Text, Context and the Johannine Community: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings 9780567659132, 9780567609564, 9780567665102, 9780567129666

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LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

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

Editor Mark Goodacre

Editorial Board John M. G. Barclay, Craig Blomberg, R. Alan Culpepper, James D. G. Dunn, Craig A. Evans, Stephen Fowl, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Robert L. Webb, Catrin H. Williams

TEXT, CONTEXT AND THE JOHANNINE COMMUNITY

A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings

David A. Lamb

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 Paperback edition first published 2015 © David A. Lamb, 2014 David A. Lamb has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

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CONTENTS Acknowledgments Abbreviations Preface Chapter 1 THE RISE AND FALL OF A PARADIGM? THE JOHANNINE COMMUNITY IN RECENT SCHOLARSHIP 1.1. Introduction: Paradigms, Texts and Contexts 1.2. The Rise of the Johannine Community 1.2.1. Martyn: Making a Two-Level Drama out of a Crisis 1.2.2. Culpepper: The Johannine School 1.2.3. Cullmann: The Johannine Circle 1.2.4. Brown: The Community of the Beloved Disciple 1.2.5. Wengst: Scattered Johannine Communities 1.2.6. Meeks: Johannine Sectarianism 1.2.7. Conclusions: Reasons for the Rise of the Community Paradigm 1.3. The Fall of the Johannine Community 1.3.1. Morris, Carson, Köstenberger: Defenders of Apostolic Authorship 1.3.2. Hengel, Brodie: John, the Towering Theologian 1.3.3. Kysar: The Maverick Postmodernist 1.3.4. Thyen: The Literary Game-Player 1.3.5. Bauckham and His School: The Gospel for All Christians 1.3.6. Klink: The Sheep of a Large Fold 1.3.7. Reinhartz: Building Skyscrapers on Toothpicks 1.3.8. Conclusions: Reasons for the Fall of the Community Paradigm 1.4. Conclusions: Texts, Contexts and Paradigms Chapter 2 THE COMMUNITY OF THE BELOVED DISCIPLE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAYMOND BROWN’S MODEL OF COMMUNITY 2.1. Introduction 2.2. The Gospel According to John: The Community Emerges 2.2.1. Introduction 2.2.2. Brown: The Enigma Code Breaker

ix xi xiii

1 2 6 7 9 9 10 11 12 12 15 15 16 17 18 18 21 24 25 27

29 29 30 30 30

vi

Contents 2.2.3. 2.2.4. 2.2.5.

Brown: The Scientist Brown: The Catholic Scholar in the Modern Critical World Brown: The Redaction Critic – His Five-Stage Theory of Composition 2.2.6. Brown’s Community Reading of the Text 2.2.7. Conclusion: Community, Language and Context 2.3. The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Community Disintegrates 2.3.1. Introduction 2.3.2. Brown’s Four-Phase Model of the Community’s History 2.3.3. Brown’s Stated Methodology 2.3.4. Other Aspects of Brown’s Methodology 2.3.5. Historicity and Brown’s Two-Level Community Reading 2.3.6. The Model of Community in The Community 2.3.7. Conclusion: Community, School and Individual 2.4. The Epistles of John: The Two Communities 2.4.1. Introduction 2.4.2. The Two Communities 2.4.3. The Community and the School 2.4.4. Conclusion: Brown, Text and Context 2.5. Introduction to the Gospel of John: A Tentative Move to a Synchronic Reading of the Text? 2.5.1. Introduction 2.5.2. A Shift to a Synchronic Reading? 2.5.3. A Three Stage Theory of Composition 2.6. Conclusions: A School, a Community and Texts Chapter 3 TEXT AND CONTEXT: THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIOLINGUISTIC THEORIES OF REGISTER 3.1. Introduction: The Social Nature of Language 3.2. Genre, Register, Style and Dialect: De¿nitions 3.2.1. Genre 3.2.2. Register 3.2.3. Style 3.2.4. Dialect 3.3. Varieties of Language: Contexts of Culture and Situation 3.3.1. Situation and Communities 3.4. Two Approaches to Register Analysis 3.4.1. Michael A. K. Halliday and Systemic Functional Grammar 3.4.2. Douglas Biber and Multidimensional Analysis 3.5. Examples of Register and the Problem of Corpus 3.6. Language: Literary and Non-Literary

30 32 34 36 37 37 37 38 39 41 43 44 45 45 45 46 48 49 50 51 51 52 53

56 56 60 60 62 64 65 66 70 71 71 74 76 79

Contents

vii

3.6.1. The Implied Reader? 81 3.7. Relation of Register to Form Criticism: Sitz im Leben 83 3.8. Applications of Register Analysis to Gospel Contexts 86 3.8.1. Stanley E. Porter and Register in New Testament Greek 87 3.8.2. Philip F. Graber and the Context of the Parable of the Sower 92 3.9. A Model for Analysing Tenor in the Johannine Writings 95 3.9.1. Lexico-Grammatical Choices 95 3.9.2. Discourse Choices 100 3.10. Conclusions 101 Chapter 4 THE ANTILANGUAGE ANTISOCIETY: THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIOLOGICAL COMMENTATORS 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Meeks: ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’ 4.3. Leroy: Riddles and Misunderstanding – The Sondersprache of the Johannine Community 4.4. Malina: The Pioneer of Antilanguage in Johannine Studies 4.4.1. The Gospel of John in Sociolinguistic Perspective 4.4.2. Halliday and Antilanguage 4.4.3. Malina’s Use of Halliday 4.4.4. Malina’s Other Work on Antilanguage 4.5. Petersen and the Language of the Sons of Light 4.6. Neyrey and the Sociology of Secrecy 4.7. Thatcher: Riddles as Antilanguage 4.8. Rohrbaugh: Nicodemus Meets Antilanguage 4.9. Esler and Piper: Antilanguage and Lazarus 4.10. David Reed: The Anti-Roman Empire Community 4.11. Conclusions: So Much Antilanguage, So Little Sociolinguistics 4.11.1. Not Enough Data 4.11.2. Antilanguage May Not Mean Antisociety 4.11.3. Relexicalization: New Words or New Meanings? 4.11.4. A Closed Text?

110 113 113 115 119 121 122 125 128 131 135 136

Chapter 5 THE REGISTER OF THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS: DO THEY REFLECT A PARTICULAR COMMUNITY? 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Narrative Asides in the Gospel of John 5.2.1. A Variety of Embedded Registers: Narrative Asides 5.2.2. Previous Studies of Narrative Asides in the Gospel of John

145 145 148 148

1

103 104 104

137 138 140 141 143

151

viii

Contents 5.2.3.

The Tenor of Certain Narrative Asides in the Gospel of John 5.2.4. John 2.21-22 and John 12.16 5.2.5. John 19.35-37 5.2.6. John 20.30-31 5.2.7. John 21.23-25 5.2.8. Conclusions: No Sign of a Community 5.3. Register in the Epistles of John 5.4. Reasons for Writing in 1 John 2.7-17 5.5. 2 John: A Formal Letter to a Community? 5.6. 3 John: A Real Letter to a Real Person? 5.7. Conclusions: The Register of the Johannine Writings

159 161 162 166 168 172 174 176 183 190 196

Chapter 6 CONCLUSION: THE DEATH OF THE JOHANNINE COMMUNITY? 6.1. Review 6.2. A Possible Context for the Johannine Writings 6.3. Areas for Further Research 6.3.1. A Bigger Corpus 6.3.2. Methodology: Paradigms, Science and Subjectivity 6.4. Conclusion: A Plea for Caution

198 198 200 205 206 206 209

Bibliography Index of References Index of Authors

211 226 229

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work is a revision of my doctoral thesis, which was submitted to the University of Manchester in 2012. The project was funded by a generous scholarship from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), to whom I am much indebted. I am very grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Todd Klutz, for his encouragement and perceptive insights. I also much appreciated the support and advice of other members of the Religions and Theology ‘Subject Area’ (formerly Department) at the University of Manchester, in particular, Professor George Brooke, Professor Philip Alexander and Dr. Peter Oakes. I am grateful to Professor David Langslow, Professor of Classics at Manchester, for discussions on Greek word order and verbal aspect. I would also like to thank Dr. Catrin Williams, formerly of the University of Bangor, now at the University of Wales Trinity St David, for allowing me to join with the New Testament Postgraduate Seminar group at the University of Bangor. I am also grateful to the Bishops of Chester and Birkenhead for their support in my doing this work alongside my ministry in the Church of England.

ABBREVIATIONS Most abbreviations in this monograph follow The SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (ed. Patrick H. Alexander et al.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999). Other abbreviations used are: BD CUP DSS FE GAC GJ GLk GMk GMt IVP JBap JComm JEps Jn NCBC NLT OUP SFG SFL

Beloved Disciple Cambridge University Press Dead Sea Scrolls Fourth Evangelist The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Edited by Richard Bauckham. Edinburgh, 1998 Gospel of John Gospel of Luke Gospel of Mark Gospel of Matthew InterVarsity Press or Inter-Varsity Press John the Baptist Johannine Community Johannine Epistles John or Johannine New Cambridge Bible Commentary New Living Translation Oxford University Press Systemic Functional Grammar Systemic Functional Linguistics

PREFACE I have been enjoying extremely some work on St. John. How, indeed, is it possible not to enjoy such work? Yet how hard it is to study the Gospel widely enough and yet minutely. —Brook Foss Westcott1

This work represents a journey of many years. In the early 1990s, as part of my BA in Theology and Religions at the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education (now Liverpool Hope University), I did a third-year course on the Gospel and Epistles of John. A mainstay of this course was a ‘Johannine Community’ lying behind the works as expounded particularly by Raymond Brown and J. Louis Martyn. I read Brown’s The Community of the Beloved Disciple, but an actual community remained a shadowy concept and I was not convinced of its existence. In 1999, as part of an MA in Biblical Studies at the University of Manchester, I wrote an extended essay entitled ‘The Spirit and the Community: A Study of the Social Context of the Fourth Gospel’, in which I argued that the way the Holy Spirit is presented in the Gospel does not support the idea of a closely de¿ned community. Now, after study in the ¿eld of sociolinguistics, I have returned to the question of this community from a different angle. In 2010, I presented versions of Chapter 4 of this monograph (on ‘Antilanguage’) as papers at the University of Bangor New Testament Postgraduate Seminar, the British New Testament Conference in Bangor, the Society of Biblical Literature Meeting (Johannine Literature Group) in Atlanta, and the Ehrhardt Seminar at Manchester. The feedback I received was most helpful.

1. This quotation comes from a letter written by Westcott to Hort in 1859 and is included in Arthur Westcott’s Prefatory Note to his father’s two volume commentary on the GJ. Brooke Foss Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: The Greek Text with Introduction and Notes (ed. Arthur Westcott; 2 vols.; London: John Murray, 1908), vol. 1, p.v.

Chapter 1

THE RISE AND FALL OF A PARADIGM? THE JOHANNINE COMMUNITY IN RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

The Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles represent a distinct trajectory in earliest Christianity, and one explanation for this distinctiveness has to do with the character and history of the Johannine community. By reading the Fourth Gospel as a kind of window on to the community, the picture that has emerged is of a community radically estranged from the wider society, the society of the synagogue, and even the society of other Christian groups. An introverted ‘us and them’ ethos seems dominant. Just as the Jesus of the Gospel is a stranger to the world and even to his own people, so too is the Johannine community. —Stephen C. Barton1 The Johannine community is entirely a scholarly construct, the product of a circular hermeneutical process: we assume its existence from the very fact that we have a Johannine Gospel. We construct the community’s contours by reading between the lines of that Gospel, and then use our construction of the community as a tool for interpreting the Gospel itself. If pressed, most Johannine scholars would admit that any theory of the Johannine community is speculative. —Adele Reinhartz2 The common portrait of an actual JComm, a single and coherent ‘group’ behind the document, is historical ¿ction. —Edward W. Klink III3

1 Stephen C. Barton, ‘Community’, in A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. Richard J. Coggins and James L. Houlden; London, SCM Press, 1990), pp.134– 8 (136). 2 Adele Reinhartz, ‘Building Skyscrapers on Toothpicks: The Literary-Critical Challenge to Historical Criticism’, in Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature (ed. Tom Thatcher and Stephen D. Moore; SBLRBS 55; Atlanta, Ga.: SBL, 2008), pp.55–76 (70). 3 Edward W. Klink III, The Sheep of the Fold: The Audience and Origin of the Gospel of John (SNTSMS 141; Cambridge: CUP, 2007), p.251.

2

Text, Context and the Johannine Community

1.1. Introduction: Paradigms, Texts and Contexts I could begin this way: for nearly 50 years, Johannine scholarship has interpreted the Gospel of John (GJ) and the Epistles of John (JEps) within the framework of a paradigm, that is, the paradigm of a Johannine Community (JComm).4 The key works in establishing this paradigm were the two large Anchor Bible Commentaries on the GJ published by Raymond Brown in 1966 and 1970 and the slim volume published by J. Louis Martyn in 1968, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel.5 However, in the past 20 years or so, this JComm paradigm has been increasingly challenged and some predict its imminent demise.6 4 The use of the term paradigm to denote a particular framework within which an academic discipline works comes from Thomas Kuhn’s writing on how ‘revolutions’ take place in scienti¿c thinking. Kuhn does not de¿ne paradigm closely, but does say, ‘By choosing it, I mean to suggest that some accepted examples of actual scienti¿c practice – examples which include law, theory, application, and instrumentation together – provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scienti¿c research’. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scienti¿c Revolutions (Chicago, Ill.: Chicago University Press, 3rd ed., 1996), p.10. For my own use of the term paradigm, what is important is that it denotes an aspect of a discipline which does not require any justi¿cation – it is taken for granted as part of the foundations for that discipline. As Kuhn explains, ‘When the individual scientist can take a paradigm for granted, he need no longer, in his major works, attempt to build his ¿eld anew, starting from ¿rst principles and justifying the use of each concept given’ (pp.20–1). Kuhn’s ideas have been inÀuential in areas beyond the philosophy of science, but whether terms such as paradigm and paradigm shift are appropriate for biblical studies is something I return to later. Concerning Johannine studies, Moody Smith comments, ‘Martyn’s thesis has become a paradigm, to borrow from Thomas Kuhn. It is part of what students imbibe from standard works, such as commentaries and text-books, as knowledge generally received and held to be valid.’ D. Moody Smith, ‘The Contribution of J. Louis Martyn to the Understanding of the Gospel of John’, in J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville, Ky.: Abingdon Press, 3rd ed., 2003), pp.1–19 (p.14 n.30); repr. from Robert T. Fortna and Beverly R. Gaventa (eds.), The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul and John in Honor of J. Louis Martyn (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1990), pp.275–94. 5 Subsequently, the two scholars became colleagues for many years at Union Theological Seminary, but there was little cross-fertilization of ideas in the ¿rst editions of these works. There is one brief but complimentary reference to Martyn in the second volume of Brown’s commentary. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (2 vols.; AB 29–29A; New York: Doubleday, 1966–70), vol. 2, p.691. 6 For example, Kysar writes, ‘My own view is that there is now suf¿cient evidence in these early years of the twenty-¿rst century to indicate that the whither of the Johannine community is likely to include its own demise’. Robert Kysar, ‘The 1

1. The Rise and Fall of a Paradigm?

3

Of course, it is not quite that simple. Johannine (Jn) scholarship is not a uniform ¿eld of discourse in which data accumulate neatly and are universally accepted. Indeed, the term paradigm, although it has been applied by a number of scholars to the JComm construct, implies a unity of approach within a discipline, whereas biblical studies utilizes an increasing variety of methodologies.7 As someone who has never been entirely convinced of the existence of a distinct JComm, I am interested in how scholars have moved from the texts of the GJ and the JEps to the context of a JComm and speci¿cally that of a sectarian group outside mainstream early Christianity. For, apart from a few references in the patristic writings, it is only the Jn texts themselves that scholars use to construct this community.8 Then, once constructed, this JComm serves as a major tool in the interpretation of these texts, a process of circularity that illustrates one of the weaknesses of the historical-critical process, as Hans Frei noted: With the rise of historical criticism and the gradually developing sense that all, including the miraculous and other distinctly archaic statements in the Bible, are the products of genuine and speci¿c historical conditioning, and Whence and Whither of the Johannine Community’, in Life in Abundance: Studies of John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown (ed. John R. Donahue; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2005), pp.65–81 (76). Köstenberger states, ‘While as recently as 1990, this view enjoyed virtually paradigmatic status, it has recently suffered serious blows’. Andreas J. Köstenberger, A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2009), pp.51–2. 7 Donald Carson draws attention to the differences in the concept of ‘progress’ in the so-called hard sciences and in biblical studies. He states of the latter that many of its ‘constructions and reconstructions turn on a web of complicated judgements. The result is that another scholar of equal competence may read exactly the same evidence and emerge with quite different conclusions.’ Donald A. Carson, ‘ReÀections upon a Johannine Pilgrimage’, in What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies (ed. Tom Thatcher; Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2007), p.89. 8 Of course, when I say ‘only the Johannine texts themselves’, I am over-simplifying: the interpreter brings to them a prior understanding of the socio-historical world in which they were written. However, there is no direct incontrovertible external evidence for a JComm. Ashton is one scholar who is sceptical about the use of patristic evidence: ‘All we know about the Johannine community is what can be inferred from its writings. Such external guides as we have are at best unreliable, at worst misleading.’ John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: OUP, 2nd ed., 2007), p.100. However, some scholars have made extensive use of the patristic evidence (and early Christian gnostic sources) to support conclusions over the authorship of the Jn writings. See, e.g., Martin Hengel, The Johannine Question (trans. John Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1989), pp.2–22. 1

4

Text, Context and the Johannine Community not merely the author’s or speaker’s (or even God’s) accommodation to the original readers’ level, the author’s intention came to be undergirded or superseded as an explanatory factor by the cultural condition out of which the text arose. In any event, the clue to the meaning now is no longer the text itself but its reconstruction from its context, intentional or cultural, or else its aid in reconstructing that context, which in circular fashion then serves to explain the text itself.9

Such criticisms have led some scholars to lay aside traditional approaches of source, redaction and form criticism in favour of synchronic approaches that emphasize the text in its ¿nal form (as much as that can be established), and draw on a variety of insights from literary and cultural studies.10 However, illuminating though such readings of the Jn writings have been, I would question whether words can ever be divorced from a socio-historical context. Indeed, it is the contention of the discipline of sociolinguistics, whose theories form the basis for my own reading of the Jn writings, that language is essentially a social phenomenon. Just as we learn and use language in social situations, so our spoken or written communications always betray some trace of particular socio-historical situations. So, if the Jn writings were the product of a clearly de¿ned social group that existed towards the close of the ¿rst century C.E., then we would expect the language of these writings to reÀect such a social grouping, which is indeed the position of a number of recent sociological commentators from Wayne Meeks onwards, who regard the JComm not just as a community, but as a sect.11 In view of 9 Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), p.160. 10 Culpepper’s Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, published in 1983, is often cited as a turning-point in Jn studies from diachronic to synchronic approaches. Thus, Tom Thatcher, one of the editors of Anatomies of Narrative Criticism, a celebration of the twenty-¿fth anniversary of Culpepper’s volume, writes, ‘the most enduring contribution of Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel rose from the point where the book diverged most sharply from the mainstream of its day: the thesis that John’s story is inherently meaningful, regardless of its sources, composition history, or historical value’. Tom Thatcher, ‘Anatomies of the Fourth Gospel: Past, Present, and Future Probes’, in Thatcher and Moore, Anatomies of Narrative Criticism, p.1. 11 It is not my intention to consider the complex sociological de¿nitions of communities and sects, other than noting that the term sect tends to carry a negative connotation in modern English: ‘The terms cult and sect are regarded as stereotypeloaded terms that are associated with new or unpopular religious movements, and these terms are thus mostly avoided by scholars. They are, however, widely used by the media and by groups (especially so-called anticult groups) that perceive certain new religious movements as objectionable and dangerous. In contemporary English, 1

1. The Rise and Fall of a Paradigm?

5

this, I wish to concentrate on the relationship between text and context, between language and its social situation, in my examination of the Jn writings. My initial focus, in Chapter 2, is on the work of Raymond Brown, whose writings on the GJ and JEps have had international impact. He regarded his model of the JComm as a key to understanding these writings and I examine how this exemplar of a careful and judicious use of the historical-critical method moved from the texts to a social context. I note that Brown rejected a sectarian understanding of the JComm. In Chapter 3, a methodological chapter, I introduce terms and concepts from the discipline of sociolinguistics which concern the relationship between text and context. I concentrate on aspects of register theory and the notion of tenor, which I believe can be usefully applied to the Jn texts in considering their social context. In Chapter 4, I analyse the work of recent sociological commentators who have constructed a sectarian model of the JComm, drawing on the sociolinguistic terms antilanguage and antisociety. I hope to demonstrate that their arguments are not suf¿ciently rigorous and do not provide adequate support for a sectarian JComm. In Chapter 5, I turn to the Jn texts themselves and, looking at a number of passages from the GJ and the JEps where the process of communication is highlighted, I apply a register theory analysis to see what this suggests about the social context in which they were ¿rst transmitted. cult functions as a derogatory word, with sect reserved for less controversial groups.’ Massimo Introvigne, ‘Cults and Sects’, in Encylopedia of Religion (ed. Lindsay Jones; Detroit: Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2nd ed., 2005), vol. 3, p.2084. For some of the sociological and linguistic issues regarding the use of the terms community and sect with reference to the JComm, see Klink, Sheep of the Fold, pp.42–87, and Timothy J. M. Ling, The Judean Poor and the Fourth Gospel (SNTSMS 136; Cambridge: CUP, 2006), pp.147–65. Stephen Barton points out that community is recognized as ‘a notoriously ambiguous term’ in modern social sciences, something not always taken into account in NT studies. Stephen C. Barton, ‘Can We Identify the Gospel Audiences?’, in The Gospels For All Christians (ed. Richard Bauckham; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), pp.173–94 (174). Barton also observes that, ‘the category “sect,” drawn as it is from studies of religious groups primarily in the modern period (using a Troeltschian church-sect typology), is prone to applications which are anachronistic. It is also a category which tends to be “loaded” ideologically – for example, in its use as a term of approbation among anti-establishment interpreters who want to play up the subversive “protest” character of John’s vision over against more conservative, “early Catholic” alternatives.’ Stephen C. Barton, ‘Christian Community in the Light of the Gospel of John’, in Christology, Controversy and Community (ed. David G. Horrell and Christopher M. Tuckett; NovTSup 99; Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp.279–301 (283). 1

6

Text, Context and the Johannine Community

Finally, in Chapter 6, I conclude that a sociolinguistic examination of passages from the Jn writings does not support the idea of a close-knit sectarian group and, in fact, provides only scant support for the concept of a JComm at all. I suggest that, from one perspective at least, this paradigm, although not yet dead, may be ailing somewhat. However, before embarking on this sociolinguistic enterprise, I brieÀy outline in the rest of this chapter some of the key works associated with the rise and (possible) fall of the JComm paradigm in Jn scholarship and draw out some of the reasons for this potential paradigm shift. 1.2. The Rise of the Johannine Community In a study of the traditions associated with the Apostle John, Alan Culpepper has noted the shift away from the question of authorship of the GJ to an examination of its social context, stating that ‘the Apostle John himself has largely been displaced by attention to the Johannine school or community’.12 The belief that the Apostle may have had followers who were to some extent responsible for the ¿nal form of the GJ, or at least for the dissemination of this and other material, is not a new one. Westcott interpreted Çċ»¸Ä¼Å in Jn 21.24 as a possible reference to ‘the Ephesian elders’ who ‘put the work in circulation’.13 Similarly, Bernard commented that Çċ»¸Ä¼Å represents ‘the concurrence of the presbyters of the Church at Ephesus where the Gospel was produced’.14 However, these scholars did not develop this concept of a Jn group: it was not a subject of study in its own right, nor was it an interpretative tool. By contrast, the modern supposition that the Jn writings are the product of a distinct religious community within the life of the early church with its own theological outlook and social history, a community that is both the focus of study and a major interpretative tool, is almost universal. So, what has led to this paradigm shift? How did the community model assume such a dominant position in a relatively brief period?15 12 R. Alan Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), p.297. 13 Brook Foss Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: The Greek Text with Introduction and Notes (ed. Arthur Westcott; 2 vols.; London: John Murray, 1908), vol. 1, pp.lvii, lix. 14 John Henry Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John (ed. A. H. McNeile; 2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), vol. 2, p.713. 15 I am concerned here only with the recent rise in prominence of the JComm model, rather than a discussion of its historical origins. See R. Alan Culpepper, The Johannine School: An Evaluation of the Johannine-School Hypothesis Based on an 1

1. The Rise and Fall of a Paradigm?

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In answering this question, I indicate some of the work associated with the rise of this paradigm and then summarize the various reasons for its wide acceptance.16 At this stage in my argument, I am not attempting to interact in any depth with the various positions set out, but merely to set out reasons for their popularity. 1.2.1. Martyn: Making a Two-Level Drama out of a Crisis J. Louis Martyn’s History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel was ¿rst published in 1968 and has appeared in two further editions.17 Like many other NT scholars since Harnack, Martyn believes that it needs the work of ‘scholarly detectives’ like himself to sift the evidence of the GJ for clues to its origins.18 His approach is essentially a form-critical one (although he also believes that there is a ‘Signs Source’ lying behind the GJ).19 His search is for the Sitz im Leben: ‘Our ¿rst task…is to say something as speci¿c as possible about the actual circumstances in which John wrote his Gospel. How are we to picture daily life in John’s church?’20 In his reconstruction of this Sitz im Leben, Martyn relates much of the action of the GJ not to the life of Jesus, but rather to events in the life of the JComm. He describes the GJ as a drama being acted out ‘on a Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1975), pp.1–38, and Klink, Sheep of the Fold, pp.10–24, for a thorough study of these origins. 16 Helpful summaries of the main works associated with the JComm paradigm’s recent rise along with some of the reasons for its rise can be found in Thomas L. Brodie, The Quest for the Origin of John’s Gospel: A Source-Oriented Approach (New York: OUP, 1993), pp.15–21; Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp.171–82; Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, pp.307–13; Klink, Sheep of the Fold, pp.24–34; and Kysar, ‘Whence and Whither’, pp.65–70. 17 All references in this section are to the ¿rst edition of 1968: J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Harper & Row, 1968). The 2nd edition (1979) is a moderate revision taking account (through footnotes) of some of the criticisms made of the author’s original proposals. The 3rd edition (2003) has the same text as the 2nd with the addition of introductory essays by Moody Smith and an additional essay by Martyn himself. References elsewhere in this book are to the third edition. 18 Martyn, History and Theology1, p.xvii. Martyn refers to the ‘old saying’ from Harnack’s Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (1931): ‘The origin of the Johannine Gospel is…the greatest riddle presented to us by the earliest history of Christianity’ (p.xvii n.2). 19 Martyn, History and Theology1, p.3 n.7. 20 Martyn, History and Theology1, p.xviii. 1

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two-level stage’:21 on one level the events of Jesus’ ministry, on the other events of the JComm’s story. He argues that the GJ reÀects a situation in which there had been a split between the synagogue and the JComm with the result that Jewish converts can no longer continue to worship in the synagogue. He focuses on those passages which speak of expulsion from the synagogue using the term ÒÈÇÊÍÅںѺÇË (Jn 9.22; 12.42; 16.2), and relates them to a time when Pharisaic Judaism was becoming less tolerant of Jewish-Christians. In particular, he believes that c. 85 C.E. one of the Eighteen Benedictions which formed part of Jewish liturgy was rewritten in order to exclude Jewish-Christians as heretics. This, the Twelfth Benediction, became known as the Birkath ha-Minim (‘the Benediction against the heretics’) and included a denunciation of ‘the Nazarenes’, the Jewish name for Christians. Thus the expulsions referred to in GJ must have occurred c. 85 C.E. or soon after.22 Although Martyn’s argument regarding the Birkath ha-Minim has received much criticism, his overall thesis of a two-level drama reÀecting a synagogue-JComm split continues to be highly inÀuential.23 If the strength of a hypothesis lies in its wide acceptance by other scholars, then Martyn’s hypothesis would seem strong indeed, although its inÀuence is bound to the historical-critical approach, which is now undergoing considerable reassessment.24 Moreover, although the composition 21 Martyn, History and Theology1, p.17. 22 Martyn, History and Theology1, pp.31–41. In effect, the Birkath ha-Minim was a means of expulsion by self-exclusion: Christian converts would be unable to say this ‘Benediction’ and so could not take their full part in synagogue worship (pp.38–9). 23 For overviews of the various criticisms of Martyn’s Birkath ha-minim argument, see: Klink, Sheep of the Fold, pp.136–47 (esp. p.138 n.120); Köstenberger, Theology, pp.55–7; Stephen Motyer, Your Father the Devil: A New Approach to John and ‘the Jews’ (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), pp.92–3; Udo Schnelle, Antidocetic Christology in the Gospel of John: An Investigation of the Place of the Fourth Gospel in the Johannine School (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1992), pp.27–31; Smith, ‘Contribution of J. Louis Martyn’, pp.7–8 (esp. p.7 n.14). Martyn has found a particularly strong champion in John Ashton, who, while accepting criticism of Martyn’s Birkath ha-Minim argument, believes that his overall thesis holds true. Ashton, Understanding, pp.31–3. 24 Raimo Hakola, in his study of the identity of ‘the Jews’ in the GJ, is particularly critical of Martyn’s work for its failure to deal with the theological dimension of the GJ and the ‘symbolic universe’ created by the JComm, believing that Martyn ‘operates on the levels of the text world and the real world only’. Raimo Hakola, Identity Matters: John, the Jews and Jewishness (NovTSup 118; Leiden: Brill, 2005), p.36. Hakola rejects the whole picture of the development of rabbinic Judaism which lies behind the reconstructions of Martyn and others (p.44). 1

1. The Rise and Fall of a Paradigm?

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of the GJ will inevitably in some way reÀect the situation and priorities of its author/s and/or editor/s, Martyn fails to explain why the experience of expulsion from the synagogue, so key to his argument, should reÀect a communal experience rather than that of an individual or a handful of believers. 1.2.2. Culpepper: The Johannine School Culpepper’s doctoral thesis on a Jn school was published in 1975. His hypothesis is that the group associated with the Jn writings was a school after the pattern of other ancient schools – Greek, Qumranic, Rabbinic, and ‘the School of Jesus’. The members of the Jn school were followers of the Beloved Disciple, who was not the Apostle John, but ‘a person who had played a signi¿cant role in the life of the Johannine community’.25 Culpepper’s study of various ancient schools is thorough and his historical reconstruction of the JComm as a school seems plausible, but whether he actually heeds his own warning that ‘[i]f the Johannineschool hypothesis is to be accepted it must be solidly based on the evidence provided by the Johannine writings themselves’ is more open to question.26 He shows a tendency to move from probability to certainty, which is perhaps characteristic of community reconstructions.27 Certainly the existence of a JComm is not questioned but accepted as an aspect of the Jn studies paradigm.28 1.2.3. Cullmann: The Johannine Circle Oscar Cullmann published the fruit of a lifetime’s work on the GJ’s origins in Der johanneische Kreis, Sein Platz im Spätjudentum, in der Jüngerschaft Jesu und im Urchristentum in 1975.29 His particular thesis 25 Culpepper, School, p.265. 26 Culpepper, School, p.25. 27 To cite one example: regarding one of the features of ancient schools, that of participation in communal meals, Culpepper initially suggests that the JComm ‘probably also celebrated a communal meal’ (primarily with reference to Jn 13.1-17), but this quickly becomes the bald statement, ‘The community observed a communal meal’ (Culpepper, School, pp.279, 284). 28 ‘Today most scholars are convinced that John was written in and for a de¿nite community’ (Culpepper, School, p.37). 29 ET: Oscar Cullmann, The Johannine Circle (trans. John Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1976). Kysar, in his 2005 essay, ‘The Whence and Whither of the Johannine Community’, does not deal with Cullmann’s thesis because it was less inÀuential than the work of Brown, Martyn and Meeks and ‘because Cullmann’s argument is less complete and convincing ’ (Kysar, ‘Whence and Whither’, p.78 n.26). However, Cullman’s work has inÀuenced later scholars. See, e.g., Bauckham’s 1

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is that Jesus gave special teaching to an inner group of followers (not the Twelve), who were converts from John the Baptist’s followers and who maintained close links with ‘heterodox marginal Judaism’.30 The distinctive traditions of this group were carried on by a ‘Johannine circle’, which existed separate from but not in opposition to mainstream early Christianity, and whose ideas bore fruit in the various Jn writings.31 Cullmann regards this Jn circle as having a more developed liturgical life than other Christian groups with respect to baptism and the eucharist.32 Although Cullmann is at pains to point out the hypothetical nature of some of his work33 and he is critical of earlier source and redaction critics,34 he nevertheless speaks of ‘the Johannine circle, of whose existence there can be no doubt’.35 He sees evidence for its existence in: the reference to ‘we’ in Jn 21.24; the interpretation of 20.31 as the strengthening of existing faith; the relationship between the GJ and the JEps; and an interest in mission and polemic alongside ‘a constant concern to demonstrate the legitimacy of the group’.36 However, the GJ’s author remains ‘the towering personality’ in this circle.37 1.2.4. Brown: The Community of the Beloved Disciple Brown’s The Community of the Beloved Disciple (1979) develops the argument ¿rst put forward in his commentaries on the GJ about the relationship of the JComm to other groups in Judaism and Christianity.38 use of Cullmann’s idea of the ‘anonymous disciples’ in Jn 21 being members of a Johannine group. Richard Bauckham, ‘The Beloved Disciple as Ideal Author’, in Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2007), pp.73–91 (77–8); repr. with alterations from JSNT 49 (1993), pp.21–44. 30 Cullmann, Johannine Circle, p.87. 31 These writings include not just the GJ and the JEps, but also possibly Revelation and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Cullmann, Johannine Circle, pp.54–5. Regarding the Jn circle’s relation to the rest of the early church, Cullmann writes, ‘as a minority the group always found itself on the defensive and had to ¿ght for its independence without in any way attacking the church founded on the Twelve’ (p.55). 32 Cullmann, Johannine Circle, pp.86–7. 33 See, e.g., Cullmann, Johannine Circle, pp.xi, 3–4,10. 34 Cullmann, Johannine Circle, pp.2–9. 35 Cullmann, Johannine Circle, p.63. 36 Cullmann, Johannine Circle, pp.2, 14, 40, 87. Cullmann also sees evidence for its existence in the language, style and literary characteristics of the GJ, such as the ‘liturgical style’ of its somewhat monotonous repetitions (p.27). However, this linguistic approach to its social context is not developed. 37 Cullmann, Johannine Circle, p.10. 38 See n.16 above for bibliographic reference. 1

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He argues that the Beloved Disciple, who is not the Apostle, represents Jn Christianity in contrast to other forms, especially the mainstream position represented by Peter. The JEps illustrate a major schism in the JComm, with the ‘heretical’ faction being absorbed by gnostic groups and the ‘orthodox’ faction becoming part of the wider church. Brown’s highly inÀuential model and his methodology will be considered in detail in Chapter 2. 1.2.5. Wengst: Scattered Johannine Communities Klaus Wengst’s Bedrängte Gemeinde und verherrlichter Christus (1981), an offshoot of work on his commentary on the JEps,39 has had particular inÀuence amongst German scholars.40 His thesis is similar to that of Martyn in its emphasis on the ÒÈÇÊÍÅŠºÑºÇË passages, but he argues that the JComm was made up of small groups, mostly comprising Jewish members, which were scattered across the northern Transjordan area at the time of Agrippa II’s rule between 80 and 90 C.E.41 Growing persecution from Pharisaic Judaism in this region led to secession from these groups, so the GJ was written in order to urge them to remain faithful to a high christological understanding of Jesus: Agitation and pressure on the part of Jewish orthodoxy were successful, resulting in apostasy within the Johannine community. It is in this situation that the Fourth Evangelist wrote his work. He wanted to ensure that his readers and hearers ‘remain’ and make clear to them what they have in Jesus. He wanted them to be certain that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (20.31).42

39 Klaus Wengst, Bedrängte Gemeinde und verherrlichter Christus: Der historische Ort des Johannesevangeliums als Schlüssel zu seiner Interpretation (Biblisch-Theologische Studien 5; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981), p.7. [A 4th edition was published in 1992 with the title Bedrängte Gemeinde und verherrlichter Christus. Ein Versuch über das Johannesevangelium.] 40 In addition to the work of Cullmann, other inÀuential German scholarship on the JComm in the period being considered here includes the works of Georg Richter and Jürgen Becker. See Georg Richter, ‘Zum gemeindebildenen Element in den johanneischen Schriften’, in Studien zum Johannesevangelium (ed. Josef Hainz; BU 13; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1977), pp.383–414, and Jürgen Becker, Das Evangelium des Johannes (2 vols.; ÖTKNT 4/1–2; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 2nd ed., 1985), vol. 1, pp.40–8 [1st ed. 1979]. Both of these writers propose a number of different Jn groups. 41 Wengst, Bedrängte Gemeinde, pp.77–93. Wengst acknowledges the importance of Martyn’s History and Theology (pp.30–1 n.82). 42 Wengst, Bedrängte Gemeinde, p.97 (author’s translation). 1

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An extensive critique of Wengst’s thesis and other ‘histories’ of the JComm is made by Joachim Kügler who, while not rejecting the idea of a JComm altogether, regards the multiplicity of its reconstructions as evidence that they are examples of ‘Isagogic Science Fiction’.43 1.2.6. Meeks: Johannine Sectarianism While all the works considered so far depict a Jn community, school or circle in some way separate from other contemporary Christian groups, they do not describe it in sectarian terms. By contrast, the highly inÀuential essay by Wayne Meeks, ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’ (1972), does indeed portray a JComm in sectarian fashion.44 The GJ is ‘a book for insiders’, that is, a small group of believers isolated from other Christians not geographically but by their own particular worldview: ‘Faith in Jesus, in the Fourth Gospel, means a removal from “the world,” because it means transfer to a community which has totalistic and exclusive claims’.45 This sectarian concept of the JComm has proved a catalyst for the work of other sociological commentators, such as Bruce Malina and Jerome Neyrey, whose work will be considered in Chapter 4.46 1.2.7. Conclusions: Reasons for the Rise of the Community Paradigm From the 1960s onwards, the JComm hypothesis has been widely accepted and has generated much scholarly work. Indeed, it has become paradigmatic in the sense that many, if not most, Jn scholars use the 43 Joachim Kügler, ‘Das Johannesevangelium und seine Gemeinde – Kein Thema für Science Fiction’, BN 23 (1984), pp.48–62 (62). Kügler is critical of the lack of controls over such reconstructions: ‘Eine vorschnelle Historisierung bestimmter Detailinformationen führt einzig und allein zu Hypothesen von unbeschränkter Beliebigkeit. Solche Hypothesen gibt es genug; die Producktion kann eingestellt werden!’ (p.62). 44 Wayne A. Meeks, ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’, in The Interpretation of John (ed. John Ashton; London: SPCK, 1986), pp.141–73. Repr. from JBL 91 (1972), pp.44–72. 45 Meeks, ‘Man from Heaven’, pp.193, 194. 46 ‘Over the past thirty years…sociological studies focussing on the Fourth Gospel have explained its ambiguity in terms of an assumed social setting in which a hypothetical (i.e. Johannine) community experienced rejection and isolation. These studies see the peculiar language of the Gospel as a reÀection of a coded language in a sectarian community experiencing alienation and hostility within its social context.’ Saeed Hamid-Khani, Revelation and Concealment of Christ: A Theological Enquiry into the Elusive Language of the Fourth Gospel (WUNT 2/120; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), p.18. Hamid-Khani highlights the work of Meeks, Leroy, Malina, Petersen and Neyrey, all of whom will be considered in Chapter 4. 1

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expression ‘the Johannine community’ without further explanation.47 Various factors account for the rise of this paradigm: 1. It is inextricably bound up with the historical-critical method and with the shift in focus in Gospel studies away from the historical reconstruction of the life of Jesus to that of the social context in which each Gospel was composed, its Sitz im Leben.48 There has also been a shift in focus from discussion of the author to that of context.49 2. It is seen as accounting for differences in style and content from the Synoptics. It is also used to explain similarities and differences within the various writings attributed to John, ascribing them to various members of a Jn school. 3. It is seen as a solution to the textual ‘riddles’ of the GJ, the socalled aporias.50 The GJ is viewed as the product of a complex process of redaction in which various aspects of the JComm’s history can be detected. 47 I note, for example, essays in Lozada and Thatcher’s recent collection of ‘global perspectives’ on Jn studies, where a JComm is assumed: Mary L. Coloe, ‘Sources in the Shadows: John 13 and the Johannine Community’ and Yak-hwee Tan, ‘The Johannine Community: Caught in “Two Worlds” ’, in New Currents Through John (ed. Francisco Lozada and Tom Thatcher; SBLRBS 54; Atlanta, Ga.: SBL, 2006), pp.69–82, 167–79, respectively. A further indication of the paradigmatic status of the JComm is an example given by Colleen Conway in a review of post-colonial interpretations of the GJ. She cites an essay by the Mexican scholar Leticia Guardiola-Sáenz, who, while castigating historical-critical methodology as the product of a Western patriarchal and imperialist agenda, nonetheless uses Brown’s model of the JComm as a basis for her interpretation of Jn 7.58–8.11. See Colleen M. Conway, ‘There and Back Again: Johannine History on the Other Side of Literary Criticism’, in Anatomies of Narrative Criticism, pp.77–91 (85). 48 This point is stressed by Kysar, who writes, ‘The hypothesis of such a community is deeply embedded in the modern historical critical method of biblical studies and would never have arisen had it not been for the character of that method’. Kysar, ‘Whence and Whither’, p.67. A pioneering example of a community approach to the canonical Gospels through form and redaction criticism is Stendahl’s work on the ‘Matthean School’. Stendahl understands the genre of the GMt as ‘a manual for teaching and administration within the church’. Krister Stendahl, The School of Matthew and its Use of the Old Testament (ASNU 20; Uppsala: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1954), p.35. 49 Culpepper highlights the inÀuence of Bultmann’s commentary on this shift in emphasis. Culpepper, John, p.297. 50 The term aporias [German aporien] was ¿rst used to explain supposed breaks and inconsistencies in the GJ by Eduard Schwartz in a series of four articles published at the University of Göttingen in 1907/8. See Ashton, Understanding, pp.19–20; Köstenberger, Theology, pp.145–6. A notable example is Jesus’ command 1

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4. It is linked to a growing social-scienti¿c interest in communities.51 Moreover, parallels have been noted with the Qumran community.52 to his disciples at the end of Jn 14,