the Old Testament passages but used those passages to explain the ‘attested facts’ of Jesus’ career (1963: 49) Moving from the passion narrative to John’s account of Jesus’ ministry, Dodd traced the way the Evangelist elaborated the feeding of the 5,000 and the healing miracles, which have analogies to Synoptic accounts but were probably drawn independently from the earlier tradition. More challenging was the wine miracle at Cana, which Dodd thought had affinities with Hellenistic folk traditions. Yet since Jesus used wine imagery for the coming of the new order and included wedding motifs in his parables, Dodd conjectured that the Cana story had some tie to the primitive tradition (1963: 223–8). Similarly, the dialogue with Nicodemus had many distinctively Johannine themes, yet Dodd noted how

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Nicodemus’s initial address to Jesus as ‘teacher’ preserved a feature of a dialogue tradition that appeared in other settings and could represent a genuine ‘historical trait’ (1963: 329). Throughout this work, Dodd pictures a progression in which the historical Jesus has shaped the oral tradition and the oral tradition has shaped the written Gospel. By moving in the reverse order, from John’s Gospel to the underlying tradition, it seemed plausible to think that one would draw as close as possible to the historical Jesus. Ultimately Christianity was not about having faith in the early Church’s faith; it had to be grounded in Jesus himself. In Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, Dodd concluded that he had helped to demonstrate the Gospel’s historical underpinnings with ‘a high degree of probability’ (1963: 423). The value of ‘probability’ is precisely what Bultmann would question. He regarded the quest for probability as a human attempt to provide justification for faith, thereby turning it into something other than the radical act of trust and commitment that Jesus called for. Bultmann would agree that Christian faith cannot rightly be belief in the early Church’s belief. It has to be grounded in Jesus, who came at a particular point in history. But for Bultmann, one cannot obtain access to Jesus’ revelation by attempting to travel backward in time, as if one could lay hold of it in some previous historical moment. Rather, faith arises as Jesus intrudes into the present historical moment through preaching and calls people to faith through his word (1971: 308). For Bultmann, John’s independence from the Synoptics was of theological rather than historical interest. It allowed him to contrast John’s theological vision with that of the other Gospels, but he had no interest in using John to reconstruct the historical events of Jesus’ ministry. Bultmann found the Gospel’s final form to be full of internal tensions. He conjectured that it was based on several written sources, rather than on the unbroken oral tradition that Dodd pictured. The passion account came from one source and the miracles stories from another, and even though the writer included the miracles in his text, he added comments that were sharply critical of faith that depended on signs. The revelatory discourses ascribed to Jesus came from yet another source, which had a Gnostic perspective that the Evangelist also had to critique by transforming its cosmic dualism into a dualism of belief and unbelief. Over time the internal tensions multiplied as sections of the Gospel were displaced, disrupting the flow of the narrative; and a final editor, whose theological views differed from those of the Gospel writer, also inserted his own

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editorial comments into the text.4 Bultmann’s attempt to rearrange the text and to identify the various levels of composition and editing mirror his own struggle to find coherence in a Gospel that seemed to defy it at many points. Despite the complexity, however, Bultmann insisted that John’s Gospel bears witness to a Jesus who is radically historical. The one indisputable fact is that Jesus of Nazareth was a human being who lived and died. To claim that God’s revelation came historically in this particular man is not an encouragement to faith but a barrier to it. It is an offence to say that a flesh and blood human being – a historical human being – is the revealer of God. Divine revelation is not and cannot be transparent in a Word that becomes flesh in history. The revelation is present only in its ‘peculiar hiddenness’ (1971: 63; cf. 295). The man Jesus may have spoken and acted, and yet John’s Gospel relates how persistently he was misunderstood. His sayings and signs are not clear windows to the divine but are profoundly ambiguous and frequently elicit objections or a misguided credulity. The offence of the assertion, ‘the Word became flesh’, is most clearly seen in those who heard Jesus’ claims as blasphemy and declared that he, a mere human being, was trying to make himself God (1955: 47). Bultmann’s observations raise questions about what one might find when searching for the historical Jesus. If one wants to find a secure foundation for Christian faith, then Bultmann would argue that the historical Jesus will not provide it. The closer one gets the more enigmatic he becomes, and the idea that faith should be lodged in him is so absurd that it shatters any hope of security in the ordinary sense. For Bultmann the one great certainty – namely the fact of the historical Jesus’ humanity – is what destroys all other purported certainties about how the revelation of God should come. That is why he valued John’s Gospel so highly. It made clear that ‘the Revealer is nothing but a definite historical man, Jesus of Nazareth’, whose claims cannot, finally, be proven to the world (1955: 69; cf. 46). The improbability of revelation being given in the human flesh of Jesus is what makes faith what it is. The very idea is offensive to human understanding and therefore can only be grasped by faith. Faith must therefore arise by overcoming the offence that life is given to the world through the word of a particular human being, Jesus (1955: 75). 4

Dodd viewed the complexity of such rearrangements with a certain bemusement, commenting that ‘I . . . cannot sufficiently admire the patience and endless ingenuity which have gone to their making’ (1953: 289). He found the reconstructions far too subjective, reflecting individual preferences and preconceptions.

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Conclusion This brief retrospective on Dodd and Bultmann has tried to set their work on John’s Gospel in the context of their life stories, perspectives on history and tradition, and theological concerns. We have seen that Dodd’s basic outlook was progressive. He assumed that the historical Jesus of Nazareth established the contours of the Christian tradition, which then moved outward to the Hellenistic world and forward through time. The message was progressively given new forms of expression, like those in John’s Gospel, even as it retained its continuity in substance. Dodd’s work challenged the views of scholars like Bultmann, who affirmed the historicity of Jesus but refused to give it any real content. From Dodd’s perspective the approach taken by Bultmann seemed to deny that Jesus’ words and actions had any real formative influence on the tradition that followed him, and that for Dodd was inexplicable. The early Church’s interpretation of Jesus presupposed that there was something to interpret. Without sufficient clarity about Christianity’s historical moorings its call for faith seemed arbitrary, lacking any compelling basis for conviction. Accordingly, Dodd hoped that his work on the traditions underlying the Fourth Gospel would contribute to ‘a clear and well-based conception of the historical facts upon which our religion is founded’ (1963: 432). The case he made for John’s independence from the Synoptics and for John’s potential as a source for early traditions about Jesus is an enduring part of his legacy. By way of contrast, Bultmann’s basic outlook was paradoxical. From his perspective the historical study of Jesus had succeeded in showing how little could be said with any confidence. Where Dodd looked for ways in which Jesus shaped the tradition, Bultmann tried to show how much the tradition had shaped the portrait of Jesus. Schweitzer may have shown how readily the nineteenth-century lives of Jesus projected the values and aspirations of the interpreters onto the historical man from Nazareth, but Bultmann thought the process had begun long before in early Christianity. As Dodd tried to shore up the historical scaffolding that he thought would support belief in Jesus, Bultmann was busy knocking it down, reducing historical certainty to its barest minimum. The paradox is that he could argue that his unsettling historical conclusions were actually helpful for faith because they removed the illusion that authentic faith could ever be something other than a venture of trust. Dodd and Bultmann related their work to the notion of revelation, which has a central place in John’s Gospel. Dodd insisted that the Word

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became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth in order to make God known in a manner accessible to the senses. Jesus’ words and signs conveyed God’s power and presence through what could be heard, seen, and touched. The historical realm of sense perception was a vehicle for divine disclosure, ‘a moving image of the eternal’ (1953: 143), making it perfectly natural for the Gospel to narrate Jesus’ signs for the readers in order that they might believe and have life (John 20:30–1). Bultmann countered that revelation does not work so directly. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus’ words and signs are not transparent but cryptic. They provoke opposition rather than faith. At the close of Jesus’ public ministry the Gospel says that despite the many signs, people did not believe in Jesus; he brought the light and it made people blind (John 12:37, 40). Historically, the world’s crucifixion of the revealer demonstrated how well hidden the revelation was. The Gospel calls people to believe not because of what they see but in spite of it. These venerable interpreters of the Fourth Gospel leave subsequent generations with a tension that is not easy to resolve. To those who want to ask historical questions of John, Dodd would give a hearty word of encouragement. He would say, ‘Proceed, explore, discover as much as you can, for there is tremendous potential here. The text claims to bear witness to Jesus, so follow its lead. You may be surprised how far the study of history can take you.’ However, Bultmann would add, ‘Beware. The study of history may not give you the kind of surprises you want. If your efforts lead to a Jesus who is comfortably familiar, then take it as a sign that he has eluded you. The Johannine Jesus repeatedly confounded his hearers. Be prepared for the historical Jesus to do the same.’ Answers are not finally what these interpreters give us, but their legacies are an abiding invitation to continue the conversation into the next generation. W O RK S CI T ED Althaus, Paul, 1966. The Theology of Martin Luther. Philadelphia: Fortress. Bultmann, Rudolf, 1951, 1955. Theology of the New Testament. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons. 1956. Primitive Christianity in Its Contemporary Setting. New York: Meridian Books. 1960. ‘Concerning the Hidden and the Revealed God’. In Schubert M. Ogden (ed.), Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann. Cleveland and New York: World, pp. 23–34. German original in Die Christliche Welt 31 (1917), pp. 572–79. 1963a. ‘Rudolf Bultmann’s Review of C. H. Dodd’s The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel ’. Harvard Divinity School Bulletin 27: 9–22. Originally published in NTS 1 (1954–5), pp. 77–91.

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1963b. The History of the Synoptic Tradition. Rev. edn. Oxford: Blackwell. First German edition 1921. 1971. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster. German original 1941. Dale, Robert William, 1892. A Manual of Congregational Principles. 7th edn. London: Congregational Union of England and Wales. Dennison, William D., 2008. The Young Bultmann: Context for his Understanding of God, 1884–1925. New York: Peter Lang. Dillistone, Frederick W., 1976. C. H. Dodd: Interpreter of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Dodd, C. H., 1920. The Meaning of Paul for Today. London: Swarthmore. 1935. The Parables of the Kingdom. London: Nisbet & Co. 1936. The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1938. History and the Gospel. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1953. Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harnack, Adolf von, 1894. History of Dogma. Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate. 1901. What Is Christianity? London: Williams and Norgate. Luther, Martin, 1957. ‘The Freedom of a Christian’. In Harold Grimm (ed.), Career of the Reformer. Luther’s Works 31. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, pp. 343–77. 1960. ‘Preface to the New Testament’. In E. Theodore Bachmann (ed.), Word and Sacrament I. Luther’s Works 35. Philadelphia: Fortress, pp. 357–62. Schweitzer, Albert, 1968. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York: Macmillan, 1968. First German edition 1906. Smith, D. Moody, 2001. John among the Gospels: The Relationship in TwentiethCentury Research. 2nd edn. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

chapter 4

Symbolism in John’s Gospel: an evaluation of Dodd’s contribution Jan van der Watt

In dealing with the text of the Gospel of John (henceforth John), Charles Harold Dodd showed a remarkable sensitivity for the different types of literature used in this Gospel, especially for the use of symbolic language. Culpepper (1983: 185) indeed acknowledges Dodd’s contribution as the ‘most seminal earlier work’ on symbolism in John. Dodd regards the Gospel as a narrative that serves as a framework for a series of dialogues and monologues. In these dialogues symbolism, parables, allegory, imagery, and so forth are used to convey the message, and even the narratives themselves could be interpreted symbolically. In his frequently reprinted book, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, he devotes a whole chapter to symbolism (1953: 133–43).

Determining the meaning of symbols In The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Dodd describes symbolism as ‘an obvious characteristic of this gospel’ (1953: 134). Although he does not define symbolism as such, for him it seems to be when the references on a textual level refer to something else which represents the real meaning. For instance, on the textual level the word ‘shepherd’ will be used, but its real reference is to Jesus. This is then called a symbolic reference. He also uses words like allegory, figure, metaphor, and image to refer to this phenomenon.1

1

Neither Dodd nor Johannine research escaped the problem of terminology. Peyre (1980: 1) notes that ‘symbolism’ is one of words that is most subject to confusion. This is the case with Dodd’s discussion on symbolism too. He does not give much attention to the definition of terms, but simply uses numerous terms interchangeably, like symbolism, metaphor, imagery/image, allegory, figure, picture, all referring to more or less the same thing. Culpepper (1983: 188–9), van der Watt (2000: 1–24) and others have called for clearer definitions of words. Since this is a discussion on its own, space does not allow further consideration here. The problem should however be noted. In this chapter Dodd’s use of the relevant terminology will be maintained.

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Dodd suggests a very specific way of determining the meaning of a symbol. Following his survey on the background of Johannine thought in Part I (i.e. primitive Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, Philo, Hermetica; see 1953: 3–130), Dodd treats what he calls the ‘Leading Ideas’ of John in Part II (1953: 133–285). The only chapter (of twelve) in this second part of his book that does not deal with one of the ‘leading ideas’ is the first chapter, entitled ‘symbolism’, and for a very good reason, according to Dodd. He argues that Johannine thought was embedded in various strands of ancient thought, all of which formed in some way the background to John’s ideas as well as to that of his readers (1953: 133). In writing his Gospel, John transformed these background ideas into his distinctive presentation of what became Johannine theology. This transformation took place through the ‘method adopted by the evangelist in presenting his teaching’ (1953: 133), namely symbolism. Through symbols the author of John functionally linked the background of thought with his own perspective and ideas. Symbolism thus forms the (methodological) bridge between the background of his thoughts and his own theological ideas. How do symbols function according to Dodd? His procedure in dealing with symbols is as follows: he identifies what is obviously a symbol (for instance, shepherd, vine, bread, water), without reflecting on any criteria which could help him in identifying these symbols. He then surveys the (symbolic) use of the term (i.e. shepherd or vine) in the background material of Johannine thought (i.e. the Old Testament, Hermetica, Philo, and so forth); he is interested in the ‘rich background of associations which the vine-symbol’ – or any other symbol for that matter – ‘had already acquired’ (1953: 137). The results of this survey are then used to ‘enrich’ the meaning of the concept as it is used in John. The ‘meaning’ of the Johannine symbol is drawn or acquired from the totality of the background information. Again he does not really reflect on how the process of enrichment should take place, except in the case of one or two examples that will be discussed shortly. The underlying assumption here is that there is a linear process of influence from the ‘background information’ to Johannine thought, assuming that to understand the Johannine symbols you should project these ‘background thoughts’ onto the Johannine material. In this way, it is argued, the Johannine material is absorbed into and merged with the background materials to form the primary interpretative framework. In the words of Dodd, images like bread and water ‘retire behind the realities for which they stand, and derive their significance from a background of

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thought in which they had already served as symbols for religious conceptions’ (1953: 137). Thus ‘the symbol is absorbed into the reality it signifies’ (1953: 140). Let us look at and evaluate a few examples of this procedure. Dodd discusses the symbolic use of water as ‘a very old and widespread religious symbol’ (1953: 138). He lists the following usages that served as background. Water is or reflects: a natural symbol of cleansing (cf. John 9:7 and 13:5–10) the prototype of the lower creation (cf. Hermetica) the Torah, Wisdom, or Holy Spirit (cf. Jewish thought) the symbol of life (it is ancient and widespread – cf. the Old Testament, Philo) (e) the waters ‘beneath the firmament’ and ‘above the firmament’ (cf. Gnostic Justin) (f ) the water which used with bread in the ‘primitive Christian sacraments’ and that motivated John to use these symbols in the Gospel. (a) (b) (c) (d)

Based on this ‘background material’ Dodd opines that ‘it is the rich accumulation of symbolical meaning about the figure that gives its main significance to the water-symbol in the gospel’ (1953: 138). Again, he does not describe how all these ways of using water in the background documents specifically ‘enrich the content’ of the Johannine use. The assumption is that one should interpret water in the Gospel as alluding to all the uses mentioned above. He follows the same procedure when interpreting the shepherd–sheep ‘allegory’ in John 10, except that in this case he almost exclusively focuses on the ‘Old Testament and the apocalyptic literature’ (1953: 135). This procedure is of course problematic and leads to illegitimate totality transfer, where all available knowledge is ‘read into’ the current text in order to acquire its meaning. Literary studies – with Barr (1961) spearheading the ‘movement’ away from the Kittel-like (and Dodd-like) approach of assuming that a word should be read and understood from the totality of the ‘background information’ – have questioned and indeed relativized such an approach. In all fairness it must be said that this does not mean that the background information is not valuable or necessary for the process of understanding ancient texts: on the contrary. Especially for the understanding of symbols based on social conventions, background material is indispensable. Apart from the problem of illegitimate totality transfer, another problem is that very little attention was given to the context within which these

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words are used within the Gospel of John itself. The syntagmatic use in the immediate context or even the paradigmatic use in the book itself play little role in determining the meaning of a word. The meaning is ‘loaded’ from outside sources, a procedure that is questionable. Further, Dodd’s approach also assumes that somewhere there was a group of contemporaneous readers of the Gospel who had complete knowledge of the total background suggested and would have automatically understood the words in the Gospel against this accumulative background. Cognitive linguistic approaches argue for the ability of readers to interrelate and integrate material they are confronted with, but the assumption that the readers of John would have known and constantly applied the complete set of background material just cannot be assumed. It needs proof that is, in part, still lacking today. The current thrust in broadening our understanding of the ancient world and related ideas by consulting increasingly more ancient texts (partly due to the easy electronic availability of vast databases of ancient texts) is to my mind one of the major contributions made to biblical studies today. The availability of these vast databases, and the ease of accessing them electronically, stimulates research that considerably broadens our knowledge of and insights into the ‘worlds of ancient texts’. Also, the ways in which we treat the interrelatedness of these texts are currently more refined, although in many cases still at an experimental level. It is not a matter of: there is something out there in ancient documents and therefore it must be applied to, for instance, John. Questions such as whether a text is directly or indirectly dependent on or somehow connected to another text, or just alludes to that text, or whether only thought constructions overlap, directly or indirectly, are treated with much more care. An example: in determining whether Paul alludes to the Old Testament, Hays (1998: 205–25; cf. also Halton 2009: 58 for the difficulty of determining allusions in ancient documents) has suggested a range of criteria to assist in assessing whether one can indeed speak of an allusion. He mentions criteria like availability; how explicit is the ‘echo’, recurrence, or clustering; thematic coherence; historical plausibility; the history of interpretation; satisfaction. Applying all these criteria might lead one to determine carefully whether there is an allusion to the Old Testament in Paul or not. Such careful approaches indeed make us more sensitive to the intertextual relations and influences between the ‘background’ and the concepts in the text itself. In the case of the vine, Dodd also recalls that the vine/vineyard is a ‘standing symbol of the people of God’ in the Old Testament (Isa. 5:1–7;

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Ps. 80:9–15; Jer. 2:21; see 1953: 136). Dodd does not explain how that should be applied to the viticulture language of John 15, though he does reflect a little on this elsewhere (1953; 411–12), by remarking that John applied the vine symbolism to Jesus, now making him and his disciples the people of God. He does not go any further than this (see van der Watt 2000: 50–4 for a suggestion for dealing with the application of symbols). He does not explain the dynamics of the intertextuality between the Old Testament usages and that of John in chapter 15, neither does he consider any references to the vine/vineyard imagery outside of the Old Testament. There is one exception: he treats the term γεωργός (‘vinedresser’, John 15:1) in more detail. He quotes Numenius (a second-century philosopher), Eusebius, the Hermetic tractate called Hermes to Asclepius, and even Philo, who all apply the concept of vinedresser to (G)god. Dodd feels that all this information, including the primitive Christian use, should be taken into account when considering the use of γεωργός in John 15. Some inconsistency in Dodd’s procedure is apparent here. He does not consider material outside the Old Testament when discussing the vine imagery, but in the case of the γεωργός he covers a number of diverse documents in order to find parallels which could ‘enrich’ its particular use in John. Why does he use only the Old Testament material in considering the overall picture of John 15, but many and diverse documents when considering one element of this picture? It illustrates the problem of electivity in dealing with the background material, which goes back to the lack of a consistent methodological approach when analysing and merging the relevant material.

ἀληθινός as example: introducing a Platonic philosophical framework The most notable and perhaps problematic example is when Dodd discusses the use of the epithet ἀληθινός; here it becomes even more apparent how Dodd envisages the interpretative process that helps him to identify the ‘intrinsic unity of symbol and thing symbolized’ in John (1953: 140). He assumes that the word ἀληθινός, although also used in its Hebrew meaning of ‘trustworthiness’, ‘suffered a shift of meaning in passing into Greek’, basically referring to what is ‘real’ in contrast to what is fictitious or a mere copy, as is evident from usages by Aristotle and Plato (1953: 139). This is a crucial assumption, since by choosing this particular semantic description for ἀληθινός the meaning of expressions in which ἀληθινός is used is thus predetermined irrespective of its associative use within the

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context and will inevitably lead to certain conclusions. This is exactly what happens. Obviously, the conclusions can only be as valid as the assumption of the suggested meaning of ἀληθινός. Dodd argues that on the basis of his designated ‘Greek meaning’ for ἀληθινός, the phrase ἄρτος ἀληθινός (‘true bread’) would then mean ‘that spiritual or eternal reality which is symbolized by bread’ (1953: 139), i.e. the ‘real bread’, bread as bread is. He explains this with reference to the well-known Platonic sun–cave allegory where the shade in the cave is just a copy of ‘the ultimate reality’ (1953: 139; cf. Plato, Rep. 506D–517A). Dodd maintains that symbols in the Gospel should be interpreted on the basis of the ‘Platonic doctrine of Ideas’ (1953: 139), but covers his back by emphasizing that he does not propose a direct acquaintance between John and this ‘doctrine of Ideas’. He nevertheless remarks that ‘there is ample evidence that in thoughtful religious circles at the time, and circles with which Johannine thought has demonstrable affinities, that doctrine had entered into the texture of thought’ (1953: 139) and thus became part of John’s theology – even more, should be the framework within which John’s theology is understood and interpreted. He indeed interprets other symbols within this philosophical framework, as the following quotations illustrate: ‘True vine’ is that which makes a vine a vine, ‘at once its inner essence, and the transcendental real existence which abides while all concrete vines grow and decay’ (1953: 140). Bread or vine and so forth are not ‘mere illustrations or analogies’; ‘a vine . . . bodies forth the eternal Idea of Vine; except in so far as it does so, it has no significance, indeed properly speaking no existence. Describe the eternal vine, therefore, the ἂμπελος ἀληθινή, and you are describing every vine, in every respect which constitutes its vine-ness. What makes a shepherd a shepherd? The fact that he realizes in himself the eternal idea of shepherdhood, which is manifested in Christ’ (1953: 140). The concluding remark, namely ‘which is manifested in Christ’, should serve as an indication of how the true authentic vine-ness and shepherdhood should be linked to Jesus. He manifests shepherdhood and vine-ness. Based on this philosophical system Christ consistently represents what is true, whether it is bread, vine, shepherd, and so forth. Dodd’s insistence that the Platonic-like philosophy should be used as an interpretative tool for Johannine theology (based on a single word, ἀλήθεια) invites numerous questions.2 The problem with an argument

2

The impact of using such a philosophical system is also evident in Dodd’s discussion of the water that Jesus changed into wine. The water symbolically stands for the ‘lower order of life’ which is

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like this – that takes its point of departure from what is a single word – is that if this point of departure is not valid, the argument collapses. As has been shown, Dodd assumes a Greek use of the word ἀλήθεια in John, namely true/real in a Platonic sense. He does not really argue for the validity of this statement in his section on symbolism, but assumes the conclusions from the discussion of the Platonic influence on John, which is inter alia also evident in Philo, in the first part of his book (1953: 54–73, especially pp. 65ff.). There is no space to go into these arguments of Dodd here (see, for instance, Hirsch-Luipold 2006); it suffices to say that it is not to be denied that Platonic-like ideas were in circulation during those times, but, on the other hand, it should not too easily be assumed that John’s basic theological structure (i.e. John’s theology) should be modelled on these Platonic-like ideas. Although there are numerous concerns with Dodd’s views here, I would only like to mention two. Subsequent detailed analyses of the concept of truth in the Gospel have shown that John uses the term ἀλήθεια in a much broader and more nuanced way than Dodd suggests (see, for instance, Ibuki 1972; van der Watt 2009). Truth essentially relates to the creator God and is defined in terms of God, but with a broad application, referring to what is real and authentic, but also to what is faithful, to the revelation of Jesus, to the will of God, to the fictive sphere in which believers find themselves, to the quality of actions (van der Watt 2009; Schnackenburg 1980: 236–7). In many cases the context allows for, and apparently intends, several semantic possibilities simultaneously. The strict distinction between the Greek and Hebrew uses that was popular in the previous century, and on which Dodd bases his whole argument, should therefore be handled with great care when it comes to John; it does not hold water. In contrast to what Dodd assumes, namely that because of the use of ἀλήθεια, the true shepherd or sheep should refer to the real shepherd- or sheep-ness of the shepherd and sheep which is then projected onto Jesus, the contextual use in John of the term ἀλήθεια rather echoes what belongs or is related to the creator God, understood within a Jewish framework, and includes a variety of nuances, including both Hebrew and Greek usages (van der Watt 2009: 317–33; cf. Mburu 2010). This weakens Dodd’s position considerably, since the application of the word cannot be restricted to changed into the wine of eternal life (1953: 311–12). However, in 3:5 ‘it is associated with πνευμα as the source of the higher life’ (1953: 312). He continues by arguing that in rabbinic literature the Torah is associated with water that satisfies thirst. This would mean that the Torah as water belongs to the lower order of existence. In reality wine is not symbolically associated with eternal life in the Gospel. In my view his interpretation is not contextually supported.

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the ‘Greek use’. I do not even think that the Greek use, in the sense Dodd perceives it, is primarily intended in the Gospel. Apart from this, the co-textual and contextual dynamics in the different parts of John do not fit all that well into Dodd’s construct. In his argumentation Dodd does not start with the immediate literary context within which the particular concept is used, or even consider different related contexts seriously. True to his conviction that the meaning of a word is to be found in the background to that word, he starts with the background and thus with the meaning and philosophical structures that are part of that background, which he then reads directly into John. Let us look at just one problem that results from this approach. It should, for instance, be asked: how should the other symbols in the larger Johannine imageries be treated, for instance in John 10? The sheep, gate, wolf, and so forth are not labelled as ἀλήθεια in this context, which should have been the case if the whole image was to be interpreted within the Platonic-like frame. The question is: should the sheep in these particular imageries be interpreted according to this philosophical system as ‘true’ sheep representing sheep-ness, or the wolf as the true wolf representing wolf-ness, although the epithet ἀληθινός is not used of any of them? We should remember that the reason why Dodd introduces this philosophical system here is based on his understanding of the meaning of ἀληθινός. Does this mean that these concepts are not marked as part of the suggested philosophical construct, and are therefore not ‘true’ and should be interpreted differently? Or are they also part, though implicitly, of the suggested philosophical picture? Or is there another reason that lies with the context itself? John 10:1–18 is perfectly understandable as a complex of metaphors, drawing from the well-known world of sheep farming, emphasizing the intimate relationship (knowing and caring for the sheep) between the shepherd and his sheep, without introducing this elaborate philosophical system as the interpretative framework (van der Watt 2000: 57–91 and many others). To interpret all the elements of the imagery within this philosophical structure seems to be a case of unnecessary over-interpretation of the text and under-interpretation of the co-text. What about other symbols in the Gospel that Dodd does not refer to or treat? Although Dodd does not offer an exhaustive treatment of symbolism in the Gospel, he does however argue that, even where no direct indication is given that the discourses should be understood symbolically, ‘the reader is intended to seek a similar symbolical interpretation’ (1953: 134). That implies that what was described above should be applied to all the discourses in the Gospel, which can prove to be problematic. This forces

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a philosophical framework onto the text, without really taking the contextual and co-textual restrictions seriously.

Dodd and more recent literary approaches to symbols Recent approaches have emphasized that the immediate literary context of the text within which the metaphor is used, should be taken seriously in order to determine whether certain interpretations are valid or not, something of which Dodd does not do enough. In his symbolic interpretation of Jesus Dodd gives very little attention to the contextual dynamics within which the symbol is used in John. The background material dominates the contextual dynamics. Ideas ‘from outside’ are simply transferred onto the text. Here modern metaphor theories make a decisive correction to the approach of Dodd. Since Dodd, major advancements have been made in metaphor studies, especially in the field of cognitive metaphorics (see Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993) as well as approaches underlining the interrelatedness of metaphors (see Gräbe 1984; 1985; van der Watt 2000; Busse 2002). Since the focus of this chapter is not developments in the field of metaphor theories, no further detailed attention will be given to significant theoretical developments in this field over the last four decades; however, a few relevant pointers are needed. Although Paul Ricoeur (see e.g. 1976) wrote stimulating material on symbols and metaphors which still has an important influence on the discussion of metaphors today, a major shift in theoretical thought on that nature of metaphors came in the middle of the previous century with cognitive linguists like Lakoff and Johnson (1980; cf. Lakoff 1998) taking the lead (Kövecses, 2012: 4). Other theorists like Gräbe (1984; 1985; van der Watt 2000 – on Johannine studies3) came to many similar conclusions basing their arguments not on cognitive linguistics, but on semantic, linguistic, and literary features. The question beckoning is whether these developments subsequent to Dodd represent real advances beyond his often remarkable insights. Cognitive metaphor theory argues that a metaphor is not found on the surface level of the text (i.e. ‘the man is a wolf ’; this is called a ‘metaphorical 3

For an overview of reflection on symbolism in John until the 1980s, cf. Culpepper (1983: 185–90). Some of the later studies include, for instance, Koester (2003, [1995]); Schwankl (1995); Kysar (1996); Jones (1997); van der Watt (2000); Busse (2002); Lee (1994; 2002); Ng (2001); Coloe (2001); Zimmermann (2004, 2006); Mburu (2010).

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linguistic expression’), but is rather found by understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain (where a conceptual domain should be understood as ‘any coherent organization of experience’, Kövecses 2012: 4, based on Lakoff and Johnson 1980). If, for instance, we say, ‘That child had a good start in life, but is now finding herself at a crossroads’, the conceptual domain of life (target domain) is understood in relation to the conceptual domain of journey (i.e. everything we know by experience about a journey – start, crossroads) (source domain). In other words, if one says: ‘Jesus is the vine and the disciples are the branches’, the source domain (providing the interpretative material) is the domain of viticulture. The target domain (which is enriched by the source domain) is Jesus and his disciples. In cognitive metaphorical language, it is said that the target domain is then mapped according to the source domain, implying that what is true within the source domain is ‘mapped’ onto the target domain. In this way symbol and symbolized merge. The two conceptual domains (target and source) are interrelated on the basis of a set of systematic correspondences usually referred to as ‘mapping’. After establishing the ‘content’ of the source domain, it is mapped onto the target domain, implying that the target domain is structured according to the characteristics of the source domain. In other words, who Jesus is and what he does (as target domain) is structured according to the conceptual domain of vine (John 15) or shepherd (John 10). The content and structure of the source domain is projected onto Jesus to highlight aspects of Jesus in terms of viticulture. The abstraction in the conceptual source domain should be broad enough to include all the metaphorical linguistic expressions in a particular text (i.e. viticulture should cover all the expressions in 15:1–8). The challenge here is also what to include in such a description of the conceptual source domain, since a topic like ‘viticulture’ is socially and culturally determined – establishing conceptual domains related to ancient texts is not all that easy. A ‘database’ (‘system of commonplaces’ – traditional metaphor theories) of what, for instance, viticulture involves should be compiled, both in relation to its content and the structural relations between the different aspects forming part of the imagery of viticulture. This information is of course socially and historically determined; the contents of ancient domains should not be confused with the content of current domains relating to the same issue. The nature and structure of the content of the particular ‘database’ will determine the outcome of the ‘mapping’: only what is ‘there’ in the concept domain – and just that – can be ‘mapped’.

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The same idea is also expressed in theories based on the linguistic features of a text, which represent the more classical theories like that of Richards (1936) or Black (1976; cf. also Gräbe 1984; 1985; Geeraerts 1986). Along these lines, van der Watt (2000: 394–433) has shown that John uses different metaphors (in the classic sense of the word – i.e. tenor and vehicle, or focus and frame, which accommodate many of what Lakoff calls everyday metaphors) that could be associated with the same conceptual world, like sheep farming (John 10), vine farming (John 15), or even social realities like that of a family life. This network of metaphors or imagery (i.e. a mental picture of a particular reality) represents particular imagery (for instance, viticulture) where the different individual metaphors (vine, branches, and so forth) or other expressions are associatively interrelated to generate meaning much like a mosaic does – on an individual level as well as comprehensively (cf. Zimmermann 2004: 407–24). Culpepper (1983: 185) has already remarked that such an interrelating or clustering of symbols could be a fruitful way of classifying symbols in John. Kysar (1996: 36–8) has used the term ‘metaphorical ecosystem’ for this phenomenon. This brings us to an important question: how does the interpreter ‘construct a conceptual domain’ or, in more classical theories, a ‘system of associated commonplaces’ or ‘system of implications’ (Black 1976: 41)? (Cf. Geeraerts 1986: 144 for different ways in which this could be done.) How should a conceptual domain be formed, namely how should the interpreter determine what should be included in, for instance, the conceptual domain of viticulture, which could then be mapped onto the conceptual domain of Jesus or his disciples to determine the metaphorical meaning? Here the interpreter cannot simply assume that (s)he knows, especially when it comes to ancient texts, since conceptual domains are socio-cultural constructs. At this point the work of Dodd is indeed of help. His description of the background material assists us in getting some grip on what could have been part of his conceptual domain of viticulture within the Johannine framework. The current ability to increase Dodd’s limited database with the help of TLG or other databases could considerably improve our knowledge of what people associated cognitively with viticulture. It can be said that Dodd, in his own way, did what cognitive theories suggest when it comes to the formation of cognitive domains. Mapping is, however, another story. It is a pity that Dodd, after establishing the background information (by analogy, a rough ‘conceptual domain’) did not reflect on the application of the background to the signified in the text – that is, the mapping of the domains to one another.

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At this point subsequent theories move further. I have argued elsewhere (2000: 111–60) that the interaction between signifier and signified in John is based on analogy. The two ‘domains’, for instance, that of Jesus and that of the vine, are interrelated on the basis of what is found to be analogous4 (for instance, through interaction or substitution) but also fits the particular context. In the analogy there will be both a point of similarity as well as points of difference. In some respects there will be similarities between the signifier and the signified, but in other respects they will be dissimilar. As Schneiders (1991: 29) puts it, metaphors ‘exist in and even as linguistic tension involving a simultaneous affirmation and negation of the likeness between the two terms of a metaphor. The metaphor contains an “is” and an “is not” held in irresolvable tension.’ For instance, in the metaphorical expression: the Father ‘prunes’ disciples like branches, a similarity will lie in the idea of cleansing. But a dissimilarity can be found in the different ways in which an inanimate and animate object are cleansed, especially if it is remembered that in the case of the animate object it refers to spiritual cleansing (cf. van der Watt 2000: 17). In order to use analogy, the structure of both conceptual domains or a list of commonplaces should be clear. It should also be noted that applying analogy is only valid when it is ‘allowed’ or plausible within both domains. Put in a different way: determining contextually what the message about Jesus is, what he is and stands for, is relevant for contextually mapping the domain of Jesus. Material cannot be ‘mapped’ onto Jesus that is contrary to what he stands for or is. Lakoff (1998: 216) correctly stresses that the ‘image-schema structure inherent in the target domain cannot be violated, and that the inherent target domain structure limits the possibilities for mappings automatically’. This is another way of saying, inter alia, that the message dominates the form. This means that if, for instance, the metaphor of the vine is used, only what structurally corresponds to the message of or about Jesus may be utilized. If there is structurally something in the metaphor of the vine that does not structurally correspond to Jesus, it would not work as commonplace. The vehicle (in terms of Black) is restricted to the nature and requirements of the tenor. In this light Dodd makes a theoretically important remark when he says about John 10: ‘The pastoral imagery is only a fluctuating series of symbols 4

Lausberg (1990: 284–5) indicates that this analogous nature is known in ancient times and speaks of a proportionellen Tausch: ‘Zwischen der metaphorischen Bezeichnung und dem so Bezeichneten muß also eine similitudo bestehen . . . Da die similitudo keine Grenzen kennt, stehen auch der Metapher alle Möglichkeiten offen: Cic. De Or. 3, 40, 161.’

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for various aspects of the work of Christ’ (1953: 135, italics mine), and ‘Christ is the real subject of all the statements made, and shepherd and gate are cryptograms’ (1953: 135). Implicit in these statements is the important acknowledgement that the imagery itself (i.e. the shepherd, gate, sheep, and so forth) is not determinative; it rather serves to express the message of and about Jesus in an effective way. In other words, message has priority over form of expression, which allows the author to make free use of different aspects of particular imagery or even different images simultaneously in order to express his message, as long as these symbols express the message in a consistent way. He does not feel himself restricted by the structure or the inherent character of the imagery itself, but the interpretation is guided by the message those symbols must convey. This insight is in line with the findings of van der Watt (2000; Lee 2002 wrongly argues against this insight). Dodd correctly shows that even John’s use of particular words underlines the priority of the message to the form. He, for instance, argues that in John 15 words/phrases like καθαίρειν, μείνατε ἐν ἐμοί, κάγὼ ἐν ὑμιν are not the normal terms used in viticulture in the sense they are used in John, but are used by John to emphasize the link to the message of Jesus (1953: 136). He remarks, ‘The language indeed changes to and fro between the literal and the metaphorical in a way which would be bewildering, if the reader were not conscious all through that all the statements made really refer to Christ and His disciples . . .’ (1953: 136).

Are symbols ‘open’ for interpretation? Reference has already been made to the danger of illegitimate totality transfer in cases where Dodd suggested that the totality of the background information should be transferred to concepts in John. This brings us to another question: How ‘open’ are the metaphors used by John for ‘unlimited’ interpretation? Contemporary literary theories indeed emphasize the fact that the very nature of metaphors is constantly to invite new and further interpretation – that is, they are open-ended. Many find the strength of metaphors in this open-endedness. This could imply that what Dodd did by offering as wide as possible a framework for interpretation is not far from the mark, since this also invites a wide interpretation of the symbols; for him this was obviously on the basis of the framework of the ‘background’ that he identified. Care should, however, be taken in the case of John. When using metaphors he consistently tries to point out what he wants to express with the metaphor, thus limiting the freedom of interpretation (van der Watt 2000: 143). For instance, when he uses the

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metaphor of Jesus as shepherd (10:11–18), he expands the metaphor by applying it specifically to the care and love of a shepherd in contrast to the hireling or to the function of the gate. He does not expect the reader to read everything related to a shepherd into this particular metaphor. The same applies to the vine. The aspect of the unity of vine and branches that leads to fruit is focused upon, not everything one can think of in relation to viticulture. Attention should be given to the interrelatedness within the cotext in order to find the associative contribution of individual passages to the whole. This emphasizes the importance of contextual restraints when interpreting the metaphors in John. Taking seriously the way that John focuses on certain interpretations of his metaphors should serve as warning against open and free-for-all interpretations of Johannine metaphors.

Narratives as symbols? But what about the narratives in the Gospel? According to Dodd even the narratives should be read symbolically; the whole Gospel, both narrative and discourses, is ‘bound together by an intricate network of symbolism’ (1953: 143). Dodd, inter alia, argues this point by maintaining that in some cases ‘the contiguous discourses are so related to the narratives as to indicate that these are to be understood symbolically’ (1953: 134). It also becomes plausible for Dodd to draw the narratives into the symbolic sphere, on the basis of the Platonic-like philosophical frame that he suggests for interpreting the Gospel. With the invented symbols Dodd maintains that what makes a shepherd a shepherd is the ‘fact that he realizes in himself the eternal idea of shepherdhood, which is manifested in Christ’ (1953: 140; italics mine). Christ is the one who ‘enters by the door, knows his sheep, leads them to pasture . . . and risks his life to save them from danger’ (1953: 140). Christ thus becomes the eternal and ideal symbol, for he stands for everything that is ‘true’. However, Christ is not only present in invented symbols. In the narrative he acts concretely and these actions are also symbolic in nature, as is clear from the narrative of the blind man who is cured by washing in physical water. This incident, although a historical narrative and not an invented symbol, is, for Dodd, as symbolic as are the invented symbols: ‘The healing of the blind by Christ is the cleansing of the soul from error, and its illumination with the light of life; for the water in which he washes is called Siloam, namely ἀπεσταλμένος, and the One Sent is Christ . . . There is the same intrinsic unity of symbol and thing symbolized’ (1953: 140) as is the case with invented symbols in discourses. Narratives should therefore be treated as

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symbols in the same way as symbolic discourses. As the symbols of the shepherd, for instance, form a thin disguise for Jesus himself, so does the healing of the blind man or the multiplication of the bread (1953: 135). Dodd notes that ‘in a world in which everything derives its reality from the eternal Idea’ (1953: 140), some events represent these eternal Ideas more ideally than others. ‘Such are the events of the life of Jesus’ (1953: 140). Thus the symbolic nature of Christ as the eternal and true Idea is symbolically conveyed in both discourse and narrative material. Dodd further substantiates the idea of the symbolic nature of the narratives by noting that some of the narratives are called σημεῖα, thus inviting symbolic interpretation. The word σημεῖον that is used to typify several narratives in John does not necessarily denote the miraculous (1953: 141), although Dodd notes that John consistently uses it in this sense (1953: 142). ‘It is used by itself for a pledge or token . . . sometimes for a token of things to come, an omen. It is applied in particular to symbolic acts performed by the prophets’ (1953: 141). Dodd argues that the prophets were of the opinion that these symbolic acts were inspired by God and that his unchanging purpose formed the basis of what was to be performed. Dodd maintains that this is also true of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. His actions are similarly treated as symbolic acts like those of the prophets. But there is more. He further considers the use of σημεῖον by Philo, who employs the term with reference to the symbolic significance of various Old Testament passages (1953: 141). Although Dodd acknowledges that the use of Philo and that of John does not exactly overlap and that John’s use might be closer to the prophetic sense as described above, he maintains that the word σημεῖον is also used in the sense of symbol (1953: 142). By showing that a σημεῖον should also be interpreted in a symbolic way, Dodd is able to argue that not only statements in discourses, but also narratives, as σημεῖα, are symbolic, like feeding the multitude, or the healing of the blind man. For instance, Dodd (1953: 142) argues that ‘the first intention of the feeding of the multitude’ is to signify the eternal truth that Jesus gives life to men, ‘yet in the development of the argument we discover that Christ’s work . . . is accomplished, in reality and actuality, by the historical act of His death and resurrection. In that sense, every σημεῖον in the narrative points forward to the great climax.’ This opens up the whole Gospel, irrespective of genre, for a symbolic reading. ‘Such are the events of the life of Jesus . . . The feeding of the multitude with loaves is the nurturing of the soul with life eternal, for Christ who gives the bread is the Bread of Life. There is the same intrinsic unity of symbol and thing symbolized’ (1953: 140). He goes even further by stressing that not only those actions that

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are described as σημεῖα in the Gospel should be read as such. ‘We can hardly doubt that the evangelist considered such acts as the cleansing of the Temple and the washing of the disciples’ feet as σημεῖα’ (1953: 142). In both these cases he suggests a symbolical interpretation. This indeed supports the well-known idea of John as ‘spiritual gospel’. Dodd can therefore conclude: To a writer with the philosophical presuppositions of the evangelist there is no reason why a narrative should not be at the same time factually true and symbolic of a deeper truth, since things and events in this world derive what reality they possess from the eternal Ideas they embody. Thus the very nature of the symbolism employed by the evangelist reflects his fundamental Weltanschauung. He writes in terms of a world in which phenomena – things and events – are a living and moving image of the eternal, and not a veil of illusion to hide it, a world in which the Word is made flesh. [1953: 142–3]

The essential framework within which Dodd reads both the Gospel texts and the Johannine tradition is that not only the discourses but also the narratives and even the Gospel as a whole are symbolic in nature, based on his theory of the interface between history, sign, and symbolic meaning. He offers a reading strategy in which everything in the text of John should be interpreted symbolically as referring to a higher (the true) Idea. Reading the text of John is always a referential process – there is always a symbolic (and indeed the true) meaning to be found in/through these words or events, whether it is the shepherd, the vine, the healing of the blind man, or the Cana event – so the interpreter should continuously ask how the symbol merges with the symbolized. Even Jesus as character in the narrative is treated symbolically. He is also a symbol of what is really true, the eternal Idea. He is real life, the real shepherd, the true vine in the sense of the eternal Idea. The ‘Platonic-like’ philosophical approach, linked to the Gospel on the basis of the use of ἀλήθεια, therefore becomes the hermeneutical key for interpreting the different aspects of the Gospel. This is how the Johannine text should be understood and how Jesus should be interpreted, according to Dodd. Dodd thus makes a decisive choice: he reads John’s Gospel symbolically. Within literary studies it remains a question when and why one should interpret a text symbolically and when one should not, or what is the relation between reality and symbol. The decision directly determines the outcome of the interpretative process. Some would interpret Jonah and the fish (Jonah 2) literally (historically) and others symbolically (as invented narrative), with diverse outcomes in the interpretation of the text. The same applies to the interpretation of texts like the creation

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narrative in Genesis 1, the 1,000 years of Revelation 20, or even texts about the resurrection. Whether these and many other events are regarded as symbolic or not leads to decisive differences in their interpretation. However, Dodd distinguishes between invented symbols and historical events that serve a symbolic purpose. Dodd reads the Gospel symbolically, but without denying the historicity of events or that John’s Gospel is rooted in early common Christian traditions. His ‘Platonic-like’ approach allows him to differentiate between history and symbol by regarding the historical events as real symbols of the eternal Idea. It is not a matter of ‘either-or’ but of ‘and-and’. This is helpful in realizing that the Gospel was not written simply as historical treatise, for the events were narrated with a theological aim (20:30–31) and the Gospel should be treated as such. Dealing with historical data differed in ancient times from the way we see things today, and this becomes clear in Dodd’s argumentation. He reminds us that when we read John’s Gospel, we are confronted with his fundamental Weltanschauung in which things and events are ‘a living and moving imagery of the eternal, and not a veil of illusion to hide it, a world in which the Word is made flesh’ (1953: 143). Symbolism allows us to gain entry into this world of John. Indeed, the Gospel need not be unhistorical because it is decisively symbolic. On the other hand, this approach of Dodd is not without its problems. Does this really mean that the interpreter should be encouraged to try to understand symbolically every small detail in John, like Aenon (3:23) or the 153 fish (21:11), although it is not contextually all that certain that they should be interpreted in symbolic terms? If the eternal Ideas behind these details cannot be clearly identified, how should we interpret or understand them? It should be noted that, in building his argument of the symbolical nature of both discourse and narrative, Dodd uses only selected examples. When discussing the symbolical nature of the narrative, he uses examples like the multiplication of the bread, the healing of the blind man, and even, for example, extends it to include the cleansing of the temple. He does not really treat material that does not evidently fit into his interpretative model. My question was, and still is: does Dodd suggest that we should also be selective regarding what we interpret symbolically and, as a result, not understand him to encourage us to interpret everything symbolically to the smallest detail? Should we keep on searching for the symbolic meaning of Aenon, or simply acknowledge that it is part of the narrative not intended to be interpreted symbolically? How radical should we understand Dodd’s programme of Johannine symbolism to be? Should one allow for exceptions at the level of detail? If one considers his

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‘Platonic-like’ approach, it seems as if one should rather err on the more radical side. This obviously leaves the interpreter with the danger of overinterpretation of what is already regarded as a ‘spiritual gospel’. The idea of John as purely a ‘spiritual gospel’ of course has come under scrutiny in the SBL seminar on John, Jesus, and History (see Anderson, Just and Thatcher 2007; 2009). Dodd was bold in his suggestion that the Gospel should be interpreted symbolically against the background of a ‘Platonic-like’ philosophical system and based on its use of ἀλήθεια. By doing this he laid down a programme of interpretation that, as mentioned earlier, coloured every aspect of the Johannine text and theology. His interpretation of the Johannine text within its own confines is overridden by his application of his suggested philosophical system. This, to a large extent, ‘silences’ the voice of the text of John, illustrating the danger of projecting external philosophical ideas onto a particular text. The emphasis on literary studies during the last decades of the previous century and the first decade of this century – the period which followed the ‘Dodd generation’ – has shown that the process of interpretation has much to do with starting by reading the text, but then, in an interactive process, considering the multiple facets of the text, its co-text, and various contexts. In this process the data which Dodd explored is added, not as a primary programme for the interpretation of the text, but as part of the larger mix of data that helps us to try and understand the dynamics of the Gospel of John.

Conclusion In conclusion, Culpepper was correct in calling Dodd’s work the ‘most seminal earlier work’ on symbolism in John. Dodd showed remarkable insight, as is evident from the above discussion. However, in his treatment of symbols, Dodd showed that he was a child of his time, especially with his strong emphasis on the ‘background material’ as the interpretative framework for the Johannine symbols. By rereading (surely all scholars interested in John have read Dodd during their initial studies) his work today, the advances made in the field of the literary appreciation of the Gospel of John become evident. Certain flaws in Dodd’s argumentation also become apparent, because new methods, materials, and angles of reading have been developed during the past half-century. But, it must be said, without the inroads Dodd made, the points he raised, the insights he had, even the ‘flaws’ which have forced us to think again, Johannine studies would have been much poorer today.

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Anderson, Paul N., Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher (eds.), 2007. John, Jesus, and History, I: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views. Atlanta: Scholars Press. 2009. John, Jesus, and History, II: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Barr, James, 1961. The Semantics of Biblical Language. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Black, M., 1976. Models and Metaphors. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Busse, Ulrich, 2002. Das Johannesevangelium: Bildlichkeit, Diskurs und Ritual. Mit einer Bibliographie über den Zeitraum 1986–1998. Leuven: Peeters. Coloe, Mary, 2001. God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. Collegeville: Liturgical Press. Culpepper, R. Alan, 1983. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress. Dodd, C. H., 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frey, Jörg, et al. (eds.), 2006. Imagery in the Gospel of John: Terms, Forms, Themes and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Geeraerts, D., 1986. Woordbetekenis. Een overzicht van de lexicale semantiek. Leuven: Peeters. Gräbe, I., 1984. Aspekte van poëtiese taalgebruik. Teoretiese verkenning en toepassing. Potchefstroom: Potchefstroom University Press. 1985. Metaphor and Interpretation. Pretoria: Van Schaik. Halton, C., 2009. ‘Allusions to the Stream of Tradition in Neo-Assyrian Oracles’. ANES 46: 50–61. Hays, Richard B., 1998. ‘ “Who Has Believed our Message?” Paul’s Reading of Isaiah’, SBL Seminar Papers 1998. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Hirsch-Luipold, R., 2006. ‘Klartext in Bildern. ἀληθινóϚ κτλ., παρoιμίαπαρρησία, σημεῖoν als Signalwörter für eine bildhafte Darstellungsform im Johannesevangelium’. In Jörg Frey, Jan G. van der Watt, Ruben Zimmermann (eds.), Imagery in the Gospel of John: Terms, Forms, Themes, and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 61–102. Ibuki, Y., 1972. Die Wahrheit im Johannesevangelium. BBB 39. Bonn: Peter Hanstein. Jones, Larry P., 1997. The Symbol of Water in the Gospel of John. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Koester, Craig, 2003. Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community. Minneapolis: Fortress. Kövecses, Z., 2012. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kysar, Robert, 1996. ‘The Making of Metaphor: Another Reading of John 3:1–15’. In Fernando F. Segovia (ed.), ‘What is John?’ Readers and Readings of the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: Scholars Press, pp. 21–42.

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Lakoff, G., [1993] 1998. ‘The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor’. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202–51. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M., 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lausberg, H., 1990. Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik. Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft. Stuttgart: Steiner. Lee, Dorothy, 1994. The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel: The Interplay of Form and Meaning. Sheffield: JSOT Press. 2002. Flesh and Glory: Symbolism, Gender and Theology in the Gospel of John. New York: Crossroad Publishing. Mburu, E. W., 2010. Qumran and the Origins of Johannine Language and Symbolism. London: T. & T. Clark. Ng, W.-Y., 2001. Water Symbolism in John: An Eschatological Interpretation. New York: Lang. Painter, John, 1979. ‘Johannine Symbols: A Case Study in Epistemology’. Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 27: 26–41. Peyre, H., 1980. What is Symbolism? Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Richards, I. A., 1936. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ricoeur, Paul, 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth: Texas University Press. Schnackenburg, Rudolf, 1980. The Gospel according to St. John. 3 vols. London: Burns & Oates, vol. II. Schneiders, Sandra M., 1991. The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Literature. San Francisco: Liturgical Press. Schwankl, Otto, 1995. Licht und Finsternis. Ein metaphorisches Paradigma in den johanneischen Schriften. Freiburg: Herder. Stibbe, Mark W. G., 1993. John. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Watt, Jan G. van der, 2000. Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel According to John. Leiden: Brill. 2009. ‘The Good and the Truth in John’. In Andreas Dettwiler and Uta Poplutz (eds.), Studien zu Matthäus und Johannes / Études sur Matthieu et Jean. Festschrift für Jean Zumstein. Zürich: TVZ, pp. 317–33. Zimmermann, Ruben, 2004. Christologie der Bilder im Johannesevangelium. Die Christopoetik des vierten Evangeliums unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Joh 10. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 2006. ‘Imagery in John: Opening up Paths into the Tangled Thicket of John’s Figurative World’. In Jörg Frey, Jan G. van der Watt, and Ruben Zimmermann (eds.), Imagery in the Gospel of John: Terms, Forms, Themes, and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 1–43.

chapter 5

C. H. Dodd on John 13:16 (and 15:20): St John’s knowledge of Matthew revisited Gilbert Van Belle and David R. M. Godecharle

In his 1997 article, entitled ‘Johannine Anomalies and the Synoptics’, Ismo Dunderberg has stated: In recent years, a notable shift has taken place in scholarly opinion about John and the Synoptics. The earlier consensus that the Gospel of John is independent from the Synoptics, established by such renowned New Testament scholars as P. Gardner-Smith, R. Bultmann and C. H. Dodd, no longer exists. Instead, a few scholars have come to the opposite conclusion: the Gospel of John draws, either directly or indirectly, on the Synoptic Gospels. [1997: 109; cf. Denaux 1992: xiii].1

According to Dunderberg this conclusion can be seen methodologically as ‘an off-shoot of the synoptic redaction criticism, for it builds on closer analyses of the synoptic parallels to the Gospel of John which have indicated that at least some of these parallels hint at Matthew’s, Luke’s, and possibly also Mark’s editorial activity rather than at a common background in early Christian tradition’ (1997: 109). In this contribution we will return to ‘the earlier consensus’, in which Dodd’s Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (HTFG) (1963) played a determining role. We will first consider how Dodd’s theory on John and the Synoptics in HTFG was the result of a gradual development in his writings. Thereupon we will analyse Dodd’s interpretation of one of the sayings of Jesus that has parallels in the Synoptic Gospels, namely John 13:16 (and 15:20). Then we will measure the exegesis of Dodd against the so-called ‘Leuven hypothesis’ of John’s dependence on the Synoptic Gospels. In our conclusion we will express our appreciation for the research of Dodd, who in the same breath as R. Bultmann was certainly the most influential exegete of the twentieth century, but we will also raise a few critical issues. 1

On ‘John and the Synoptics’ in Gardner-Smith’s and Dodd’s research, see especially Blinzler (1965: 22–3, 47, 80–3), Selong (1971: 1.132–9, 141–2), Konings (1972: 1.165–72, 178–87), Neirynck (1977: 73–4; 1982: 365–6), Verheyden (1992), Smith (2001: 37–42, 53–62), Labahn and Lang (2004: 445–9).

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C. H. Dodd on John and the Synoptics: from the ‘old look’ to the ‘new look’ in the Fourth Gospel2 Six years before the publication of Dodd’s HTFG, at an Oxford conference on ‘The Fourth Gospel in 1957’, J. A. T. Robinson, a student of Dodd, dealt with The New Look in the Fourth Gospel in which he questions ‘certain presuppositions of the “old look”’ (1959: 338–9; 1962: 94–5). The first and most crucial presupposition of the ‘old look’ (or ‘critical orthodoxy’) is ‘[t]hat the fourth Evangelist is dependent on sources, including (normally) one or more of the Synoptic Gospels’. Robinson notes ‘a widespread tendency today, which I fully endorse, to regard the case for literary dependence as quite unproven’ (1959: 340; cf. 1962: 96, where he adds: ‘and indeed quite improbable’). Besides mentioning P. Gardner-Smith’s Saint John and the Synoptics (1938), Robinson remarks in the republication of his article that the theory of dependence ‘was abandoned by W. F. Howard before his death, as it has been by Dr. C. H. Dodd’. With regard to Dodd, Robinson adds: ‘Dodd introduced a recent paper to the Cambridge Theological Society with the words: “The presumption of literary dependence of John on the Synoptics no longer holds”’ (1962: 96 n. 7). What was the impetus for the development of Dodd’s famous theory about John’s literary independence of the Synoptics, resulting in his affirmation of Johannine historical tradition? In his early articles Dodd defended the view that John was dependent upon the Synoptics, or at least had used Mark. In 1921, comparing John 6:1–13 with the Synoptic parallels in Mark 6:31–44 and 8:1–9, he concluded that ‘[n]othing which has come out in the course of this discussion is contrary to the natural and generally received assumption that the author of the Fourth Gospel made use of Mark’ (1921: 288). Later, in 1931, he defended this position: ‘Like Matthew and Luke it [John] uses Mark as a source, together with one or more unknown source’ (1931–2a: 249). Again, in 1932, he observed that ‘even in the Fourth Gospel, which offers at first sight a totally different arrangement of events, the influence of the Marcan order can be recognized’ (1931–2a: 396), but in the 1953 reprint of that article he ‘mitigated’ (Selong 1971: 1.141) the last sentence to ‘traces of the Marcan order can be recognized’ (1953b: 1). Some years later Dodd seems to prefer John’s use of a tradition independent from the Synoptic Gospels. However, this shift did not initially imply a complete rejection of dependence on Mark, as would later be the 2

See Selong (1971: 1. 141–2), Neirynck (1977: 73–4; 1982: 365–6), and Verheyden (1992: 437–9).

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case in HTFG. Indeed, R. H. Fuller, one of Dodd’s students, remarks that Dodd maintained John’s dependence on Mark even one year prior to the publication of Gardner-Smith’s booklet: ‘It is interesting to find that between his lectures in Cambridge in 1937 and the publication of his book in 1954 [sic] C. H. Dodd changed his mind on that question. In 1937 he told us that he accepted John’s use of Mark. In 1954 [sic] he denies this’ (Fuller 1962: 11). But Dodd’s preference at that time for an independent tradition is stated in an article from 1938, which is an expanded version of a lecture delivered at the John Rylands Library, 18 November 1937: ‘John, while he is in some measure indebted to Mark, has in substance followed an independent tradition’ (1938a: 122). In the reprint of this article he subtly reduces Marcan influence even further: ‘while he may be in some measure’ (1938b: 80 n. 2). Dodd’s doubts about the possibility of Synoptic dependence appeared clearly from a review article in 1943. He notes that Gardner-Smith’s Saint John and the Synoptics ‘has shown at least that the case for John’s dependence on the Synoptics is far less securely founded than was supposed’ (1943: 210). It will not come as a surprise, therefore, that Dodd abandons the theory of Synoptic influence in his important subsequent works. Both in According to the Scriptures and The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel he rejects the previous attempts of scholars to consider the writings of early Christianity, including John and the Synoptics, as a ‘documentary series’ (1953a: 449), ‘in which each would show dependence on its predecessor, and each would be seen to have exerted influence on its successor’ (1952: 29). Consequently, the a priori ‘presumption’ (1952: 29; 1953a: 449) of literary dependence is unlikely. Instead, Dodd argues that John and the Synoptics are ‘prima facie’ independent (1952: 30; 1953a: 449).3 Finally, in HTFG (1963), Dodd gives a similar description of what Robinson called the ‘old’ and ‘new look’ in Johannine exegesis: For some time it has been almost a dogma4 of criticism that John depends on the Synoptics, much of Matthew is held to depend on Mark, Matthew and Luke on the hypothetical ‘Q’; that the author employed these works as sources, or if not all three, then two of them, or at least Mark. Recently there has been a certain trend away. [1963: 8]5 3

4 5

As Dodd states quite succinctly: ‘The Fourth Gospel . . . stands apart’ (1952: 30). Note that John’s independence of other New Testament writings functions within Dodd’s methodology of tracing Old Testament quotations in John to pre-canonical testimonies. See e.g. Isa. 6:10 in John 12:40 and Mk 4:12 (1952: 36–9). Cf. Dodd (1953a: 449). ‘All recent criticism tends to reduce the area of its [John’s] dependence on the Synoptics to a small compass, if it does not discount it altogether’ (Dodd 1952: 30). Already in 1943 Dodd relates this development to the rise of form criticism and oral tradition: ‘It shows that the time was fully ripe for

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In a footnote, he refers to Gardner-Smith’s booklet in a laudatory style: ‘The turn of tide might be marked, of this country, by the publication of P. Gardner-Smith’s St John and the Synoptic Gospels (1938), a book which crystallized the doubt of many, and has exerted an influence out of proportion to its size’ (1963: 8 n. 2).6

Dodd’s interpretation of the ‘Herrnwort’ in John 13:16 (and 15:20) Dodd thought of his HTFG (1963: vii) as a ‘sequel’ to his The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (IFG) and as ‘an expansion of the Appendix’, which he had titled ‘Some Considerations upon the Historical Aspect of the Fourth Gospel’ (1953a: 444–53). Already in this Appendix he had noted on the sayings of Jesus: embedded in the discourses and dialogues which are certainly an original creation of the evangelist, we find sayings which appear sometimes to be variant forms of sayings known from the Synoptics, and at other times to have been moulded upon patterns of which the Synoptics also have examples. These are all the more significant when we find a run of such sayings, having some similarity to the sequences of sayings in the Synoptics which some would regard as representing a very early stage in the transmission of the sayings of Jesus (prior to comparatively voluminous collections of sayings such as the hypothetical ‘Q’). Such sequences, for example, seem to occur in John iv.32–8, xii.24–6, xiii.13–20. [1953a: 451–2]

Still, in IFG he calls the saying in John 13:16, repeated in 15:20, a ‘quasiSynoptic saying’ (1953a: 394).7 This ‘quasi-Synoptic saying’ is one of fourteen sayings for which Dodd offers detailed analyses in his chapter on the ‘Sayings Common to John and the Synoptics’ in HTFG (1963: 335–49). This chapter is ‘in large measure reproduced’ from his 1954 article entitled ‘Some Johannine “Herrnworte” with Parallels in the Synoptic Gospels’.8 With ‘sayings common to John

6

7

8

the revision of long accepted arguments . . . which are now in part at least antiquated through the new emphasis upon Form-criticism and the oral tradition’ (1943: 210). Cf.: ‘the wide measure of assent which was immediately accorded to Mr. Gardner-Smith’s thesis’ (Dodd 1943: 210). According to Verheyden (1992: 439 n. 60), we encounter Dodd’s first reference to Gardner-Smith in 1938: ‘I hope to review the evidence in favour of this view in a forthcoming book. Reference may be made to Gardner-Smith’ (Dodd 1938b: 80 n. 2). Gardner-Smith claimed to be ‘a humble pupil’ of Dodd (Selong 1971: 1.141 n. 1). Note that both scholars were active in the Cambridge milieu in the years 1937–8. For more biographical information, we refer especially to Verheyden (1992: 424 n. 1; see also 438 n. 55). Zimmermann (2011: 269) mentions John 13:16 and 15:20 under ‘The Parables of Jesus according to the Gospel of John’. Quotation from Dodd 1963: 335n.2. We refer further only to HTFG.

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and the Synoptics’, Dodd refers to ‘passages which in form and content alike are identical, or closely similar, while differing verbally’, and they are ‘in the main those which have a succinct, aphoristic form which makes each of them a complete unit in itself’ (1963: 335). Examining the saying in John 13:16 (15:20), Dodd questions ‘whether these verbal differences are such as to suggest a rephrasing by John of material borrowed by him from other gospels, or such as could better be accounted for by the hypothesis of variation within a common oral tradition’ (1963: 335). Here we will examine his analysis of John 13:16 (and 15:20), the first example in his chapter (1963: 335–8).9 Dodd starts his exegesis by describing the parallels to John 13:16: ‘To this saying there are partial parallels in the Synoptics. The closest is Matt. x. 24–5, as read in the majority of MSS.’ He distinguishes between four different formations of the saying (1963: 336): (a) a single couplet as in Luke, ‘which combines one member from each of the two couplets of the longer text of Matthew’: ‘A disciple is not superior to his teacher; at best he may be like him’ (b) a triplet as in the shorter reader of Matthew (k, Syriac), ‘in which the first line is identical with the first line of (a), and the couplet follows, in which the second clause of (a), about disciple and teacher, is paralleled by a clause about slave and master’10 (c) a quatrain as in Matthew (T.R.), ‘in which the second couplet is as in (b) and the first couplet is also in parallelism, adding the relation of slave and master to that of disciple and teacher’ (d) a couplet as in John, ‘in which the first line is equivalent to the second line of (c), and the second line, instead of speaking of disciple and teacher, speaks of apostle and sender’. From this survey, Dodd notes: ‘Since the Johannine form has nothing directly in common with (a) or (b), it is only the longer text of Matthew that can be considered as a possible source for John’ (1963: 336). He then deals with three changes in the text of John (1963: 336–7): (1) ‘the omission of the second couplet’ (i.e. Matt. 10:25a, ἀρκετὸν τῷ μαθητῇ ἵνα γένηται ὡς ὁ διδάσκαλος αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁ δοῦλος ὡς ὁ κύριος αὐτοῦ); (2) ‘the substitution of ἀπόστολος for μαθητής and of ὁ πέμψας for ὁ διδάσκαλος, 9

10

For a ‘Synopsis’ of the texts, see ‘Appendix 1: John 13:16 (15:20) and Parallels (Matt 10:24–5; Luke 6:40)’. See also Sparks (1974: 51, 58–9). He remarks that ‘the longer text may well be original, and if John had a Synoptic model at all, it must have been the longer text of Matthew’ (1963: 335–6 n. 1).

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with a reversal of order’; and (3) ‘the substitution of ὑπέρ with the accusative for μείζων with the genitive’. Dodd concludes (1963: 337–8) his comment on 13:16 first with regard to the relation between John and Matthew that ‘there is no convincing reason to be discovered in the known tendencies of this author for the alterations he must have made if John xiii.16 depends on Matt. x.24–5, except possibly for the small grammatical “correction” of ὑπέρ with the accusative into μείζων with the genitive’. Secondly, with regard to John and oral tradition, he affirms: On the other hand, not only the differences between Matthew and John, but also the likenesses and differences between Matthew and Luke, and perhaps even the variant readings in Matthew, might be accounted for if we assumed that this saying circulated orally in variant forms, and that the parallelism of slave/master, apostle/sender on the one hand [John], and of disciple/teacher, slave/master on the other [Matthew], was established at a primitive stage of the tradition, while a third and simpler form of the oral tradition, to the effect, ‘A disciple is not superior to his teacher; at best he may be like his teacher’, was taken up by Luke, and may possibly have influenced the shorter text of Matthew. [1963: 337–8]

Dodd considers this logion, together with John 12:25, 13:20, and 20:23, as ‘instantiae praerogativae’, in which ‘John is not dependent on the Synoptic Gospels, but is transmitting independently a special form of the common tradition’ (1963: 349). Moreover, in his comment on 13:20 (cf. Matt. 10:40), he remarks that the ‘two propositions’ in 13:16 and 13:20 ‘stand out as general statements, presupposing . . . a traditional form’ (1963: 344–5 n. 1). This is demonstrated in his section on ‘Sequences of Sayings’ (1963: 388–405, especially 390–1). It is noticeable that in neither his article on the ‘Johannine Hernnworte’, published in November 1955, nor in HTFG published in 1963, does Dodd refer to the discussion between H. F. D. Sparks and P. Gardner-Smith in Theological Studies (1952 and 1953) on the evidence of ‘St. John’s Knowledge of Matthew’ with regard to the servant–master saying.11 We cannot believe that Dodd would not have followed this discussion, because Sparks’s note is, as Gardner-Smith remarks, ‘an important challenge to those who contend that there is no sufficient evidence that the fourth evangelist had read the synoptic gospels’ (1953: 31). In reaction to Gardner-Smith and ‘some scholars 11

Gardner-Smith’s only comment on John 13:16 and Matt. 10:24 in his Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels was: ‘Literary dependence will hardly be alleged; it is clear that the saying in some form was well remembered in the Church’ (1938: 53).

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today’, ‘who deny outright that St. John had any knowledge at all of the Synoptic tradition beyond what he derived from oral sources’, Sparks’s purpose was: to enter a caveat, at least so far as one piece of the evidence is concerned, and to suggest that a careful study of the Johannine and Matthaean versions of the saying ‘A servant is not greater than his lord’ in their respective contexts leads to the conclusion that although St. John may very well have had his reasons for ‘ignoring’ [so Streeter] Matthew, he certainly was not ignorant of it. [Sparks 1952: 58–9]

Comparing John 13:16 and 15:20 with their Synoptic parallels, Matt. 10:24, 25 and Luke 6:40, in nine points, he concludes that ‘[w]hen these nine points are considered together it becomes apparent that both in Matthew and in John our saying is firmly embedded in the same complex [the Mission Charge to the Twelve], not only of ideas, but also of material’ (1952: 58–9). On the question ‘How account for this fact?’, Sparks answers that ‘[t]he simplest answer, and I believe the right one, is that St. John knew Matthew and that he used the material contained in the Charge in his own peculiar way’ (1952: 60). Sparks could not convince Gardner-Smith. After analysing Sparks’s description of the nine similarities, Gardner-Smith’s verdict was clear: ‘literary dependence is a superfluous hypothesis’ (1953: 35).

A ‘Leuven answer’ to Dodd’s interpretation of the servant–master saying12 Differences between the Johannine and Matthean logion Dodd did not discuss all the similarities and differences between the Johannine and Synoptic accounts of the servant–master saying. He emphasized particularly three differences to indicate how John ‘is transmitting independently a special form of the common tradition’ in 13:16 (and 15:20) (1963: 349). We will therefore first evaluate Dodd’s analysis of the three differences: (i) On ‘the omission of the second couplet’ (i.e. ‘It is enough for a disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master’, Matt. 10:25a), Dodd comments: ‘all we can say is that the idea that the slave 12

For the ‘Leuven Answer’, see Neirynck (1992: 21–6; 2001: 21–6) and Sabbe (1982: 279–308; 1991: 409–41). For an exhaustive study on John 13:16 and 15:20, see especially Theobald (2002: 130–51), who rejects John’s dependence on the Synoptics and argues that John depends on an oral tradition, that can be compared with the Q logion.

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should be like his master, and content to be so without expecting to be in any way superior to him, does not appear uncongenial to an evangelist, who has placed this saying immediately after the Twelve have been assured that they do well to call Jesus κύριος, since that is what he is, and at the same time are exhorted to follow his example (xiii. 13–15), and who at a later point (xv. 20) cites the present saying as a warning to the disciples that they cannot expect to have a fairer lot than their Master’s’ (1963: 336–7). It is not the case that nothing more can be said on this omission of Matt. 10:25a. If one agrees that John was a creative author and that the saying is not ‘uncongenial’ to him, then can one not claim that in his reworking of the Gospel of Matthew, John certainly knew and used the doublet in Matt. 10:25a, not in a literal duplication, but rather as a source of inspiration for the conversation on the foot-washing in 13:13–15? The influence of Matt. 10:25a on John is also clear in the context of the logion in 15:20. Dodd does not keep it sufficiently in mind that the whole Johannine context of the logion indeed has been influenced by the whole Matthean context of 10:25a, namely the Mission Discourse. This was analysed by Sparks (1952) and was strongly emphasized by Neirynck (1992: 21–6; 2001: 21–6).13 (ii) Dodd deals with ‘the substitution of ἀπόστολος for μαθητής and of ὁ πέμψας for ὁ διδάσκαλος, with a reversal of order’ in several steps. (a) He remarks that ‘[i]t might be urged that since διδάσκαλος and κύριος (in that order) are the titles which the evangelist has just given [13:13–14] as those acceptable to Jesus from his followers, we should conclude that he was acquainted with the Matthaean couplet, which has the same titles in the same order’ (1963: 337). Neirynck has shown how remarkable it is that ‘at this point Dodd reverses the argument’ (1992: 23; 2001: 23–4), when he remarks: ‘But if so, it is certainly no easier to understand why he has eliminated the relation of disciple and teacher from the Matthaean couplet, and substituted the relation of apostle and sender’ (1963: 337). (b) Dodd asks himself: ‘Are we to say that he wished at this point to emphasize the new character of the Twelve as responsible envoys of Christ rather than simple pupils?’ (1963: 337). His answer is clear: ‘But all through these chapters they continue to 13

See ‘Appendix 2: John 15:18–21 and Matt 10:22–5’.

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(c)

14

be called μαθηταί (except once, when they are οἱ δώδεκα, xx.24). Indeed, ἀπόστολος is not a Johannine word at all; this is the only place in the Fourth Gospel where it is used. Μαθητής, on the other hand, occurs seventy-eight times in the course of the gospel. It seems therefore improbable that the evangelist, finding in his source a saying in which his favourite word μαθητής was used, should have deliberately altered it into a word which he never uses elsewhere’ (1963: 337). Here too we cannot agree with Dodd. Sparks pointed out directly that ‘St. Matthew, too, uses it [ἀπόστολος] only once – at the beginning of the Mission Charge [Matt. 10:2]’ (1952: 59). Gardner-Smith reacted against Sparks as follows: ‘In the earliest Church “apostle” was no doubt commonly used as a technical term, but it described a limited class of accredited missionaries who were not necessarily, or even generally, members of the original band of disciples. Later the word came to be restricted to the Twelve, and it is significant that Luke uses it in this way. But neither Mark nor John has this usage, and in Matt. 10:2 the word may mean no more than “those that were sent”, for nowhere else does the first evangelist call the Twelve “the Apostles”. At any rate, in John 13:16 the word is used in a more general sense of any Christian who is sent out into the hostile world. It is not only the Twelve who are required to display humility, but all who look to Jesus as their example’ (1953: 33). What Gardner-Smith says on ‘apostle’ may be correct,14 but it is not a direct reply to the observation made by Sparks. Was it not Sparks’s intention to point out how coincidental it is that a word that occurs only once in Matthew and once in John, is used precisely by Matthew in the context (Matt. 10:2) in which the logion is placed? Dodd concludes the discussion with the following observation: ‘In the context of xiii.12–20, where Christ is emphatically both διδάσκαλος and κύριος, the longer Matthaean form of the saying would seem eminently appropriate. Yet John discarded it, if he knew it’ (1963: 337). Dodd is right that John neglects Matt. 10:25a as a logion, and that it would have fitted in the context very well (see especially 13:13–14), but the verdict that he ‘discarded it’ is certainly incorrect. Could the words of Jesus in 13:13–14 not be seen as a Johannine redaction of Matt. 10:25a – see above, (i)?

For the view that ‘apostle’ means ‘messenger’ in John 13:16, see recently Abramowski (2008: 118–19).

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(iii) With regard to ‘the substitution of ὑπέρ with the accusative for μείζων with the genitive’, Dodd comments: ‘[This change] is not of great significance. The LXX employs alternatively the comparative of the adjective or ὑπέρ with the accusative to render Hebrew expressions like ‫גרול מן‬, ‫רב מן‬. The differences, therefore, between John and Matthew in this grammatical detail might well go back to different translations of an Aramaic original; or, since John never uses ὑπέρ with the accusative, while he is rather addicted to locutions with μείζων, he might himself have been responsible for the change’ (1963: 336). Along with Dodd, we accept that the use of μείζων is Johannine. But may we not additionally reason that John could have been influenced by Luke 22:27 (‘For who is greater [μείζων], the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves’)? If we accept that Luke 22:27 was the source of inspiration for the Johannine foot-washing narrative (see e.g. Holtzmann 1869: 72–3; Sabbe 1982: 295; 1991: 425) then does this not provide an additional argument in favour of John’s dependence on the Synoptics? It is surprising that Dodd is hesitant to make such a claim: There is . . . no sound reason to suppose that the Fourth Evangelist found the saying about humility and service in the Lucan Passion narrative and made the story out of it. It is far more likely that he drew it independently out of the tradition, and then handled it after his fashion, to suggest, through symbolism, the profoundly theological ideas which he wished to be in the mind of his readers in embarking on the story of Christ’s sufferings and death. [1963: 62]

Similarities between the Johannine and Matthean context of the logion Before we analyse the similarities between John and the Synoptics, we wish to emphasize that we agree with Sparks that the logia should not be studied in isolation but only in their contexts: ‘we are clearly not dealing here merely with two independent versions of an isolated popular saying: we are dealing with a whole complex of ideas and material, of which the saying itself forms but a part’ (1952: 60). We also accept Sparks’s view that one of Matthew’s tendencies was to ‘agglomerate’ his material from the sources and that ‘nowhere this tendency [is] more noticeable than in the Mission Charge . . . In other words, the Matthaean Mission Charge exhibits exactly the same editorial features as the rest of his gospel’ (1952: 60).15 15

He adds: ‘If, therefore, we are going to posit an oral or documentary original for the charge as it stands, and allow little or no editorial possibility to St. Matthew himself, we ought logically also to

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Dodd paid little attention to the context of the logion in John and Matthew. Since, according to Gardner-Smith, the similarities between the Johannine and Matthean logion that Sparks summarized are completely unusable to indicate John’s dependence on Matthew, this is perhaps the reason why Dodd leaves them out of consideration. We have already discussed one of the similarities given by Sparks as argument for John’s use of Matthew (no. 3: the use of ἀπόστολος in John 13:16 and Matt. 10:2). The other similarities according to Sparks are the following (1952: 59–60): 1. ‘St. John’s two versions of the saying differ to the extent that one version consists of two members (pointing the antithesis between “a servant” and “his lord”, and between “an apostle” and “him that sent him”) while the other consists of only one member (pointing the antithesis between “a servant” and “his lord”). But the servant-lord antithesis was for St. John clearly primary; and it is precisely this antithesis which is pointed in the second member of St. Matthew’s two-member version; it is, however, absent from St. Luke’s version.’ 2. ‘St. John’s second antithesis in his two-member version is between “an apostle” and “him that sent him”. This fits exactly the context in which St. Matthew places the saying (the Mission Charge to the Twelve), but has no point of contact with the context in which St. Luke places it (The Great Sermon).’ 4. ‘St. John’s “him that sent him” finds an echo, even if not an exact parallel, in the Lord’s words, which St. Matthew has recorded eight verses previously [Matt. 10:16].’ 5. ‘St. John immediately follows his single-member version of the saying by another saying about the persecution of the disciples. Although St. Matthew’s following saying differs markedly in wording from its Johannine counterpart, it is nevertheless similar both in form (“If they . . .”) and in general sense (i.e. the disciple must expect to suffer the same indignities as his master).’ 6. ‘St. John’s mention of “persecution” in this following saying finds again an echo in the verse which in Matthew comes immediately before our saying [Matt. 10:23].’ 7. ‘St. John’s single-member version of the saying is preceded by two verses referring to the hatred of the world for the Lord and his posit an oral or documentary original for the gospel as a whole (i.e. an oral or documentary “Ur-Matthäus”), which is manifestly absurd’ (Sparks 1952: 60).

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disciples: . . . [John 15:18, 19]. This corresponds to St. Matthew’s preceding “Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake” [Matt. 10:22].’ 8. ‘St. John’s additional saying which follows his single-member version contains the warning “these things will they do to you for my name’s sake”. The phrase “for my name’s sake (διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου)” is found in John only here [John 15:21]. In Matthew the phrase is found only in the preceding “Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake” [Matt. 10:22], and in the similar “Ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name’s sake” in the Matthaean parallel to St. Mark’s “Little Apocalypse” [Matt. 24:9; Mark 13:13. Cf. also ἕνεκεν τοῦ ὀνόματός μου at Matt. 19:29]’. 9. ‘St. John’s concluding saying in the section of discourse in which his twomember version occurs is “He that receiveth whomsover I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me” [John 13:20]. This is almost verbally identical with St. Matthew’s “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me”, which occurs in the conclusion of the Charge [Matt. 10:40].’ While these similarities offer sufficient evidence to Sparks that ‘both in Matthew and in John our saying is firmly embedded in the same complex, not only of ideas, but also of material’ (1952: 60), Gardner-Smith asserts that ‘in both these passages [John 13:16 and 15:20] the “complex of ideas” bears some resemblance to that of Matthew’s charge to the Twelve. But this is not surprising, since both evangelists are dealing with the position of Christians in a hostile world’ (1953: 34). Similarly Dodd pays little attention to the similarities in his discussion of 13:16 and 15:20. In his introductory chapter to this volume, Thatcher states that it was a characteristic of Dodd’s argumentation on John’s independence of the Synoptics to pay less attention to similarities between specific terms and constructions, as he assumed they were conventional to the theme under discussion (see Dodd 1963: 197, 197 n. 2; cf. 99–100). Moreover, that Dodd pays little attention to either the Johannine or the Matthean context of the logion stands in sharp contrast with his astute studies on the Old Testament contexts of individual verses or passages that are quoted or being referred to in the New Testament. In his According to the Scriptures, he describes ‘a certain method of biblical study’ that was used by ‘early Christian biblical scholars’ (1952: 126): The method included, first, the selection of certain large sections of the Old Testament scriptures, especially from Isaiah, Jeremiah and certain minor prophets, and from the Psalms. These sections were understood as wholes, and particular verses or sentences were quoted from them rather as pointers to the whole context than as constituting testimonies in and from

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The saying source Q and the Matthean redaction For the ‘Leuven hypothesis’ of John’s direct dependence on the Matthean logion, it is important to indicate that the servant–master saying in Matt. 10:24b (cf. 10:25a) does not occur, as Dodd suggests, ‘at a primitive stage of the tradition’, but that Matthew himself added this contrast to the original Q-logion. There is no certainty whether Luke 6:40 par. Matt. 10:24–25a can be traced back to Q. Recently, Verheyden has illustrated in Documenta Q (Youngquist 2011: 270–1, 323–4, 337, 341–2), using the letter grade {B}, which means with ‘a convincing probability’, that the saying on ‘the disciple and teacher’ (1) in the sayings source Q stands, after 6:39 and before 6:41; (2) Luke reflects the Q-text (but see 4); (3) Matt. 10:24b and 25a are the result of Matthew’s own redaction; and (4) in the second part of the logion the Q text does not give the beginning of the Lucan text (κατηρτισμένος δὲ πᾶς ἔσται), but indeed the Matthean one (ἀρκετὸν τῷ μαθητῇ ἵνα γένηται). According to Verheyden, the reconstruction of Q 6:40 thus reads: οὐκ ἔστιν μαθητὴς ὑπὲρ τὸν διδάσκαλον
ἀρκετὸν τῷ μαθητῇ ἵνα γένηται ὡς ὁ διδάσκαλος αὐτοῦ. A disciple is not superior to the teacher. It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher.

If this reconstruction of Q 6:40 is correct and the servant–lord saying in Matt. 10:24b (cf. 10:25a) is indeed an addition made by Matthew, then John’s dependence on the Gospel of Matthew is very likely. If we further accept, as we have described above, that the Matthean context of the logion is used in the Fourth Gospel, it becomes difficult to accept a pre-Johannine, non-Synoptic oral tradition. Along with Neirynck (1992: 23; 2001: 23) we should point out that in John 13:16 we have, not just ‘the same image of δοῦλος-κύριος’, as in Matt. 10:24, but more specifically that it concerns ‘a double saying’ with the same construction οὐκ ἔστιν . . . οὐδέ. John 13:16 and 20 in the Johannine and Matthean context We have already noted that John 13:16 and 20 ‘stand out as general statements, presupposing a traditional form’ for Dodd. Moreover, he accepts

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that ‘the sayings came to him [the Evangelist] already roughly grouped’ [1963: 391]. Neirynck emphasizes the relations between the two verses: they are not just introduced with the formal Johannine formula ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, but they both deal with the mission. Moreover, he challenges Dodd: ‘I do not think that there is any convincing evidence for the existence of a sequence of these sayings in the pre-Synoptic tradition, but John may have found a “rough grouping” of the Synoptic parallels to Jn 13: 16 and 20 in the Matthean Mission Discourse (Mt 10:24–25:40)’ (1992: 24; 2001: 24): ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν
οὐκ ἔστιν δοῦλος μείζων τοῦ κυρίου αὐτοῦ οὐδὲ ἀπόστολος μείζων τοῦ πέμψαντος αὐτόν. John 13:20 ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ὁ λαμβάνων ἄν τινα πέμψω ἐμὲ λαμβάνει, ὁ δὲ ἐμὲ λαμβάνων λαμβάνει τὸν πέμψαντά με. Matt. 10:40 ὁ δεχόμενος ὑμᾶς ἐμὲ δέχεται, καὶ ὁ ἐμὲ δεχόμενος δέχεται τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με.

John 13:16

Moreover, Neirynck (1992: 25; 2001: 25) is reacting against M.-É. Boismard and A. Lamouille (1977, 331–3, 339–41), who ascribe John 13:16 and 20 to a later literary layer, Jean III. According to him their arguments are ‘hardly convincing’. Neirynck does not interpret John 13:16 (with 20) as a foreign element that interrupts the line of thought, as suggested by Boismard and Lamouille (1977: 332 and 339). Instead, as K. T. Kleinknecht has indicated (1982: 386), he defends the view that verse 16 clearly forms part of the line of thought in 13:12–16. We can paraphrase the interpretation offered by Kleinknecht (1985: 386) as follows: The line of thought, which is formulated in John 13:13–15, emphasises that the disciples’ task to serve their master should be understood as analogous to their responsibilities towards their teacher. The logion in Matt. 10:24 expresses precisely this line of thought in a pregnant and generalising manner: the servant/disciple is not more than the master/ teacher. John picks up on this idea, but reformulates it linguistically to suit his point of view. For John the disciple is the šalî ah of the măšli ah : _ who has sent _ the messenger has received the authority of the master him, and thus according to the Jewish right of representation is not greater than him. In this manner the episode of the foot washing, which is developed narratively, is brought to conclude on a theological principle.

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Furthermore, with F. J. Moloney (1998: 371) we would like to point out that ‘the strategic position of the double “amen” sayings’, not only in vv. 16 and 20, but also in vv. 21 and 38, ‘indicates that there may be three sections in vv. 1–38’: The narrative opens with an account of the foot washing and the dialogues that surround it, largely dealing with Jesus’ instruction of the disciples, the ignorance of Peter, and the failure of Judas (vv. 1–17). This section closes with the double ‘amen’ in vv. 16–17. In vv. 18–20, which conclude with the double ‘amen’ in v. 20, Jesus addresses the disciples. No other person speaks. Narrative and the pattern of dialogue returns in vv. 21–38, which both open (v. 21) and close (v. 38), with the double ‘amen’. The narrative reports that Jesus’ gift of the morsel and the dialogue is dominated by his instruction of the disciples in the midst of intensifying predictions of Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denials.

Conclusion In this article we have dealt with the problem of John’s knowledge of Matthew. After examining Gardner-Smith’s influence on Dodd, we analysed in particular Dodd’s exegesis of John 13:16 (and 15:20), compared it with articles by Sparks and Gardner-Smith, and tried to provide an answer from ‘the Leuven point of view’. With Sparks and Neirynck we found ‘evidence’ for John’s knowledge of Matthew in John 13:16 and 15:20.16 Our greatest concern in our response to Dodd is that he focuses on the differences between John 13:16 (and 15:20) and Matt. 10:24–25 (par. Luke 6:40), and that he is reserved over the similarities, which occur especially in the contexts of the logion, as Sparks and Neirynck emphasized extensively. Following this approach, Dodd – without too many complications – arrives at the conclusion that these differences ‘could better be accounted for by the hypothesis of variation within a common oral tradition’ (1963: 335). That the problem with the approach of Dodd (and Gardner-Smith) lies precisely in accepting this hypothesis is explained excellently by H. M. Teeple (1974, 69): Dodd, as well as Gardner-Smith, demands much evidence to indicate the use of the synoptic gospels, and little evidence to indicate the influence of 16

Sparks has been followed by Ebner (1998: 319 n. 18). On John’s dependence on Matthew, see the older study of Schlatter (1898: 51–2). In his evaluation of the article of Sparks, Blinzler (1965: 47) has not accepted literary dependence on such a small basis, and followed Gardner-Smith and Dodd. On John’s use of Matthew, see also Muddiman, who refers to a letter of Farrer as ‘A British exponent of the theory’; Muddiman himself was ‘not yet decided . . . as to John’s use of Matthew’ (1983: 344 n. 13); see also Neirynck’s notes on ‘Matthew 28:9–10’ and ‘John and Matthew’ (2005: 347–50).

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oral tradition. He explains all similarities of words and sequence between John and the synoptics as a result of the general (oral) tradition of the church. The fallacy of the explanation is that there is no evidence of the existence of an oral tradition uniform enough or detailed enough to explain the similarities. Dodd thinks that the dissimilarities inconsistent with the evangelist’s views and traits must come from the oral tradition. The weakness of this often-used argument is that it ignores other possible causes of dissimilarities: for example, the evangelist could have changed the synoptic material for reasons unknown to us, or he could have used a source with different traits and views that drew upon the synoptics, or a redactor with different traits and view could have inserted synoptic material. Advocates of oral traditions invariably neglect to consider all the literary possibilities.

To conclude. In his rather short article on the development of Dodd’s approach to the Fourth Gospel, J. S. King wrote (1983a: 145): For all his meticulous scholarship, Dodd was not an innovator in Johannine studies. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel was the classical expression of an approach that had long been standard in British scholarship and Dodd continued to hold to the importance of the Hellenistic background when many had come to reject it. Similarly Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel was part of a movement burgeoning in British scholarship. The whole of this endeavor was indebted to the seminal work of Gardner-Smith. Dodd’s work was a definitive statement of this movement.

Although there may be some truth in these statements, we have ‘to be fair to Dodd’17 and we have to confess that in Leuven the two works of Dodd on John are still on our desk. But we also have to be fair to our own Leuven tradition: instead of beginning with some a priori consideration (the affirmation of the authenticity or the historical value of the Fourth Gospel), one should start with the study of the text; in place of trying to recover a presumed primitive order of the text, one has to make an effort to understand and to explain that order as it lays before us; instead of resorting to unknown conjectural sources or traditions, attention must be given first of all to the Synoptics as the possible sources of the Fourth Gospel. [Selong 1971: 1.124; cf. Van Belle 2007: 334]

17

See the title of King’s article (1983b) in response to Carson (1981).

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appendix 1

John 13:16 (15:20) and Parallels (Matt. 10:24–5; Luke 6:40)18 Matt. 10:24–5

24

οὐκ ἔστιν

μαθητὴς ὑπὲρ τὸν --------------------διδάσκαλον -------------

Luke 6:40

οὐκ ἔστιν

John 13:16

John 15:20

ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν,

μνημονεύετε τοῦ λόγου οῦ ἐγὼ εῖπον ὑμῖν


οὐκ ἔστιν

οὐκ ἔστιν

δοῦλος μείζων τοῦ ------κυρίου αὐτοῦ

δοῦλος μείζων τοῦ ------κυρίου αὐτοῦ.

μαθητὴς ὑπὲρ τὸν --------------------διδάσκαλον
-------------

οὐδὲ δοῦλος ὑπὲρ --- -----τὸν κύριον αὐτοῦ.

οὐδέ ἀπόστολος ----μείζων τοῦ ------πέμψαντος αὐτόν. κατηρτισμένος δὲ ἀρκετὸν τῷ μαθητῇ ἵνα γένηται ὡς πᾶς ἔσται ὡς ὁ ὁ διδάσκαλος αὐτοῦ διδάσκαλος αὐτοῦ. καί ὁ -δοῦ λος ὡς - - -------ὁ----κύριος αὐτοῦ. -----------25

εἰ τὸν οἰκοδεσπότην Bεελζεβοὺλ ἐπεκάλεσαν, πόσῳ μᾶλλον τούς οἰκιακοὺς αὐτοῦ;

18

Cf. Sparks (1952: 59).

εἰ ἐμὲ ἐδίωξαν, καὶ ὑμᾶς διώξουσιν
εἰ τὸν λόγον μου ἐτήρησαν καὶ τὸν ὑμέτερον τηρήσουσιν.

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appendix 2

John 15:18–21 and Matt. 10:22–5 19 John 15:18–21

Matt. 10:22–5

18 Eἰ ὁ κόσμος ὑμᾶς μισεῖ, . . . ἐμὲ πρῶτον ὑμῶν μεμίσηκεν. 19 . . . 20 μνημονεύετε τοῦ λόγου οὗ ἐγὼ εἶπον ὑμῖν
οὐκ ἔστιν δοῦλος μείζων τοῦ κυρίου αὐτοῦ εἰ̱ ἐμὲ ἐδίωξαν, καὶ ὑμᾶς διώξουσιν

22a καὶ ἔσεσθε μισούμενοι ὑπὸ πάντων διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου . . . 23 Ὅταν δὲ διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς . . .

21 ἀλλὰ ταῦτα πάντα ποιήσουσιν εἰς ὑμᾶς διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου, ὅτι οὐκ οἴδασιν τὸν πέμψαντά με.

24 Οὐκ ἔστιν . . . οὐδὲ δοῦλος ὑπὲρ τὸν κύριον αὐτοῦ. 25b εἰ τὸν οἰκοδεσπότην . . ., . . . πόσῳ μᾶλλον τοὺς οἰκιακοὺς αὐτοῦ. [22a]

WORKS CITED Abramowski, Luise, 2008. ‘Der Apostel von Johannes 13,16’. ZNW 99: 116–23. Blinzler, Josef, 1965. Johannes und die Synoptiker. SBS 5. Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk. Boismard, Marie-Émile and Arnaud Lamouille (in collaboration with Gerard Rochais), 1977. L’évangile de Jean. Commentaire. Synopse des quatre évangiles en français 3. Paris: Éditions du Cerf. Carson, D. A., 1981. ‘Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel: After Dodd, What?’. In R. T. France and David Wenham (eds.), Gospel Perspectives: Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels. 6 vols. Sheffield: JSOT Press, vol. II, pp. 83–185. Denaux, Adelbert, 1992. ‘Introduction’. In Adelbert Denaux (ed.), John and the Synoptics. BETL 101. Leuven: University Press and Peeters, pp. xiii–xxii. Dillistone, F. W., 1977. C. H. Dodd: Interpreter of the New Testament. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Dodd, C. H., 1921. ‘The Close of the Galilaean Ministry’. The Expositor 8th series 22: 273–91.

19

Cf. Neirynck (1992: 24; 2001: 24–5).

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1931–2a. ‘Present Tendencies in the Criticism of the Gospels’. ExpTim 43: 246–51. 1931–2b. ‘The Framework of the Gospel Narrative’. ExpTim 43: 396–400. 1936. The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1938a. ‘The Gospels as History: A Reconsideration’. BJRL 22: 122–43 1938b. History and the Gospel. London: Nisbet. 1943. ‘Review of H. Strachan, “The Fourth Gospel”, and W. F. Howard, “Christianity according to St. John”’. JTS 44: 206–12. 1952. According to the Scriptures: The Substructure of New Testament Theology. London: Nisbet. 1953a. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1953b. New Testament Studies. Manchester: University Press. 1954–5. ‘Some Johannine “Herrnworte” with Parallels in the Synoptic Gospels’. NTS 2: 75–87. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunderberg, Ismo, 1997. ‘Johannine Anomalies and the Synoptics’. In Johannes Nissen and Sigfred Pedersen (eds.), New Readings in John: Literary and Theological Perspectives. Essays from the Scandinavian Conference on the Fourth Gospel, Århus 1997. JSNT SS 182. Sheffield: Academic Press, pp. 108–25. Ebner, Martin, 1998. Jesus – ein Weisheitslehrer? Synoptische Weisheitslogien im Traditionsprozess. HBS 15. Freiburg, Basel and Wien: Herder. Fuller, R. H., 1962. The New Testament in Current Study. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Gardner-Smith, P., 1938. Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1953. ‘St. John’s Knowledge of Matthew’. JTS 4: 31–5. Holtzmann, Heinrich Julius, 1869. ‘Das schriftstellerische Verhältniss des Johannes zu den Synoptikern’. ZWT 12: 62–85, 155–78, 445–56. King, J. S., 1983a. ‘There and Back Again’. EvQ 55: 145–57. 1983b. ‘Has Carson Been Fair to C. H. Dodd?’. JSNT 17 (1983): 97–102. Kleinknecht, Karl Theodor, 1985. ‘Johannes 13, die Synoptiker und die “Methode” der johanneischen Evangelienüberlieferung’. ZTK 82: 361–88. Konings, Johan, 1972. Het johanneïsch verhaal in de literaire kritiek. Historiek – Dossier van Joh., I–X. – Redactiestudie van Joh., VI, 1–21. 3 vols. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. KU Leuven (promoter: Frans Neirynck). Labahn, Michael and Manfred Lang, 2004. ‘Johannes und die Synoptiker: Positionen und Impulse seit 1990’. In Jörg Frey and Udo Schnelle, in collaboration with Juliane Schlegel (eds.), Kontexte des Johannesevangeliums. Das vierte Evangelium in religions- und traditionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive. WUNT 175. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 443–515.

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Moloney, Francis J., 1998. The Gospel of John. SPS 4. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press. Muddiman, John, 1983. ‘John’s Use of Matthew: A British Exponent of the Theory’. ETL 59: 333–7. Neirynck, Frans, 1977 (1987). ‘John and the Synoptics’. In Marinus de Jonge (ed.), L’évangile de Jean: Sources, rédaction, théologie. BETL 44. Leuven: University Press and Peeters. 1982. Evangelica I. Gospel Studies – Études d’évangiles. Collected Essays. BETL 60. Ed. Frans Van Segbroeck. Leuven: University Press and Peeters. 1991. Evangelica II: 1982–1991. Collected Essays. BETL 191. Ed. Frans Van Segbroeck. Leuven: University Press and Peeters. 1992. ‘John and the Synoptics: 1975–1990’. In Adelbert Denaux (ed.), John and the Synoptics. BETL 101. Leuven: University Press and Peeters, pp. 3–62. 2001. Evangelica III: 1992–2000. Collected Essays. BETL 150. Leuven: University Press and Peeters. 2005. ‘Adelbert Denaux’s Triple Interest’. In Reimund Bieringer, Gilbert Van Belle, and Joseph Verheyden (eds.), Luke and His Readers. Festschrift A. Denaux. BETL 182. Leuven: University Press and Peeters, pp. 345–50. Robinson, J. A. T., 1959. ‘The New Look on the Fourth Gospel’. In Kurt Aland et al. (eds.), Studia Evangelica: Papers Presented to the International Congress on ‘The Four Gospels in 1957’ Held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1957. TU 73. Berlin, 1959, pp. 338–50. 1962. Twelve New Testament Studies. London: SCM Press. Sabbe, Maurits, 1982. ‘The Footwashing in Jn 13 and Its Relation to the Synoptic Gospels’. ETL 57: 279–308. 1991. Studia Neotestamentica: Collected Essays. BETL 98. Leuven: University Press and Peeters. Schlatter, Adolf, 1898. Die Parallelen in den Worten Jesu bei Johannes und Matthäus. Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie 3.5. Güthersloh: Druck und Verlag von C. Bertelsmann. Selong, Gabriel, 1971. The Cleansing of the Temple in Jn. 2,13–22: With a Reconsideration of the Dependence of the Fourth Gospel upon the Synoptics. 3 vols. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. KU Leuven. Smith, D. Moody, 2001. John among the Gospels: The Relationship in TwentiethCentury Research. Second edition. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Sparks, H. F. D., 1952. ‘St. John’s Knowledge of Matthew: The Evidence of John 13,16 and 15,20’. JTS 3: 58–61. 1974. A Synopsis of the Gospels. Part 2: The Gospel According to St John with the Synoptic Parallels. London: Adam and Charles Black. Teeple, Howard M., 1974. The Literary Origin of the Gospel of John. Evanston, IL: Religion and Ethics Institute. Theobald, Michael, 2002. Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium. HBS 24. Freiburg, Basel and Wien: Herder.

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Van Belle, Gilbert, 2007. ‘Tradition, Exegetical Formation, and the Leuven Hypothesis’. In Tom Thatcher (ed.), What We have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, the Present, and Future of Johannine Studies. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, pp. 325–37. Verheyden, Joseph, 1992. ‘Gardner-Smith and “The Turn of the Tide”’. In Adelbert Denaux (ed.), John and the Synoptics. BETL 101. Leuven: University Press and Peeters, pp. 423–52. Youngquist, Linden E. (in co-operation with Thomas Klampfl, Shawn Carruth, and Jonathan L. Reed), 2011. The Database of the International Q Project. Q 6:37–42. Not Judging – The Blind Leading the Blind – The Disciple and the Teacher – The Speck and the Beam. Volume eds.: Christoph Heil and Gertraub Harb. Documenta Q: Reconstructions of Q Through Two Centuries of Gospel Research Excerpted, Sorted, and Evaluated. Leuven: Peeters. Zimmermann, Ruben, 2011. ‘Are there Parables in John? It Is Time to Revisit the Question?’ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9, 243–76.

chapter 6

John and the rabbis revisited Catrin H. Williams

The use of rabbinic sources in New Testament research has ebbed and flowed with some regularity over the past hundred years, although certain wave-like moments have undoubtedly left an indelible mark on subsequent scholarship. During the first half of the twentieth century a major wave was generated by the publication of the four-volume commentary – or perhaps more aptly termed anthology – by Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck entitled Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (1922, 1924, 1926, 1928). These volumes, which have come to be known simply as ‘Strack-Billerbeck’, had an immediate impact on the study of Christian origins, at a time, before the Qumran discoveries, when the Hebrew and Aramaic extra-biblical sources available for comparison with the New Testament writings were few and far between. The significance of rabbinic material for the study of the New Testament was keenly noted at regular intervals, but particularly so during the forties and fifties. In 1948 W. D. Davies published his Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology, a particularly influential comparative study of Pauline and rabbinic texts, which was followed eight years later by David Daube’s pioneering, and still frequently cited, collection of essays, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (1956). Without doubt, it was regular conversations with these two scholars – in research supervisions with Davies, in New Testament Seminar discussions with Daube – that helped to spark and deepen C. H. Dodd’s interest in all things rabbinic.1 This interest is most in evidence in Dodd’s two major books on the Fourth Gospel, where rabbinic Judaism serves 1

C. H. Dodd and David Daube jointly supervised the research thesis upon which W. D. Davies’s Paul and Rabbinic Judaism is based. Also, David Daube notes in his preface to The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism that many of the essays contained in the collection consist of papers delivered at Dodd’s New Testament Seminar at the University of Cambridge. For David Daube’s influence on Dodd’s growing awareness of the ‘Semitic substructure of the New Testament’, see Davies (1973–4: iii). See further Dillistone (1977: 149): ‘a kind of triumvirate was formed, each helping the others,

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as the lens through which he examines examples of Jewish influence on the Gospel and its underlying tradition. Dodd’s approach to rabbinic traditions, and his handling of them as sources, advances in several notable ways during the ten years that separates The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (IFG) (1953) and The Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (HTFG) (1963). This chapter therefore seeks to examine Dodd’s recourse to rabbinic texts in the two studies in question, giving particular attention to issues of method, as defined in subsequent scholarship, in his use of rabbinic sources for the study of the Fourth Gospel. The impact of recent important methodological shifts on New Testament interpretation will then be considered, using Dodd’s approach to the Johannine and rabbinic interpretations of the divine name as a subject worthy of closer scrutiny and as a springboard for considering other interpretative strategies. The essay will conclude with some reflections on current trends and new directions in the use of rabbinic literature for the study of the Fourth Gospel.

C. H. Dodd on John and rabbinic Judaism The first major example of Dodd’s sustained engagement with rabbinic sources can be found in Part I of IFG, where he selects rabbinic Judaism as one of six ‘important sections of the field in which the thought of the Fourth Gospel has its background’ (1953: vii).2 He begins his discussion (1953: 74–98) by welcoming the recent shift in scholarly focus from the Hellenistic to the Jewish environment of John’s Gospel and by offering two explanations for that shift. First, influential studies on the Semitic features of John’s language, including those by C. F. Burney (1922), Matthew Black (1946) and Adolf Schlatter (1902; 1930), had led to a greater recognition of the influence of Aramaic and Hebrew idioms on John’s Greek, even indicating that John’s language betrays ‘his acquaintance with the established phraseology of the rabbinical schools’ (1953: 74). Secondly, Dodd draws attention to the renewed study of Judaism in New Testament interpretation and, in a statement that

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whose aim it was to create a new atmosphere in Jewish–Christian studies and to reveal the immense importance of the Rabbinic background for New Testament interpretation’. The other conceptual ‘backgrounds’ considered in Part 1 are as follows: early Christianity, Hermetic literature, Hellenistic Judaism (Philo), Gnosticism, and Mandaeism. Dodd does not include sections for the writings of Josephus, the Apocrypha, or the Pseudepigrapha, although he does often combine evidence from these sources with rabbinic traditions in his various outlines of ‘Jewish thought and practice’ during the first century ce.

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proleptically anticipates the concerns voiced by later scholars on issues of method, remarks: ‘Until the early years of the present century Christian scholars found it almost impossible to make effective use of the documents of Rabbinic Judaism for want of a critical and chronological assessment of the material. This want is being remedied’ (1953: 75). Like many of his contemporaries, Dodd includes Strack-Billerbeck among the works that have helped to bring about this significant change, but also George Foot Moore’s account of the Jewish religion (1927), that, in Dodd’s words, is ‘based upon Rabbinic evidence accurately datable to that [early Christian] period’ (1953: 75). Rather than attempting to offer a comprehensive survey of the Jewish background of John’s Gospel, Dodd opts, in the light of these two factors, to demonstrate – by means of ‘some outstanding examples’ – ‘the way in which the thought and the methods of Rabbinic Judaism need to be taken into account for the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel’ (1953: 75). Dodd’s carefully chosen words, ‘to be taken into account’, will, as we shall see, prove to be the hallmark of his approach to the all-important question of the nature of the relationship between John and rabbinic Judaism. Drawing heavily, therefore, from the compendium of possible parallels provided by Schlatter, together with copious references to Strack-Billerbeck in the main text and footnotes,3 Dodd offers a varied, and in places uneven, examination of three Johannine topics which, in his estimation, display a profound indebtedness to Jewish (rabbinic) thought: the Torah, the Messiah, and the Name of God (1953: 75–86, 87–93, 93–6 respectively).4 Whereas Dodd’s section on ‘The Messiah’ aims to offer a highly general assessment of Jewish messianic ideas and, as a result, includes very few actual references to rabbinic traditions,5 his wide-ranging, even encyclopedic, discussion of relevant phrases and categories linked to ‘The Torah’ provides important clues about his positive assessment of the importance of rabbinic Judaism for the study of John’s Gospel, and also about his approach to, and handling of, rabbinic sources (as will be 3

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Of the fifty-five individual references to rabbinic passages in IFG, most are drawn from Talmud Babli, Midrashim Rabbah, Sifre on Numbers, and Sifre on Deuteronomy, with only seven citations from, or references to, the Mishnah. Brief references to other, more disparate, Johannine/rabbinic paralles are found scattered elsewhere in IFG: eternal life (146–7), God’s perpetual activity (320), living waters (350), heavenly bread (336). Texts like the Psalms of Solomon, 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra figure far more prominently in this particular section, and, in a manner uncharacteristic of Dodd’s discussion of ‘the Torah’ and ‘the Name of God’, he simply refers to analogous messianic ideas ‘in the Talmud’ or among ‘various Rabbis’ (1953: 88, 89) without including a single textual reference.

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assessed in the next part of this chapter).6 One of the initial aims of his discussion is to demonstrate that John’s use of νόμος ‘never strays away from the Jewish into the Greek field of meaning’ (1953: 76). Rather, by listing numerous rabbinic parallels to Johannine statements concerning legal issues (e.g. John 7:51; 8:17) and to concepts such as God’s gift of the law through Moses ( John 1:17; cf. Sifre Deuteronomy §305), Dodd draws the conclusion that ‘the evangelist moves within the sphere of Rabbinic conceptions of Torah’ and ‘shows familiarity with details of rabbinic exposition and practice’ (1953: 78). Thus, for example, when discussing Jesus’ assertion that the Torah permits circumcision on the Sabbath (John 7:22–4), Dodd comments that this is indeed ‘good Rabbinic doctrine’ (1953: 79); then, with reference to rabbinic passages drawn from StrackBillerbeck (t. Shabbat 15:16; b. Yoma 85a–b) which are attributed to two rabbis from the last decades of the first century ce,7 he notes that the statement about healing ὅλον ἄνθρωπον ( John 7:23) indicates that John is using a qal wahomer argument ‘which was current among one school at least of Rabbis of his own time’ (1953: 79; cf. 320, 336 n. 1). And yet, despite this considerable knowledge, John adopts an outsider’s perspective as far as the Jewish law is concerned (1953: 82), as demonstrated in particular by the Gospel’s explicit appropriation of symbols for Jesus – water, bread, wine and light – that, in the Talmud and Midrash, are regularly used of the Torah. A decade later, in HTFG, it can be noted that Dodd’s appeal to, and engagement with, rabbinic Judaism is characterized by continuity as well as by the introduction of certain new features. Undoubtedly, with regard to the study’s overall aims, Dodd now displays a much greater interest in the ways that rabbinic sources can help to address historical questions. Thus, already on the opening page, he remarks: ‘The historian, who must take account of the Christian movement in the Roman Empire, will still wish to discover whether the meagre information about its origins offered by Tacitus and the Talmud can be supplemented from Christian sources’ (1963: 1), a comment which seems to imply that evidence from the Talmud, even if meagre, should be viewed as historically reliable. This judgement appears to be confirmed, albeit indirectly, by the following statement: ‘It is the plain duty of the historian to make use of every possible source of information in the effort to learn the facts about a historical episode 6

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Dodd’s examination of ‘The Name of God’ (1953: 93–6) will be subjected to detailed examination in the third part of this chapter. Dodd (1953: 79) refers to ‘R. Eliezer (c. A.D. 90)’ and ‘Eliezer (ben Azariah, c. A.D. 100)’.

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which on any showing was a significant and influential one’ (1963: 2, italics mine). However, if one were to rely on the index as an initial guide for the use of rabbinic sources in HTFG, the impression could easily be gained that the influence of this corpus of texts on Dodd had diminished considerably since the publication of IFG: only eight rabbinic passages are listed, compared to fifty-five cases in his earlier monograph on the Fourth Gospel. This does, nevertheless, offer a misleading picture, because there is an abundance of rabbinic illustrations scattered throughout the study; the majority of them are drawn from Strack-Billerbeck, although this time, apart from a few exceptions, Dodd alludes to ‘rabbinic tradition’ without including the references to the relevant primary sources (see 1963: 24 n. 2, 111 n. 2, 139 n. 2, 186, 207, 348 n. 1, 349, 358, 395 n. 3).8 In most cases, whether an overt reference is included or not, the evidence is drawn from Talmud Babli and Talmud Yerushalmi, but only one example from the (much earlier) Mishnah (1963: 386). In contrast to IFG, Dodd does not select a cluster of (primarily theological) Johannine themes for close comparison with rabbinic traditions in HTFG. Rather, at various points in the book, he discusses a diverse range of topics for which he adduces a number of possible rabbinic parallels, although legislative issues of significance for the interpretation of the Johannine trial narrative(s) are particularly prominent in the section entitled ‘The Passion Narrative’ (1963: 21–151). There is, in fact, very little overlap between the Johannine/rabbinic content of Dodd’s two major works on the Fourth Gospel,9 although there are some subtle indications that the results of his earlier, more programmatic, analysis of rabbinic Judaism (1953: 75–96) are presupposed in his discussion, in the second volume, of the intellectual profile of the Fourth Evangelist (1963: 15). Most of Dodd’s recourse to rabbinic sources in HTFG centres, understandably, on his attempt to argue for the Jewish–Christian character of the pre-Johannine tradition, namely that ‘independent strain of the common oral tradition’ (1963: 150) which, in Dodd’s estimation, underlies much of the narratives and discourses of the Fourth Gospel. His interpretative model, which has been most skilfully outlined by Tom Thatcher in the opening essay to this volume, is governed by the premise that the basic (oral) tradition with which John was working had originated in a firmly 8

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At times Dodd does refer directly to the rabbinic source in question (1963: 95, 100 n. 1, 106, 110, 116–17, 132, 268 n. 1, 304, 332, 386), and, in some of these cases, it is also noted that the source is cited by Strack-Billerbeck (Dodd, 1963: 106, 332). One of the few exceptions is the proposed rabbinic underpinning of Jesus’ views about healing on the Sabbath in John 7:22–4 (see 1953: 78–9; 1963: 332–3).

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Jewish Palestinian setting. In other words, Judean disciples of Jesus preserved and communicated their memories to form a ‘tradition’ profoundly shaped by their knowledge of the religious and political circumstances in Palestine between 30 and 66 ce (especially 1963: 150, 425–6). In particular, this Jewish–Christian environment, argues Dodd, was ‘still in touch with the synagogue’ (1963: 426), and, as part of his attempt to argue that Jewish beliefs and practices are reflected in the pre-Johannine tradition, Dodd identifies ‘points of contact with Jewish tradition’ (1963: 425) by drawing on evidence gleaned from the rabbinic texts. From among the many rabbinic examples cited by Dodd in HTFG,10 two particular cases will now be noted as illustrative of his method of positing the Jewish (or Jewish–Christian) character of the pre-Johannine tradition, which is used by the Fourth Evangelist and is independent of the Synoptics. First, he claims that the reference to Jesus being questioned by the high priest about his disciples and his teaching (John 18:19) ‘agrees well’ with a baraita in b. Sanhedrin 43b (read 43a) which states that Jesus was executed because he practised sorcery and ‘incited and impelled’ Israel; in other words, he merited the death penalty because, in accordance with deuteronomic legislation (Deut. 13:6, 7), he was deemed to be a false prophet who led people into apostasy. Dodd remarks: ‘If this was the view taken by the Jewish authorities, then it was entirely in order for Jesus to be questioned about the nature and content of his teaching and about the adherents he had won, as John says he was’ (1963: 95, italics mine). He then draws the conclusion that the Johannine account was drawn from a (probably oral) source which ‘had contact with the Jewish tradition about the trial and condemnation of Jesus’ (1963: 96). What is striking about Dodd’s assessment of this particular rabbinic tradition, which has since become the subject of much scholarly debate,11 is that, despite initially expressing caution as to whether it reflects the historical basis of Jesus’ condemnation by the Jewish authorities, he readily assumes – without considering the issue of dating – that the talmudic tradition in question preserves a pre-70 ce ‘Jewish tradition’ that informed 10

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Dodd discusses the Jewish Palestinian character of the following ‘traditional’ features in the Fourth Gospel: the lack of Jewish legislative authority to condemn a person to death (John 18:31; see 1963: 105–6), the dating of Jesus’ crucifixion on 14 Nisan (John 18:28; 19:14; see 1963: 109–10), the clustering together of five disciples (John 1:35–46; see 1963: 304–5), Abraham as ‘father’ (John 8:39; see 1963: 331–2), healing on the Sabbath (John 7:23–4; see 1963: 332–3), ‘the friend of the bridegroom’ (John 3:29; see 1963: 386), harvesting for four months (John 4:35; see 1963: 395). See further Dodd’s discussion of the Jewish Palestinian setting of the connection between high priesthood and prophecy (John 11:50; see 1963: 24) and of the use of the term λῃστής for Barabbas (John 18:40; see 1963: 100–1). See e.g. Brown, 1994: 376–8; Schäfer, 2007: 63–74.

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the oral source upon which the Fourth Evangelist based his account of Jesus’ hearing before the high priest.12 Secondly, another element in b. Sanhedrin 43a–b to which Dodd draws attention is the claim that Jesus had five disciples (Mattai, Naqqai, Netzer, Buni, Todah). Once again, he proposes that this feature represents a Jewish tradition in close contact with John’s clustering together of five disciples: Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael, and an unnamed disciple (John 1:35–46). Though acknowledging that the grouping of five disciples is also attested in the Synoptic Gospels, Dodd argues that this Johannine feature is not derived from them, but rather, on account of its independent attestation in a Jewish (rabbinic) source, belongs to a separate strain of the common tradition (1963: 304). Thus here, as elsewhere in the book (1963: 333), Dodd cites Jewish material – derived from a rabbinic source – to bolster his argument that a tradition shared by John and the Synoptics is not necessarily dependent on the latter, but can be shown to represent ‘common tradition’ if it is independently attested in a Jewish source. If one of Dodd’s aims in HTFG is to demonstrate that numerous independent oral units in close contact with Jewish tradition have been gathered together in the Fourth Gospel, he also wants to reiterate his argument from IFG that the Fourth Evangelist himself was immersed in Jewish rabbinic thought. The latter aspect does not receive extensive treatment in his 1963 study, presumably because Dodd had already, ten years earlier, addressed this issue in some detail. Nevertheless, when arguing for the non-apostolic authorship of the Gospel, he notes that the author’s deep acquaintance with Jewish beliefs implies ‘some degree of rabbinic learning’ (1963: 15), including a familiarity with topics that were the subject of rabbinic debate between 70 and 135 ce (presumably those covered in IFG, as all the rabbinic passages noted in HTFG are traced back to pre-Johannine tradition). This familiarity, claims Dodd, rules out John the apostle – a Galilean fisherman with ‘little leisure for the study of Torah’ (1963: 15) – as the author of the Fourth Gospel. What does cause confusion in this respect is that Dodd occasionally adopts the principle that the lack of analogous rabbinic evidence may support the Johannine character of certain features within the Gospel (see 1963: 139 n. 2, 358), but also, at other times, wants to argue that a feature may be traditional – rather 12

On the basis of this and other features in the Johannine account deemed to be reliant on ‘Jewish tradition’, Dodd argues that it is doubtful ‘whether a writer [the Fourth Evangelist] whose work we must place late in the first century and in a Hellenistic environment, could have invented such a persuasive account of a trial conducted under conditions which had long passed away’ (1963: 120).

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than Johannine – if a Jewish (rabbinic) parallel can be adduced (1963: 186). In fact, Dodd’s eagerness to present both the Fourth Evangelist and the underlying tradition as indebted to ‘Jewish tradition’ threatens to hinder rather than support his attempt at reconstructing earlier tradition from the Gospel narrative.

Questions of method: problems, shifts and challenges Dodd’s methodological approach has already been subjected to some evaluation in the above outline of the role of rabbinic Judaism within IFG and HTFG, but the aim of the present section is to focus specifically on his method of handling rabbinic sources. This is done in view of the considerable advances in the critical study of rabbinic Judaism in recent decades and, as a result of those advances, the important methodological questions that have been raised by some scholars about the use of rabbinic traditions in New Testament research. Many of these questions can be applied directly to Dodd’s interpretative methods, although my primary aim is not to offer a detailed critique of his methods but rather to illustrate how his two major works on the Fourth Gospel find themselves at the cusp of decisive methodological shifts in the study of ‘John and Judaism’. Of the problematic features widely regarded as characteristic of the handling of rabbinic material by New Testament scholars (cf. Sandmel 1962: 8–11; Alexander 1983: 238–46; Stemberger 2010: 79–96), there is no doubt that a number of these features characterize the way in which C. H. Dodd utilizes rabbinic texts in his studies of the Fourth Gospel. To a great extent this is inevitable given Dodd’s heavy reliance on StrackBillerbeck, whose modus operandi has been subjected to close critical scrutiny (most recently by Schaller 2008: 61–84). Like many of his predecessors and successors in New Testament studies, Dodd looks for illustrations of first-century Jewish tradition (even for as early as 30–66 ce) in rabbinic compilations whose date of composition belongs many centuries after that of the Fourth Gospel, from Talmud Yerushalmi in c.400 ce to Talmud Babli in 500 ce at the earliest. Admittedly Dodd does occasionally note that a rabbinic passage belongs to ‘a later date’ (e.g. 1953: 78 n. 1), but he never asks whether the relatively late date of these texts casts serious doubt on their suitability for comparison with first-century material. Similarly, Dodd consistently accepts the historical reliability of the attributions of traditions to Tannaitic and Amoraic sages and, consequently, accepts the stability of the rabbinic process of oral transmission. Thus, whereas Günter Stemberger has recently alerted scholars to the challenges

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of rabbinic pseudepigraphy and to ‘the temporal distance between the [named] rabbi in question and the document in which such a tradition first occurs’ (2010: 87; cf. Müller 2008: 38–4), Dodd adopts Strack-Billerbeck’s practice of adding the ‘accepted’ date of when a rabbi flourished (e.g. 1953: 78: ‘R. Dosa ben Harkinas (c. A.D. 90)’), with no hint of him questioning the value of the attestation or the accuracy of its proposed terminus ad quem. Such a procedure has been shown to be particularly problematic in the case of well-known early sages such as Hillel (Stemberger 2010: 87).13 And despite having engaged in the painstaking task of distinguishing examples of pre-Johannine tradition from their ‘rehandling’ by the Fourth Evangelist, the likely impact of the work of redactors on the shaping of traditions recorded within rabbinic texts is not something to which Dodd gives serious consideration in HTFG.14 Anachronistic use of rabbinic sources is often linked, in this respect, to a practice which Samuel Sandmel memorably described as ‘parallelomania’, and which he defines as ‘that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction’ (1962: 1; cf. Alexander 1983: 245). Dodd, in this respect, usually refrains from declaring that a direct historical and literary connection exists between the Fourth Gospel, or pre-Johannine tradition, and the cited rabbinic texts. His preferred method of reasoning is to highlight interesting resemblances, state that a Johannine term ‘corresponds closely’ to rabbinic phraseology (1953: 77, 147), and juxtapose similar themes: ‘for the evangelist, as for the Rabbis’ (1953: 77). As has already been noted, Dodd simply assumes that Tannaitic or Amoraic material preserves ‘Jewish tradition’ already in circulation in the first century ce.15 A (pre-)Johannine feature is said to be in ‘close contact’ with Jewish thought and practice, and then, without further comment or 13

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In his section on ‘The Torah’, Dodd provides late Tannaitic examples of expressions of contempt for the ‫ עם האדץ‬before noting that, ‘already in the first century B.C.’, a similar saying is attributed to Hillel (1953: 78). On the recent scholarly focus on rabbinic redaction and its implications, see Stemberger 2010: 83–6. Cf. nevertheless Horbury 2006: 230: ‘Although study of the redaction of the Mishnah and other rabbinic texts can suggest their distinctiveness and individuality, it has not removed awareness of their breadth as repositories of tradition.’ See the discussion of John 7:22–24 (1953: 79) where, with reference to b. Yoma 85 a–b, Dodd notes that the qal wahomer argument was ‘current among one school at least of Rabbis of his [Fourth Evangelist’s] own time’. It is interesting to note, in this respect, the more guarded language used by a recent scholar with reference to the same rabbinic tradition, albeit its earlier version in the Mishnah (Yoma 8:6): ‘It may be inferred from these texts that subsequent rabbis share Jesus’ pespective’ (Pérez Fernández 2004: 104).

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accompanying analysis, he will include a cross-reference to rabbinic traditions with the aid of ‘cf.’ (e.g. 1953: 81, 85; 1963: 386). The lack of direct engagement with issues of method, particularly dating, means that the question of relationship is left hanging in the air and is then open to all kinds of interpretative solutions. Using rabbinic sources is a task that bristles with methodological challenges, although it does not follow that New Testament research should abandon this body of material altogether. The loud and clear call from specialists in rabbinics is that their New Testament colleagues must adopt the same methodological rigour – in their use of rabbinic sources – as they apply to the texts belonging most closely to their own field. Rather than selectively ‘using rabbinic literature as a quarry in order to draw on its isolated elements for the explanation of the New Testament’ (Schäfer 1986: 140; cf. Stemberger 2008: 30), rabbinic traditions must be analysed within their own literary and historical contexts.16 Admittedly, New Testament scholars investigate the rabbinic sources with a view to addressing the questions that are of particular significance for New Testament exegesis, but a less than rigorous approach to these sources will only distort the available evidence and limit its potential value for the exegetical task at hand. Dating issues can no longer be overlooked, and possible NT/rabbinic parallels must be tested and thoroughly studied on a case-by-case basis. It is, in other words, a call to allow Jewish rabbinic texts to speak for themselves and to be interpreted on their own terms: to let the rabbis be rabbis. To explore these issues further, attention will be paid in the remaining parts of this essay to some of the ways in which these important methodological shifts are already having an impact on the use of rabbinic material in the study of the Fourth Gospel. The example selected for closer examination is one that has played a decisive role in C. H. Dodd’s endeavour to identify connections between rabbinic Judaism and key Johannine themes, namely the significance of the divine name in first-century Jewish circles.

John, the rabbis, and the Name of God Like many Johannine scholars before and after him, Dodd embraces the view that the divine self-declaration ‫ אני הוא‬provides the interpretative key to the ‘absolute’ use of ἐγώ εἰμι in the Fourth Gospel. Not only is ἐγώ εἰμι 16

See especially David Instone-Brewer (2004, 2011) who, contrary to Strack-Billerbeck, uses the six orders of the Mishnah rather than the New Testament writings as the framework for his analysis of rabbinic traditions ‘from the era of the New Testament’.

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the most frequent LXX rendering for ‫ אני הוא‬to denote God’s exclusive divinity and eternal sovereignty (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 41:4; 43:10; 46:4; cf. 52:6), but, argues Dodd, the fact that ἐγώ εἰμι is used at least twice (Isa. 45:18, 19) to render the tetragrammaton (‫ )אני יהוה‬further suggests that it functions as the divine name. Similarly, Dodd persuasively argues that those cases where the LXX reads ἐγώ εἰμι ἐγώ εἰμι (for ‫ ;אנכי אנכי‬Isa. 43:25; 51:12) could well have prompted the Fourth Evangelist to interpret the second of the two occurrences as the divine name: ‘I am “I AM”’ (1953: 94). Thus, Jesus’ pronouncement of ἐγώ εἰμι (John 8:24, 28, 58; 13:19) represents his claim to the expression ‫אני הוא‬, the divine name which has been given to Jesus (17:11) and which he makes known to the world (17:6, 26; see 1953: 95, 96). Dodd is not content, however, to interpret the Johannine use of ἐγώ εἰμι with evidence adduced from the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, but claims that interpretations of the Name of God in post-biblical Judaism, especially in rabbinic Judaism, shed considerable light on the Johannine understanding of ἐγώ εἰμι as a divine name (1953: 93–6, 349–50). In particular he emphasizes the power and sanctity afforded to the divine name in Jewish circles, noting how the tetragrammaton was safeguarded by prohibiting its pronunciation with all its letters and sounds. Dodd’s assessment is certainly supported by the evidence in the Mishnah,17 but he goes further by proposing that some rabbis claimed that the Ineffable Name of God (the shem hammeporash), which was only to be revealed in the age to come, was none other than the expression ‘I am he’ (‫)אני הוא‬ (1953: 93–4). While rabbinic tradition asserts that the true name of God is hidden in this age, the Fourth Gospel declares that the shem hammeporash is in fact revealed to the world by Jesus (17:6, 26; see 1953: 96). To support his theory Dodd draws attention to a tradition which, though he omits the primary source reference, can be found in Midrash Tehillim 91:8 (200b): R. Yehoshua ben Levi said in the name of R. Pinhas ben Yair: Why is it that when the children of Israel pray in this world, they are not answered? It is because they do not know the Ineffable Name. But in the time to come the Holy One, blessed be he, will make known to them his name, as it is said: ‘Therefore shall my people know my name; therefore, in that day they shall know that I am he (‫ )אני הוא‬who speaks; here am I’ (Isa 52:6).18 17

18

Some traditions indicate that the utterance of the divine name with its letters was prohibited (m. Sanhedrin 7:5; 10:1), although other traditions state that it was pronounced by the high priest on the Day of Atonement (m. Yoma 3:8; 4:2; 6:2) as well as by the temple priests during the daily pronouncement of the blessing of Num. 6:24–6 (m. Sotah 7:6). See also Brown 1966: 536–7.

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Dodd cites another tradition, again without identifying the primary source (m. Sukkah 4:5), in which the daily invocation by priests during Tabernacles includes the obscure expresssion ‫( אני והוא‬literally: ‘I and he’).19 This formula, he claims, is a ‘mutation’ of ‫( אני הוא‬1953: 350) as the hidden Name of God, the shem hammeporash: Each day [the first six days of the feast of Tabernacles] they would go around the altar once and say: ‘O Lord, deliver now, we beseech you (‫ ;)אנא יי‬O deliver now, we beseech you’ (Ps 118:25). R. Yehudah [says]: ‘‫אני והוא‬, and deliver now; ‫אני והוא‬, and deliver now’. On that day [the seventh] they would go around the altar seven times.20

According to the second opinion expressed in this Tannaitic tradition, when the priests processed around the altar reciting the ‘Hosanna’ from Ps. 118:25, they replaced the phrase which included the tetragrammaton, ‘O Lord, we beseech you’ (‫)אנא יי‬, with the words ‘I and he’ (‫;)אני והוא‬ this again, claims Dodd, was in order to disguise the pronunciation of the shem hammeporash (1953: 94, 349–50; cf. Stauffer 1957: 134).21 He suggests a pre-70 ce date for this mishnaic passage, seeing ‘no reason’ to dispute Rabbi Yehudah’s claim that the Temple priests actually uttered the words ‫אני והוא‬, nor regarding it as impossible that the Fourth Evangelist was already familiar with the formula as a divine name (1953: 95). These rabbinic passages undoubtedly attest the function of ‫ אני הוא‬in certain Jewish circles as, on the one hand, providing scriptural proof for God’s future self-declaration to Israel (Midrash Tehillim 91:8) and, on the other hand, of ‫ הוא‬as a divine designation (m. Sukkah 4:5),22 possibly under the influence of the occurrences of ‫ אני הוא‬in the Hebrew Bible. However, several factors lead one to conclude that these two traditions cannot bear the weight of meaning and significance that Dodd attributes to them, with even Dodd himself conceding that much of what he proposes could be 19 20

21

22

Again, see Brown 1966: 341, 536–7; cf. Stauffer 1957: 134–5; Davies 1974: 295; and Barrett 1978: 342. This particular translation follows Ms. Kaufmann. Mishnah manuscripts read ‫ אני והוא‬whereas most printed editions read ‫אני והו‬. In some (later) traditions the expression ‫ אני והוא‬is interpreted to mean ‘I [Israel] and he [God]’. Cf. j. Sukkah 4:3 (54c), where the various exegetical illustrations emphasize the theme of God’s solidarity with Israel; in this connection the liturgical petition ‫ אני והוא‬is interpreted in terms of the joint deliverance of Israel and God and, as a result, it conveys, according to Dodd, the ‘intimate association, or quasi-identification, of God with His people’ (1953: 94). He further proposes that, in some cases (John 8:28; 13:20), the idea of Jesus’ solidarity with the Father is linked to his ἐγώ εἰμι claim, while his words ‘I and the one who sent me’ (ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πέμψας με, John 8:16) should be taken as equivalent to ‫( אני והוא‬1953: 96, 350). Dodd (1953: 96 n. 3) acknowledges his indebtedness to Klein (1909: 44–9) as well as Strack and Billerbeck (1924, II: 797) for this proposal. Cf. also m. Abot 4:22; Genesis Rabbah 37:3; and, for Qumran evidence, see especially 1QS 8:13; CD 9:5; 4Q299 3a ii–b 11–12; 4Q301 3a–b 4–8.

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judged to be somewhat speculative (1953: 96). One also, again, has to face the perennial problem that the traditions cited by Dodd are preserved in texts that were compiled much later than the first century ce, particularly in the case of Midrash Tehillim which underwent substantial development over many centuries. And despite Dodd’s confidence that m.Sukkah 4:5 accurately reflects priestly practice before the Temple’s destruction, one must contend with the fact that Rabbi Yehudah’s comment post-dates the circumstances it purports to describe. In fact, recent scholars are far more cautious than Dodd in their assessment of mishnaic traditions about the temple ritual, suggesting that they are more likely to represent ‘later reconstructions of an ideal cult’ than authentic priestly traditions (cf. Stemberger 2010: 86). In particular, the proposal that ‫ אני הוא‬was interpreted by rabbis as the Ineffable Name of God is unlikely for the following reasons. First, the reason why Isa. 52:6 is cited in Midrash Tehillim 91:8 is that it provides scriptural confirmation that God will disclose his name in the future (on the basis of the quotation’s initial words, ‘therefore shall my people know my name’). The interpretative function of the divine declaration embedded within the Isaianic quotation (‘I am he who speaks’) is to highlight God’s future role as speaker. Dodd’s reading of this passage also raises the question: given that God, according to Isa. 52:6, explicitly pronounces the words ‫אני הוא‬, how can it be understood as the name whose utterance presently remains unknown to the children of Israel? There is, furthermore, no evidence that ‫ אני הוא‬was included by the rabbis in their lists of divine names (cf. j. Megillah 1:9 [71d]; b. Sheb’uot 35a), and it is the tetragrammaton pronounced with all its letters and vowels that was widely viewed as representing the shem hammeporash. Secondly, the formulation of God’s declaration in Isa. 52:6 (‫אני הוא‬ followed by a participal form) is encountered frequently in rabbinic literature, but often not with God as its subject. The earliest extant example is found in the Mishnah, in a halakhic stipulation about two Nazirites being required to cut off their hair, bring one offering for uncleanness and one for cleanness, and then say to each other: ‘If I am the unclean one (‫)אם אני הוא הטמא‬, let mine be the offering for uncleanness and yours the offering for cleanness’ (m. Nazir 8:1). In fact, a detailed search through the rabbinic corpus reveals that there are myriad examples of human speakers using the Hebrew phrase ‫ אני הוא‬in its bipartite form (or its Aramaic counterpart ‫ )אנא הוא‬in everyday contexts as a form of selfidentification or as a recognition formula; in each case, the newly introduced element is the pronoun ‘I’ (‫אני‬/‫)אנא‬, whereas the pronoun ‘he’ (‫)הוא‬

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fulfils a resumptive function and cannot be isolated from an earlier description. Thus, for example, according to b.’Erubin 54a the blind Rabbi Joseph declares that the cup of wine he tastes reminds him of the mixing of Raba bar Joseph bar Hama, to which Raba responds: ‘I am he’ (‫)אנא הוא‬.23 Admittedly, these statements occur in texts spanning a long period of time – from the early third to at least the seventh century ce – but the fact that these syntactic patterns are already attested in biblical Aramaic (e.g. Dan. 4:19) strongly suggests that these declarations of identity represent a linguistic phenomenon that had entered general parlance long before the second or third centuries ce. Consequently, a comprehensive survey of rabbinic literature leads one to conclude that it is extremely unlikely that the sages, at any time, came to regard ‫ אני הוא‬as the Ineffable Name of God. If the expression was as sacred and ‘concealed’ as Dodd has claimed, the rabbis would have prohibited its use by all speakers. The evidence therefore simply does not support the contention of David Daube, Dodd’s Cambridge colleague, that ‘the rabbis found ‫ אני הוא‬dangerous and were afraid of abuse . . . they eliminated the expression as far as possible’ (1956: 327–8). Focusing on a small selection of ancient Jewish interpretations (Midrash Tehillim 91:8; m. Sukkah 4:5) produces an incomplete, and rather misleading, picture of the rabbinic interpretations of ‫אני הוא‬. Since one of Dodd’s overarching aims is to establish the function of ἐγώ εἰμι as the divine name within the Fourth Gospel, particularly where Jesus’ ἐγώ εἰμι pronouncements are linked to a Tabernacle setting (John 8:24, 28, 58), he is evidently eager to establish the pivotal role of ‫ אני הוא‬within the liturgy of the same festival.24 Scholars like Dodd and Ethelbert Stauffer have, in this respect, not only overlooked the vast rabbinic evidence for the everyday use of the expression in declarations of self-identification by a variety of human figures, but they have paid minimal attention to the large number of midrashic traditions that cite and expound biblical passages in which ‫אני הוא‬ occurs as God’s form of self-declaration (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 41:4; 43:10; 46:4; 48:12; 52:6; cf. 43:25; 51:12). There is a wealth of material, in compositions and compilations primarily from Palestinian circles during the late Tannaitic period onwards, in which rabbis interpret the expression ‫ אני הוא‬as God’s decisive self-expression of his uniqueness and all-encompassing presence, as well as highlighting his role as the exclusive eschatological redeemer.25 23

24

25

For further Hebrew and Aramaic examples, see b. Ketubbot 63a; b. Baba Bathra 4a; Midrash Tehillim 126:1 (256a); Genesis Rabbah 35:2; Numbers Rabbah 10:5; Pesiqta de Rab Kahana 11:15. Stauffer (1957: 94, 136–7) and Daube (1956: 325–9) adopt a similar strategy for those ἐγώ εἰμι pronouncements which are linked to a Passover setting (John 6:20; 18:5, 6, 8). On these midrashic traditions, see Williams 2000: 114–56, 157–78.

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Indeed, the well-established status of these biblical ‫ אני הוא‬declarations as unequivocal expressions of monotheism is reflected in their singling out by rabbinic exegetes, certainly from the middle of the second century ce onwards, as decisive proof-texts in defence of the unity of God, particularly in attempts to combat the so-called ‘two powers’ heresy.26 When the framework for study is extended in this manner, a more comprehensive picture of the rabbinic evidence begins to unfold and the multifaceted interpretations of ‫ אני הוא‬can be examined and described in their own terms. As a result it becomes clear that the key factor when attempting to evaluate the meaning and application of ‫ אני הוא‬in rabbinic traditions is the manner in which the expression is employed within specific contexts. All examples of the phrase that are attributed to individual human speakers can be termed resumptive, in the sense that the pronoun ‫ הוא‬stands for an element expressed in an earlier statement (‘I am he (the one in question)’). However, in midrashic citations of divine ‫ אני הוא‬pronouncements drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures, the expression is invariably self-contained and possesses no identifiable antecedent (e.g. Deut. 32:39: ‘I, I am he, and there is no god apart from me’). Therefore, despite the fact that it is virtually impossible, on the basis of the available evidence, to infer that ‫ אני הוא‬was interpreted in rabbinic circles as a pronouncement belonging exclusively to God, this is not to deny that, when this expression occurs in divine speech, either in a scriptural proof-text or in an innovative exposition, it is recognizable as God’s forceful assertion of his unique divinity. Consequently, the decisive factor when attempting to determine the meaning and significance of ‫ אני הוא‬in rabbinic sources must be the manner in which the expression is employed and the content of the claim(s) it seeks to convey. What, therefore, are the implications of this kind of analysis of the rabbinic sources for the interpretation of the Johannine use of ἐγώ εἰμι? One important consequence of widening the scope of discussion in this manner is that it sharpens one’s awareness of the broad range of meanings attributed to ‫ אני הוא‬in ancient Judaism. Admittedly, even the earliest extant piece of rabbinic evidence post-dates the Fourth Gospel, so it is not a matter of proposing direct rabbinic influence on the ἐγώ εἰμι utterances of the Johannine Jesus. The Hebrew and Aramaic patterns of usage attested in rabbinic literature do, nevertheless, offer striking parallels to the ways in which their Greek counterpart, ἐγώ εἰμι, is employed 26

See especially Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael Shirta 4 on Exodus 15:3 and Bahodesh 5 on Exodus 20:2; Sifre on Deuteronomy §329.

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in Jewish and early Christian sources, including as a vehicle for selfidentification (e.g. 2 Sam. 2:20 LXX; Testament of Job 29:4; 31:6; Mark 14:62) and as a solemn divine pronouncement and self-designation (e.g. Deut. 32:39; Isa. 41:4; 43:10 LXX). As a result, and as I have argued elsewhere (Williams 2001: 343–52), the rich and wide-ranging evidence found in rabbinic literature paves the way for a greater understanding and appreciation of the Fourth Evangelist’s strategy of engaging in a deliberate play on the various possible meanings of ἐγώ εἰμι, from its use in everyday speech to establish identity to its more theologically charged function as a declaration of divinity. Indeed the interpretative processes encountered in connection with this expression (especially in John 6:20; 8:24, 28, 58; 18:5–8) point to the Fourth Evangelist as having taken full advantage of the elusive character of ἐγώ εἰμι and its different possible nuances.

Current trends and future prospects It is true to say that serious engagement with rabbinic sources has not been a major feature of Johannine scholarship over the past few decades, certainly not to the extent – or perhaps in a way – that C. H. Dodd would have expected. Of course, J. Louis Martyn’s two-level reading of the Gospel, in the light of its three references to ἀποσυνάγωγος (9:22; 12:42; 16:2), has generated much interest in the rabbinic descriptions of the birkhat ha-minim. But a misplaced confidence in the widespread impact of Yavnean rabbinic decrees by the end of the first century ce, and the likelihood that the most relevant material (a fragment from the Cairo Genizah) cannot be dated before the fourth century ce, has eventually prompted scholars to regard the birkhat ha-minim as something of a ‘red herring’ in Johannine studies (Meeks 1985: 102). Generally speaking, the reluctance on the part of Johannine scholars to appeal to rabbinic sources in their study of ‘John and Judaism’ is due to their much greater interest in texts belonging to late Second Temple Judaism which can be confidently dated to the period before the end of the first century ce, particularly the Qumran scrolls, the writings of Philo and Josephus, the Apocrypha, and a number of the texts included in the Pseudepigrapha. The stark warnings voiced by rabbinic scholars about the need for New Testament scholars to be more methodologically rigorous in their use of rabbinic literature have also undoubtedly left their mark on recent Johannine studies. In one of the few notable attempts to buck the trend of setting the rabbinic sources to one side, the case for

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John’s acquaintance with ‘Pharisaic and/or emerging rabbinic practices’ (Thomas 1991: 165) – as reflected in mishnaic traditions on halakhic issues – is prefaced by a careful outline of the methodological questions that must be taken into account if the Fourth Gospel and rabbinic Judaism are to be brought into fruitful conversation with one another (1991: 159–62). And, in the most recent attempt at tackling the question of Johannine–rabbinic relationships, it is again a call for greater methodological awareness that prompts Burton Visotzky, who poses the same questions but in a search for different answers, to declare that rabbinic parallels are useful ‘not as background but as a means to understand the full range of possibilities in the history of ideas stemming from the Johannine text’ (2005: 97). Present – and future – attempts at bridging the gap between the Fourth Gospel and the rabbinic writings must therefore be underpinned by a responsible and methodologically sound approach to the Jewish material attested in the rabbinic sources. In what direction that approach will be pursued often depends not only on the content and character of possible Johannine/rabbinic resemblances, but on the evidence provided by other Jewish writings, particularly those whose origins can be traced to the first century ce, if not earlier.27 Where a Johannine theme or motif is paralleled in a first-century, non-rabbinic, Jewish tradition, the primary significance of any rabbinic parallel that betrays similar features evidently lies in its status as a later, more developed, manifestation of that early interpretative tradition. At other times, of course, first-century Jewish literature contains only the faintest of hints of a theme or motif whose presence in the Fourth Gospel is marked out as one of its most central and enduring features. It is on such occasions, as in the case of the ἐγώ εἰμι pronouncements of the Johannine Jesus, that the wealth of later interpretative reflections offered by the rabbis can, with careful handling, provide valuable illumination on the meaning of the text. Would C. H. Dodd have welcomed the new ways in which his Johannine successors are approaching the rabbinic sources? The answer is probably a resounding yes. Not only are there some signs, already in 1953, of his interest in questions of method, but the inclusion of rabbinic writings among the ancient Jewish voices worthy of a hearing stands as enduring testimony to Dodd’s pioneering claim: it is from the fertile ground of Judaism that the Fourth Gospel issued forth.

27

For this comparative-developmental approach, see especially Vermes 1980: 12–17; 1982: 370–6.

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Alexander, Philip S., 1983. ‘Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament’. ZNW 74: 237–46. Barrett, C. K., 1978. The Gospel According to St John. 2nd edn. London: SPCK. Black, Matthew, 1946. An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Brown, Raymond E., 1966. The Gospel According to John. 2 vols. Anchor Bible. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, vol. I. 1994. The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave. A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels. 2 vols. London: Geoffrey Chapman. Buchanan, George Wesley, 1977. ‘The Use of Rabbinic Literature for New Testament Research’. BTB 7: 110–22. Burney, Charles F., 1922. The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Daube, David, 1956. The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism. London: The Athlone Press. Davies, W. D., 1974. The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1973–4. ‘In Memorium: Charles Harold Dodd, 1884–1973’. New Testament Studies 20: i–v. Dillistone, F. W., 1977. C. H. Dodd: Interpreter of the New Testament. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Dodd, C. H., 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horbury, William, 2006. ‘Rabbinic Literature in New Testament Interpretation’, Herodian Judaism and New Testament Study. WUNT 193. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 221–35. Instone-Brewer, David, 2004. Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament, I: Prayer and Agriculture. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans. 2011. Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament, IIA: Feasts and Sabbaths: Passover and Atonement. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans. Klein, Gottlieb, 1909. Der älteste christliche Katechismus und die jüdische Propaganda-Literatur. Berlin. Meeks, Wayne A., 1985. ‘Breaking Away: Three New Testament Pictures of Christianity’s Separation from the Jewish Communities’. In Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (eds.), ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, and ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity. Chicago: Scholars Press, pp. 93–115. Moore, George Foot, 1927. Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Müller, Karlheinz, 2008. ‘Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und Judaistik’. In Lutz Doering, Hans-Günther Waubke and Florian Wilk (eds.), Judaistik und neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: Standorte-Grenzen-Beziehungen. FRLANT 226. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 32–60. Pérez Fernández, Miguel, 2004. ‘Rabbinic Texts in the Exegesis of the New Testament’. Review of Rabbinic Judaism 7: 95–120. Sandmel, Samuel, 1962. ‘Parallelomania’. JBL 81: 1–13. Schäfer, Peter, 1986. ‘Research into Rabbinic Literature: An Attempt to Define the Status Quaestionis’, JJS 37: 139–52. 2007. Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press. Schaller, Berndt, 2008. ‘Paul Billerbecks “Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch”: Wege und Abwege, Leistung und Fehlleistung christlicher Judaistik’. In Lutz Doering, Hans-Günther Waubke, and Florian Wilk (eds.), Judaistik und neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: StandorteGrenzen-Beziehungen. FRLANT 226. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 61–84. Schlatter, D. Adolf, 1902. Die Sprache und Heimat des vierten Evangelisten. Güterloh: Bertelsmann. 1930. Der Evangelist Johannes: Wie er spricht, denkt und glaubt. Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag. Stauffer, Ethelbert, 1957. Jesus: Gestalt und Geschichte. Bern: A. Francke. Stemberger, Günter, 2008. ‘Judaistik und neutestamentliche Wissenschaft’. In Lutz Doering, Hans-Günther Waubke, and Florian Wilk (eds.), Judaistik und neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: Standorte-Grenzen-Beziehungen. FRLANT 226. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 15–31. 2010. ‘Dating Rabbinic Traditions’. In Reimund Bieringer et al. (eds.), The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature. SJSJ 136. Leiden: Brill, pp. 79–96. Strack, Hermann L. and Paul Billerbeck, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928. Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch. 4 vols. München: Beck. Thomas, John Christopher, 1991. ‘The Fourth Gospel and Rabbinic Judaism’. ZNW 82: 159–82. Vermes, Geza, 1980. ‘Jewish Studies and New Testament Interpretation’. JJS 31: 1–17. 1982. ‘Jewish Literature and New Testament Exegesis: Reflections on Methodology’. JJS 33: 361–76. Visotzky, Burton L., 2005. ‘Methodological Considerations in the Study of John’s Interaction with First-Century Judaism’. In John R. Donahue (ed.), Life in Abundance: Sudies of John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, pp. 91–107. Williams, Catrin H., 2000. I Am He: The Interpretation of ‘Anî Hû’ in Jewish and Early Christian Literature. WUNT 2/113. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 2001. ‘“I Am” or “I am He”? Self-Declaratory Pronouncements in the Fourth Gospel and Rabbinic Tradition’. In Robert T. Fortna and Tom Thatcher (eds.), Jesus in Johannine Tradition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 343–52.

chapter 7

Characters who count: the case of Nicodemus Jaime Clark-Soles

In Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, Dodd labours to find a way to fit the narratological aspects of the Fourth Gospel into a historical investigation. Writing in the 1960s, with the Dead Sea Scrolls recently discovered and seismic epistemological shifts occurring, Dodd optimistically invites the application of newer methodologies to the interpretation of his beloved Fourth Gospel. I accept Dodd’s invitation by attending to the Johannine characterization of Nicodemus with the aid of the work of narrative critics and classicists. In what follows, I will briefly review the three contexts in which Nicodemus appears in the Fourth Gospel, address Dodd’s treatment of Nicodemus, and offer an analysis that may provide an alternative to the limitations of Dodd’s approach. Nicodemus appears first in John 3:1–21. Not insignificantly for a Gospel whose narrator loves light, Nicodemus first comes to Jesus ‘by night’ and, among other heavenly things, hears about being born ἄνωθεν. In 7:50–2 Nicodemus questions the legal judgement of his Pharisaic colleagues with respect to the treatment of Jesus. In his final narrative appearance, Nicodemus, strikingly denoted as ‘the one who had at first come to Jesus by night’, accompanies Joseph of Arimathea to retrieve Jesus’ body from Pilate (19:38–42). Though Nicodemus appears far more often than a figure such as Nathaniel, to whom Dodd devotes considerable attention, Dodd does not take a keen interest in him. When he treats material from John 3:1–21, his conclusions are limited to form-critical and source-critical concerns. Of particular interest to this chapter, however, is a suggestive comment made by Dodd when treating John 3:3 and 3:5, which speak of birth from above as a key to entering the kingdom of God. Dodd argues that this doctrine is found neither in the Synoptics nor in the rest of the NT (1963: 358). Rather, the notion of rebirth is more commensurate with ‘various forms of Hellenistic mysticism’ (1953: 304). This perspective, paired with Dodd’s occasional reference to dramatis personae, adumbrates 126

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literary-critical approaches to the Fourth Gospel, including the recent fascination with characterization, not to mention the work of scholars who allow the techniques of ancient Greek drama to inform their interpretation of John (Brant 2004; Koester 2002; Parsenios 2010). While NT scholars are accustomed to referring to the ‘Hellenistic background’ of the Fourth Gospel, it may be more accurate to speak of the ‘Hellenistic foreground’. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere (Clark-Soles 2006), there are places in the Fourth Gospel where one can specifically identify the philosophical or religious system with which the Fourth Evangelist is engaging (such as Epicureanism). In other words, just as Abraham Malherbe gave us Paul and the Popular Philosophers, a monograph on John and the Popular Philosophers is long overdue. Given the Hellenistic context of the Fourth Gospel, it makes sense to explore how characterization in John may be elucidated by the work of classicists. With respect to audience, Thatcher summarizes: ‘Dodd envisions that the Fourth Gospel’s ideal reader is a non-Christian, Hellenistic Jew or pagan who lives in Western Asia Minor around the year 100 ce’ (Chapter 1, above). How might Nicodemus play to such an audience? Before pursuing that, let us review Dodd’s treatment of the Nicodemus data beyond John 3, even though he does not mention Nicodemus’s rather vivid appearance in chapter 7. All of the Gospels depict Joseph of Arimathea as taking the body of Jesus, although none of the Synoptics includes Nicodemus. Dodd writes (1963: 138): ‘It would be easy enough to regard this [John 19:38–42] as no more than a secondary account based on the Synoptics, if we supposed the introduction of Nicodemus to be due to a special interest of this evangelist in a dramatis persona whom he has brought into his story more than once . . .’. Dodd here provides a tantalizing teaser concerning the role of Nicodemus. Dodd is keen to defend John’s historical value vis-à-vis the Synoptics. It is not surprising, then, to find him making the following claim about chapter 19: ‘We are insufficiently informed; but it is not axiomatic that the Synoptic account is better based than the Johannine. Nor is it certain that Nicodemus is a less historical character than Joseph’ (1963: 139 n. 2). He imagines that Nicodemus might be historical, but he says no more, with the exception of the following: ‘There is nothing to connect the Jerusalem millionaire Naqdimon ben Gorion with the rabbi of John iii. 1’ (1963: 304 n. 3). Dodd’s methodology and assumptions regarding which characters matter most (John the Baptist and ‘the First Disciples’) relegate Nicodemus to an obscurity that would be unimaginable for the narrator of the

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Fourth Gospel whose chief aim is announced at 20:31. Nicodemus should be considered a major character: he punctuates the Gospel from beginning to end, he resists closure, and he has the potential to evoke a catalytic response from an audience.

Character and personality With respect to Nicodemus, representational interpretations abound (Culpepper 1983; Bennema 2009). Scholars attempt to adjudicate Nicodemus as good, bad, or ambiguous.1 In these analyses, Nicodemus is taken as a type or a representative of a particular group, trait, or response (Koester 2003; Meeks 1972; Conway 1999). But which trait or group? The problem with the ‘representative’ approach (to which Dodd alludes) is that it cannot account without remainder for all of the Nicodemus material. If representational arguments appear lacking, how else might we account for Nicodemus’s place in the Gospel? Classicist Christopher Gill presents two aspects of characterization in ancient tragedy which may help: (1) the ‘character-viewpoint,’ which tends toward the moralistic and representational, and (2) the ‘personality-viewpoint’, which is more nuanced and complex. Gill writes: When the character-viewpoint shifts to the personality-viewpoint . . . what happens is not that we focus on ‘self ’ in place of ‘action’, but that the whole basis of selfhood as well as of action is differently understood, and both are pulled into the same glaring light that is also a kind of blackness and opacity. This example may help to show that to analyze the nature of the focus on the persons in a tragedy can also bring the characteristic focus of the play, indeed the whole genre, into sharper relief. [1986: 272]

Additional working assumptions guide my analysis of Nicodemus. First, ‘a character is a construct developed during the reading process out of textual indicators’ (Burnett 1993: 3). Secondly, readers construct characters in a linear, sequential fashion (Burnett 1993; Darr 1998). Character-viewpoint views the person as a rational moral agent ‘whose actions derive from his beliefs and desires and reflect his intentions and motives’ (Gill 1986: 251–73). This viewpoint, with its strong moralistic

1

Those who regard Nicodemus as ambiguous include: Bassler 1989: 635–46; Moloney 1999: 97–110; Hunn 2004: 15–25. Negative with regard to Nicodemus are: Goulder 1991: 153–68; Nissen 1993: 121– 38; O’Day 1988: 53–66; Pazdan 1987: 145–8; Sylva 1998: 148–51; Williford 1999: 451–61. Positive readings may be found in: Cantwell 1980: 481–6; Kitzberger 2000: 387–411; Munro 1995: 710–28; Whitters 1998: 422–7.

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bent, focuses on a person as a possessor of particular traits. It is by far the most common approach taken when interpreting ancient Greek plays. The personality-viewpoint is less evaluative and more inclusive of a person’s irrationality and unpredictability. This viewpoint ‘is concerned rather to respond to the unique actuality of his psychological identity and experience, either to share his own special point of view (to empathize with him) or to understand the roots of that point of view’ (Gill 1986: 254). Some works of fiction, according to Gill, call us to use either one or the other viewpoint, and some both. After addressing Shakespeare and Flaubert, Gill turns to his own particular area of interest, tragic drama of the fifth century bce: The viewpoint of a play emerges from the totality, and interplay, of its various components. These could be formalized as overt statement (what figures say about themselves and each other), implicit statement (innuendoes and implications within these overt statements, or in the imagery and word-play of the language in general), and, broadly, action (physical actions, including gesture and movement, as well as the development of events within the play). [Gill 1986: 255–6]

If Gill is correct, then we must attend closely to language, word-play (much of this occurs in John 3), and action in the Nicodemus material. To be sure, the narrator of the Fourth Gospel can evince the characterviewpoint, as evident in the Fourth Evangelist’s approach to Judas Iscariot. Gill writes: Associated with the character-viewpoint, for instance, we should expect statements concerning the motivation and assessment of deliberate actions; in particular, explicit accounts of motives and grounds for deliberate choice (in which the agent expresses his character), and equally explicit, ‘judicial’ assessment of the quality of those actions, and of the qualities those actions highlight in the choosing agent. [1986: 256]

Seasoned Johannine readers will recall John 12:4–6: ‘But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)’ So, the Fourth Gospel does employ character-viewpoint in presenting Judas. The ongoing puzzle of Nicodemus derives, in part, from the assumption that the narrator uses only the character-viewpoint and the desire, then, to fit Nicodemus into that schema (Staley 1988; Staley 1991).

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I would argue, instead, that the author of the Fourth Gospel, like many ancient playwrights, first presents Nicodemus from a character-viewpoint (John 3) and then moves to a personality-viewpoint (John 7 and 19). Gill argues: One pattern can be discerned which seems to fit a number of plays. The play begins by giving some kind of swift evaluative ‘placing’ of the central figures . . . But the play, as it proceeds, complicates and partly undermines this perspective, leading us to a less evaluative view and providing a quite different kind of psychological insight from that which informed our original appraisal. In some cases, the process is gradual and continual. [1986: 269–70]

Encountering Nicodemus encountering Jesus: John 3 John 2 ends on a decidedly negative note. The ominous use of ἄνθρωπος in 2:25 to refer to one unworthy of Jesus’ trust casts suspicion on Nicodemus, the next ἄνθρωπος to appear in the text. Nicodemus is immediately identified with two groups previously introduced, the Pharisees and οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι;2 in John 1 the terms are practically synonymous. Are these groups positive or negative indicators? Let us review. John 1:11 declares that the Logos εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον. Surely the reader would consider a ‘ruler of the Jews’, as the narrator calls Nicodemus, to be among Jesus’ ἴδιοι. John 1:12–13 intersects with chapter 3 as well. First, we see that much depends on receiving (λαμβάνω) Jesus; those who receive him prosper (1:12, 16); those who do not, do not. John 3 repeatedly raises the question of receiving Jesus (3:11, 27, 32, 33). In 3:11, Jesus declares to Nicodemus (but in the second-person plural): καὶ τὴν μαρτυρίαν ἡμῶν οὐ λαμβάνετε. Secondly, those who receive Jesus have an unusual birth experience. Jesus gives them power to become children of God, not by entering their mother’s womb a second time (as Nicodemus will assume) or any other kind of earthly process (see Jesus’ reprimand about focusing on earthly things instead of heavenly things); rather, those who receive (λαμβάνω) him and believe (πιστεύω) in his name are born of God (ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν; 1:12–13). The narrative proper begins in 1:19 where we learn that οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι have the authority to send priests and Levites from Jerusalem to Bethany to question John the Baptist. Οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι (equated with the Pharisees in 2

I leave οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι untranslated in order to indicate the perennial problems associated with the phrase.

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v. 24) represent a power structure in which Nicodemus participates. The fact that John the Baptist tells these priests and Levites (and, by extension, οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι and the Pharisees) that they do not know (οἶδα, v. 26) reminds the reader of 1:11 and suggests a negative assessment of these character groups. On the other hand, in 1:31 John the Baptist indicates that he baptizes for the express benefit of Israel, which seems to bode well for Nicodemus, the Teacher of Israel. In the story of John the Baptist’s disciples following Jesus, the narrator presents the first example of model discipleship: John’s disciples call Jesus ‘Rabbi’ (which the narrator tells us is translated διδάσκαλος, 1:38). They personally encounter him and abide (μένω) with him. They come to believe that Jesus is Messiah (Μεσσίας, χριστός), testify to others, and bring them to Jesus to have their own encounter with him. After Jesus gathers these disciples, the reader learns that Jesus desires to enter Galilee. In the Fourth Gospel, Galilee is a safe place for Jesus where he enjoys success; Jerusalem serves as the antithesis. By the end of chapter 1, then, the reader learns (a) what disciples of Jesus do (follow and testify) and (b) what they call Jesus: Lamb, Rabbi, Messiah, King of Israel. Jesus, a reliable character, calls himself Son of Man. Nathanael calls him Son of God, reflecting the perspective of the narrator in the Prologue. Nathanael, the first to be called an Israelite, also represents John the Baptist’s contention that Jesus was to be made manifest to Israel. Jesus will stingingly address Nicodemus as The Teacher of Israel, a nearly unbearable irony for the reader. What expectations about Nicodemus might chapter 2 contribute? The narrator again accentuates Galilee’s positivity as opposed to Jerusalem’s hostility, and οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι who function powerfully there. In 2:18–22, we again encounter οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in their interrogating role: ‘What sign will you give us?’ (as if they are owed a sign). Jesus adopts metaphorical speech; they misunderstand and operate at a literal level. Jesus does not deign to explain to them; rather the reader learns from the narrator what οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι cannot know – he was speaking of the temple of his body. The reader already has far more information than any character except God and Jesus, which she will use to render judgements. Jesus is somewhat coy or unhelpful to οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι. They ask for a sign; he makes a cryptic statement; they do not understand; Jesus appears to be done with them. But later, in a kind of doublet, when he was among the Jerusalemites for Passover (2:23), many believed in him because of the signs he did. That the signs elicited belief strikes the reader as positive since belief has been presented as of high value. But by the way that πιστεύω is

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used, vv. 23–4 unsettle the reader by casting a negative light on those who believe. The Jerusalemites believe (πιστεύω) because of signs; Jesus, for his part, did not entrust (πιστεύω) himself to them because he knew everyone and he needed no one to testify to him about humanity.3 For he himself constantly knew (διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν, present articular infinitive) what was in the person. Clearly, Jesus knows something (that the reader does not know) that makes him unimpressed by the Jerusalemites’ belief. For the first time in the narrative, the equation ‘those who believe ¼ good; those who do not ¼ bad’ does not work. Apparently one can believe without having arrived at the narrator’s highest value. In 3:1 the author uses a copula plus ἄνθρωπος, followed by a descriptor, then the phrase ὄνομα αὐτῷ and a proper name. The fact that the narrator gives this character a proper name should not be glossed over. As Burnett argues, the reader’s construction of a character, as the text is actualized, involves inferring traits: Whether observing real persons or reconstructing a character from a narrative, indicators (acts or words) at different points in the continuum (a person’s life or in a text) may cause the inferred patterns of traits to be restructured, thus giving the notion of variation or ‘individuality’ . . . A character, then, is a paradigm of constructed traits that the reader attaches to a name. The proper name, especially in ‘classical’ texts like the Gospels, becomes the crucial factor in the construction of a character, but it also allows the character to transcend the text by helping to create the illusion of individuality or ‘personality’ for the reader. [Burnett 1993: 17]

This emphasis on Nicodemus’s individuality and, somewhat, his personality, is important to highlight. What if, rather than functioning merely as a type, Nicodemus is experienced as an individual who shares some traits with a larger group, but is not simply coterminous with it? Perhaps the narrator demonstrates the traits that Nicodemus shares with the groups to which he belongs precisely in order to highlight, later in the narrative, the ways that Nicodemus differs from those groups, thereby destabilizing the reader’s initial assumptions and complexifying him? The narrator does not identify Jesus’ specific location. Presumably he is alone. Nicodemus makes a statement to Jesus, calling him ‘Teacher’ twice in one sentence and in two languages. He then claims to know (οἴδαμεν) two things, one about Jesus’ identity (you are a teacher sent by God) and 3

This datum harkens back to the Prologue since everything that came into being came into being through him.

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one about his deeds (no one can do the signs you are doing unless God is with him). The reader is immediately suspicious on two counts: (1) the narrator has indicated, through John the Baptist, that οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι and the Pharisees do not know Jesus and (2) chapter 2 casts a negative light on οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι who believe on account of signs, a subject upon which Nicodemus immediately focuses. Nicodemus’s motive for approaching Jesus is not at all clear. For his part, Jesus does not respond as to whether he is sent by God and does not speak about his signs. Rather, he turns from his identity and deeds to Nicodemus. Does Nicodemus want to see the kingdom of God? Because Jesus has an omniscient perspective and speaks for the narrator’s highest values, the reader learns that the ability to see the kingdom of God is of utmost value. Jesus points Nicodemus away from the signs and toward what the signs indicate – the kingdom of God. Nicodemus has spoken of what Jesus is able (δύναται) to do, albeit indirectly, saying, ‘No one can do these things unless God is with him’, assuming that God is with Jesus because he is able to do these things. Jesus adopts this third-person language to talk about the actions of other people; solemnly (ἀμὴν ἀμὴν) he declares that ‘Unless a person (τις) be born from above, he will not be able (δύναται) to see the kingdom of God’ (3:3). Nicodemus does not ask what Jesus means by ‘kingdom of God’. He does, however, latch on to the ἄνωθεν language, whose ambiguity allows Nicodemus to pursue the wrong trajectory. Missing the ‘above’ signification, Nicodemus pursues the question of being able (δύναται) to be born again. He redundantly blathers with two sentences about being birthed a second time (using δεύτερον, not ἄνωθεν). Nicodemus does not ask questions that bespeak a serious ability to engage in spiritual matters such as, ‘Where is the kingdom and what do you mean by “see it”?’ or ‘Say more about what you mean by ἄνωθεν.’ He uses Jesus’ language (δύναται), but not productively. Rather than supply Nicodemus with insider information, which the reader already knows, Jesus makes another parallel solemn proclamation: John 3:5 Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

In saying this, Jesus logically equates being ‘born from above’ with being ‘born from water and spirit’; he also equates seeing the kingdom of God with entering it. This is made clear by recalling v. 3, which parallels v. 5: John 3:3 Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

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Next, Jesus develops the birth imagery, adding two new, somewhat ambiguous, terms to the conversation: σάρξ and πνεῦμα. He claims: τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς σάρξ ἐστιν καὶ τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος πνεῦμά ἐστιν [3:6]

The word ‘flesh’ occurs only once before, at 1:14: ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο. Since 1:14 states that the Word was not born from the flesh but becomes flesh, it is not clear what value the narrator places on flesh.4 Πνεῦμά first appears in the narrative when John speaks of the spirit descending upon Jesus (1:32). By 1:33 then, the reader sees that Jesus consists of flesh and spirit. But the statement in 3:6 appears to pit flesh against spirit. The reader associates being born from the spirit as synonymous with seeing/entering the kingdom of God. Jesus next commands Nicodemus: ‘Do not marvel that I said to you, “it is necessary for you (plural) to be born from above (v. 7)”.’ The command not to marvel implies either that Jesus has just said something that would make any person marvel or that Nicodemus is particularly susceptible to marvelling. Perhaps the reader is supposed to picture Nicodemus with a look of marvel on his face. At any rate, Jesus’ commanding tone and repetition draws attention to the utmost importance of the statement about being born from above. Note that Jesus actually misquotes himself in v. 7. Earlier (v. 3) he uses a conditional sentence: ‘unless someone (τις) is born from above he will not be able to see the kingdom of God’. In v. 7, he makes a declarative statement: ‘You must be born from above.’ Jesus makes these statements synonymous with each other. The ὑμᾶς must refer to the groups that Nicodemus represents, namely the Pharisees/οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, implying that, currently, these characters have not entered the kingdom of God. They think that they are God’s children because of their birth into a certain people, proleptically anticipating the claim of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in chapter 8 to a relationship with God based on genetic pedigree: ‘We have Abraham as our Father.’ After commanding Nicodemus and his ilk to be born from above/see and enter the kingdom of God, Jesus moves the conversation to Nicodemus personally by using the second-person singular (ἀκούεις). Nicodemus hears (the spirit spiriting where it wishes), but does not know (its source or destination). Source and destination are among this narrator’s fundamental categories; considerable attention is devoted to where Jesus is from and where he is going. 4

The only other place it appears is 6:51–63, three times.

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Building logically on his statement, Jesus declares: οὕτως ἐστὶν πᾶς ὁ γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος (3:8). But to what does the οὕτως refer? Nicodemus clearly is not one of those people, at least not yet. It must mean that everyone born of the spirit does know the origin and destination of the spirit. But how? Presumably one must proceed with the narrative attuned to ascertaining this crucial information. The reader imagines many questions that Nicodemus might have asked, such as, ‘Define what you mean by flesh, spirit, kingdom of God, born from above, born from water and from spirit.’ Or, ‘Why did you move from speaking about people in general (τις), to you plural (ὑμᾶς), to me personally?’ Instead, Nicodemus rebuffs Jesus’ attempt at a personal encounter and invitation to consider his own status vis-à-vis the kingdom and steers the conversation back to a vague, general question: Πῶς δύναται ταῦτα γενέσθαι (3:9). It seems that Nicodemus is either (a) incapable of deeper conversation, at least momentarily; (b) cynical and dismissive of Jesus’ viewpoint; (c) concerned about what it might cost him to break formation with his group, given his elevated social status; or (d) some combination of the above. Jesus next judges Nicodemus and then ends the personal encounter. Using a descriptor which Nicodemus earlier used of him (3:2), Jesus ironically asks: Σὺ εἶ ὁ διδάσκαλος τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ καὶ ταῦτα οὐ γινώσκεις; Jesus accuses Nicodemus of habitual ignorance. The reader understands that knowing is a key virtue for the narrator, so this is quite a damning verdict which, presumably, inspires the reader to keep reading in order to discover more about ταῦτα. The narrator introduced Nicodemus as a Pharisee, a ruler of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, but Jesus calls him ‘the Teacher of Israel’. If the teacher does not know, then Israel is also implicated in the habitual ignorance. Dodd accounts for this tension by ascribing the Sitz im Leben of the Fourth Gospel to ‘controversy with the Jews’. In v. 11, Jesus identifies Nicodemus and himself as belonging to different groups: We know about what we speak and testify about what we have seen But, you [pl] do not accept our testimony.

The reader knows that Jesus’ viewpoint is trustworthy and that knowing and testifying to what one has seen constitute high values for the narrator. Already, verbs of ‘knowing’ have appeared thirteen times and ‘seeing’ nineteen times. The καὶ, which should be taken adversatively since it was just used that way in the preceding verse, expands the gap. Jesus places Nicodemus in the group of ‘you who do not accept (λαμβάνω) our

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testimony’. Here the reader hears the apparent death-knell of 1:11; Nicodemus exemplifies one of Jesus’ own who did not accept him. He also represents the uncomprehending darkness. Or does he? Space does not permit a detailed analysis of the heavenly things that Jesus addresses, so I will summarize. First, Jesus is the Son of Man who, paradoxically, is both godly and fleshly, heavenly and earthly. Even while on earth, he remains from above; presumably the reader should want to participate somehow in that paradoxical existence. Secondly, not only is the Human Son heavenly, he must also be lifted up in a way typologically tied to Moses’ lifting of the serpent in the wilderness. Unpacking the dense, repetitive, contrastive, purpose-driven cluster of statements in 3:14–18, the reader learns that: (a) Jesus is like the serpent that Moses lifted up, (b) God’s son is only-begotten, (c) God gave this only son to grant life and salvation, and (d) the result of all of this relates to judgement. At this point the reader is presented starkly with the narrator’s values. To believe in God’s only-begotten son is of utmost value and is rewarded with eternal life, exemption from judgement, and salvation. Unbelievers are judged and perish. One is judged based on one’s stance towards believing or not believing in Jesus. This is the plot of the Fourth Gospel. The terms of judgement (3:19–21) are not new for the reader, though they are for Nicodemus. The reader knows from the Prologue that Jesus is the light and that the darkness did not comprehend the light, nor did Jesus’ own receive him. But now Jesus, the omniscient protagonist, explains why this is the case: their deeds were evil. This does not present Nicodemus in the best light. Thus concludes Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus. From a characterviewpoint, Nicodemus serves a didactic function for the reader as the author encourages her towards virtue (as defined by the narrator) and away from vice. Beyond his didactic function, Nicodemus is a cipher. There is no reason to discount that the character-viewpoint is partially at work in this narrative. But the personality-viewpoint should also be brought to bear. Again, if Nicodemus serves solely as a cipher, why depict him so specifically and provide him with a proper name? Why does the reader simultaneously: (a) side with the narrator’s values and, therefore, judge Nicodemus’s behaviour as wanting at best, and (b) feel somewhat sorry for him since he does not receive the depth of information that the reader has? The sympathy stems, in part, from the gaps in the narrative that spark the reader’s imagination about what the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus did or did not entail. Nicodemus has been put in a position of choice and, this time, does not choose well. Given another

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chance he may. In this way, Nicodemus approximates a real person more than a type, a personality and not just a character. If he is so hopeless, why does he appear twice more in the narrative, acting with some degree of positive regard for Jesus? I suggest this is best explained if we consider that Nicodemus remains in Jesus’ hearing at least until 3:21; he is drawn to a relationship with Jesus that he will struggle with throughout the narrative, causing him to see himself as an individual able to differentiate himself from his ‘natural’ group. Given his status, this process must be a frightening, potentially cataclysmic proposition. Nicodemus ponders all these things in his heart until we meet him again in chapter 7. And the narrator, for his part, begins to show that, like Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus, he can evince in one text both a character-viewpoint and a personality-viewpoint.

Differentiating from the group, becoming a person: John 7 Based on their experience of Nicodemus from the encounter in chapter 3, as well as how subsequent characters have been read, the reader is shocked to encounter Nicodemus again in chapter 7 and immediately wonders: ‘What is he doing here? I thought he perfectly failed to respond to Jesus. Will things turn out differently this time?’5 Chapter 7 commences with Jesus’ brothers imploring him to go to Judea, although the narrator has just cued the reader that Judea could be deadly for Jesus (7:1). Somewhat oddly, the reason given is: ἵνα καὶ οἱ μαθηταί σου θεωρήσουσιν σοῦ τὰ ἔργα ἃ ποιεῖς (v. 3). Do disciples only reside in Judea? Is this a reference to 1:11, which depicts Jesus coming unto his own? The brothers imply that as long as he remains outside of Judea, Jesus’ works are secret; they want him to go public: φανέρωσον σεαυτὸν τῳ ͂ κόσμῳ. They imagine, then, that Judea is somehow equivalent to the world (κόσμος). The reader recalls chapter 3 where the narrator indicates that God so loved the world that God sent his only Son so that believers might inherit life. Here in chapter 7 Jesus states that this world returns God’s love with hate because its works are evil, reminding the reader of Jesus’ comments in 3:19–20. At 7:10 Jesus goes to Judea for the Festival of Booths. Though Nicodemus is not named until 7:45, one imagines him taking up residence in the story at 7:11 where οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι appear. The characters become confusing 5

Space does not permit a close reading of the material between chs. 3 and 7, which only then would allow the reader to fully actualize the text in ch. 7.

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here since it is difficult to draw bold lines between ‘οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι’ and ‘the crowd’ (ὁ ὄχλος). While the crowds are divided as to whether Jesus is ‘good’ or ‘deceptive’, ‘no one (οὐδεὶς) would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews’ (v. 13). Jerusalemites (Ἱεροσολυμῖται) are introduced as a character in this narrative at 7:25. They, too, deliberate Jesus’ identity and his relationship with the authorities (ἄρχοντες, v. 26). Here the reader recalls the identification of Nicodemus as an ἄρχων of the Jews in chapter 3. This somewhat separates him from the crowds, οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, and the Jerusalemites. He has power, status, and clout. The question could not be more pointed for Nicodemus: μήποτε ἀληθῶς ἔγνωσαν οἱ ἄρχοντες ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστός (v. 26b). Jesus’ ensuing statements hearken back to the Prologue and its information about Jesus’ origin (1:11, 51). In v. 30, ‘they’ (ἐζήτουν) try to arrest him. The Pharisees (of which Nicodemus was named in chapter 3) appear in 7:32 discerning the pulse of the crowd. Consequently, they join forces with the chief priests (ἀρχιερεῖς) and send the temple police (ὑπηρέται) to arrest Jesus. They fail. The narrator heightens the drama in v. 37 and sets a new but related scene, by highlighting the time frame: the last day of the festival, the great day. Jesus adduces some LXX text with reference to himself, causing yet another round of division among the crowd.6 Another scene arises in v. 45 when the apostolic temple police return without Jesus, to the disdain of the chief priests and Pharisees. The police speak of Jesus’ charisma and the Pharisees rail against them and the crowd as accursed and ignorant of the law. At v. 50, Nicodemus steps forward. The tension is high for the reader, who hopes that Nicodemus will defend Jesus since the narrator points to a pre-existing relationship by the use of the phrase ὁ . . . πρότερον. He has the best chance of speaking truth to power since the narrator explicitly states that Nicodemus was εἷς ὢν ἐξ αὐτῶν. Instead of making an undaunted case, Nicodemus tries to make his point in the form of a question: ‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing . . . does it?’ The Samaritan woman also used μὴ in her ‘proclamation’ of Jesus as the Messiah (μήτι, 4:29). However, in that particular case her risk and proclamation were ultimately fruitful. Nicodemus’s situation is dramatically different. He cowers before his colleagues who shut him down and put him in his place by Bible-thumping. There is a devastating lack of response from Nicodemus at this point; when called upon to choose 6

Which LXX text/s is not clear; cf. Brown 1966: 321–3.

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between being a Judean or a Galilean, he becomes silent. Their response is quite a non sequitur; Nicodemus appeals to the law and his colleagues move to ad hominem attack. Nicodemus neither cries ‘Foul’ nor brings the discussion back to the law. He acts out of fear, the reader is to assume, as do those mentioned in 7:13. What should the reader make of Nicodemus here? This narrator is quite capable of ascribing damning motives to Jesus’ opponents (e.g. those seeking to kill him in chapter 5); yet the narrator renders no evaluation of Nicodemus. If the character-viewpoint were at work, one would expect some overt judgement about Nicodemus, such that the reader might derive a clear moral lesson. Could it be that, instead, Gill’s personalityviewpoint is, in effect, inviting the reader to ponder Nicodemus as a person? As in chapter 3, the narrator again carefully shows that Nicodemus belongs to a particular social group, and his encounter with Jesus places him in a precarious position vis-à-vis his own group. He belongs to the educated elite who make things happen. The reader can feel their stomach tighten and throat dry up as Nicodemus is put on the spot and must decide whether or not to do the reckless, if right, thing. Will he risk his social position for Jesus’ sake based on his limited knowledge of Jesus? At this point in the story, Nicodemus has no idea that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus has done signs and made certain claims, claims which someone like the Samaritan woman, socially speaking, has little to lose if she accepts. Gill’s comment about some of Sophocles’ tragic heroes applies, mutatis mutandis, to the reader’s experience of Nicodemus: in these cases, one feels inclined to say that the act is right ‘for them’, but not right by any universal standard. We understand why these figures . . . feel they must do these things. We follow the ‘logic’ with which the figures explain . . . that these acts seem right and reasonable to them. But this does not mean that we should feel confident about describing the acts as right and the people as good in some absolute way. Rather we follow the play’s invitation to share, temporarily at least, the . . . figure’s world-view . . . [1986: 267]

Action calls to action: John 19 Nicodemus appears explicitly one last time in chapter 19. There is no reason to assume that he is not part of the dramatic trial and crucifixion narrated in chapters 18–19. But 19:38–42 forms a small pericope, which the narrator sets off with the phrase ‘after these things’. For the first time we meet Joseph and learn several facts. First, he is from Arimathea. As frequently happens in the

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Fourth Gospel, the character is tied to a city of origin (often with characters who exhibit faith; Nicodemus is not given a city). Secondly, Joseph is a disciple (μαθητής). Thirdly, he is afraid of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι so he keeps his discipleship secret, distinguishing him from others who are labelled as afraid of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι but are not denominated μαθητής. Fourthly, Joseph asks Pilate for Jesus’ body, which strikes the reader as bold. It would seem that Joseph acts against his fear. Surely, word would spread quickly that he had done so and blow his cover, so to speak. Surprisingly, Pilate consents. This strikes the reader as odd since Pilate was presented in intricate, specific ways throughout chapters 18–19, and here he simply co-operates. The reader expects some comment from Pilate, but receives none. Pilate served his narrative purpose and the focus is on Joseph. Or is it? It is difficult to know whether or not the Synoptics count as an extra text for the reader of the Fourth Gospel. Joseph appears in each of the Synoptics. All three identify his city. Matthew calls him rich (27:57). Mark paints the lushest picture, calling him ‘a respected member of the council and who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God’ (15:43). Luke also comments on his waiting expectantly. He adds that he was ‘a good and righteous man . . . who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan and action’ (23:51). Most of what the narrator of the Fourth Gospel says about Joseph, then, apart from the crypto-Christian line, appears in the tradition. Decisively different is the inclusion of Nicodemus as Joseph’s companion. In characterizing Nicodemus at this juncture, the narrator first and foremost refers to Nicodemus as originally coming to Jesus by night. Nicodemus keeps coming, as the repeated use of forms of ἔρχομαι indicates. Already the reader wishes that Nicodemus had acted in public with Joseph. But it appears to be a continuing feature of Nicodemus that he acts in the dark. His desire to treat Jesus’ body with spices related to burial is admirable; one only wishes that he had not waited to act until Jesus was dead. Given what Mary did in chapter 12 by anointing, the reader is even more disappointed at an opportunity lost. Nicodemus, different from Thomas who doubted, does not receive a post-resurrection appearance. Joseph of Arimathea, though he was afraid, acts with some boldness and is called a disciple. Nicodemus is not explicitly named as such. But what if Nicodemus’s last appearance in the Fourth Gospel functions in the way that Rhoads and Michie suggest for Mark 16:8 (Rhoads and Michie 1982)? That is, what if the open-endedness or lack of closure is a rhetorical technique that invites the reader to imagine the narrative time extending beyond the Gospel and directly into the reader’s own life?

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Summary Interpretations that rely solely on a character-viewpoint bring too little clarity concerning the ‘lesson’ the reader is to learn from Nicodemus. This problem is indicated, for example, when Bassler notes about Nicodemus’s response to Jesus in chapter 3: ‘If . . . Nicodemus’s profession of faith seems to be acceptable within the framework of this Gospel, Jesus’ response to Nicodemus seems to indicate that on another level inaccessible to the reader it is not acceptable’ (1989: 637). If the lesson is inaccessible to the reader, I contend that it is a patently ineffective lesson. Bassler’s essay is replete with the language of character-viewpoint. Throughout she uses evaluative language and assumes that Nicodemus must ‘represent’ something, if only ‘ambiguity’: In short, then, ambiguity is that which attracted our attention to Nicodemus in the first place, that which set him apart from other more clearly defined figures in the narrative, and that which keeps us actively engaged in the quest for meaning in this Gospel. By the same token, however, ambiguity lends a complexity and depth to this figure, which suggests, it seems to me, a more than passing interest on the part of the author of and community behind this Gospel in whomever or whatever Nicodemus represents [my emphasis]. [1989: 644]

I mention Bassler’s article not because I find it particularly wanting, but, on the contrary, because I find it among the very best of the ‘characterviewpoint’ interpretations. And even though Bassler emphasizes the ambiguity and elusive nature of what Nicodemus represents, she insists in the end on narrowing the ambiguity to one trait: ‘marginality’. Could it be, then, that there is more to Nicodemus than the representative character-viewpoint allows? What if Nicodemus is less of a problem to be solved, or a character to be resolved, than a personality to be experienced as described by Gill? Nicodemus shares some traits with the groups of which he is a part; yet he is not coterminous with them, even standing over against them at times. He is an individual with traits. What Burnett says of Peter in Matthew applies, mutatis mutandis, to Nicodemus in the Fourth Gospel: ‘There are, however, several textual indicators, or techniques of characterization, that allow the reader to transform Peter [read, Nicodemus] momentarily into an individual who transcends his typical function as a member of the disciples [read, Pharisees, οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι]’ (Burnett 1993: 20). Granting Nicodemus a proper name constructs him as a personage in a clearer, stronger way. The fact that he appears, named, three times

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strengthens that experience. As Burnett says of Peter so the reader can say of Nicodemus, ‘There is no closure for the reader’ (1993: 20). The reader does not know what happens and this indeterminacy creates a gap that the reader is invited to fill. So, Nicodemus is an open-ended character. It seems that there is something about Nicodemus’s social, religious, political status that makes it hard for him to cross over. Nicodemus, then, might be read differently by readers of different social locations. Perhaps the poor, marginalized reader would identify with the Samaritan woman or the blind man and take a certain glee in the educated, high-status character not ‘getting it’. But the educated, high-status reader with much to lose in terms of social standing by following Jesus might find the character of Nicodemus true to their own situation. I find the various, opposing reactions to Nicodemus among readers, scholarly or otherwise, fascinating. As Burnett says, ‘It is precisely this kind of . . . indeterminacy that helps to create the illusion that names refer to something independent of texts, and it helps to support the illusion of the non-textuality of characters. The text has a beginning and an ending, and is thus closed, but the reader is encouraged to speculate beyond the ending of the text’ (1993: 20). Nicodemus should be considered a ‘major’ character, since he punctuates the Gospel regularly. If the reader easily discerns that they should follow characters who represent the narrator’s values (believing; publicly testifying on behalf of and inviting others to encounter Jesus; loving; transforming) and avoid thinking and behaving like the characters who represent that which the narrator rejects (denial, betrayal, fear), then Nicodemus should not be considered a representative figure. Rather, he may be the character with whom the reader most identifies since he conveys potential; the reader wants Nicodemus to make the right choice, to identify himself with Jesus, but they also understand that he has much more to lose than (for example) the Samaritan woman. He is a complex character with high social status. The reader turns him round and round like a prism, seeing the different angles and, in doing so, catches perhaps a glimpse of the complexity of their own motives and the potential cost of following Jesus. No character resists closure more than Nicodemus. Most characters are tidily dealt with and are models for good or ill. Even Peter, who denies Jesus, gets rehabilitated by the end. Nicodemus, on the other hand, functions in the Fourth Gospel much as the women function in Mark 16:8. It is the very lack of closure that grips the reader and makes them, finally, ‘mind the gap’ between Nicodemus and closure. They will, God willing, assume the role of Nicodemus and walk through the resurrection

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appearances in chapters 19–21, deciding finally to commit to the risen Son of God in the way they/Nicodemus could not or would not commit to the pre-resurrected Jesus. In that way, they may finally move from having their mind on earthly things (power, status, fear, shame) to heavenly things (Christ, the Father, birth from above). Jesus asks Nicodemus, ‘How can you understand heavenly things if you do not understand earthly things?’ The answer is: the narrative of the Fourth Gospel. Nicodemus (and the reader) needs the whole story, through chapter 21, to understand, much like the disciples needed the whole story, as the narrator indicates in 2:22. If Nicodemus must represent or typify someone or something, then let it be all of the so-called ‘minor’ characters in the Fourth Gospel who have received short shrift by having their personalities reduced to a mere ‘lesson’, moral or otherwise. Let him represent the real complexity that characterizes the life of any real reader. Compared with Dodd In the end, where Dodd inchoately refers to Nicodemus as a dramatis persona, I see him as a dramatis persona-lity. While Dodd anticipated, and in some ways catalysed, the kind of study I have conducted in this essay, in other ways we differ. In considering the relationship between narrative and history in interpreting the Fourth Gospel, I agree with Dodd that attention to history is important. Obviously there were Pharisees, chief priests, Ἰουδαῖοι, and a Jesus of Nazareth who caused division. The Gospel was composed for an audience, and understanding the nature of that audience and their relationship to the parent tradition matters. Like Dodd, I find the notion of a Hellenistic audience useful. However, Dodd’s primary focus upon form criticism, source criticism, and a fixed literary text does not allow Nicodemus to reach his full potential as a character in the author’s dramatic narrative. In Dodd’s system, he can never break out of an incidental role. We learn only that he may or may not be a historical figure, much like Nathaniel. His presence in the narrative simply evinces the Sitz im Leben of Christian controversy with its parent tradition. But this reading is too ‘flat’ to account for all the evidence related to Nicodemus. The productive new lines of enquiry opened by those attending to the oral performances of texts and the role of social memory hold far more promise for actualizing a character like Nicodemus than do the approaches known to Dodd, which, for all of their ingenuity and presage, did not allow for the complexity and ambiguity available to modern and

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postmodern exegetes. It is often the case that the characters I would consider ‘marginalized’ by Dodd’s methods have been studied and interpreted for us by those considered ‘marginalized’ by society. Queer readings of Lazarus, feminist readings of Mary Magdalene, post-colonial readings of the Pericope Adulterae, womanist readings and the application of disability theory to the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel – all of these have caused us to better potentiate the presence of figures previously minimized (including Mary, Martha, Lazarus, the Samaritan woman, and Mary Magdalene). I appreciate and am indebted to Dodd’s work, as are all Johannine scholars. But perhaps what is true about a grain of wheat may be true of certain dated methodologies: ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ ὁ κόκκος τοῦ σίτου πεσὼν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἀποθάνῃ, αὐτὸς μόνος μένει· ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ, πολὺν καρπὸν φέρει (John 12:24). W O RK S CI T ED Bassler, Jouette, 1989. ‘Mixed Signals: Nicodemus in the Fourth Gospel’. JBL 108: 635–46. Bennema, Cornelis, 2009. Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Gospel of John. Colorado Springs: Paternoster. Brant, Jo-Ann A., 2004. Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Brown, Raymond E., 1966. The Gospel According to John. Anchor Bible. 2 vols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., vol. I. Burnett, Fred, 1993. ‘Characterization and Reader Construction of Characters in the Gospels’. Semeia 63: 3–28 Cantwell, Lawrence, 1980. ‘The Quest for the Historical Nicodemus’. RelS 16: 481–6. Clark-Soles, Jaime, 2006. Death and the Afterlife in the New Testament. New York: T. & T. Clark. Conway, Colleen M., 1999. Men and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization. SBLDS 167. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Culpepper, Alan R., 1983. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress. Darr, John A., 1998. Herod the Fox: Audience Criticism and Lukan Characterization. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Dodd, C. H., 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gill, Christopher, 1986. ‘The Question of Character and Personality in Greek Tragedy’. Poetics Today 2: 251–73. Goulder, Michael, 1991. ‘Nicodemus’. SJT 44: 153–68.

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Harstine, Stan, 2002. Moses as a Character in the Fourth Gospel. London: Sheffield Academic Press. Hunn, Debbie, 2004. ‘The Believers Jesus Doubted’. Trinity Journal 25: 15–25. Kitzberger, Ingrid Rosa, 2000. ‘Aging and Birthing: Open-Ended Stories and a Hermeneutics of Promise’. In Guillermo Hansen (ed.), Los Caminos inexhauribles de la Palabra: Las relecturas creativas en la Biblia y de la Biblia. Buenos Aires: Lumen-Isedet, pp. 387–411. Koester, Craig R., 2002. ‘Comedy, Humor, and the Gospel of John’. In John Painter et al. (eds.), Word, Theology, and Community in John. St Louis, MO: Chalice, pp. 123–41. 2003. ‘Representative Figures’. In Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community. 2nd edn. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, pp. 33–77. Meeks, Wayne A., 1972. ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’. JBL 91: 44–72. Moloney, Francis J., 1999. ‘An Adventure with Nicodemus’. In Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger (ed.), The Personal Voice in Biblical Interpretation. London: Routledge, pp. 97–110. Munro, Winsome, 1995. ‘The Pharisee and the Samaritan in John: Polar or Parallel?’ CBQ 57: 710–28. Nissen, Johannes, 1993. ‘Rebirth and Community: A Spiritual and Social Reading of John 3.1–21’. In Per Bilde et al. (eds.), Apocryphon Severini. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, pp. 121–38. O’Day, Gail R., 1988. ‘New Birth as a New People: Spirituality and Community in the Fourth Gospel’. Word & World 8: 53–66. Parsenios, George L., 2010. Rhetoric & Drama in the Johannine Lawsuit Motif. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Pazdan, Mary Margaret, 1987. ‘Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman: Contrasting Models of Discipleship’. BTB 17: 145–8. Rhoads, David and Donald Michie, 1982. Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress. Staley, Jeffrey Lloyd, 1988. The Print’s First Kiss: The Implied Reader in the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: Scholars Press. 1991. ‘Stumbling in the Dark, Reaching for the Light: Reading Character in John 5 and 9’. Semeia 53: 55–80. Sylva, Dennis D., 1998. ‘Nicodemus and His Spices (John 19.39)’. NTS 34: 148–51. Whitters, Mark F., 1998. ‘Discipleship in John: Four Profiles’. Word & World 18: 422–7. Williford, Don, 1999. ‘John 3:1–15 – gennēthēnai anōthen: A Radical Departure, A New Beginning’. Rev Exp 96: 451–61.

part ii

History and tradition in the Fourth Gospel

chapter 8

C. H. Dodd, the historical Jesus, and realized eschatology Urban C. von Wahlde

Since its introduction by C. H. Dodd in the mid 1930s, the term ‘realized eschatology’ has become a prominent term in biblical studies. It is now one of three terms regularly used to describe the various eschatological outlooks found in the New Testament. First, there is the so-called ‘consistent’ eschatology associated primarily with the work of Albert Schweitzer. According to this view, the eschatology of Jesus was apocalyptic, with the end of the world – together with resurrection and universal judgement – taking place either at, or soon after, the death of Jesus himself. This approach is ‘consistent’, in the sense that it interprets all of Jesus’ eschatological statements in the same way. The second type of eschatology is known as ‘inaugurated eschatology’. This form of eschatological expression is reflected in NT passages that view the eschatological age as beginning, and to a certain extent being realized, during the ministry of Jesus, but reaching its ultimate fulfilment sometime in the apocalyptic future. The third type of eschatology is ‘realized eschatology’, the term so closely associated with C. H. Dodd. The essential element of Dodd’s view was that the arrival of the eschatological period had taken place fully in the ministry of Jesus. While Dodd attempted to show that such realized eschatology underlay the message of the Synoptics and even Paul, the prime presentation of realized eschatology appears, in his view, in the Gospel of John. Attempts to explain the eschatology of the Gospel of John have involved each of these types. Some proposals emphasize those statements in the Gospel that promote a realized eschatology and attempt to explain away or minimize those that reflect a futuristic scenario. Others do the reverse. Still others recognize the presence of both types of eschatology but give various explanations for John’s apparently conflicting outlooks. Dodd concluded that the original view of the Church was that the kingdom was already present in and through the ministry of Jesus – that is, that the earliest eschatology was ‘realized’. When these hopes were not fulfilled, the 149

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Church introduced the notion of apocalyptic to explain the failure of the kingdom to be fully established. As Dodd states, ‘The church therefore proceeded to reconstruct on a modified plan the traditional scheme of Jewish eschatology which had been broken up by the declaration that the kingdom of God had already come’ (1936: 55). Taking the opposite view, Bultmann (1952: 2.20–1; 1971: 258–62) claimed that the ‘realized eschatology’ of the Fourth Gospel was the original contribution of the Evangelist, who was influenced by Gnosticism and who intended to call the reader to an immediate decision regarding faith in Jesus. All references to future eschatology were added by an ‘ecclesiastical redactor’ to bring the eschatology of the Gospel into line with that of the remainder of early Christianity. Bultmann therefore did not consider these texts to be part of the ‘true’, original version of the Gospel. More recently, David Aune (1972: 45–135) has studied the present eschatology of John’s Gospel in connection with other instances of it in early Christianity, and has concluded that it originated in the early Christian cult and was an attempt to make present the reality of Jesus within community worship. My present purpose is not to enter into a detailed discussion of the history of research on Johannine eschatology – that has been done ably by others, particularly by Jörg Frey. The entirety of the first volume of Frey’s work (1997) is dedicated to a review of the more important works on Johannine eschatology since the time of Reimarus. My purpose, rather, is threefold. First, I will propose a simpler and, I believe, more accurate explanation for the presence of realized eschatology in the Fourth Gospel. Secondly, I hope to identify the background of this eschatology – that is, where this type of thinking came from. Thirdly, I will show how the Johannine tradition not only tolerated, but indeed ultimately integrated, two differing eschatological perspectives within its overall theological outlook.

Eschatology in the Jewish Scriptures The problem of describing the eschatology of the canonical Jewish Scriptures is, to a certain extent, related to the meaning of the term itself. ‘Eschaton’ is a Greek word meaning ‘last’; thus, technically, ‘the last things’ have to do with what is expected to happen at the end of time or the end of history. However, within the canonical Jewish Scriptures, what is commonly called ‘eschatology’ in fact refers to the expectation of a definitive restoration that would take place sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of its inhabitants at the hands of the

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Babylonians. There was considerable diversity of thought about when this would happen, how it would take place, and what it was to be like, but the biblical authors all agreed that it would take place within history. In view of this problem, Donald Gowan’s Eschatology in the Old Testament, when attempting to define the expectations for the future that informed canonical Jewish thought, tends to avoid the term ‘eschatology’ and instead uses phrases such as ‘promises concerning a better future’ and ‘a future with significant discontinuities from the present’ (2000: 1). These hopes for the future thus speak of circumstances that scarcely could be expected to arrive as the result of normal, or even extraordinary, human progress, and so most scholars agree in distinguishing them from ordinary hopes for a better future by calling them ‘eschatology’ . . . One of the distinctive features of these hopes is their sense of the radical wrongness of the present world and the conviction that radical changes, to make things right, will indeed occur ‘in that day’, that is, at some time known only to God. The OT vision of the future deals throughout with the world in which we now live. [2000: 1–2]

Gowan helpfully distinguishes several types of hopes for the future (2000: 2). The first is the hope for a restoration of the political, military, and economic life of the nation. Another type of hope concerns the emergence of a more just and equitable form of human society. A third type relates to the transformation of the human individual, a fourth to the transformation of nature. It is among the third of these types – the transformation of the individual – that Johannine eschatology is best located. In the Fourth Gospel, the primary gift of Jesus is the gift of eternal life. This gift of eternal life comes about through the reception of the Spirit by those who believe in Jesus. This Johannine theology is fully in keeping with canonical Jewish thought, in which the prophets foretell a future outpouring of Yahweh’s Spirit upon the people of Israel (e.g. Isa. 32:14–15; 44:3; Ezek. 11:17–19; 36:26–7; 39:29; Joel 2:28–9 [LXX 3:1–2]). When this outpouring takes place, the relation of the people to Yahweh will be radically transformed. Among these prerogatives of this outpouring is the promise that the people will fully ‘know’ God (e.g. Jer. 24:7; 31:33–4); they will obey him spontaneously (Jer. 24:7); they will be taught by God directly and will have no need of anyone else to teach them (e.g. Jer. 31:33–4). In addition, they will be freed from sin and will sin no more in the future (e.g. Jer. 31:34; Ezek. 36:25–8). In short, the arrival of this time is understood to involve such a radical transformation that the relation of the people to one another and to their God will be ‘perfect’.

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It is promised by the prophets that Yahweh will act to bring about these changes some time in the future. This future is described in such a way that it is certain that these events will take place, but the time when they will take place is not. The expression favoured by Isaiah for describing this future time is simply ‘in that day’ (Isa. 2:11; 3:18; 4:1; 12:1, 4; 20:6; 22:12; 28:5; see 52:6: ‘Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I’). Similar expressions occur in other prophetic writings: ‘For then, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem’ (Joel 3:18); ‘“In that day”, says the LORD, “I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away, and those whom I have afflicted . . . and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion now and forevermore”’ (Micah 4:6–7). There is always a sense of finality to the time of fulfilment and the sense that Yahweh’s blessings will be absolute and everlasting. The most common expression in Jeremiah and Ezekiel is ‘the day/s is/are surely coming’. This formula articulates the conviction that the named events will take place, but does not specify the time. The events of those days can be a cause of distress and punishment (Ps. 37:13; Isa. 39:6; Jer. 47:4; Ezek. 30:9; Joel 2:1), but they can also be a time of reward and restoration (Jer. 16:14; 23:5, 7; 30:3; 31:27; 31:31, 38; 33:14; 51:47; Joel 2:28). There are two aspects of this that are important to note. First, the promises are simple ones: what is predicted will indeed happen. The promises are absolute; they are in no way qualified, limited, or partial. This is a promise of ideal circumstances in an ideal age. But it is all to take place within history. The second important aspect is that the promises and their fulfilment are in no way ‘apocalyptic’. The promises for the future in the Jewish Scriptures are not apocalyptic, neither in their world-view (i.e. the world-view of modified dualism) nor in their timeframe (fulfilment beyond the bounds of history, at the end of time). It was the conviction of the Johannine community that the fulfilment of their hopes for the outpouring of the Spirit had indeed taken place in the ministry of Jesus. As noted earlier, in the Gospel of John the hoped-for gift of Jesus is the Spirit, which is the means of attaining eternal life, the very life of God.1 This gift was understood to be the fulfilment of the promises made by the prophets about the giving of the Spirit to the people. In keeping with the timeframe of Israel’s hopes, this outpouring was 1

Jesus promises to give ‘living water’, which is the Spirit (4:10–15; 7:37–9). It is necessary for a person to be born ‘of the Spirit’ (3:6, 8). The Spirit is said to be the source of life (6:63). The disciples will be given ‘the Spirit of Truth’ (14:17, 26; 15:26; 16:36). Jesus bestows the Spirit upon the disciples (20:22).

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understood to take place within the time span of ‘history’. Moreover, in keeping with the nature of this world-view, these promises to Israel offer no indication that there would be such a thing as a partial bestowal of the Spirit in the present and a further, more complete, bestowal at some time farther in the future. Numerous passages in the Gospel of John indicate that this promised gift of the Spirit is to be fulfilled in the ‘present’ – that is, as a result of the ministry of Jesus. We may look briefly at two examples. First, that this gift of eternal life is something given in the present is expressed in John 4:10–15: Jesus responded and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water’. 11[The woman] said to him, ‘Sir, you do not have a bucket and the well is deep, so how do you have living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and who drank from it himself, along with his sons and his herds?’ 13Jesus responded and said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water that I will give will never get thirsty. Rather, the water that I will give will be a well within the person bubbling up to eternal life’. 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I may not thirst nor come here to draw water.’ 10

Later, in 4:23, Jesus expresses the present reality of the fulfilment of the promises in his further words to the Samaritan woman: ‘But an hour is coming and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.’

Here Jesus makes explicit that his ministry constitutes the arrival of the hoped-for fulfilment of Israel’s promises. As a second example, perhaps the clearest statement of this belief that the promises have been fulfilled in the present is presented in the words of Jesus in John 5:24–5: ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, the one who hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgement but has crossed over from death to life. 25Amen, Amen, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now present when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those hearing it will live.’ 24

This was the event that many in the Johannine community understood to have taken place through the giving of God’s Spirit by Jesus to those who believed in him. It is a viewpoint that is in complete harmony with that expressed in the canonical Jewish Scriptures. We can see this in passages such as Isa. 32:14–15 (‘The palace will be forsaken, the crowded city

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deserted . . . Until a spirit from on high is poured out on us’); 44:3 (‘I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring’); Ezek. 11:19 (‘I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them . . .’); 36:26–7 (‘A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances’); 39:29 (‘I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord GOD’); Joel 2:28–9 (LXX 3:1–2) (‘Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit’). This is an outpouring that is in the future from the perspective of the prophet, but it is one that is to take place within history and not at the ‘end of time’. This eschatology is a ‘realized’ one because, when the promises made through the prophets were to come about, these promises were going to be fulfilled in a definitive form. There was no anticipated future state different from the state when the promises were ‘first’ realized. Returning now to the topic of realized eschatology in the Fourth Gospel, we can gain much greater clarity on the topic when it is viewed from the perspective of two distinct and divergent world-views. The material that expresses what Dodd describes as a ‘realized eschatology’ comes from the ‘classical’, non-apocalyptic world-view described earlier in this essay. Many scholars have seen this realized eschatology as the dominant strain within the Gospel and as a unique and more sophisticated understanding of ‘eschatology’ introduced by the Fourth Evangelist himself. However, this realized eschatology was nothing other than the viewpoint of classical, canonical Jewish thought about the fulfilment of the prophetic hope for the outpouring of the Spirit. Taken out of its proper context in the Jewish Scriptures and mixed with the distinctly different world-view of apocalyptic, this eschatology took on a meaning that was far from that which was the originally intended meaning at the time of the composition of the Johannine gospel material that contains it. In retrospect, Dodd’s position is quite understandable. There can be no doubt that the dominant world-view of early Christianity was that of apocalyptic.2 It dominates the letters of Paul; it dominates the presentation 2

For a useful definition of ‘apocalyptic’, see John J. Collins (1997: 1–9). It is essential to distinguish apocalyptic as a world-view from apocalyptic as a literary genre. The latter is properly defined as an ‘apocalypse’. Apocalyptic as a world-view involves what is often referred to as an ‘ethical (or

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of the Synoptic Gospels; the Book of Revelation is itself a true ‘apocalypse’. These are just some of the more obvious examples of the thoroughgoing presence of apocalyptic in the New Testament. But what of the Johannine literature? In what may appear to be a particularly curious manifestation, given the apparent direction of this chapter, the apocalyptic world-view also completely dominates the three letters of John. There is no evidence of any world-view other than apocalyptic in these letters. What, then, of the world-view of John’s Gospel? In my recent commentary on the Gospel and Letters of John (von Wahlde 2010), I presented what I believe to be conclusive evidence that, while the Fourth Gospel contains sections that are clearly apocalyptic, there are other sections that reflect the ‘classical’ non-apocalyptic world-view of the Jewish Scriptures. As numerous features of language, of narrative orientation, and of theology indicate, these non-apocalyptic sections represent an earlier stratum within the Gospel. However, this non-apocalyptic material was later complemented and, to some extent, corrected by the author of 1 John in his tract. At the same time, the author of 1 John introduced the apocalyptic world-view into the Johannine tradition. Later, the language, the theology, the narrative orientation, and the world-view presented by 1 John were incorporated into the Gospel itself. This apocalyptic material thus constituted a final literary stratum within the Gospel. When the Gospel is studied in this way, taking into account the full range of the Johannine tradition (including the Johannine letters), it becomes evident that 1 John takes up many of the claims made in the non-apocalyptic presentation of the message of Jesus within the Gospel and reformulates, complements, and, in some instances, corrects the viewpoint of the earlier material. It is this mixture of world-views – non-apocalyptic alongside apocalyptic – that creates many of the problems for the interpretation of the Johannine Gospel. While scholars have attempted to identify the background of the Gospel as a whole, to my knowledge few, if any, have addressed the issue of divergent world-views side by side within the Gospel. For example, in 1955 Raymond Brown published one of the earliest studies of parallels to elements in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Brown 1955) within the Gospel and Letters of John, a treatment so well done that it is regularly quoted even today. Yet Brown made no attempt to distinguish passages with similarities in the Scrolls from those passages with no similarities. “modified”) dualism’ as opposed to the absolute dualism found in Gnostic texts. I have provided an extensive listing of apocalyptic features in the Gospel and Letters of John in my commentary (2010: 1:250–93).

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The same was true of the more extensive treatment of the dualism found at Qumran and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs by O. Böcher (1965). Yet when the material of each world-view is isolated and read as a unit, the thought of each group of material becomes quite consistent and coherent.

The relation between these two eschatologies To this point, this chapter has argued that the ‘realized’ eschatology of the Gospel of John is, in fact, the ordinary understanding found in classical, canonical Judaism of the fulfilment of the prophetic hopes for the future. However, in order to understand properly the eschatology of the entire Johannine tradition, we must enquire about the presence of passages in the Gospel that reflect the future eschatology characteristic of apocalyptic. John 5:27–9 clearly expresses an expectation that the world will come to an end, and it will only be at that point that the full realization of ‘eschatological benefits’ will be enjoyed. This is the world-view of apocalyptic dualism. But how is this viewpoint of benefits coming at the ‘end’ of the world to be correlated with a view in which all hopes are realized within history (i.e. as expressed in John 5:24)? Does Johannine theology provide an answer to this question? It seems clear that it does. As noted above, scholars speak of three types of eschatology: future, realized, and inaugurated. Is ‘inaugurated eschatology’ simply a construct of modern theologians who attempt to make sense of passages such as John 5:24–9? No. There is clear evidence of such integration in 1 John 3:1–3. 1 John 3:1–3 speaks about the ‘sonship’ of believers. This sonship is related to the ‘fatherhood’ of God and is based on the belief that faith in Jesus produces a ‘new birth’ from the Spirit, a birth that results in the believer becoming one who truly possesses the life of God and who, therefore, may be called God’s ‘child’ (son/daughter). The author makes it emphatically clear that the present sonship of the believer is real: Behold how great a love the Father has given us that we may be called children of God; and we are. Because of this the world does not know us – because it did not know him [the Father]. [3:1]

However, the author then goes on to say that the present state of the believer is not the perfection of the state of sonship: Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we will be. [3:2]

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There is a difference, then, between what the believer is now and what the believer will be at the end of time, according to this apocalyptic understanding of history. Finally, the author makes clear the basis for the integration of the present and the future state of the believer. Although the believer is now, in the present, a child of God, this person must strive to make him/herself holy as that one is holy (3:2–3): We know that, when he [Jesus] is revealed, we will be like him [Jesus] and that we will see him [Jesus] as he is. 3 And everyone having this hope in him [Jesus] makes himself holy as that one [Jesus] is holy.

Here we have a clear example of the integration of present and future merged in such a way as to explain the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ status of the believer. Here we do not have scholars at work forcing interpretations to fit their own views. Rather, we have a clear example of how the author of 1 John himself understood the relation between these two conceptions of history and reality. For him, there was clearly and genuinely an ‘already’ and a ‘not yet’ of eschatology, and both elements were equally real. But this is not all. There are in fact three other elements in 1 John that reflect the world-view of the canonical, non-apocalyptic Scriptures and which are nuanced by the author of 1 John. First, there is the question of whether a believer can sin or whether the believer has eternal life in the present in a perfect way. According to the prerogatives of the outpouring of the Spirit as they are set forth in the canonical Jewish Scriptures, once one receives the Spirit one will receive eternal life, the life of God, and be so transformed that sin will no longer be a possibility. Thus, Ezek. 36:27 says, ‘I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.’ Here the prophet speaks of the gift of the Spirit ‘making’ one obey the Law. The gift of unerring faithfulness in an eschatological context is also implicit in Jer. 31:33–4. The author of 1 John addresses both of these issues and affirms the reality of what had been promised in the Scriptures but at the same time acknowledges the reality of future failure (3:6–9): 6

Everyone abiding in him [Jesus] does not sin. Everyone sinning has neither seen him [Jesus] nor known him [Jesus]. 7Dear children, let no one deceive you. The one acting justly is just, as that one [the Father] is just. 8The one committing sin is of the devil because from the beginning the devil sins. For this the Son of God was revealed, that he might do away with the works of

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the devil. 9Everyone begotten of God does not commit sin because his [God’s] seed abides in him [the believer], and he [the believer] is not able to sin because he has been begotten of God.

In these four verses, the author states three times that the believer does not/ is not able to commit sin. This is an accurate account of one of the effects of receiving the Spirit as promised in the canonical Jewish Scriptures. Yet earlier, in 1 John 2:1, the author has presented another aspect of the reality of the believer’s existence: My dear children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. But if someone sins, we have a Paraclete before the Father, Jesus Christ, the Just One.

That the believer is indeed able to sin is confirmed later, in 1 John 5:16, by the author’s discussion of two types of sin: If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he [the believer] will ask, and he [God] will give life to him [the sinner], to those [sinners] not sinning unto death.

This passage introduces the complex issue of ‘sin not unto death’ and ‘sin unto death’ (cf. 5:16c, 17). Our intention here is not to enter into a discussion of the nature of these two types of sin, but rather simply to point to the fact that the author of 1 John is clearly acknowledging the possibility, and indeed the reality, of sin for the believer. This passage also leads us into a discussion of a second of the prerogatives of the Spirit: the reception of eternal life. Earlier in 1 John, the author has acknowledged that the believer has eternal life in the present, as the scriptural promises indicate: We know that we have crossed over from death into life because we love the brothers. [1 John 3:14]

Similarly, John 5:24–5 is the clearest example of the present possession of eternal life (i.e. typical of the view of future hopes in the canonical Jewish Scriptures) in the Gospel. ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, the one who hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment but has crossed over from death to life. 25Amen, Amen, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now present when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those hearing it will live.’

24

In fact, the primary theological content (indicated in italics above) of Jesus’ statement is verbally identical to the central part of 1 John 3:14, as noted above.

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However, in spite of the fact that the believer ‘has crossed over from death to life’, it is clear from 1 John 5:16 that it is possible for the believer to lose this ‘life’ (by sinning a sin not-unto-death); if, however, a fellow believer prays, God will give the sinner ‘life’. Thus yet again, what had been presented in the second edition of the Gospel in an absolute way is modified in 1 John so as to admit failure or inadequacy in the future. Finally, we may look at a third of the prerogatives of the Spirit as described in the Jewish Scriptures and apparent in the Gospel: the promise that, when the Spirit is given, the recipient will have no need for anyone to teach them. Twice in 1 John the author reminds his reader that he/she has an ‘anointing’ (2:20, 27) and that the believer has no need for anyone to teach them. In the latter promise, the author is clearly echoing the words of Jer. 31:34 (‘No longer shall they teach one another’) about the ‘eschatological’ age. 1 John thus affirms what Jeremiah predicts about the eschatological age, but goes on to clarify this by explaining that the anointing by the Spirit will teach them to remain in the teaching of Jesus! And as for you – the anointing that you received from him [God] abides in you, and you do not have need that anyone teach you, but as his [God’s] anointing teaches you about all and it is true and not false, and just as it taught you, you abide in him [Jesus]. [2:27]

We have just reviewed three topics from 1 John that deal with issues associated with the future hopes expressed in the canonical Jewish Scriptures. From this review, we have seen that in all cases prerogatives associated with the outpouring of the Spirit which were expressed in terms of absolute fulfilment in the Gospel are modified in 1 John to integrate them with a conception of the future in which these prerogatives were understood to be genuine but not absolute until ‘the last day’, when Jesus would again be revealed and there would be a universal judgement. Further, in the Gospel there are elements of the classical, canonical, non-apocalyptic viewpoint mixed with elements that are clearly apocalyptic. But the letters are entirely apocalyptic in their outlook and, as we have seen, take up elements of the Gospel’s non-apocalyptic viewpoint and nuance them by viewing them through the lens of apocalyptic. This suggests that the non-apocalyptic viewpoint was the earlier and was modified by means of an apocalyptic rationale that is detailed in 1 John. This would seem to indicate that the apocalyptic elements in the Gospel may have been added after the writing of 1 John.

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Conclusions We set out to examine the notion of realized eschatology in the Johannine literature in relation to C. H. Dodd’s model. As I have attempted to show, there is clear evidence of material in the Fourth Gospel that I have described as belonging to the ‘classical, canonical’ view expressed in the Jewish Scriptures. These Scriptures promise that Yahweh will pour forth his Spirit upon all the people, as he had done in the past on the king and the prophet. Because these hopes were conceptualized in the world-view of the canonical Jewish Scriptures, it was understood that the bestowal of the Spirit would take place ‘once and for all’. The Johannine community understood this promise to be brought to fulfilment in the ministry of Jesus. Because it was understood within the framework of the canonical Scriptures, there was no thought of an initial, partial fulfilment that would be brought to a culmination at the end of the world (as there was in apocalyptic). But can we be sure that this so-called non-apocalyptic world-view is not just a figment of the scholar’s imagination? I think yes. First, this nonapocalyptic world-view of the outpouring of the Spirit, present in the Gospel of John, has clear parallels in the (canonical, non-apocalyptic) Jewish Scriptures themselves. Secondly, this proposal is confirmed by the fact that not only does this view of the eschatological outpouring appear in John’s Gospel, but also three of the prerogatives of that outpouring of the Spirit appear in 1 John. Moreover, when they appear in 1 John, each prerogative (sinlessness, freedom from judgement, no need for teachers) is specifically corrected and/or nuanced by the author. Thus, 1 John confirms the presence of the non-apocalyptic viewpoint, but also confirms that the author felt the need to modify, correct, or nuance certain implications of that view. Later, material reflecting this modified theological perspective came to be incorporated into the Johannine Gospel and was juxtaposed with the material of the earlier edition of the text, a world-view that was distinctly different from that of apocalyptic but typical of the canonical Jewish Scriptures. It is clear from both the Gospel and 1 John in their present form that the community believed that the reality of the gifts of God was not expressed fully within the world-view of canonical Judaism, and so modified this understanding by the addition of a future dimension as expressed within apocalyptic Judaism. The modification of this theology by integrating it within the world-view of apocalyptic was the achievement of the author of 1 John.

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As a result of this analysis, we gain a new and clearer understanding of those passages in the Gospel that speak of the present possession of the ‘eschatological’ gifts. It was not a unique and original contribution of Johannine theology, as Bultmann thought. Nor was it the result of the cultic celebration of the ministry of Jesus, as Aune has claimed. It was a simple straightforward presentation of a different world-view and of the eschatology characteristic of that world-view, much as Dodd proposed. And so, it seems, we must ask another question: what is the relevance of this inquiry for recovering the theological outlook of the historical Jesus? Was the message of the historical Jesus non-apocalyptic? If we are correct in seeing a conflict within the community (i.e. indicated by the intention of 1 John to modify and nuance the non-apocalyptic views of the ministry of Jesus), it would also be correct to say that an earlier interpretation of his ministry had not been apocalyptic. But was this non-apocalyptic view that of Jesus himself? I do not think so. If the author of 1 John was, as I would hold, the same person later identified as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, then it is this eyewitness to the ministry that makes it clear that the full meaning of Jesus’ ministry can only be understood apocalyptically. This is corroborated by the overwhelming evidence of the remainder of the New Testament that the world-view of Jesus was apocalyptic. Even so, it seems that the earliest stage of the Johannine literature reflects a divergent view: that the ministry of Jesus could be understood in a way that, as Dodd suggested, was not apocalyptic, with an eschatology that was already realized in the ministry of Jesus.

WORKS CITED Aune, D., 1972. The Cultic Setting of Realized Eschatology in Early Christianity. NovTSupp 28. Leiden: Brill. Böcher, O., 1965. Der johanneische Dualismus im Zusammenhang des nachbiblischen Judentums. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn. Brown, R. E., 1955. ‘The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles’. CBQ 17: 403–19, 559–74. (Repr. K. Stendahl (ed.), The Scrolls and the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row, 1957, pp. 183–207; and then as Ch. 7 in R. E. Brown, New Testament Essays. New York: Doubleday, 1965.) Bultmann, R., 1952. Theology of the New Testament. 2 vols. London: SCM. 1971. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray. London: Basil Blackwell. Collins, J. J., 1997. Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls. London, New York: Routledge.

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Dodd, C. H., 1936. The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1938. History and the Gospel. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Frey, J., 1997, 1998, 2000. Die johanneische Eschatologie. WUNT 96/110/117. 3 vols. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Gowan, D., 2000. Eschatology in the Old Testament. 2nd edn. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Wahlde, U. C. von, 2010. A Commentary on the Gospel and Letters of John. Grand Rapids: EEC.

chapter 9

Historical tradition(s) and/or Johannine redaction? A reflection on the threefold repetition of Pilate’s statement ‘I find no guilt in him’ (John 18:38b; 19:4, 6) Hellen Mardaga In the last decades of the nineteenth and first decades of the twentieth century, the theory of the literary dependence of John on the Synoptic Gospels gained a substantial number of adherents. However, in 1938, in his groundbreaking study Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels, Percival Gardner-Smith challenged the assumption that John used the Synoptics as sources. Gardner-Smith highlighted the importance of oral tradition in the life of the early Church and, in so doing, opposed a fundamental premise of the dependence theory, arguing that the similarities and differences between John and the Synoptics should not be explained on the level of written sources but rather in terms of their use, albeit independently of one another, of common oral tradition. C. H. Dodd was profoundly inspired by the hypothesis of GardnerSmith and based his theory of historical tradition upon it.1 For Dodd, the historical tradition about the ministry and preaching of Jesus was gathered together in two phases. During the first phase, Judean disciples collected memories or personal recollections about Jesus and began to develop the Johannine historical tradition. These memories were transmitted in Aramaic and were shaped in dialogue with rabbinic thought. Throughout the second phase, early Christians repeated these memories, stories, and sayings in the context of preaching, instruction, and evangelism. In the process, the fluid memories became more fixed oral units. Seventy years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, John collected a number of these oral units and shaped them into his own written gospel narrative. 1

In The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953: 449 n. 2), Dodd refers to Gardner-Smith’s work as ‘a book which at least shows how fragile are the arguments by which the dependence of John on the other gospels has been “proved”, and makes a strong case for its independence’. Similarly, in the introduction to Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (1963: 8 n. 2) Dodd notes that ‘the turn of the tide [in views of John’s possible dependence on the Synoptics] might be marked, for this country [Britain], by the publication of P. Gardner-Smith’s St John and the Synoptic Gospels (1938), a book which crystallized the doubts of many, and has exerted an influence out of proportion to its size’.

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Dodd’s model of historical tradition, though pioneering, raises many questions. This chapter will focus on one problematic aspect of Dodd’s hypothesis, namely his failure to answer a major question that he himself asks at the beginning of Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (HTFG): ‘Can we in any measure recover and describe a strain of tradition lying behind the Fourth Gospel, distinctive of it and independent of strains of tradition known to us?’ (1963: 8). Dodd fails to answer this question when it comes to recovering and consistently describing the nature of that tradition. He attempts to separate oral tradition (which for him equals historical tradition) from Johannine theology in the written text of the Gospel of John. In so doing, he allows no room for the possibility that John may have intertwined oral layers of tradition (that are not exclusively historical) with his own theological thinking in such a way that the two are inseparable. Using Pilate’s threefold declaration of Jesus’ innocence (John 18:38b; 19:4, 6) as a test case, I will demonstrate how John, through the use of repetitions, interweaves layers of oral tradition with his own theological presentation of Jesus as the Divine King. I will argue, against Dodd, that the separation of historical tradition from John’s own theological thinking is impossible. The oral tradition underlying 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 may contain, or may once have contained, a historical tradition but reconstructing that layer from the text of the Fourth Gospel is a lost cause. Rather, the presence of multiple repetitions in John’s written text points to the oral origin of the Fourth Gospel and qualifies it as an ‘oral-derived text’ – a written text that exhibits oral characteristics.

Historical tradition in John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 In his explanation of Pilate’s statement, ‘I find no guilt in him’ (John 18:38b; 19:4, 6), Dodd reacts to proponents of the Synoptic dependence theory, who draw parallels between John 18:29–19:16 and Mark 15:1–20, Matt. 27:11–31 and Luke 23:1–25. Scholars such as Holtzmann and Sabbe highlight the close verbal parallels in the declarations of Jesus’ innocence in John 18:38b, 19:4, 6 and Luke 23:4, 14, 22 (Holtzmann 1869: 77; Sabbe 1991: 484). See Table 9.1. Dodd explains the triple repetition of the verdict, ‘I find no guilt in him’, by suggesting that Luke and John were each independently ‘imitating the current language of the law-courts’ (1963: 100). He opposes the theory of the literary dependence of John upon the Synoptics by referring to John (and Luke’s) use of such language. I support Dodd’s claim that John is literary independent from the Synoptics and that Pilate’s threefold repetition in John reflects language

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Table 9. 1 Luke 23:4, 14, 22

John 18:38b; 19:4, 6

οὐδὲν εὑρίσκω αἴτιον ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τούτῳ οὐδὲν αἴτιον θανάτου εὗρον ἐν αὐτῷ. οὐθὲν εὗρον ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τούτῳ αἴτιον

οὐ ἐγὼ οὐδεμίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ αἰτίαν. οὐδεμίαν αἰτίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ. ἐγὼ γὰρ οὐχ εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ αἰτίαν.

of the law court. The problem with Dodd’s finding, however, is that he fails to explain what ‘the language of the law-courts’ entails and does not see the significance of repetition in legal rhetoric. Before exploring further how the repetition in John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 points to its oral (legal) origin, I will first discuss the place of repetition in ancient rhetoric and oratory in general.

Repetition and ancient rhetoric The place of repetition in ancient rhetoric is a study in itself, and an exhaustive treatment is beyond the scope of this chapter. The discussion rather will highlight three key ancient sources: one that predated the Fourth Gospel, a second that was contemporary to it, and a third that was written not long after the composition of the Gospel. The first, Rhetorica ad Herennium, is a handbook written in Latin around the second decade of the first century bce and is addressed to Gaius Herennius. This book was for a long time attributed to Cicero, but it is now regarded as being of unknown authorship. Although written in Latin, ‘the author gives us a Greek art in a Latin dress’ (Caplan in [Cicero] 1954: vii). The second source is the Institutio Oratoria written by Quintilian, a contemporary of John (c.35–8 ce) and a teacher in Rome whose students included Pliny the Younger. The third work to be considered here is Περὶ Ιδεῶν by Hermogenes of Tarsus, a Greek rhetorician born around 161 ce. Hermogenes is portrayed in the sources as a child prodigy, who at the age of fifteen was visited by the emperor Marcus Aurelius because his oratorical skills were so widely known (Wooten in Hermogenes 1987: xi). Each of these three works highlights the importance of repetition in oral rhetoric. In Book IV, on the theory of public speaking, the author of Ad Herennium explains the qualities of appropriate and finished style, which he divides into (a) figures of diction (1–46), and (b) figures of thought (47–69). Under the latter category, the writer discusses ‘refinement’ (expolitio) through repetition:

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Hellen Mardaga Refining consists of dwelling on the same topic (in eodem loco manemus) and yet seeming to say something ever new. It is accomplished in two ways: by merely repeating the same idea or by descanting upon it. We shall not repeat the same thing precisely (dicemus non eodem modo) – for that, to be sure, would weary the hearer and not refine the idea (non rem expolire) – but with changes (commutate). [Ad Her. IV, 54]

‘Changes’ in the repetition of the same idea may occur in the words, the delivery, and/or the treatment.2 ‘Our changes will reside in the delivery (pronunciando) if now in the tone of conversation, now in energetic tone, and now in variation after variation in voice and gesture, repeating the same ideas in different words, we also change the delivery quite strikingly’ (Ad Her. IV, 54). When delivering a statement of fact, points should be enumerated; yet the enumeration should not exceed three points, ‘otherwise, besides the danger that we may at some time include in the speech more or fewer points than we enumerated, it instills in the hearer the suspicion of premeditation and artifice, and this robs the speech of conviction’ (Ad Her. I, 17). Institutio Oratoria includes an explanation of how repetition functions as a figure of speech. Throughout this work, Quintilian contends that repetition facilitates the process of listening and understanding for the audience, helping listeners to remember important points of the speaker’s reasoning. In contexts where the speaker is acting as an advocate before an audience of judges, repetition serves a further purpose: ‘The repetition (repetitio) and grouping of the facts serves both to refresh the memory (memoriam) of the judge and to place the whole of the case before his eyes, and, even though the facts may have made little impression on him in detail, their cumulative effect is considerable’ (Inst. 6.1.1). Quintilian further notes that repetition should not simply enumerate facts, but rather diversify the presentation of the case. ‘[T]he points selected for enumeration must be treated with weight and dignity, enlivened by apt reflections and diversified (varianda) suitable figures; for there is nothing more tiresome than dry repetition (repetitio) of facts, which merely suggests a lack of confidence in the judges’ memory’ (Inst. 6.1.2). He proceeds to identify four types of repetition that usually occur in antitheses or comparisons: regression (repetition of the first word of each corresponding phrase), polyptoton (words are repeated in the same sentence but with varying cases and gender), metabole (repetition of a combination of 2

With ‘treatment’ Ad Herennium refers to a figure of thought. Repetition in ‘treatment’ points to repetitions in the form of Dialogue or into the form of Arousal (IV, 55).

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different details that are massed together), and ploke (a mixture of figures wherein the first word is repeated after a long interval).3 Of further importance is Quintilian’s remark on how the speaker can use repetition to stress a point: ‘Words, for instance, may be doubled with a view to amplification (amplificandi)’ (Inst. 9.3.28). Finally, in the two books of his monograph Περὶ Ιδεῶν, Hermogenes outlines seven ideal forms of style: clarity, grandeur, beauty, rapidity, character, sincerity, and force. These forms are further subdivided into twenty different types. Of particular interest here is his discussion of ‘abundance’ (peribole) and ‘force’ (deinotes). ‘In my opinion there is not a particular kind of diction that is characteristic of Abundance, as there was for the other types. I suppose, however, that you could say that the use of parallel constructions that say the same thing in different ways is typical of Abundance’ (for this translation, see Hermogenes (trans.Wooten) 1987: 46: Book I, XI, 284–5). When he discusses the figure of ‘enumeration’ (aparithmesis), Hermogenes points to repetition or epanalepsis: Figures that produce Abundance are, first of all, those that generally imply a second thought or even a third one . . . But first we shall discuss those figures that cannot establish thoughts on their own, but, as I said, bring other thoughts in with the first . . . If repetition (epanalepsis) is also involved, the repetition makes the passage distinct, whereas the delayed parallelism generally produces Abundance. This is what happens in Demosthenes’ speech on the False Embassy. He says: ‘First gentlemen of Athens, in order that no one of you will be amazed when he hears me narrating some episode’ (25). Then, having discussed many matters in what is almost a parenthesis, he repeats himself: ‘This was the first and most important reason why I narrated these facts’ (27). Then he introduces the parallel phrase that one necessarily expects from the figure that he used earlier: ‘And what is the second reason? Etc.’ Thus an enumeration, or any figure that resembles an enumeration, produces Abundance . . . [Hermogenes (trans. Wooten) 1987: 48: Book I, XI, 287]

The technique of lingering upon an idea is described by Hermogenes as ‘force’, rather than abundance: Sometimes we put whole thoughts that are similar in parallel constructions, especially when we want to linger upon an idea, but in my opinion that is not really characteristic of Abundance either, but rather of Force, which is created through the approach. For we dwell on points and elaborate those that are favourable to us, as Demosthenes does in the speech On the Crown

3

For more information on these types of repetition in Quintilian, see Hellen Mardaga (2012: 101–17).

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Hellen Mardaga when he says: ‘Was it fitting, Aeschines, that the city give up her reputation and her honor’ etc. He repeats this thought more than four times in the same passage, and he generally uses the same figure, that is, a rhetorical question combined with a direct address. Because the thought is one readily acceptable to his audience he lingers upon it and forcibly presses it upon his opponent with repeated questions that do not give him respite. [Hermogenes (trans.Wooten) 1987: 47: Book I, XI, 285–6]

Reflecting on the words of the ancient authors cited above, the following points may be noted in summary. First, the author of Ad Herennium considers ‘repetition’ in the broad sense of the word, namely repetition as a figure of thought rather than as a figure of speech. He also briefly explains why an enumeration should not exceed threefold repetition. Hermogenes, on the other hand, mentions a speech of Demosthenes who seems to have repeated a certain statement four times. Perhaps at the time of the composition of Ad Herennium, common convention suggested that a point should be enumerated (repeated) only three times. Secondly, in comparison to Ad Herennium, Quintilian focuses more on repetition as a figure of speech. An orator should not merely repeat words but diversify them as well. Moreover, Quintilian emphasizes that repetition is to be used with both the meaning and content of the transmitted message, because it helps to convey a particular point to the audience. Hermogenes also treats repetitions as a figure of speech, one that provides Abundance and Force. Repetition makes a passage distinct, and, by lingering on a point, the force of the argument is emphasized. Thirdly, all three authors cited above treat repetition as a typical and helpful element of oral speech. Quintilian even explicitly treats repetition in the context of the court of law where a speaker acts as an advocate in front of judges. He emphasizes the importance of repetition in legal rhetoric. As such, repetitions may function as indicators of the oral origin of the Gospel of John. John, before writing his Gospel, may have heard different episodes from the life and ministry of Jesus spoken by preachers and orators (or may have preached it orally himself?), and these oral performances were doubtless characterized by the use of repetition. In turn, John included a number of repetitions in his own written text, thus helping future orators (including himself?) to preach and transmit the Gospel to communities in both written and oral forms. Of course, the content of this preaching can now only be known through the written text of John’s Gospel, and we cannot separate the oral proclamation of the life and ministry of Jesus from this written text.

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Why then should we not simply accept Dodd’s further claim that the reference to court language also contains a historical layer? As said at the beginning of this chapter, Dodd fails to recover and describe in a systematic way the strain of historical tradition which, he assumes, lies behind the Fourth Gospel. Raymond Brown (1970: 2.853) attempts to address this gap in his explanation of the threefold repetition in John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6. According to Brown, Roman Law (not further specified which law!) prescribed that, when the accused did not make an attempt to defend himself, he should be asked three times by the interrogator if he was innocent. Brown bases his claim on the work of A. N. Sherwin-White, who studied Roman society and law and its influence on the New Testament (1963: 25). Whether or not Dodd knew the whole contents of Sherwin-White’s book is unclear, but the study is interesting with respect to the possible provenance of Pilate’s threefold declaration, particularly as to why Pilate declares Jesus innocent three times and not two or four times. The Roman criminal courts gave defendants who did not defend themselves (e.g. in the case of martyrs) three opportunities to change their minds (Sherwin-White 1963: 25–6). To cite a familiar example, Pliny the Younger (97–112 ce) says that when Christians were brought to him for interrogation, ‘I asked them whether they were Christians. If they admitted it, I asked them a second and a third time, threatening them with execution’ (Ep. Tra. X. 96. 3; Walsh 2006: 278). A similar rule was applied to absentee accused persons. Roman judges did not wish to convict someone who was not defending him/herself or a person inadequately accused. This possible ‘historical’ layer underlying John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 seems unconvincing to me for the following reasons. First, the testimony of Pliny the Younger reflects a period later than the composition of John and the Synoptics. Moreover, Pliny does not explain the origin of his interrogation method and does not say that asking persecuted Christians three times about their whereabouts was an official procedure followed in every court. Secondly, in John, the defendant, Jesus, is present at the interrogation and defends himself. Why then tie John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 to absentee accused persons? In Dodd’s defence, many scholars before and after him failed to explore or give credit to possible connections between repetitions in John and oral (not exclusively historical) traditions within the NT. The following section will review some seminal works on the topic that are beneficial for further research on repetitions in the Fourth Gospel in specific.

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Repetition and oral traditions in the NT Serious research on the oral origins of the New Testament has only really emerged during the past thirty years, well after the composition of Dodd’s two major works on John. Groundbreaking studies of the oral nature of ancient texts were initially published by classicists and folklorists, in particular Milman Parry, Albert Lord, Eric Havelock, and Walter Ong. When it comes to repetition in oral speech, the work of Ong is especially illuminating. In Orality and Literacy Ong points to nine features that characterize the oral perspective, one of which is a ‘tendency for the redundant’ (1982: 31–77). The methodological advancements made by Ong and his followers have stimulated NT scholars to apply the results of his study to the texts of the NT, as is particularly evident in the insightful works of Joanna Dewey, Paul Achtemeier, Pieter J. J. Botha, Richard Horsley, Jonathan Draper, and John Miles Foley. Several of these authors have made preliminary connections between repetition and the oral origins of the NT. In the brief and by no means exhaustive survey that follows, I want to demonstrate how major scholars in the field have, over the years, begun to recognize the importance of repetition in oral discourse. The concept of repetition is mainly treated in works on oral composition and oral performance. Joanna Dewey, Paul Achtemeier, and Pieter Botha point to repetitions in the style of Mark, John, and Paul as indicators of oral composition. The present-tense verbs and mainly simple clauses in the Gospel of John point to a heavily oral style according to Dewey (2001: 250). Paul Achtemeier (1990: 17–18) emphasizes that repetitions (such as anaphors, parallelisms, and inclusions) and alliteration are compositional devices found in Mark and Paul. Pieter Botha also asserts that Mark was orally composed and notes that ‘rhythmical wording and the use of certain phrases suggest an involuntary repetition’ (1991: 318–19). In their study on Q, Richard Horsley and Jonathan Draper connect repetition to oral performance (1993: 183–4). Evidence of oral performance in Q is found through indicators in the written text such as alliteration, assonance, rhyme, tonal repetition, parallelism, and rhythm. Recently John Miles Foley coined the term ‘oral-derived text’ to describe ‘manuscript or tablet works of finally uncertain provenance that nonetheless show oral traditional characteristics’ (2011: 603). His use of this term reflects a desire to (a) emphasize the importance of the oral roots of ancient texts, while (b) avoiding assumptions that cannot be proven regarding the oral or written character of these ancient texts. In light of my previous argument against Dodd’s reconstruction of historical layers in

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the Fourth Gospel in general and John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 specifically, I find Foley’s term ‘oral-derived text’ the best word to describe the oral content of the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John, of uncertain origin and yet containing a number of features (including repetition) that point to an oral context, qualifies as an ‘oral-derived text’. Identifying John’s Gospel as an ‘oral-derived text’ avoids a methodological shortcoming that I noted earlier in Dodd’s model. If we assume that John intertwined oral traditions with his own theology (as opposed to Dodd, who tried to separate the tradition as a distinct ‘layer’ from John’s contribution), then speaking of John as ‘oral-derived text’ counters assumptions that cannot be proven about historical strains preceding the written stage of the Fourth Gospel. In the next section I will treat the threefold repetition of the declaration of Jesus’ innocence by Pilate and demonstrate how this feature is illustrative of an oral-derived text.

John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 as Johannine repetitions The study of oral traditions in the NT (see above) has given little attention to John’s use of repetition. Only a few nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors have discussed repetition in John, and those who have done so have focused primarily on the Johannine discourses rather than on more prosaic sections such as the passion narrative. Edwin A. Abbott treats threefold repetition in his Johannine grammar but does not discuss John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6. He treats only selected threefold repetitions because he considers the majority of these sayings to be monotonous and unimpressive (2006 [1906]: 455). E. Stange offers a comprehensive overview of repetitions in John, but focuses predominantly on the examples found in the discourses. He lists John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 under the rubric of ‘repetitions that are not logically motivated’ (1915: 27). He considers Pilate’s threefold declaration to be a repetition of narrative material, more specifically a repetition in the same context. Theofil Bromboszcz describes John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 as belonging to a group of repetitions in John that repeat smaller clause segments (1927: 84–6). The survey of Leon Morris does not consider John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 as examples of a literal repetition but rather as a ‘triple variation, all of which are different’ (1971: 293). None of these authors systematically discusses how repetition functions in the dialogue between Pilate, Jesus, and ‘the Jews’. A closer look at the threefold declaration of Jesus’ innocence within the larger context of John 18:28–19:6 reveals the following structure of composition. Pilate’s third declaration (19:6) forms an inclusio with his original reply to the Jewish party that brings Jesus to the praetorium

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because they view him as an evildoer (18:31). Pilate tells them to take Jesus (λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς) and judge him by their own law. In 19:6 Pilate repeats this order: the chief priests and their officers should take Jesus themselves (λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς) if they wish to crucify him. The change of verbs between John 18:31 and 19:6 (from ‘judging’ to ‘crucifying’) reflects an intensification of the punishment. Through the repetition of λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς the gravity of the sentence sought by ‘the Jews’ is amplified, while at the same time Pilate’s opinion that Jesus is not guilty stands in stark contrast. 18:31: λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς καὶ κατὰ τὸν νόμον ὑμῶν κρίνατε αὐτόν. 19:6: λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς καὶ σταυρώσατε. ἐγὼ γὰρ οὐχ εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ αἰτίαν.

Between John 18:31 and 19:6 is a theological portrayal of Jesus as the heavenly king. Pilate opens the interrogation with the question, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ This question allows John to present Jesus as the heavenly king whose kingdom is from above (18:36). Pilate’s twofold repetition of the question σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς (τῶν Ἰουδαίων) introduces the reader to Jesus the King, whose kingdom is from above and whose mission is to bear witness to the truth (18:37). Upon hearing Jesus talk about his heavenly kingdom and his witness to the truth, Pilate finds no guilt in him. He therefore goes out and asks ‘the Jews’ whether he should release the βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων. After scourging Jesus, the soldiers mock and hail him as βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων. Pilate then walks outside again and, for a second time, states that he finds no guilt in Jesus’ claim that he is a heavenly king. 18:33: σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; 18:36: ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου· εἰ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου ἦν ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμή, οἱ ὑπηρέται οἱ ἐμοὶ ἠγωνίζοντο [ἂν] ἵνα μὴ παραδοθῶ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις· νῦν δὲ ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐντεῦθεν. ἐγὼ οὐδεμίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ αἰτίαν. 18:37: οὐκοῦν βασιλεὺς εἶ σύ; 18:38: ἐγὼ οὐδεμίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ αἰτίαν. 18:39: βούλεσθε οὖν ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων; 19:3: χαῖρε ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων 19:4: ἵνα γνῶτε ὅτι οὐδεμίαν αἰτίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ.

Upon witnessing all of this, the chief priests and officers again demand that Jesus be crucified. For the third time (19:4) Pilate declares that Jesus is not guilty of rebellion against Rome. The final declaration forms an inclusio with 18:31 and, at the same time, introduces the events that follow. ‘The Jews’ ask for crucifixion not only because Jesus claims to be a king but because he has made himself equal to God (19:7).

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Pilate’s threefold declaration thus serves to emphasize the theme of Jesus’ divine kingship. Repeating the declaration of Jesus’ innocence structures the narrative and amplifies John’s portrayal of Jesus as heavenly king. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the numerous repetitions found in the Fourth Gospel,4 but of particular interest for understanding the origin of Pilate’s threefold declaration is the presence of twofold and threefold questions in the Gospel of John generally and in the passion narrative in particular. Twenty-one double questions occur throughout John’s text, three of which appear in the passion narrative.5 During Jesus’ arrest the band of soldiers and the officers of the chief priests are twice asked by Jesus, ‘Whom do you seek?’ (18:4, 7). Following that scene, Peter is asked twice, ‘Are you not one of this man’s disciples?’ (18:17, 25). Similarly, Pilate asks two questions of Jesus at the beginning of their dialogue: ‘Am I a Jew?’ and ‘What have you done? (18:35). As noted earlier, the questions in 18:35 continue the interrogation that began in 18:33. Closely connected, in terms of structure, to Pilate’s threefold declaration is John’s use of threefold questions, seven of which appear in the Fourth Gospel.6 Two threefold questions occur in the passion narrative and are posed by Pilate himself. The first set appears in John 18:37, 39 and 19:15: ‘So you are a King?’, ‘Will you have me release for you the King of the Jews?’, and ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ As explained above, all three of these questions centre on the theme of Jesus’ divine kingship. The threefold question referring to Jesus as King of the Jews thus forms a tandem with the threefold declaration of Jesus’ innocence. The second triad of questions appears toward the end of the interrogation in 19:9–10: ‘Where are you from?’, ‘You will not speak to me?’, and ‘Do you not know I have the power to release you, and the power to crucify you?’ The first question is left unanswered and thus the second question repeats the comment of the narrator, ‘But Jesus gave no answer.’ Pilate’s third question is repeated by Jesus himself in his answer, ‘You would have no power over me . . .’ (19:11). Repetitions, as demonstrated by Ong, Dewey, Achtemeier, Botha, Horsley, and Draper, point to the oral origin of the Fourth Gospel and are characteristic of oral narratives. Quintilian explained that the repetition of an argument helps the audience and judges to remember the point the orator wants to make. The threefold repetition as such could have been 4

5

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A preliminary list of certain repetitions in John can be found in Gilbert Van Belle’s discussion of my doctoral dissertation (Van Belle, 2009: 80–3). John 1:22; 4:11–12; 4:27; 6:30, 42, 61–2; 7:19, 25–6, 35–6, 41–2; 8:46, 53; 9:19, 26–7; 11:56; 12:34; 13:36–7; 18:4, 7; 18:17, 25; 18:35; 20:15. John 1:21; 7:45, 47, 48; 14:9, 10; 16:17, 18; 18:37, 39, 19:15; 20:13, 15.

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used in the court of law but there is no evidence that proves that John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 reflects a historical rendition of a specific procedure in a court of law. However, through repeating Pilate’s statement three times, the written text of John reveals some of its oral roots, hence its classification as ‘oral-derived text’. Furthermore, once written down, the repetitions in the text allowed orators and preachers (and John?) to memorize the text and proclaim it orally to others who, by means of hearing all the repetitions, could more easily memorize it themselves. In conclusion, this chapter has argued, through the case of John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6, that the oral origin of the Fourth Gospel cannot be ignored. Dodd’s work has broken new ground in the sense that he tried to bring scholars closer to the roots of the Gospel. His method, however – seeking to separate (historical) oral tradition from John’s own theological composition – is inherently flawed. Dodd correctly identified language of the law court in John 18:38b; 19:4 and 6 as opposed to literary dependence upon Luke 23:4, 14 and 22. He, however, neglected to further investigate the meaning of the threefold repetition in John 18:38b, 19:4 and 6 in the context of legal rhetoric. Pilate’s threefold declaration of Jesus’ innocence not only highlights the Johannine theme of divine kingship but also reveals the oral roots of this particular dialogue. The repetitions within this dialogue are probably not only oral in origin, but, once written down, also served the oral proclamation and transmission of the conversation between Jesus and Pilate. W O RK S CI T ED Abbott, Edwin A., 2006 [1906]. Johannine Grammar. Ancient Language Resources. London: A. & C. Black. Achtemeier, Paul, 1990. ‘Omne verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Later Western Antiquity’. JBL 109: 3–27. Botha, J. E., 1991. Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: A Speech Act Reading of John 4,1–42. NovTSup 65. Leiden: Brill. Botha, Pieter J. J., 1991. ‘Mark’s Story as Oral Traditional Literature: Rethinking the Transmission of Some Traditions about Jesus’. Hervormde Teologiese Studies 47: 304–31. Bromboszcz, Theofil, 1927. Die Einheit des Johannes-Evangelium. Katowice. Brown, Raymond E., 1970. The Gospel According to John, II: Anchor Bible 29A. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. [Cicero] 1954. Ad C. Herennium Libri IV. De Ratione Dicendi. Trans. Harry Caplan. Leob Classical Library. London: William Heinemann Ltd. Dewey, Joanna, 2001. ‘The Gospel of John in Its Oral-Written Media World’. In Robert Fortna and Tom Thatcher (eds.), Jesus in Johannine Tradition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, pp. 239–52.

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Dodd, C. H., 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foley, John Miles, 2011. ‘Oral-Derived Text’. In Margalit Finkelberg (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia. 3 vols. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, vol. II, p. 603. Hermogenes. 1987. On Types of Style. Trans. Cecil W. Wooten. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina. Horsley, Richard and Jonathan A. Draper, 1999. Whoever Hears You Hears Me: Prophets, Performance, and Tradition in Q. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. Kelber, Werner H., 1983. The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress. Holtzmann, H., 1869. ‘Die schriftstellerische Verhältniss des Johannes zu den Synoptikern’. ZWT 12: 62–85, 155–78. Mardaga, Hellen, 2003. ‘La triple mention des disciples en Jn 18:1(2)’. FNT 31–32: 117–31. 2006. De gevangenneming van jezus in het vierde evangelie. Een onderzoek naar bronnen, redactie en theologie van Joh 18,1–12. Ph.D. diss. Leuven. 2007. ‘The Meaning and Function of the Threefold Repetition “ego eimi” in Jn 18,5–6.8. The Fulfillment of Jesus’ Protecting Love on the Eve of his Death’. In G. Van Belle (ed.), The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. BETL 200. Leuven: Peeters, pp. 761–8. 2012. ‘The Repetitive Use of ὑψόω in the Fourth Gospel’. CBQ 74: 101–17. Morris, Leon, (1971). Studies in the Fourth Gospel. Grand Rapids, MI: Erdmans. Ong, Walter J., 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York, NY: Routledge. Pliny the Younger, 2006. Complete Letters. Trans. P. G. Walsh. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Popp, Thomas, 1991. Grammatik des Geistes. Literarische Kunst und theologische Konzeption in Johannes 3 und 6. Arbeiten zur Bibel und Ihrer Geschichte 3. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanhalt. Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius, 1920/1922. Institutio Oratoria. Trans. H. E. Butler. 4 vols. Leob Classical Library. London: William Heinemann. Sabbe, Maurits, 1991. ‘The Trial of Jesus before Pilate in John and Its Relation to the Synoptic Gospels’. In Maurits Sabbe, Studia Neotestamentica. Collected Essays. BETL 98. Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 467–513. Sherwin-White, A. N., 1963. Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. The Sarum Lectures 1960–1961. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stange, E., 1915. Die Eigenart der johanneischen Produktion: Ein Beitrag zur Kritik der neuern Quellenscheidungshypothesen und zur Charakteristik der johanneischen Psyche. Dresden: C. L. Ungelenk. Van Belle, Gilbert, Michael Labahn and Petrus Maritz (eds.), 2009. Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel. Style, Text, Interpretation. BETL 223. Leuven: Peeters.

chapter 10

Incidents dispersed in the Synoptics and cohering in John: Dodd, Brown, and Johannine historicity Paul N. Anderson

Between C. H. Dodd’s two landmark magna opera on John, addressing the religious background behind and the historical tradition within the Fourth Gospel (1953; 1963), Raymond Brown published several essays in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, later appearing in his New Testament Essays.1 In doing so, Brown picks up where the appendix to Dodd’s first major work left off – the central subject that Dodd expanded in his second volume. Both Dodd and Brown challenged inferences that similarities between John and the Synoptics suggest John’s literary dependence upon one or more of the Synoptics, inferring instead John’s essential autonomy as a historically grounded rather than derivative tradition. While Dodd sought to demonstrate the many ways in which Johannine similar-yetdifferent parallels to the Synoptic accounts argued for the Fourth Evangelist’s use of independent historical tradition of comparable historical value as that which underlay the Synoptic traditions,2 Brown worked more with analysing the character of the similarities and differences among the traditions, making critical deductions as a result. Lest it be imagined that Johannine narratives were cobbled together out of synoptic-type material, 1

2

Brown 1961 and 1962; the earlier CBQ name of the first essay was ‘Incidents that are Units in the Synoptic Gospels but Dispersed in St John’. Dodd concludes his first book on John with these words, setting forth the agenda for his second, noting that the crafting of John’s individuated Palestinian tradition for an Ephesian audience would have in itself determined some of the selections made: Along such lines as these, I believe that some probable conclusions might be drawn about the pre-canonical tradition lying behind the prima facie historical statements of the Fourth Gospel. If it should prove positive to identify such a tradition, then we should have material in hand which we might compare with our other data, drawn from the Synoptic Gospels or from sources outside the gospels altogether. Through such comparative study of different strains of tradition we may hope to advance our knowledge of the facts to which they all refer. [1953: 453] With these words, Dodd defines explicitly the historical interests of both of his Johannine monographs, a fact too easily missed if the first book is considered without noting its preparative relation to the second.

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serving the theological interests of the Evangelist rather than historical ones, Brown’s early analyses effectively challenge several of the bases for preferring Synoptic over Johannine historicity, thus bolstering Dodd’s overall programme. While this does not demonstrate John’s historicity, it shows that the case against John’s historicity can just as easily be argued against Mark and narratives built upon it. While incidents unified in the Synoptics are at times found dispersed in John, this is not the end of the story. A similar analysis could also be performed regarding incidents that are dispersed in the Synoptics but are more unified in John. Such is the focus of the present chapter, bearing considerable implications for understanding the origin and character of historical tradition underlying the Fourth Gospel. More specifically, while Dodd shows that John’s tradition has its own claims to historicity alongside those of the Synoptics, and while Brown demonstrates that bases for discounting Johannine historicity are equally found in the Synoptics, noting Johannine coherence – when traditional units are compared with dispersed presentations of parallel incidents in the Synoptics – argues for a favouring of Johannine historicity at several key points. This also offers valuable clues as to how the Gospels were written, including John’s distinctive relationship to other traditions.

Dodd’s contribution and Brown’s approach Following the first edition of C. K. Barrett’s commentary, inferences of John’s spiritualizing units in the Synoptics and of building them into its narrative began to grow, thus challenging a robust argument for Johannine independence as put forward by P. Gardner-Smith (1938).3 Barrett’s approach, expanded later by the Leuven School, provides a means of assessing John’s historicity by comparing its rendering of Jesus’ ministry with known sources (the Synoptics) rather than with hypothetical ones, 3

Dodd refers to Barrett as siding with ‘the older view’ (1963: 8; cf. Barrett 1955), partially based on a flawed inference of the early deaths of both sons of Zebedee. Barrett and others err on this point in that neither Philip of Sides nor George the Sinner believed that John the apostle died early; they both claim that Papias was his ear-witness, and George locates his death in Ephesus during the reign of Domitian (cf. Anderson 2011: 104–5). According to Smith: If Gardner-Smith had done nothing more than convince Professor Dodd, his Cambridge colleague, of the rightness of his cause, he would have by that achievement alone enormously advanced the influence and reception of his own viewpoint. During the middle decades of the twentieth century, there was no more dominant and influential figure among Englishspeaking New Testament scholars than Dodd. [2001: 53]

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which might never have existed.4 The overall weakness of such an approach, however, in addition to the fact that there are no exact similarities between John and the Synoptics, is that it fails to account for the potential historicity of the distinctively Johannine witness: eighty per cent of John is unique, independent of Synoptic reports. If, as Barrett points out, John at some places may have disagreed with Mark, thus presenting an alternative rendering with intentionality, the question is why? Was the Fourth Evangelist, as a dialectical theologian (which, with Barrett, I believe he was5), simply offering an alternative perspective, or did he do so upon a historical-knowledge basis? This is where Dodd’s approach contributes advances over alternatives. Rather than seeing John’s connections with Mark and other traditions as reflecting expansions upon traditions, Dodd shows how John’s parallel-yet-distinctive presentations reflect expansions upon the ministry of Jesus, expansions that are echoed in other traditions, but not dependent upon them. This is precisely the approach that Brown developed in his magisterial two-volume commentary, yet he laid the groundwork for his approach to John as an independent tradition in his earlier essays. Interestingly, Brown’s CBQ essays on John’s historicity were produced during the period between the appearance of Dodd’s two monographs, although their revised editions were produced in the light of Dodd’s second monograph. While the history-of-religions setting of the Johannine narrative provides the backdrop for interpreting the tradition’s provenance, development and delivery, its origins cannot be explained on the basis of mythic assimilation alone. Producing an account of Jesus of Nazareth within any Graeco-Roman setting, whether in Ephesus or elsewhere, means that it has connections with religious traditions, but also with other gospel traditions. Following his comparison–contrast analysis of John alongside other Jesus traditions, Dodd in his second book (1963: 423) more pointedly concludes: The above argument has led to the conclusion that behind the Fourth Gospel lies an ancient tradition independent of the other gospels, and meriting serious consideration as a contribution to our knowledge of the historical facts concerning Jesus Christ. For this conclusion I should claim a high degree of probability . . . the argument is cumulative and interlocking.

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For analyses of the stylistic, contextual, and theological merits of the masterpiece of Johannine diachronic studies performed by Rudolf Bultmann (1970), see D. Moody Smith 1965 and Anderson 1996: 1–166. Barrett 1972; see also Anderson 2004.

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The bases for such a conclusion are several, according to Dodd. Precanonical oral Johannine tradition thus likely included: (i) ‘contact with an original Aramaic tradition’ going back to ‘the beginnings of Christianity’ and translating Semitisms for Greek audiences; (ii) reflections of a Jewish (Jewish–Christian) setting; (iii) Palestinian topographical, geographical, and chronological features (with especially southern and Jerusalem-based familiarity); (iv) an early tradition parallel to those behind the Synoptics, including similar forms, parabolic imagery, similar healings, and clarifications; (v) historical material completely subsumed under the Johannine narration. Because of these features, the identification of historical tradition in the Fourth Gospel should be regarded by critical scholars as ‘at least this much’ rather than ‘only this much’ (Dodd 1963: 423–30). In the outline of his second Johannine monograph, Dodd proceeds to work from the strongest evidentiary data to the more problematic. Therefore, he begins with narrative sections of the Johannine passion narrative, the works of Jesus, connections with John the Baptist, then proceeding to the sayings of Jesus.6 In some ways, Brown picked up where Dodd left off, and his two-volume commentary carried further the important essays he had published earlier, of which the following two are among the most significant. ‘The Problem of Historicity in John’ Brown begins by claiming that the critical rejection of the historicity of John, so familiar in earlier critical exegesis, can no longer be maintained. We may still find writers stating that the Fourth Gospel cannot be seriously considered as a witness to the historical Jesus, but these represent a type of uncritical traditionalism, which arises with age, even in heterodoxy.7

Rightly noting that the ‘problem’ of John’s historicity has both positive and negative sides to it, on the positive side, Brown develops three basic points. First, John seems to have been finalized around the turn of the first century ce, bolstered by recent discoveries of the Rylands and Bodmer papyri and a trove of historical-type Palestinian details in John, which 6

7

Independently, this is the same approach taken by the John, Jesus, and History Project in organizing our sessions on ‘Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens’ at the national SBL meetings, moving from the passion narrative in 2008, to the works of Jesus in 2009, to the words of Jesus in 2010. While the death of Jesus is highly theological, this does not imply its historicity. 1965: 187–8. In the note, Brown cites Higgins 1960, Hunter 1960 and Robinson 1959 as bases for his critical consideration of Johannine historicity.

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cannot be simply dismissed as ‘fictional trappings’ or the adding of ‘personal names just to give them a ring of authenticity’. The Qumran discoveries bolster the ‘authentic Palestinian milieu of the Fourth Gospel’, including John’s dualism, ‘vocabulary, mentality and theological outlook’ (Brown 1965: 188–9). Thus, ‘No other Gospel gives us such a wealth of place names, exact locations, and such a varied list of active dramatis personae.’8 Secondly, Brown challenges as a false dichotomy the claim that John and the Synoptics cannot both represent historical traditions. False is the assumption that, if ‘the Synoptic Gospels are themselves histories, and therefore, if Jn is historical, it has to agree with them’ – that is, on all points, both major and minor (1965: 190). Such a claim would not be made of most histories claiming both first-hand knowledge of a subject and presenting a somewhat different set of accounts. Of course, even the differences are not as striking as they may initially seem, as many of them simply represent differences in wording or presentation of similar sayings and events. A further fallacy lies with evaluating any of the Gospels as ‘historical’ in the modern sense – and judged by such anachronistic measures. All of them have deeply theological interests, affecting the organization, selection, and presentation of material.9 Thirdly, in addition to few of the differences being all that incompatible, none of the similarities between John and the Synoptics is entirely identical. Therefore, while some Johannine familiarity with the Synoptics is a likely inference (at least with Mark), such cannot be limited to their finalized written forms, nor even the same sort of relationship between John and any of the other traditions.10 For instance, as John and Mark uniquely share the details of the 200 and 300 denarii and the reference to the costly ointment as pure nard (John 12:3; Mark 14:3), this and other contacts suggest ‘a certain crisscross transferal of details’,11 but not the .

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1965: 188. Brown goes on to show how such Johannine localities are confirmed by archaeological finds regarding the two pools at Bethesda, Bethany near Jerusalem and Bethany beyond the Jordan, Ephraim, and the Lithostrotos, citing three works by W. F. Albright (1922–3, 1956, 1960) and other archaeological findings. Given the parallels between the contents of Mark and the outline of Peter’s preaching in Acts 10:37–41, Brown regards the traditional view, that Mark included at least some of Peter’s preaching material (1965: 191 n. 12), as a plausible explanation for the historical-and-theological character of Mark’s material. Therefore, particular contacts with each of the four Synoptic traditions (if we include Q) must be carried out, with inferences following, if any headway on the Synoptic–Johannine problem is to be addressed effectively. This is the approach I have argued in several settings, including Anderson 2006: 101–26. 1965: 195. Brown also comments in nn. 23 and 25 on the possibility of influence going both directions between the Johannine and Lucan traditions. He doubts that John 6 is ‘simply taken

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literary dependence of John upon any of the Synoptics. Further, despite the theological features of the Johannine narrative, many of John’s treatments of common materials reflect ‘less theological organisation’ than those of the Synoptics. Building further upon Dodd’s conclusion that, in many cases ‘the Johannine form of the words [logia] is independent of that of the Synoptics’, Brown affirms the self-standing autonomy of the Johannine tradition as an alternative and apostolic memory of Jesus’ ministry – often with superior claims to historicity.12 Nonetheless, valuing John’s historicity also has its limits. First, while John’s subject includes historical details, the purpose of its writing is not promoting historicity-as-such, but theological – seeking to help believers continue believing in Jesus as the Christ (John 20:30–1).13 Therefore, while real feasts in Jerusalem are mentioned, the interest is less historical and more focused on increasing the faith of John’s audience. Thus, Brown wisely cautions, ‘the Johannine position cannot be taken as the historical one without careful examination’. A second limitation of John’s historicity involves inferences regarding the source of the Johannine tradition, especially as the final writer claims not to have been the Beloved Disciple (John 21:24). Even if someone like John the son of Zebedee is thought to have been the originative source of the Johannine tradition, he cannot be seen as the final editor, who may even have played an authorial role. This may account for the ‘composite nature’ of the Last Discourses (John 13–17), John 6 and other parts of John (Brown 1965: 201). As a result, while a good deal of historical memory is apparently present in the Fourth Gospel, the fact that some parts seem to have been added by a final editor makes it difficult to use John as a chronological basis for sketching the history of Jesus’ ministry.

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over from the Synoptics’ (versus S. Mender, n. 26) and favours the view that engagement in the oral stages of the Johannine and Synoptic traditions most likely reflects a ‘fusion by a type of osmosis’ as described by Borgen (1958–9: 246–59). Within my overall theory of Johannine–Synoptic relations, I refer to this cross-influence as interfluence, occurring most plausibly between the pre-Marcan and early Johannine traditions and the Matthean and later Johannine traditions (1996: 98–104, 170–92, 227–40, 256, 262). 1965: 196–7. While departing from this view later, Brown here claims that there is ‘No better candidate for authorship . . . than John, son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve’. In doing so (n. 31), he refers to C. H. Dodd’s essay and second monograph (1955–6, 1963). Brown (1965: 199) asserts that the rhetorical thrust of the Evangelist’s purpose, according to John 20:31, is pastoral rather than apologetic. If, however, John’s supplementary material – as put forth by Lindars and followed by Ashton and myself – reflects later concerns for unity, such concerns may also have influenced the ‘continue to believe’ textual renderings of 20:31 over the earlier apologetic rendering. Historical challenges remain the same, however, even if John’s first edition was more apologetic and the final edition (as I believe) was more pastoral (Anderson 2011: 85–6, 141–4). There is no such thing as ‘non-rhetorical history’; even claims of objectivity over subjectivity are themselves rhetorical.

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Finally, Brown reflects on several places in which Johannine and Synoptic traditions appear to dovetail with each other. After an extended analysis of Annie Jaubert’s (1965) attempt to harmonize the Johannine and Synoptic datings of the Last Supper as reflecting the 14th and 15th of Nissan according to two calendars, Brown rejects her approach, siding with John’s historicity over and against the Synoptics. According to Brown, ‘In the Synoptic preaching tradition . . . this meal with Passover features became a Passover meal; and from there it was just a step to the idea that the evening when the meal was eaten was the Passover.’14 ‘Incidents that are Units in the Synoptic Gospels but Dispersed in St John’ In this essay, Brown sets out ‘to see if our two traditions have narrated the same basic historic incidents in very dissimilar ways. For our purpose we shall take four scenes presented as units in the Synoptics but whose members are seemingly scattered in Jn’ (1965: 246). In approaching each of these scenarios, Brown addresses two preliminary problems, assuming their basic historicity: (a) are there discrepancies between the Synoptic presentations; and (b) is there a basis for eyewitness testimony behind them? He then proceeds to note parallels in John in order to see where the similarities (as well as differences) might lead. The first scene considered is the agony in the garden (Matt. 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42; Luke 22:40–6), and on problem (a), Matthew and Mark present the agony in a three-part way, while Luke does so in a unity;15 neither presentation is overall implausible. On problem (b), it is hard to understand how disciples would have witnessed the events if they were either separated from Jesus or asleep. Connections with John, however, are interesting. The ‘hour’ of Jesus is distributed throughout the Johannine narrative; the agony of Jesus is featured more in John 12:23–30; ‘let us depart’ is declared by Jesus at the Last Supper (14:31); and the severing of the servant’s ear and Jesus’ command to put away the sword occurs in the garden scene in John 18:10–11. Among solutions to these issues, Brown 14

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1965: 217. A further point in favour of Brown’s judgement, here, is the fact that even in the Synoptics Jesus is not portrayed as being killed on the Passover; rather, Mark 15:42 notes that the crucifixion took place on the Day of Preparation (i.e. the day before the Sabbath), and if John is correct in asserting that the crucifixion took place on the Day of Preparation for the Passover, noting that the Sabbath that year was a high day (i.e. the Passover), then it cannot be said that Mark claims Jesus was killed on the Passover, despite the Last Supper being described as a Passover meal in Mark. Brown’s homiletical reading of the Marcan chronology here favours Johannine historicity, whatever the Johannine narrator’s motivation. Jesus addresses his disciples three times in Mark and Matthew.

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notes that Synoptic traditions have apparently gathered material together for the rendering of Jesus’ agony in their narratives, perhaps reflecting a bit of borrowing either from the Johannine tradition or from an earlier bank of material not yet organized into homiletical patterns. The second scene, the Caiaphas trial (Matt. 26:59–68; Mark 14:55–65; Luke 22:66–71), bears similar liabilities with relation to problems (a) and (b). There are considerable differences among the Synoptics, and, if the disciples were not present, the elements presented could be an amalgam of details gathered into a narrative whole (although such sources as Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea could have reported accounts). Details occurring in John include the false witnesses contributing (with some confusion) a detail found only in John 2:19 about destroying the temple and raising it up in three days; questions to Jesus by the high priest bearing echoes in John 10:24–36 and 18:31; a reference to something resembling a trial before Caiaphas being mentioned in John 11:47–53; and the Synoptic introduction of Ps. 110:1 having a parallel with Jesus’ Son of Man saying in John 1:51, the only Son of Man saying in John outside of a larger discourse. Again, while the Synoptic accounts of Caiaphas may be rooted in historical memory, the fact that they include distributed contacts with John may reflect its tradition as providing a historical resource for other Gospels. Thirdly, the temptation of Jesus (Matt. 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13) bears some interesting inter-traditional implications. On problem (a), Matthew and Luke add the three temptations with Satan in the wilderness (likely drawn from the Q tradition), reversing the order of the second and third. On problem (b), Jesus was alone, so no one would have been present to witness the bases for the accounts. When compared with John, each of the three temptation accounts finds its own set of echoes, albeit in more realism-oriented settings. On the temptation to turn loaves into bread, John’s presentation of the feeding of the 5,000 and ensuing discussions certainly has echoes with the Q tradition, including the citing of Scripture by the tempter and by Jesus (John 6:1–45); the prince of this world is overcome by Jesus (12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world (18:36); references to Deut. 8:3 are expanded upon by Jesus, who gives life, while Satan is a murderer (John 6:49–50; 8:44); and the brothers of Jesus taunt him, asking for a sign so that people might believe in him (7:1–4). Again, while one cannot discount the possibility of an actual temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, features of the three main Synoptic temptations certainly bear Johannine echoes connected with more mundane and historically grounded incidents.

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Fourthly, the confession of Peter (Matt. 16:13–20; Mark 8:27–30; Luke 9:18–21) fits within a larger sequence of incidents (bread multiplication, sea crossing, request for a sign, discourse on bread, Peter’s confession, the passion theme and its denial), which Brown feels ‘has not been given sufficient attention in determining the relation of the Johannine and the Synoptic traditions’.16 Despite significant differences, Jesus asks probative questions about who people say he is, or whether his disciples will stay with him; ‘flesh and blood’ is noted in John as what Jesus’ followers must be willing to ingest ( John 6:53–8), while such is not the source of Peter’s confession in Matt. 16:17–19, and Simon bar Jona’s name is changed in Matt. 16:18 and in John 1:41–2; additional Christological confessions are made in John 1:38–49; Jesus is addressed as the Lord, a Petrine recognition on the sea, which is common to Matt. 14:28 and John 21:7; and Petrine associations with leadership are also found in John 21:15–17 and elsewhere. Therefore, while the differences are many, Brown believes that John ‘once again has supplied the basic historic framework’ (1965: 270) for presentations and developments of Peter’s confession in the Synoptics. While he does not offer an overall theory on John’s relation to particular Synoptic traditions, Brown, as a result of his analysis, concludes (1965: 271): But if there is any one common denominator, if there is a collective impression, as we promised, it is that when the two traditions differ, we are not always to assume facilely that the Synoptic Gospels are recording the historic fact and that Jn has theologically reorganized the data. In the cases we have studied, an interesting case can be made out for the basic historicity of the Johannine picture and for theological reorganization on the part of the Synoptic Gospels. We are coming to realize more and more that the critics have played us false in their minimal estimate of the historicity of the Fourth Gospel.

John and the Synoptics: a bi-optic approach Building on the most persuasive elements of the works of Brown, Barrett, Dodd, Bultmann, Lindars, and others, I have approached the Fourth Gospel’s origin and development with an overall theory of John’s dialogical 16

1965: 265. Indeed, this is a central reason for focusing on John 6 as a case study for assessing the character and origin of John’s theological, historical, and theological tensions in Anderson 1996, 2006, and 2011.

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autonomy involving several relevant components.17 Most specifically, John and Mark deserve consideration as the bi-optic Gospels, with each possessing an independent set of impressions regarding the ministry of Jesus and developing distinctively-yet-interactively from day one. If the Johannine evangelist (with Mackay, here18) had at least heard the Marcan narrative read in one or more meetings for worship, this would account for John’s first edition also beginning with the ministry of the Baptist, continuing in ministry in Galilee and Judea, and culminating in a final visit to Jerusalem at Jesus’ final Passover. It would also account for some of John’s differences with Mark as reflecting an intentional corrective to the Marcan presentation, plausibly including an early temple incident as an inaugural sign, Jesus’ positive reception in Galilee instead of a Nazareth rejection, multiple visits to Jerusalem, and presentations of the early ministry of Jesus (i.e. the first two signs as filling out the ministry of Jesus before Mark 1) as well as his Judean ministry (i.e. three signs in Jerusalem and Bethany versus a predominantly Galilean ministry in Mark). Therefore, while Matthew and Luke built upon Mark, the first edition of John appears to have built around Mark. Rather than ahistoricity, John’s distinctive presentations may be seen to reflect an alternative history, which is filled out further in the final edition of John, whereby the adding of John 6 and 21 standardizes the Johannine witness alongside the others.19 In that sense, while the completed Johannine Gospel was likely the last of the canonical Gospels to have been finalized, it still contains a good deal

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I have argued these points in many places throughout my many books and essays on John, but the most succinct presentation of my overall theory is laid out in chapter 6 of Riddles, ‘The Dialogical Autonomy of the Fourth Gospel’ (2011: 125–55). See also Anderson 2006: 37–41, and the new introduction to Christology (1996; 2010: xxxv–lxxxix). Especially relevant to the present discussion are three major paradigms: a two-edition theory of John’s composition, an individuated analysis of the Johannine tradition’s distinctive relations to parallel traditions (a bi-optic hypothesis), and a longitudinal overview of the Johannine situation involving three phases and at least two crises within each phase. Various elements of this overall theory will be confirmed in the analysis that follows. Important here is Mackay 2004, where he notes similarities between Mark’s and John’s structures and conjectures that at least some familiarity with Mark is a strong inference, plausibly resulting from hearing Mark read among the churches rather than possessing a written text. That view allows for general familiarity while still accommodating the fact that similarities do not appear to result from literary borrowing. Also compelling is Richard Bauckham’s 1998 essay, where he sees John’s narrative as correcting Mark’s here and there. This case is argued more fully elsewhere; a more nuanced view of John’s historicity and relations to other traditions allows a measured inference of at least eight ways in which John corroborates the Synoptic witness, and likewise where the Synoptics or John seem more historically sound (Anderson 2006: 127–73).

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of primitive tradition, likely representing an individuated memory of Jesus and his ministry – whoever the Evangelist may or may not have been.20 Incidents cohering in John and dispersed in the Synoptics While the value of Brown’s analysis shows it cannot be claimed that the synthesizing of traditional material into a whole is a uniquely Johannine phenomenon – it also can be observed in Mark – it is also the case that some incidents distributed in the Synoptics cohere in John. If Brown’s approach functioned to challenge the discrediting of John’s witness as a reflection of historical knowledge or memory, might the inference of the converse argue the opposite? Perhaps, but not necessarily; a final analysis will suggest plausible implications at the end of this chapter. Many more examples could be considered of course, but the following are among the most telling incidents that cohere in John but are distributed in the Synoptics. 1. The calling of disciples While the calling narratives in John and the Synoptics are entirely different, three features are clear. First, the numbers of disciples are very different; twelve are called and named in the Synoptics, whereas only five become followers of Jesus in John 1, and Nathanael is not named in the Synoptics. Secondly, the Synoptic calling narratives are presented in far more programmatic ways, as Jesus specifically invites individuals and groups: ‘Follow me’. In John, however, disciples of the Baptist leave him and follow Jesus, sometimes calling each other to become a follower of Jesus. Thirdly, while there is one primary calling narrative in John 1, there are several in the Synoptics, as though a single incident is reported several times, or clusters of incidents are included due to the importance of the motif. Of course, it is not implausible that Jesus may have called both individuals and groups to follow him, perhaps even more than once, and that disciples may also have been involved in recruiting others, so one

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Here, Brown’s change of mind regarding the identity of the Beloved Disciple (1979: 31–4), away from a member of the twelve because of his juxtaposition with Peter, is less than convincing. Indeed, a departure from the more charismatic leadership of Jesus toward hierarchical and structural models of church governance as represented in Matt. 16:17–19 would have been opposed in the name of apostolic memory, especially if the primacy-loving Diotrephes of 3 John 1:9–10 was appealing to such legitimation of his leadership in ways inhospitable to Johannine Christians. And, given the noting of Acts 4:19–20 as an overlooked first-century clue to Johannine authorship, Brown’s judgement here deserves critical reconsideration (Anderson 1996: 221–50, 274–7).

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calling narrative cannot historically displace another. Nonetheless, noting the multiplicity of presentations in the Synoptics is interesting when compared with the more understated and informal Johannine rendering. Mark 1:16–20 launches the public ministry of Jesus with his calling of the fishermen by the Sea of Galilee. To Simon and his brother Andrew, casting their nets, Jesus declares, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Finding, then, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, mending their nets, Jesus invites them to do the same, which they do directly. They leave their father and the servants in the boat and follow Jesus; from there Jesus launches into his public ministry in Capernaum and beyond. As usual, Matthew follows Mark quite closely (Matt. 4:18–22), although Luke expands the passage, conflating it with Mark 4:1–2 (teaching people from a boat) and what seems an echo of the great catch of fish in John 21:1–14 (Luke 5:1–11).21 What the appendix of the Fourth Gospel presents as a ‘re-calling’ of Peter, Luke integrates into the original calling, spiritualizing the putting of the nets down into the ‘deep water’ (instead of on the right side of the boat) and presenting Peter’s dialogue with Jesus as repentance from sin rather than as a challenge to nurturing pastoral service (John 21:15–17; Luke 5:8). What Luke and Matthew both illustrate is the mathetēic value of Jesus’ call to discipleship, as his exhortation to ‘follow me’ is expanded upon beyond its four presentations in Mark (Mark 1:17; 2:14; 8:34; 10:21; cf. Matt. 4:19; 8:22; 9:9; 10:38; 16:24; 19:21; Luke 5:27; 9:23, 59; 14:27; 18:22). The motif also appears in John (1:43; 10:27; 12:26; 21:19, 22), and independently so. A second cluster of calling narratives in Mark involves the calling of individuals beyond the first four. In Mark 2:13–17 Jesus calls Levi son of Alphaeus (although the son of Alphaeus in Mark 3:18; Matt. 10:3; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13 is listed as ‘James’), apparently a tax collector in Capernaum. Upon dining with tax gatherers and sinners – calling not the righteous but the sinners – Jesus raises the ire of scribes and Pharisees. Matthew and Luke follow Mark quite closely here (Matt. 9:9–13; Luke 5:27–32), although Matthew changes the name to ‘Matthew’ and adds for a second time a reference to Hos. 6:6 (‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’, see also Matt. 12:7), and Luke refers to the dining as a ‘great feast’ in the house of Levi. Jesus also calls the rich man to follow him, but alas, his possessions pose an obstacle to authentic discipleship (Mark 10:17–22; Matt. 19:16–22; 21

Here as elsewhere Luke harmonizes the details from Mark and John; indeed, at least six dozen times Luke adds Johannine details or features not originally included in Mark, whereas predominantly distinctive Lucan passages are missing from John.

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Luke 18:18–23). The passage is followed by the other two Synoptic writers, although Matthew calls him ‘young’ and Luke refers to him as a ‘ruler’. The Q tradition also features a calling to follow the Son of Man, and this unit functions to expose the lame excuses of those resisting the costs of discipleship (Matt. 8:18–22; Luke 9:57–62). In general terms, Jesus invites all would-be followers to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow him, and this passage is also followed by Matthew and Luke (Mark 8:34–9:1; Matt. 16:24–8; Luke 9:23–7). Interestingly, John 12:25 renders similar language regarding the losing of life among those wishing to save it, and vice versa, and in the material surrounding Peter’s confession in John 6 the ‘way of the cross’ is also exhorted, albeit in different terms. A third feature of the Synoptic calling motif is the programmatic calling of the twelve in Mark 3:13–19, followed fairly closely by Matt. 10:1–4 and Luke 6:12–16. Having gone up a mountain (Luke adds, ‘to pray’) Mark’s Jesus calls his disciples to be with him, followed by sending them out to preach and cast out demons. Here the names of the twelve are listed, although Mark’s reference to James and John as ‘sons of thunder’ (boanērges, Mark 3:17) is omitted in Matthew and Luke. While Mark uses the programmatic calling of the twelve as an occasion for exposing the unbelieving rejection of Jesus by the religious authorities, Matthew employs it as a platform for sending out the twelve in apostolic ministry (Matt. 10:5–16), harmonizing this passage with Jesus’ sending out the twelve in Mark 6:7. Matthew adds ‘first’ before the name of Peter (Matt. 10:2), whose primacy is noted elsewhere in Matthean perspective (Matt. 16:17–19; 18:21–35), and Luke refers to Simon the Canaanean as ‘the zealot’ (Luke 6:15). Luke includes a briefer reference to the ministry of the twelve (connecting the material expanded by Matthew with a unit likely from Q, presenting it elsewhere as the sending out of the seventy, Luke 10:1–12), but then uses the event as an introduction to Jesus’ sermon on the plain (Luke 6:17–49). In all these passages the calling of the twelve is featured programmatically as a platform for Jesus’ expanded ministry – likely rooted in preaching about Jesus, gathered into a narrative by Mark. The mention of ‘the twelve’ in John, however, follows Peter’s confession, whereupon Jesus declares, ‘I did not call you, the twelve [i.e. to escape suffering and martyrdom], and yet one of you is a devil’ (John 6:70).22 22

Jesus’ statement here is often translated as a question, but a declaration fits the contextual meaning better. Just as Peter had objected to the suffering of the Son of Man in Mark 8:31–3, Peter is portrayed in John 6:69 as associating Jesus with thaumaturgic power (Mark 1:24) with the same implications for his followers: a calling to embrace the way of the cross. In bi-optic perspective the Marcan and Johannine Jesus calls for the willingness of disciples to suffer with their Lord if required

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By contrast, the calling narrative in John 1:35–51 is less programmatic and more incidental. Rather than Jesus being presented as taking the initiative (as in John 6:6), it is John the Baptist who plays the role of initiatory agent, pointing his own disciples to Jesus. An unnamed disciple and Andrew therefore follow Jesus and stay with him, as it is near the end of the day. Andrew then brings his brother Simon to Jesus, whom Jesus nicknames Kēphas, the Aramaic word for ‘rock’ (translated Petros). Jesus then decides to go to Capernaum, and upon finding Philip from Bethsaida (described as the city of Andrew and Peter) invites him to ‘follow me’. Philip then finds Nathanael (later noted as ‘of Cana’, John 21:2), who is described by Jesus as one in whom there is nothing false. Interestingly, in only one case does Jesus call one of these five individuals to be his follower; others simply come to Jesus or are brought by others to him. A good deal of this presentation seems unplanned and spontaneous, and yet the results are highly theological, as Christological affirmations are extensive. John declares Jesus to be ‘the Lamb of God’ (vv. 29, 36), his first followers call Jesus Rabbi (translated ‘teacher’, v. 38), Andrew declares they had found the Messias (translated ‘Christ’, v. 41), Philip declares Jesus to be ‘the one of whom Moses and the prophets wrote – Jesus, Son of Joseph from Nazareth’ (v. 45), Nathanael refers to Jesus as ‘the Son of God’ and ‘the King of Israel’ (v. 49), and Jesus refers to himself as ‘the Son of Man’ (v. 51). Using Brown’s distinction between preaching tradition and traditional memory, several things become apparent. First, given the multiplicity of accounts, it is not implausible that Jesus may have exhorted people to follow him at various times – at the beginning but also elsewhere during his ministry – inviting discipleship and yet warning of its costs and implications. And, he may have indeed called individuals as well as groups, perhaps more than once. Thus, it could be that the callings of individuals and groups reflect traditional memory, preserved somewhat authentically in the various gospel accounts. A second point, though, is that elements of preaching and discipleship instruction are notable in bi-optic presentations of the calling narratives. Noting that Peter, for instance, is exhorted to follow Jesus more than once by the Lord, it is not unlikely that this became a part of his own preaching ministry, or preaching about him by others, accounting for some of the gospel emphases, especially those underlying Mark. Such a theme as the cost of discipleship was preached in all by the truth; in both cases Peter objects, and in both cases Jesus challenges the objection. The language is different, but the associative meanings are remarkably similar; cf. Anderson 1996: 221–51.

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likelihood as a way of linking Jesus’ instructions with the challenging situations of believers in later generations, so even if it reflected later preaching, it cannot be divorced from historical tradition. Thirdly, the calling narratives in the Synoptics and in John served programmatic functions, although in different ways. While the naming of the twelve in Mark may have served a historical function, clarifying who the twelve apostles were, it also echoes the Jewish hope for the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel scattered in the diaspora. Such also became a basis for apostolic leadership in the second and third generations of the Christian movement, which provided a basis for the emergence of institutional over familial forms of leadership. The programmatic function of the Johannine calling narrative appears more Christological and confessional, emphasizing a variety of convictions regarding Jesus as the Messiah/Christ. The other features of John 1, however, appear to be rooted in familiarity with places and persons rather than homiletical interests, so John 1:19–51 appears to have a fair bit of historical memory behind it as well as theological importance. 2. The temple incident In addition to the temple incident being portrayed at different times in bi-optic perspective, as the culmination of Jesus’ ministry in the Synoptics and as its inauguration in John, an interesting feature is referentiality. Mark introduces the Jerusalem sequence with Jesus and his disciples drawing near to to the city (Bethphage, Bethany, and the Mount of Olives) and commissioning his disciples to procure a young donkey upon which to ride (Mark 11:1–10). Upon entering the temple area, Mark alone notes that Jesus looked around at everything but then departed to Bethany, as it was late (Mark 11:11). Matthew presents Jesus as clearing the temple and returning to Bethany after the incident (Matt. 21:10–17). Mark presents Jesus as cursing the fig tree on the way to the temple incident; Matthew presents it on the next day following the temple incident (Mark 11:12–14; Matt. 21:18–19). Elements of the actual incident in Mark include the following: they come to Jerusalem, Jesus enters the temple and begins to drive out sellers and buyers, he overturns the tables of money changers and the seats of pigeon sellers, and he disrupts those carrying things through the temple, teaching from Isa. 56:7 and Jer. 7:11 that ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’, but they had made it into a ‘den of thieves’ (Mark 11:15–17). Matthew crops the detail about disrupting those who carry things through the temple and the phrase ‘of all nations’ (Matt. 21:12–13).

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Luke’s version is even more condensed; no particulars are mentioned regarding the sellers or those driven out of the temple, and ‘for all nations’ is also omitted (Luke 19:45–6). Matthew then adds a paragraph about Jesus performing healings on the lame and the blind in the temple area, with children crying out, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ The indignation of the chief priests and scribes prompts Jesus to cite Ps. 8:2 regarding perfect praise emerging from the mouths of babes and sucklings (Matt. 21:14–17). Luke adds a brief note regarding Jesus’ teaching daily in the temple (19:47), and following the incident Mark and Matthew expand upon the withered fig tree (Mark 11:20–6; Matt. 21:18–22). The Johannine rendering has Jesus going up to Jerusalem at the Jewish festival of Passover, whereupon Jesus, finding in the temple those who were selling oxen, sheep, and pigeons, drives them out, making a whip of cords. He also pours out the coins of the money changers and overturns their tables, rebuking the pigeon sellers for making his Father’s house a house of trade. The narrator then cites Ps. 69:9 about being consumed by zeal for God’s house, and the Jewish leaders challenge Jesus’ authority, asking what sign legitimates his action. Jesus declares, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Failing to understand a reference to the resurrection, they complain that the temple has been under construction for forty-six years; a three-day reconstruction sounds impossible. The narrator, however, connects the saying to a prophecy regarding Jesus being raised from the dead after three days, and notes that the disciples remembered believingly the Scripture and the word of Jesus in post-resurrection consciousness (John 2:13–22). The incident is alluded to several times later in the Johannine narrative. Directly, many in Jerusalem believe in Jesus on account of his signs, apparently regarding the temple incident as a sign (John 2:23); Nicodemus seems to refer to such in John 3:2. In John 4:43–5 Galileans had reportedly witnessed his ministry at the festival in Jerusalem, and, in contrast to the unreceptive Nazarenes (Mark 6:1–6), the Galileans receive him believingly, as did the Samaritans earlier. Upon Jesus’ return visit to Jerusalem, the religious leaders are already plotting to kill him after the healing on the Sabbath; mounting opposition seems to have been a factor (John 5:18). On the basis of Jesus’ signs performed in Judea some are favourably impressed (7:31; 9:16; 11:47), although others do not believe (12:37). Jesus is described as visiting and teaching further in the temple area (5:14; 7:14, 28; 8:20; 10:23), and Jesus himself declares he has taught openly in the temple (18:20), the locus of much resistance from the Jewish leaders in John. By contrast, the challenging of Jesus’ authority by the chief priest and scribes in Mark follows Jesus’ next visit to Jerusalem shortly after the temple

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incident, and Matthew and Luke follow Mark on this account (Mark 11:27–33; Matt. 21:23–7; Luke 20:1–8). This provides an occasion for Jesus’ parable on the wicked tenants of the vineyard and their killing of the owner’s son, a connection clearly made by Mark as narrator (Mark 12:1–12; Matt. 21:33–46; Luke 20:9–19). In terms of referentiality, Jesus anticipates the Jerusalem events in Mark 10:32–4, and the temple incident becomes pivotal in the challenging of his authority. In John, there is no anticipation of the temple incident, but it is referred to later in the text, and Jesus’ controversies with the Jerusalem authorities continue in chs. 5 and 7–12. An interesting interfluential issue emerges, though, in that each of the three of the Synoptic Gospels includes references to Jerusalem events reported only in John. First, in Mark’s presentation of the Jewish trial of Jesus, people bearing false testimony declare that they heard Jesus say that he would tear down this temple and build it up in three days – a temple not made with human hands (Mark 14:56–9; followed in Matt. 26:61). Additionally, derisive comments by passers-by at the cross chide Jesus for having said he would destroy the temple and build it up again in three days, yet he cannot bring himself down from the cross (Mark 15:29–30; followed in Matt. 27:40). Both of these accusations refer directly to what is said by Jesus only in John 2:19, although with some degree of distortion. Secondly, in Matthew’s added paragraph after the temple incident, the narrator notes that Jesus healed the lame and the blind in the temple area – healings found only in the Fourth Gospel (Matt. 21:14; John 5:1–9; 9:1–7). Thirdly, Luke’s added paragraph also refers to Jesus teaching in the temple day after day (19:47; 20:1; 21:37–8; 22:53), going beyond the singular reference in Mark 14:49 (also Matt. 26:55) and apparently showing some knowledge of the fuller set of presentations of Jesus’ teaching in the temple in John 7:28, 8:20, 10:22–30, and noted by Jesus directly in John 18:20. In these ways at least, not only does the later Johannine narrative make reference to the Johannine temple incident, but each of the other Gospels makes some independent reference to events in Jerusalem associated with the temple incident and Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem found only in John. While some scholars might conjecture that this implies Synoptic dependence on the Johannine tradition, such may over-interpret the evidence.23 23

See e.g. Hofrichter (2002), who explains Johannine–Marcan similarities as a factor that John was the first gospel written, and that Mark has made use of John. While John has a good deal of primitive material in it, it also possesses material commensurate with the Johannine Epistles and was probably finalized after their completion.

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Referentiality could be a factor of traditional interfluence in any number of ways, including associative echoes among oral traditions or even independent memories of similar events. What cannot be maintained is the view that the Johannine rendering of the temple incident and associated features is totally unique and isolated. It is referred to in ways internal and external to the Johannine narration, hence lending some credibility to its traditional and historical character. 3. The feeding, sea crossing, discussion, and confession of Peter By far the most extensive example of incidents unified in John and distributed in the Synoptic traditions are the elements related to John 6. Indeed, I have called John 6 the Grand Central Station of Johannine Critical Issues,24 and, other than John 18–19, this is the passage containing the most extensive parallels between John and the other Gospels. Additionally, it marks the turning-point of Jesus’ ministry in John, contains different literary forms, and features a number of theological issues. Therefore, making use of John 6 as a case study for addressing a host of John’s literary, historical, and theological riddles will have implications for Johannine, gospel, and even Jesus studies – let alone understanding better the origins of John’s theological tensions. Therefore, while the issues evoked by this difficult chapter are many, the critical scholar sidesteps John 6 and its attending issues at his or her peril. The one miracle included in all four Gospels is the feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 6:32–44; Matt. 14:13–21; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–15), and yet Mark and Matthew also include a second feeding incident (the feeding of the 4,000: Mark 8:1–10; Matt. 15:32–9) and a sea crossing (Mark 6:45–52; Matt. 14:22–33), as does John (6:16–21). As Brown noted, a very different temptation narrative (also regarding bread) is found in the Q tradition with some similarities to the crowd’s seeking of another feeding in John 6:22–40 (Matt. 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13), and discussions of signs, loaves, and leaven continue in the Synoptic accounts, albeit in disjointed ways (Mark 8:11–21; Matt. 16:1–12; 12:38–9; Luke 11:16, 29; 12:1, 54–6). The way of the cross (Mark 8:31–9:1; Matt. 21–8; Luke 9:22–7; John 6:51–66) is described diversely in association with Peter’s confession – before the confession in John (6:67–71) and after it in the Synoptics (Mark 8:27–30; Matt. 16:13–20; Luke 9:18–21). To the fuller confession of Peter in Matthew 24

This case is argued more fully in Anderson 1997, and an extended analysis of John 6 and its implications for a larger set of literary, historical, and theological issues is carried out in Anderson 1996: 167–265.

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is added the keys-to-the-kingdom passage, which functions to imbue institutional authority to successors of the apostles; John’s presentation of Peter’s confession shows him affirming Jesus’ authority rather than receiving such from Jesus (Matt. 16:17–19; John 6:68–9). Among all these incidents, John’s is the only tradition that is unified overall, as the Synoptic presentations are disjointed and fragmentary. While one could surmise that the Fourth Evangelist has harmonized other traditions into a whole, the fact that there are no identical similarities between John and the Synoptics argues strongly against a derivative literary relationship in either direction. Rather, what we apparently have here are three different feeding traditions in play, two of them underlying Mark and followed by Matthew, with the third comprising the Johannine rendering. While a second feeding could indeed have followed a first in the ministry of Jesus, at least seventeen common elements between Mark 6 and 8 suggest that we have two parallel renderings of a similar set of events.25 Most telling is the number of baskets used to pick up the leftover fragments; in the feeding of the 5,000 the number is twelve (Mark 6:43; Matt. 12:20; Luke 9:17), while in the feeding of the 4,000 the number of baskets is seven; likewise seven loaves and a few small fishes are listed instead of the five loaves and two fishes of the first feeding (Mark 8:5–8; Matt. 15:34–7). While impossible to ascertain, a reasonable conjecture is that the feeding of the 4,000, followed by the gathering up of seven baskets, may represent the way the incident was narrated among Hellenistic settings, associated with the appointing of seven deacons in Acts 6:1–7.26 As the traditional narratives may have run into each other among their deliveries, a dovetail section appears to accommodate the two together, emphasizing twelve and seven basketfuls following each of the feedings (Mark 8:19–20; Matt. 16:9–10) and a distinguishing of the two feedings. This traditional 25

26

This case is argued more fully in Anderson 1996: 97–104. R. T. Fortna (1970: 55–70) is entirely correct in noting three distinctive traditions in Mark 6 and 8, and John 6; where his case falters is its attempt to argue that the tradition underlying John 6 (and the rest of the Johannine material) is compellingly non-Johannine. Note that the name ‘Philip’ is associated both with the twelve apostles and the seven deacons appointed in Acts (1:13; 6:6), and John 6:5–7 connects him directly with the feeding narrative. While modern scholars have distinguished Philip the apostle in Acts 1 and 8 from Philip the evangelist in Acts 6 and 21, Luke nowhere makes such a distinction, and neither does Eusebius. According to second-century tradition, Philip the apostle ministered in Asia Minor and is buried in Hierapolis along with some of his ministering daughters mentioned in Acts 21. The point is that if Philip was associated with the feeding and seven deacons, baskets, and loaves – as narrated among the seven Churches of Asia Minor – one can understand how the features of Mark 8 may have been affected by the homiletical delivery of the feeding narrative among the Gentile Churches, whether in Asia Minor or elsewhere.

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individuation accounts for why Mark as a collector of tradition units felt it important to include both renderings; he preserved both and is followed by Matthew, though not by Luke. Matthew again follows Mark’s accounts quite closely, though omitting the introductions as to why there was a need to eat (Mark 6:30–1; 8:1). Matthew also changes or omits incidental details: the crowd hears about Jesus and his disciples rather than seeing them moving (Mark 6:33; Matt. 14:13), the crowd arrives before them (Mark 6:33), they are like sheep without a shepherd (6:34), there is an objection that it would cost 200 denarii to buy bread followed by Jesus’ question as to how many loaves they had (6:37–8), the ‘green’ grass (6:39), the groups of hundreds and fifties (6:40), the dividing of the two fish (6:41), at the sea crossing they all see Jesus and are terrified (6:50), they do not understand about the loaves, but their hearts are hardened (6:52). Regarding the feeding of the 4,000, Matthew omits: the crowd’s having come a long way (Mark 8:3), Jesus’ having blessed the fishes and commanding they be set before the crowd (8:7), and the Son of Man’s being ashamed on the last day by those who have been ashamed of him in this adulterous and sinful generation (8:38). Matthew changes the destination of Dalmanutha to Magdan (or Magdala in some texts, Mark 8:10; Matt. 15:39). To Mark’s narratives Matthew adds: Jesus’ command to bring him the loaves and fishes (Matt. 14:18), besides the women and children (with reference to the numbers of men, 14:21; 15:38), a Petrine unit involving Peter’s coming to Jesus on the water (14:28–31), a reference to Jesus as the Son of Man (16:13, 28), the prophet Jeremiah (in addition to Elijah, Mark 8:28; Matt. 16:14), a fuller confession of Peter – ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God’ (Matt. 16:16), and the unit related to Peter’s receiving the keys of the kingdom (16:17–19). On the feeding of the 5,000, Luke also omits: the introduction explaining why the crowd was hungry (Mark 6:30–1), the details that the crowd saw them leaving and departed on foot to arrive before them (6:33), the crowd being like sheep without a shepherd (6:34), the cost of 200 denarii for a feeding and Jesus’ questioning how many loaves they had (6:37–8), the green grass (6:39), companies of one hundred (6:40), the dividing of the fish (6:41), the entire walking on the water scene (6:45–52), Caesarea Philippi as the place of Peter’s confession (8:27), Peter’s rebuke of Jesus regarding the suffering Son of Man and Jesus’ abrupt response (8:32–3), Jesus’ calling of a crowd to himself (8:34), and the question regarding what a man might give in exchange for his life (8:37). Luke adds a few details or conjectures: Bethsaida is the place where they were heading (Luke 9:10), Jesus speaks to them about the kingdom of God (9:11), the disciples are

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referred to as ‘the twelve’ (9:12), before Peter’s confession Jesus is praying alone (9:18), and the rising of one of the old prophets (9:19). Interestingly, Luke includes only one of Mark’s feeding narratives (the one found in John: the feeding of the 5,000), and Luke also moves the confession of Peter to follow the other feeding – as it is in John (moving the confession in Mark 8 to follow the feeding in Mark 6 and John 6). Luke also appears to conflate confessions of Peter in Mark and John, joining Mark’s ‘the Christ’ (8:29) to John’s ‘the Holy one of God’ (6:69) to become ‘the Christ of God’ (Luke 9:20). Does this imply that Luke had access to the Johannine tradition? If not, why would Luke make such changes that just happen to coincide with the Johannine rendering? The fact that Luke departs from Mark no fewer than six dozen times and also sides with John makes Luke’s access to the Johannine tradition – probably in its oral stages of development – a highly likely inference.27 Distinctive contacts between the Johannine and Marcan feeding narratives and associated passages include: the costing of 200 denarii to feed such a crowd (Mark 6:37; John 6:7; see also the cost of the perfume, mentioned only in Mark 14:5 and John 12:5, as 300 denarii), a description of the grass (‘green’, Mark 6:39; ‘much’, John 6:10), the description of the boat’s destiny (Bethsaida, Mark 6:45; Capernaum, John 6:17), the suffering of the Son of Man and its implications are predicted by Jesus as depicting the way of the cross for his followers (Mark 8:31–9:1; John 6:51–66), ‘the Holy One of God’ is used as a reference to Jesus (albeit by a demoniac, Mark 1:24; John 6:69), and Peter objects to the way of the cross and is admonished by Jesus using a reference to Satan or a devil (Mark 8:32–3; John 6:68–70). As the John 5 healing on the Sabbath in Jerusalem continues to be discussed in John 7, the theory of Barnabas Lindars (1972: 50–1) makes the best sense of the evidence: John 6 was likely added along with other supplementary material at a later time. This being the case, the first edition of John probably had only five signs instead of eight, bolstering its function as a means of convincing Jewish family and friends that Jesus really was the Messiah, and also fulfilling the prophecy of Moses in Deut. 18:15–22. Therefore, five signs of Jesus complement the five books of Moses, and the five signs in the first edition of John are, consequently, precisely the five not included in any of the Synoptics. As a result, a key function of John’s first edition becomes apparent: it augments Mark by including two earlier signs (before those 27

For Luke’s dependence on John, see Cribbs 1973, Matson 2001, and Shellard 2004; see also Anderson 1996: 274–7, and 2011: 147–8.

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recorded in Mark 1: John 2:11; 4:54) and three southern ones.28 In addition to John 21, John 6 appears to have been added to an earlier version of the narrative as a means of standardizing it with the other Gospels. As well as a complement, though, the theological evaluation of the feeding in all five Synoptic feeding accounts (they ate and were satisfied – Mark 6:42; 8:8; Matt. 14:20; 15:37; Luke 9:17) is challenged directly by Jesus. Instead of seeing the revelatory meaning of the sign, people’s valuing food for their stomachs over nourishment for their souls is challenged by the Johannine Jesus: ‘You seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were satisfied’ (John 6:26).29 All of this leads to several tradition–historical inferences. First, the fact that three independent traditions underlying Mark 6 and 8 and John 6 allude to some sort of feeding, a lake incident, discussions of the feedings and Jesus’ authority, as well as teachings on the cost of discipleship and Peter’s confession, suggests that historical memories of such clusters of incidents were at work in the pre-Marcan and early Johannine traditions long before their finalized gospel forms. Such allusions cannot confirm historical events, but the similarities-and-differences argue for some sort of historical memory underlying preaching deliveries and literary developments of these incidents in bi-optic perspective. In that sense, the Johannine tradition, as an autonomous and individuated tradition, corroborates the Marcan traditions, and vice versa. Secondly, while Matthew follows Mark most closely, it omits many of the non-symbolic illustrative details but adds units embellishing the roles of Peter and the apostles, largely in service to the ecclesial needs of the emerging Christian movement. Luke also omits details from Mark and adds conjectural points here and there, in keeping with Lucan editorial style. Distinctive similarities between John and Mark, however, involve some of the details omitted by Matthew and Luke, suggesting (with Brown) contacts during the oral stages of their traditions. As it is impossible to 28

29

Despite Mark’s presentation of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law as the first of Jesus’ healing miracles, John is not the only narrative to insist upon earlier signs. In addition to a general reference to a travelling, healing, exorcising, and preaching ministry throughout the region (Matt. 4:23–5), Matthew also includes two signs just prior to the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, the second of which involves the Capernaum healing from afar (Matt. 8:1–13). Matthew thus appears to support John’s insistence that the distance-healing in Capernaum was the ‘second sign’ performed by Jesus, implicitly filling out the earlier ministry of Jesus before the events reported in Mark 1:21–31. Therefore, it is not a backwater signs source being challenged in its theological thrust, it is the prevalent ethos of the larger set of Synoptic valuations of Jesus’ signs here being engaged by the Johannine Jesus. Therefore, John’s presentation of the feeding is both reinforcing and dialectically corrective in relation to parallel traditions.

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discern in which direction the influence may have travelled, Brown’s inference of mutual influence, what I call interfluence between the preachers of these traditions, makes the most sense critically. As preachers delivered their material, sometimes travelling in ministry together, such might be plausible as at least one context in which interfluence may have developed – in addition to others, of course. Thirdly, Luke departs from Mark several times and sides with John, suggesting Lucan familiarity with the Johannine tradition, probably in its oral stages of formation. Therefore, one feeding (that of the 5,000) is included instead of Mark’s two, one sea-crossing narrative is included (with John, although located elsewhere, Luke 8:22–5) over and against Mark’s dual accounts, Peter’s confession is moved to follow the other feeding (as it is in John), and Peter’s confessions in Mark and John are conflated in Luke’s rendering: ‘You are the Christ of God’ (Luke 9:20). Even in Luke’s prologue, he expresses gratitude for what he has received from eyewitnesses and servants of the Logos (1:2); might that be a reference to the Johannine tradition? While the Johannine Gospel was likely finalized after Luke, this does not mean that familiarity with its tradition was a late – and only late – phenomenon; Luke indeed favours many Johannine details and presentations over Mark’s. Fourthly, while the Johannine rendering of the feeding displays a number of primitive features (knowledge of Philip and Andrew being connected to Bethsaida as a likely source of food [John 6:5–7]; prophetking-like-Moses Galilean nationalism rejected by Jesus [6:14–15]; Jesus’ followers abandoning him due to disillusionment [6:66]; a thaumaturgic reference to Jesus – ‘Holy One of God’ [6:69]), a good deal of homiletical development can also be inferred in the discussion of the feeding. Here at least five of the seven crises in the history of the Johannine situation are displayed by the actants and discussants in the narrative: (a) featuring the rhetorical use of manna as a secondary proof-text (as is most commonly done by Philo and the Babylonian Midrashim), tensions with local Jewish leaders in Asia Minor are addressed not by Jesus outwitting their exegesis with his, but by overturning exegesis with eschatology: ‘it is not Moses who gave . . ., but my Father who gives’ (John 6:32); (b) more subtly, addressing Roman hegemony – whether under Tiberius or Domitian – is not touted as a Passover revolt in the wilderness under a prophet-king like Moses, but in embracing the life-producing food that Jesus alone offers (6:4, 14–15, 27, 51); (c) docetizing inclinations of Gentile Christians, unwilling to suffer with Christ and his community when faced with hardship under the rise of the imperial cult under Domitian (81–96 ce), would have been challenged by the invitation to ingest the flesh and blood

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of Jesus – sharing with him in his suffering and death if they hope to share with him the hope of the resurrection – although the way of the cross is considered a ‘hard saying’ among his followers, leading to a defection; preserving the flesh indeed profits nothing (6:51–66); (d) perhaps even challenging directly the yoking of Petrine authority to structural means of effecting Christian leadership near the end of the first century (apparently alluded to by the primacy-loving Diotrephes in 3 John 1:9–10), Peter is portrayed as ‘returning the keys to Jesus’ rather than receiving authority from the Lord, as he affirms that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life (John 6:68–9); and (e) the thaumaturgic valuation of the feeding in all five Synoptic accounts is challenged by the Johannine Jesus, as the crowd’s seeking him for another feeding shows they have not seen the feeding as a revelatory sign but because they ‘ate the loaves and were satisfied’ (6:26). In these ways the history and theology of the Johannine situation and narration are illuminated far more profoundly by John 6 than they are by John 9. While J. Louis Martyn correctly illuminated tensions with Jewish members of the Johannine situation during the Jamnia era, John 6 exposes no fewer than five of the seven dialogical crises within the Johannine situation between 70 and 100 ce, corroborated by the larger Johannine corpus and the writings of Ignatius.30

Implications and conclusions A telling measure of a work’s importance is the work that it generates, and the interpretative-historical thrust of the magna opera of C. H. Dodd was carried forward by the great Johannine works of Raymond E. Brown. While both of them challenged the view that Synoptic–Johannine contacts suggest a derivative relationship, Brown’s showing that leading bases for disparaging John’s historicity over and against the Synoptics cuts in both directions, often confirming John’s historicity rather than diminishing it. This certainly is the case when considering incidents cohering in the Synoptics and distributed in John, as it appears evident that Synoptic writers drew from larger banks of traditional material, at times connecting with Johannine details and presentations having their own claims to historical realism. This, however, is only part of the story, as several coherent Johannine units also find echoes in more distributed presentations among the Synoptics. While Brown only makes general observations about plausible Johannine–Synoptic relations, the present analysis 30

Anderson 1996: 119–36, 221–50; see especially Anderson 1997.

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confirms the following inferences regarding John’s dialogical autonomy and a bi-optic hypothesis, argued in further detail elsewhere. First, John’s presentation of Jesus deserves consideration alongside Mark’s as an independent tradition in its own right, bearing its own claims to historicity despite its theological proclivities. With Dodd and Brown, at some turns the Johannine rendering appears historically preferable to Synoptic ones, and each case must be considered individually. Alongside the passages analysed by Brown, elements of John’s presentations of the calling narrative, the temple incident, and the feeding narrative with its associated incidents bear their own claims to historical integrity. As units dispersed in the Synoptics and coherent in John, these Johannine passages bear their own claims to historicity in ways echoed and reinforced by the Synoptics. Secondly, John’s contacts with Mark imply some interfluence during the early stages of their respective traditions, and, as well as augmenting Mark, some of John’s rendering of the ministry of Jesus appears to be setting the record straight over and against some features of Mark. Thirdly, where Luke departs from Mark and sides with John, this argues for Luke’s familiarity with the Johannine tradition, probably in its oral stages of development. It is also interesting to note that Matthew at times corroborates the Johannine itinerary, although the main Johannine–Matthean dialectic appears to have happened later in the stages of their respective traditions, addressing issues of governance, leadership, and ecclesial organization. Finally, if Matthew and Luke built upon Mark, and the first edition of John built around Mark, the ministry of Jesus must be considered critically in bi-optic perspective, including John in the quest for Jesus instead of ignoring it.31 Of course, how to do so is beyond the scope of this chapter, and that will involve a fourth quest for Jesus – a venture that is already underway. W O RK S CI T ED Albright, W. F., 1922–3. ‘Bethany in the Old Testament’. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 4: 158–60. 1956. ‘Recent Discoveries in Palestine and the Gospel of John’, The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology. Dodd Anniversary Volume. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 153–71. 31

Not only does James Charlesworth (2010) call for a paradigm shift in historical Jesus studies – away from ignoring John to including John – but he points to several instances (citing specifically the John, Jesus, and History Project) where such a shift is already underway since the beginning of the new millennium. As the first three quests for Jesus have programmatically sidestepped John, following in the trajectory of Dodd, Brown, and recent scholarship, a further quest – with its own criteria for determining historicity – is still needed.

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1960. The Archaeology of Palestine. New York: Penguin. Anderson, Paul N., 1996. The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6. WUNT 2/78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (third printing with a new introduction, outlines, and epilogue. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2010). 1997. ‘The Sitz im Leben of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse and Its Evolving Context’. In R. Alan Culpepper (ed.), Critical Readings of John 6. BIS 22. Leiden: Brill, pp. 1–59. 2004. ‘The Cognitive Origins of John’s Christological Unity and Disunity’. In J. Harold Ellens and Wayne Rollins (eds.), Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. 4 vols. Westport and London: Praeger Publishers, vol. III, pp. 127–49. (First published in Horizons in Biblical Theology 17, 1995, 1–24.) 2006. The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered. LNTS 321. London: T. & T. Clark. 2011. The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John. Minneapolis: Fortress. Barrett, C. K., 1955. The Gospel According to St John. London: SPCK (rev. 1978). 1972. ‘The Dialectical Theology of St. John’, in his New Testament Essays. London: SPCK, pp. 49–69. Bauckham, Richard, 1998. ‘John for Readers of Mark’. In The Gospels for all Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, pp. 141–71. Borgen, Peder, 1958–9. ‘John and the Synoptics in the Passion Narrative’. NTS 5: 246–59. Brown, R. E., 1961. ‘Incidents that are Units in the Synoptic Gospels but Dispersed in St John’. CBQ 23 (2): 143–60 (rev. and pub. later in Brown’s New Testament Essays. Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1965, pp. 246–71). 1962. ‘The Problem of Historicity in John’. CBQ 24(1): 1–14 (rev. and pub. later in Brown’s New Testament Essays. Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1965, pp. 187–217). 1965. New Testament Essays. Garden City, NY: Image Books. 1979. The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times. New York: Paulist. Bultmann, R., 1970. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Trans. from the 1962 revised German G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare, and J. K. Riches. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Charlesworth, James H., 2010. ‘The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?’. JSHJ 8: 3–46. Cribbs, F. Lamar, 1973. ‘A Study of the Contacts That Exist between St. Luke and St. John’. In George MacRae (ed.), Society of Biblical Literature: 1973 Seminar Papers. Cambridge: Society of Biblical Literature, vol. II, pp. 1–93. Dodd, C. H. 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1955–6. ‘Some Johannine “Herrenworte” with Parallels in the Synoptic Gospels’. NTS 2: 75–86.

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1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fortna, R. T., 1970. The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel. SNTSMS 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gardner-Smith, P., 1938. Saint John and the Synoptics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Higgins, A. J. B., 1960. The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel. London: Lutterworth. Hofrichter, Peter L., 1997. Modell und Vorlage der Synoptiker – Das vorredaktionelle Johannesevangelium; Zweite, neubearbeitete Auflage. Theologische Texte und Studien 6. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Hunter, A. M., 1960. ‘Recent Trends in Johannine Studies’. Expository Times 71: 164–7, 219–22. Jaubert, Annie, 1965. The Date of the Last Supper. Staten Island, NY: Alba. Lindars, Barnabas, 1972. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids and London: Eerdmans. Mackay, Ian D., 2004. John’s Relationship with Mark : An Analysis of John 6 in the Light of Mark 6 and 8. WUNT 2/182. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Matson, Mark A., 2001. In Dialogue with Another Gospel? Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Robinson, John A. T., 1959. ‘The New Look on the Fourth Gospel’, Studia Evangelica. The Oxford Congress Papers of 1957. Berlin: Akademie, pp. 338–50. Shellard, Barbara, 2004. New Light on Luke: Its Purpose, Sources and Literary Context. London: T. & T. Clark. Smith, D. Moody, 1965. The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2001. John Among the Gospels. 2nd edn. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

chapter 11

Reflections on a footnote John Ashton

A hidden parable? The ‘footnote’ referred to in my title is to be found on page 386 of Dodd’s second great book on the Fourth Gospel (1963), where he mentions an article of his first published in French in 1962 and subsequently in English under the title ‘A Hidden Parable in the Fourth Gospel’ (Dodd 1968). The second part of the book, devoted to the Sayings, is much shorter than the first (‘the Narrative’), and only 22 of the 110 pages in this part are allotted to Parabolic Forms (366–87). Dodd had earlier discovered ‘six passages which stand out from the rest by their unlikeness to the usual Johannine type, and their similarity to passages in the Synoptics’ (1963: 386); by the time his book was published he had come across a seventh, the ‘hidden parable’, which he summarizes in a footnote. Since his own summary must be more reliable than anything I could manage myself I reproduce it here in its entirety: In John v. 19–20a (down to . . . αὐτὸς ποιεῖ) we have a perfectly realistic description of a son apprenticed to his father’s trade. He does not act on his own initiative; he watches his father at work, and performs each operation as his father performs it. The affectionate father shows the boy all the secrets of his craft. So far there is no single expression which is not appropriate in describing a situation in real life. The passage is a true parable. In the verses which follow (20b–30) it is interpreted and applied in allegorical fashion, in a classical exposition of basic Johannine Christology: the métier of the heavenly Father is κρίνειν καὶ ζῳοποιεῖν, and the incarnate Son dutifully carries out the work of the Father. [1963: 386 n. 2]

In accordance with the primary purpose of his book Dodd concludes his study of what he calls Parabolic Forms by stating as a high probability that for these John drew independently upon the common and primitive tradition, ‘and that he has preserved valuable elements in that tradition which the Synoptic evangelists have neglected’ (1963: 387). 203

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In fact the ‘Hidden Parable’ article is largely devoted to a wide-ranging study of the phenomenon of trade apprenticeship in the ancient Near and Middle East, drawing first upon the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and secondly upon a much earlier essay by Lorenz Dürr (1932). Dodd’s article concludes with the observation that there is slight but sufficient evidence to justify the assertion ‘that among the Jews of Palestine, as in the Hellenistic world, it was normal for an artisan father to teach the technique of his trade to his son’ (1968: 38). In particular Dodd cites a passage from the Mishnah that refers to two Jewish families who ran traditional businesses for the temple, one, the Garmus, baking the shewbread, and the other, the Abtinas, preparing the incense (m. Yoma 3.11, in Dodd 1968: 37 n. 2.). So ‘when the evangelist speaks of a father who, because he loves his son, shows him everything that he himself does, and of a son who, instead of acting on his own initiative, watches his father at work and does exactly as he does, he is describing in the simplest and most realistic terms a perfectly familiar situation in everyday life. It is a significant detail’, adds Dodd, ‘that the apprentice watches his father at work. The picture is drawn from artisan life; the father is one who works with his hands, and the son learns by copying his actions.’ Thus this passage ‘conforms to all criteria for the true parable. It might be called the parable of the Son as Apprentice’ (Dodd 1968: 38–9). Dodd already has enough material, one might think, to make his case, but whereas in Historical Tradition he habitually uses evidence drawn from the Synoptic Gospels simply to illustrate parallel forms, in this essay, to add extra colour, he appeals directly to a verse in Mark in which Jesus is called a τέκτων (Mark 6:3) and a verse in Matthew where he is said to be the son of a τέκτων (Matt. 13:55). For the form of the parable he points to a number of brief passages in Luke. This is the final paragraph of the essay: There is thus good ground for believing that the parable of the Son as Apprentice was not originally composed by the author of the Fourth Gospel, but drawn by him from the general reservoir of primary tradition which also supplied parables to the other evangelists. Can we go further? If it is true that Jesus was himself both τέκτων and τέκτων υἱός, then it is hardly too bold a conjecture that we may have here an echo of his own words, recalling memories of the years of his youth when he learnt his trade in the family workshop at Nazareth. [1968: 40]

Knowing that the word τέκτων may be applied to any kind of artisan and is not necessarily restricted to practitioners of the craft of carpentry, Dodd prudently refrains from translating it. He seems, however, to have been

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thinking of Jesus as the humble carpenter’s son depicted in the Christ in the House of His Parents of the pre-Raphaelite Sir John Everett Millais (a painting that attracted the scorn of Charles Dickens, who called it, in Household Words, ‘mean, odious, revolting and repulsive’). Like Millais, and virtually all biographers of Jesus, Dodd was combining the evidence from Matthew and Mark concerning the job of Jesus’ father with the Lucan tradition that places his childhood home in Nazareth. Dodd remarks that Dürr takes Matthew’s phrase, ‘son of a τέκτων’, to be no more than a Semitic idiom for τέκτων (translated by Dürr, less cautious than Dodd, as Faber or Zimmermann). Against this Dodd observes that ‘Matthew’s expression is ὁ τοῦ τέκτονος υἰός (sic) and the two articles seem to rule out Dürr’s interpretation. Besides’, he adds, quite rightly, ‘the context, in Matthew as in Mark, requires a reference to family relationship’ (Dodd 1968: 37 n. 3). In any case perhaps we should rather be thinking of a skilled craftsman of a superior kind (joiner, mason, cooper?), quite possibly working in neighbouring Sepphoris, which was rebuilt and fortified by Herod Antipas, as Josephus tells us (AJ 18.27) to make it ‘the protection (πρόσχημα) of all Galilee’.1 Sepphoris, seemingly the centre of the rebellion against Rome that followed the death of Herod in 4 bce, was put to the flames by Varus, the Roman governor of Syria. Antipas, Herod’s successor (always called Herod in the Gospels), may have waited until Varus’s departure before beginning the work of rebuilding, because to have started it sooner might well have been considered a serious affront by the governor. He is unlikely to have had to wait very long, because Roman legates were seldom in post for more than three years.2 So the rebuilding of Sepphoris may well have started soon enough to make it necessary to call upon nearby craftsmen during Jesus’ childhood and early youth. And Sepphoris, after all, was only four miles distant from Nazareth, a comfortable hour’s walk for a fit young man, as Richard A. Batey has reminded us (1991). Could Jesus, for instance, have participated, as joiner or mason, in the construction of the fine theatre? Dodd will have pictured Jesus working 1

2

The word πρόσχημα – something held in front of (προέχω) – commonly means ‘ornament’, which is how it is usually translated in this passage (Loeb, Schürer); but walls are built round towns (τειχίζειν) not to beautify but to fortify. The walls of Sepphoris were rebuilt first to protect the city itself and secondly the whole of the region. If Josephus had been thinking of architectural beauty he would surely have considered the true jewel of Galilee to be the new capital, Tiberias, built much later. Varus was certainly gone by 9 ce, because in that year he was commanding a legion in Germany, where his shattering defeat by the forces of Arminius put an end to the expansion of the Roman Empire eastwards beyond the Rhine, with momentous consequences for the future of the whole of Europe.

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in a carpenter’s shop in Nazareth rather than on a building-site in Sepphoris; in any case he was departing from his original brief by offering an image of Jesus in his youth or childhood that is a world apart from anything that might have excited the interest of the Fourth Evangelist. Almost all later commentators who have read Dodd’s essay make some appreciative mention of it. Only a few, apparently, are aware of the very short study by P. Gaechter (1963). Writing independently of Dodd, Gaechter too focuses upon the widespread practice of family apprenticeship. He ignores Dodd’s Hellenistic examples but, like Dodd, cites the families that baked the shewbread and prepared the incense. He too finds a parable in John 5:19; but whereas, as we shall see, Dodd bases his argument entirely on the use of the definite article in parables or Bildworte, Gaechter makes the additional observation that the Greek of John 5:19 is probably based upon a Semitism, the use of the definite form of the noun in sayings involving a type (1963: 67). So, again like Dodd, he sees the use of the definite article in this passage as evidence that we have here a general statement concerning a father instructing his son in his own craft. As well as emphasizing the parabolic nature of the first one-and-a-half verses (5:19–20a), Dodd contrasts this with the allegorical nature of what follows (vv. 20b–30), ‘the father and son of the parable becoming God the Father and Christ the Son . . . But the allegorical interpretation’, he insists, ‘is in no way necessary to the understanding of the picture drawn in the parable’ (1968: 31–2). Then, towards the end of his essay, with reference to the picture of family apprenticeship in the parable, he adds: ‘This detail is not made use of in the theological exposition which follows; it is not a feature dictated by the requirements of the deeper meaning which is to be conveyed’ (1968: 39); and at this point he inserts an important footnote: Undoubtedly, when once the allegorical approach is established in the reader’s mind he will discover symbolic meanings in all manner of details; and so here the words βλέπῇ τὸν πατέρα will remind him of the highly theological doctrine of vi. 46, ὁ ὢν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ οὔτος (sic) ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα, and this was probably intended by the evangelist; but it is not the theology that has produced the realistic detail of the parable.

Dodd’s argument depends for its plausibility upon the truth of his assertion, right at the beginning of his essay, that ‘the article with πατήρ and υἱός is generic, indicating that the statement applies to any father and any son. (This is normal in parables or Bildworte)’ (1968: 31). But the opening assertion that ‘the Son can do nothing ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ’ is unquestionably a selfreference, clarified later in the discourse by a shift from the third to the first

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person: ‘I can do nothing ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ’ (5:30). To translate it as ‘a son can do nothing of his own accord’ would be wrong: the article here is not, pace both Dodd and Gaechter, generic, but specific. Dodd quite rightly points out that in parables or Bildworte the subject is regularly definite.3 Yet clearly the use of the definite article does not in itself prove the presence of a parable. Neither scholar has noticed that the parable, if there is one, comes after the opening statement; this concerns the Son’s inability to act independently of his Father and has nothing to do with the parable, which is simply concerned with a boy watching, learning from, and imitating his father. Moreover if there is indeed a parable lying behind the words ‘only what he sees the Father doing’ it is, as the title of Dodd’s essay indicates, a hidden parable. To insist, as he does, upon the difference between the parable in the first sentence and the allegory that follows (1968: 39), is to shrug off any obligation to explain the overt significance of Jesus’ claim that he ‘sees what the Father is doing’. We may observe too that neither in the section of Dodd’s earlier book in which the whole discourse is discussed (1953: 320–8) nor in the occasional references to John 5:19–20 elsewhere in that book does he either quote or comment upon this claim. Yet in cutting off what he calls the parable from the allegory he is choosing to ignore the clear meaning of the text. In parabolic utterances the use of the definite article is to be accounted for by the convention, common to Semitic languages, including Akkadian, according to which the definite form of the noun is used in sayings involving a type. (This is a point well made by both Dürr and Gaechter.) Yet ‘the Son can do nothing of his own accord’ is not as it stands a parabolic statement. If it were, it would have to be translated ‘a son’, like ‘a lamp’ (Dodd), and ‘a sower’ (Gaechter). Formally speaking, it is no different from what Dodd calls ‘the theological exposition which follows’, and it has many parallels elsewhere in the Gospel (cf. 6:38; 7:16; 8:28, 42; 12:49). When other scholars, unwilling or unable to escape the commentator’s tacit obligation to say something about every single verse in the Gospel, do reflect upon this passage, the result, almost without exception, is a limp paraphrase. Here, as a typical example, I quote from the commentary of Andrew Lincoln, not because it is any feebler than the rest, but because it is the most recent commentary (in English) to which I have ready access: 3

In Mark 4:21, for instance, we have to translate, ‘is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel . . . ?’ But the Greek is ὁ λύχνος: cf. Matt. 12:43; 23:24; Mark 3:27 – all examples cited by Dodd (1968: 31 n. 3). Gaechter (1963: 67) cites the parable of the sower – ὁ σπείρων in all three Synoptics: Matt. 13:3; Mark 4:3; Luke 8:5.

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The vision of God It is a common experience of those who resort to commentaries on the Bible in the hope of enlightenment to find that the most puzzling and refractory passages elicit the fewest explanations. (The Johannine aporias are a good example. Another is John 13:32.) Not that this particular passage, on the face of it, is especially complex. The syntax is simple, the language limpid. But for Jesus to suggest that, as he was performing a miraculous cure, he was watching and imitating his Father – what can this mean? There is no problem about discerning the purpose of the assertion: not only is Jesus claiming divine authority for his actions, he is associating his own action with the life-giving activity of God, and as the discourse proceeds he also assumes the authority to judge. These are extreme claims, but they are not hard to understand. The difficulty lies in finding a context for the extraordinary idea that God deliberately demonstrated his working methods to the Son. When and where did he do this? If, confronted with this question, we find ourselves at a loss how to reply, we may relieve our sense of helplessness and disarray by answering that the question itself is inappropriate. Why? Because Jesus is speaking metaphorically. In speaking of himself as watching and imitating God, he is simply affirming as graphically as possible that he has divine authority for his actions. Dodd may be thought to provide part of the solution with his suggestion of a hidden parable. Paradoxically, however, in revealing the parable he is concealing the problem. We may simplify this somewhat by altering it. Instead of asking when – for in this passage we find the present tense and elsewhere (6:46 and 8:38) the past – let us ask instead what was the Fourth Evangelist’s justification in the first place for speaking of Jesus’ direct vision of God? There is nothing in Dodd’s essay to tell us how he would answer this question, but, although in neither of his big books has he anything to say about John 5:19, he does comment briefly on 6:46, the verse mentioned in

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a note of ‘Hidden Parable’ that alludes to its ‘highly theological doctrine’ – a comment calculated less to clarify than to bemuse, for the theology, if this is a correct observation, is left unexplained. Following a remark concerning the Fourth Evangelist’s presupposition that the Age to Come has arrived and that eternal life is already here, he continues: Nevertheless, the maxim holds good: θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε (i. 18). Of one only can such direct vision of God be predicated: οὑχ ὅτι τὸν πατέρα ἑώρακέν τις εἰ μὴ ὁ ὢν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, οῦτος ἑώρακέν τὸν πατέρα (vi. 46). The knowledge which Christ has of God, therefore, has that quality of direct vision . . . which for Jewish thinkers was reserved for the supernatural life of the Age to Come. This knowledge which is vision He mediates to men in the sense, ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα (xiv. 9), ὁ θεωρῶν ἐμὲ θεωρεῖ τὸν πέμψαντά με (xii. 45). [1953: 167]

I have two comments to make about this paragraph. In the first place it is to be observed that John 6:46 contradicts 1:18. Unlike 3:13, which specifically allows for a single exception (no one except the Son of Man), the last verse of the Prologue, very forcibly expressed (‘no one has ever seen God’), does not. The contradiction should first be acknowledged, and then explained. My own explanation is simply that in the second edition of the Gospel, which was the first to incorporate both the Prologue and chapter 6, the Evangelist, although broadly welcoming the insights of the Prologue, feels that he must modify them slightly so as to allow for the truth, as he sees it, that ὁ ὢν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, the one who is from God, can be said to have seen God, because it is from that very vision that he derives his authority to reveal to others what he knows. But it is surely in the highest degree unlikely that in formulating an explicit denial that anyone had seen God, the author of the Prologue was making a mental exception for the one he calls μονογονὴς θεός /υἱός.4 One of the great mysteries of Johannine scholarship is the widespread assumption (which I myself once shared) that whenever Jesus, in the body of the Gospel, speaks of seeing or having seen God, he is referring to some strange vision in a pre-existent past. The reason for this assumption is the extraordinary conceptual difficulty that arises when a heavenly being, the Logos, is identified with a human being, Jesus Christ. Behind this identification lies the remarkable leap of religious imagination performed by Ben Sira and Greek Baruch when they 4

The knowledge that he possesses comes not from vision but from propinquity, exactly that propinquity claimed by Wisdom: ‘when he established the heavens I was there . . . when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him (‫ )אצלו‬like a master workman(?), rejoicing in his inhabited world’ (Prov. 8:27–31).

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identified wisdom with the law. When wisdom tabernacled on earth in the form of the law, from being eternal (‫)בכל־עת‬, Prov. 8:30, she suddenly acquired a history. However, if the law was ever thought of as dwelling alongside God it was not with the human faculties of seeing and hearing. And it is a mistake, I believe, to attribute to the human Jesus, when he speaks of seeing God, a power that could only have been exercised before he came to be identified as the incarnate Logos. The imaginative feat of the author of the Prologue, in identifying Jesus Christ as the eternal Logos, more than matched that of Ben Sira and Greek Baruch. But could he possibly have thought of Jesus, on the occasions when he speaks of seeing God, as reaching back in his mind and memory to a time when he himself had not yet been born? Like most commentators Dodd believes that the Prologue should govern our understanding of all that follows: ‘this pre-temporal (or more properly, non-temporal) existence of the Son is affirmed with emphasis, and assumed all through the gospel’ (1953: 260). But in the early history of the members of the Johannine community, living alongside their Jewish neighbours in the synagogue, there was no thought of Jesus as a mythical divine being existing close to God before he took flesh and entered the world. That conviction came later, though soon enough to influence the composition of chapter 6, which itself belongs to the second edition of the Gospel. For nowhere else in the Gospel does Jesus state so directly and unequivocally, ‘I have come down from heaven’ (6:38; cf. 6:42), in the language of descent associated elsewhere with the Son of Man. This statement, therefore, depends both upon the realization, quite late in the history of the community, that Jesus had descended from heaven as the angelic figure of the Son of Man (see Ashton 2011) (and had also of course re-ascended there, as he foretells in 6:62), and upon the acceptance of the central tenets of the Prologue. (Yet, as I have just remarked, the affirmation that he has seen the Father (6:46) conflicts with the categorical denial of the Prologue that anyone has seen God.) The Prologue is anti-apocalyptic. God’s plan for the world (the Logos) is not revealed by a visionary seer who has seen God and is consequently in a position to pass on his knowledge to others. Rather it takes the form of a theophany (‘we have gazed on his glory’), a form of God’s communication with the world found very often in the Bible. The revelation or ‘exposition’ (ἐξήγησις) of God made by Jesus Christ is not, according to the Prologue, the consequence of a vision. That form of revelation is what the supporters of Moses maintain (it is a constant theme in the Jewish tradition), but they are wrong to do so. Nor is it the case that the Jesus Christ of the Prologue

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acts as an angelus interpres, expounding and explaining a new revelation. No: he is the embodiment of that revelation. ‘Grace and truth’, states the Prologue, ‘came about through Jesus Christ’ (1:17). But for the Fourth Evangelist Jesus Christ is the truth. There are three distinct myths or metaphors in the Gospel used to indicate Jesus’ entry into the world, all of them stemming from Jewish tradition. These should not be confused (although the last two are eventually blended together). The first is the wisdom tradition of the Prologue, which corresponds to an equivalent tradition in the Hebrew Bible. Neither the word λόγος nor the tradition that it resumes and exemplifies is repeated or alluded to anywhere else in the Gospel. The second is the mission tradition, seen particularly clearly in 8:42: ‘I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.’ The third is the ascent/descent motif connected with the Son of Man, which closely parallels the biblical Moses tradition elaborated by the rabbis. According to this tradition the law was delivered to Israel by Moses after an ascent of Mount Sinai frequently thought of as an ascent as far as heaven (see Bühner 1977: 271–315). This explains why the Gospel constantly emphasizes how the new revelation of Jesus has superseded the Mosaic law. The emphatic contrast between Moses and Christ with which the Prologue concludes is no doubt one of the features that prompted the Evangelist to accept it as a fitting preface to his work. The point at which myth and history collide and fuse is in the very last sentence, indeed the very last word: [ὁ] μονογενὴς υἱὸς [θεὸς] ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο: ‘it is the only begotten Son, [now back] in the Father’s bosom, who was his manifestation’. There are different possible renderings of the verb ἐξηγεῖσθαι, which occurs nowhere else in the Gospel. It is especially problematic here because it apparently has no object, whereas in classical Greek, whenever it has the sense of ‘interpret’ or ‘explain’, it is always transitive. Most translations assume an object for ἐξηγήσατο, namely αὐτόν, referring to the Father; but this makes it hard to find a rendering that does justice either to the general sense of the Prologue itself or to the body of the Gospel, where Jesus conspicuously refrains from saying anything about God that could be construed as an interpretation or explanation. (This is what accounts for the plausibility of Bultmann’s famous assertion that ‘the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel reveals nothing more than that he is the Revealer’). So it is up to the translator/ exegete to decide upon the manner – and matter – of the revelation that is being proclaimed. There is no intentional allusion here to the many occasions in the Gospel in which Jesus uses the terms ‘Father’ or ‘the one who sent me’, for these are simply ways of stating his own identity.

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Rather, ἐξηγήσατο, in a proper use of the Greek Middle Voice whereby the results of the action are confined to the subject of the verb, surely alludes either to the divine theophany announced earlier in the phrase ‘we have gazed on his glory’ (1:14) – or to the very person of Jesus – or to the Gospel itself (because the medium is the message). It is not just that the only-begotten Son manifested the Father: he was the manifestation, in his life and teaching on earth, and in his passion and resurrection. It was this extraordinary insight, no doubt, that persuaded the Evangelist to embrace the Prologue and adapt it as the preface to his own work. For he had already pictured Jesus proclaiming that ‘he who gazes upon me gazes upon him who sent me’ (12:45) and as answering Philip’s request to be shown the Father by informing him that ‘he who has seen me has seen the Father’ (14:9). The Prologue opens in heaven, whereas the body of the Gospel begins (and continues) on earth. It starts (how else?) with a human Jesus. And at this point I must add my second comment on Dodd’s observations about 6:46, which concerns his truly astonishing assertion that for Jewish thinkers any direct vision of God ‘was reserved for the life to come’ (1953: 167). It is astonishing, both because of the absolute assurance with which it is made and also because it could not be further from the truth. I have no need myself to demonstrate the falsity of Dodd’s position, for this has already been done by Christopher Rowland in his pioneering book, The Open Heaven (1982). Rowland had no cause to refer to Dodd’s Interpretation in this book – and he did not – but in the first three parts, where he discusses apocalyptic traditions before the common era, and in the fourth, ‘The Esoteric Tradition in Early Rabbinic Judaism’, he produces an overwhelming amount of evidence that shows very clearly the importance of the visionary tradition in early and later Judaism. In spite of this abundant evidence I know of only one scholar bold enough to suggest that underlying John’s Christology there is hidden an early apocalyptic tradition that Jesus ascended into heaven as a visionary seer, and was granted sight of God. In his masterly but totally neglected study (1977), Jan-Adolf Bühner flies in the face of the virtually universal assumption that, wherever in the Gospel Jesus speaks of seeing God, he can only be referring to what is generally called his pre-existence. Yet before considering the possibility of an underlying visionary tradition, it is best to start by looking at the parable in context. The first charge that the Jews brought against Jesus was of performing his work of healing on the sabbath, a charge answered by Jesus with the words, ‘My father is working still, and I am working’ (5:17), an answer which the Jews took to

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mean that he was making himself equal with God. In the long discourse that followed the Evangelist expanded upon this answer, first with the saying we are now discussing, secondly by extending the idea of healing to that of giving life and judging (‘for as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and has given him the authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man’ (5:26–7)), and thirdly with the statement that ‘I can do nothing on my own authority’ (5:30), a rejection of the charge that he was making himself equal with God. The emphatic admission of total dependence in this final statement, whose full significance was brought out by Peder Borgen’s work on the law of agency (1968), is simply a reassertion of Jesus’ initial statement, ‘the Son can do nothing of his own accord’ (5:19) – ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ in the first instance, ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ in the second – and as I have pointed out, this involves much more than the simple idea (required by the parable) of a boy watching and imitating the actions of his father. But where did the Evangelist derive his assurance that Jesus had actually seen God? Added at a relatively late stage of the composition of the Gospel, chapter 6, as one might expect, also represents a late stage of the Evangelist’s Christological thinking. I have already pointed out that it apparently includes a correction of the statement of the Prologue that no one has ever seen God, because in 6:46 Jesus asserts on the contrary that ‘no one has ever seen the Father except the one who is from God’. This affirmation, which conflicts with the generally anti-apocalyptic stance of the Prologue, stems from an entirely different tradition, one best exhibited, as Bühner has shown, in the follow-up to the discussion with Nicodemus in chapter 3. It is here that we find the explicit justification of Jesus’ statement that he is speaking of what he knows and bearing witness to what he has seen (3:11), namely that he had ascended into heaven (3:13), a claim that, as Hugo Odeberg argued long ago (1929), must be seen as a polemical denial of counterclaims made on behalf of other Jewish seers, notably Moses and Enoch. The difficulty with this thesis, evidently, is that there is no room in the Fourth Gospel for an actual account of Jesus’ ascent into heaven to receive special revelations. He manifested his glory as early as the marriage-feast at Cana (2:11), and that glory never left him. Nevertheless it is by appealing to just such a tradition that we can best account for the references in the Gospel to Jesus’ vision of God. It is no use objecting to this by waving a flag emblazoned with the word THEOLOGY in our faces, for that is not an explanation but an attempt to dissuade us from asking for one.

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Bühner distinguishes two strands in the tradition of an apocalyptic vision, the first a strand in which the emphasis is upon the correspondence between Jesus’ earthly discourse and his heavenly vision, and the second a polemical strand that stresses the exclusive nature of his visionary experience (1977: 365). If this is right, then the polemical strand must reflect and accompany the increasing hostility between two groups in the synagogue, the disciples of Moses on the one hand and the disciples of Jesus on the other, which is displayed in 3:13 and also in 6:46. Both strands can be seen quite clearly in the long discourse and debate in chapter 5. But the so-called ‘parabolic’ statement in 5:19 (which is what we are discussing here) is such an appropriate defence of his miraculous intervention earlier in the chapter that I am led to suspect it was composed ad hoc. Just possibly Dodd is right to suppose that the Evangelist is making use of a little nugget of a parable that he found ready to hand in a store of traditional sayings. But would he have turned this into a statement concerning Jesus’ vision of the Father had he not already known of a tradition of a heavenly ascent? There is nothing in the Prologue to justify the common assumption that the Evangelist here and elsewhere was thinking of a pre-existent vision; and in any case the Prologue was almost certainly added to the Gospel after chapter 5 was written. It is no doubt true that a tradition of visionary ascent does not really tally with the suggestion that ‘the Son’ was watching what the Father was doing in heaven in order to reproduce this activity in his own behaviour on earth. In the visionary ascents that we find in the Jewish apocalypses, God is not seen to be engaged in the work of giving life and passing judgement. So the hypothesis of an already existing parable, modified so as to fit both the story of the healing miracle and the discourse that followed, cannot be excluded. Dodd points out that what he would like to call the parable of the Son as Apprentice ‘is not a feature dictated by the requirements of the deeper meaning which is to be conveyed’ (1968: 39). But it could be said to be required, or at least naturally elicited, by the Evangelist’s need to defend Jesus’ actions and to emphasize the precise significance of the miracle story that he had inherited. Nevertheless it is hard to believe that he would have written of Jesus watching and imitating the Father if he was not already aware of a strong tradition of visionary ascent.5

5

This is fully discussed by Bühner (1977) and commented upon briefly in my ‘Son of Man’ article (2011).

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WORKS CITED Ashton, John, 2011. ‘The Johannine Son of Man: A New Proposal’. NTS 57: 508–29. Batey, Richard A., 1991. Jesus and the Forgotten City: New Light on Sepphoris and the Urban World of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House. Borgen, Peder, 1968. ‘God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel’. In Jacob Neusner (ed.), Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough. Leiden: Brill, pp. 137–48. Bühner, Jan-Adolf, 1977. Der Gesandte und sein Weg im 4. Evangelium. Die kulturund religionsgeschichtlichen Grundlagen der johanneischen Sendungschristologie sowie ihre traditionsgeschichtliche Entwicklung. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Dodd, C. H., 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1968. ‘A Hidden Parable in the Fourth Gospel’. In More New Testament Essays. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 30–40. Dürr, Lorenz, 1932. Das Erziehungswesen im Alten Testament und im Antiken Orient. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. Gaechter, P., 1963. ‘Zur Form von Joh. 5. 19–30’. In Josef Blinzler, Otto Kuss and Franz Mussner (eds.), Neutestamentliche Aufsätze: Festschrift für Prof. Josef Schmid zum 70. Geburtstag. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, pp. 65–8. Lincoln, Andrew T., 2005. The Gospel According to St. John. London: Continuum. Odeberg, Hugo, 1929. The Fourth Gospel Interpreted in its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World. Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell. Rowland, Christopher, 1982. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity. London: SPCK Press.

chapter 12

The anointing in John 12:1–8: a tale of two hypotheses Wendy E. S. North

The fact is that the thought of this gospel is so original and creative that a search for its ‘sources’, or even for the ‘influences’ by which it may have been affected, may easily lead us astray. Whatever influences 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 (1953: 6). 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 (1953: 451–2). Ten years later, Dodd published Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (HTFG), which was devoted to developing that task. This chapter will focus exclusively on that section of HTFG 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 (1963: 162–73). 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 support of this proposal, I shall attempt a detailed description of how and why John chose to depict the anointing scene as he did.

John 12:1–8: Dodd’s hypothesis 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 John 12:1–8 as ‘a completely self-contained unit’ – that is, a distinct narrative whose form indicates a basis in oral tradition. 216

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Having isolated it as such, he then compares and contrasts it in detail with its Synoptic counterparts in Mark 14:3–9 and in Luke 7:36–50 (1963: 162–6). Secondly, Dodd ‘tentatively’ adopts the alternative hypothesis that John is dependent on Mark (1963: 166). He finds least problematic those points of abbreviation, expansion, and attachment of names to anonymous characters that we find 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 first is John’s description of the act of anointing, in which, it could seem, John is as directly dependent on Luke as he was earlier on Mark. Dodd is aghast at the thought: ‘I find it very difficult to conceive of John, with Luke (ex hypothesi) in his hands, deliberately transferring this description to a character [Mary of Bethany] 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’ (1963: 167). 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 neither 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 flatly contradict it, but I do find it hard to imagine him going out of his way to introduce such a statement by way of a “correction” of Mark’ (1963: 168). It is on these two bases, namely the description of the act of anointing in Lucan terms in a Marcan setting and the substitution of the Johannine form of the reply of Jesus about the ointment for the Marcan, that Dodd rejects the hypothesis of John’s direct dependence on both Mark and Luke (1963: 169). Thirdly, Dodd warms to his theme by digressing to consider two examples where ‘certain details of a story seem to have wandered from one pericopé to another’ (1963: 169). The first is Luke 10:25–8 where what Dodd calls a ‘mechanical application of the theory of documentary sources’ would suggest that Luke has ‘copied’ from Mark 10:17 and 12:29, transferring the latter ‘strangely enough’ from Jesus to the lawyer in dialogue with him. Dodd finds this ‘completely incredible as an account of the actions of a reasonable person’, and proposes instead that a ‘cross-combination’ of

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data has occurred during the period of oral transmission of the tradition rather than in composition from literary sources (1963: 169–70). The second example involves Matt. 9:27–31 and 20:29–34 in relation to Mark 10:46–52. In the case of the second Matthean passage, Dodd considers that ‘literary dependence [on Mark] is hardly in doubt’ (1963: 170). 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 final form in which it was written down (1963: 170–1). Fourthly and finally, 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 difficulties 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 specifies 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 (1963: 172–3). 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 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’ (1963: 173). 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.

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First, Dodd’s implementation of a form-critical approach in relation to John 12:1–8 fails to do justice to the control that John exercises over his narrative and the measures he takes to ensure its continuity and flow. Indeed, this narrative cohesion is particularly marked in chapters 11 and 12, which John has clearly intended to be taken as a literary unit, ‘un grand diptyque’ (Mourlon Beernaert 1981: 135, emphasis his; see North 2001: 124). Note, for example, how the Lazarus story in chapter 11 and the anointing in chapter 12 share the same characters and setting. Note also how John has deliberately pointed up the link in his anticipatory reference to the anointing in 11:2. To remove John 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 Marcan and Lucan counterparts, he finds himself confronted with a decidedly Lucan version of the anointing in a context which otherwise owes much to Mark, and cannot imagine why this should be so. Restore John 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. As we have seen, they have been primed to expect this as early as 11:2, in an aside that takes the form of a reminder (North 2003: 459–60, 466). 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 in keeping with her known role. Secondly, 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 around 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 10:25–8 and even on Matthew, whose literary dependence on Mark is ‘hardly in doubt’, but who cannot be thought to ‘copy’ from Mark twice. The third and final 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 finds this ‘very difficult to conceive of’, and the more so given that Luke’s

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anointer has a shady past (1963: 167). 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 (John 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 finds ‘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 recognizing that Dodd’s argument in HTFG belongs to its time – in this case largely to the 1950s when the research was undertaken – and hence, however influential his work was to become, future developments that may seem commonplace today inevitably fall outside its compass. Even so, 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 final 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.

An alternative hypothesis: John’s composition based on Mark and Luke 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 dependent1 on Mark and on Luke when he composed this account. Working on that assumption, I will first comment briefly 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. 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 1

In what follows, I shall not adopt Dodd’s phrase ‘literary dependence’. This allows for the possibility that John’s knowledge of these gospels could have been acquired by means of oral performance.

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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 first is its unmistakable resemblance to Luke 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 Lucan 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 10:38–42. This identification is unique to John’s Gospel and can be categorized 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 (1980: 42). In other words, at some point prior to the completion of John’s account as we have it, perhaps in an earlier edition (see North 2001: 123), the anointer in Luke 7 and the sister who heard Jesus’ word in Luke 10 have become fused into one. If we hypothesize that John knew Luke, as suggested above, and we add to that the evidence that he was also practised in linking the Scriptures by verbal agreement (so Menken 1996: 52–3), then the identification of the anonymous anointer as Mary could have been made on that basis. Hence, it would surely seem logical that the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet must have been the woman who faithfully sat at them (North 2001: 119). A final 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 figures 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 could have created his account on the basis of his knowledge of Mark and Luke. John 12:1–8: 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.2 This is particularly true of the characters and location in the first three verses, which will already be familiar to 2

Compare here John’s careful narrative construction of chapters 2–4 as a single block ‘From Cana to Cana’; see Moloney 1998: 63–5, 74.

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John’s readers from the previous chapter. Again Lucan influence is in evidence as we learn that Martha now serves the meal (12:2; cf. Luke 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. Luke 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; see Van Belle 1985: 107 and n. 3). 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 flock 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 influence of Mark (Mark 14:3; cf. Matt. 26:6). The anointing In 12:3, John embarks on the act of anointing in fine Marcan form: his description of the ‘ointment of pure nard’ (μύρου νάρδου πιστικῆς) taken up by Mary is a striking verbal parallel with Mark 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 finds ‘very difficult to conceive of’ (1963: 167). Working on the hypothesis that John was familiar with both Gospels – 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.

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Secondly, Dodd’s insistence in HTFG that ‘there is only the slightest possible contact’ between the Marcan and Lucan accounts of the anointing understates the evidence (1963: 162). 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 specific detail in Mark 14:3 and Luke 7:37 that the woman brings to the anointing an alabaster jar of ointment (ἀλάβαστρον μύρου). 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 Lucan 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 chapters 11 and 12, he depicts for the first time in his Gospel a relationship between Jesus and a specific 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 (so, rightly, Esler and Piper 2006: 77–91). This keynote is struck as early as 11:3, where the sisters’ message to Jesus describes Lazarus as ‘he whom you love’(ὃν φιλεῖς) 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’ (φίλος, 11:11; cf. 15:12–13; North 2001: 49–51). 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 (Esler and Piper 2006: 58), for what distinguishes Luke’s anointer above all is, as Jesus makes clear to the Pharisee in 7:47, that ‘she loved much’. 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

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12:3 prefigures those of Jesus himself in 13:3–10, 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 ἐκμάσσειν, ‘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 foot-washing in 13:5.3 It is, moreover, precisely the verb used by Luke in 7:38 (cf. v. 44). A Johannine parenthesis Following his description of the anointing in 12:3, John informs his readers that the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. This detail is unique to John and its purpose here is twofold.4 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 fitting response to Jesus’ own self-giving but also deems it proper in relation to the actual anointing of Jesus’ body for burial later in chapter 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 filled the house then everyone, including Judas Iscariot, could smell it. 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 (Mark 14:4) while Matthew makes a general reference to the disciples (Matt. 26:8). It is John’s custom in such situations to name a single individual rather than an anonymous group (see Sabbe 1992: 2073), 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 first concerns the fact that Mark’s anointing story forms the centre of a typical Marcan ‘sandwich’ structure, with the outer layers in this case given over to the 3 4

Further on links between John 12 and 13, see Sabbe 1982; 1992: 2057. Possibly also some contrast with the stench of death in 11.39 is intended; see Esler and Piper 2006: 67; North 2001: 160–1 n. 159.

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authorities’ dark intentions towards Jesus on the one hand and to Judas’s betrayal of him on the other (Mark 14:1–2, 10–11). As a consequence, Judas Iscariot’s name comes first and foremost in Mark 14:10 and, for John’s purposes, lies conveniently to hand (so also Sabbe 1992: 2064, 2075). Indeed, the similarity between Mark’s description of Judas and John’s reference to him in 12:4, as one of Jesus’ disciples who was about to betray him, is worth noting. The second likely prompt in Mark’s story concerns the words that begin the objection in Mark 14:4, which are also taken up in Matt. 26:8: ‘Why this waste [of ointment]?’: εἰς τί ἡ ἀπώλεια αὕτη; 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’ (ἀπώλεια/ἀπόλλυμι) are already connected in John’s mind. In 12:6, John accuses Judas of being a thief (ὅτι κλέπτης ἦν), 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 figures in John’s presentation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd in chapter 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’ (ἵνα κλέψῃ καὶ θύσῃ καὶ ἀπολέσῃ), 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 ἀπώλεια unmistakable. At this point in Jesus’ final 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’ (εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας), who is undoubtedly Judas. I suggest, therefore, that the question about ἀπώλεια 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 fitting than that the complaint about loss (ἀπώλεια) should be made by the son of it? (North, under Sproston 1987: 28–31). In the complaint itself in 12:5, the Marcan influence we have thus far suspected becomes unmistakable. Here John follows Mark 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. Matt. 26:9). A final point here is that Judas, the money box, and the poor in John’s vilification of him in 12:6 will surface again in 13:29, where the betrayer’s fiscal duties will become an explanation in the minds of some disciples for his sudden exit from the company during supper (v. 30).

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The last two verses of John’s account show every sign of abbreviation and adjustment of Mark 14:6–8. In John 12:7, Jesus’ command, ‘Leave her’, appropriately adjusted to the singular (ἄφες αὐτήν), obviously echoes Mark 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),5 abbreviates Mark 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. Matt. 26:11). However, this need not mean that the aphorism was not original to John, as Dodd would prefer to argue (1963: 165–6); 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 Marcan source in 12:7–8, we will now attempt to discover why he chose to conclude his anointing story in this way. John 12:7 We turn first to Jesus’ enigmatic answer to Judas. According to Mark 14:8, Jesus’ interpretation of the woman’s act is that she was beforehand in anointing his body for burial (προέλαβεν μυρίσαι τὸ σῶμά μου εἰς τὸν ἐνταφιασμόν). 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’ (πρὸς τὸ ἐνταφιάσαι με). John, however, has Jesus insist that Mary keep the ointment for the day of his burial (ἵνα εἰς τὴν ἡμέραν τοῦ ἐνταφιασμοῦ μου τηρήσῃ αὐτό), which is not the same thing at all. It is clear from the extent of the rewording, in which only Mark’s ἐνταφιασμός 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. ἐνταφιάζειν). This means that John cannot leave matters Marcan as they stand; on the

5

He has not taken up Mark 14.9. This omission need not surprise us, for John does not generally repeat the whole of his source; see Menken 1996: 207 on John’s references to the Jewish Scriptures.

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contrary, the anointing by Mary cannot be final in 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 difficulties. 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 difficulty still’ (1963: 168), 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 Marcan 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 Marcan 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. Secondly, 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 (see Bauckham 1998: 147–71). 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. Luke 23:56; 24:1). In sum, it would seem that John, already working with Mark in his head, has had difficulty with Mark’s narrative at one point (14:8) and has looked to Mark’s narrative at another (16:1) to

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supply the future orientation he needs.6 Put otherwise, Jesus’ words in John 12:7 make Marcan 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.7 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. 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 (so also Sabbe 1992: 2064). In his final words here, Jesus articulates for the first time what he has known from the moment he decided to return to Judea (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.

Conclusion And so to conclude this tale of two hypotheses, the first 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 plausibility of the second hypothesis as argued herein, 6

7

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’ (1978: 414). Pace Esler and Piper 2006: 68–74, there is no suggestion in John that the spices borne by Nicodemus were provided by Mary.

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however, 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;8 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 being of the essence of this Gospel, namely, the powerful and independent mind of the Fourth Evangelist. WORKS CITED Barrett, C. K., 1978. The Gospel According to St John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text. 2nd edn. London: SPCK. Bauckham, R., 1998. ‘John for Readers of Mark’. In R. Bauckham (ed.), The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, pp. 147–71. Dodd, C. H., 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Esler, Philip F. and Ronald A. Piper, 2006. Lazarus, Mary and Martha: A SocialScientific and Theological Reading of John. London: SCM Press. Menken, Maarten J. J., 1996. Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form. Biblical Exegesis and Theology 15. Kampen: Kok Pharos. 8

The same may apply to the unusual ἐμβριμάομαι in Mark 14.5, which is absent from John 12, but attributed to Jesus in 11.33, 38; see North 2001: 152–3.

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Metzger, Bruce M., 1980. ‘Names for the Nameless in the New Testament: A Study in the Growth of Christian Tradition’. In New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic. New Testament Tools and Studies 10. Leiden: Brill, pp. 23–43. Moloney, F. J., 1998. The Gospel of John. Sacra Pagina 4. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press. Mourlon Beernaert, Pierre, 1981. ‘Parallélisme entre Jean 11 et 12: Etude de structure littéraire et théologique’. In A.-L. Descamps et al. (eds.), Genèse et structure d’un texte du Nouveau Testament: Etude interdisciplinaire du chapître 11 de l’évangile de Jean. Lectio Divina 104. Paris: Cerf; Louvain-LaNeuve: Cabay, pp. 123–49. North, Wendy E. S., 2001. The Lazarus Story within the Johannine Tradition. JSNT Supp 212. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. 2003. ‘John for Readers of Mark? A Response to Richard Bauckham’s Proposal’. JSNT 25: 449–68. Sabbe, Maurits, 1982. ‘The Footwashing in Jn 13 and Its Relation to the Synoptic Gospels’. ETL 57: 279–308 and 1991. Studia Neotestamentica. Collected Essays. BETL 98. Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 409–41. 1992. ‘The Anointing of Jesus in John 12,1–8 and Its Synoptic Parallels’. In Frans van Segbroek et al. (eds.), The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck. 3 vols. BETL 100. Leuven: Leuven University Press, vol. III, pp. 2051–82. Sproston [now North], Wendy E., 1987. ‘“The Scripture” in John 17.12’. In Barry P. Thompson (ed.), Scripture: Meaning and Method. Hull: Hull University Press, pp. 24–36. Van Belle, Gilbert, 1985. Les Parenthèses dans l’évangile de Jean: Aperçu historique et classification texte grec de Jean. Studiorum Novi Testamenti Auxilia 11. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

chapter 13

Eucharist and Passover: the two ‘loci’ of the liturgical commemoration of the Last Supper in the early church Michael Theobald (Translation from German: Timothy B. Sailors) C. H. Dodd deserves credit for having demonstrated, already fifty years ago, that the Fourth Gospel is based on traditions that are independent of the written forms of the three Synoptic Gospels. This is especially the case in the tradition of the passion narrative, which – unlike John 1–11 – nevertheless appears to be particularly close to the three oldest Gospels. Whereas the Fourth Evangelist is only marginally concerned in the first half of his book with sayings traditions, drawing upon his own tradition of dominical sayings (‘Herrenworte’; see Theobald 2002), from chapter 12 onwards, he follows a fixed narrative thread, one that begins with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and ends with appearances of the resurrected Jesus there – that is, a narrative thread that largely parallels the passion narrative in the Gospel of Mark. It is therefore quite tempting, particularly in this section, to presuppose literary dependence of the Fourth Gospel upon the Gospel of Mark or even upon the other Gospels. Dodd withstood this temptation, in that he demonstrated, in a way that remains largely persuasive to this day, that the Johannine passion narrative is not the result of having been pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle, in which elements from the Synoptics were recombined like a mosaic (Lang 1999), but rather stems from its own stream of tradition. One may still build upon this observation even today.

Research on the Passion and Easter Narrative since C. H. Dodd Naturally, scholarship has continued to develop since Dodd, and this in two ways. On the one hand, a renewed return (I would speak of a ‘regression’) to an older position is discernible, in particular when much European Johannine research, under the influence of F. Neyrinck (1977; 1979) and his students, is once more claiming a literary dependence of John on the Synoptics. On the other hand – and this alone is of interest here – further questions have been posed on the basis of Dodd’s fundamental observations, 231

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particularly regarding the Passion and Easter Narrative (hereafter ‘PEN’). I should like to take up and expand upon these questions here: 1. Is it sufficient to assume that the Fourth Evangelist drew upon oral tradition, or is the complex narrative structure of the PEN, in which the so-called ‘cleansing of the temple’ in John 2:14–22* should be included, better explained by assuming the existence of a fixed, written version? F. Schleritt (2007) has, to my mind, convincingly shown the second alternative to be correct: the Fourth Evangelist had access to a fixed, written PEN that he redacted and revised in various ways. Three aspects stand out as part of this revision: (a) the anticipatory narrative of the so-called ‘cleansing of the temple’ in John 2, (b) the separation of the interrogation of Jesus by the high priest from the context of the PEN and its partial anticipation in John 10:24–5, 33–6 (par. Luke 22:67–70) and (c) the pervasive theological reworking of the source, particularly in the trial before Pilate. 2. At the pre-gospel stage of the tradition, is one to postulate earlier forms of only the Marcan and Johannine passion narratives, or were there also other versions of a PEN? In that Matthew certainly knew only the Marcan passion narrative, which he then redacted and padded with his own special material (one thinks of the story of Judas the betrayer in Matt. 26:14–16 and 27:3–10, or of the dream of Pilate’s wife in Matt. 27:19), the question remains whether, like Mark and John, Luke too had a separate PEN at his disposal. This question has long been intensively discussed and combined with the further question of how the peculiar points of contact between John and Luke are to be explained. H. Klein (2005) has taken the debate in a new direction thanks to a methodological insight that also promises to lead to new insights: namely, when John and Luke agree in verbal or content-related details that are not the result of the individual redaction of the evangelists, one is dealing with vestiges of a pre-existing, common narrative tradition. This would then be analogous to the reconstruction of Q on the basis of passages in which Matthew and Luke agree with one another, while differing from Mark. Klein has shown that there are indeed a whole series of such similarities between Luke and John, distributed across ‘the entire Passion and Easter story, beginning with the decision of the Sanhedrin to arrest Jesus up to the appearance to the Twelve’ (2005: 79 [trans. from the German], see 66–79 for the individual evidence). ‘With the extent of the similarities between Luke and John’, so he continues, it is, on the other hand,

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‘striking, that the large insertions of Luke into the Marcan material have almost no parallel in John. This has not yet been sufficiently considered. The scene before Herod (Luke 23:5–16), the lament over Jerusalem (Luke 23:28–31), the representation of the thief on the cross (Luke 23:39–43) and the Emmaus story are neither incorporated by John, nor even alluded to . . . This suggests that John, or, more likely, his tradition, knew not Luke, but rather Luke’s Vorlage’ (2005: 79–80 [trans. from the German]). The conclusion that can be drawn from this, in view of the Lucan PEN, is as follows: in addition to the Gospel of Mark, the Third Evangelist also drew upon a separate PEN that must have been a version of the pre-Johannine narrative. It probably existed already in written form (Klein 2005: 82) and came from his own community. It would be interesting to know just how the passion and Easter traditions were preserved in it and how we could more precisely envisage the process through which this tradition was transmitted. What then was the Sitz im Leben of the passion and Easter tradition in the early Church? It is first important to note that, according to the hypotheses discussed so far, there was not only a pre-Marcan, but also a pre-Lucan and pre-Johannine PEN. Since the latter two are related to one another, they must share a common ancestor (Schleritt 2007). There was very likely an original ur-narrative that branched out to form, on the one hand, the pre-Marcan and, on the other hand, the pre-Lucan and pre-Johannine traditions. This diversity in a narrative complex that was so important for nascent Christianity, and is marked by both a wealth of variants and stability, leads to the following thesis: Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah naturally continued to celebrate, in keeping with their tradition, the festival of Passover as ‘Easter’ (Rouwhorst 1996; 2008: 539–45; Auf der Maur 2003), but they likely did so now in commemoration of Jesus of Nazareth, who was arrested on account of his provocative entrance into the temple before the festival of Passover, probably in the year 30, interrogated by the temple hierarchy, and transferred to the Romans. They executed him, by crucifixion, as an alleged insurgent against the occupying regime. For the community of disciples, the death of their master was the prime crisis, the severity of which cannot be underestimated. It threatened to dissolve their circle and to bring to naught Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God. Visionary experiences of individual disciples (Simon Peter, James, Mary Magdalene) and also of groups of disciples (the Eleven) probably provided the first impulse

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Michael Theobald needed to overcome the crisis (see 1 Cor. 15:3–7 and John 20:11–18). These visionary experiences were unanimously interpreted to signify that the God of Israel had vindicated the crucified one through his ‘resurrection’ and that he had ‘appeared’ to his followers. This led to a reworking of his fate through an intensive exercise of remembrance that found expression in the language of the ur-narratives of his passion and resurrection. Commemoration of him would have been carried out within the ‘liturgical’ framework of the annual community celebration of Passover, in which the concrete Sitz im Leben of the PEN is to be found. The earliest direct evidence for a Christian festival of Passover, however, first appears in the second century (in the Epistula Apostolorum, Melito of Sardis, and the earliest stratum of the Didascalia Apostolorum). It has to do with the so-called Quartodeciman celebration of Pascha, which took place on the night of the fourteenth of the month of Nisan, at the same time as the Jewish festival. This tradition was long maintained, especially in Asia Minor and in Syria, before it was eventually supplanted with the festival of Easter celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox (this was the basis for the so-called ‘paschal controversy’ under Bishop Victor of Rome, ad 189–99). The Quartodeciman Pascha is almost universally acknowledged as ‘the earliest form of the Christian Festival of Easter’ (Rouwhorst 2008: 541–42 [trans. from the German]). That no direct witnesses from the first century are preserved does not undermine the supposition that the Quartodeciman Pascha represents a continuous tradition of Jewish–Christian origin. Had there been, for example, no dispute regarding the Lord’s Supper in Corinth, to which Paul had to react, we would know nothing from the Pauline letters about this practice. When it comes to religious traditions, moreover, one must reckon with consistency. For early Jewish Christians, there was no reason to abandon the celebration of Passover. Quite the contrary: because their master gave his life during the festival of Passover, this would then suggest celebrating it in commemoration of him. Even though there are no direct witnesses to a Christian celebration of Passover in the New Testament, there are indeed some indications evocative of one (Jeremias 1954: 900 n. 44), namely, 1 Cor. 5:7, Mark 2:20 (Hengel 2004: 128), the Lucan story of the Passover meal in Luke 22 and Acts 12:3–19 (to be discussed presently), to name just a few. That the PEN is to be allocated to such a celebration as a memoria Jesu can be inferred from, among other things, its paschal features, which took

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shape in different ways (cf. the divergent chronologies of the death of Jesus in John and Mark). The Gospel of John, which originated in Syria (or, less likely, in Asia Minor) (Theobald 2009: 94–8), very likely presupposes this sort of Passover (Blank 1988). What these early Christian Passover celebrations looked like, the context in which they were performed, etc., lie beyond our knowledge. When read as a narrative of deliverance in the context of the festival of Passover (for which there is some evidence; see Strobel 1957–8; Theobald 2006: 151–4), the story in Acts 12:3–19 suggests a celebration on ‘the very night’ (v. 6; cf. Exod. 12:42 lxx) in the context of private ‘house churches’ (explicitly mentioned here is ‘the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark’ (Acts 12:12)). If the Jewish–Christian festival of Passover was indeed the Sitz im Leben of the pre-gospel PENs, this would clarify several things: namely, the stability of the tradition, but also its bifurcation into varying versions corresponding to missionary patterns in the early church. Moreover, it can be assumed that the pre-gospel PENs represented a nucleus for the genre ‘gospel’, which clarifies how another book belonging to this genre, the Gospel of John, could have arisen alongside, but without knowledge of, the Gospel of Mark (Dodd 1963: 22; Klein 2005: 83). 4. Was the account of the institution of the Eucharist in Mark 14:22–5 (par. Matt. 26:26–9/Luke 22:15–20, as demarcated by Dodd) a genuine component of the earliest PEN? Dodd was sceptical of this and entertained the possibility that this passage was interpolated into the PEN only at a later stage in the tradition. But since he himself was not entirely certain, he deliberately left the question open (1963: 59, 64). To my mind, the hypothesis that the original PEN did not contain this account is supported by at least two factors. The first is the absence of the aetiological institution narrative in the (pre-)Johannine PEN – provided it is independent of the Synoptics. Should the Fourth Evangelist, however, have known the Synoptics (which was ruled out by Dodd), he would have had no ‘theological motive’ to disregard this ‘cult aetiology’, ‘since (as is very generally recognized) the sacramental idea expressed in the Synoptic account of the Supper finds ample expression in the discourse on Bread of Life in John vi. 22–58’ (1963: 58). Here Dodd champions a position diametrically opposed to that of R. Bultmann. As is well known, Bultmann assumed that the Fourth Evangelist was decisively anti-sacramental and that this was most clearly reflected in his deliberate elimination of the ‘cult aetiology’ from the

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Michael Theobald passion narrative. Bultmann took John 6:51c–58 to be an interpolation – part of the ‘ecclesiastical redaction’ through which the Gospel was to be ‘domesticated’ (the same would go for the sacrament of baptism, which would have been redactionally appended in John 3:5) (Bultmann 1986: 98 n. 2, 174–7). The second factor supporting the hypothesis that the original PEN did not contain this aetiological narrative of institution is the genre of this account – the type of text it is – which points to its original independence (see the discussion of 1 Cor. 11:23–6). Just as Bultmann spoke of a ‘cult legend’ (‘Kultuslegende’/‘Kultlegende’; 1995: 285–7), the label ‘cult aetiology’ (‘Kultätiologie’) commends itself here (so too Hofius 1994). This concise narrative was to make normative the Eucharistic praxis of the early Church by commemorating the words and actions of Jesus as its αἰτία (‘cause’/‘reason’). The extent of this ‘cult aetiology’ and its exact place in early Christian liturgy are, however, difficult to determine. We will turn to this shortly.

Dodd’s argumentation regarding the words of the Last Supper in particular will also be addressed below. Here, I would first like to formulate, on the basis of observations 1–4, a thesis concerning the mutual relationship between the cult aetiology and PEN.

Passover and Eucharist: two liturgical ‘loci’ of the early Church The texts in the New Testament are not literature for isolated, individual readers, but find their home in the life of early Christian communities. Gospels were read aloud, heard, and reflected upon within a group, but even their nucleus – the ancient PEN along with its various branches – already had its Sitz im Leben in the gathering of the first Christians for worship, or, more precisely, in the annual celebration of Passover. The same can be said of the cult aetiology in Mark 14:22–5, par. 1 Cor. 11:23–6 (the verse demarcation in Dodd 1963: 59), on which Dodd states, ‘i Cor. xi. 23–6 is sufficient evidence that the account of the institution of the Eucharist could be, and was, recited as an independent unit (for the way in which it is introduced proves that we have not here an extract from a longer narrative)’ (1963: 59). Dodd does not indicate what he means by the account being ‘recited’. Were the words of Jesus spoken as a liturgical formula at the meal? Or was this a sort of ‘meta-text’, through which it was sought to imbue authority at the celebration of the Eucharist by recalling the Last Supper? It was, at any rate, originally ‘an independent unit’, which also supports the idea that it was not a genuine part of the ancient PEN.

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Here, then, we have two texts in two different forms, which we should also, from the very start, distinguish as regards their Sitz im Leben. On the one hand, there is the PEN, which, in various versions, was recited as a ‘Christian’ foundational narrative on the annual ‘Jewish–Christian’ night of Passover. On the other hand, there is the Eucharistic cult aetiology that recalled the Last Supper (‘the night in which he was betrayed’) and played an important role in the early Christian practice of communion, or at least in parts of it. Whereas the annual rhythm of the celebration of Passover is fixed, the pattern that determined when the Eucharistic meal was celebrated remains unknown. ‘The first day of the week’ as the occasion of the community meal is unambiguously attested first in Acts 20:7–12 (‘On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread . . .’). But already the directions of Paul in 1 Cor. 16:2 to put aside individual contributions for the Jerusalem collection ‘on the first day of every week’ could presuppose that this day (in contrast to the Sabbath observance of their Jewish neighbours) already possessed a particular significance in the life of the community (Alikin 2009). 1 Corinthians 10–11 indicates neither the frequency nor the regularity with which the Christians in Corinth celebrated the ‘Lord’s Supper’. Whether the Lucan note on the practice of (daily?) meals among the first Jerusalem community in Acts 2:46 truly reflects the earliest circumstances is debated, and should be assessed rather cautiously. There are also difficulties in correlating a cult aetiology that tells of the salvific death of Jesus with the practice of early Christian ritual meals. There were undoubtedly meals in various forms with various theological emphases (as recognized already by Lietzmann 1926: 249–63). The pertinent passages in the Acts of the Apostles could reflect a practice shaped by post-Easter jubilation and the notion of participation in life and the resurrection. When so understood, it cannot be a coincidence that the meal narrative in Acts 20:7–12 is interwoven with a resurrection from the dead. Rather, this must presume a concept of the bread as Eucharistic, not at all unlike, for example, that found in Ignatius of Antioch: the meal bestows a share in the post-Easter life and the resurrection (see Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 20:2, ‘one bread, which is the medicine of immortality’; see too Smyrnaeans 7:1). The cult aetiology of the Synoptics and Paul, in contrast, has a different emphasis, as expressed in 1 Cor. 11:26, ‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’ We must therefore assume that ‘the cult aetiology’ does not cover every early Christian ritual meal, but rather represents only one particular form, namely, a ritual meal in commemoration of the salvific death of Jesus.

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Dodd draws both of these texts – the PEN as well as the cult aetiology – closely together. He takes the argumentation that he thereby employs to be a counter-example to the aforementioned argument, according to which, as identified in 1 Cor. 11:23–6, the cult aetiology is thought to be actually an ‘independent unit ’. Both arguments taken together explain why he remained undecided on the question of whether or not the cult aetiology was in fact a genuine component of the ancient PEN. He explains, in detail: [S]ince Paul tells us that the celebration of the Eucharist (as ἀνάμνησις of Christ) was invariably (ὁσάκις ἄν κ.τ.λ.) accompanied by a recital of his Passion (καταγγέλλετε τὸν θάνατον τοῦ κυρίου), it is a probable conjecture (though no more than a conjecture) that the fundamental Passion tradition took shape in this context. If so, it is on general grounds likely that the ‘words of institution’, which provide the most direct clue to the meaning of the whole, would have been included. If the sacramental words and actions were included in the form of Passion narrative known to the Fourth Evangelist, it would not be difficult to assign probable motives for their omission, but it remains possible that they had a different setting in the tradition on which he depended. [1963: 59]

Two assumptions in this argumentation are questionable. First, there is no indication that 1 Cor. 11:26 refers specifically to the public reading of the passion narrative (apart from Dodd, Barrett 1968: 264, 270, and Stuhlmacher 1987: 22, 34, also advocate this interpretation). If the καταγγέλλειν of v. 26, which expands upon v. 25 (‘do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’), refers to a verbal proclamation ‘in remembrance’ of the salvific death of Jesus (Lindemann 2000; Hofius 1994), one must think of the accompanying prayers, especially the thanksgiving. If, however, it refers to a non-verbal proclamation, which is not to be ruled out (Schrage 1999: 45–6), then one must think of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper as a whole. Secondly, the claim that the cult aetiology denotes the climax or focus of the passion narrative is dubious, because each represents a different Christology. An understanding of the death of Jesus in the sense of a substitutionary or expiatory sacrifice ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν / πολλῶν is attested only in the cult aetiology. In contrast, the passion narrative, which depicts Jesus along the lines especially of the Psalms as the suffering just one that has God on his side, represents more of an exemplarist Christology – that is, Jesus as a typos for all who follow him. Both observations demonstrate that it would be difficult to argue that the cult aetiology was a genuine literary component of the original, ancient PEN. Certainly it is necessary – prompted by the argumentation of C. H. Dodd – to further differentiate between the literary question, on the one

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hand, and the place of origin of the PEN and the cult aetiology, on the other. From the literary perspective, it can be certain that when it comes to the PEN and the cult aetiology we are dealing with linguistically different entities, each of which also had its own pragmatic function. In one part of the tradition, they were secondarily dovetailed together, whilst the cult aetiology also continued to exist independently, as is evident in Paul and perhaps even still in Justin Martyr (1 Apol. 66:3). It was able to survive on its own by standardizing the ‘Lord’s Supper’ entirely independently of the Jewish–Christian celebration of Passover. The PEN was tied to the festival of Passover and, at the same time, also became the nucleus of the developing gospel literature. On the other hand, there is overlap between the cult aetiology and the PEN. So, for example, the focal point of the nocturnal Passover celebration was also a communal meal. Conversely, the (regularly held) community meal – in so far as it was celebrated within the framework of the cult aetiology (which, as a rule, was not the case) – recalled ‘the night’ in which ‘the Lord’ ‘was betrayed’ (1 Cor. 11:23). It was with good reason that R. H. Fuller advocated the thesis, also held by others (Hengel 2004), that the allusion to ‘the night’ in which Jesus celebrated the meal must refer to the night of Passover (see, analogously, the discussion of ‘the night’ in Acts 12:6). Fuller thus concluded that the account of the ‘Last Supper’ was first shaped as a cult aetiology within the context of a Christianized festival of Passover, but specifically adds that the original character of Jesus’ farewell meal cannot be thereby determined (for a detailed discussion of Fuller’s position, see Theobald 2007: 12–129). For our question, this means that a distinction is indeed to be drawn between the PEN on one hand and the cult aetiology on the other, as regards their literary history and practical use. There are nevertheless good reasons to regard an early Jewish–Christian festival of Passover as the context within which the cult aetiology also originated. The cult aetiology, however, broke away from this context at an early stage. A more detailed examination, with C. H. Dodd, of the scene of the last meal of Jesus in the passion tradition will show that the literary–historical distinction proposed here can be exegetically proven.

‘The leave-taking’: the analysis of the scene by C. H. Dodd At the beginning of his chapter entitled ‘The Leave-taking’ (1963: 50–64), Dodd subdivides the scene, on the basis of the Gospel of Mark, into four episodes (1963: 50). He then arranges the material from the entire tradition into these four episodes. Table 13.1 illustrates his approach.

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Table 13.1 No. (1) (2) (3)

Episode

Mark

The preparation for 14:12–16 the Supper The Supper: 14:17, prediction of the 18–21 treachery of Judas The Supper 14:22–5 (continued): the sacramental words and actions

Matthew

Luke

John

26:17–19

22:7–13

––––

26:20–5

22:21–3 [22:23]

26:26–9

22:14–20

(3a) (3b) (4)

(4a)

13:11, 18 (þ Ps. 41:10), 21–30 [13:22] –––––

13:1–17 (pedilavium) Departure for Olivet: -prediction of the desertion of the Twelve

14:26–31 14:27–9

26:30–8 26:31–3

-and of Peter’s denial

14:30–1

26:34–5

22:24–30 [22:31–4] 22:31–2 þ 33 (Simon, representing the Twelve) 22:34 22:35–8

16:32

13:36–8

Whereas Matthew, in the farewell scene, redacts only his Marcan Vorlage, this is not the case with Luke. He too is certainly building upon Mark 14:12–31 – ‘in his account of the preparation for the Supper he keeps even closer to Mark than does Matthew’ (Dodd 1963: 50); however, in the arrangement of the material he departs from that found in the oldest Gospel (nos. 2 and 3 are inverted). Moreover, he closes the scene differently: contrary to Mark 14:26–31, the transition to the scene on the Mount of Olives occurs only at Luke 22:39. And, most notably, he inserts some traditional material that Dodd was convinced was drawn from oral tradition. Dodd summarizes as follows: The widely held view that the whole was produced by a process of ‘editing’ Mark has no plausibility, if once the presumption is abandoned that the Synoptic problem is to be solved completely on the basis of dependence on documentary sources. The probability is that Luke, having followed Mark down to xxii. 13, now turns to another strain of tradition, in which the Passion narrative, while conforming in a general way to the common scheme, was developed on lines distinguishable from Mark’s. [1963: 52]

What Dodd, in his overall judgement on Luke, had not yet considered is the question already mentioned above, namely, whether recourse to

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individual oral traditions is sufficient or whether one must not indeed reckon with the possibility of a pre-Lucan PEN in general and also in written form. In this model, Luke could have found the substance of no. 3b, as well as 22:31–2 þ 33, in such a source. His analysis of Luke prepared Dodd for an analysis of the Passion Narrative in John. ‘The question now before us is whether a similar hypothesis might plausibly be held to account for the phenomena of this part of the Johannine narrative’ (1963: 52). Noteworthy are, first of all, those elements that are missing from the Johannine tradition. Apart from the sacramental words and actions (no. 3), with which we will specifically deal below, this is also the case for no. 1, ‘The preparation for the Supper’, corresponding to Mark 14:12–16. In so far as both Matthew and Luke adhere exactly to their Marcan Vorlage and John offers no parallel, Dodd concludes that ‘there is therefore nothing to suggest that the preparation figured in any other form of tradition’ (1963: 50). ‘The preparation for the Supper . . . is probably a Marcan feature copied by the others’ (1963: 52). This assessment, which Dodd does not pursue any further, is of the utmost importance for the question whether the characterization of the Last Supper as a Passover meal – a portrayal dependent upon Mark 14:12–16 – is original or whether it was made only later. If Mark 14:12–16 does indeed go back, as Dodd assumes, only to the earliest evangelist, that would mean that the Marcan chronology too, according to which Jesus was condemned and crucified during Passover itself, would be secondary in comparison to the Johannine chronology, which is also much more historically plausible. The cult aetiology itself, in its Marcan as well as in its Lucan-Pauline form, exhibits no evidence of Passover typology (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7) and makes no reference to a Passover meal (apart from placing it on the ‘night’ on which Jesus was handed over [1 Cor. 11:23]), thus conforming with the characterization of the Last Supper as a farewell meal, but not as a Passover meal. There are points of contact between John and the Synoptics in nos. 2 and 4. In the ‘prediction of the treachery of Judas’ (no. 2), the almost verbal agreement between John 13:21b and Mark 14:18 is striking (‘Amen, [John: amen,] I say to you, one of you will betray me [Mark: one who is eating with me]’). By the same token, there is a similarity between John 13:22 and Luke 22:23 (against Mark and Matthew) (in both cases, the disciples inquire of ‘one another’ and ask who has betrayed Jesus, not, as in Mark and Matthew, ‘Surely not I?’). On the basis of this mélange, Dodd

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concludes that, as opposed to conjecturing literary dependence, a ‘third form of oral tradition is the more likely explanation’ (1963: 54). Dodd interprets the evidence of no. 4 similarly; here, the resemblance between John 13:38 and Mark 14:30 par. Luke 22:34 has to do with the structure of the saying, and less with the individual words. ‘All this looks less like conflation of sources than the kind of variation which arises without deliberation within an oral tradition’ (1963: 55). On the sequence of the ‘prediction of the desertion of the Twelve’ and ‘Peter’s denial’, Dodd notes that ‘compared with Mark they come in reverse order’ (1963: 55). However, John 16:32, the conclusion of the third Farewell Discourse, belongs to a literary stratum different from that of John 13:38, namely, a secondary redaction that interpolated the second and third Farewell Discourses of John 15–16 (Theobald 2012: 79–84).

The sacramental words and actions of Jesus at the Last Supper What significance is to be attached to the absence of ‘the sacramental words and actions’ of Jesus at the Last Supper in the final form of the Johannine text, and how is it to be explained? As was already noted above, Dodd, following his literary analysis, remained undecided as to whether the cult aetiology was indeed missing in the pre-Johannine PEN. For him, this was also related to two further lines of argument. The first line of argument has to do with John 6:51c. Following J. Jeremias (2nd edn, 1949; in the 4th edn, 1967: 192–3), who supposed the Greek σῶμα in Paul and the Synoptics to be a rendering of an original Aramaic ‫בׂשרא‬, Dodd was of the following opinion regarding the phrase ‘the bread [that I will give] is my flesh, for the life of the world [¼ for you]’: ‘We may therefore with great probability take John vi. 51 to be derived, not from any reminiscence of the Synoptic Passion narrative, but from a liturgical tradition going back independently to the Aramaic of the Church’s earliest days’ (1963: 59). It is possible that the Fourth Evangelist became aware of this liturgical tradition through his passion narrative, in which case it would have included the cult aetiology. The second line of argument has to do with the foot-washing narrative of John 13:1–17. By eliminating the Johannine redactional elements, one uncovers, according to Dodd, a simple ‘exemplary story’ (similarly Bultmann 1986: 351–2). ‘He rose from supper, and, laying aside his outer garments, took a towel and tied it about him. He then poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of his disciples . . . Having washed their feet and resumed his garments, he said . . . “I have set you an example; you are to do as I have

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Table 13.2 Mark

John

14:18 καὶ ἀνακειμένων αὐτῶν καὶ ἐσθιόντων [14:18–21, Discussion at the table] 14:22 καὶ ἐσθιόντων αὐτῶν Last Supper

13:2 καὶ δείπνου γινομένου (v.l. γενομένου) [13:2–3, Christological reflections] 13:4 ἐγείρεται ἐκ τοῦ δείπνου Washing of the feet

done to you”’ (Dodd 1963: 60). This is a typical ‘pronouncement story’, of which there are a great many in the synoptic tradition. The Fourth Evangelist either drew this from the oral tradition known to him, or found it in his passion narrative, where it would then have taken the place of the cult aetiology (1963: 63; so too now Schleritt 2007). If this were the case, and if the references to the δεῖπνον in John 13 also belonged to the preJohannine passion narrative, then this term, which is found not in the Synoptics, but in Paul (1 Cor. 11:20, δεῖπνον κυριακόν), would be a further indication that the Johannine passion narrative is independent of the older gospels. Both are linguistically possible, as Dodd shows in a comparison of the genitive participles in Mark 14:18, 22 and John 13:2. See Table 13.2. ‘In Mark, and Matthew after him, the Last Supper itself is referred to only in a circumstantial clause, which serves to introduce the incidents in which these evangelists are particularly interested. In Mark xiv. 18 we have καὶ ἀνακειμένων αὐτῶν καὶ ἐσθιόντων, leading up to the prediction of the treachery of Judas, and again in xiv. 22 καὶ ἐσθιόντων αὐτῶν, leading up to the sacramental words and actions. Similarly in John, after the introductory clauses, we read καὶ δείπνου γινομένου (v.l. γενομένου), and this, after a longish parenthesis, leads up to a narrative which finds no place in the Synoptics, that of the washing of the feet of the disciples’ (1963: 59–60). Accordingly, Dodd holds that the narrative of the foot-washing could also have been found already in the pre-Johannine passion narrative – in the place where the cult aetiology stands in the Marcan passion. ‘Yet the genitive absolute’, continues Dodd, ‘is a not unusual opening for a pericopé, with no necessary connection with what has preceded [cf. e.g. Mark 5:21; and Luke 9:57 and 17:12], and δείπνου γινομένου, meaning in effect “one day at supper”, would be a perfectly natural opening for such a story as this’ (1963: 63). We can therefore not be certain, concludes Dodd, that the narrative of the washing of the feet ‘formed part of the Passion tradition as it reached John’ (1963: 64).

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What can one say about these two lines of argument? In John 6:51c, it is indeed likely that the text is based on a separate, non-synoptic variant of the Eucharistic words over the bread. It is, however, not very old, but rather a later variant, as one also finds it in Ignatius of Antioch in an anti-docetic milieu (Romans 7:3; Philadelphians 4; Smyrnaeans 6:2) and then in Justin Martyr (1 Apol. 66:2), in all of which σάρξ is used instead of σῶμα. The phrase ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ζωῆς would then be the Johannine rendering of a ὑπὲρ πολλῶν (Theobald 2003: 244–6). The assumption that one is dealing here with a literal reproduction of the oldest version of the words over the bread is untenable, in that, since (and contra) Jeremias, a putative original Aramaic ‫‘( גוף‬body’) has been postulated (Stuhlmacher 1987), which is taken to be tantamount to, ‘He broke the bread, gave thanks and said, “This is me!”’ Furthermore, there is the consideration that John 6:51c–58, because it almost certainly goes back to a secondary redaction (Bultmann 1986: 161–2; Becker 1991: 1:239–49; Hahn 2005: 550–4; Theobald 2003: 178–210; 2009: 453–5, 475–86), could not go back to the pre-Johannine passion narrative by virtue of its knowledge of the cult aetiology. In contrast, the suggestion considered by Dodd that the narrative of the washing of the feet could have been part of the pre-Johannine PEN seems plausible. Should Luke 22:26–7 also have stood in an early form of the PEN, one cannot rule out the possibility that the foot-washing narrative, with its portrayal of Jesus as servant, represents the clear embodiment of that saying, ‘For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.’ Dodd writes, ‘The situation here pictured is exactly reproduced in the Johannine story: the disciples are οἱ ἀνακείμενοι, Jesus ὁ διακονῶν. So close is the correspondence that it is often held that the Johannine story is directly derived from the Lucan saying’ (1963: 60). Dodd rejects this possibility on the grounds that it would, in his view, imply literary dependence of the Gospel of John upon Luke. But there is also, as was mentioned above, the possibility of an indirect connection via an older, common ancestor, namely, the pre-Lucan/preJohannine PEN. In short, there are good reasons for suggesting that we abandon Dodd’s incertitude on the question whether the pre-Johannine PEN contained the cult aetiology or not. It is safe to assume that there was an ancient version of the PEN in which the cult aetiology was not yet found. This has consequences for the diachronic exposition of the passion in Mark.

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On disentangling the cult aetiology and PEN in the Gospel of Mark The best evidence that the cult aetiology was originally independent is provided by Luke, who grafted a form of it similar to that found in 1 Cor. 11:23–5 into his narrative of the Last Supper (Theobald 2006). Granted, a premise of this hypothesis is the originality of the so-called long text of Luke 22:14–20, which today, however, is widely acknowledged (Fitzmyer 1985: 1387–9). After the opening verse sets the scene (v. 14), Luke places a set of two similarly constructed sayings on the lips of Jesus (vv. 15–16, 17–18): the first on eating the paschal lamb and, parallel to that, words on the first cup of wine that he passes round, saying, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves.’ In both cases, the point of Jesus’ eating and drinking for the last time at that table is explained in his words ‘for I say to you, I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God’ (v. 16) and ‘for I say to you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes’ (v. 18). Then, using καί, Luke appends to this the cult aetiology, with its sequence of the bread followed by the wine (vv. 19–20). The resulting duplication of the cups in vv. 17 and 20 prompted a good many scribes to shorten the text in various ways in order to eliminate the reduplication. As the opening cup of the Passover meal, however, the first cup is part of the complexion of the Passover scene that Luke deliberately brought in from Mark, and it is to be distinguished from the actual Eucharistic cup in v. 20 (Löhr 2008: 107). The insertion of the cult aetiology would have had a specific significance for Luke, in that it was the text used in his communities. These were communities from the Pauline mission, as indicated by their almost perfect agreement with features passed on by the Apostle. Whereas Paul presents the directive ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ after both the bread and the cup, it appears in Luke only after the bread – probably because he only knew of communion with bread. The means by which the cult aetiology was included in Luke can be described theoretically in two ways: from the perspective of ‘Luke as redactor of Mark’, it can be viewed as the replacement of one cult aetiology (Mark 14:22–4) with another; from the perspective of ‘Luke as redactor of his pre-Lucan PEN’, it can be viewed as its interpolation. Though it cannot be hypothetically ruled out, even if the PEN did not yet contain the cult aetiology, both would nevertheless have been transmitted separately within the Lucan communities. This second case – the interpolation of the cult aetiology into the ancient PEN – must have been available to Mark. We must first, therefore, be clear about its delimitation.

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The actual cult aetiology, to my mind, comprises only the material in Mark 14:22–4 – that is, without the concluding amen saying – in which Jesus does not primarily express his final departure from this life, but rather his firm hope in the future coming of the kingdom of God and his participation in the eschatological banquet. ‘Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’ The original unity of Mark 14:22–4 and 14:25, that v. 25 is part of the cult aetiology, is often supported with the argument of an alleged parallel between 1 Cor. 11:26 and Mark 14:25. Both sayings have to do with the future: in 1 Cor. 11:26 with the ‘coming’ of the Lord, in Mark 14:25 with the future βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. But the argument founders already at this point, since 1 Cor. 11:26 very likely represents an addition to the cult aetiology from the pen of Paul (Schrage 1999: 44–7). Moreover, the sayings have two entirely different points: Paul is speaking of the necessity of proclaiming the death of Jesus until the Parousia, whereas Jesus is speaking of his confidence that he will be present at the eschatological banquet in the coming kingdom of God. It therefore follows that, just as 1 Cor. 11:26 is not part of the cult aetiology, neither is Mark 14:25. The liturgical tradition of the earliest evangelist is to be limited to vv. 22–4. In favour of its subsequent insertion into the PEN by the earliest evangelist himself are two factors: first, the cult aetiology exhibits notable internal signs of its reworking by the evangelists; secondly, there are contextual signals that reveal its secondary insertion. The Marcan reworking of the earlier tradition and its insertion into the PEN likely go back to one and the same process, namely, the redactional activity of Mark. To begin with, a formal peculiarity of Mark 14:22–4 betrays the secondary reworking of the cult aetiology: the weight of the text rests entirely on the words over the cup. This is its climax. All of the soteriological elements point here: the concept of a salvific covenant, the idea of the covenant sacrifice (Exod. 24:8; Zech. 9:11), and the mention of the ‘many’ who will benefit from the sacrifice: ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many!’ (τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ ἐκχυννόμενον ὑπὲρ πολλῶν). The words over the bread, on the other hand, are not, in their brevity, to be underestimated; in comparison to the Lucan-Pauline variant, they contain no soteriological addition: ‘This is my body!’ (τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου). A good argument can be made that it was Mark who fashioned this climax. In other words, in the pre-existing tradition, the soteriological elements were actually distributed. The words over the bread were still

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‘This is my body for many!’ In favour of this hypothesis are not only the Lucan-Pauline parallels (‘this is my body, which is [Luke: given] for you’), but also John 6:51c, ‘the bread . . . is my flesh, for the life of the world ’, which represents the Johannine rendering of the earlier expression ‘for many’ (Hahn 2005: 553; Theobald 2003: 239–40). Is it possible to determine why Mark transferred the ὑπὲρ πολλῶν to the words over the cup at the conclusion of the traditional material? The so-called ‘ransom saying’ of Mark 10:45, which is of the utmost significance for the Evangelist as an announcement of the passion and, as it were, its Christological auspices, reads, ‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντι πολλῶν). In line with this saying, Mark understands the words over the cup as pointing to the death of Jesus, through which God lets the ‘many’ partake of salvation. From his perspective, this is not merely Israel in the sense of the ‘many’ of Isa. 53:11–12, but rather all people – Jews and Gentiles – as he had already implied in Mark 11:17 (‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’ [Isa. 56:7]) and as he will underscore once more in the death scene of Mark 15:33–9 through the sign of the rending of the temple veil and the confession of the Gentile centurion. Mark is primarily concerned, therefore, with the interpretation of the death of Jesus, which he finds to be denoted in the mention of ‘blood’. Accordingly, it can also not be ruled out that Mark, out of interest in the blood motif as the key to the death of Jesus, interfered more profoundly with the words over the cup than is usually assumed. If the words over the bread originally stood close to the Lucan-Pauline version, in which the ὑπὲρ πολλῶν was understood to refer to the celebrating community, the same is possible for the words over the cup, namely that these too originally corresponded to the Lucan-Pauline version. If the general scholarly trend moves towards recognizing the priority of this version, it must be seriously considered whether it was not Mark who recast the words over the cup, ‘this cup [Luke: which is poured out for you] is the new covenant in my blood’ (1 Cor. 11:25; Luke 22:20), under the influence of Exod. 24:8. See Table 13.3. After comparing the Marcan words over the cup with Exod. 24, J. Wohlmuth reached the following conclusion: ‘In order to give it great theological weight, Mark adopts the Sinai tradition in interpreting the Jesus movement. Without reference to the revelation on Sinai, the salvific significance of the death of Jesus would be, according to Mark, insufficiently apprehended’ (2006: 122 [trans. from the German]). In concrete

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Table 13.3 Exod 24:8 and 11 (v. 8) And Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’ (v. 11) And God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; and they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

Mark 14:23–4 (v. 23a) Then he took a cup, (v. 24) And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, . . .

(v. 23c) and they all drank of it.

terms, this reference means that the phrase ‘my blood of the covenant’ locates the death of Jesus in the event at Sinai, more precisely in the ‘correlation of death and covenant that already determines the character of the Sinai pericope’. In this way, the death of Jesus obtains its decisive interpretation as a revelation of Yahweh’s faithfulness to the covenant. ‘Mark does not speak of the cessation of an “old covenant”,’ notes Wohlmuth, ‘nor of the supersession of Israel in the Sinai covenant by the Jesus movement’ (2006: 126 [trans. from the German]). However, as we have seen, the covenant faithfulness of Yahweh is broadened through the sending of Jesus to, and his death for, all people – Jews and Gentiles. This therefore proves to be a universal granting of salvation by the Creator to his creatures. The interpretation of the death of Jesus in the context of Sinai, however, exhibits a sort of counterpoint in Mark. Following Jesus’ temple action, it is clear that salvation is effected no longer through ‘burnt offerings and sacrifices’ in the temple, but only through his death. The temple has come to its end (Mark 11:17; 12:33 [‘to love him with all the heart, . . . this is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices’]; 13:2; 14:58; 15:38). Though when Mark interprets Jesus’ death as a covenant sacrifice, he thereby also makes it clear that opposition to the temple cult does not mean that this death falls outside of the history of God and his people as documented in Scripture. On the contrary, the death of Jesus is first understood as a revelation of God’s faithfulness to the covenant when viewed in the light of Sinai (on the authority of Moses in Mark’s Gospel, see Mark 1:44; 7:10; 9:4–5; 10:3–5; and 12:19 and 26). Even though the sacrifice of Exod. 24 does

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not have the power to redeem from sin, Zech. 9:11 shows, by taking up the formula from Exod. 24 (‘because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set free your prisoners from the waterless pit’), that this formula can be connected to the liberating and saving acts of Yahweh. Corresponding to Exod. 24:11, ‘and they ate and drank’, it is now the meal at Jesus’ table that allows one to experience God’s salvific presence and to partake of the saving power of the sacrificial death of Jesus. Incidentally, the catchword ‘new’ (καινόν) in Mark 14:25 could reflect a trace of the old Pauline words over the cup about a ‘new covenant’ (ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη). If it is indeed the case that Mark redacted an ancient form of the words over the cup that included the ‘new covenant in my blood’, he would have had to transfer the qualification ‘new’ from the death of Jesus to the expectation of the future coming of the kingdom of God. There is a further indication that Mark heavily redacted the tradition handed down to him, namely, the aforementioned narrative comment ‘and they all drank of it [the cup]’ (v. 23). Not only the possible reference to Exod. 24:11, but also the trenchant ‘all’ points to Mark. In the course of the entire succession of these scenes, none of the evangelists underscores so prominently as Mark the failure of all of the disciples. Judas will betray him, but each of them would have been capable of it (v. 19, ‘Surely not I [ἐγώ]?’). Peter will deny him, but they all take flight (Mark 14:50). Πάντες pervades the whole scene (Mark 14:23, 27, 29, 31, 50). In this respect, it may also bespeak the redactional work of Mark in v. 23, ‘and they all drank of it’. But all of them betray him too, and all of them are therefore dependent upon God’s establishment of salvation through the death of Jesus – upon the blood shed for them. If Mark so thoroughly redacted the tradition passed on to him, are there still contextual signals indicating the secondary insertion of certain elements into the PEN? In this case, an observation made by Dodd – already documented above in the synoptic comparison of Mark 14:18, 22 and John 13:2, 4 – becomes important. The genitive participle καὶ ἐσθιόντων αὐτῶν in Mark 14:22 takes up once more the corresponding expression that characterizes the meal scene in 14:18 (καὶ ἀνακειμένων αὐτῶν) καὶ ἐσθιόντων. When one asks why, the answer is clear: Mark harks back once more to this setting in order to add, as the high point of the whole scene, the cult aetiology that he redacted (so already, before Dodd, Bultmann 1931 [10th edn, 1995: 285–7]). From this we may deduce, provided that Mark 14:25 belonged not to the cult aetiology but to the PEN, that the original narrative context of the pre-Marcan PEN would have moved, following the announcement of

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the betrayal (Mark 14:17–22), directly to the amen saying of Jesus in Mark 14:25 (similarly Bradshaw 2004). At the same time, we can easily imagine an introduction to this saying like that actually offered by Luke in the parallel passage: ‘And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes”.’ The meal scene in the pre-Marcan PEN would therefore have been consistently oriented around the themes of farewell, betrayal, and death but also hope in the kingdom of God in its fullest form. Only a few aspects – apart from the introductory v. 14 – point to the meal itself: Mark 14:18 (‘one who is eating with me’), 14:20 (‘one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me’) and, first and foremost, the farewell cup that Jesus passes round while speaking his word of hope. Luke would have appended the cult aetiology to this, whereas Mark would have prefixed it, such that 14:25 continued to form the conclusion of the scene. Granted, this proposed disentangling of the ancient PEN and cult aetiology in the Gospel of Mark remains hypothetical. It nevertheless has a solid foundation when one does not exclude the Fourth Gospel from consideration, but rather takes it seriously as a separate source for the early history of the church. This results in the theory that the ancient PEN did not originally contain the cult aetiology. Dodd deserves credit for at least having brought this possibility into the conversation in his assessment of important arguments.

Two early Christian forms of remembering the death of Jesus: prospects The concept developed here in conversation with Dodd – on the diachrony of the PEN as well as the cult aetiology – naturally requires further investigation that cannot be taken up here. Nevertheless, some important new insights emerge that we would like to concisely note in conclusion: 1. Hitherto, scholarship has largely reckoned with two equal and independent forms of the so-called ‘cult aetiology’: the Lucan-Pauline form and the Marcan-Matthean form. If the hypothesis proposed here is not altogether wrong, this picture must be revised, with serious consequences for the entire question of the Lord’s Supper. There was one ancient cult aetiology that was passed on by Paul in 1 Cor. 11:23–5, about which he himself said, ‘For I received from the Lord that which

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I also delivered to you’. In comparison, the Marcan version, in terms of its possible pre-history, had nowhere near the importance of the Pauline-Lucan version. Indeed, one must now say that this is because it goes back more or less to the editorial work of the oldest evangelist, and therefore actually has no pre-history, but only a post-history which, in the New Testament, is also unequivocally attested only in Matthew. 2. As regards the question of Jesus’ Last Supper, the following hypothesis, already entertained by Lietzmann (1926: 253), enjoys a certain popularity among scholars (see, most recently, Heininger 2005: 31–6; further literature in Theobald 2007: 125): the oldest form of the words over the cup is not any ur-form that can be reconstructed from 1 Cor. 11:25 par. Luke 22:20 and Mark 14:24, but that of the amen saying in Mark 14:25. This hypothesis falters on the fact that it confounds two distinct things that, in literary-historical terms, are separate: the cult aetiology on the one hand, and the ancient PEN, to which Mark 14:25 belongs, on the other. The literary-genealogical question that is to be directed at 1 Cor. 11:23–5 must be methodologically differentiated from the discussion of Mark 14:25. 3. The cult aetiology itself contains no evidence that the last meal of Jesus was a Passover meal. The dating of the meal to the night of Passover (1 Cor. 11:23) is due to the ancient Jewish–Christian festival of Passover, but this, as we saw, says nothing about the character of the last meal of Jesus – a farewell meal that itself bears no traits of a Passover meal. The insertion of the cult aetiology into the PEN, in concert with the newly created introduction (Mark 14:12–16, which sets the scene by describing the preparation for the Passover meal), results in the portrayal, on the narrative level, of Jesus’ last meal as a Passover meal. Luke then reinforces the Passover atmosphere of the last meal of Jesus through his own redaction (Luke 22:15–18) (Theobald 2006). 4. The characterization of the last meal of Jesus as a Passover meal, then, rides in large part on Mark 14:12–16, a text that finds no parallel in the other forms of the PEN. That the farewell meal of Jesus with his followers was secondarily styled after one of the most important festivals in the Jewish calendar seems, therefore, quite likely. The same applies to the dating found in 1 Cor. 11:23 (‘in the night in which he was betrayed’), which goes back to the liturgical context of the Jewish–Christian festival of Passover, in which the commemoration of the last meal of Jesus was given the form of the cult aetiology. On the question of the divergent chronologies, the pre-Johannine

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PEN, according to which Jesus was condemned and crucified on the day before the festival of Passover, is therefore probably historically correct. 5. Two liturgical ‘loci’ in particular became important for the origin of the early Christian liturgical tradition: the annual Jewish–Christian celebration of Passover with the commemoration of the death of Jesus, in which the PEN was also recited, and the early Christian meal in commemoration of the salvific death of Jesus, as it was expressed in the pre-Pauline–pre-Lucan cult aetiology. This commemoration too was first shaped within the framework of the Jewish–Christian celebration of Passover, but became separated from the annual festival, with the result that Easter and the ‘Lord’s Day’ – a ‘little Easter’, so to speak – became the basis of the emerging Christian liturgy. In addition to the ‘Lord’s Supper’ as commemoration of the salvific death of Jesus, ritual meals were also celebrated that stood strongly in the tradition of post-Easter revelatory meals. The secondary combination of both traditions – the PEN and the cult aetiology – was a literary unification of that which, from the perspective of Sitz im Leben, originally belonged together. The PEN and the cult aetiology then exerted further mutual influence upon each other: the farewell meal of Jesus became, on the narrative level, a Passover meal, and the original chronology of the events of the passion was displaced with the notion that Jesus was ‘handed over’ on the night of Passover itself and crucified on the day of the festival. The Jewish festival of Passover proves ever more clearly to be the source of the Christian mystery of salvation. W O RK S CI T ED Alikin, V. A., 2009. ‘The Origins of Sunday as the Christian Feast-Day’. In C. M. Tuckett (ed.), Feasts and Festivals. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 53. Leuven: Peeters, pp. 161–70. Auf der Maur, H., 2003. Die Osterfeier in der alten Kirche: Aus dem Nachlaß herausgegeben von R. Meßner und W. G. Schöpf. Liturgica Oenipontana 2. Münster: LIT Verlag. Barrett, C. K., 1968. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Black’s New Testament Commentaries. London: A. & C. Black. Becker, J. 1991. Das Evangelium nach Johannes. 2 vols. 3rd edn. Ökumenischer Taschenbuch-Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 4. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn/Würzburg: Echter Verlag. Blank, J., 1988. ‘Die Johannespassion: Intention und Hintergründe’. In K. Kertelge (ed.), Der Prozeß gegen Jesus: Historische Rückfrage und theologische Deutung. Quaestiones disputatae 112. Freiburg: Herder, pp. 148–82.

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Bradshaw, P. F., 2004. Eucharistic Origins. London: SPCK. Bultmann, R., 1986. Das Evangelium des Johannes. 21st edn. KEK 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1995. Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition. 10th edn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (1st edn, 1921; 2nd, rev. edn, 1931). Dodd, C. H., 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fitzmyer, J. A., 1985. The Gospel According to Luke (X–XXIV). The Anchor Bible 28A. New York: Doubleday. Fuller, R. H., 1963. ‘The Double Origin of the Eucharist’. Biblical Research 8: 60–72. Hahn, F., 2005. Theologie des Neuen Testaments: Band II, Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (3rd edn, 2011). Heininger, B., 2005. ‘Das letzte Mahl Jesu: Rekonstruktion und Deutung’. In W. Haunerland (ed.), Mehr als Brot und Wein: Theologische Kontexte der Eucharistie. Würzburg: Echter Verlag, pp. 10–49. Hengel, M., 2004. ‘Das Mahl in der Nacht, “in der Jesus ausgeliefert wurde” (1 Kor 11,23)’. In C. Grappe (ed.), Le Repas de Dieu – Das Mahl Gottes. WUNT 169. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 115–60. Hofius, O., 1994. ‘Herrenmahl und Herrenmahlsparadosis: Erwägungen zu 1Kor 11,23b-25’. In Paulusstudien. 2nd edn. WUNT 51. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (first published in ZTK 85 (1988) 371–408). Jeremias, J., 1954. ‘πάσχα’. TWNT 5: 900–3. 1967. Die Abendmahlsworte Jesu. 4th edn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. (With the 3rd edn of 1960, the text was completely revised in comparison to the 1st and 2nd edns of 1935 and 1949.) Klein, H., 2005. ‘Zur Frage einer Lukas und Johannes zu Grunde liegenden Passions-und Osterüberlieferung’. In Lukasstudien. FRLANT 209. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 65–84. Lang, M., 1999. Johannes und die Synoptiker. FRLANT 182. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Lietzmann, H., 1926. Messe und Herrenmahl: Eine Studie zur Geschichte der Liturgie. Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 8. Bonn: Marcus & Weber (repr. as a 3rd edn, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1955). Lindemann, A., 2000. Der Erste Korintherbrief. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 9/1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Löhr, H., 2008. ‘Das Abendmahl als Pesach-Mahl: Überlegungen aus exegetischer Sicht aufgrund der synoptischen Tradition und des frühjüdischen Quellenbefunds’. Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 25: 99–116. Neirynck, F., 1977. ‘John and the Synoptics’. In M. de Jonge (ed.), L’Évangile de Jean: Sources, rédaction, théologie. BETL 44. Gembloux: Duculot/Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 73–106. 1979. Jean et les synoptiques: Examen critique de l’exégèse de M.-É. Boismard. BETL 49. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Rouwhorst, G. A. M., 1996. ‘The Quartodeciman Passover and the Jewish Pesach’. Questions liturgiques 77: 152–73.

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2008. ‘Christlicher Gottesdienst und der Gottesdienst Israels: Forschungsgeschichte, historische Interaktionen, Theologie’. In M. Klöckener, A. A. Häußling, and R. Meßner (eds.), Theologie des Gottesdienstes, Band 2. Christliche und jüdische Liturgie. Gottesdienst der Kirche: Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft 2. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, pp. 491–572. Schleritt, F., 2007. Der vorjohanneische Passionsbericht: Eine historisch-kritische und theologische Untersuchung zu Joh 2,13–22; 11,47–14,31 und 18,1–20,29. BZNW 154. Berlin: de Gruyter. Schrage, W., 1999. Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor 11,17–14,40). Benziger Verlag/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Strobel, A., 1957–8. ‘Passa-Symbolik und Passa-Wunder in Act. xii. 3ff.’. NTS 4: 210–15. Stuhlmacher, P., 1987. ‘Das neutestamentliche Zeugnis vom Herrenmahl’. ZTK 84: 1–35. Theobald, M., 2002. Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium. Herders biblische Studien 34. Freiburg: Herder. 2003. ‘Eucharistie in Joh 6: Vom pneumatologischen zum inkarnationstheologischen Verstehensmodell’. In T. Söding (ed.), Johannesevangelium – Mitte oder Rand des Kanons? Neue Standortbestimmungen. Quaestiones disputatae 203. Freiburg: Herder. 2006. ‘Paschamahl und Eucharistiefeier: Zur heilsgeschichtlichen Relevanz der Abendmahlsszenerie bei Lukas (Lk 22,14–38)’. In Theobald and Hoppe (eds.), Erinnerung, pp. 133–80. 2007. ‘Leib und Blut Christi: Erwägungen zu Herkunft, Funktion und Bedeutung des sogenannten “Einsetzungsberichts”’. In M. Ebner (ed.), Herrenmahl und Gruppenidentität. Quaestiones disputatae 221. Freiburg: Herder, pp. 121–65. 2009. Das Evangelium nach Johannes: Kapitel 1–12. Regensburger Neues Testament. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet. 2012. ‘Was und wen hat Jesus angekündigt? Das Rätsel um den Parakleten im johanneischen Schrifttum’. In T. Güzelmansur (ed.), Hat Jesus Muhammad angekündigt? Der Paraklet des Johannesevangeliums und seine koranische Bedeutung. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, pp. 73–207. Theobald, M. and R. Hoppe (eds.). 2006. ‘Für alle Zeiten zur Erinnerung’ (Jos 4,7): Beiträge zu einer biblischen Gedächtniskultur. Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 209. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk. Wohlmuth, J., 2006. ‘Eucharistie als Feier des Bundes: Ein Versuch, das markinische Kelchwort zu verstehen’. In Theobald and Hoppe (eds.), Erinnerung, pp. 115–31.

part iii

Future directions

chapter 14

The Fourth Gospel and the founder of Christianity The place of historical tradition in the work of C. H. Dodd John Painter I went to Durham (UK) in January 1965 with the hope of working with C. K. Barrett. I had proposed the research topic, ‘The Idea of Knowledge in the Johannine Gospel and Epistles’. My plan was to approach this study through an examination of the two great competing contemporary interpretations of John in the works of C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann.1 My earlier work had led me, via the then recently published texts from Qumran, to focus on the Jewish context of the Fourth Gospel. C. K. Barrett’s commentary on John (1955) had become a major resource for my study. My thesis was completed in December 1967, and the Ph.D. degree awarded in June 1968. In the process, parts of the Qumran texts became important for my understanding of the Johannine world-view and of some of its central motifs. In this respect I was closer to Bultmann, because neither Dodd nor Barrett saw the relevance of Qumran for Johannine studies, but Bultmann identified in them evidence of the sort of Judaism out of which John emerged.2 With regard to the unity of the Gospel, I was closer to Dodd and Barrett, who also recognized the influence of the ‘Old Testament’ on John, but in the context of early Christianity rather than Judaism. Here they followed Westcott, who understood the Gospel as an interpretation of the gospel tradition in terms of the theology of the Church at the end of the first century. Both Dodd and Barrett stressed the distinctive and creative contribution of the Fourth Evangelist in a way

1

2

Authorship remains disputed, but the ancient order of fourth is generally accepted. For convenience the adjective ‘Johannine’ is retained. Quotations are not modified. See Dodd 1963: 15–16 n. 3, and Barrett 1978: Preface viii, and 34, 337. By contrast, note Bultmann (1955b: 13 n.*; 1977: 366 n. 1). See also 1941: 8–15 for a pre-Qumran discussion of the Jewish milieu of the Fourth Gospel). Bultmann’s work on the Fourth Gospel was completed before it was possible to make substantial use of the texts from Qumran. His ‘Vorwort’ and notes are subsequent acknowledgements in later editions and grow out of his comments on the Jewish milieu of the Fourth Gospel in his commentary, which was first published well before the Qumran discoveries.

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that Westcott did not, and Dodd argued that the Evangelist interpreted/ reconceptualized the gospel tradition in Middle Platonic (Stoic-Platonic) terms in order to address adherents of the higher religion of Hellenism, now distinguished from Gnosticism (1953). In his second major book on the Fourth Gospel (1963), Dodd set out to show that, in this daring interpretation, the Fourth Evangelist built on an early independent strain of oral tradition, uniting ‘fact’ and interpretation (1953: 444–5, 451; 1963: 4–6; 1973: 37–41). For Dodd, the Fourth Gospel is intelligible as the interpretation of this strain of gospel tradition by an original and creative thinker, and designed for readers nurtured in the higher religion of Hellenism (1953: 6, 8, 10–12, 22–3, 36, 142–3, 204, 278–80, 283, 294–5, and especially 296; 1963: 5).

Dodd, Hoskyns, and Bultmann In his 1955 Preface, Barrett acknowledges his debt to three outstanding Johannine scholars, naming first ‘Dr. Rudolf Bultmann’, whose John commentary ‘is beyond question one of the greatest achievements of biblical scholarship in the present generation’. This seems to justify placing Bultmann first. After him he mentions ‘two great English scholars’, his teachers from whom he learnt more ‘viva voce’ than from their publications, ‘the late Sir Edwyn Hoskyns’, and ‘Professor C. H. Dodd’, in that form and order. He goes on to mention a lesser debt to a group of seventeen scholars in alphabetical order. In the 1978 Preface he refers to ‘Hoskyns, and his editor – to me, much more than an editor – Noel Davey; C. H. Dodd; and Rudolf Bultmann, who died about a week after the manuscript of the new edition left my hands’. Here, all titles are dropped, Bultmann is moved from first to third, making Hoskyns first, now joined by his ‘much more than an editor – Noel Davey’, and the second group of scholars is omitted. Barrett’s reflective appreciation of Hoskyns, and especially Davey, increased with time.3 This was because of his continuing friendship with Davey, but also, in response to his death in 1973, aware that Davey had not publicly received the recognition due to him during his lifetime.4 Both Dodd and Davey died in 1973, but Barrett mentions the death of neither specifically, noting only that of his earlier 3

4

I recall conversations concerning the Hoskyns’ John commentary during my research years in Durham and more specific references to Noel Davey in subsequent conversations over the years. See his 1995a essay, ‘Hoskyns and Davey’, esp. 58–62. Interestingly, Dodd’s only reference to Hoskyns (1963: 4) is to ‘the commentary by Hoskyns and Davey’.

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guides, ‘now none survives’. Though now placed last, and without reference to the contribution of his commentary, Barrett’s appreciation of Bultmann remained, and is expressed in new affirmative references (e.g. 1978: 250). Dodd, Hoskyns, and Bultmann were born in 1884, Dodd on 7 April, Hoskyns on 9 August, and Bultmann on 20 August. They all studied with Adolf Harnack in Berlin, Bultmann in 1905, Dodd and Hoskyns overlapping in 1906–7. Their careers were shaped, to some extent, by their response to Harnack, the outstanding scholar of his day, historian of early Christianity and leading exponent of what has come to be called, for better or worse, liberal theology. Martin Rumscheidt characterized the work of Harnack as ‘liberal theology at its height’ (1988). Dodd was overwhelmingly impressed with Harnack the historian, his emphasis on the continuity between Jesus and earliest Christianity, and his understanding of God with an absence of future cataclysmic eschatology. His influence on Dodd was powerful and lasting. Hoskyns was more attracted to Albert Schweitzer (who was also in Berlin in 1907) and Adolf Schlatter. Hoskyns became aware of ‘the passion and urgency’ of German theology, which he had not found in Cambridge (Wakefield 1981: 36–7). Later, ‘the Barth–Harnack correspondence of 1923’ on ‘Revelation and Theology’ crystallized the opposition of Barth to Harnack, and Hoskyns was drawn to translate Barth’s Römerbrief (1933).5 Bultmann remained committed to historical and critical study in theology, but became critically convinced of the change in theological orientation that found expression in Barth’s Römerbrief, which became an important conversation piece between the two. Already his relationship to Barth might be seen as support of Barth’s theological intuition, but critical of flaws in his theological method. Dodd, a student at Oxford, and Hoskyns from Cambridge, might not have known each other in 1907 Berlin, but from 1935, when Dodd came to Cambridge, they were colleagues until Hoskyns’s death on 28 June 1937. Despite this connection, there is little evidence of interaction between these two Johannine scholars, or between either of them and Bultmann. In his two books on John, Dodd makes only one reference to Hoskyns (1963: 4). There he remarks that ‘the more clearly the theological position of the Fourth Gospel is examined, the more clearly is it seen to involve a reference to history’. Dodd notes that, ‘this has been implicit in much of 5

Of the first German edition of 1918, only the Preface remains. Subsequent editions appeared in 1921, 1922, 1924, 1926, and 1928. Hoskyns translated the sixth edition. H. Martin Rumscheidt (1972, 1988: 85–106) captured the confrontation between Barth and Harnack.

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the recent movement of thought, at least in this country. A landmark in that movement is the great, though incomplete, commentary by Hoskyns and Davey. It is avowedly, and consistently, a “theological” commentary.’ Dodd goes on to note that they deprecate any preoccupation with historicity or any attempt to separate fact from interpretation and discourage any attempt to discover sources ‘beyond that which is accessible to us in the Synoptic Gospels’. Naturally, Dodd takes exception to the last of these issues, though it may have been his view when Hoskyns was alive.6 The death of Hoskyns in 1937 explains his lack of contact with Bultmann. But Dodd and Bultmann continued to work on John with little interaction. Dodd made use of some of Bultmann’s ThWNT articles, but not the Commentary or the Theology, both of which were published before 1953. Bultmann wrote a significant review article of Interpretation (1954), which showed significant critical engagement with that book. Britain’s war with Germany separated Dodd and Bultmann until 1945, but I suspect another reason for the lack of interaction between these three scholars is to be found in their differing responses to Harnack: the Barthian inclination of Hoskyns, the Harnack connection with Dodd, while Bultmann retained an historical and critical connection with Harnack while moving theologically in the direction of Barth. These differences may explain the absence of contact between Dodd and Bultmann. Yet Bultmann shared with Dodd the concern for oral tradition and the work of Formgeschichte. But Bultmann was critical of Dodd’s interpretation of John in terms of a Middle Platonic world-view and philosophy.7 For his part, in his 1953 work, Dodd came to distinguish Gnosticism from what he called the higher religion of Hellenism, taking only the latter to be relevant to the Fourth Gospel. Barrett ‘learnt viva voce’ from his teachers before the war of 1939, but remained open to learn from Bultmann as his work became available. In his work on the historical Jesus, Bultmann distinguished the Palestinian tradition of the earliest community from tradition developed outside Palestine. This led him not only to exclude the Fourth Gospel as a viable source but also later strands of the Synoptic tradition. Dodd was less stringent in his approach to the Synoptics and also made use of synopticlike traditions in John. Though Bultmann concludes, ‘One cannot flee 6

7

For some discussion of the changes in Dodd’s interpretation of the Fourth Gospel prior to writing Interpretation, see Painter 1987b. See his review (1954: 77–91. English translation 1963: esp. 11, 13, and 18–19. See also F. N. Davey’s review of 1953, which makes a similar criticism, esp. 243–4).

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from Paul and return to Jesus. For what one encounters in Jesus is the same God who is encountered in Paul – the God who is Creator and Judge . . . ’ (1961: 201), he recognized that Paul, like John, gave expression to the teaching and achievement of Jesus in a new conceptual framework. While Bultmann affirmed their theological achievement, this excluded them as sources in the quest for Jesus.

Dodd and Bultmann on the Fourth Gospel Each (Dodd and Bultmann) developed his position on John through sustained research over decades.8 Each also, consciously or unconsciously, worked to establish an understanding of the roots of John in the beginnings of Christianity, and interpreted John in relation to a world of thought that was neither Jewish nor Christian. For Bultmann, the Gnostic revelation discourses source was mediated to the Evangelist in a Jewish context, but presented a threat to the Evangelist to be overcome by historicizing/demythologizing the source to communicate the historic revelation in Jesus. Dodd argued that the Evangelist adopted a StoicPlatonic (Middle Platonic) world-view and use of Logos to express his understanding of reality and as the basis of the Johannine symbolism and signs. This move was directed to readers who already adopted such a world-view and understanding of Logos. Thus, the assumed world-view was more determinative for Dodd than Bultmann, for whom the Fourth Evangelist was in oppositional tension with the Offenbarungsreden. Bultmann’s first significant publication on John (1923) followed his History of the Synoptic Tradition (1921), a form-critical study of the oral tradition that became embodied in the Gospels. His great commentary on John first appeared as a whole in 1941 (English 1971), and the second volume of his Theology of the New Testament in 1951 (English 1955).9 His ‘Johannesevangelium’ in the third edition of RGG III (1955a, cols. 840–50), might have been used to advantage in translation as the ‘Introduction’ to the English edition of his commentary (1971). His commentary on the Johannine Epistles (1967, English 1973) completed his Johannine work. Dodd’s Johannine work began with an article (1911), ‘Eucharistic Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel’, followed by ‘The Background of the Fourth 8

9

In the course of his work on the Fourth Gospel prior to 1953, Dodd rejected Synoptic dependence in response to Gardner-Smith (1938), and moved from a broad to narrow definition of Gnosticism (between 1946 and 1953), perhaps in reaction to Bultmann. Fascicles of the John commentary began to appear progressively in 1937. The second volume of Bultmann’s Theology contains his treatment of Johannine theology.

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Gospel’ (1935), which foreshadowed Part 1 of his 1953 classic. His research on the Fourth Gospel involved clarification of its relationship to the Johannine Epistles in The First Epistle of John and the Fourth Gospel (1937), followed by his commentary on the Johannine Epistles (1946). In his Preface, written in January 1945, he notes, ‘The interpretation . . . which I offer here has in large measure emerged from studies primarily directed towards the understanding of the Fourth Gospel in its contemporary setting’ (1946: vii). This description fits his 1953 book. Though the 1946 commentary is a brilliant and succinct piece of work on the Epistles, for Dodd, it was part of his work to distinguish the Epistles from the Gospel as the work of different authors emerging from the same situation. It was a spin-off from research on the Gospel, which continued for over fifty years and intensively for twenty-five years or more before the publication of the second of his two great books (1963). I have long been convinced that the Gospel and Epistles were written in quite different situations/circumstances, and that the Epistles are later than, and dependent on, some form of the Fourth Gospel (1975: 114–15). For at least two decades I have been convinced that the Gospel and Epistles are the work of different authors. Thus I agree with both Dodd and Bultmann on this point. I differ from them on their view of common context. Rather I see a dominantly Jewish context shaping the development of the Gospel. The Epistles, being later than and dependent on the Gospel, respond to a dominantly Gentile Christian context (Painter 2002: 58–61, 73–4, 79–81, 84–6, 115–16; 1993: 61–86, 119–35; 1975: 12–15, 103–15). Surprising agreements within differences In 1965 my overwhelming impression of Dodd and Bultmann was that their approaches to the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel were more or less diametrically opposed. It was their polarity as much as the distinction of these scholars that encouraged me to choose their positions to frame my research on the Fourth Gospel. I am now surprised to find significant points of close agreement in their work. First, they agree that to understand a document like the Fourth Gospel a reader needs to grasp the world-view that it presupposes. This approach is characteristic of Bultmann, whose writings are studded with the language of Weltanschauung and Weltbild (Painter 1987a: 8, 22–6, 56–66).10 10

See Dodd 1953: 143: ‘Thus the very nature of the symbolism employed by the evangelist reflects his fundamental Weltanschauung.’

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For him, to read the text of the Fourth Gospel without recognizing the Johannine world-view can only end in misunderstanding. In discussing the problem of the use of Logos in the Prologue, Dodd acknowledged that it is not a matter of choosing a lexical meaning but of discovering the world of thought which finds expression there (1953: 3–4, 133–43). This is a characteristic Bultmannian observation. Dodd’s choice of a Middle Platonic (Stoic-Platonic) world-view and use of Logos is not. Secondly, each of them describes the interpreter’s task in terms of the hermeneutical circle, in the relation of words to a phrase, a clause, a sentence, and so on. In the same way, a book is the sum of its parts, but each part takes on a shade of meaning in the light of the whole. For Dodd and Bultmann, the full meaning of the Fourth Gospel is not discernible by a first-time reader who lacks the necessary ‘pre-understanding’ (Bultmann’s term) to approach the text effectively. Such a reader needs to read and reread so that all the parts are illumined by the whole (Dodd 1953: 3–4; Bultmann 1950: 47–69; Painter 1987a: 56–66).11 In keeping with this view of the hermeneutical circle, Dodd speaks of the Fourth Evangelist as one who accepts ‘the general tradition of the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, as it was expressed in the apostolic preaching . . . He has meditated deeply upon the meaning of the Gospel story, taken as a whole. He then turns back upon the details of the story, and seeks in each particular incident the meaning of the whole, expressing that meaning partly by the way in which he reports the facts, partly by the order in which they are placed, and partly through carefully composed discourses and dialogues’ (1953: 445).12 For this to work in John, the Evangelist presupposes that the reader knows the whole when reading the part, even if in reading it the Evangelist opens a new dimension of meaning. But the part is understood when read in the light of the whole story. Beyond that whole story is the Johannine whole. Here the Prologue has an important role in opening the reader’s eyes to the Johannine whole (1953: 133). Dodd also used the notion of the interaction of parts and whole to describe the relationship of the Fourth Gospel to the New Testament and to early Christianity as a whole: 11

12

The complexity of the process implied by Dodd puts in question his overall hypothesis that the Fourth Gospel was written to appeal to ‘outsiders’ without any knowledge of the Jesus tradition (1953: 8–9). See Davey 1953: 242–4. Peter Phillips (2006) goes further than Dodd and argues from the Prologue that the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a wide range of ‘outsiders’, as first-time readers. See my RBL review (2008b). Both Bultmann (1934 Introduction) and Dodd (1973: 33–41) recognize that all historical reporting involves a point of view so that the reporting of events inevitably involves interpretation.

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John Painter I am disposed to think that the understanding of this Gospel is not only one of the outstanding tasks of our time, but the crucial test of our success or failure in solving the problem of the New Testament as a whole. The Fourth Gospel may well prove to be the keystone of an arch which at present fails to hold together. If we can understand it, understand how it came to be and what it means, we shall know what early Christianity really was and not until in some measure we comprehend the New Testament as a whole shall we be in a position to solve the Johannine problem. [1936b: 29]13

Perhaps the problem of the New Testament as a whole is the relationship of the ‘Church’ to Jesus, and the relationship of emerging ‘Christian’ theology to the life and teaching of Jesus.14 If Dodd’s view of the Johannine problem is that of the relation of the Fourth Evangelist’s theological interpretation to the Jesus tradition, the solution comes in his detection of early synoptic-like tradition in the Fourth Gospel, even if it is sometimes so deeply embedded in the overall deeply theological interpretation as to make identification problematic (1953: 6, 133–4, 444–5, 451; 1963: 5, 430; 1973: 34–5). Nevertheless, he observes optimistically, because ‘there may well be genuinely traditional material so completely absorbed into Johannine composition that it cannot be identified by the methods here employed . . . the contents of the pre-Johannine tradition must be understood in the sense, “this at least”, not “this and no more”’ (1963: 428–9). This observation becomes useful only if others find ways to identify further tradition with some degree of probability. Thirdly, each of them recognized the difficulty of research into the events of the ancient past, where evidence is often fragmentary and of doubtful value. Given the nature of the sources concerning Jesus, Bultmann ruled out the usefulness of the Fourth Gospel (1934: 12), and set out to identify the earliest layer of the Synoptic tradition in which ‘Jesus is named as the bearer of the message; according to the overwhelming probability he really was’ (1934: 13–14 [1958 edn: 17–18]). On the basis of this tradition Bultmann wrote his book on the historical Jesus (1926), in English, Jesus and the Word (1934).15 At the end of Historical Tradition, 13

14 15

From Dodd’s 1935 Cambridge inaugural lecture. See F. W. Dillistone (1977: 140–1). This view of the Fourth Gospel hardly fits a work written for ‘outsiders’. Noel Davey’s review questions whether Dodd’s depiction of the complexity of the Fourth Gospel is consistent with his view of it as an apologia to ‘outsiders’, even if ‘higher pagans’ (Davey 1953: point 2, 243–4). ‘Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, but what came was the church’ (Alfred Loisy). In the English Preface the translators explain Bultmann’s use of ‘probability’ (1934: viii–ix; 1958: 6), ‘Professor Bultmann uses “know” and “certain” in almost an absolute sense; consequently he is forced to use “probably” where most of us say “certainly,” and “possibly” stands often for

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Dodd concludes that an ancient independent tradition lies behind the Fourth Gospel and it merits serious consideration as a source of knowledge of the historical Jesus. ‘For this conclusion I should claim a high degree of probability – certainty in such matters is seldom to be attained’ (1963: 423). Nevertheless, Dodd argued that this ancient independent synoptic-like source ‘enables us to take . . . a stereoscopic view of the facts, from more than one angle’ (1963: 432). Thus his book on Jesus (1973) makes use of tradition underlying the Fourth Gospel as well as the Synoptic tradition. Fourthly, both of them wrote a book on Jesus, based on an acceptance of the ‘two-document hypothesis’ and a form-critical approach to the underlying oral tradition of the Gospels (Dodd 1963: 6; 1973: 30–5; Bultmann 1921, 1926, 1934, and 1963). Bultmann restricted his study to what he considered to be the earliest stratum of the Synoptic tradition. In addition to the Synoptics, Dodd made use of what he considered to be an early, independent, synoptic-like oral tradition underlying and embedded in the Fourth Gospel, providing ‘a stereoscopic view of the facts, from more than one angle’ (1963: 432).16 This ‘stereoscopic’ view was realized in his The Founder of Christianity (1973), which makes use of both Synoptic and Johannine tradition. Bultmann’s Jesus was published in 1926, and is based on his detailed work on the Synoptic tradition (1921). Though he agreed with Dodd concerning the Fourth Gospel’s independence of the Synoptics, he attributed the distinctive tradition in the Fourth Gospel to distinctive written narrative and discourse sources for which he claimed no special historical value. To some extent he probably confused aspects of the Evangelist’s interpretative work with underlying sources. As Dodd recognized, it is more likely that the Evangelist embedded traditional material in his own composition. The synoptic-like character of the tradition assisted him to recognize it in the text of the Fourth Gospel, though a degree of uncertainty remains, because of the embedding of the tradition in thoroughgoing interpretation by the Fourth Evangelist. Fifthly, both accepted the form-critical conclusion that the oral tradition transmitted individual units/pericopae so that a chronological account of Jesus’ mission is problematic. Bultmann gave little attention to a narrative of Jesus’ activity for that reason, providing only a summary of characteristic

16

“probably”.’ Perhaps the translators’ comment reveals over-optimistic expectations, because, as Dodd noted, ‘certainty in such matters is seldom to be attained’. See also Painter 2006: 619–38. Dodd’s use of ‘stereoscopic’ is perhaps preferable to the more recent use of ‘bi-optic’ (Anderson 2006: 127–73).

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activities, and focusing on the evidence of the teaching of Jesus.17 Neither he nor Dodd attempt any developmental account of the teaching, but Dodd features the personal traits of Jesus and his role as teacher in a Jewish context before dealing with some major aspects of his teaching, especially his reinterpretation, through word and action, of ‘the people of God’ and the ‘Messiah’. He attributes to Jesus the use of Isaiah’s teaching concerning the servant of the lord to transform the understanding of Messiah and the vocation of the people of God. Dodd’s earlier work on oral tradition (1932, 1936a) enabled him to argue that elements of the framework of Jesus’ mission were also transmitted orally and provided a basis for a three-part story: Galilee, Jerusalem, Sequel (1953: 447–8; 1973: 46–8, 127–78). This sequential single-line arrangement of Galilee, then Jerusalem, rather than a complex set of movements between the two, suggests an acceptance of the Synoptic order, having concluded that the Fourth Gospel is ordered by thought, not events (1963: 10). But the Gospels did not preserve the actual chronology of Jesus’ life and mission (1963: 9–10). Thus Dodd rejects as a ‘puerile’ expedient the attempt to harmonize the Marcan and Johannine accounts of the cleansing of the temple by assuming that the temple was cleansed twice. He refers to this as ‘a desperate determination to harmonize Mark and John at all costs’ (1953: 448; 1963: 157 n. 2). Dodd recognized the precarious placement of the units of oral tradition unless they bear some inherent temporal mark, as do the baptism of Jesus or the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, which probably existed as a very early narrative, whether oral or written.18 Otherwise, neither the tradition in Mark nor in the Fourth Gospel promises chronological accuracy (1963: 10). The second part, ‘Jerusalem’, ends with the death and burial of Jesus. The third part is called ‘The Sequel’, because the event of the resurrection is of a different character from what has gone before, and its meaning is hard to pin down. Nevertheless, Dodd is clear that, without the belief in the risen Jesus, there would be no story.19 Sixthly, both Dodd and Bultmann considered that the Fourth Gospel is largely independent of the Synoptics. Because of Bultmann’s distinctive source hypothesis, agreement on this matter is limited, and Dodd made 17

18

19

Bultmann argued that this bias was appropriate in the case of Jesus, who was a teacher who operated primarily by his words. Though the Fourth Evangelist does not narrate the baptism of Jesus, many scholars think he presupposes it, a view perhaps favouring awareness of Mark. On the interpretation of the accounts of the resurrection in the Gospels, Dodd, Bultmann, and James Dunn have more in common than I expected.

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more explicit than Bultmann the importance of continuing oral tradition alongside written documents (1963: 6–9; 1973: 25–8, 32, 34–5). Though allowing for the two-document hypothesis, he thought that the Synoptics were shaped largely by the oral tradition, and used verbal parallels and synoptic-like character to identify oral tradition embedded in typically Johannine compositions. C. K. Barrett lists ‘Material akin to the synoptic tradition’ in Fourth Gospel narratives and discourse, and notes the presence of synoptic-like aphorisms which cannot be traced to a source in the distinctively Johannine discourses (1955: 16–18; 1978: 17–21). This sort of evidence is used by Dodd to build a case for the Fourth Gospel’s use of synoptic-like oral tradition independent of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics Dodd was aware that his case for the Fourth Gospel’s use of an independent tradition would be undermined if it could be shown that the Evangelist used a patchwork of material from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, but considered this to be ‘too improbable an hypothesis to be seriously entertained’ (1963: 423). This implies that the same evidence is capable of being read in at least two different ways. One way is to see the Fourth Gospel as a composition based on the Synoptics and Acts. The other is to see it as dependent on the continuing oral tradition underlying the Synoptics. If both ways are possible, what counts for or against either view? I am inclined to agree with Dodd, that the implications of the Fourth Gospel being pieced together from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts do not easily fit my understanding of the author of the Fourth Gospel, which is not a patchwork, but a unified expression of a profound interpretation of the gospel tradition: The fact is that the thought of this gospel is so original and creative that a search for its ‘sources’, or even for the ‘influences’ by which it may have been affected, may easily lead us astray. Whatever influences may have been present have been masterfully controlled by a powerful and independent mind. There is no book, either in the New Testament or outside it, which is really like the Fourth Gospel. [1953: 6]

Yet I am aware that there are those, like Michael Goulder (1992), and the Leuven School (Frans Neirynck 1977; 1992), who do not baulk at what seems to some, including Dodd, to be an insuperable difficulty. Perhaps this is because they do not sufficiently take account of the differences of the Fourth Gospel from the other three, and the continuing power and presence of oral tradition after the Synoptics were written.

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The compositional model that fits the Synoptics is built on the comprehensive evidence of shared use of traditions in the same order and having a high level of verbal agreement. The degree to which the Fourth Gospel exhibits these features is minor by comparison (1963: 4–6). That is why the first three Gospels are seen as distinct from the fourth, and have become known as the Synoptic Gospels. They use much of the same narrative and teaching traditions, and follow a similar narrative path using the same or almost the same words much of the time. Whatever the source of the Fourth Gospel’s tradition, the author has absorbed it in unified written narratives and discourses, putting in question the hypothesis of an author piecing together his Gospel from at least four sources. Thus Dodd 1963: 18, 426, 430–1. The degree of difference of the Fourth Gospel from the other three may undermine the evidence of direct dependence. Nevertheless, the case might be accepted if no more persuasive alternative case can be made. The role of oral tradition Dodd appeals to the work of the form critics in response to the growing awareness of the evidence of oral tradition in the Gospels and elsewhere in the New Testament. He notes that oral tradition did not disappear when written texts appeared. He appeals to evidence from the second century, for example, in the time of Polycarp, who stresses the importance of oral tradition in his time (1963: 5–9; 1973: 25–8, 32–5). Yet the tendency has been to look for written sources to explain the relationship between the Gospels, whether Mark as a source used by other Gospels or a written sayings source. Hence there has been an inclination to look for known or hypothetical written sources to explain the composition of the Fourth Gospel. Given the gap between the life of Jesus and the commonly accepted dates for the written Gospels, it is not surprising that the hypothesis of oral transmission of tradition was called in to fill the gap, especially as the traditions in the Synoptic Gospels bear the marks of oral transmission comparable to other oral traditions known to us.20 The analysis and description of this tradition was the work of the form critics. As far as 20

See the pioneering work on Greek oral tradition by Milman Parry (1971). Parry’s work, now collected, ended with his accidental death at the age of thirty-three in 1935. His work was continued by his assistant, Albert B. Lord (1960).

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the Fourth Gospel is concerned, the evidence that oral tradition continued to have a significant role alongside the written Gospels well into the second century is crucial. Since the early twentieth century there has been an intermittent concentration on the oral transmission of tradition in the early Church, and there continue to be authors who allow a significant role for oral tradition in explaining common material in the Gospels (Dunn 2003a; 2003b: 192–254). The character of the oral tradition Dodd emphasized the corporate nature of the oral tradition as analysed by the form critics and found similar evidence in synoptic-like tradition underlying the Johannine compositions (1963: 17 n. 1, 18). Here Dodd gave primary weight to the evidence of the Gospel itself over traditions concerning authorship. He argued that if the tradition concerning authorship by John the son of Zebedee should win the day, the ‘material ascribed here to tradition would turn out to be the apostle’s own reminiscences; but even so, it would be obvious that they had been cast at one stage into the mould of the corporate tradition of the church’. He notes that the apostle was engaged in preaching, teaching, and liturgy, and these activities shaped/formed ‘the substance of the Church’s memories of its Founder’. He goes on to note that, in this case, the corporate nature of the synopticlike tradition emerges from an intensely original literary composition. Dodd not only argues (1963: 424–32) that the underlying tradition shows contact with Aramaic, as would be expected of an early tradition; he also argues that the Fourth Evangelist was an Aramaic speaker, that Aramaic terms appear in the Fourth Gospel when they are absent from the Synoptics, and it sometimes uses different Greek words from the Synoptics to translate Aramaic terms. He notes that ‘some features’ of the early tradition point to a Jewish Christian setting, but does not note the synagogue conflict of John 9:22, 34; 12:42; 16:2. Barrett (1955: 299–300) identifies this as a situation reflecting conditions in the last decade of the first century ce, a perspective commonly accepted following J. L. Martyn’s 1968 monograph. Though the precise details are less clear than in Martyn’s account, the Fourth Evangelist’s distinctive treatment suggests that Martyn was on the right track in identifying the composition of the Gospel to address a ‘Christian’ Jewish audience in a Jewish context towards the end of the first century ce. Thus, the Jewish character of the early tradition may be more difficult to identify and isolate from the composition than Dodd supposes.

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Dodd also notes evidence of the early tradition in references of a geographical and chronological kind in Hebrew and Aramaic names that confirm the Evangelist was well-informed about the topography of Jerusalem and Southern Palestine, in awareness of the date of Passover, the crucifixion of Jesus, and of the political situation before the outbreak of the great rebellion. Even in the developed composition of the Fourth Gospel, there is evidence of underlying pericopae still resembling ‘the scheme of action – dialogue – pronouncement’ (pronouncement stories) characteristic of the Synoptic tradition.21 It is characteristic that the synoptic-like tradition has been found deeply and intricately embedded in the Johannine narratives, dialogues, and discourses (1963: 430 and see 1953: 445, 451). Though Dodd attributes the distinctive Johannine style, motifs and point of view to the Evangelist, he questions whether some of the most distinctive and characteristic Johannine motifs may find a precedent in the early synoptic-like tradition. At the same time, he recognizes the difficulty of pressing beyond the recognition of early synoptic-like tradition without losing credibility (1963: 431). But if the underlying tradition is synoptic-like, why not the Synoptics? Simply put, the answer is that the Synoptic dependence paradigm implies an author creating a new work from four different piles of jigsaw pieces, each of which formed its own puzzle. The Fourth Evangelist seems to have worked more freely than that, and the evidence of continuing oral tradition seems to offer a promising alternative. But this solution is put in question by the scale of the evidence of the same/similar tradition in the same order over a large scale in the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. Modified Synoptic dependence C. K. Barrett attributes the ordering and linking of individual units to the evangelists so that Mark is responsible for the basic order of the Synoptic Gospels. Whether Dodd’s appeal to the oral transmission of a traditional framework of Jesus’ mission (1932, 1936a) can bear the weight of this common order in the Fourth Gospel and Mark is a moot point. Barrett makes a case for the Fourth Evangelist’s knowledge and use of Mark (and 21

While such tradition is commonly recognized in the Synoptics, Painter (1993) features such tradition characterized as Inquiry, Quest, and Conflict stories in the Fourth Gospel. Parallels with the Synoptic tradition (see Robert Tannehill, 1981) suggest that the presence of such stories in John is evidence of underlying tradition, but this evidence is strongly marked by the Fourth Evangelist’s compositional development. As Dodd noted, in the Fourth Gospel such tradition is deeply embedded in the Johannine composition.

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less likely Luke), but in a much freer way than Matthew used Mark (1955: 34; 1978: 45). He acknowledges that the case for the Fourth Evangelist’s knowledge of Luke was comparatively weaker than the case for his knowledge of Mark, which is not restricted to verbal agreements (Barrett 1955: 35–6; 1978: 43–5), but includes an impressive array of material appearing in the Fourth Gospel in the same order as Mark (Barrett 1955: 34–5; 1978: 42–3). This makes an alternative explanation of a common use of oral tradition unpersuasive (1978: 42–54). At the same time, Barrett’s recognition of the Fourth Evangelist’s free use of Marcan material and of additional oral tradition in the service of his theological interpretation goes a long way to satisfy Dodd’s objection to a piecemeal use of the Synoptics and Acts. Dodd and Barrett recognize the theological achievement of the Evangelist in a similar way that distinguishes the Fourth Gospel from the Synoptics and the tradition on which they are based. Either way, the underlying tradition has been transformed in the composition of the Fourth Gospel. Is it a matter of transforming Mark, or the oral tradition underlying Mark? Barrett’s response to Dodd Having read Dodd’s two major works on the Fourth Gospel (1953; 1963), Barrett modifies his discussion of the Fourth Evangelist’s use of sources in the light of Dodd’s arguments concerning the use of synoptic-like oral tradition (1978: 45). Recognizing the interpretative transformation of tradition in the Fourth Gospel, Barrett acknowledges: It is certain that John did not ‘use’ Mark as Matthew did. The parallels cannot even prove that John had read the book we know as Mark. Anyone who prefers to say, ‘Not Mark, but the oral tradition on which Mark was based’, or ‘Not Mark, but a written source on which Mark drew’, may claim that his hypothesis fits the evidence equally well. All that can be said is that we do not have before us the oral tradition on which Mark was based; we do not have any of the written sources that Mark may have quoted; but we do have Mark, and in Mark are the stories John repeats, sometimes at least with similar or even identical words, sometimes in substantially the same order – which is not in every case as inevitable as is sometimes suggested. [1978: 45]

This response is directed to the position of Dodd and P. Gardner-Smith, who is named in the following sentence as having provided a ‘rather lame comment on the sequence of the feeding miracle and the walking on the lake’ coincident in Mark and the Fourth Gospel, explaining ‘they go well

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together, and they were no doubt associated in oral tradition’ (GardnerSmith 1938: 33). Barrett declines to distinguish between Mark and Marklike, but concludes that it is simpler and more attractive to favour known Mark over unknown oral tradition or other unknown written source (1978: 45). His critique continues to find an echo in the Leuven tradition. Dodd has made a case for recognizing the continuing presence and role of oral tradition after the writing of the Gospels. But the only way oral traditions survive as evidence is in written form. Barrett is quite right, ‘we do not have before us the oral tradition on which Mark was based’, how could we? But by allowing for knowledge of Mark where there is a Marcan parallel, and allowing for other oral tradition where the Fourth Gospel has synoptic-like material which nevertheless cannot be sourced, Barrett moves in a way that takes account of Dodd. Like Dodd he recognizes synopticlike material that is not sourced in them. He attributes the differences in the Fourth Gospel to the creative gifts of the Fourth Evangelist. Thus like Dodd, Barrett sees the Evangelist as a creative author who is responsible for the unified narratives with their dialogues, and monologues. Writing at the end of the first century, it is hardly unlikely that the Fourth Evangelist knew and used Mark, and other gospel tradition, in a free way to express what is a distinctive theological understanding.

Dodd’s contribution to ‘the Jesus quest’ In his historical ‘Appendix’ (1953: 444), having described the Fourth Gospel as ‘a theological work, rather than a history’, Dodd goes on to qualify this by saying that ‘it is important for the evangelist that what he narrates happened. In the process, however, of bringing out the symbolical value of the facts he has used some freedom.’ While there is no interpretation-free narration of ‘the facts’ (1953: 444–5, 451; 1963: 4–6; 1973: 33–45, 139–41), there are greater and lesser degrees of interpretation. Reference to the ‘freedom’ of the Evangelist signals Dodd’s view of the greater degree of theological interpretation in the Fourth Gospel than in the Synoptics: ‘Where the Fourth Gospel differs from the others is that its interpretation is not only in different thought-forms, but it is also deliberate, coherent, and in the full sense theological, as theirs is not’ (1963: 5). This comment is placed alongside a call to see each Gospel in its own terms and ‘setting in life’ (Sitz im Leben). But without a bedrock of fact, there could be no interpretation.22 22

See Bultmann’s reply (1966: 274–5) to John Macquarrie.

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Historical Tradition is the outworking of Dodd’s quest to discover historical tradition underlying the Johannine composition. What he discovered is synoptic-like and, he argues, it is independent of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (1963: 423, 427, 430–1; 1953: 450–3). It is oral tradition like that underlying Mark. He deferred any attempt to assess the reliability of the Johannine tradition against the Synoptics (1963: 8). In his The Founder of Christianity he acknowledges the use of all four Gospels. He describes his account as ‘an outline, and an interpretation, of the course of events, so far as this may be inferred from data in the four gospels . . . For the result I do not claim more than a degree – as it seems to me a high degree – of probability’ (1973: 127–78, 185 n. 1). A reading of this work shows Dodd to be strongly dependent on the Synoptic tradition, though there are some significant Johannine contributions.23 History and interpretation Given that Dodd established the presence of early, independent, synopticlike tradition in the Fourth Gospel (1963: 427, 430), some scholars have expressed disappointment that he does not make more of this Gospel in his 1973 study. But Dodd does not withdraw his view that, ‘I regard the Fourth Gospel as being in its essential character a theological work, rather than a history’ and the Evangelist, in bringing out the symbolic value of the facts, ‘has used some freedom’ (1953: 444). Though he goes on to note that ‘the writer has chosen to set forth his theology under the literary form of a ‘Gospel’ (1953: 444), this does not imply that all Gospels are equally a blend of history and theology. ‘Where the Fourth Gospel differs from the others is that its interpretation is not only in different thought-forms, but it is also deliberate, coherent, and in the full sense theological, as theirs is not’ (1963: 5). The nature of the Fourth Gospel The task of identifying tradition concerning the historical course of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, his actions, and his teaching is likely to be more difficult and uncertain in the Fourth Gospel than the Synoptics. 23

I counted twenty-four references to the Fourth Gospel, fifty-one to Mark, sixty-three to Luke, and sixty-seven to Matthew. The Synoptic parallels redress the balance, which reflects Dodd’s concentration on the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics, with an inclination to follow a symbolic interpretation of Jesus’ actions (1973: 42–5, 139–41).

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Thus, ‘each version [each Gospel] demands consideration on its merits, allowance being always made for the different intentions of the evangelists and the different setting in life [Sitz im Leben] to which their renderings of the story belong’ (1963: 5). Tradition found in all four Gospels has been impacted by the resurrection faith, but there is evidence to support the view that the Fourth Gospel, from the beginning, systematically leads the reader to understand the mission and teaching of Jesus in the light of the achievement of his completed mission, in the light of the resurrection faith, and expressed in different conceptual terms. For this reason: ‘In the Fourth Gospel, interpretation is more deliberate and self-conscious, and it employs more sophisticated theological concepts’ (1973: 37–8). It is the fate of outstanding scholars like Dodd and Bultmann that their insights become part of the heritage of the scholars of succeeding generations, even of scholars consciously critical of their work. It is possible that Barrett became aware of Dodd’s rejection of the Synoptic dependence of the Fourth Gospel subsequent to writing the first edition of his John commentary. He took account of Dodd (1953 and 1963) only in the second edition (1978), where their difference over the Fourth Gospel’s relation to the Synoptics tends to obscure other agreements. Yet Barrett’s 1978 Preface continues to acknowledge his debt to Dodd, without specifying details. I suspect those details include what Dodd imbibed in Berlin of the new perception of history in which ‘fact’ and interpretation are seen to be inseparable, even in the earliest Palestinian tradition. More important is Dodd’s view of the Fourth Evangelist as a theologian whose theological achievement is intentional, coherent, and conceptual in a way that distinguishes the Fourth Gospel from the Synoptics. To a degree not matched by the Fourth Gospel or Paul, they retain the language and conceptual framework of Jesus. Thus there are grounds for recognizing their value as sources for our knowledge of Jesus while recognizing Paul and John as the theologians of the NT. Though not with reference to Dodd, my comments on ‘The Nature of the Gospel’ of John give expression to Dodd’s point of view in a way of which I was not aware when writing (1975: 7–9). Like Dodd, Hoskyns, Bultmann, and Barrett, my statement affirms that the Fourth Gospel ‘is a profound interpretation of the gospel events’. It is important that the events described really happened. At the same time: Each of the evangelists was a theologian in his own right. In John theological reflection has progressed beyond the limits of the Synoptics . . . In spite of this monolithic unity, almost all of the important Johannine themes

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can be found, in seed form, in the Synoptics.[24] . . . John develops isolated sayings into major themes, . . . But John’s use of language differs from the Synoptics . . . because his main emphasis is on the complementary themes of the person and work of Christ [Jesus] and the experience of salvation.[25] Because of this perspective, John ranks with Paul as one of the leading theologians of the New Testament. It is the genius of John that he gave expression to his theology in the form of the Gospel.

My debt to Dodd is partly direct, for I first learned from him through his writings. I later learned from him through perhaps his best-known student, C. K. Barrett. Of course, Barrett also learned from Hoskyns and Davey.26 Perhaps because of this I now see more clearly the significant points of convergence between them in their work on the Fourth Gospel. The continuity would have been greater had Dodd not been persuaded by P. Gardner-Smith to renounce the dependence of the Fourth Gospel on the Synoptics. Dodd’s influence is also to be found in the work of other contemporary scholars.

James Dunn and ‘The Founder of Christianity’ Dunn’s Jesus Remembered (2003b) is in many ways a massive expansion of Dodd’s approach to the historical Jesus. Dodd’s relevant work is scattered over many years and many volumes. His earlier work was concentrated on the Synoptics, while his work on the Fourth Gospel was gathered up in his later two great books towards the end of his career. They draw quite heavily on his work on the Synoptics, especially in dealing with the independent oral tradition on which Dodd argues the Fourth Gospel is based. The fruit of his labour is gathered up and given more popular expression in his masterful 1973 book on Jesus. Dunn has consolidated his contribution to the Jesus quest in his 2003b volume, though his treatment of the Fourth Gospel is deferred to volume 3. Like Dodd and Bultmann, he accepts the two-source hypothesis of Mark and Q (2003b: 143–60), and also explicitly recognizes the need to account for the special Matthaean and 24 25

26

Cf. Dodd 1963: 431. Reference to ‘Christ’ is true to Paul, but inappropriate in relation to the Fourth Gospel, for whom Jesus is the Christ (Messiah): 1:41; 4:29; 7:26, 41; 11:27; 20:31 and also 1 John 3:22; 5:1. In John 1:17; 17:3 we find ‘Jesus Christ’ (cf. also 1 John 1:3; 2:1; 3:23; 4:2, 15; 5:6, 20; 2 John 3, 7). Unlike Paul, the Fourth Gospel nowhere refers to Jesus simply as ‘Christ’. In 2 John 9 the use of Christ with the definite article may mean ‘the Christ’ – that is, the Messiah. In this Gospel, where (alone in the NT) the meaning of Christ is explained by the transliteration of its Semitic root (1:41; 4:25), the Pauline use of Christ seems to be unthinkable. Perhaps via them came also the influence of Karl Barth, but not specifically in relation to John.

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Lucan traditions, insisting that they were oral as well as written, and that the oral continued to exist alongside the written for some time (2003b: 160–1).27 Here again he echoes Dodd’s position (1973: 25–8). His focus on the role of oral tradition (his default setting, 2003a), as with Dodd, leads to his recognition of the limitations of chronology in the narrative of the Gospels, and therefore in his account of the characteristic actions and teachings of Jesus. Section 8.3 deals with ‘Oral Tradition’ and surveys the work of J. G. Herder, Rudolf Bultmann, C. F. D. Moule, Helmut Koester, Birger Gerhardsson, Werner Kelber, J. M. Foley, R. A. Horsley and J. A. Draper, and Kenneth Bailey. More extensive treatments are reserved for Werner Kelber and Kenneth Bailey, but no treatment of C. H. Dodd is found here, though 8.1 uses his title, ‘Jesus as the Founder of Christianity’, with acknowledgement to Dodd (2003b: 174). I have the impression that Dunn’s position is closer to Dodd’s than he may realize. Dodd’s 1963 work is more positive in relation to historical tradition in the Fourth Gospel than Dunn allows (2003b: 165–7). Dunn restricts the Fourth Gospel to a supporting role (2003b: 165–7). In practice, that is often, but not always, the case for Dodd (1973). Yet, Dodd’s evaluation of the difference of John from the Synoptics might be thought to justify Dunn’s more cautious use of the Fourth Gospel. Dodd wrote, ‘Where the Fourth Gospel differs from the others is that its interpretation is not only in different thought-forms, but is also deliberate, coherent, and in the full sense theological, as theirs is not’ (1963: 5). The ‘sequel’, ‘final metaphor’, or ‘mode’ Like the Gospels and Dodd, Dunn has an end focus on the passion and this includes some account or announcement of the resurrection. In Dodd (1973) the passion is dealt with in part 2 of the story, entitled ‘Jerusalem’. But the resurrection is treated in part 3 ‘the Sequel’ (169–78), that which follows as a result. That is a little strange because, in the Gospels, death and resurrection are inseparably linked and not death as the end of the story and resurrection as a sequel. Dodd highlights the somewhat confused and confusing accounts of the resurrection in the Gospels and concludes that the resurrection was an event of a different kind from that described in parts 1 and 2 of the story. At the same time he is insistent that the resurrection narrative is the expression of the experience of the presence 27

While Dunn discusses the Gospel of Thomas and other non-canonical Gospels, his evaluation is that they are historically of less significance than the four Gospels (2003b: 161–5, 167–72).

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of Jesus by those who had known and believed in him. Jesus had come back and made God present ‘in a way altogether new. And that put the whole story in a fresh light’ (1973: 178). The resurrection faith put the story in a fresh light. Thus Dodd recognized the power of the Easter faith to transform the gospel tradition and this is most powerfully demonstrated in the Fourth Gospel. In his treatment, Dunn also recognizes the intangibility of the resurrection in the accounts in the Gospels so that the risen Jesus is the same but different. To express this Dunn refers to the resurrection as a metaphor, an irreplaceable metaphor to express something of the mystery of what was experienced by the first disciples, and continues to be experienced as the presence of God. According to Dunn, resurrection is an interpretation of mysterious and confusing data that became the foundation of the Easter faith. As such, the resurrection has a paradigmatic significance. ‘In short, the resurrection of Jesus is not so much a historical fact as a foundational fact, or meta fact, the interpretative insight into reality which enables discernment into the relative importance and unimportance of all other facts’ (2003b: 878). At this point, and in the following section ‘“Resurrection” as Metaphor’, Dunn comes close to Dodd’s view that this event ‘put the whole story in a fresh light’. Indeed, he goes further. This foundational fact, or whatever we call it, gives ‘the interpretative insight into reality’ and provides the discernment into relative importance and unimportance of all other facts. Bultmann’s understanding of the resurrection of Jesus and its implications for those who believe shares with Dodd and Dunn the recognition of the complexity of the accounts in the Gospels of the phenomenon of the risen Jesus as the same but different. His interpretation of the reality of the resurrection is found in an oft-quoted extract: It is often said, most of the time in criticism, that according to my interpretation of the kerygma Jesus has risen in the kerygma. I accept this proposition. It is entirely correct, assuming that it is properly understood. It presupposes that the kerygma is an eschatological event, and it expresses the fact that Jesus is really present in the kerygma. If that is the case, then all speculation concerning the modes of being of the risen Jesus, all the narratives of the empty tomb and all the Easter legends, whatever elements of historical fact they may contain, and as true as they may be in their symbolic form, are of no consequence. To believe in Christ present in the kerygma is the meaning of the Easter faith. [Bultmann 1964: 42; and see Painter 2006: 628–9]

While the implications of the resurrection faith have penetrated all four Gospels, the degree to which this has happened in the Fourth Gospel is far

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greater, because it seems to have been the conscious intent of the Fourth Evangelist. Bultmann, Dodd, and Dunn shared this point of view. Nevertheless, Dodd remained more optimistic of the use of the Fourth Gospel in the quest of the historical Jesus than the others, even though Dunn redefined the task in terms of the remembered Jesus (2003b: 335, 882). Dunn argues that the Gospels provide evidence of concern to remember Jesus, and the tradition shows how he was remembered. His focus on characteristic forms and themes replaces the use of criteria of authenticity to identify particular sayings/deeds. Dodd’s emphasis on corporate tradition springing from first witnesses implies reliability, a view shared by Dunn (2003b: 882–3). Nevertheless, Dunn’s relegation of the Fourth Gospel to a role of supporting evidence qualifies his definition of ‘historical’ as ‘remembered’, at least in the case of the Fourth Gospel. In principle his work overlooks the impact of the resurrection faith on the living memory of Jesus, because it is evident also in the Synoptics. Though the degree of penetration is greater in the Fourth Gospel, as Dunn and Dodd apparently recognize, Dodd has laid down a challenge to seek for a way to make available the underlying tradition in John for use in the quest of the historical Jesus.

Historical Tradition and the legacy of Dodd In mid career, in his inaugural Cambridge lecture, Dodd addressed The Present Task of New Testament Studies, and suggested that to understand the Fourth Gospel is the crucial test of success in solving the problem of the NT as whole. However, only when we comprehend the NT as a whole will we be in a position to solve the Johannine problem. This mutually interdependent task of part and whole is also depicted in the image of the Fourth Gospel as the keystone in the NT arch that presently fails to hold together (1936b: 29). Retrospectively, Dodd’s career as a scholar seems to have been in pursuit of this end, from his study of history, decisively shaped with Adolf Harnack in Berlin, to the publication of his book on Jesus (1973). Along the way, his path crossed that of two contemporaries also destined to become significant Johannine scholars, Hoskyns and Bultmann. One of Dodd’s Cambridge students (C. K. Barrett, also a student of Hoskyns) was to become the outstanding British Johannine and Pauline scholar of his generation. For Dodd, if the Fourth Gospel is a theological interpretation from the end of the first century, it is nonetheless based on early synoptic-like tradition, expressing the continuity between the early Church and Jesus, and between the NT and Jesus. Though it is not generally thought of as

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Dodd’s most significant work, The Founder of Christianity is his crowning work, the fruit of his form-critical work on the Gospels, including Historical Tradition. In it Dodd shows his awareness of the power of the Easter faith to transform the tradition by sequestering the account of the resurrection from the crucifixion and burial, and treating it as a sequel. This move is not intended to minimize the importance of the resurrection; rather it recognizes its potency to transform, and bears some similarity to Bultmann’s treatment of the resurrection. Dodd’s turn to oral tradition to understand the Gospels, and the Fourth Gospel amongst the Gospels as a basis for the study of the historical Jesus, did not immediately claim attention. Though without reference to Dodd’s work, James Dunn sought to revive this perspective in his 2002 Durham SNTS presidential address, where he sought to put oral tradition back at centre stage in the quest for Jesus (2003a: 139–75). In so doing he was returning to, and building afresh on, the foundation laid by Dodd, a task undertaken systematically in his 2003b. But where Dodd, in The Founder of Christianity, made the Fourth Gospel more or less an equal partner with the Synoptics, Dunn restricted it to a supporting role. Whether Dodd’s identification of early synoptic-like tradition in the Fourth Gospel is sufficiently secure, given that it has been embedded in the complex composition of the Fourth Evangelist, is perhaps still an open question. C. K. Barrett argues that the Fourth Evangelist used (not copied) Mark with some freedom, along with other traditional material. Given that Dodd identifies the tradition in the Fourth Gospel as synoptic-like, it is not easy to show independence of the Synoptics. Clearly this issue remains unresolved, though the Fourth Evangelist’s free use of tradition seems to be established. Dodd recognized that, in the Fourth Gospel, as distinct from the Synoptics, the ‘interpretation is . . . in different thought-forms, . . . is deliberate, coherent, and in the full sense theological, as theirs is not’ (1963: 5). Under the impact of the Easter faith, and in ‘a different world’, the Jesus tradition has been transformed in theological interpretation. What about the Synoptic tradition? It too was transmitted under the impulse of the Easter faith, even if the degree of transformation was considerably less than in the Fourth Gospel, as Dodd recognized. But surely this means ‘less of a problem’ rather than ‘no problem’. Have Dodd and Dunn sufficiently taken account of the problem? Is what is characteristic in the Synoptics the kind of memory from which history can be written? Dodd’s approach to the Fourth Gospel and the historical Jesus makes clear that he thinks that the latter is the understanding of Jesus established

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by a critical use of the evidence concerning his life that survives from ancient times. That critical use involves the sifting and evaluation of the sources to establish, as far as possible, what can be known, with some probability, about him. For Dodd, Hoskyns, Bultmann, and Dunn, it is important that Jesus actually lived and became ‘the Founder of Christianity’. Obviously, this achievement falls far short of knowledge of Jesus as he really was, or really is. By contrast, the historic, biblical Christ is the Christ of the early Christian proclamation (kerygma), the Christ of Easter faith, in which Bultmann argues we have the evidence that Jesus really is risen. Martin Kähler (1886) disparaged the historical quest. Bultmann saw that it was no substitute for the kerygma, but defended the recognition of the essential bond between the historical and the eschatological. The kerygma proclaims that Jesus lived and died, but there would be no kerygma without the Easter faith. Dodd also challenges scholars to rigorous historical research and serious and rigorous interpretation of the understanding expressed in the Easter faith, which is found nowhere more clearly than in the Fourth Gospel. It is fitting that his study of the Fourth Gospel found twofold expression: primarly theological (1953), because the Evangelist’s interpretation of Jesus is from the perspective of the Easter faith, but also historical (1963), because that interpretation is grounded in early, oral, synoptic-like historical tradition. Historians may debate whether sources are appropriate or methods sufficiently critical. For example, Dunn does not share Dodd’s confidence in the tradition he identified in the Fourth Gospel, using it only to corroborate other evidence. In this area we are unlikely to achieve unanimity. Nevertheless, what can be known of Jesus with some degree of probability is also the bedrock from which Christian faith springs. There is a necessary continuity but not an equivalence of the two. This issue remains relevant today, both because there is wide interest to know what we can about Jesus, and because of the theological relevance of this knowledge. W O RK S CI T ED Anderson, Paul N., 2006. The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered. LNTS 321. London: T. & T. Clark. Barrett, C. K. 1955. The Gospel According to St John. London: SPCK. 1978. The Gospel According to St John. 2nd edn. London: SPCK. 1995a. ‘Hoskyns and Davey’. In 1995b: 55–62. 1995b. Jesus and the Word and Other Essays. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Barth, Karl, 1933. The Epistle to the Romans. Translated from the 6th edn by Edwyn C. Hoskyns. Paperback edn 1968. London: Oxford University Press.

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Bultmann, Rudolf, 1921. Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. English translation 1963. New York: Harper & Row. 1923. ‘Der religionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Prologs zum JohannesEvangelium’. In Hans Schmidt (ed.), Eucharisterion: Festschrift für H. Gunkel. 2 vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, vol. II, pp. 3–26. 1925. ‘Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das verständnis des Johannesevangeliums’. ZNW 24: 100–46. 1926. Jesus. Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek. English translation from the 2nd edn, with Translators’ Preface. 1934. 1934. Jesus and the Word. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (London: Fontana, 1958 with different pagination). 1941. Das Evangelium des Johannes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. English translation 1971. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1948. Theologie des Neuen Testaments I. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). (English translation 1952.) 1950. ‘Das Problem der Hermeneutik’. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 47: 47–69. 1951. Theologie des Neuen Testaments II. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). (English translation 1955b.) 1952. Theology of the New Testament I. London: SCM. 1954. ‘The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel’. A review article of C. H. Dodd’s recent work. NTS 1/2 November: 77–91. (English translation 1963). 1955a. ‘Johannesevangelium’. In Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. 3rd edn. 7 vols. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), vol. III, pp. 840–9. 1955b. Theology of the New Testament II. London: SCM. 1957a. History and Eschatology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1957b. ‘Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?’ In Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann. Selected, translated and introduced by Schubert Ogden. London: Hodder and Stoughton, pp. 342–52. 1961. ‘Jesus and Paul’. From the German of 1936. In Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann. Selected, translated, and introduced by Schubert Ogden. London: Hodder and Stoughton, pp. 183–201. 1963. ‘Review article of C. H. Dodd’s The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel’. English translation. Harvard Divinity Bulletin 27: 9–22. 1964. ‘The Primitive Christian Kerygma and the Historical Jesus’. In C. E. Braaten and R. A. Harrisville (eds.), The Historical Jesus and the Kerygmatic Christ. New York: Abingdon, pp. 15–42. 1966. ‘Reply’. In The Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, ed. Charles W. Kegley. London: SCM. 1967. Die drei Johannesbriefe. Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament 14. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1973. The Johannine Epistles: A Commentary on the Johannine Epistles. Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. Trans. R. P. O’Hara, with L. C. McGaughy and R. Funk. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

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1977. Theologie des Neuen Testaments II. 7th edn. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Burridge, Richard, 1997. ‘The Gospels and Acts’. In Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 BC–400 AD. Leiden: Brill, pp. 507–32. Davey, F. N., 1953. Review: ‘The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (C. H. Dodd)’. JTS 4/2 October: 234–46. Denaux, Adelbert (ed.), 1992. John and the Synoptics. Leuven: Peeters. Dillistone, F. W., 1977. C. H. Dodd: Interpreter of the New Testament. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Dodd, C. H., 1911. ‘Eucharistic Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel’. The Expositor, 8th ser. II: 530–46. 1932. ‘The Framework of the Gospel Narrative’. The Expository Times 43(9): 396–400. 1935. ‘The Background of the Fourth Gospel’, BJRL 19(2): 329–43. 1936a. The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1936b. The Present Task in New Testament Studies: Inaugural Lecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1937. ‘The First Epistle of John and the Fourth Gospel’. BJRL 21(1): 129–56. 1946. The Johannine Epistles. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1963. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1973. The Founder of Christianity. London: Collins Fontana (1st edn 1970. New York: Macmillan). Dunn, James D. G., 2003a. ‘Altering the Default Setting: Re-envisaging the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition’. NTS 49/2: 139–75. (Dunn’s 2002 SNTS presidential paper.) 2003b. Christology in the Making, I: Jesus Remembered. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Enselin, Morton S., 1954. Review: ‘The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (C.H. Dodd)’. JBL 73(1): 45–8. Gardner-Smith, P., 1938. St John and the Synoptic Gospels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gerhardsson, Birger, 1961. Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. Uppsala: Gleerup. Goulder, Michael D., 1992. ‘John 1,1–2,12 and the Synoptics, with Appendix: John 2.13–4.54 and the Synoptics’. In A. Denaux (ed.), John and the Synoptics. BETL, 101. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 201–37. Hoskyns, Edwyn C. and Davey, F. N., 1931. The Riddle of the New Testament. London: Faber and Faber. 1940. The Fourth Gospel. London: Faber and Faber. (Reset with corrections 1947.)

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1981. Crucifixion – Resurrection: The Pattern of the Theology and Ethics of the New Testament. Ed. and Biographical Introduction Gordon S. Wakefield. London: SPCK. Jonge, Marinus de (ed.), 1977. L’Evangile de Jean: sources, rédaction, théologie. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Kähler, Martin, 1886. Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus. Leipzig: A. Deichert. (English translation of the first two essays of the 2nd edn of 1896, ed. and Introduction by Carl E. Braaten 1964. The So-called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.) Keener, Craig S., 2003. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2 vols. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Kegley, Charles W. (ed.), 1966. The Theology of Rudolf Bultmann. London: SCM. Lord, Albert B., 1960. The Singer of Tales. HSCL 24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (New York: Atheneum, 1965) Martyn, J. Louis, 1968, 1979, 2003. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox. Neirynck, Frans, 1977. ‘John and the Synoptics’. In Marinus de Jonge (ed.), L’Evangile de Jean: sources, rédaction, théologie. Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 73–106. 1992. ‘John and the Synoptics: 1975–1990’. In Adelbert Denaux (ed.), John and the Synoptics. Leuven: Peeters, pp. 3–62. Painter, John, 1975. John: Witness and Theologian. London: SPCK. 1987a. Theology as Hermeneutics: Rudolf Bultmann’s Interpretation of the History of Jesus. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press. 1987b. ‘C. H. Dodd and the Christology of the Fourth Gospel’. JTSA 59 (July): 42–56. 1993. The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature, and Theology of the Johannine Community. 2nd edn. Edinburgh & Nashville: T. and T. Clark and Abingdon. 1996. ‘Inclined to God: The Quest for Eternal Life – Bultmannian Hermeneutics and the Theology of the Fourth Gospel’. In R. Alan Culpepper and C. Clifton Black (eds.), Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honour of D. Moody Smith. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 346–68. 2002. 1, 2, and 3 John. SP 18. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press. 2004. Review of James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, I: Jesus Remembered. RBL VII: 317–22. 2006. ‘Bultmann, Archaeology, and the Historical Jesus’. In James H. Charlesworth (ed.), Jesus and Archaeology. Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, pp. 619–38. 2007a. ‘Memory Holds the Key: The Transformation of Memory in the Interface of History and Theology in John’. In Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S.J., and Tom Thatcher (eds.), John, Jesus, and History, I: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views. Atlanta: SBL, pp. 233–56. 2007b. ‘The Signs of the Messiah and the Quest for Eternal Life’. In Tom Thatcher (ed.), What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present,

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and Future of Johannine Studies. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, pp. 233–56. 2008a. Review of Paul N. Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered. RBL 5. 2008b. Review of Peter M. Phillips, The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading. RBL 11. Parry, Milman, 1971. The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, ed. Adam Parry. Oxford, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press. Phillips, Peter M., 2006. The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading. Library of New Testament Studies 294. London: T. & T. Clark. Riesenfeld, Harold, 1957. The Gospel Tradition and Its Beginnings. London: A. R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd. Rumscheidt, H. Martin, 1972. Revelation and Theology: An Analysis of the BarthHarnack Correspondence of 1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (ed.), 1988. Adolf von Harnack: Liberal Theology at Its Height. London: Collins. Schmidt, Karl Ludwig, 1919. Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu. Berlin: Trowitsch & Sohn. Tannehill, Robert C., 1981. Pronouncement Stories. Semeia 20. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Wakefield, Gordon S. (ed.), 1981. Crucifixion – Resurrection: The Pattern of the Theology and Ethics of the New Testament. London: SPCK.

Index

ANCIENT SOURCES

20.6, 152 22.12, 152 28.5, 152 32.14–15, 151, 153–4 39.6, 152 41.4, 117, 120, 122 43.10, 117, 120, 122 43.25, 117, 120 44.3, 151, 154 45.18–19, 117 46.4, 117, 120 48.12, 120 51.12, 117, 120 52.6, 117, 119–20, 152 53.11–12, 247 56.7, 190, 247 Jeremiah, 97, 152 2.21, 70 7.11, 190 16.14, 152 23.5, 152 23.7, 152 24.7, 151 30.3, 152 31.27, 152 31.31, 152 31.33–34, 151, 157, 159 31.34, 151, 159 31.38, 152 33.14, 152 47.4, 152 51.47, 152 Ezekiel, 152 11.17–19, 151, 154 11.19, 154 30.9, 152 36.25–28, 151 36.26–27, 151, 154, 157 36.27, 157 39.29, 151, 154

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Genesis 1, 82 Exodus 12.42, 235 24.8, 246–8 24.11, 248–9 25.22, 36 Numbers 6.24–26, 117 Deuteronomy 8.3, 183 13.6, 112 13.7, 112 18.15–22, 196 32.39, 117, 120–2 2 Samuel 2.20, 122 Psalms, 97, 238 8.2, 191 33.21, 26 37.13, 152 41.10, 240 69.9, 191 80.9–15, 70 110.1, 183 118.25, 118 Proverbs 8.27–31, 209 8.30, 210 Isaiah, 97, 152, 266 2.11, 152 3.18, 152 4.1, 152 5.1–7, 69 6.10, 88 12.1, 152 12.4, 152

285

286 Daniel 4.19, 120 Joel 2.1, 152 2.28, 152 2.28–29, 151, 154 3.18, 152 Hosea 6.6, 187 Jonah 2, 81 Micah 4.6–7, 152 Zechariah 9.11, 246, 249 12.10, 26

Pseudepigrapha Testament of Job 29.4, 122 31.6, 122

New Testament Matthew 4.1–11, 183, 193 4.18–22, 187 4.19, 187 4.23–25, 197 8.1–13, 197 8.18–22, 188 8.22, 187 9.9, 187 9.9–13, 187 9.27–31, 218 10.1–4, 188 10.2, 94, 96, 188 10.3, 187 10.5–16, 188 10.16, 96 10.22, 97 10.22–25, 103 10.23, 96 10.24, 91, 98–9 10.24–25, 90–2, 98, 100, 102 10.25, 90, 92–4, 98 10.38, 187 10.40, 91, 97, 99 12.7, 187 12.20, 194 12.38–39, 193 12.43, 207 13.3, 207 13.55, 204

Index 14.13, 195 14.13–21, 193 14.18, 195 14.20, 197 14.21, 195 14.22–33, 193 14.28, 184 14.28–31, 195 15, 19 15.32–39, 193 15.34–37, 194 15.37, 197 15.38, 195 15.39, 195 16.1–12, 193 16.9–10, 194 16.13, 195 16.13–20, 184, 193 16.14, 195 16.16, 195 16.17–19, 184, 186, 188, 194–5 16.18, 184 16.24, 187 16.24–28, 188 16.28, 195 18.21–35, 188 19.16–22, 187 19.21, 187 19.29, 97 20.29–34, 218 21.10–17, 190 21.12–13, 190 21.14, 192 21.14–17, 191 21.18–19, 190 21.18–22, 191 21.23–27, 192 21.33–46, 192 23.24, 207 24.9, 97 26.6, 222 26.8, 224–5 26.9, 225 26.11, 226 26.12, 226 26.14–16, 232 26.17–19, 240 26.20–25, 240 26.26–29, 235, 240 26.30–38, 240 26.31–33, 240 26.34–35, 240 26.36–46, 182 26.55, 192 26.59–68, 183

Index 26.61, 192 27.3–10, 232 27.11–31, 164 27.19, 232 27.40, 192 27.57, 140 28.9–10, 100 28.16–20, 44 Mark 1, 185, 197 1.12–13, 183 1.15, 34 1.16–20, 187 1.17, 187 1.21–31, 197 1.24, 188, 196 1.44, 248 2.13–17, 187 2.14, 187 2.20, 234 3.13–19, 188 3.17, 188 3.18, 187 3.27, 207 4.1–2, 187 4.3, 207 4.12, 88 4.21, 207 5.21, 243 6, 19, 194, 196–7 6.1–6, 191 6.3, 204 6.7, 188 6.30–31, 195 6.31–44, 87 6.32–44, 193 6.33, 195 6.34, 195 6.37, 196 6.37–38, 195 6.39, 195–6 6.40, 195 6.41, 195 6.42, 197 6.43, 194 6.45–52, 193, 195 6.45, 196 6.50, 195 6.51, 195 6.52, 195 7.10, 248 8, 19, 194, 196–7 8.1, 195 8.1–9, 87 8.1–10, 193

287 8.3, 195 8.5–8, 194 8.7, 195 8.8, 197 8.10, 195 8.11–21, 193 8.19–20, 194 8.27, 195 8.27–30, 184, 193 8.28, 195 8.29, 196 8.31–9.1, 193, 196 8.31–33, 188 8.32–33, 195–6 8.34–9.1, 188 8.34, 187, 188, 195 8.37, 195 8.38, 195 9.4–5, 248 10.3–5, 248 10.17, 217 10.17–22, 187 10.21, 187 10.32–34, 192 10.45, 247 10.46–52, 218 11.1–10, 190 11.11, 190 11.12–14, 190 11.15–17, 190 11.16, 193 11.17, 247–8 11.20–26, 191 11.27–33, 192 11.29, 193 12.1, 193 12.1–12, 192 12.19, 248 12.26, 248 12.29, 217 12.33, 248 12.54–56, 193 13.2, 248 13.13, 97 14.1–2, 225 14.1–11, 224 14.3, 180, 222–3 14.3–9, 217 14.4, 224–5 14.5, 196, 225, 229 14.6, 226 14.6–8, 226 14.7, 226 14.8, 226–7 14.9, 226

288 Mark (cont.) 14.10, 225 14.10–11, 225 14.12–16, 240–1, 251 14.12–31, 240 14.17, 240 14.17–22, 250 14.18, 241, 243, 249–50 14.18–21, 240, 243 14.18–22, 243 14.19, 249 14.20, 250 14.22, 243, 249 14.22–24, 245–6 14.22–25, 235–6, 245–50 14.23, 248–9 14.23–24, 248 14.24, 248, 251 14.25, 246, 249, 250–1 14.26–31, 240 14.27, 249 14.27–29, 240 14.29, 249 14.30, 242 14.30–31, 240 14.31, 249 14.32–42, 182 14.49, 192 14.50, 249 14.55–65, 183 14.56–59, 192 14.58, 248 14.62, 122 15.1–20, 164 15.29–30, 192 15.33, 18 15.33–39, 247 15.38, 18, 248 15.42, 182 15.43, 140 16.1, 227 16.8, 140, 142 Luke 1.2, 198 4.1–13, 183, 193 5.1–11, 187 5.8, 187 5.27, 187 5.27–32, 187 6.12–16, 188 6.15, 187–8 6.17–49, 188 6.39, 98 6.40, 98, 102 6.40, 90, 92, 98, 100, 102 7, 221

Index 7.36–50, 217 7.37, 223 7.38, 221–4 7.44, 224 7.47, 223 8.5, 207 8.22–25, 198 9.10, 195 9.10–17, 193 9.11, 195 9.12, 196 9.17, 194, 197 9.18, 196 9.18–21, 184, 193 9.19, 196 9.20, 196, 198 9.22–27, 193 9.23, 187 9.23–27, 188 9.57, 243 9.57–62, 188 9.59, 187 10, 221 10.1–12, 188 10.25–28, 217, 219 10.38–42, 221 10.39, 222 10.40, 222 12.51–53, 38 14.27, 187 17.12, 243 17.34–35, 38 18.18–23, 188 18.22, 187 19.45–46, 191 19.47, 191–2 20.1, 192 20.1–8, 192 20.9–19, 192 21.37–38, 192 22, 234, 240 22.7–13, 240 22.13, 240 22.14, 245 22.14–20, 240, 245 22.15–16, 245 22.15–18, 251 22.15–20, 235 22.16, 245 22.17, 245 22.17–18, 245 22.18, 245 22.19–20, 245 22.20, 245, 247, 251 22.21–23, 240 22.23, 240–1

Index 22.24–30, 240 22.26–27, 244 22.27, 95 22.31–32, 240–1 22.31–34, 240 22.33, 240–1 22.34, 240, 242 22.35–38, 240 22.39, 240 22.40–6, 182 22.42, 18 22.53, 192 22.66–71, 183 22.67–70, 232 23.1–25, 164 23.4, 164, 174–5 23.5–16, 233 23.14, 174–5 23.22, 174–5 23.28–31, 233 23.39–43, 233 23.51, 140 23.56, 227 24.1, 227 John 1, 34, 130, 186, 190, 209 1–11, 231 1.1–18, 34 1.11, 130–1, 136, 138 1.12, 130 1.12–13, 35, 130 1.14, 134, 212 1.16, 130 1.17, 110, 211, 275 1.18, 209 1.19, 130 1.19–51, 27, 34, 190 1.21, 173 1.22, 173 1.24, 131 1.26, 131 1.29, 188 1.31, 131 1.32, 134 1.33, 134 1.35–46, 112–13 1.35–51, 188 1.36, 188 1.38, 131, 189 1.38–49, 184 1.41, 189, 275 1.41–42, 184 1.43, 187 1.45, 189 1.49, 189

289 1.51, 138, 183, 189 2, 130–1, 133, 232 2–12, 34–40 2.1–4.42, 34 2.1–11, 35 2.11, 35, 40, 197, 213 2.13–22, 191 2.14–22, 232 2.18–22, 131 2.19, 183, 192 2.22, 143 2.23–24, 132 2.23, 131, 191 2.25, 130 3, 36, 127, 129–30, 137–9, 141 3.1–21, 126 3.1, 127, 132 3.2, 135, 191 3.3, 126, 133 3.5, 40, 126, 133, 236 3.6, 134, 152 3.7, 134 3.8, 135, 152 3.9, 135 3.11, 35, 130, 135, 213 3.11–21, 35 3.12–13, 39 3.13, 40, 209, 214 3.14, 35, 39, 43 3.14–18, 136 3.19–20, 137 3.19–21, 136 3.21, 137 3.22, 35 3.22–26, 35 3.22–30, 35 3.22–36, 36 3.23, 82 3.25–36, 40 3.27, 130 3.29, 112 3.31–36, 35 3.32, 130 3.33, 130 3.34, 40 4, 37 4.7–15, 36 4.10–15, 152–3 4.11–12, 173 4.16–27, 36 4.23, 36, 57, 153 4.25, 275 4.27, 173 4.27–42, 40 4.29, 138, 275

290 John (cont.) 4.31–38, 27 4.31–42, 36 4.32–38, 89 4.35, 112 4.43–45, 191 4.46–5.47, 36 4.48–52, 36 4.54, 197 5, 37, 39, 45, 139, 192, 196, 214 5.1–9, 192 5.1–18, 36 5.14, 191 5.17, 208, 212 5.18, 191 5.19–20, 203–14 5.19–30, 36, 40 5.19, 206, 208, 214 5.19–47, 27 5.20–30, 203, 206 5.24, 156 5.24–25, 153, 158 5.24–29, 156 5.26–27, 213 5.27, 43 5.27–29, 156 5.28, 39 5.30, 207, 212 5.31–47, 36 5.41–47, 40 6, 19, 37, 45, 180–1, 183, 185, 188, 193–9, 209–10, 213 6.1–5, 193 6.1–13, 87 6.1–45, 183 6.4, 198 6.5–7, 194, 198 6.6, 188 6.7, 196 6.10, 196 6.14–15, 198 6.16–21, 193 6.17, 196 6.20, 120, 122 6.22–40, 193 6.22–58, 235 6.26, 197, 199 6.26–59, 40 6.27, 198 6.30, 173 6.32, 198 6.35–50, 37 6.38, 207, 210 6.42, 173, 210 6.46, 206, 208–10, 212–14

Index 6.49–50, 183 6.51, 198, 242–3, 247 6.51–58, 236, 243–4 6.51–59, 37 6.51–63, 134 6.51–66, 193, 196, 199 6.53–58, 184 6.55, 43 6.60–71, 37, 40 6.61–62, 173 6.63, 152 6.66, 198 6.67–71, 193 6.68–69, 194, 199 6.68–70, 196 6.69, 188, 195–6, 198 6.70, 188, 225 7, 12, 127, 130, 137–9, 196 7–8, 38, 40 7–12, 192 7.1, 137 7.1–4, 183 7.3, 137 7.4, 38 7.10, 38, 137 7.11, 137–8 7.13, 138–9 7.14, 191 7.16, 207 7.19, 173 7.22–24, 110–11, 115 7.23, 110 7.23–24, 112 7.25, 138 7.25–26, 173 7.26, 138, 275 7.28, 191–2 7.30, 138 7.31, 191 7.32, 138 7.35–36, 173 7.37, 138 7.37–39, 152 7.38, 43 7.39, 40 7.41, 275 7.41–42, 173 7.45, 137–8, 173 7.47, 173 7.48, 173 7.50, 138 7.50–52, 226 7.51, 110 8, 12, 134 8.16, 118

Index 8.17, 110 8.20, 191–2 8.24, 117, 120, 122 8.28, 39, 43, 117–18, 120, 207 8.31–58, 27 8.38, 208 8.39, 112 8.42, 207, 211 8.44, 183 8.46, 173 8.53, 173 8.58, 117, 120, 122 9, 27, 199 9–10, 38–9 9.1–10.21, 38 9.1–7, 192 9.7, 68 9.16, 191 9.19, 173 9.22, 122, 269 9.26–27, 173 9.34, 269 9.41–10.5, 38 10, 38, 68, 73, 75–7, 79, 225 10.1–18, 63 10.1–21, 38 10.10, 225 10.11–18, 79 10.15, 43 10.22–30, 192 10.22–39, 38, 40 10.23, 191 10.24–25, 232 10.24–36, 183 10.27, 187 10.27–28, 43 10.33–36, 232 11, 45, 219, 223–4 11.1, 222 11.1–53, 39 11.2, 219–22, 224 11.3, 223 11.5, 223 11.7–8, 223, 228 11.11, 223 11.18, 222 11.20, 222 11.27, 223, 275 11.32, 219, 222 11.33, 229 11.36, 223 11.38, 229 11.39, 224 11.47, 191 11.47–53, 183, 223

291 11.50, 112 11.54, 21 11.56, 173 12, 33, 39, 219, 223–4, 229, 231 12.1, 222 12.1–2, 222 12.1–8, 216–29 12.1–36, 39 12.2, 222–3 12.3, 180, 219, 222–4, 228 12.4, 225 12.4–6, 129, 224 12.5, 196, 225, 227 12.6, 225 12.7, 217, 220, 226–8 12.7–8, 226 12.8, 226, 228 12.9, 222 12.17–18, 222 12.23–30, 182 12.24, 39, 144 12.24–26, 89 12.25, 91, 188 12.26, 187 12.27–28, 18 12.31, 183 12.32, 39, 43 12.34, 173 12.37, 64, 191 12.37–43, 39 12.37–50, 39 12.40, 64, 88 12.42, 122, 269 12.44–50, 39 12.45, 209, 212 12.49, 207 13, 33, 224, 243 13–17, 181 13–20, 34, 40–4 13.1–17, 100, 240, 242 13.1–38, 100 13.1, 224 13.2, 225, 243, 249 13.2–3, 243 13.3–10, 224 13.4, 243, 249 13.5, 224 13.5–10, 68 13.11, 240 13.12–16, 99 13.12–20, 94 13.13–14, 93–4 13.13–15, 93, 99 13.13–20, 89 13.16, 86, 89–102

292 John (cont.) 13.16–17, 100 13.18, 240 13.18–20, 100 13.19, 117 13.20, 91, 97, 99, 100, 118 13.21, 100, 241 13.21–30, 240 13.21–38, 100 13.22, 240–1 13.27, 225 13.29, 225 13.30, 225 13.32, 208 13.36–37, 173 13.36–38, 240 13.38, 100, 242 14, 41 14.9, 173, 209, 212 14.10, 173 14.16, 42 14.17, 152 14.26, 152 14.27–31, 41 14.30, 183 14.31, 41, 182 15, 70, 75–6, 78 15–16, 242 15.1, 70 15.1–8, 75 15.1–16.15, 41 15.12–13, 223 15.18, 97 15.18–21, 93, 103 15.19, 97 15.20, 86, 89–102 15.21, 97 15.26, 152 15.26–27, 42 16, 41 16.2, 122, 269 16.7–11, 42 16.11, 183 16.16, 42 16.17, 173 16.18, 173 16.32, 240, 242 16.36, 152 17, 42 17.3, 275 17.4, 43 17.6, 117 17.12, 43, 225 17.26, 117 18–19, 139–40, 193

Index 18.1, 21 18.4, 173 18.5, 120 18.5–8, 122 18.6, 120 18.7, 173 18.8, 120 18.9, 43 18.10–11, 182 18.17, 173 18.19, 112 18.20, 191–2 18.25, 172 18.28, 112 18.29–19.16, 164 18.31, 112, 172, 183 18.32, 43 18.33, 172 18.35, 172–3 18.36, 182–3 18.37, 43, 173, 182–3 18.38, 163–5, 169–74 18.39, 173 18.40, 112 19, 127, 130, 139, 224, 227–8 19–21, 42, 143 19.3, 172 19.4, 163–5, 169–74 19.6, 163–5, 169–74 19.7, 172 19.9–10, 173 19.11, 173 19.14, 112 19.15, 173 19.31–37, 26 19.33–35, 23 19.34–35, 43 19.38–42, 126–7, 139 19.39, 224 19.39–40, 217, 227 19.40, 226 20.11–18, 234 20.13, 173 20.15, 173 20.22, 152 20.23, 91 20.24, 94 20.31, 128, 275 20.30–31, 46, 64, 82, 181 21, 44, 46, 143, 185, 197 21.1–14, 187 21.2, 188 21.7, 184 21.11, 82 21.15–17, 184, 187

Index 21.19, 187 21.22, 187 21.24, 181 Acts, 56 1, 194 1.13, 187, 194 2.16, 57 2.46, 237 4.19–20, 186 6, 194 6.1–7, 194 6.6, 194 8, 194 10.37–41, 180 12.3–19, 234–5 12.6, 239 12.12, 235 20.7–12, 237 21, 194 1 Corinthians 5.7, 234, 241 10–11, 237 11.20, 243 11.23, 239, 241, 251 11.23–25, 245, 250–1 11.23–26, 236, 238 11.25, 238, 247, 251 11.26, 237–8, 246 15.3–7, 234 16.2, 237 2 Corinthians 5.17, 57 Hebrews, 56 6.5, 57 1 Peter, 56 1 John, 155, 160 1.3, 275 2.1, 158, 275 2.20, 159 2.27, 159 3.1, 156 3.1–3, 156 3.2, 156 3.2–3, 157 3.6–9, 157 3.14, 158 3.22, 275 3.23, 275 4.2, 275 4.15, 275 5.1, 275 5.6, 275 5.16, 158–9 5.17, 158 5.20, 275

293 2 John 3, 275 7, 275 9, 275 3 John 1.9–10, 186, 199 Revelation 20, 82

Dead Sea Scrolls 1QS 8.13, 118 CD 9.5, 118 4Q299 3a ii-b 11–12, 118 4Q301 3a-b 4–8, 118

Hellenistic-Jewish Writings Josephus Antiquitates judaicae 18.27, 205 Philo Legum allegoriae I.5–6, 36 III.79, 35 De cherubim 86–90, 36 Quaestiones et solutiones in Exodum ad Exod. 25.22, 36

Patristic Literature Ignatius Ephesians 20.2, 237 Philadelphians 4, 244 Romans 7.3, 244 Smyrnaeans 6.2, 244 7.1, 237 Justin Martyr First Apology 66.2, 244 66.3, 239

Rabbinic Literature m. Yoma 3.8, 117 3.11, 204 4.2, 117 6.2, 117 8.6, 112 m. Sukkah 4.5, 118–20 m. Nazir 8.1, 119

294 m. Sotah 7.6, 117 m. Sanhedrin 7.5, 117 10.1, 117 m. Abot 4.22, 118 t. Shabbat 15.16, 110 j. Sukkah 4.3 (54c), 118 j. Megillah 1.9 (71d), 119 b. 'Erubin 54a, 120 b. Yoma 85a-b, 110, 115 b. Ketubbot 63a, 120 b. Baba Bathra 4a, 120 b. Sanhedrin 43a, 112–13 b. Sheb'uot 35a, 119 Genesis Rabbah 11.10, 36 30.9, 36 35.2, 120 37.3, 118 Numbers Rabbah 10.5, 120 Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael Shirta 4 on Exodus 15.3, 121 Bahodesh 5 on Exodus 20.2, 121 Sifre Deuteronomy, 109 §305,110 §329, 121 Sifre Numbers, 109 Pesiqta de Rab Kahana 11.15, 120 Midrash Tehillim 91.8, 117–20 126.1, 120

Greco-Roman Literature Plato Republic 506D–517A, 71 Pliny the Younger Epistulae ad Trajanum 10.96.3, 169 Cicero De oratore 3,40,161, 77 Quintilian Institutio oratoria 6.1.1–2, 166 9.3.28, 167 Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.17, 166 4.1–46, 165 4.47–69, 165 4.54, 166 4.55, 166 Hermogenes of Tarsus Peri Ideon 1.11.284–7, 167–8

Index MODERN AUTHORS Abbott, Edwin A., 171 Abramowski, Luise, 94 Achtemeier, Paul J., 170, 173 Albright, William F., 180 Alexander, Philip S., 114–15 Alikin, Valeriy A., 237 Althaus, Paul, 54 Anderson, Paul N., 33, 83, 177–8, 180–1, 184–5, 189, 193–4, 196, 199, 265 Ashton, John, 33, 181, 210 Auf der Maur, Hansjörg, 233 Aune, David E., 150, 161 Bailey, Kenneth E., 276 Barr, James, 68 Barrett, Charles Kingsley, 118, 177–8, 184, 228, 238, 257–9, 260, 267, 269–72, 274–5, 278–9 Barth, Karl, 259–60, 275 Bassler, Jouette M., 128, 141 Batey, Richard A., 205 Bauckham, Richard J., 185, 227 Becker, Jürgen, 244 Bennema, Cornelis, 128 Billerbeck, Paul, 107, 109–11, 114, 116, 118 Black, Max, 76–7 Black, Matthew, 108 Blank, Josef, 235 Blinzler, Josef, 86, 100 Böcher, Otto, 156 Boismard, Marie-Émile, 99 Booth, Wayne C., 33 Borgen, Peder, 181, 213 Botha, Pieter J. J., 170, 173 Bradshaw, Paul F., 250 Brant, Jo-Ann A., 127 Bromboszcz, Theofil, 171 Brown, Raymond E., 33, 112, 117–18, 138, 155, 169, 176–84, 186, 189, 193, 197–200 Bühner, Jan-Adolf, 211–14 Bultmann, Rudolf, 31–2, 41–4, 49–51, 53–64, 86, 150, 161, 178, 184, 211, 235–6, 242, 244, 249, 257, 259–66, 272, 274–80 Burnett, Fred, 128, 132, 141–2 Burney, Charles F., 108 Busse, Ulrich, 74 Cantwell, Lawrence, 128 Carson, Donald A., 101 Charlesworth, James H., 200 Clark-Soles, Jaime, 127 Collins, John J., 154 Coloe, Mary, 74

Index Conway, Colleen M., 128 Cribbs, F. Lamar, 196 Culpepper, R. Alan, 33, 36, 41, 42, 45–7, 66, 74, 76, 83, 128 Dale, Robert W., 51 Darr, John A., 128 Daube, David, 107, 120 Davey, F. Noel, 258, 260, 263–4, 275 Davies, William D., 107, 118 Denaux, Adelbert, 86 Dennison, William D., 54 Dewey, Joanna, 170, 173 Dillistone, Frederick W., 52, 107, 264 Draper, Jonathan, 170, 173, 276 Dunderberg, Ismo, 86 Dunn, James D. G., 266, 269, 275–80 Dürr, Lorenz, 204–5, 207 Ebner, Martin, 100 Esler, Philip F., 223–4, 228 Farrer, Austin M., 100 Fitzmyer, Joseph A., 245 Foley, John Miles, 170–1, 276 Fortna, Robert T., 194 Frey, Jörg, 150 Fuller, Reginald H., 88, 239 Gaechter, Paul, 206–7 Gardner-Smith, P., 86–9, 91–2, 94, 96–7, 100–1, 163, 177, 261, 271–2, 275 Geeraerts, Dirk, 76 Gerhardsson, Birger, 276 Gill, Christopher, 128–30, 139, 141 Goulder, Michael D., 128, 267 Gowan, Donald E., 151 Gräbe, Ina, 74, 76 Hahn, Ferdinand, 244, 247 Halton, Charles, 69 Harnack, Adolf von, 52, 54, 56, 259–60, 278 Havelock, Eric A., 170 Hays, Richard B., 69 Heininger, Bernhard, 251 Hengel, Martin, 234, 239 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 276 Higgins, A. J. B., 179 Hirsch-Luipold, Rainer, 72 Hofius, Otfried, 236, 238 Hofrichter, Peter L., 192 Holtzmann, Heinrich Julius, 95, 164 Horbury, William, 115 Horsley, Richard A., 170, 173, 276 Hoskyns, Edwyn C., 258–60, 274–5, 278, 280

Howard, W.F., 87 Hunn, Debbie, 128 Hunter, A.M., 179 Ibuki, Yu, 72 Instone-Brewer, David, 116 Jaubert, Annie, 182 Jeremias, Joachim, 234, 242, 244 Johnson, Mark, 74–5 Jones, Larry P., 74 Jülicher, Adolf, 54 Just, Felix, 33, 83 Kähler, Martin, 280 Kelber, Werner H., 276 King, J. S., 101 Kittel, Gerhard, 68 Kitzberger, Ingrid Rosa, 128 Klein, Gottlieb, 118 Klein, Hans, 232–3, 235 Kleinknecht, Karl Theodor, 99 Konings, Johan, 86 Koester, Craig R., 74, 127–8 Koester, Helmut, 276 Kövecses, Zoltán, 74–5 Kysar, Robert, 74, 76 Labahn, Michael, 86 Lakoff, George, 74–7 Lamouille, Arnaud, 99 Lang, Manfred, 86, 231 Lausberg, Heinrich, 77 Lee, Dorothy, 74, 78 Lietzmann, Hans, 237, 251 Lincoln, Andrew T., 207–8 Lindars, Barnabas, 181, 184, 196 Lindemann, Andreas, 238 Löhr, Hermut, 245 Loisy, Alfred F., 264 Lord, Albert B., 170, 268 Lozada Jr., Francisco, 33 Mackay, Ian D., 185 Macquarrie, John, 272 Malherbe, Abraham J., 127 Mardaga, Hellen, 167 Martyn, J. Louis, 122, 199, 269 Matson, Mark A., 196 Mburu, Elizabeth W., 72, 74 Meeks, Wayne A., 122, 128 Mender, S., 181 Menken, Maarten J.J., 221, 226 Metzger, Bruce M., 221 Michie, Donald, 140

295

296

Index

Moloney, Francis J., 100, 128, 221 Moore, George Foot, 109 Moore, Stephen D., 33 Morris, Leon, 171 Moule, C. F. D., 276 Mourlon Beernaert, Pierre, 219 Muddiman, John, 100 Müller, Karlheinz, 115 Munro, Winsome, 128

Stange, Erich, 171 Stauffer, Ethelbert, 118, 120 Stemberger, Günter, 114–16, 119 Stibbe, Mark W.G., 33 Strack, Hermann L., 107, 109–11, 114, 116, 118 Streeeter, B. H., 92 Strobel, August, 235 Stuhlmacher, Peter, 238, 244 Sylva, Dennis D., 128

Neirynck, Frans, 86–7, 92–3, 98–100, 231, 267 Ng, Wai-Yee, 74 Nissen, Johannes, 128 North, Wendy E. S., 219, 221, 223–5, 229

Tannehill, Robert C., 270 Teeple, Howard M., 100 Thatcher, Tom, 33, 83, 97, 111, 127, 220 Theobald, Michael, 92, 231, 235, 239, 242, 244–5, 247, 251 Thomas, John Christopher, 123

O’Day, Gail R., 128 Odeberg, Hugo, 21 Ong, Walter, 170, 173 Painter, John, 260, 262–3, 265, 270, 277–8 Parry, Milman, 170, 268 Pazdan, Mary Margaret, 128 Parsenios, George L., 127 Pérez Fernández, Miguel, 115 Peyre, Henri, 66 Phillips, Peter M., 263 Piper, Ronald A., 223–4, 228 Powell, Mark Allan, 33 Reimarus, Hermann Samuel, 150 Rhoads, David, 140 Richards, Ivor Armstrong, 76 Ricoeur, Paul, 74 Robinson, John A. T., 87–8, 179 Rouwhorst, Gerard A. M., 233–4 Rowland, Christopher, 212 Rumscheidt, H. Martin, 259 Sabbe, Maurits, 92, 95, 164, 224–5, 228 Sandmel, Samuel, 114–15 Schäfer, Peter, 112, 116 Schaller, Berndt, 114 Schlatter, D. Adolf, 100, 108–9, 259 Schleritt, Frank, 232–3, 243 Schnackenburg, Rudolf, 72 Schneiders, Sandra M., 77 Schrage, Wolfgang, 238, 246 Schwankl, Otto, 74 Schweitzer, Albert, 55–6, 63, 149, 259 Selong, Gabriel, 86–7, 89, 101 Shellard, Barbara, 196 Sherwin-White, A. N., 169 Smith, D. Moody, 31–2, 42, 60, 86, 177–8 Sparks, H. F. D., 90–7, 100, 102 Staley, Jeffrey L., 129

Van Belle, Gilbert, 101, 173, 222 Verheyden, Joseph, 86–7, 89, 98 Vermes, Geza, 123 Visotzky, Burton L., 123 Wahlde, Urban C. von, 153, 155 Wakefield, Gordon S., 259 Watt, Jan van der, 66, 70, 72–4, 76–8 Weiss, Johannes, 54 Westcott, Brooke Foss, 257 Whitters, Mark F., 128 Williams, Catrin H., 120, 122 Williford, Don, 128 Wohlmuth, Josef, 247–8 Youngquist, Linden E., 98 Zimmermann, Ruben, 74, 76, 89

SUBJECT MATTER Apocalyptic(ism), 34, 154–7, 160–1, 208–14 Apocrypha, 108, 122, 209–10 Aristotle, 70 ascent/descent, 10–11, 40, 42–3, 210–14 Beloved Disciple, 5, 23 bread of Life, 37, 45, 80, 235 date of the Fourth Gospel, 8, 21, 180, 257, 269, 278 Dead Sea Scrolls, 107, 122, 126, 155, 180, 257 divine Name, 42, 109, 116–22 dualisms, 9, 18, 61, 152, 156, 180 eschatology, 34, 41, 56–7, 149–61, 246 eternal Life, 55–6, 39–40, 136, 151, 153, 157–9, 209 Eucharist, 37, 182, 235–8, 242–52

Index form criticism, 26–7, 216–19, 265–6, 268–9 Galilee, 131, 185, 191, 205 Gnosticism, 58, 61, 108, 150, 258, 260 Hellenism, 8–12, 57–9, 126–7, 258, 260 Hermetica, 67–8, 108 historical criticism, 44–7, 51–5, 264–6 historical Jesus, 55–8, 161, 264–6, 272–80 historicity of the Fourth Gospel, 23–8, 49–51, 59–64, 176–200 Holy Spirit, 42, 68, 151–4, 157–9, 229 implied audience, 8–11, 21, 47, 127, 143, 258, 269 implied author, 23, 27, 40–1, 46–7, 67, 78, 113–14, 181–2, 269, 272 Jesus as King, 43, 172–3, 189, 218 as Messiah, 34, 38, 57, 131, 190, 196, 266 as Son of Man, 131, 136, 183, 188, 195, 210 death of, 18, 23, 39–41, 43, 237–8, 246–9, 252 resurrection of, 17, 39, 41, 44, 266, 276–8 John and the Synoptics, 8, 17–19, 42–4, 59–61, 86, 140, 163–4, 176–200, 203–5, 216–29, 239–42, 266–76 John the Baptist, 34, 130–1, 179, 186, 189 Josephus, 108, 122, 205 kingdom of God, 54–7, 126, 133–4, 150, 172, 194, 246 Last Supper. see Eucharist law, 8, 34, 45, 68, 109–10, 138–9, 157, 210–11 literary criticism, 74–9, 81, 83, 126–44 Logos, 10–11, 34, 130, 198, 209–10, 261, 263

297

Martin Luther, 54 memories of Jesus, 3–6, 16, 24–6, 163, 181, 186, 189–90, 197, 269, 278–9 Moses, 37, 198, 211 narrative criticism, 22, 31–47 Nicodemus, 35, 60, 126–44, 224 orality, 169–71 parables, 11, 58, 60, 192, 203–8, 214 Passover, 37, 182, 233–9, 251–2 Philo, 35–6, 45, 67–8, 70, 72, 80, 108, 122, 198 Plato/Platonism, 70–3, 81, 83, 258, 260–1 pseudepigrapha, 108, 115, 122 Q (sayings source), 98, 170, 183 rabbinic Judaism, 5, 8, 36, 67, 72, 107–23, 198, 204, 211 rebirth, 10, 35, 126, 133–5, 156–7 rhetoric, 165–8 Sabbath, 37, 110, 196, 208, 212 signs, 10–12, 28, 34–40, 61, 64, 80–1, 131–3, 191, 196 sources of the Fourth Gospel, 31–2, 59–62, 100–1, 110–14, 180–1 Literary, 87–9, 220–8, 231–3 Oral, 5–7, 15–23, 90–2, 163–5, 169–74, 216–20, 265–70 symbolism, 11, 23, 25, 32, 36–7, 45, 59, 66–83, 110, 261, 272