PREFACE
The modern reader must by an effort of historical imagination first endeavour to place himself in the position of those for whom the gospel was originally written. Only he must not rest until this position is found to be charged with universal significance, until he stands here naturally because it his inevitable position as a man. He must not rest until he stands where the Jews once stood and did not apprehend, and where Abraham and Isaiah once stood and did apprehend; until he stands confronted, not by the evolution of history, not even by the development of the Church, but by the Last Hour; until, that is to say he stands confronted by the Truth, until the present time is confronted by eternity, and until the present place is met by the meaning of history - in fact, until he stands before God. (1)
The sentiment expressed by Hoskyns became my impetus in studying John's Gospel. I did not set out to write a book but merely to discover the truth of this enigmatic Gospel. I am still on the journey but have completed the first lap. I hope this book will aid others on their journeys too.
I have written this book in order to share the results of my investigation with those who are interested. It is addressed to everyone who is interested in understanding John's Gospel but perhaps above all to students of spiritual wisdom as a stimulus to further discussion and investigation.
INTRODUCTION
The Gospel of John has a mysterious poetic magnetism which has attracted many people to study it. It is often described as the 'spiritual' Gospel and, as one of the many drawn by its power, I can think of no better description. Subtle and sublime on one level this Gospel also has the sledgehammer power to surprise and shock. Even if only in this sense this Gospel is truly revelational.
This may seem a strange statement to make about a text that has been around for two thousand years and has been the subject of such intense study that one would imagine everything that can be said about it already has been. But such is the power of words.
'In the beginning was the word', so the Gospel of John opens, and now there are countless words written or spoken about these specific words. Words and thoughts are expressed in countless ways, in speech, books, arts and drama and each and every one of them is open to different interpretations. Words and thoughts are the most powerful possession of humanity. Whether the words are a few words spoken to another person or contained in an ancient text interpretation of some kind is needed. How words are communicated and interpreted is absolutely critical for in certain contexts they may create love or hatred, peace or war. This is perhaps especially true of the interpretation of certain sacred writings.
The author of this Gospel attempted to communicate his thoughts and interpretation of the story of Christ and he did so using the words, meanings, traditions, techniques and symbols familiar to him and his readers. He called upon the Hebrew Scriptures to assist in his interpretation and in so doing also communicated his own interpretation of them. I have attempted to enter into his worldview to discover what he was attempting to communicate.
My interpretation is just one amidst a myriad of others, past, present and future. As an amateur I have tried to read the works of as many scholars as possible and have made use of many of their ideas. But the conclusions I have reached reflect my personal encounter with the text and may be seen to come into conflict with some of the currently accepted interpretations of the traditional and scholarly world. As an amateur I hope I may be excused for any offence this may cause.
Like any other scholarly field that of Johannine studies is much divided and diverse even to the extent of how anyone should approach an understanding of the Gospel. Some scholars argue that a specific approach or methodology is essential (2) while others prefer a more eclectic approach.(3) I believe it is necessary to draw from the store of both old and new methodologies and use any tool available that will help in understanding.
Originally I intended to write about the whole Gospel but as the investigation progressed I found an unexpected unity in the first four chapters of the Gospel and I realised that a study of them could stand alone. This study is based upon a close examination of the text of John 1 - 4 as it stands and the book also follows the text so that it may be treated as an informal commentary. I have attempted to approach the text with as an open mind as is possible to allow it to speak for itself. This approach has ultimately led me to some quite startling conclusions which offer quite a different perspective on this enigmatic Gospel.
As the book emerged it fell naturally into three parts. Part One of the book (chapters 1 through 3) is devoted to an understanding of the Prologue of the Gospel starting with an attempt to identify its genre, form and content. Perhaps the most important conclusion is that the Prologue of the Gospel holds the key to the interpretation of the Gospel. The author has used a contemporary method of Jewish exegesis to bring together the two 'creation' stories and the story of 'wisdom' contained in the scriptures to explain the Christ event.
This 'new' interpretation of the creation myth not only gives the background to the Christology of this Gospel with Christ being understood as the 'man' of Genesis 1.27 but it also challenges the traditional interpretation of the 'fall' story and nature of man. This interpretation also highlights the ambiguous nature of certain key texts which I have suggested have a 'parabolic' form. The 'signs' of John's Gospel are of a very similar nature and contain both positive and negative elements which may be understood in terms of salvation and judgement. Once this is recognised the Gospel becomes intensely challenging because each 'sign' or 'parable' forces the reader to make a decision regarding how the sign should be interpreted.
Part two is entitled The Messiahs. It seems fairly certain that the author recognises that his own interpretation is neither universally held nor would be universally accepted and the Gospel is written in dialogue with other viewpoints. The alternative viewpoints are considered here alongside the author's own ideas.
The third part of the book, the Circle of Life, investigates the stories contained in John 2 - 4. In what at first sight appears to be a random collection of independent episodes in the life of Jesus I discovered a rich, complex and above all mysterious theme which emerges from the prologue in the manner of a spiral unfolding. There are several threads present in the unit but the main purpose this author had in writing was to express his understanding of the 'hour' or Christ event and this is the overall theme of this collection of stories. But the main theme is cleverly hidden under the surface of the stories. The author perhaps chose to present it in such a manner to express the mysterious quality of the event he is portraying. The stories cannot be fully understood until one has read the whole Gospel and therefore the tension is maintained till the end and one could imagine that when the first time reader finally discovered the deeper meaning the revelation would be supreme. So in an attempt to convey just a hint of this sense of mystery no further explanation will be given here.
Although this section, and indeed the whole Gospel, cannot be said to be 'historical' in what might be seen as the 'traditional' sense, it does in fact have its own historical side but this is a bit too complex to be considered in this book. However, the strange coalition of stories, myth and history led me to re-evaluate the relationship between myth and history in 'spiritual' texts. Whatever approach is taken in deciphering the gospels eventually the exegete is always faced with the major questions of the genre of the text, the purpose of writing and of the author's sources.
Genre
When one first reads any piece of writing it is quite normal to have some preconceived ideas concerning it. We usually classify literature into fact or fiction, poetry or prose etc. The question of genre is very important for correct interpretation. Confusing a novel with history could lead to misunderstanding in a similar way, but without the consequences, to the 'panic broadcast' of 1938 in which listeners to Orson Welles' adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds confused the play with a news bulletin and believed a serious Martian invasion was underway.
It is possible, however, that sometimes authors deliberately create genre confusion or ambiguity as part of their work such as seems the case in some satirical works such as Gulliver's Travels or in 'spoof' television programmes. Recently I have come across two works of 'fiction' that have been understood by many people to be autobiographical. It is possible that the Gospels are in some respects similar to these cross genre productions. For it appears that there has always been a problem in putting them into an established category.
For the greater part of the history of interpretation the synoptic Gospels, at least, have been considered to belong in the main to historical or biographical genres. Justin Martyr described them as 'memoirs' of the apostles.(4) The Gospel of John, however, has been a problem from the very beginning. As the oft-cited words of Clement of Alexandria demonstrate, the earliest commentators on John's Gospel noted the difference between it and the others. He writes: "But, last of all, John perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual gospel." (5)
Origen was the first commentator who tackled the problem head on. He accepted that the Johannine and synoptic chronologies could not be harmonised and came to the conclusion that the differences were employed to express different spiritual truths. He found no difficulty in maintaining that spiritual truth can, in fact, be preserved in material falsehood.(6) Other early commentators, Theodore and Cyril for example, preferred to take the view that John's Gospel was historically accurate.(7) Thus began the perennial problem in identifying the genre of the Gospel of John. The differences from the synoptics makes its identification as 'historical' or 'biographical' difficult if not impossible for some but at the same time it is still classed as a 'gospel'.
With the advent of form criticism in the 1920s the problem was alleviated to some extent by the focus on the traditions behind the gospels. The debate was opened by C. W. Votaw who in 1915 compared the gospels with ancient popular biographies such as Life of Apollonius of Tyana.(8) In 1919 K. L. Schmidt argued that the synoptics were largely composed from independent units of tradition and therefore could not be seen as a chronologically accurate account of a biography of Jesus. The form critics understood the Gospels to be compilations of units of traditions about Jesus and the genre was therefore considered to be sui generis, a position still widely held today.
Rudolf Bultmann, the most famous of the form critics, is well known for his sceptical viewpoint regarding the historical Jesus. He argued that the early Church was not interested in the 'historical' Jesus but concerned only with the Christ of faith. The traditions recorded in the Gospels were primarily concerned with the post- Easter proclamation.
The rise of redaction criticism in the 1950s and more recent general interest in literary criticism has once more led to a revival of the view that the gospels are probably biographies. (9)
But the issues raised firstly by Origen and more recently by the form critics cannot be ignored. The Gospels may appear to be biographies of Jesus but it is unlikely that this is what they are. We must even reckon with the possibility that the author of John deliberately chose to write what might appear to be a biography but was in fact something else. At this stage the purpose of writing becomes relevant and here again the opinion of the first commentators is relevant.
Purpose of writing
Wiles demonstrates that for the earliest commentators "there is complete agreement that the purpose of the Gospel is to supplement the other Gospels and to place beyond all reasonable doubt the doctrinal truth of Christ's divinity."(10) The importance of this purpose is found in the concern with Christ's divinity. We may observe that it was accepted by the first commentators that Christ was divine and thus it was deemed entirely appropriate that this purpose of John was both necessary and essential. In contrast, modern commentators tend to view the 'high' Christology of John more as an adverse development from a more primitive low Christology. Regardless of whether the high Christology was a development or not it is quite clear that at least part of the purpose in writing was to promote it.
As I mentioned above the reinterpreted creation myth gives the background to the Christology of this Gospel. The prologue can be shown to be based upon the Genesis creation stories in combination with the story of Wisdom found in the scriptures. In doing this the author of the Gospel was using a technique of Jewish interpretation or midrash using seemingly unrelated scriptural texts to give a new interpretation or insight.
The purpose of this seems to be to demonstrate that 'Christ' is the 'man' of Gen. 1.27, the first man to be created in the 'image of God'. Thus the first creation story of Genesis may be understood not so much as 'history' but as God's plan (logos) for mankind. The Gospel attempts to convey the Truth about Christ (who is divine) through stories of Jesus (who is a man). The much debated term 'logos become flesh' may be interpreted to express the idea of a story or myth that has become reality.
It is widely accepted that the Gospel of John suggests that Christ is divine and can in some sense be equated with God. But I think that the question or problem that this evangelist was wrestling with was not so much how or why God became man but the far more difficult and controversial question of how or why a man had become divine and what this means for mankind in general.
One of the most important themes in this part of the Gospel is 'transformation'; there is the transformation of water into wine and the concept of new birth. It seems that this theme not only addresses the question of how Jesus became divine but also how others might follow him. The question of how this transformation may occur seems to depend a great deal on what beliefs are held which in turn depend on how the scriptures are interpreted.
Myth and History
A further question which arises from this 'divinity' question, however, is whether it is or ever was possible to write a 'biography' of a god or do all writings about gods or divine beings ultimately have to be defined as 'myths'? Scholars on the whole, however, try to avoid this loaded word preferring the more neutral term 'story'. The problem this description raises for the modern reader is that the term 'story', like 'myth' tends to be associated more with fiction than reality and this again raises the thorny issue of history.
The question of history and 'truth' is, however, a relatively modern question and may not be the correct one to ask concerning a Gospel. The Gospels are above all else religious writings and were written with the Jewish Scriptures in mind. We may usefully compare the treatment of 'stories' about Christ to the contemporary treatment of the literature of the period including the Jewish Scriptures. (11)
At the time of writing it was perfectly acceptable for even the Scriptures to be modified, re-written, embellished or expanded. The purpose in such re-writing was not to falsify the truth but to clarify the theological point, even if this point was from a somewhat subjective viewpoint. So in the pseudepigraphical Book of Jubilees for example it is the Devil or Mastema who orders Abraham to sacrifice Isaac rather than God. This apparently made more sense to those who re-wrote this story. This re-writing is also evident within the canonical Scriptures themselves. (12)
It is possible that the most important issue for those who re- wrote the biblical stories was not what actually happened but the theological meaning. If this was the case then it would seem reasonable to assume that some sort of similar reasoning lies at the root of the Gospel 'stories'.
From what I have said so far it might seem that the people at the time had no interest in historical facts. But this is not the case. Facts were considered very important and as essential in legal disputes and trials then as they are today. The Gospel of John itself in fact shows a strong 'forensic' interest and regards witness as crucial.
The paradox of the Gospel is the author's apparent concern for truth and witness which he records in what might be, and has been, described as 'fiction' or 'falsehood'. It would seem therefore that the author was as aware of the distinction between 'fact' and 'fiction' as any modern reader. He apparently made a conscious decision to convey the 'truth' about 'Christ' through stories some of which may or may not have had a historical factual basis. Many fiction writers, both ancient and modern, have chosen to employ this technique for assorted reasons. If John considers fiction is better able to convey the truth then who are we to argue? (13)
Sources
Some vast edifices have been built by scholars who believe that they have identified and reconstructed John's sources(14) but regardless of how many subscribe to the various theories it cannot be proven that these 'sources' ever existed. The choice is open to the interpreter of this Gospel to decide whether to accept an external theory or to use only the internal evidence of the text. In this study I have chosen to do the latter and I consider this is partially justified by the fact that section of the Gospel with which I am dealing is relatively unaffected by the problems which have led to the various source theories. In retrospect this decision has to a certain extent been vindicated by my conclusions.
The Gospel, however, does have one major source which is clearly identifiable - the Jewish Scriptures, and as the title of the book intimates, the Scriptures play a central role in John's purpose. It is perhaps the main thesis of this book that the author of the Gospel of John was primarily an interpreter. He interpreted who Christ was and his relevance by interpreting the Jewish Scriptures in the light of the new Christian experiences.
It has been acknowledged by modern Johannine scholarship that while John does not make many explicit citations of the Scriptures, he is nevertheless profoundly indebted to the Scriptures and makes many allusions to passages and themes. I am in full agreement with A. T. Hanson when he says, "the whole book is founded in Scripture. Scripture it is that justifies the Gospel being written, and without knowledge of Scripture as John understood it no one can hope to penetrate the mystery of the Gospel." (15)
I am profoundly indebted to Hanson not only for this point of view but also for collating many of the possible allusions. There are very few which I have added. But, in spite of this I have to disagree with Hanson's conclusion which is that "John, like all the writers of the NT, regarded Scripture as consisting very largely of prophecy." This statement obviously is dependent on the understanding of 'prophecy' (16) but Hanson makes it quite clear this is understood in quite a limited sense. Hanson maintains that John "used Scripture in order to show that it had been fulfilled in the career of Jesus Christ and in the experience of the early Church. This motif takes precedence of all others in his interpretation." (17) It is this, and his somewhat unique christological viewpoint, that has coloured Hanson's interpretation and while he has correctly identified the weight John gives to the Scriptures and the many allusions he has missed the full significance of them. For example, Hanson identifies a reference to Ps. 8.8 in Jn 2. but argues that "John believed that Jesus must have driven out sheep and oxen because the Scripture had foretold that he would." (18)
It is true that this could have been a valid interpretation of this Scripture at the time but it is unlikely that it was John's perspective especially in this instance. So in spite of the painstaking detail contained in Hanson's study his conclusion that John has used Scripture as a source of 'proof texts' for the life of Jesus adds little or nothing to our understanding of this Gospel.
As far as I am aware Hanson is the most recent scholar to have carried out such a study on John's use of the Scriptures .(19) Other studies and articles have concentrated more on the explicit quotations but the focus is more frequently on which particular Scripture or version was used than on the reasons as to why they were used at all. It is a strange anomaly that commentator's on John's Gospel tend to point out as many possible allusions as they can muster and then fail to explain why the author has used such allusions in the context. I find this incredibly infuriating and therefore made it my rule to attempt to understand why a particular allusion was used in each specific context.
This led me to the conclusion that while John 'used' the Scriptures in many ways and using many accepted 'techniques' of Jewish interpretation or midrash, in quite a few instances he combined significant biblical quotations or Scriptural concepts with the apparent intention of offering a 'new' interpretation. This 'intertextual midrash' is therefore a significant, but previously unnoticed, feature of John's Gospel.
We have already mentioned how the creation stories are combined with the 'Wisdom' story in the prologue to create a new interpretation of the creation stories and this new interpretation colours other interpretations.
Another classic example is John 1.51 which associates Jacob's vision in Gen. 28 with 'the son of man'. This connection is left ambiguous in the context and one cannot be certain whether the 'son of man' reference is to Daniel or to a more esoteric reference such as Ps. 8. But, nevertheless, it is highly significant that these are combined in what appears to be a new promise or prophecy.
There are many lengthy discussions of this particular verse but while every possible idea contained in it has been explored in great depth I have not noticed much concern with the question of how or why the author thought it necessary or indeed possible to combine a reference to the Son of Man with a seemingly totally unrelated text about Jacob.
Part of the reason for this is almost certainly the mention of the Son of Man who, it seems, is given far more attention by scholars than is the patriarch Jacob. This enigmatic title has defeated even the most erudite scholars and remains one of those unanswered questions of NT scholarship. I do not attempt to offer a solution to this problem in this study but only to sow seeds for reflection. There are several questions asked in this Gospel which the author apparently knows are problematical for his readers including, of course, 'Who is this son of man?' The author seems to pose this question, albeit on the lips of those who are confused, as an insider, as one who knows the answer, to those who do not.
Returning to the verse in question, however, it is possible that the problem of two unrelated texts and the allusion to heaven 'opened' might have led an astute Jewish reader to the conclusion that this was the beginning of a particular form of midrash known as petihah, so called because most examples begin with the formula 'Rabbi x patah' (lit 'opened'). Here, in place of a Rabbi, we have 'heaven', which was a term frequently used to refer to God himself, thus announcing a revelation of quite some magnitude.
According to Philip S. Alexander, "The distinctive feature of the petihah is that it plays off two verses against each other: one (the base verse) is from the biblical passage under discussion; the other (the intersecting verse) is from another part of the Bible, and, on the face of it, has nothing to do with the base verse. The aim is to show that there is a connection." (20) If this was the purpose of this problematical verse it may be seen as intentionally enigmatic and as such cannot be understood in its immediate context but only by reference to the further explication given in the Gospel.
Jacob's dream was of central importance in respect of its connection with the 'correct' location of the Temple and Jacob himself was the Father of the Jewish peoples and has great importance for the question of who might be called a child of God. These themes are considered again in John 4 where they are interpreted with reference, amongst other allusions, to the Samuel story, the paradise temptation and Jacob's struggle with God. It seems likely therefore that the Jacob verse was indeed the 'base' verse under discussion.
As, in the case of the Prologue, I have only touched the tip of the iceberg in considering John's use of midrashic techniques and there is much more work to be done. While I am suggesting the possibility that the author of the Gospel has employed particular midrashic techniques I do not have sufficient expertise in this area at present to pursue the matter in depth. Therefore in this study I am not attempting to defend this thesis but merely to assume its possibility and undertake an exegesis of John 1-4 which attempts to understand and relate the scriptural allusions contained within it.
2. John Ashton, for example implies that Johannine scholarship is divided into two camps, the diachronic and synchronic, which are waging war with each other. He, as the champion of the former, predicts the demise of the latter around the turn of the millennium. John Ashton, Studying John, Approaches to the Fourth Gospel, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 184-208, p.208. (Back)
3. Mark Goodacre, 'Drawing from the Treasure Both New and Old': Current Trends in New Testament Studies', Internet article which first appeared in Scripture Bulletin 27/2 (July 1997) pp. 66-7. accessed from Mark Goodacre's Homepage at the University of Birmingham, UK. (Nov. 98) Goodacre points out that "the most characteristic feature of post-modernism in Biblical Studies, as in the outside world, is its lack of any characteristic feature." He concludes that "there is far too much staked in the new methodologies for them to die. The paradigm has already shifted and historical-critical work cannot reign supreme again. As surely as the computer is already transforming the forum for debate, so too fresh approaches will continue to re-define the discipline. The challenge for the scholars of the future is, then, to train both themselves and their students in a study of the New Testament that draws from its store both new and old."(Back)
4. 1 Apology 66. It is not certain whether he actually knew the Gospel of John.(Back)
7. Maurice F. Wiles, The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), (Back) 31
8. C. W. Votaw, The Gospels and Contemporary Biographies in the Greco- Roman World (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), reprint from AJT 19 [1915] 45-73, 217-49. American Journal of theology.(Back)
9. See for example C. H. Talbert, What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), and (London: SPCK, 1978). Richard A. Burridge, What are Gospels? A comparison with Graeco- Roman Biography, SNTSSMS 70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).(Back)
11. See Thomas L. Brodie, The Quest for the Origin of John's Gospel: A Source-Oriented Approach, (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) who sets the context of the Gospel in what he calls "a world of literary transformation" referring to the contemporary habits of borrowing and rewriting extant works of literature. pp. 34 -47.(Back)
12. The most obvious example is, of course, Chronicles rewriting of Samuel- Kings.(Back)
13. One who has vociferously argued, however, is Maurice Casey in Is John's Gospel True?, (London/New York: Routledge, 1996). Casey argues not only against those who wish to retain the view that the Gospel is historically true but also against those who believe it has 'spiritual' truth on the basis that it has "fostered Christian anti-semitism" and is "morally wrong". (The vexed question of the alleged 'anti-semitism' of this gospel is not addressed in this book as the problem does not become apparent until later chapters.)But however forcibly he has put his arguments it is apparent that Casey only understands one kind of 'truth' and no one who has such a limited vision will ever truly understand this gospel.(Back)
14. Bultmann, for example, believed the sources included a signs source, a discourse source, revelation speeches and a passion source. Robert Fortna is the best known proponent of the signs source theory and he has been followed by others with similar views. See Fortna's, The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel, SNTSMS 11 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) and U. C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John's Gospel: Recovering the Gospel of Signs, (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989).(Back)
16. John Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile, (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986) suggests that there was a widespread tendency in the period to consider all Scripture as 'prophecy' but that NT people sought four principle types of information from 'the prophets': halakah - legal instruction, predictions relevant to the reader, revelation of God's plan and lastly revelation of secrets.(Back)
18. Hanson, p.244. This naive viewpoint adds no more to understanding John than the equally naive but valid viewpoint that Jesus did so because they were there.(Back)
19. Others include: E. D. Freed, Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John, NovT Sup. 11 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965) and G. Reim, Studienzum alttestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangeliums, SNTSMS 22 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).Brodie, Quest, has suggested that "John's entire gospel systematically distills and integrates the entire Pentateuch"(p. 126), but other than providing a very brief and 'tentative' outline he does not develop this statement.(Back)
20. Philip S. Alexander, 'Midrash', in DBI pp. 452-459, p.457. In his article Alexander restricts 'midrash' to rabbinic Bible exegesis which was obviously later than the Gospels but it is generally accepted that midrashic techniques, by whatever name, are much older. A technique similar to that described as petihah can in fact be found in 11Q Melch from Qumran. which plays off Lev.25.13 against Is. 61.1f. The fact that there are no scriptural citations in John's text poses no severe problem for as H, W. Basser notes "a curious feature of Rabbinic midrash" is that "early sources often sermonize upon Scriptures without ever citing them." Herbert W. Basser, "Midrashic Form in the New Testament: A Study in Jewish Rhetoric of Likes and Opposites" Internet Article The Ioudaios-L Discussion List Page(Nov.98), .(Back)
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